The ashes we left behind

Chapter 3

The basement is simply decorated. Indeed, there are chairs surrounding a basic table in the middle with plenty of papers and pens. There is also a huge drawer where are hidden weapons and the gang's clothes. The weapons are only five or six guns and tons of daggers and knives. They don't have enough money to get other guns. But they're all obsessed with knives. Some of them know how to play with them. concerning the clothes, they have grey jackets and grey caps where the gang's symbol is marked on: a "C" in white –for Cursed- crossed with a red bar.

I'm sitting on the bed located on the corner. While I was telling everything that has happened to my sister's friend, he gave me a cup of coffee from their machine. I still don't touch it. I may accept its disgusting taste. But if I drink anything, I would immediately throw up.

"Do you know who could have taken her?" I ask Connor as he puts bandages over my wounds.

"I have my idea."

The guy doesn't look panicked. He's focused with my injuries as if my sister missing isn't a big deal.

"Who is it?"

"I'll tell you when the others will come."

"Do I know him?" I insist.

"Just wait until Ginny and Helene come."

"Is he dangerous?"

"Stop asking useless questions!" he says in a low but violent voice.

For a moment, my heart feels like it wants to stop. I feel so ashamed. I didn't have to ask him that much questions. Of course he's stressed. I understand the way he behaved with me.

"I'm sorry", I mumble after overthinking too much. He doesn't reply. He doesn't have to.

When he finishes, Connor goes to the table and starts to look at some papers. The silence starts to make me sick. I decide to walk side to side in order to pass the time. I can't stop my tears. Hailey... Hailey is all that I've got. If I lose her, I lose everything...

I jump at the sound of the door opening. Connor and I suddenly turn our heads to its direction to see Helene enter, followed by a furious Ginny. She doesn't hesitate when she sees me.

Even though I give her a soft smile, she hurries to me and pushes me against the wall. I don't have the time to react.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" she shouts in a way that terrifies me. "You're a fuckin' asshole. Coward! Coward! Fuckin' coward!"

I let her push me against the wall again and again to the point of feeling my head exploding. I don't make a move.

"Ginny!" I hear Connor scream. "Ginny, stop!"

"It's your fault! It's your fault that she's gone! You're-"

She doesn't have the time to continue since Connor and Helene push her away from me. Instead of thanking them, I lay my back on the wall, breathing.

Helene takes me in her arms. In the beginning, I stay still. However, I can't resist anymore: I put my arms around her shoulders, weeping.

"Oh and you're crying!" Ginny complains while Connor is holding her, firmly.

"Ginny, shut up", Helene says, calmly. "It's not your sister that's missing."

"If Hailey was my sister, I wouldn't have let her down."

"You don't even know the story", Connor says.

I take myself off Helen's arms and reply, "Ginny is right and you know it, Connor. Hiding in the drawer is the whole opposite of fighting."

Connor leaves Ginny away to join me. He puts a hand on my cheek and says, softly, "Hey, it's not your fault, ok? All you did was listening to Hailey."

I nod, trying no tot let another tear fall down. I'm bad at hiding my emotions. Hailey is good at it.

We all sit in the table and listen to Connor.

"After what Mackenzie has told me, I have my idea about the kidnapper's identity."

"We all know who it is", Helene replies with a bored tone.

"No one else would have done that", Ginny adds, her eyes as cold as the tonight's weather.

"You know what to do, girls."

"The guy didn't respect our bargain. So why would we?"

"Who are you talking about? And what bargain?" I let the words out before thinking of them.

Ginny glares at me, making me want to die. I quickly look down.

"Asher Williams", Connor replies. "He- "

"is a dick!" Ginny continues.

"Ginny!" Helene says. "Asher is one of the people who does tons of illegal things." She explains it to me as If I were an innocent child. "He is a really really bad guy. You should never cross his way."

"And that's what Hailey has done, I guess."

"Yes but I don't understand", Connor says. "Why would she try to attack him after the bargain?" then he looks at me. "The deal is that while we can do whatever he wants, he isn't allowed to put the city in danger nor to attack any of us. He didn't respect it."

"We're going to do so much worse", Ginny says not as a wish but as a promise.

"We have to attain him", Connor says. "What should we begin with?"

"Let's play it secretly", Helene proposes. "For the first time, let's be discreet."

"But we're not called the Cursed for- "

"Listen to me, Ginny. If you want your girlfriend back, you have to shut the fuck up and listen to what I have to say!"

Girlfriend? I didn't know that Hailey had a girlfriend. Since when?

"So you want to get every information about the place he's keeping her?"

"Exactly... But we have to enter his personal space without him knowing."

"I guess that everything in his desk room..."

"... In the bar."

Helene grins. "I have my idea."

"You always have your ideas", Ginny complains again.

"We can infiltrate the bar."

"Of course!" Ginny says. "We will infiltrate people he knows?"

"Does he know me?" Helene asks. "No. So I'll get there and try to find as much information as I can."

Helene is new in the gang.

"You... Alone?"

"Why not?"

And suddenly, without neither thinking nor breathing, I say, "I'll go with her."