Strong For Too Long Trilogy ✔️

25. Seeing Her

CHAPTER 25: Seeing Her
(Aaron's POV)

I pace back and forth as Alexander opens the London UAU's school systems. I watch and I wait, it's all I could do, "What's going on?" Meira asks, slowly, cautiously when she sees Javier's entire for, tense, taut and afraid, but that was before the entire table quiets the second Alexander puts facial recognition on Lillian Severin and the screens load.

Before her face pops up all over screen and Javier falls to his knees, eyes frozen in inescapable tears when we all look into the pale aquamarine eyes of a woman I recognised only by picture. Alexander freezes too, "Holy shit." Aidan breathes out.

Javier clutches at his chest and almost dry heaves, Meira sprints to him as we all stare into her eyes, she wears whatever uniform looks to be in formal attire for the academy, while there are other pictures of her just in general clothes. My eyes flicker back and forth between the screens.

Javier grabs his coat and runs straight to the door, "JAVIER DON'T, WAIT! WE HAVE TO THINK THIS THROUGH!" Alexander roads at him before more yelling resonates behind the doors, next to the cars.

I step towards the screen search bar. Many look at me, "What are you doing?" I hear behind me, Tobias standing cautiously as Samsara and Reynolds step up from the mats, Branson and Madison study me as I type in the one name I know off by heart, the way my adrenaline kicks in scares even me as I type her name furiously into the computer, running the same facial recognition scan and the screen loads.

Samsara stares at me, upset, "Why?" Why would you do this to yourself?

"I have to know. I have to." I grit my teeth, waiting, the screen takes a lifetime to load. No cameras show up, but my heart drops in my chest when an ID card with 'Elizabeth Swanson' shows up on scanners and her face, her beautiful, stunning self is on the screen and I crumble in the chair behind me, my fingers snapping to my tingling lips.

It's frozen around me.

As if time paused.

Samsara drops into Reynolds frozen chest.

"Scheduled for arrival...approximately two weeks time."

The scanner says aloud when I changed the voice box, my fingers shaking as the doors slam open and Alexander sharply inhales at the sight of her ID on the screen, "That's. Not. Possible." He sounded like a deadly, feral animal in a cage, ready to scream, roar, even fight to the death to get out. I swallow and stare back at her picture on the ID, trailing my fingers towards the screen, my thumb grazes along her pale, freckled cheek.

Samsara weeps, hand over her lips, eyes crusted together as Fern and Pierce almost go limb by their own desk. Branson and Madison stare between me and the television screen, "I-It could be. Two weeks. T-two weeks. S-she might be." I stutter, clogging my own throat with emotion as my heart faces, my pulse thunders and I can feel, hear and sense everything just like the day I met her and the day before I lost my girl.

"Javier's gone." Harrison blurts out from the mechanics room before he stills to a stop when he sees it.

"She's alive?" He breathes out in shock.

I swallow, "She might be." I breathe out, grabbing my own coat.

What we saw when we got to the London UAU school, was nothing I'd ever seen before when Javier is simply sprinting straight into the school, Alexander runs after him, cursing. I move at a quicker pace, Tobias, Branson, Madison all behind me. Reynolds stayed with Samsara when she was too distraught and scared to move away from the ID. I watch Javier stop at the receptions office, Alexander next to them as they show their own badges. All before Javier is back to running, straight to the library, when I open up my navigational system of the school on my phone.