IXUS

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

GEN

“Gen, can I talk to you for a minute,” Jett says to me as I start pounding the stains from someone’s shirt with a rock. I’m still in laundry duty after two weeks of staying here. I nod and wipe my hands on my jeans and follow him inside.

He leads me into his study and on his desk are a bunch of papers. I eyed them and noticed that a lot of them are all related about the Ixus. He’s been doing his research.

“What’s up?” I ask, my voice nonchalant as it should.

“I need you to do something for me,” he says and sits down on the edge of his desk. He picks up a paper and hands it to me.

I take it and start scanning it. It’s just the White House’s address. Nothing special about it but as I start to read further more, I see what he means.

I gasp and look up at him.

“You’re sure?” I ask, my voice a little breathless. He nods. “Who’s going?”

“Well, I was going to ask you if you want to go. I would but Eve and Crell don’t even know about this and they’d know if I suddenly just decided to sneak out,” he says. I shake my head.

“And you think Crell would like that you’re asking me to go?” I ask, arching an eyebrow at him. He shrugs and I roll my eyes. I hand him back the paper and shake my head. “I can’t go. He’ll hate me more if I do.”

“Crell won’t hate you. He won’t even notice if you’re gone. In fact, I don’t think he even knows that you sneak out all the time,” he says and smirks when he sees my reaction. He stood up from the table and walks around it so he could open a drawer. He fishes out car keys and hands it to me. “No hot wiring.”

I press my mouth in a thin line and scowl at him. “If Crell finds out I’m gone… What then?”

“I’ll tell him you ran off completely and that you’ve been doing it for a while now but I keep catching you,” he says flatly. I widen my eyes at him.

“You think he’s gonna buy that?” I scoff. And he thinks he knows Crell better than I do.

“You ran off before. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now. And you keep sneaking out. I’m sure he’d buy that story.”

“He might kill you,” I tell him. He’s blackmailing me. I can’t believe it.

“Let him try,” he chuckles and walks towards me and puts the keys in my hand. “Leave now and he won’t know. The car’s parked a few blocks away. Val and Crell are out training some of the kids.”

That shouldn’t go together. Val and Crell? I hate that I’m always the girl who just cleans up after them. Why can’t I be in their line of work? Oh wait. I am being given the chance right now. I could take it. But it means leaving Crell again.

We’ve only been together for less than a month and now that I’m healthy and well again, I’m leaving? Why me? Of all the people why me?

I bite my lower lip and nod. Jett grins and grabs a bag that’s sitting on the corner of his room. He puts it on me and he has to steady me because I almost fell on the floor. This bag is way too heavy.

“Everything you’ll need is in there. Clothes, food, and etc. The rest are inside the trunk. Remember to keep a low profile,” he tells me as he loosens the straps a little bit so that the bag is hanging down and I won’t be that tired. I nod as he says each word.

Once he’s finished, he pulls me in for a hug. But only a brief hug.

“Stay alive,” he murmurs against my hair. I don’t hug him back but I say goodbye to him.