If We Were Heroes | ONC2022

chapter seventeen

chapter seventeen: if there's a place you  want to go, I'm the one you need to know

I had to force myself to get ready for school the next day. It was the perfect coverup for the trip. For a total of six hours no one would come looking for me. And by the end of those six hours I would be far, far away.

Not that my family would look anyway.

I had already told Miles, and he promised to cover for me in exchange for pistachio ice cream every Monday for a month. I had agreed.

My train left at 11, so I had a few hours to pack everything I thought I might need. It wasn't a lot, but then again, I had only really lived there for a month.

The buzzing of my phone ringing made me jump, the shock of confrontation waiting to leap out at any second.

Mia.

'Hello?' I said, knowing she would just keep ringing if I ignored it.

'Where are you?' she demanded.

'Oh, I've got this, um, family... issue. Yeah. Family issue.'

Mia hummed. 'I don't believe you.'

'It's true!' I exclaimed. 'You can ask Miles.'

'I will ask Miles,' Mia said. 'Ugh fine. Ethan wants to talk.'

There was a bumble as the phone switched hands.

'Are you okay?' Ethan asked, in lieu of hello.

'Yep,' I said. 'I'm fine.'

'If you're not back by the end of the day,' Mia shouted. 'We're going to come look for you.'

'Okay,' I said, my heart sinking. 'Bye.'

I didn't need anyone looking for me. I didn't need any help.

Sebastian was my problem.

I would fix it.

I would find Sebastian.

/

As soon as the train set off, I began to study the map of where Sebastian lived, collected from what he had told me over the years. And the Mwangi's house seemed to be pretty infamous.

I figured that if Sebastian's brothers knew about him, he had to be at their house. They wouldn't know—nor care otherwise.

It was a simple enough layout, with obvious landmarks, but what scared me the most was that the house was situated a good distance from the nearest village. If anything went wrong, there was no one near that could help in time.

And it didn't help that the house itself looked creepy, like countless deaths had happened there. I couldn't imagine growing up in such a place.

And it also didn't help that it was near a forest. Something about forests always seemed to give me the creeps.

But I needed to do this. I knew I did.

Only I knew Sebastian, the real Sebastian, who liked Chemistry, reading, and scrolling through Pinterest.

Who was writing a book he loved talking about but never let me read.

Who hated being a werewolf, and the judging states that came with it.

But as the thoughts came whirling past I began to doubt that I really knew Sebastian.

No one else had verified his stories. No one else told me the same things he did. For all I knew he could be feeding me lie after lie, and I would never even know.