Odd One Out

CHAPTER 32

Naya
Saturday, November 15

"Bailey, you're insane if you think we're going to leave you behind."

She remained silent in the backseat, her gaze still directed towards the police station as if the thought was still circulating in her mind.

Ellis had forced her to get in the back seat, but she had almost completely shut down. It wasn't the same Bailey we knew.

"Are you seriously worried about this right now?" Ellis chastised, grabbing my attention. He was never one to get serious, and much less angry but now he was acting as if he and Bailey went way back.

I had never had a sibling before, but I imagined this is how siblings would act.

"Your secret. being revealed is the least of our worries," Ellis continued, watching her expression carefully. "There's some psycho out there who has been out to get us since the start, and Jake just figured out the last part of the puzzle. We don't have any more time. We need you right now."

When she didn't answer, I added, "Bailey, you're the one who brought us all together. You formed this group, and put us at ease whenever we brought up some stupid argument for what happened that night. When Viktor was exposed, you forced us to go with him."

"Yeah," Ellis added, "and you're the one who held the meetings, and stood up to Summers, and busted Viktor out of jail."

"He wasn't technically in jail," she murmured out after a while, causing Ellis slap his hand on the car seat out of frustration .

"Yeah, because of you. Bailey..."

 A moment went by before he calmly added, "We need our leader."

I looked back at her, her hair falling over her face as she turned to look at the floor of my car instead. For a while, she didn't say anything. 

"We have to go now if we want to help Jake with anything," she finally answered, taking a moment to recover before her gaze changed almost entirely. Though her voice was still slightly quivering, her eyes looked determined as she finally raised her gaze to us.

"Whatever is on that flash drive is going to determine whether or not we can save ourselves, and we need to be there when Jake unlocks it."

"That's what I like to hear," Ellis smiled, slightly turning his body to face her more. "So, what's the game plan?"

"Well for starters, we need to get away from here. It really is a miracle that the cops haven't come out to check what the screeching was about."

I immediately started the engine, carefully adjusting my car before driving — on the right side of the street this time.

The entire ride in search of Bailey, Viktor was yelling at me from the backseat to go faster, and he'd tell me how to do each turn so that I could get there quicker.

It was mortifying. I hated driving like that, but we got to her pretty quickly. Even so, all those turns were haunting, and it really didn't help that he didn't have his seatbelt on the entire time.

It was absolute chaos trying to get to Bailey on time, but if we got there, it was because of Viktor's insane driving skills. I was sure Jake was probably already home at this point, with how fast Viktor drove.

And I needed to get there even faster now.

"Alright, so we're heading to Jake's?" I asked, looking at the rearview mirror to confirm with Bailey. She nodded, her face scrunching slightly before she asked, "Do you two know the video Jake was talking about?"