The Purge

Pt 8.

There they sat. Two broken humans in each other's embrace.

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After what felt like hours, they pulled apart. Alissa looked up into Sam's eyes, a weak smile coming onto her face. Sam tilted his face downwards, looking into her doe eyes and returning the soft smile. He chuckled and ruffled Alissa's hair, resulting in a childish glare. With a groan, Sam stood up and ran a hand through his hair. He sheepishly stuck his hand out, waiting for Alissa to grab it. She rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, chuckling as Sam hoisted her up.

"Thanks for opening up to me," Alissa awkwardly punched Sam in the shoulder.

Sam returned the same level of awkwardness by scratching the back of his neck and looking at the ground. "It's no biggie..." Sam hesitated. "Hey, uh, with this whole purge thing, would you maybe want to come over to my trailer so we could plan. It's perfectly cool if you don't want to I just-"

"No no no no, I would love to, I'd just have to run it by my parents first." Alissa explained, mentally dreading that conversation.

"Yeah no cool, cool cool cool cool, yeah of course." Sam said.

There was another awkward pause. Sam cleared his throat, and when he spoke his voice was deeper and more relaxed. "Give me your phone."

Alissa whipped her head around. "Excuse me?!"

"Give me you phone." Sam repeated impatiently.

In any normal circumstance, Alissa would've refused and insisted that he was out of his mind. But given that they had just shared their whole life stories and the threat of a possible purge was dangling over their heads, she carefully handed her phone over.

"I need you to unlock it." Sam said, handing her back the phone and giving her a soft smile.

"Right, yeah, of course sorry." Alissa unlocked her phone using face id and handed it back to him.

"Hey, no need to apologise." He said, looking up from the phone giving her a slight smile, and then returned to his typing.

Sam handed her back her phone. Alissa looked down and saw that messages was open with the contact name "Knight in Shining Armour". Alissa chuckled and changed it to "Rapunzel". Sam noticed and looked at her in mock offence.

"I'll see you around Hamilton?"

Alissa felt her stomach do a backflip but she maintained a straight face. "Right back at you Anderson." She shot him a dorkish wink and they burst into laughter, walking to their next class.

•••

As soon as Alissa got home she dumped her bag in her room threw herself onto her bed. Her father yelled at her from downstairs to keep it down but she pretended she didn't hear him.

As she was lying on her bed, Alissa remembered she had homework due tomorrow and reluctantly pulled out her laptop. Sitting cross-legged on her bed, she slowly started on her homework. After about 15 minutes, she'd managed to write 5 sentences.

"This is useless," Alissa murmured as she closed her laptop with a satisfying clip.

Pulling her hair back into a messy bun, she decided to check her phone. Her notification page was flooded with messages, snaps, instagram and TikTok notifications. But one notification stuck out in particular.

A message from Rapunzel.

Grinning, Alissa opened the message which read:

Meet me this Saturday, 12:00pm at the skate park?

Smiling to herself, Alissa fired back a quick reply.

See u there

•••

Saturday arrived as slowly as it possibly could. Every second not planning for the purge was agony for both Alissa and Sam. If this threat turned out to be true they needed a plan and fast, but if it ended up being a hoax, at least they got to spend time together.

When the clock hit 11:30, Alissa climbed out her bedroom window and out onto the tree outside. She'd installed a plank of wood and a rope ladder onto the tree a few years back so that she had a way to sneak out. This wasn't the first time she'd had to get out of the house without her parents noticing.

Alissa had decided against asking her parents if she could go, because she knew the answer was going to be a no. They never let her hang out with anyone other than Tyler.

Alissa gracefully climbed down the ladder and headed off in the direction of the skatepark, making sure her parents didn't see her. After she turned off the end of her street, her shoulders immediately relaxed. Trees hung low over her head and cars drove past her, music flowing out of the windows.

As she walked, she caught herself thinking about what the purge would actually be like. Alissa hoped that people only committed small crimes like stealing or driving without a license, but deep down she knew that wouldn't be the case. But surely people wouldn't want to murder each other, would they?

Alissa arrived at the skatepark, almost getting run over the second she stepped onto the concrete. "Watch where you're going dickwad!" She shouted angrily. The skater didn't reply, instead he flipped her off.

Alissa looked around frantically, trying to find any sign of Sam. She quickly glanced down at her phone. 11:56.

She let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding. Alissa made her way over to a bench and sat down, shaking her leg up and down nervously. Every few seconds she glanced down at her phone, checking the time.

A million thoughts came flooding into her mind when the time ticked over to 12:05. What if he forgot about her? What if he realised that she wasn't worth his time and didn't have what it takes to survive in a purge? What if he was just playing with her, manipulating her, as if this was all some big joke?

The longer she sat there by herself, the darker and more depressing her thoughts became. Just as she was about to get up and leave, thinking that he'd decided completely disregarded her, a hand landed on her shoulder.

Alissa jumped up and went to punch whoever was behind her, but her fist got caught. The person turned her hand around and chucked her a smirk.

"Those reflexes are definitely going to help." Sam chuckled, letting got of her fist and helping her to stand. "Come on, I'll show the way to my trailer."

A/N:

I am so sorry I haven't updated, the holidays were a lot more hectic than I had hoped. I had planned to make this quite a long chapter but I felt the need to at least release something, even if it's not how I would've liked it to come out.  I hope everyone had a great Christmas (or if you don't celebrate, just a generally great day) and a great start to their New Year's.