A Year of Jubilee [The Death Note Fanfic]

Chapter 61

"Oh, God," Jubilee whispered , staring at the dark screen of her computer in horror.

"What—what just..." Matt, for once, sounded completely serious.

They both said nothing for three long seconds.

"He's got to have figured a way out of this," declared Matt suddenly. "He always does. I'm calling his phone. Hold on."

Jubilee remained silent, still in shock. Distantly she was aware of the sound of a ringtone in the background from the call that Matt had just patched her into. But she didn't even have the presence of mind to pray that someone would answer. All she could think was, Not again. Not again. Not again.

The ringtone stopped. Jubilee suddenly felt a horrible, heavy thud in her soul, that of her heart cracking under the weight of another loss. Then she realized that the feeling wasn't coming from her. It was coming from Matt.

"Matt," she began, her voice a low croak. She had no idea what to say. "It's gonna be—"

A ringtone interrupted her. The feeling she was sensing from the boy suddenly spiked upwards in shock, and then into unbelievable hope.

"It's him," said Matt, sounding dumbfounded. "It's Mello."

Jubilee, equally flabbergasted, was too overwhelmed to respond. There was the sound of a click as Matt and answered, and then Mello's voice filled the line, sounding breathless and haggard.

"Hey," was all he began with. "J there?"

"Um," said Matt, his tone stupefied. "Yeah."

Mello addressed Jubilee. "You weren't kidding, were you," he stated flatly.

Jubilee was still too speechless to respond.

"So," continued the boy, "Who wrote Takada's name into a Death Note and almost got me killed?"

"Mikami," she answered, more out of autopilot than anything else. "He has a Death Note in a bank safe. Wedy saw him going there so I had her break into it."

"Huh," said Mello. "Just my luck."

At that, Jubilee's emotions finally flooded to the surface and she began to cry.

"Why are you crying?" said Mello after a minute, sounding uncomfortable. "I'm alive."

"I thought you died," hiccuped Jubilee as she tried to stifle her sobs. "Twice."

"Yeah, well...surprise," muttered Mello.

She rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. "You have got to stop doing that."

Mello didn't say anything for a second, then mumbled quietly, "Sorry." He sounded pained.

"Buddy," spoke up Matt, recovering from his stupor. "You okay?"

"Yeah," said Mello. Jubilee saw a line snap in her mind's eye. She was too startled to say anything, mostly because of the sudden realization that this was the first time in the last twenty minutes that she had visually seen anything in the spirit.

"How'd you get away from the explosion in time?" asked Matt.

"Well..." Mello seemed reluctant to answer. "I had already gotten out of the truck earlier, when J wanted me to stop Takada. I just hadn't gone back there yet."

Jubilee eyes started to well up again. Get it together, woman, she thought to herself.

Mello went on, "Then when J started screaming about Takada blowing up the truck, I was already moving. Just in case." His voice sounded strained.