The Queen Of Spades

Chapter 7, Continued, Again

When eighth period was over I went quickly down to the basement where my locker was so that I could get what I needed without being late to JROTC. As I fumbled with my lock, trying to remember the code, something—or someone—behind me banged on a locker. The sound made me jump and my hands started shaking violently while my breath quickened and caught in my throat. I tried to take my choker off so that I could breathe but I couldn't get the clasp to work. Sinking to my knees, I turned to lean my head on the lockers and saw the source of the sound. Noah was standing there with a concerned look on his face, with confusion mixed in. "You okay Madelyn? I'm sorry, I was just trying to give you a little scare like I do with Olivia. You know? I didn't mean to–" he stopped when Caleb came to my side.
"What did you do?" Caleb demanded, slamming him against a locker beside me. Because that’s obviously gonna help things.
"I didn't mean to scare her like that. Bro, I swear, I just banged on the locker a bit. Is she okay? Should I call my mom to come pick her up?"
"Em?" Caleb crouched down and looked at me, "Calm down. It's just anxiety from your test today, remember?"
"I can't remember my locker combination. Did Oliver give it to you?"
He nodded and stood up to open my locker, helping me up to my feet. I looked through my locker frantically, trying to find it. It took me a couple minutes but I finally found it, the bag with the jewelry. After I had been released from the hospital, I went home to pack up all of my things for the move to the Hudson's. Before I left, I looked through the bags of belongings that I got from the morgue. Inside was a piece of jewelry from almost every member of my family. My mom had a ring that she got from dad, dad had a locket with a picture of mom and Aiden when he was a baby, Aiden didn't have anything on him when he died but I had added the bracelet Jade got him to the bag when I found it the day I got suspended, Nova had one of our twin rings and a necklace with a ring on it that Aiden got her one year for her birthday, Jade had a necklace and a pair of earrings that she got from mom—I don't know why—and Luke was wearing my dad's class key necklace from his graduation that Luke took a fancy to. I kept them in a bag in my locker because I knew that Oliver would never snoop there and I could get to them whenever I needed to. One by one I put the jewelry on, starting with mom's ring and ending with Luke's necklace.

The late bell rang and the three of us ran to our classes. Friday meant PT day. Ugh I thought, I don't have the energy for this. I put in as minimal effort as I could for the entire forty-five minutes period and watched the clock slowly tick down to 1530. Then I practiced drill and color guard with Caleb while Olivia had show choir rehearsal and Noah had wrestling after school. At five, Olivia and Noah found us beside the vending machines working on our left and right wheel marches and we started walking back to the house.