The Secret Society

Chapter 6

After a few hours of talking, laughing, drinking, and kissing, Cole looked at the time and flagged the waiter down for the bill. He paid, once again, refusing to let her pay for anything this time around. She gulped the remainder of her drink, the mixture of melted ice with soda and rum made her grimace.

"Thank you for the drinks and nachos," she said, sliding out of the half-moon booth.

"It's no problem, I told you I wanted to take you on a proper date," he said, reaching for her hand to help her rise.

She chuckled, feeling slightly tipsy. "Filling me with endless rum drinks was your plan?"

"You like me when you're inebriated," he teased.

"Shut up," she said, pulling him by the shirt and planting a kiss on his lips.

"See?" he said, sticking his tongue between his teeth. She nudged his chest as he handed her the bag with his skateboard and her book. "Just let me hit the head, then we'll go watch some fireworks."

"Fireworks? Really trying to fix the shitty date we had earlier, aren't you?"

He winked and made his way to the washroom. "I'm trying."

Brixlee fixed her purse on her shoulder and glanced into the bag, taking out her locket. It was astounding how identical the locket looked to the one her grandmother had given her, down to the small intricate details on the back. She pried it open, though no photos were inside. In the locket she lost, she had a photo of her brother and one of the cats she had when she was a kid. Something so small made her entirely happy. She felt like she was home again, even for a moment, as she gazed at the locket in her hand. No one understood how much it destroyed her when Adam pulled the locket from her neck because of his petty possessiveness. Her grandmother meant everything to her, practically raising her and her brother as children. All her grandmother left her was that locket. Now that she found a replacement, a part of her felt whole again.

As Brixlee was reminiscing, it felt like someone was her from a distance. That paranoid feeling washed over her and the events of that morning crept in. She could see the hooded figure lunging at her, wrapping their cold, dead hands around her and covering her mouth so no one would hear her scream. She knew what they did because of the massacres that happened eighteen years ago, and the more she thought of someone taking her, the more the hair on the back of her neck rose, sending a shiver down her spine. She felt trapped, the walls inching closer to her in suffocation. Her face went pale at the thought of her blood being drained, of the thought of her corpse being disposed of in the most horrific of ways...Cole made his way back to her, fixing his jeans as he did.

"Hey," he approached, startling her into dropping the locket.

"Ready to go?" she asked, her voice shaky as she picked up the locket from the sticky floor.

"You okay?" he asked, taking notice of how pale she was.

"Y-yeah, I'm good," she stammered anxiously.

"No one came up to you? Tried to talk to you?" he asked, panicked. "I shouldn't have left you alone."

She nodded, putting the locket back in the bag. "It's fine. I'm okay."

"Why don't you wear it?" he asked.

"Oh, no, I'll put it on later," she replied.

"Nonsense," he said, taking the locket from her and putting it around her neck. His fingers slid on her shoulders, then neck, sending goosebumps along the area. "See, gorgeous as ever."

"Shut it," she said, blushing.

"Why the locket, anyway?" he asked.

"Story for another day," she responded, wanting to keep all her issues with Adam to herself.