MEMENTO

XV.

           Hushed murmurs came from the other room, Erica registered as she felt herself coming into consciousness. She wished she hadn't, though, as the pounding on her head began as if someone were conducting construction within her brain.

She let out a groan, reaching for a glass of water at her bedside, when the murmurs stopped. She wondered where she was. Was this heaven? She thought.

No, heaven probably wouldn't have leather couches and a large television screen muted as it played some children's show. Erica attempted to raise her weary arms toward the glass, but it was simply too far out of her reach, and she could not lift her torso up.

Dux and Ally's apartment, it finally occurred to her. That's where she was. But how did she get here?

She stilled at her last memory of Dux leaning over her, shivering at the thought of what had happened moments before that. Drew... Where was Drew?

Glancing down at her hands, she half expected them to still be coated in his blood, a painful image and sensation she would never get off her flesh no matter how many times she scrubbed at it.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Dux had told her. But why? He couldn't really be...

No, Erica wouldn't even entertain the thought. She pushed herself up from where she lay, dropping the blanket that covered her onto the floor which left an uncomfortable sheen of sweat across her skin.

She followed where she thought she heard the murmuring coming from, entering a lounge area they had once used to relax in between training.

"What are you doing?" Dux spoke up when Erica stumbled in, barely holding herself up as she leaned against the wall. "You shouldn't be walking around right now."

Erica looked across the room, no one else seemed to make eye contact with her except Dux. To Dux's right, Ally sat at the kitchen table across from Sol, Zip, James, and Cecilia.

"Where's Drew?" Erica demanded, swatting Dux away when she attempted to steer her back towards the room with the bed.

"Erica, you're very tired right now," Dux murmured, placing a hand onto her shoulder. "You need to sleep off the encounter."

"Don't tell me how I am," Erica spat at her, bristling from her touch. "How long did I sleep?"

"Eighteen hours," Ally piped up when no one else would.

Erica froze at that, realizing she'd been out for nearly an entire day. The sun had started setting outside again, in the window behind Cecilia's head.

"Okay," Erica allowed, seeming to piece together what was happening but insisting on the same question regardless. "Where's Drew, then?"

Silence.

No one spoke.

"Cece, come on!" Erica stumbled over to where her friend sat, attempting to make eye contact with her. "Look at me."

When Cecilia finally looked up, tears were streaming down her face. Erica's world collapsed at that moment, nearly sending her to her knees.

Finally, Dux dropped a copy of the local newspaper with this morning's date onto the table before Erica, which they all sat around. The headline read, "Damon University Student's Suicide Shocks School's Administration."

"Suicide?" Erica repeated.

"We had to bring him here and create a fake crime scene so the police wouldn't be asking questions," Dux explained in a monotone, though it was clear something was bubbling beneath her tone. "Drew is currently at the local university hospital's morgue. Well, his body is. The service is in two days."