Revolution that's been dancing in the rain (Book 1)

17. Where is Jessie

(At the Party- After the preformance)
(Luke POV)

"We killed it" I exclaim as I join the boys in the studio
"We rocked" Reggie and I high five
"So are we supposed to stay in here or" Alex asks and the three of us share a look
"Let's Party!" We shout poofing out to join the party
"Cheerleaders" Reggie squeals as we join the crowd
I laugh and the three of us split up to enjoy the party
Julies with her loud friend, Flynn who's DJ'ing
I smile at them, she's jumping around dancing to the music.
Reggie joins them and I laugh as he attempts and fails to do a handstand.
I look around for Jessie but theres no sign of her in the crowd,
I look inside the house but still no sign.
"Hey Julie" I poof up to her, Alex had joined them just before I did so were all standing there
"Whats up Luke"
"Why are you pulling that face?" Alex asks me
"Has anyone seen Jessie?"
"Not since we went on, why" Julie answers looking around for Jessie herself
"I can't find her anywhere"
"Whats wrong" Flynn asks, not being able to hear me
"Can't find Jessie, I'm gonna go inside to call her"
The boys and I follow Julie into the studio
"Okay I'm calling her"

*Cause this is our time yeah*
*When all the days felt black and white*
*Those were the best shades of my life*

Our song starts playing,
We look around and see Jessies phone ringing on the table
Her ringtone is our song, huh
"Thats weird, she never leaves without her phone. Says it's important to be able to communicate with each other at all times"
She says picking up the phone
"And she changed her ringtone"
"What did it use to be" Reggie asks
"My name is Luke"
My name is Luke, her ringtones always been one of my songs.
Thats awsome. Its' the kind of connection I always wanted to have
Hopefully Julie can help us achieve it now
"Should we be worried?" Reggie asks already worried
I squeeze his shoulder
Alex poofs away and comes back immediately
"Her bikes gone" He says when he returns
"She's a capable person, she probably just went to see Veronica or somthing
I'm sure she'll be back tomorrow"
"Are you sure?" I ask unsure myself, I don't like the idea of her having just disappeared
I want to go look for her but I wouldn't know where to start.
She probably is with her friend but not knowing for certain is making me feel uneasy
"She's usually at Veronica's if she leaves early, I'm sure she'll be back tomorrow morning"
Julie re-joins the party
"You okay man" Alex put a hand on my shoulder
"Fine, just don't like this. I've a bad feeling"
"It'll be fine Luke"
I nod and Alex and Reggie go back out to the party
I stay in the studio and pull out my song journal
I haven't written anything without Julie since I met her,
her talent is powerful, angelic and until right now she's the only person I wanted to write with.
I start working on somthing new, I work on it throughout the entire party.
Usually song writing comes easy to me but as I write my mind keeps wandering to Jessie.
I'd seen her witing in her own journal,
I wonder if all her songs are similar to the one she sang here,
before she knew about us.
I wonder how many songs she has written, how many of them she recorded and what made her start.
Julie started writing because of her mom, but Jessie never mentions hers.
She dosn't mention any of her family come to think of it
"You still in here man?" I look up and see Alex and Reggie in front of me
"Yeah the partys over" Reggie says and I look outside to see people filtering out the gate
"Yeah I just got distracted"
"Well Julies gone inside with Flynn, want to play basketball or something" They say offering me a distraction
"Sure, lets go"

"Wooh" Reggie exclaims as I make a basket "Feels like we should be celebrating or somthing. What do you guys wanna do?"
He asks throwing the ball back to me
Before I can catch it were hit with another jolt.
"Not that"
"Its getting worse" I point out, each jolt is hurting more and more
"Why is this happning to us"
"It's because you guys are in serious trouble" Alex's friend Willie appears again,
this time however he talks to us
"Willie?"
"We need to talk"
We head out to the streets of LA, practically empty at this hour
Everyone inside one of the many clubs in the area.
Willie explains the jolts, why they're happing and who caused them.
Caleb of fucking course it was Caleb, we never should have gone to that club.
Jessie was right we should have stayed at the studio and been at that dance.
Our mission for revenge coming back to bite us in the ass again,
revenge we never even got.
"All these jolts we're feeling is because Caleb put his stamp on us?"
"He's threathened by you. he wants you under his control.
I mean you're the only ghosts that can be visible to lifers, outside his family, without his help."
"And you let him do this to us" Alex accuses, hurt and confused
"I cant stop him. He owns my soul. Alright he owns everyones soul at that club.
If he even knew I was here talking to you, he" He sighs "He would destroy me"
"So if we don't join his club the weird power outages continue until theres no powerr left at all?" Reggie clarifys
"Yes"
"What exatly happens when the power gos out?" He asks looking at me concerned, I share his concern as Willie answers
"That's, that's it. You're done."
"Uh-huh. Yeah. And what exactly do you mean
by "we're done?" He asks again, not getting a clear answer
"You just, you don't exist anymore. Not anywhere."
"What?"
"So we have no choice?" I rant, getting angry
"We have to say goodbye to our friends, give up everything we've built together,
and work for Caleb?"
Willie sighs, not answering me
"That's some club you guys got going on." I turn away from him
"But there is another option. That's why I'm here." He explains
"Another option?"
"Just please hear me out." He begs Alex
"All right. If you guys could figure out what your unfinished business is,
you do it in time, you could cross over and be free from all of this."
"OK. So what's our unfinished business?"
"I don't know, but since you all died at the same time, it might be something
you need to do together."
"Why should we listen to a word you say?" Alex spits,
Its clear that Willie meant a lot to him,
Alex never really had many experinces with guys when we were alive.
He came out when we were 15, after his parents reaction to it he was ashamed and embarresed.
It took a year to get him to finally start feeling better but even now he still hids it.
He doesn't tell people and dosn't talk about guys all that much, thinking he'll be shamed for it.
He hasn't even told Jessie or Julie yet, even though it obvious.
"Because I care about you, Alex."
Willie confesses, his voice breaking
"And I hate that I brought you, and your friends into this mess."
Alex says nothing, they just look at each other for a few seconds
"I, uh, I can't be away much longer. I'm so sorry. For everything."
He poofs away leaving us to absorb the horrible information we just got
"This is all my fault. I- I met Willie,
Willie introduced us to Caleb, and now...now we're screwed."
"We all wanted to go see Caleb." I reassure him that its not his fault
"We have to tell Julie and Jessie" Reggie says
"No, we can't do that." I turn to him
"This just means more loss in Julie's life, and Jessie just dissapeard.
But if we don't want Caleb to own our souls we have to figure out our unfinished business."
"Yeah, man. And how are we supposed to do that?
All right? There was so much we wanted to do." Alex says defeted
Something behind him catches my eye
"What is it?"
"Yeah. But the night we died, there was one thing we all wanted to do together."
They turn to see what I'm looking at
"Play the Orpheum?" Reggie asks looking at the neon sign
"Getting that gig was literally impossible.
Even after people knew who we were, we had to hustle,
call in every favor we had. It took us years."
Were hit by another bolt
"We don't have years." I shake my head, If were going to do this were going to have to do it fast.

It's been about a week and we're no closer to playing the Orpheum, We still havent told Julie about the jolts and even worse we haven't seen Jessie at all.
"Julie" I appear next to her and her loud friend at school
"Luke!" She excliams caught off guard
"Lukes here?" Her loud friend raises an eyebrow
"I'll see you later Flynn" She gesturs for Flynn to leave
"Got it" She says putting her hands up "See you later"
"Whats up Luke"
"I'm getting really worried about Jessie, it's been a week. Have you even seen her?" I ask, chewing on my bottom lip.
Its sore and cut up from how much I've been chewing on it this past week with Jessie missing and the whole Caleb thing.
"No nothing" She sighs "I asked around, she's showing up to drama but that's about it" She starts walking towards her locker and I follow after her
"Do we even know if shes safe, is she staying with that friend?"
"No I asked Veronica if Jessie was staying there, she slept over the night of the party but she hasn't seen her since. She left Dad a note saying she was staying with a friend but didn't say where or for how long" Julie stresses
"So we know she's alive but that's it"
"Pretty much, I was going to go wait outside the theater tommrow, she has a late rehersal so I'm hoping to"
"Julie" I interrupt her
"What?"
I point behind her, she turns around to see the same thing I'm looking at
walking up the hall, in a hoddie and jeans is Jessie.
It took me a second to realise it was her, with her hood up but as she got closer to us I regonised her
"Jessie" Julie runs up to her "Where have you been"
Jessie tries to walk past her but Julie grabs her arm, she yanks it back, the momentum causing her hood to fall back off her face.
Julie lets out a gasp at the sight, and I stand there in shock.
Jessie quickly pulls he hood back over her face but its too late
Her face was littered with bruises of diffrent colors, some yellowish, others greenish but many of them were dark purple implying that they were recent.
On top of that she had a black eye, split swollen lip and prominent gash on her left cheek.
"Who the hell did that" I yell stepping towards her "Who the fuck touched you"
"Calm the fuck down Patterson" She says quiet but stern
"Jessie are you okay" Julie wisper asks touching her arm
"I'm fine Julie, drop it"
"Where have you been?"
"Nowhere" she says trying to leave again
"Jessie" Julie calls
"I said drop it"
"You haven't been home"
"I haven't been at yours" Jessie snaps
"Whats going on with you" Julie asks in a matching tone just without the bite
"Nothing"
"Why won't you tell me"
"Because its none of your damm business. For once not everything is about you,
if your so craved for the attention that you're missing out on by me having my own life for a week, you've got three perfectly good musicians to give it to you. Hell ones even following you to school"
Julies stunned with shock as Jessie speds down the hall
"You okay Julie?"
"Thats not her, somethings off. Really off" She doesn't even seem hurt, knowing well enough that her friend didn't mean anything she had said.
Julie was right though, something is off with Jessie
and we're running out of time.
So whatever it is needs to be fixed and soon.