Skates Out // a Luis Mendoza Fan Fic

22. Reunited - not.

JJ.

It turned out we actually had no idea how to find Jess, she'd done a phenomenal job at hiding herself. "This is useless." Charlie muttered as we patrolled around the road.

"Well it's not like anyone asked you to come." I replied sourly, although he was probably right.

"Let's take a break Jaige." Viola suggested gently.

I did not want to do that at all. "Why don't Jerome and I keep looking and the rest of you can go get some ince cream or something." Mendoza offered making the others let out sighs of relief. Slackers.

He pulled me down the road while I shot the others withering glares. "Those traitors." I muttered annoyed as we kept going. We were in some shady as shit area that was in the general direction of where Jess had gone. "It's barely been an hour and they're already giving up."

He made a face, "actually it's been four."

My eyes widened, "four hours?!"

"Yeah we've been looking for ages." Mendoza told me.

"And we still haven't found anything? What the hell am I doing?" I asked frustratedly, "she obviously doesn't want to be found. Stupid bitch."

Mendoza laughed, "she's trying to protect you remember?"

"Or maybe she's just a stupid bitch." I offered, but even when I said it I didn't mean it, I wasn't convining anyone.

I let out a yell of anger kicking a wooden box with a bunch of beeer bottles over making them smash to the ground. I was about to do it again when Menodza stopped me, "wait JJ look," he pointed to something the box had been covering. "Is that blood?"

I stopped and took a closer look, there was a splatter of something red glistening on the ground it looked old, maybe a couple days old. Then something under the box caught my eye, something golden and shiny. I pushed the box again to reveal a golden necklace that I knew all to well, it was mine. I had worn it religiously when I was younger, you would have had to pry it off my neck with a chain saw to get it away from me. It had gone missing the same night Jess had disappeared and now I knew why. I could have killed her.

It was a golden locket that had a J engraved on the front of it and my birthdate engraved on the back, if you opened it up you would have seen a picture of Jess and I from when we were kids. Now it was slick with blood but I would still have recognised it anywhere. "Jess was here." I told him confidently.

He frowned, "how do you know that?"

"Because this is her necklace." I told him confidently.

"Really? How can you tell?" Mendoza asked confused.

"Because it has my face in it genius." I told him slapping it in his hand so he could see the picture of the two of us.

"Has anyone ever told you the two of you could be identical twins?" He asked me.

"Only everyone every single day of our lives." I muttered annoyed, that had gotten old and quickly.

"No wonder they confused the two of you so easily." Mendoza coninued in awe, but then he stopped and looked back at the blood a worried expression on his face. "Jerome-."

I cut him off, "she's fine." I gritted out, "It's probably not hers, some asshole just tried to steal my becklace from her and Jess showed him what's what."

"If that's the case then why is the necklace still here and not with Jess?" He asked gently.

That was a question I wasn't willing to consider quite yet, "if there's blood here there's probably a trail," I continued ignoring his objective look, "come on, help me look."

Just as I had suspected there was one, splotches of blood on the ground, maybe if the blood was hers it wouldn't be so bad, maybe then I'd have a prayer of finding her since this all looked pretty fresh. We followed the blood through back alley after back alley, "JJ this does not seem like a good idea." Mendoza warned me shooting a glare at one of the creepy degenerates that started lumbeing towards us.

"Then go home." I told him angrily. I was not giving up on this chance of finding my sister.

And then I saw her, a blonde eighteen year old girl limping across the train tracks seperating these slums and the huge bridge that connected these two parts of Anaheim. There wasn't technically a river under it but it was used to keep the nicer parts of town and this dump separate.

"JESS!" I shouted sprinting towards her.

I could hear Mendoza swear under his breath as he chased after me.

My sister turned towards me a horrified expression on her face, "Jules GO! Get away from here!"

I winced at the nickname no one had called me that but her, "No! I finally found you I'm not going anywhere!" I yelled back as she started running away from me, "JESS DON'T YOU DARE KEEP RUNNING."

"Jules go back to the rink! It's not safe for you here!" She called to me, "you can't be here or they'll find you!"

"Who's they?" I asked confused, "why do you keep hiding from me! Jess I just want my sister back."

"Jerome STOP!" I heard Mendoza shout from behind me but I ingored him and kept running after her, I knew I could catch up since her limp was slowing her down.

I was about to step onto the train tracks when I felt Mendoza yank me back with such force that I flew over onto him sending up both flying to the ground. "What the hell are you doing?" I snapped angrily.

"Saving your life you psycho!" He snapped back.

I turned back to see the train shooting past us on the tracks where I'd been standing a minute ago, "oh." I replied breathlessly, "thank you."

Mendoza nodded, "yeah you're fucking welcome." he muttered something about idiots with death wishes after that but I was too busy waiting for the train to pass to listen. Once it was gone I ran across the tracks to go get my sister. But she was no where to be found.

"JESS." I screamed as I frantically searched the underpass for her, but she was gone, I had no idea how but my sister had disappeared. As if I'd just imagined her to begin with. Before I could stop myself the tears caught up with me and I started sobbing. I had been so close and no I was back to square one. Not to mention my sister had made it clear she didn't want me anywhere near her.

"I'm sorry JJ." Mendoza started.

"Don't be." I told him annoyed, "I'm not giving up on her, she should know me better than to think I'd stop looking that easily. We're coming back here tomorrow, if Jess was here before she was attacked she must have been here for a reason and we're going to find out what that is."

"And she's back." Mendoza muttered shaking his head, although I could tell from his voice he wasn't a huge fan of my plan but I didn't care. Now that I knew this wasn't all one big hallucination there wasn't much that could stop me from finding her and finding out what the hell was going on here.