Clear as the ocean (Waves of clarity, book 1)

Chapter 24

Another long one for you guys! And less than an hour after the last one :P Enjoy! And let me know what you think :) Vote/Comment :)

One of the larger events that took place was the fact that Justin found out about their brother. He was rather stunned to put it mildly. And then he was angry, and then- no wait- he was still angry.

Their parents were freaking out, always keeping a watch for a hidden man in the bushes or a car that looked out of place. They were barely allowing their children to leave the house, but Hayden and Justin both made it pretty clear that staying inside all day wasn't an option. Besides, Hayden needed to keep her mind as far away from the fear as often as she could. 

Justin kept telling Hayden how stupid she had been to interact with Frank and his gang, but as time went by he seemed to gain more understanding of the fact that she couldn't have avoided it even if she wanted to. All in all everything was fine for the time being, except for Hayden's constant nightmares and everyone's growing paranoia.

Hayden had made everyone swear to secrecy about their current situation, never mentioning the fact that Zach already knew parts of it. However, Zach only knew about her brother, not the fact that her life was in danger.

Stacy had been a sobbing mess for the past couple of days. She never admitted it, but Hayden was pretty sure that it was because of the fact that she had abandoned her own son, and now she had a granddaughter whom she hadn't even known about. In a way you could say that she kind of deserved not to have known about Eleanor, because she hadn't given her own children the chance to know about their older brother.

It was late Wednesday night when Hayden received a message from Zach.

It said: "We need to talk. Call me?".

There was no emoji behind, which was almost surprising because Zach had kind of been known for his very colorful texts filled with emoticons that made absolute no sense and had no connection with the verbal text whatsoever. 

After thinking it over for a minute or two, Hayden decided that she owed it to Zach to call him. He had been there for her when she needed to talk, therefor she should also listen to whatever he had to say. Unfortunately she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach when she pressed the call button. The first thing that came to mind was that somebody had gotten hurt, and she couldn't help but think that it was Phoenix. 

Zach picked up on the second ring, making Hayden assume that he'd been waiting by the phone. "Not a good sign" she thought to herself as she greeted him.

"Hi Zach. You called"
He obviously knew that because he was the one who had called her, but at the time being she didn't feel like caring much about whether or not what she said was stupid or grammatically incorrect. There were more important things on her mind, and she was anxious to hear what Zach had to say.

"Hi Hayden, thanks for calling" he said, sounding genuinely grateful. Though she couldn't help but notice the dark undertone to his voice.

"No problem, but I have a bad feeling about this".

"Don't worry, it's nothing too bad" he assured her, but the way he said it made it seem as if it was still pretty bad, which it probably was.

"Good, I was really worried for a second there"

"Oh, sorry I didn't mean to scare you" he apologized, the dark tone fading away as he spoke.

"It's fine. Now tell me what's wrong" she pushed for him to continue, not wanting to wait any longer.

"Well, I was in the neighborhood today when I heard someone ask questions about you. I didn't see them so I don't know who they were, but I just thought that you should know. The questions were kinda out there you know, not just the basic ones. It's probably nothing though, I mean it could have been your new brother for all I know, but there was just something about his voice that creeped me out"