Hacking The Heart [Immortal Hearts #1] (#Wattys2016)

[5] - Rory (II)

The ambulance soon came, and throughout the ride, Kaylee hadn't said a word to neither Landon nor the EMT's. She hadn't even looked at him. This only made Landon feel worse, but he thought he understood why she was acting like that towards him - he thought she hated him. While, in fact, Kaylee saw it the other way around.

Kaylee thought that Landon would hate her, because she was no longer 'pure'.

Landon had a few tests done before having a mark on the side of his head stitched. However, Kaylee had to go through quite a few before she was left alone, like she wanted to be. Landon had tried to talk to her, but was quickly shot down and kicked out of the room

"Kaylee?" Landon stood on the other side of the door. "Can we talk?"

"Go away." Kaylee replied.

Landon leaned against the wall and started to slide down it as he looked at the overly bright artificial light. What should he have said to her? Landon figured an apology wouldn't have worked, and not talking would only make everything worse, but what could he do or say? She was obviously super angry at him, or so he thought.

"Hey." Landon heard the familiar female voice. "You look like shit."

Landon kind of laughed. "It would be amazing if I didn't. It's been months since I've taken a shower, or even brushed my teeth. And it's not like ends there, either."

Rory, clad in a black tank top and a pair faded light blue jeans, patted Landon's head, and then smacked his forehead. "Stop looking down all the time. If you look up once in a while, you may find something new that you haven't see before."

The light of the of the hospital gave Landon a clear view of Rory for the first time. The tone of her skin appeared to be a very light brown, possibly Hispanic. Her eyes, however, made Landon think she was some form of Asian. Aside from that, he noticed her toned figure, the fit body she had honed through hours of intense training, though that fact was unknown to Landon.

Rory cracked a grin. "You've got a perfectly cute girl waiting for you in that room, you can stop checking me out any day now."

"You're more full of yourself than you look." Landon replied. "Besides, she doesn't want to talk to me. I don't blame her, either."

Rory looked through the window and saw Kaylee sitting up on the bed and looking through the window. What Rory didn't know was the giant misunderstanding between the two of them. Rory simply assumed that they had gotten into a trivial fight over something and figured it would be a simple solution.

Wrong.

Rory opened the door to the room and went in. She pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down quietly. Instead of forcing her to talk, Rory planned to wait there next to Kaylee until she decided to talk. Rory couldn't say that understood what Kaylee had went through, but what she could say was that she would try the best she could.

"I already talked to an officer." Kaylee looked away.

"That's uncanny, the way you two look away when you lie." Rory itched her nose. "Anyway, tell me, what's your situation? Why were you two sleeping in an alley in a bad part of town?"

Kaylee gripped the sheet of the bed tightly. "Landon and I ran away together. We decided that we would be better off on our own than with our parents. It was pretty bad at first, but we grew used to it, I guess."

"But why did you leave in the first place?" Rory asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Kaylee mumbled. "It's not like it matters anymore, you people are just going to send us back anyways."