The Walmart Shoot Up - (Sequel To 'Follow You')

Chapter 13 - My Biggest Mistake

Kellin's POV

Tuesday

Jinx and I had decided not to go to school that day, because of the incident that had happened in English. We went to school on our buses to fool our parents, but then met up at school and left to walk to the mall.

The whole way, Jinx was silent. She was brooding. 

I anxiously looked over at her, as we walked down the pavement, hoping she didn't really believe anything Jason had said yesterday. 

"I would care if you got hit by a truck." I said. She looked to me questioningly. "Just so you know." I explained with a shrug. 

"Thanks." She said flatly.

I tried to bite my tongue, but I couldn't. "You know everything Jason said was bullshit, right?"  asked worriedly. 

"I know." 

But I wasn't sure if I could believe those words. 

Through the rest of our walk, it was mostly just me commenting on random things, and Jinx shutting me down. I stopped talking when I realized she didn't want me to. She was just thinking; I told myself. I just needed to let her think.

When we got to the mall, we went straight to our favorite sushi place. 

"My shout." I smiled. "I know you don't have any money."

When the sushi arrived at our table, she seemed to be feeling marginally better. She picked up the sushi and took a bite. 

"Did you skip class, and days of school like this before I came along?" She asked curiously. 

"Yeah, sometimes." I said. "Why?"

Jinx chuckled. "I'm just trying to figure out how much of a bad influence I'm being on you." She was only joking, so I laughed along with her. 

"Doesn't matter. I'm only finishing school because my mom wants me to have a fallback career from what I want to do."

"Speaking of what you want to do; when are you going to actually get a band together?" Jinx asked. 

I shrugged. "Either when the right people come along, or when I finish school at the end of the year." Then I realized something. "Hey, you never told me what you wanted to do."

"I'm not really sure." She said. "To be honest, I spent a long time thinking the only thing I would ever do was be in my family's gang, so there wasn't much room for anything else." She finished her sushi and continued. "I guess I like art, so it would be cool to be a tattooist, or something like that anyway."

"That's cool." I mused. "I get them free, right?"

Jinx smiled cheekily. "Nah, you have to pay extra."

"Well fuck yah then." I said in a Scottish accent. 

"Aye, fuck yah too." She mocked me. 

People were giving us weird looks, and we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves, so we quietened down and dropped the horrible accents. 

The door tingled and Jinx looked up by instinct. I watched her instantly look away. The person who had walked in was walking as if they owned the place, orange dreadlocks swinging from their head. 

Jinx pulled her black hood over her head to conceal her green hair. "Lets go." She said quietly. 

"Alright." I said, sensing something was wrong. 

When we got out of the sushi store, she didn't stop there. I was jogging to keep pace with her fast walking as we left the mall entirely. We went into the next shop that we saw on the side of the road; a women's shoe shop. 

"Who was that?" I asked. He seemed vaguely familiar.

"One of the guys from the gang. Five of them were released early." Jinx replied, looking around with her paranoid eyes. "They're going to be looking for me to re group. My dad probably told them to find me as soon as they got out and make sure I'm not doing exactly what I am now - leaving the gang behind."

I lowered my voice to match hers. "Fuck. What if they find you? What are you going to say?"

"Look, I don't know what I'm going to do." Jinx snapped. "They're not going to be happy with me trying to leave. No one leaves the gang and lives afterward. No one..." 

"Apart from you." I said sternly. "It can't be that hard to hide from them."

She chuckled. "You wouldn't know. We have eyes everywhere."

"They." I corrected her. "They have eyes everywhere. Your not with them anymore, your playing on a different team."

"And, what team is that exactly?" She asked.

"Kellin's team." I grinned. "My team."

I thought my joke would amuse her, even just a little, but it only seemed to panic her even more to the point where her eyes were bloodshot. "N-No Kellin. You don't have a team. Your not a part of this, and you never will be. It's for the best."

"Well, what are you going to do then?" I asked. 

"I told you, I don't know! I just have to stay out of sight for a while..." She started planning. "My foster parents won't believe me; they'll think I'm skipping school. Right, so that means I'm ditching them. I'll probably have to run off to a different city-"

"What? No." I said, annoyed. "You can't just leave me here."

She glared at me. "Kellin, don't be so selfish. I'm trying to stay alive here."

"Hey, your the one being selfish!" I said, raising my voice a little. "I'm trying to help, and you know that, but you just tell me it's none of my business! You do realize that if you die, I'm going to be the one feeling guilty, because I knew what was going on. I'm already mixed up in this. There's nothing you can do."

Jinx closed her eyes momentarily before opening them again. "Look, I know your trying to help, and I know you... c-care... but you just need to fuck off at the moment."

With that, she left. She left me standing in the woman's shoe shop, the shopkeeper looking at us weirdly, and me frozen. I watched her walk away. I watched her leave, for the last time. 

Watching her leave, and not going after her, was the biggest mistake of my whole life. 

__________

Why u no chase her ;~; I cri everi tim