Hollows In Time (✔️) | 'Hollows' Book Ⅱ

Chapter Forty

^ holy Sky, amen ^

"You think you know everything, but then a bullet comes out of nowhere. After that, it's hard to stop looking for the gun."
—me
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H o l l o w s   I n
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I'm in the library. Don't ask why. I'm avoiding all my problems at once. I had lost Jameson in the canteen, where the girls had also caught a glimpse of me as I dashed for my life. I would go without lunch this lunchtime. And, somehow, that was easy for me to accept. Why? I hated my inability to fight against my own thoughts.

I sighed into a book about insects. Don't ask why. It was the first book I picked up when I sprinted in here. I slumped in my chair, leaning my chin into my palm, gazing around the library. There was hardly anyone in here—and the people that are in here are either reading educational books or reading the wrong kind of magazines. Don't ask why.

"Hmm," Someone hummed from beside me. "'The Anatomy of Insects', that one has a good plot," I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow to show my disinterest in his joke. He sat next to me.

"But just wait until you get to the tenth chapter, these two males have a fight over a girl ant and it's real beevy." He sat down, looking smug about his so-called 'pun'. 

"The book is about ants, not bees." I told him, unimpressed by his interruption to my serenity in the library.

"That's not the point. The chapter is great. It's supposed to be based on a true story." I stared at him open-mouthed.

"You what?" I stuttered, as he took the book from where it lay on the table, muttering something about "finding the beevy chapter".

"What?" He turned to face me with raised eyebrows. "You don't know that story?" He asked. He hummed in fake fascination at my cluelessness. He shrugged, "I thought you'd be particularly educated on the subject." He said. He knew he was baiting me. And he knew it was working.

"Stop making bee puns and tell me what you're talking about." I demanded.

He flashed me a confused glance, "what bee puns?" I deadpanned him.

"Tobee." I warned. He glared at me.

Shutting the book, he flashed me a smirk. "I'll tell you my information if you tell me yours." He promised deviously.

"What information do I have?" I asked. Toby suddenly grew pensive.

"You know what happened to my brother—I know you do—unfortunately, I do not." Oh. Well then.

I don't want to tell him; I don't want to be the one to break his heart. But I desperately wanted to know what he had previously been talking about.

"And what's your information?" I asked. Toby gave me a judgmental look.

"I can't tell you until you tell me the information I deserve to own." He told me firmly. I sighed.

"Do we have to do it here?" I asked, my eyes darting around at all the people I had seen before as I picked at my nails nervously.

Toby leaned back in his chair, eyes cast to a far off distance. "We can do it wherever you want." He said. I looked down in thought.

"Toby?" I began.

"Yes, darling?" He responded.

"Ew." I threw at him and he snickered. He recovered as I stared at him.