Ungifted

04: Hysteria

A/N: Above is a pic of Jay (or better known as Big Papi by Jo). I don't think you'll be disappointed with him. I know I'm sure not! 😍😉

June:

"Noooo! Please! Stop!" the chilling screams faded down the hallway as I groggily shoved off my thin blankets, that really didn't provide much warmth, and made my way across Claire's and my dark sleeping quarters to the doorway.

"June, I'm scared," Claire whined, holding her pink stuffed cat so tight that if it was real, it would have surely suffocated. Ignoring her whimpers, I turned the cold door handle, opened the thick door, and let the glaring light from the corridor into the room. We winced as the bright light penetrated our eyes and Claire quickly grabbed my hand with hers with fear. All the while, the screams continued getting dimmer and dimmer as our pupils struggled painfully to adjust.

By the time we recovered from our blindness, the only glimpse I could make out of the person responsible for the screaming was a small glimmer of black, curly hair and the backs of the white jumpsuits of the four officials who were dragging her through the halls.

Apparently all of the noise had awoken and attracted a big crowd. The girls' sleeping corridor was now brimming with curious, feminine onlookers with identical, shocked expressions on their faces. "Where's Jo?" I mumbled as I scanned worriedly through the crowd of faces, almost instantly spotting the Flaine twins' identical, spiteful glares that pointed in my direction.

One rude gesture made possibly with my middle finger changed their hatefulness into gasps, shock, and the mumbling of curse words. Inevitably, my moment of amusement ended when I remembered why I had been looking their way in the first place. I need to find Jo.

Shit. They couldn't have taken Jo too, could they have? 

I told myself to stay calm and quickly scanned the crowd once again in hopes of seeing Jo's familiar face. Without any luck, I couldn't take it any longer and turned to panic.  I could feel my trembling knees beneath me as I tried frantically to calm down and make sense of the situation.

"Maybe she's in her sleeping quarters?" Claire suggested timidly, pulling her stuffed kitty closer to her chest, still holding on to my hand so tightly that her knuckles were almost on the verge of turning white.

Why didn't I think of that?

Together, Claire and I ran through the narrow corridor side-by-side. By this point, many of the bystanders of the incident had shifted back into their rooms, all of them still shocked of the events that had just unfolded before their eyes.

When we finally made our way to Jo's room, my eyes immediately shifted to the disheveled mess of hair and the shocked expression of Jo, sitting in the corner of the dark room with her pale arms hugging her pudgy knees to her chest. Looking straight ahead with her horrified mien in the back corner of the room in the darkness amongst the scattered blankets, turned-over table, and broken glass--all signs of a struggle--her blank stare never moved to acknowledge Claire's and my presence, but instead continued their deep gaze into the gloomy blackness before them.

Relief swept over my body as I exhaled quickly, and a quick glance in Claire's direction told me that Claire felt the same way that I did as her worried, almost-to-the-brink-of-tears expression softened into its usual timid, but cheerful self.

That was when I realized it. The black, curly hair belonged to Jo's roommate, Maggie.

"Jo!" I exclaimed as I ran through the doorway and enveloped Jo in a hug, kneeling beside her.

"She knew," Jo whispered to herself as her stare continued into the darkness, still unaware of the events happening around her. She brought her eyes to mine quickly and grabbed my shoulder with one of her distraught, trembling hands, almost-painfully digging her long nails into my skin. Her glossed over eyes stared so deeply into mine that it felt as if she was staring into my soul. "She knew," she mumbled again before breaking into hysteria. Claire let out a scared whimper from across Jo's gloomy sleeping quarters before joining us in the corner, holding one of my hands. Jo's disturbed cackles and giggling didn't end until soon enough, two officials arrived to carry her out of the room on a stretcher.