Death by Detention

9

Hell is right infront of me. I can reach out and touch it but every atom of my being urges me to run back to my house where I can hide under my blankets.

I hear Raine chuckle beside me and he grabs my hand. "Come on Lottie. We can do this"

I frown at him. "Have we had this conversation before?"

He smirks "Maybe"

I look down at his scarred hand in mine and smile. Six months. Six months since we escaped.

And now we're back. Who's idea was this?

The rest of the school has been back a week but we were allowed to stay off until today. I still haven't heard from Damon and it's slightly worrying. I feel a squeeze at my hand. "Nervous?" Raine asks.

I shake my head. "Just don't leave me okay?" I kiss his cheek and he grins. Another thing. Me and Raine are unofficially a thing! Neither of us have said the words boyfriend or girlfriend but we act like a couple so that counts for something. Right?

"You two just going to stand there all day?" A voice says and I gasp.

"Damon!" I spin and see him limping towards me. As soon as he's close enough I punch his chest "Why haven't I heard from you?"

"Because I didn't want you to see me stumbling around like a fool. I'm just getting used to this thing" he swings about his left leg and I frown.  He looks at Raine and rolls his eyes. "Seriously. You didn't tell her?" He pulls up his jeans and reveals to me a bionic leg. "It got the chop" he says.

My eyes widen "Damon..."

"Don't be all sympathetic with me" he says "You're the one wearing a fingerless glove in summer"

I pull my hand up to my chest. It's scarred and scares me to look at. The feeling in my fingers is almost completely gone due to nerve damage  but I don't have to think about it if I don't see the visible damage.

"I'm serious though. If we weren't getting strange looks before, we are now" he places his hand at the top of my back and begins pushing me towards the doors. "Come on piano man!" He calls back with a chuckle.

As we walk through the front doors and I see the lifts, my heart drops. My eyes trail to where Steph's body lay but of course there's nothing there that could even suggest that a body had been lying there.

"Come on. We have to get to registration" Damon whispers in my ear and pushes me again.

People's eyes follow us as we walk down the corridor. Our registration class is all the way up in science this year. So there are a lot of awkward whisperings before we get to the second floor.

The library was the first thing I see. Actually, the first thing I see is the long wall of memories stretched along the outside.

'You will be missed'

Were the words written across the top. People were still leaving things on the tables in front of the pictures. I can't help but walk over and see their faces again.

I didn't know any of them before that day but after they died I felt like I had knew them forever.

Pictures of Steph and her brother, Barry and his little sister, Mr Barry and his grandmother, the janitor with the headteacher, Dr Parks with his two daughters. There is even a picture of me and Raine that makes me laugh. Raine looks over my shoulder to see what I'm laughing at "Looks like someone got their names mixed up" he says. "Cause we're not dead"

I look up to see Damon with a picture in his hands. "Even though I know she helped, I can't hate her. She was my little sister" I can guess what the picture was. He slips it into his pocket. "Oh look. Somebody thought I was dead too" he smiles but his eyes are sad.

I touch all the cards as I pass and glance inside each one. I barely catch the name inside before moving on. But I do stop when I see one name.

I pick it up. "Why would they make a memorial of Nora?" I ask as I look up and see the section of the wall covered in Nora's face. It looks like one of the nightmares that have kept me from sleeping.

"She had a lot of friends before. They still lost someone" Raine says and takes the card from my hand and places it back on the table.

"You're right Charlotte. She doesn't deserve all of this" A voice from behind me says.

I turn and gasp at what I see. It looks like Nora except her hair is cut short and dyed brown. "Hey" she says quietly.

"Cheryl?" I say and she nods. I jump at her and wrap my arms around her neck "I'm so sorry I didn't know!" I whisper in her ear.

"Please don't apologize. Bit after what my sister did in my name. If you thought you were getting funny looks then you should see what people do when they walk past me" She smiles at the ground.

"I'm not apologising for killing her" Damon mutters. 

Cheryl laughs "I'm wouldn't expect you to. All I can hope for is that you don't hate me for what my sister did to you all"

I nod and grab her hand. "Deal"

****

I can't believe how much I've missed Cheryl. We haven't actually had a proper conversation in years and it's been overdue.

Suddenly I'm shoved over on the bench and Damon sits down beside us muttering something under his breath. "They're all idiots" he hisses. "Six months and not one of them come and see me. That's not even the worst bit. The worst bit is their excuse being that they didn't want to make me jealous when they played football"

I start to laugh and the sight of him grumbling on the bench beside me. "What did you do?"

"I took off my fake leg and starring hitting them all with it" he mutters and I laugh harder. "I don't know what you're laughing about, there's something stuck in the vents and you're the only one who can fit inside"

I hit him over the head and Cheryl starts to laugh. "We're quite the group. A boy with a fake leg, a girl with one glove, a boy with scarred hands and a girl with a psycho dead sister"

I pick up my can of juice and hold it up. "Cheers to being strange" I say and the others join me.

We all start laughing and probably convince everyone else in the school that we're completely and utterly insane.

The End....