Have you ever been through an image of you're being in an apocalyptic travel with some zombies and this kinda think of and did you have an imagination or a dream that you're fighting your way through to find a cure out of it and make your own story...
I don't know if I slept in the forest, it wouldn't be the first time I've done it, but it's just beginning to lighten when I find myself staring into the stream, in the same position, as if I've never left.
I stand up, every inch of me aching from the cold and I slowly start to head home. I stop however when I reach the fork in the trees that leads either back to my house or towards town. I'm filled with a sudden urge to leave and walk into the city, rather than head home where Reese and the runaways are sure to greet me with more plans and stories I don't understand.
Making my way along the road I think about the three of them, Reese, Ciel and Trix, and contemplate their plan to infiltrate the factory here in Ash. I think it's a stupid idea naturally, but then again, I've never been one skilled in break in. I think Griffin and I proved that well enough back at Mr. Potter's warehouse. Are they really that smart? Do they have enough connections, these three, to get in and out, with all the information they need, without getting caught.
I just can't believe so.
I make it to town just as the sun decides to fully peek its head out from behind the mountains, shinning through what little grey it can rip apart. I continue down main street until I pass the road that leads off towards Mr. Potter's warehouse. I'm tempt to go back and ask him if he has anything to say, about that day, and his lies.
I continue on, though, deterred enough by my fear. I pass the factory square and pass the prison, even though guilt begins to wring my heart in two, that I should go in and visit Griffin, or at least try. I pass on.
I get to the old hotel and the apartments that sandwich it on either side. I stare at the building on its left and know I should also visit Mrs. Wells, make sure she's okay.
"Make sure she's not dead," my mind torments me.
I watch the door slowly open and out steps a figure huddled tightly, carrying several boxes, dressed in a torn up jacket and fading jeans. The shoulder length blonde hair, dirty and left lose as usual, grabs my attention. I know that figure. I know that hair.
He turns.
I know that face.
I don't look for people or cars but bolt straight across the road and throw myself against the figure, boxes tumbling into the road. I don't care.
"I knew you'd get out! I knew they couldn't keep you forever. I can't believe I let you go. I'm a wicked person. Forgive me, please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Yes, alright, we get it. I'm crying my eyeballs out and I'm sure I look a sight but I'm so relieved. I realize I can actually breathe again without feeling a weight on my lungs, holding in all the air.
"Adler? Adler!" Griffin puts his arms between us and pushes me back. I'm startled and slightly hurt.
"What's wrong?" I say. "What's the matter?"
"How did you know I was...out?"
"I didn't. I just came here and saw you."
Griffin starts to collect the boxes and almost ignores me completely. I start helping to pick them up but he takes them from my arms and carries them in his own.
"Something's wrong. I know it is. Tell me, now."
"I...I have to get these back to Maycroft. They are now his property. I've been kicked out of the apartment, too. Haven't paid rent, and for some odd reason, I can't get lodgings anywhere else."
"What's in the boxes?" I try to peer inside one, but he turns it away. Griffin doesn't reply, and I know it's because he can't tell me here in a public place. "So when you take them back to Maycroft, is it official? Are you released?"
"Yeah," Griffin says. "But I'll tell you what. Never have I had a more heck of a time in place than I've had there." I'm drawn to look at his face more closely and his hands all covered in scabs, scars and dried blood. "You need to get cleaned up," I tell him. "Let's get this stuff to Maycroft and you're coming home with me. You're wrong about that, you know. You'll always have somewhere to stay, as long as I'm alive."
It's worked. Griffin smiles at me, a sad smile though, turned down at the ends. "Thanks, Adler."
We start to walk off and he actually allows me to help carry some boxes.
Griffin glances sideways at me and scowls, saying, "I've got so much to tell you, you won't believe it."
We make it back to my house at about eleven. Maycroft took what felt like seven lifetimes to check through all of Griffin's boxes, which I learned held every last one of his possessions. It was utterly painful to watch Maycroft dig through it all, literally digging up Griffin's life. He threw away family photos and valuable keepsakes, but kept all the pointless things I didn't understand why he'd ever have a use for them. What was worse was watching Griffin's ever impassive face melt, completely melt, when Maycroft threw away the only picture Griffin ever had of Fiera.
When he was down to the last box, Maycroft glimpsed inside and ,shut it, without taking one thing out.
"Thank you," He had told us. "That's all I need. You're free to go." He gave Griffin a hard look but held my gaze longer. "Say hello to Ofelia for me," he mocked.
Griffin and I took the long way home, through the forest, him explaining to me everything he desperately wanted me to know.
"It's true. I hadn't ever paid for the medicine. I stole it, or rather, I stole the money from things I sold on black market to get it. That's why we were caught by Mr. Potts. He had suspected someone was breaking into his warehouse, and that was me. If I hadn't done it before, we might not ever have been in this mess."
"It's alright," I tell him. "You did it for your mom."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it was right."
For Griffin to be admit his faults like this, in such a vulnerable way, was rather odd, slightly disturbing, but I didn't fully understand what he had been through at the prison, so anything could've happened to change him thus.
"I taught myself about the properties of the medications and broke them down to their component parts. You would be shocked, Adler, the things they put in those pills. The chemical properties coincide with the food we eat. When you eat the food we have, you get sick and that makes you take the pills. But those pills have chemicals reactions with the food, causing you to crave more of it. It's a cycle that can never be broken because unless we have something else to eat, or stop taking the medicine, nothing will solve itself."
"How'd you learn all this? Is it because of what you do in the factory?" Griffin has never told me what goes on in the factory, and I don't blame him. The look on his face now, however, seems ready to spill it all and I want to hear it more than anything else in the world.
"Yes," is all he manages to say.
"Well, that's a big break through." I try to act nonchalant but it's not the time for that, I know. "Before we cure the world," I turn to him, "let's get you inside, cleaned up and warmed up. The world can wait until you've recovered from your time in a cold dark cell, hm?" Griffin smiles and I'm thankful a thousand times over he's alright.
We come up to the house and on the back porch I spot Ciel and Trix digging in the dirt. Griffin spots them immediately and I hold his arm tightly.
"Are those...?" he gasps.
"Yes," I confirm, but there's a lot you need to hear first, okay?"
He looks doubtful, but Griffin nods his head and trusts me; a huge leap of faith, I understand. I decide to take him around to the front door instead and become conscious of the fact that this was a way worse idea than having him pass the runaways.
Reese is sitting on the front porch, reading his book, and the minute he looks up his eyes pass right by me, as if I don't even exist, and lock on Griffin.
Griffin looks as if he's going to be sick and Reese seems as if he's been unwound from the inside out. Neither pays attention to me and I know, this was the worst mistake I've ever made, being involved with the two of them...together.
In a flash, the world tilts and I'm thrown off balance, because when you have a scale, only one can fit on each side, and three is sure to tip it one way or the other.
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Well, that's all for it for today's chapter story and I hope you guys all like it... and if you did, don't forget to smash that Vote Button at the top right corner right there. Leave some comments down below and let me see of what you think about the story and also this chapter... but, thank you all guys for reading and as always what I said, oh bye there...
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