Grounded • A Hannie Fanfic

Chapter 15

Hayden's POV:
Annie purses her lips.
"We can't do anything, Hayden. The worst thing our parents will do is get upset. This guy-or girl- is going down." She says. Another photo loads on the chat.
"How..."
Somehow, from outside, they managed to get a video of us. In it, I lift Annie up, and carry her towards the hallway, which obviously leads to my room. I curse under my breath.
"I'll just delete it from the chat. They won't see it." I say, proceeding to delete it. Just as I finish, Katie walks in.
"Come. They need your phone so they can get the IP address of whoever this is so they can track them down." She says, grabbing her keys. Annie and I jump up, giving each other a glance as we rush to follow her mom.
The drive is short to the station, where we sit in a small waiting area for about 15 minutes. A small woman shows us to an enclosed room, where an officer is waiting. We enter and sit down.
"Hello Mrs. Leblanc. So, from what I've heard, an unknown person is blackmailing your daughter and her boyfriend?" He asks, tilting his head.
"That is correct." She says. I zone out while Katie explains everything to them again.
"Hayden!" Annie says.
"Huh?" I say, snapping back to the conversation.
"They need your phone." She chuckles.
I hand the officer my phone.
"Great. We'll have this number tracked by noon tomorrow. We will need to keep the phone to analyze the messages and continue tracking where the texts were sent from." He says, and I nod.
"That's...that's it? We just wait now?" Annie says.
"For now. There will be more to do once we find out who this is." The officer grins. We shuffle out of the small room and back to the car. We all sit in an awkward silence.
"Well. Hopefully that's the end of that." Katie chuckles as she drives back to the apartment complex.
When we get back, Annie comes over to work on her school work with me. I need my phone so I can talk to my dad (who is in Texas while my brothers watch me for the week) and my brothers, so I use my old iPhone 6. Annie giggles when she sees the lock screen I had when I used this phone last, which was an old picture from us at a concert that had to have been from Jacobs Tour years ago. (wink)
"Aww. We were so cute." She says.
Suddenly, the screen blows up with messages. Notifications from Snapchat, Instagram, iMessage, you name it.
"Woah, what's going on?" I ask.
"Someone's popular." Annie laughs.
"No- why is everyone texting me suddenly. I have 10 missed calls, 24 unread texts, and thousands of instagram notifications.
"Woah, mines doing it too." She say, picking up her phone. Panic fills my body when I realize what probably just happened.
"Annie. The picture. And the video." I I say, rushing to Instagram. Sure enough, I've been tagged hundreds of thousands of times in a post. It shows the picture of us and the video of me carrying her. I hear footsteps, and my brothers burst in.
"Hayden, what's going on?" They say, holding up the picture."
I quickly explain the whole blackmail situation while Annie panics beside me.
"Hayden, my dads going to freak out!" She shouts over my brothers voices.
"Hayden, you're screwed. Moms going to kill you." Hunter shrugs.
"Remember when she found out about me and Brec? You're dead."
"You guys aren't helping right now. Can you go?" I shout. They all leave silently. I slam my laptop shut and rub my eyes tiredly. Annie softly shuts hers and puts it to the side.
"They can't be that upset. It'll be fine." She says, in denial. Why can't we have any privacy in our lives anymore?
Seconds later, I look down and see Annie fast asleep, her hand still resting on my chest. I manage a slight grin, and cover her up with a blanket. I'm almost asleep too when her mom bursts in. Annie instantly sits up, as do I.
"Annie Leblanc, you get out of that bed." She says.
"Mom-"
"No. I can't trust you two alone, not after I saw this." She says, holding her phone up to reveal- yeah, you guessed it- the video and picture.
"You two are only 16. I can't believe this. I thought I trust you would respect my daughter, Hayden, but I guess not.
She grabs Annie's hand and stomps out of the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. Dylan comes running down the stairs to see what happened. I curse under my breath.
"You, are an idiot." He says.
"Thanks." I roll my eyes.
"I'll be back." I sigh as I head towards their apartment to talk to Katie.
I knock on the heavy wooden door. I'm getting tired of this.
"Hayden." Katie says, only opening the door enough so that I can see her.
"Hello Katie. I know you're upset with my decisions I've made with your daughter, and I understand that if I was in your shoes I would be upset too. I do wish you would see that Annie and I have a great amount of trust and love towards each other, and that what happened that night was a mutual decision." I blurt out, suprised at how calm I am.
"I...You are...ugh. Come in." She says, a smile on her face, surprisingly enough.
"You're right. You guys are grown up, in a relationship. That relationship is yours, not mine, so I shouldn't be upset. I must say Hayden, I'm very impressed with how mature and calmly you dealt with this situation. She's in her bedroom." She says. I go up to Annie's room and scare her by jumping on her bed next to her.
"What-How did you-" she stutters, giggling.
"Let's say I can be mature when I want to." I smirk. She shakes her head.
"Hayden Summerall, you're crazy. I love you."