One Last Hope

Sixteen

✽Kaylee's POV✽

I spent three long boring days at my grandmothers house. Surprisingly, she didn't lay a finger on me. I was expecting at least a smack. She didn't pay attention to me much. I liked it that way. So I somehow managed to get myself over to school. I didn't want to go because, you know, my face, arms, and legs are full of bruises and cuts. But I had to put my looks aside and head on to school. I decided that I was going to be a good noodle and get straight A's. Yup, its going to happen. Its my only goal in life that I have yet to accomplish. I quietly walked into chemistry and sat next to Tom.

"Where the hell have you been? I've been worried sick!" He was surprised to see me. He grabbed me into a hug, trying to ignore the big ol' band aid on my nose.

"I know what your thinking. Your probably wondering why I look like I got ran over by a car.." She saw him looking at her bruises.

"Yeah, pretty much." He titled his head.

"Well, after the party I got jumped by these older party people. They broke my nose so now I'm stuck looking like a clown."

"That's tragic." Nathan turned around and sarcastically butted into our conversation. He obviously knew that it wasn't the truth since he saw me go into my house that night. 

"It is. Thanks for the ride the other day by the way.. I was a real emotional mess, I feel bad that you had to witness it." I remembered crying into his chest after Peter kissed me. Talk about embarrassing.

"No worries. If your ever in trouble, gimme a call. I've got your back." He grinned and passed me a note which contained his phone number. I blushed and thanked him. I was glad that I had somebody to count on if I ever get into trouble with my dad again. I looked over a Tom who was just rolling his eyes.

When economics class came, Nathan noticed I was sitting by myself so he came over and volunteered to be my partner for this really big politics project. I'm not sure if he actually wanted to be my friend or if hes just being sympathetic because of what happened at the party. At lunchtime, he followed Tom and I into the cafeteria and sat with us. We didn't mind, were sort of happy about it because popular kids usually never ever try to sit with us "losers."

He was actually much more like us than I thought. We spent one day together and we already had 3 inside jokes. Tom invited us both to his house so after school ended, we walked over there. I was really hoping that I wasn't going to run into Jasmine there. She and Logan ditched school again and I have a feeling that they do more than just sit and watch cartoons. When we got there, nobody was home so we went into Tom's room.

"Holy crap, you've got a lot of games." Nathan was admiring the board games on the shelf next to 10 stacks of video games.

"Do you happen to have a beer pong set?" I joked.

"Actually I do." Tom opened a cabinet and pulled out the brand new beer pong set. "Its my mom and dads but sadly, they're too lame to ever play it."

"Omg, can we play zombie slayer?" Nathan grabbed the game off the shelf, flashing it at us. I swiped it out of his hand.

"Seriously?" I asked after reading the little summary thing on the back.

"What? It's my all time favorite game. Will you play at least one round with me?" He looked at me with his cute caramel puppy dog eyes. I couldn't resist. I grabbed a controller and played with him. Unfortunately for Tom, Nathan and I got really competitive and played about 30 rounds. For a while, I forgot that Tom was even there.

"Guys! How about we ditch the zombie slayer thing and play this instead?" Tom handed me a game that read 'Unicorns Reign' as the title. I felt bad for leaving him out at his own house. 

"Um.. yes!" I smiled and put the new game into the play station.

"Unicorns Reign?" Nathan gave us a funny look.

"Will you at least play one round with us?" I mimicked the exact words that he used earlier.

"Wow, you really know how to convince a guy to play such a gay game about majestic creatures." He probably agreed to play only because he felt bad for Tom just like I did.

*********************

✽Jasmine's POV✽

So Logan and I had this really stupid idea to ditch school and follow the gangsters all day. We literally waited behind a bush for three hours outside of this cute little blue cottage. When they walked out of the house, they were eating cookies and each taking turns kissing an old woman on the cheek. It took me a moment to realize that they were calling her grandma in Spanish. That made absolutely no sense unless they were all related to each other which I doubt.

"Go kill those vatos!" The old woman said in a scratchy voice. I smiled at the word 'vatos' because it sounded funny and I had no idea what it meant.

The gangsters got into the car and drove off so we did the same and continued to stalk them. We arrived at the abandoned coca cola factory. Damn it, I hate this place. Its moldy and smells like dead rats in there. I just have to forget about the stench and walk in. We hid behind a bunch of boxes and watched as they all sat down. My dad strolled in, cigarette in his mouth, and sat down to start the meeting.

"We found him, sir." One of the gangsters walked in holding onto someone with a bag over their head.

"Lets have a look." My dad got up and took the bag off of the persons head. It was Cody under the bag. Uh oh. "Well, well, well, if it isn't my dearest son. Fellas.. Say hello to my son, Cody."

"Wassup." Most of them greeted him. I couldn't help but stare at Cody. He had the same blue eyes but a really weird looking beard and mustache. He's so grown up, I need time to process this correctly.

"You crazy son of a bitch. You thought you could run from me!" My dad sure was enjoying himself. He was all up in Cody's face, it was pissing me off. He grabbed a gun from one of the gangsters. "I'm not going to take anymore risks."

Cody, looking more nervous than ever, jumped up and kicked the guy holding him down. He ran to the door with 5 gangsters chasing after him. My dad pointed the sniper gun at him and pulled the trigger. I watched him gasp in pain but he didn't stop running. He kept running and running.

"Cody!" I got up from my hiding spot and ran into Logan's car. I hopped in and started looking for the keys. 

"Jasmine! Stop, they'll see you." Logan grabbed my arm to stop me from closing the car door.

"I don't care." I was in tears, putting the key into the ignition. "Are you coming?"

"I don't have a choice.." He shook his head and jumped into the passenger seat. I slammed my foot onto the pedal and took a hold of the wheel. I actually don't know how to drive correctly but I've seen my dad do it billions of times. It was pitch black out and the car lights weren't helping. Cody and the gangsters were nowhere to be found.

I drove for fifteen minutes searching every corner. I saw something dark in the field of grass. I needed to check it out. I ran over to it, discovering that it was a puddle of warm blood. There wasn't a trail or anything for me to follow, just a stinking puddle of blood! It fell to my knees and sobbed. If Cody is losing this much blood in just twenty minutes, I don't think he'll make it through the night. 

Logan came over, pulled me up and back over to the car. I guess he saw my dad coming this way and decided it was time to go. I sighed and strapped my seat belt on before driving off, away from my dad. Logan was right, I can't lose my cover.