THE QUADRET

06

I will add at least one chapter each weekend :) Also btw POV means Point of View. If one of the chapters doesn't say whose POV it is from, it means it's from the author's point of view.

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Chapter 6: Daniel's POV

September 1, 2018

Quadret City, New York

There have been very few events in my life that have truly scared me for my life. I know that might just contradict everything I mentioned before about how this city involuntarily puts everyone's lives in danger every day, but this time - when the car made a right into the very road where my nightmares occur daily- I really felt it.

I guess it was obvious by the way I jerked forward so suddenly that I had some rough feelings about this. And Liam was extremely confused

"You good, man?" Liam asked, looking pretty concerned about the literal spasm I just experienced. My head spun towards Liam without any warning and in no time I was literally on the verge of tears.

"Daniel?! What's wrong?" He asked, obviously extremely concerned, since right now I had no control over what expression I chose to portray and I had no idea why I was even crying in the first place.

Liam noticed this and unfortunately made the greatest mistake of his life trying to help his best friend.

"Holy shi-," he started, before letting go of the steering wheel to turn towards me.

This was when I finally remembered that night. That night when I was in the car. The night when a dumb driver hit an innocent man and took away his life and ruined the lives of every single person he knew. The night when I watched so many lives degrade down to dirt as I stood merely a bystander. I remembered the screams. I remembered the blood dripping down the side of my head and I remembered everything they thought I would never think about. I remembered them.

Because tonight was the exact same.

Liam wasn't drunk or high. In fact, he had been a responsible driver his whole life. That's why he was my best friend. But he is also my best friend because of what a caring and empathic person he is. I had always respected - almost worshipped - those traits and everyone who had fully portrayed them my whole life. I could never imagine why these very traits could be the reason why someone would pass away. Well, until now.

"Oh my god," one of us finally said after about 45 seconds of silence. I don't remember who it was because it honestly didn't matter. Since right now, we both just witnessed the blood curdling screams of an innocent boy as we accidently hit him and ended his life in a maximum span of about 2 seconds.

Neither of us knew what to say after that.

"What did we do?..." Liam asked, sweating, his eyes now wide with realization and his hands shaking with fear. By now, I was starting to sweat as well, and a tiny voice in my head started to tell me to call the cops. But a worse, more irresponsible, side of me was suggesting something completely different and, well, immoral- to say the least.

"Holy shit Daniel. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Oh my god!" It seemed like Liam was about to start crying now, and I had no idea what to tell him. I mean, it was his fault. Well, it was mostly his fault. I never told him to unbuckle his seatbelt to help me. But judging by the way Liam's head was positioned on his steering wheel after he had just gotten done punching it rather aggressively for a whole 2 minutes (his steering wheel, not his head), I had a feeling that telling him this would be a grave mistake.

One more thing I should mention is the fact that I had remained extremely calm this whole time. Like, way too calm. It seemed unnatural almost. I mean, considering the fact that I was just used as an accessory to involuntary murder - it surprised me how level-headed I felt about the whole thing.

Maybe it was because I had experienced this before.

Before I could say anything to Liam, I needed to make up my own mind and figure out what we should do since Liam was in no position to make any decisions. I carefully analyzed the scene. We had just taken the right into Kafter St. We were currently in one of the dark alleyways our city was covered in, so - thankfully - there were no other witnessed except the two of us. However, I did notice two windows on each of the two buildings that we were in between of. The building to our right was in pretty bad shape, and if this were any other city I would doubt that people actually lived in here. But unfortunately, shitty houses like these were pretty common around here. But anyways, this building seemed like an apartment, so hopefully there weren't any residents awake at this time to have seen this event take place. However, there was no way I could be certain that they hadn't woken up after hearing the poor boy's screams. The building to our left seemed almost exactly identical, except the two windows on this one were both on the second level, and the two windows on the other house were spread put between the first and second floors.

I came to the conclusion that if someone had indeed seen us, they would have made some sort of noise or at least would have made a sound after seeing a kid getting hit by a car. The other thing I realized was that it was literally the middle of the night and people could probably not see anything now that our headlines were off. So even, if they had seen a car, they wouldn't have been able to recognize the license plate. And if they tried to, they would need a light and I saw no lights coming out of any of the windows.

So, slowly, I carefully evaluated all our options and turned my head towards Liam, who was crying extremely hard now. Damn. I had never seen him cry like this, he seemed absolutely crazy and heartbroken.

"Keep driving," I said after he finally minimized the crying and looked at me. His whole face instantly changed from that look of desperation and lostness to a way more serious one.

I could tell he was thinking about it, and I could most definitely tell he was seriously considering it. I mean I don't exactly blame him. I wouldn't want to go to jail either.

"Are you sure?" he finally asked me. He seemed so different that I almost didn't recognize him. His mouth was shaped in a straight line and his eyes drooped down like he hadn't slept in days. It felt so weird.

"Unless you want to ruin your future, keep driving," I stated. I was determined to keep us, especially my best friend, safe.

Liam nodded, after about a minute, and took a really long, and deep breath before picking up his arms and stretching out his wrists, similar to how most wrestlers prepare before going in for a fight. I watched him as he closed his eyes for a split second and slowly positioned his palms around the steering wheel. I noticed how he tightly held the wheel, I guess he was trying to stop his hands from shaking.

Then he finally put some weight on his feet and got the car to start. Both of us tightly pressed our eyes closed, as we intentionally ran over the poor innocent boy who didn't deserve to go so soon. I felt my heart literally break into a thousand pieces as the car rose up and down because of the dead body on the ground. I let go of the breath I didn't know I had been holding, once the car was finally on the ground and we had passed by the boy for good.

That's when I turned around for the first time and noticed something that could have very well ended our futures forever.

The building to our left had a third window - and the lights inside of it just turned off.

Somebody saw us.