Nausea: Sequel to Warcrossed

What About Thomas?

The hotel room I checked into was small and lonely, situated on the second floor. Even though it was morning and the sun was out, I was still exhausted as if it were midnight.

Who needed a sleep schedule anyway? Not me.

I stared at his phone on the nightstand from where I was laying on the bed and sighed. I had to figure this out for the sake of my sanity, and the meeting wasn't for another four hours. I had time to kill and nothing else to do.

My hand closed around it, and I typed in the passcode. Where to look next? E-mails? Texts? Notes? Social media?

No, I followed all his social media.

Notes was a bad idea. He didn't ever really use them as far as I knew.

Nobody used e-mails much anymore except for business.

Texts it was.

I opened the little green app and scrolled through to see just who he'd been talking to.

Me, Herc, the group chat between the team, Adrienne, his parents...

That was where the lie came in. As far as everyone knew, his parents died in a fire in France when he was young and he'd lived in foster homes until he got put out when he was sixteen.

I checked the ones from his mother, whoever she was.

'How is Tokyo?'

'It's fine, mom. Same dorm. We finished setting up the last room for the wild card.'

'You do know who's in the draft this year right?'

'Yes. We're hopefully first so we can draft in Elizabeth Schuyler. I'm actually headed out now.'

'Be safe. I love you.'

'Love you too.'

Okay. Not that bad. A few days later the next series of messages started.

'Congrats on the draft being successful. What's the deal with James Madison? I never even knew he played Warcross.'

'Most everyone plays Warcross, mom.'

'Still... didn't know he was notorious.'

'Me either. It's fine though. I still don't like him.'

'You only met him once.'

'Doesn't matter. He rubs me the wrong way.'

'Is it because of Thomas?'

'I'm going to swim.'

What about Thomas? Why did he dodge the question? And what did the question even mean, for that matter? And why hadn't his parents come to his funeral?

What kind of parents didn't come to their son's funeral, other than mine?

I didn't want to read further down the thread between them. But I had to, even though it was making me feel sick and weak. I had to know.