Secrets & Lies

Chapter 13

Sorry for the late update you guys! I've been super busy so I'm being a slacker lol.

Promise to write more soon though :) Vote/Comment pwease?! I'd love it! <3

Thanks for reading!

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Jen glanced around, waiting for a response. She was sure that Kelly would jump in with her support, and Lauren would agree. But so far, the room was deathly quietly. Kelly’s gaze had darted away as she stared at the carpet, lost in her own thoughts while Lauren twisted her lavender ring absentmindedly. Flushed, Jen crossed her arms defensively. “Guys,” she drawled out slowly, hinting not-so-subtly that someone should start talking right about now.

“Answer to what?” Lauren asked finally.

Jen sighed. “Lauren, what do you mean ‘answer to what?’ Answer to the whole puzzle. Or at least a start to figuring out what’s really going on.” Lauren remained perplexed while Kelly fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Kelly, come on,” Jen pleaded, turning her beseeching gaze towards her other friend. “You’re the one who wanted to search for her in the first place!”

“Who’s her?” Lauren piped up, her gaze flickering between the two girls.

After a beat of silence, Kelly lifted her chin grimly. “Her is the lady we saw in the house. The lady in the fire.” Lauren gasped, leaning away to peer up at Kelly. Her eyes grew round with fear, her jaw trembling.

“Wha-what?” she whispered, disbelief and terror reflecting from her petrified expression.

Jen nodded gravely. “Kelly and I both saw her. I’m willing to bet Courtney did too. But even if she didn’t, that lady was still there. Her face,” Jen paused, closing her eyes and trying to erase the horrible image. Swallowing loudly, she pressed on, determined to make her friends believe her. “She wore the saddest expression, almost like she was begging us to help her get out of there. And her eyes, they were full of agony and terror.” She shook her head. “I’m guessing she thought she was going to be burned alive.”

“But, Mr. Anderson told us that no one was in the house during the fire,” Lauren cried anxiously, looking around as though she would find some sort of evidence to support her case. “So maybe it was a trick of the light!”

This time it was Kelly who spoke. “It wasn’t,” she mumbled almost inaudibly, shaking her head. “A lot of the events of the night are blurry, but I promise you,” Kelly looked up, peering right into Lauren’s eyes, “She was real. She was there. She was trapped, in the fire.”

Lauren gulped, pushing herself up a step slowly, inching away from her friends. This wasn’t true. They hadn’t burned an innocent woman. It was a lie. It had to be. “You guys are joking, right?” she asked in a shaky voice, scooting back another step. Jen looked at her with pity, Kelly with sadness.

“We’re not kidding, Lauren,” Jen spoke soothingly. Like molly-coddling was going to make everything all better. Not. Kelly reached out, tugging Lauren’s arm gently.

“Why are you moving away?” she inquired, raising an eyebrow. Lauren stared at her in disbelief, still in shock that they could recite these horrid facts with such ease and grace. She was petrified to the bone yet Jen and Kelly acted as thought they were simply discussing tomorrow’s weather forecast. The whole thing was just unbelievable. Un-freaking-believable.

“We have to do some –” Jen hardly began before getting cut off.

“We have to do nothing,” Lauren stated firmly, her voice resonating decisively in the eerily quiet hall. “This is out of our hands, guys! Why can’t you see that?”