This Is War

eight

I yelled their names. I yelled until my throat went sore.

"CONRAD!!! LEVEN!!!! SHONA!!!! WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU, KENDRICK!!!" I sounded crazy, no doubt, "COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!" Ben had tears brimming his eyes, but I didn't care. Even Maggie had glistening eyes. Finally I sank to my knees, as I've done so many times before, and whispered hoarsely, "Where are you?"

The group made no effort to stop me throughout this whole episode, even though I could be attracting skitters. Alerting the ugly devils of our location. After about ten minutes, Tom called out to me, "We have to go, kid. Weaver will be wondering about us."

"No. I'm not leaving. You guys go without me." I crossed my arms, crossed my legs and sat like a determined little kid. I wasn't going to move on my own, not without my friends and family. Eventually, Tom came over with Hal and picked me up, I wasn't THAT heavy, and carried me back to camp.

Two hours later I sat on a moldy tree stump, staring into the trees, wondering what the aliens had my poor family doing for them. Ky was quite fascinated by the sound that twigs made when you snapped them in half, he sat next to me among the soggy leaves. After a minute or two of complete immobility on my part, I heaved my backpack onto my lap and took out my memory box. Under all the junk like my mocking jay pin and copies of my birth certificate, I found at least twenty photos. All of them were from birthday parties or us just hanging out. The first was a goofy pic of Shona holding a LIFE car that was transporting Shona, her husband, and her seven kids across the game board of life. I grinned at that memory, we couldn't stop laughing, especially when all her kids wanted to go to college. Under that was a blurry flash pic from my thirteenth birthday, my friend, Denise, had tackled Heather just as she was taking a picture. All you could see was Denise's super long straight dirty blonde hair.

Under that was a close up of Heather's mouth, you could see two of her braces and her eyes were humongous from the point of view the camera was at. After that, a picture of me and my other friend, Sandra, taken right after Denise won a gummy bear hunt. My mom took six plates, covered them in whipped cream, hid three gummy bears in it, then squirted another mountain of whipped cream on top of that. We couldn't use our hands and had to find the gummy bears with our mouths. So, naturally, Sandra and I were messiest.

I was laughing until tears escaped, remembering all of these hilarious days. One memory of Shona tripping and falling in the most spastic way has been in my memory since sixth grade and will be forever. Another memory of one of the 'cool' kids actually laughing at my joke, dozens of memories of myself and Kendrick, mean teachers, favorite teachers, bad grades and good grades (mostly bad ones), favorite books, favorite movies, favorite songs and singers. Everything.

Soon I was humming Superman by Five For Fighting.

"I know that song." The voice right behind me sent me into a jump about ten feet high. I whirled around and found Ben standing there, hands in pockets, watching me. Jeez, how do you get rid of this guy?

"Oh, yeah?" I sat back down.

"Yeah," he sat on the ground next to my stump, "That guy sang my old favorite song, 100 Years. I suppose he's dead now though, huh?"

Oh, yeah. That means all of my favorite artists were dead, also. Bummer. Those poor Directioners... And Beliebers...

Oh. That means that J. K. Rowling and Rick Riordan are most likely dead, too.

"Nooo!!!" I moaned dramatically.

"What?!" Ben jumped up, ready to protect anything that needed protecting. Which, wouldn't be me, of course.

"House of Hades wasn't out yet! Dang it, skitters! Now they're going to have a furious fangirl on their hands." I jumped up, "I've got an idea." I grabbed my backpack, smashed everything back inside, and smushed Ky into the front pocket. When I realized he wouldn't fit, I just gave him a piggyback ride. I ran to Tom, who wasn't far away, Ben following. Because, you know, he's an expert follower.

"Where's Weaver?" I asked Tom.

He pointed to a truck. Weaver was helping load things onto it.

"Commander!" I started towards him. "Are we going to get those harnessed kids back from the skitters?"

"We are going to try our best. I can not guarantee it. Nor can I guarantee that your brothers or friends will be among the saved."

"Well, you might want to try a little harder than your best. From what I saw, there were a ton of girls in that line."

"Why would that matter?"

"I know that a large portion of the world's girl population is pretty crazed about a certain band or singer or book or TV show."

"And. . ."

"All those people are dead, now! Unless they were younger. Than they're harnessed.

"How would your little camp hold up if an army of anger-crazed fangirls attacked? If it was your fault that, uh, I don't know, all of One Direction died, how long would you last? I'm pretty sure if you so much as texted Niall Horan a picture of a knife, those Directioners would have you tracked down and dead in two seconds, flat.

"I happen to know that there are more than a few hardcore Percabeth fans out there. Considering the last book left us with such a cliffhanger, no pun intended, the next book hasn't come out yet, and the author is probably dead, we might have some extremely, crazy, furious fangirls on our side. Even good fighters maybe. If you trained them.

"Just think about that Captain." I said this all pretty fast, feeling like Hermione, then walked back to the woods, leaving Weaver rubbing his jaw in thought.

I emitted a small shriek as a warm hand shoved cold damp leaves down the back of my shirt.

"What the-!"

Ben. Again. I face palmed my forehead. Then finally decided, after emptying my shirt, that he wasn't going to get away with it. He stood with his arms crossed, grinning mischievously. I pretended to be walking back to camp (we were in the woods), ignoring him as always. When he was right behind me, I spun around and tackled him head on. Both of us rolled down a mini hill, wrestling each other. I was winning with my hands locked in his in a Mercy game. Then he was winning by just plain sitting on me. This dude weighed a ton! Soon I was gasping and he got off. I gripped his ankle in a death grip. He tried to get free and ended up falling face first into a big pile of orange and brown leaves. We both scrambled to get up. We began to circle each other like in the movies, up until we were back where we started.

Then he stood up straight, put a hand behind his back, puffed out his chest, closed his eyes and mimicked a cartoon professor's voice, "I have a queer sense that you are one of the 'hardcore Percabeth fans out there'. Am I mistaken?"

I grinned and pelted forward, shoving him into the leaves. I flopped down next to him and we lay there, just smiling like idiots. This was the most fun I've had in a seriously long time. I didn't even care that we were so close I could feel his body heat. It was warm and finally, finally, my every waking moment wasn't consumed by worry for Ky and surviving.

I curled up next to Ben Mason, alien hunter, and closed my eyes. The mountain of leaves was strangely comfortable.

I was so glad I found the 2nd Mass. Or more like the 2nd Mass found me.

I cracked my eyelids open just a crack. Ben had his own eyes closed.

"Thank you," I whispered.

He apparently heard me, because he whispered back, "For what?"

"For. . . For everything."

Then I fell asleep.