A Lonely Road

It All Starts With a Big Bang

A/N: This chapter has been entirely rewritten, if you are a re-reader. I will be reuploading all chapters to include their new edits. They will be full chapters now, not just parts of the book. Thanks!

She leaned back in the stiff and unyielding chair, booted feet propped on the table in front of her. She glanced around the room, nodding at a blonde in the front corner. The boy nodded back, then turned away to a girl with long, light brown hair and leaned in to kiss her cheek. She turned away from the scene in front of her, staring back out the window as students began to file into the room.

The sound of chairs scraping roughly against cheap tile floors faded as she stared off, distracted. She was in a small room, bare, and cold. A bed was shoved into one corner, à torn blanket wadded up at the end. She leaned against the wall, resting her clammy face against the cool window pane. She watched between the bars, as raindrops slicked down the window like tears. A boy walked along the sidewalk below, the same one she watched every evening. He looked up at the window, furrowing his brows at the bars, and even from here, she could see his gray eyes clearly, at stormy match to the sky behind him. For a moment she pretended that he could see her, that it was her he was looking at.

He looked away just as quickly, turning his gaze to the ground as he waited in front of the building. The drizzle plastered his inky hair to his head and his fingertips were red from the chill. A woman stepped out of the building, her dark hair matching his, and he hugged her tightly before they continued down the sidewalk. She looked on, staring at the space the boy had been before the jiggling of the door handle made her turn away.

She heard the slide of the lock and moved to the middle of the room. Her fingers brushed across her throat, rubbing along the uneven skin, the raised scar still tight and puckered, barely healed. A tall man stepped into the room, he could be handsome, but for the meanness in his eyes, the smell of rot and smoke and booze that clung to his skin. His face was damp with sweat and his eyes were unfocused. "Kaelie," he hummed, his voice was cold, and it made bile rise in her throat. She didn't move.

"Again?" she asked, her voice empty, carefully monotone. It wasn't enough. His hand cracked across her face, she felt the skin over her cheek tear. She stumbled back into the wall, she could feel the uneven stucco through the thin, torn shirt. He crowded into her space, she tried not to gag. One hand came up to wrap around the scar on her throat, he other inched into the waistband of her threadbare pants before he fumbled with his belt.

A noise next to her startled Kaelie from her memories. She looked up, directly into a pair of stormy gray eyes that still haunted her thoughts. Her eyes widened and then she forced her expression back to a neutral one. She raised an expectant eyebrow.

Jace stood silent in front of the girl he'd just startled, his words dried up in his mouth. Her expression was strange to him, he could have sworn he'd seen recognition flash in her eyes as she glanced up before flicking her eyes back down to the table in front of her. Now her features held only vague annoyance, almost forced. A long fall of vibrant red hair hid her eyes from him as she looked at the table in front of her, but not before he'd realized that they weren't the same color- one was a dark blue, the other à bright emerald green.

Finally, he wrenched his mouth open again. "Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full," he asked, and she didn't look up. After the longest of seconds, she moved her long legs off of the table, and placed her heavy boots on the floor. Jace took that as a sign that she had given her approval and took the seat next to her. Her posture is calm, relaxed, but Jace can feel tension radiating off of her. She looks up at a pretty girl with straight black hair and shares a knowing glance with her that Jace can't decipher.

He watched her gather her long red hair in one hand and move it over one of her shoulders and forces himself not to gasp as she reveals an uneven line of puckered skin stretching across her throat. "I'm Jace," he starts lamely, and he catches the ghost of a smirk cross her lips before the door is banging open again and the class is starting.

"Good morning. My name is Dr. Sclacher, which you should know, if you read the syllabus. As introductions go, I am not one for ice breaker activities, so talk to whoever is sitting next to you when class is over and I'm done speaking. We have a lot to do and only 16 weeks to do it in so without further ado: Welcome to Foundational Sociology." Jace looks away from the girl and tries to focus on the woman speaking in front of the room.

His hand skitters across the open notebook, jotting down as much as he can of Dr. Sclacher's words as she lectures on the development of sociology as a social science. The girl next to him does not move to take any notes, and when he looks down at where her hand is gripping the edge of the desk, her knuckles are white, and she taps her foot, waiting for something.

Nothing happens for several moments. Jace taps his pencil on the desk, and looks out at the window next to his desk, and the girl is drumming her fingers on the tabletop. A scream echoes from down the hall and for a moment, Jace is sure that he must be dreaming, or that this must be some hazing thing, until he hears it again. Dr. Sclacher stops speaking suddenly, and a low whispering fills the room.

Someone runs passed the room, then another, and then several more people. "Stay calm," Dr. Sclacher said in an attempt to stall the chaos. A crash shatters the otherwise uneasy silence, and the room shudders. Dr. Sclacher stumbles. No one moves.

"What the fuck are you all waiting for? Get the fuck out of here," someone says, and it's her, the girl with the red hair, too loud, her voice sharp, like glass. The silence break and students tear from the room, shoving over each other, scrambling for the door. Jace stands slowly, the muscles in his body screaming at him to run, but he doesn't move. The room is empty now, save for the fact that the girl next to him hasn't moved, and there are three others that haven't moved either. Her full lips move, like she's speaking to someone, but Jace can't hear anything leaving her mouth, and when he looks at the other people in the room, he suddenly feels like he's walked in on a conversation that he is part of but isn't meant to understand.

"We need to leave," he says aloud, to no one in particular. No one acknowledges him, and he turns away as another thud sounds, closer this time, and the floor lurches beneath his feet. He feels cool finger close on his wrist like a vice, and the girl yanked him back towards her.

"Don't go out that door."

"What?" he asks, and her grip tightens.

"Don't go out that door. You'll die."

"What the hell is wrong with you? We have to go, don't you hear that?" he shouts in exasperation.

"The window," she states by way of explanation, and then she lets him go. She turns to the window, forcing it open with a loud pop.

"Michael, you first," she says and a tall blonde boy with a sharp jaw and dark eyes climbs through the window.

He reaches a hand back in, grabbing at a brunette and helping her through. "Sarah," the girl says, "Wait for us."

The girl with the black hair and big black eyes steps forward ready to climb out. "Lilith, take him."

Lilith climbs out and then looks at Jace expectantly. He clambers out of the window, landing unsteadily on the grass below and he turns back to watch the redhead freeze inside the room. The building trembles and she cocks her head like she's hearing something else.

"Kaelie!" The voice is masculine, and Jace knows it has to be the one she calls Michael. The girl turns towards the sound of his voice and then she is leaping out of the window, landing gracefully next to Jace. They take off sprinting and Jace can hear calls of "we need to get out of here" and he tries to follow, but somehow, he is too slow.

"Aw hell," he hears, and then the building is imploding.