The Love Box

Chapter 5

We sat at a table together and we ate. They talked and I listened. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. I had a mission that night, and I needed a plan.

How was I going to stop Nicki from killing my grandma? In the end I had no power over Nicki. She controlled me.

We finished lunch. Then we walked back to the library. The library was becoming boring, but there was nowhere else to go; besides the box.

My friends read as I watched the other side. Once again boys were playing the game where one chased after the others until he caught another; then he would chase the others.

I wanted to play, but I knew no girls would ever play a game with no point.

We were sophisticated. Or at least that’s what we were told but a part of me wanted to be young and adventurous.

I wanted a redo on my younger years, but I was sixteen and there was no going back.

If there was; I would’ve already done it.

Dinner came not long after lunch. My friends and I walked to the cafeteria.

I saw that my grandma already had her food and she sat at a table with my mom and ate her food.

After I got my food I departed from my friends and joined my family.

I ate quickly. I didn’t want my grandma to go back to our room without me. If she did I wouldn’t be able to stop it.

I thought it like I actually had the chance to stop it. I knew it wouldn’t work. If anything Nicki would use it as the reason to kill me.

My grandma finished and I walked with her to dump our trays.

“You barely ate,” My grandma said as she looked at my half empty tray. She laughed, “Of course you never know what kids will do these days.”

“I’m not really hungry,” I told her as I dumped my tray. “Besides I wanted to walk with you.”

My grandma’s smile faded. “You know you can’t come,” She told me.

I had never seen my grandma as serious as she was. All the times she chose to forget memories as the entered her mind, and she chose to keep that one. She would make my plan even more complicated.

“They can’t stop me,” I told my grandma as we left the cafeteria. “And besides. Nicki invited me to come.”

We passed Suicide Hall and entered Bedroom Hall.

“Why would she do that?” My grandma asked as she stopped in the hall. “Have you done something my child?”

“She said she would keep an eye on me,” I told her as I stopped walking and faced her. “And the second I broke a rule she would kill me.”

My grandma frowned. “You need to go to the box,” My grandma told me. “There is a map. Use it to escape. You mustn’t wait any longer.” She had lowered her voice to a whisper.

How had she known about the box? I thought only Kai and I knew about the box. If my grandma knew, then who else knew?

Maybe the box wasn’t as big a secret as I thought it was.

“I can’t go there,” I told my grandma. “I have to stop Nicki from killing you.”

“You can’t,” My grandma said. “There’s nothing you can do that will stop her. She might kill you too. I think that’s why she invited you.”

Her words ran through my head. Nicki was possibly planning to kill two birds with one stone.

That was a saying I learned from a book. I hadn’t understood it, but my grandma explained it to me. She was so wise.