A Condemned Haven

Chapter 17

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When he woke up the next morning, he felt like a truck had hit him. He supposed emotional baggage had a way of doing that to you. When he saw Clarke, she looked how he felt. She had bags under her eyes and she just had a blank stare directed on the car in front of them. Considering how awful he was feeling himself; he didn't have the emotional energy to dive into her problems too right now.

All of last night, Clarkes mind had been running through all of the possible scenarios of what that picture could have meant. A girl just lying there in her underwear passed out was not a good look. That meant she either got too drunk or too high to know where she was or what she was doing, or worse they had done it for her. The even scarier part about it, was what happened to that girl while she was like that. If she just knew who the girl was, she could ask her what happened and how it connected to everyone. If Francis had freaked out enough to expel a kid, then that meant it must have been serious enough that he would get into massive trouble.

When Clarke and Jack got to school, Jack just went straight to his classroom because he didn't have the energy to be social with anyone. It was completely okay with Clarke because she had someone she had to talk to anyway. She saw him talking to Sammy and knew that if she stayed during their conversation it would just annoy Clarke.

"Hey James, can I talk to you for a sec?" He seemed surprised but walked over to her with Sammy in tow. "Alone?"

"Hey, I'll just meet up with you in class okay?" She just nodded and left them alone. That was much easier than Clarke had thought it would have been. "What's up?"

"I wanted to ask you about the football team." She saw something flash through his eyes, anger, but it passed quicker than she could even process it.

"What about them?" She had set him off, she could tell by his tone. His demeanor was completely different than the one she was used to when he hung out with Sammy and Jack.

"I was just wondering if you knew anything about a photo Francis had in the library. Apparently, some of the football team was in it." He changed his stance to something more defensive as sat there waiting for an answer. He definitely knew what she was talking about.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm gonna give you some advice though, leave this alone."

"If you don't know anything about it then why should I leave it alone?"

"Clarke, seriously leave it alone." His voice sounded dangerously low, almost menacing.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset you." When he finally figured she would let it go, he relaxed a little and his demeanor became less aggressive.

"You didn't, it's just some things are better left alone you know. If you keep trying to go after this a lot of the football team is going to make trouble for you."

"Can I ask you one more thing?"

"You really shouldn't."

"Do you know who the girl was?" He didn't speak for a second. Just stood there with a blank stare, like he was remembering something vividly.

"No." After that he just walked away without another word. He knew who it was, and he just wouldn't tell her. He said he didn't know what she was talking about, but he obviously did. Was he involved? Was that why he quit playing football? All her unanswered questions were only leading to more questions.

The next couple of days passed by quickly and it was finally Saturday. Her and Jack hadn't talked a lot in that time because he seemed so distracted. Whatever had been on his mind the other day had only gotten worse. She tried to talk to him, but all she got was one-worded replies and she thought it was best to just leave him alone to let him work through whatever it was on his own. Her Saturday had been boring so far and she hadn't heard from Jack all day. It wasn't like he had to keep in contact with her, but he normally did at least check on her once a day. She was being too clingy, Jack could do whatever he wanted, she just didn't know anyone else who would actually talk to her.