Hidden In The Attic: An AJR Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-Four

↤↤↤↤↤ Kib ↦↦↦↦↦

We all grab our stuff, which is already packed up, and pile it into the car once more. I can tell, though, that no one wants to. We can already tell that it's a futile effort to try to get the car to start again. But we really don't have much else to do. I guess it keeps us occupied.
Adam climbs reluctantly into the driver's seat again, with Ryan sitting shotgun, as I climb over the backseat to get into the very back with Jack and Jay. Danny, Hanna and Julie pile in after I've settled into my seat behind them.
"We're all here?" Adam asks quietly. We all just nod, which he can't see, but I'm sure he can sense. We aren't as enthusiastic as the first time he asked us that.
"Wait, fuck," I say suddenly. "I forgot my phone in my room." I knew I was missing something.
"God, Kib, just get a new one!" Jack complains.
I slap him in the chest. "Shut up. I need to go get it."
Hanna groans, as she's the one sitting in front of me and has to get out of the car to let me through. "Fine. But if you take too long we're leaving without you."
Adam buckles his seatbelt. "No, we aren't."
"Okay, okay, okay, I'll be quick. Sorry."
Hanna opens her door, pulls down her seat, and gets out of the car. I follow quickly, and she leans against the side of the car to wait for me as I jog back inside.
I don't like being here alone. We turned off the lights before leaving, so the only lighting is the sunlight from outside. It's not much, because it's cloudy. I don't need to turn on the lights, though. I run quickly up to my room, ignoring the pile of newspapers and books that I didn't have the energy to clean up, and grab my phone from the bed before running back downstairs.
I can see out the window before I get to the door that Hanna looks happy. I can hear the car-- it's running! The engine is finally working? I put my phone in my pocket and push open the door, jogging out to the car.
"Is the engine finally working?" I ask.
Adam's window is down. "Yeah!"
Hanna opens the door, gesturing for me to get back in. "Now, get in so we can go home."
I gratefully follow her instruction and climb again into the backseat, when the engine sputters. I halt, halfway in my seat, waiting to either hear the engine start up again or stop completely.
"No, no no no no," Adam whispers, holding the key in the ignition and turning it over and over again. But it helps nothing, and the engine quickly comes to a staggering stop.
"Kib!" Jay yells immediately. "The car was working before you got here. You're the fucking demon."
I reach over to slap his arm. "Shut up."
Ryan turns around in his seat, still not buckled in. "That's not even entirely a lie," he says, facing us. "Kib has that fucking demon bracelet, right?"
"Oh, yeah!" Jay exclaims. "You are a fucking demon! The car probably won't start because you stole the girl's bracelet or some shit."
Jack turns his head to me. "What?! Can you explain?"
I roll my eyes, sitting down as far away from Jack as I can in the crowded car. "I found it in the attic when we first got here," I explain shortly. "It's just a bracelet. I don't see the problem."
"We found a picture or the dead little girl wearing the same bracelet!" Jay argues. "And that fucking letter that Ryan found. It was a gift from her dead mom."
Julie turns around in her seat, too. "Take it off!"
"We don't know that I'm the issue!" I argue back. "Maybe the car's just a piece of shit."
"Bet," says Danny. "Go back inside and we'll see if it starts."
"God, fine." I climb back over the seat, which is still down, and pass Hanns to walk back into the cabin. I stand in the doorway and hold to door open to watch as Adam attempts to start the car again. He looks at me once before turning the key and, to my surprise, the car fucking starts.
"What the FUCK?!" I yell in frustration over the noise of everyone else celebrating outside.
"Give the demon her bracelet back, Kib!" I hear Jacks muffled voice demand from inside the car.
"What if I don't want to?" I respond.
He hesitates. "Adam, drive away."
"No," says Adam.
"Fine!" I finally oblige. "I'll put the fucking bracelet back."
I turn, letting the old door close loudly behind me, and trudge back up to the attic. I reluctantly slide the bracelet off of my right wrist and into my left hand, twisting it around my fingers until I make it up the stairs and see the familiar eerie room. I look around, trying to locate the box that I got the bracelet from, until I find it where Ryan last left it: in the corner next to a pile of books. I crouch by the box, momentarily distracted by its contents. I look for a bit and pull out the letter, scanning over it to see if Ry maybe left out some stuff that was written when he told us. He didn't, though, other than a bunch of sappy shit that I could've survived having not seen. I kick myself for disrespecting it, even in my own thoughts, because I know it was probably really sad or whatever.
I fold the paper in half, tucking the bracelet inside of it and setting it gently back into the shoebox. As I stand up to go back outside, I feel dizzy. I figure I must've just stood too fast, but it's a different kind of dizzy. It's as if a weight lifts from my shoulders, and tension disappears from the air that I didn't even notice before. I guess I was used to it. The energy in the room relaxes, as if it were releasing a breath that it had been holding. Nice.
I jog quickly down the stairs, my wrist feeling kind of empty without the bracelet that I'd grown used to. When I make it out the front door, I see Hanna talking to Julie through the still-open door of the car. Adam's turned around to someone behind him, and, most importantly, the car's started. I'm scared to leave the doorway, because what if the bracelet isn't the issue? Maybe I'm possessed without realizing it yet. I stand in the entrance to the cabin, staring at the car and waiting for it to stop again.
"Kib." Hanna turns around. "Hurry up!"
"Okay." I take a deep breath and walk back out to the car.
"Wait." She puts one hand on my shoulder to stop me before I get back into the car. "You don't still have the bracelet?"
I smirk and roll up my sleeves, showing her my hands. "Yes," I answer, dropping my arms back to my sides. "I put it back in the attic."
She nods definitively. "Good. Now get in."
I climb over the seat and return to my place next to Jack, who's eyeing me strangely.
"I put it back," I insist. "Stop yelling at me."
"Yeah," he answers. "I could tell. It feels less demon-y in here, if that's even a word."
Ryan laughs. "It's obviously not a word."
"Words are weird!" Danny exclaims sarcastically. "Can we leave?"
Adam hesitates, staring at his car keys in the ignition and obviously expecting the car to stop. But it doesn't, and soon we're all cheering as the car heads out of the forest and, finally, back home.