The House

Chapter 8

Ava woke up in a hospital bed to find Emily and Alejandra asleep and leaning on each other in chairs next to her. She smiled and closed her eyes. When she woke up again, they were awake and had been joined by Hayden.

"Hey, welcome back." Hayden said with a smile.

Ava stretched her arms. "Yeah. Where are the guys?"

"Jeremy's getting something to eat." Emily replied. "Evan got hit in the ankle as he was getting in the cop car. He's gonna be limping for a while."

A couple hours later the police arrived, and Ava gave them her statement. They also gave her her phone, which they had found in the house above the bunker and hadn't had any fingerprints on it aside from hers. The next day she was released, and she found the others in the waiting room. Evan's right ankle was bandaged, and he had crutches.

"Hey." Jeremy greeted her. "Glad you could join us."

Ava smiled. "What's up? Looks like you were waiting for me."

"We were." Hayden held up their phone. "Apparently we have visitors waiting outside."

They emerged from the hospital to find a short Greek woman in her early 30s with hazel eyes and neck-length black hair, a dark-haired woman in her mid-50s, a man in his early 20s with strawberry blond hair and green eyes, a taller blond woman in her 30s, abs a bald black man in his early 40s with a thick mustache who was wearing a tan suit and holding a briefcase.

"Cora?" Emily asked, her voice wavering.

The Greek woman smiled, tears running down her cheeks. "Come here."

They ran into each other's arms.

Jeremy embraced the older woman, Hayden hugged the blond woman, Ava and the strawberry blond-haired man slowly approached each other, and the bald black man pulled a couple pieces of paper out of his briefcase and walked over to Evan.

"Evan Weston?" He asked.

"Uh, yeah." Evan replied, visibly confused.

The man handed him one piece of paper. "Your wife filed a temporary restraining order against you." He handed him the second. "This is a summons for a hearing regarding the possibility of a full restraining order. It's in two weeks. If you fail to appear, she will be granted the full order."

Meanwhile, Ava and the strawberry blond-haired man stood a few feet apart in awkward silence.

"Hey." He finally said, a nervous smile on his face.

She looked down, then met his gaze. "Hey Jack."

They were silent for several seconds before finally embracing each other.

"I was so scared I'd never see you again." He whispered. "We never talked about that night."

She looked up at him. "Jack, if I had died, I would've come back as a ghost just so we could talk about it."

He cocked his head to the left. "You don't believe in ghosts."

She shrugged. "I would've found a way. But..."

Jack brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "What?"

"Brushing away my hair? Really? Do you have any idea how cliche that is?"

Jack chuckled. "I'm serious. What's up?"

She sighed. "I...I had a miscarriage. I was planning to get an abortion, but I guess my body didn't want to wait."

He opened his mouth to say something, but she put a finger to his lips.

"Yes, it was yours. By default."