Liv Rooney was not ready.
But she had to be.
The day had come.
She was finally remembering what happened.
It had happened exactly a year ago. She closed her eyes as she leaned against her locker.
Flashback: 1 year ago...
Liv sighed as she walked out of her chemistry class, smoke scorching her face as she got away from the incident that had exploded from a beaker in there. Andie had told her that the same thing had happened in her science class a few days before and she couldn't wait to tell her about it after her next class. She wiped the soot of her face and headed to History. Andie waved to her quickly as she passed by her locker.
Two periods later, she walked to her locker again and waited for her friend. Maddie showed up later, but Andie did not.
"Where is Andie?" Liv asked her.
Maddie shrugged. "She never came to my chemistry class." Neither one of them had wanted to take that class, but their mother had made them.
"She never came to class?" Liv gasped. "Andie would never skip school."
Suddenly, Willow and Holden ran up to them and Willow began to speak quickly. "Liv, we can't find Andie! Do you know where she went?"
"Andie's missing?!" Liv and Maddie said at the exact same time.
Willow nodded frantically and the twins and their friends went home feeling confused. Andie had not been checked out and no one else knew why else she would be missing school.
No one saw her return. Andie never came back to school and not even her own father knew where she had gone, which meant she hadn't ever returned home after that day. After six months, the gossip at school was that she'd run away for a little while and died in an accident. Liv was crying as she heard these rumors and she didn't go to her friend's funeral, knowing that she wouldn't be able to bear it. Six more unbearable months began to pass...
End of Flashback.
She trudged down the hall, the day becoming a blur to her, and before she knew it, it was time to go home again.
"Are you okay?" Maddie murmured as the twins arrived home together.
"No, I- I'm not." Liv started to cry, leaning on her twin's shoulder as they went upstairs into their room, then closed and locked the door. As she collapsed on her bed, Liv let out a small, wordless scream.
"Don't forget, she's my friend too," Maddie pointed out, sitting on the bed beside her sister. "And so are Willow and Holden. We're all just as upset as you are."
"Maddie..." Liv sat up and glared at her slightly. "We loved each other. Very soon, we were planning to make it public that we wanted to date, but then... she disappeared." Tears poured down her cheeks and Maddie tried to wipe them away.
"Liv..." She made her sister look at her. "Do you really believe that Andie is dead?"
"No," Liv replied immediately. "I think she's still alive. But the question is... where would she be if she is? And why wouldn't she have come home yet?"
The twins were silent as their thoughts drifted back to the day. But, back at Ridgewood High, unknown to the Science Club working late into the night there, something strange was happening...
At Ridgewood High...
It had gotten dark and as the Science Club opened the door to the school and exited, a shadow of a girl slipped into the school behind them into the school as it closed. She could barely breathe and couldn't believe that she had survived what had recently happened to her. She limped over to the stairs and sat down on the second one, groaning as she felt much pain shoot through her body. Then she reached up and tore off her already ripped sleeves, exposing the roughly slashed skin underneath. After that, she shredded the rest of her torn jeans below her knees and her hands became messed up with blood as she rubbed her hands along the cuts and burns on her body.
She remembered her own tools being used as weapons against her when she was taken. She remembered the agony bursting inside her when she was struck. And it was now too late to come home. She had been proclaimed as dead.
But had Liv given up on her? With tears in her eyes, the brunette sighed as she stood up again and shoved the torn clothing in the garbage can. If so, she shouldn't have been there. To everyone else that had known her, she was dead.
Why hadn't she died then? More questions awoke in her brain, including that one. She had been attacked and whoever or whatever had been set upon her had aimed to kill. However, she knew when a person tried to kill her that she had been brought to the forest and shot at many times. But finally she escaped. After being a prisoner of someone for a year, she had been glad for freedom, but when she realized she could end up bleeding to death on the floor of her high school, she knew she had to get out. Using all of her strength, she walked over to the door and attempted to push it open. She couldn't. They were locked. Now she was panicking. Fortunately, one of the bathroom doors had not been locked and was open. She went through and for an hour tried and half-failed to clean the cuts in her skin in the dark, biting her lip to not cry out in pain. Never in her life had she done it until the day she had been taken from her school. For a while after, she slept, until the door opening startled her awake. She was in the janitor's closet anyway and she hoped to God that it wasn't him. Fortunately, the closet door itself did not open and after she was certain they were gone, slipped out again. The light had been turned on, but she was fine with that after her eyes got adjusted. That is, until she looked down and saw that her wounds were now bleeding once more.
I have to get out of here, she thought wildly. This is early, but school will start soon.
"Thanks for the early ride, Mom, even though I could have walked here." Her eyes widened as she heard the voice of Liv Rooney floating down the hall. No! I need to go now! Blood still running down her body, she threw open the door and tried to run in a random direction... then crashed straight into Liv. Caught off guard, the blonde drew back, trying not to fall, and then she realized who was there. Her hands went right to her mouth, attempting to cover up a gasp that had broke from her.
"A- Andie?"
The girls were silent for a moment.
"Andie... you're alive!" Excitedly, Liv wrapped her arms around her, then pulled back in surprise. "But... what happened to you?"
"I... I can't explain it..."
"But you have to explain to me how you just went missing for a year and then all of a sudden, you return home bleeding like someone stabbed you."
"Can I tell you after school? Today's Friday after all."
"Well..." Liv twisted her hands together. "We actually came here to bring some equipment back to the school that we needed to, but we could bring you home before school starts."
"Who's 'we?'"
"Willow, Holden, and Maddie already put everything back, but..." As if on cue, all three of them came over from another direction, halting when they saw Andie.
"Oh God..." Maddie mumbled, swaying on her feet. Liv spilled everything to her, including that they needed to tell their Mom to take Andie back to their house. She had never had a mother and her father had moved out of the state after her (apparently pointless) funeral.
"I'm sorry..." Andie sniffed, stumbling until she was leaning against the wall.
"Let's get you back to our house," Maddie said instantly. "With wounds like that, you won't stand a chance here."
Nine hours later, at the Rooney household...
Liv, Maddie, Holden, and Willow emerged breathless as they swept through the front door. Running at their fastest had made them out of breath and Karen handed them each a glass of water as they came in.
"Thanks, Mrs. R," Willow sighed, gulping down the water. "Can... can we see Andie?"
Karen nodded. "She's in Liv's bed. I called a doctor to see her, but..." Her face was serious. "Don't get your hopes up. The doctor will be checking in every day from now on; we don't know how bad it could get."
Holden cocked his head. "What does that mean exactly?"
Karen bit her lip. "Some of those cuts on her might be infected and that could spread through her body. But you girls really need to find out why she ended up that way and what she's been doing to become so badly hurt."
"We're actually going to do that now," Liv told her sadly.
"Good luck," she called back to them as they raced up the stairs.
Inside Liv and Maddie's room, Andie was asleep in Liv's bed, almost completely hidden under the blanket, but awoke and sat up slowly when they came near her. "Hey guys."
Maddie wasted no time. "So are you going to tell us what's going on?"
Andie sighed. "Do I have to-?"
"Tell us? Yes. Now spill."
She looked pleadingly at Liv, who stepped forward and tentatively grasped her hand. "Andie, everyone wants to know. Just tell us and we'll tell people you went away to the airport and was in another state with relatives for a year or something."
"I was kidnapped?"
Willow tilted her head to the side. "By whom?"
"I don't know. Before chemistry, I have a free period and I decided to go outside for a while. But all of a sudden, someone just whacked me in the back of my head and everything went dark. When I woke up again, I was on a cold table in some kind of dark room and the only person I could see was someone entirely dressed in black when they switched on a small light bulb a few yards above my head. And I- I couldn't move. When I tried, I found that I was bound to the table."
"Did you have any idea where you were?" Holden asked.
Andie shook her head.
"But how did you end up like you are now?"
She shuddered. "They used my own tools against me. I even got burned with a freaking blowtorch."
"And you lived like this for a year?"
"Yeah. I'd still get food and water and be allowed to sleep, but then they'd wake me by stabbing me."
"How did you escape?" Willow added.
"That day, they took me out to some kind of forest and kept trying and failing to shoot me multiple times. They hadn't guarded the place well and I wasn't tied up anymore, so I made a run for it. I didn't know how long it would take me to get there like this..." She gestured to the bandaged cuts and gashes on her bare skin. "...but sooner or later, I ended up at Ridgewood High. Some club was just leaving for the night, so I slipped behind them and got into the school. I ended up sleeping there the entire night, but then you guys caught me in the morning."
Everyone was silent while they contemplated what Andie had just revealed. No wonder she was so scared! Her experience must have been terrifying.
"Can you guys leave us alone for a moment?" Liv asked.
"You heard Miss Hollywood, get outta here!" Willow chivvied the others out of the room and cast a knowing smirk back at her before closing the door behind her. As soon as they were gone, Liv climbed into bed beside her friend.
"Oh, Andie!" she cried, wrapping her arms tightly around her. "I always knew you were still alive! I never would have given up on you."
Andie's eyes flashed with fear. "Everyone... thinks I'm dead?"
Liv nodded. "But I never did. I never would have unless I actually saw evidence of your death."
"Th- thank you, Liv," Andie murmured.
"However, before you left, there was something I wanted to ask you..."
"What is it?"
"Andie... will you be my girlfriend?"
Andie smiled weakly, wincing a bit from Liv pressing on her wounds. Realizing this, the star loosened her grip and she relaxed a little more.
"Are you okay...?"
Suddenly, Andie pulled Liv toward her and kissed her on the lips quickly before pulling away. Liv smiled. "Is that a yes?"
"Yes, Liv. And..." She gazed into Liv's eyes as she spoke the next words. "...I'm sorry I wasn't able to get here sooner. Thanks to you, I will be okay. Thank you so much for never giving up on me."