Welcome to the second to last chapter of this fic!
Thank you so much to alicheriee, Rishini, the guest, Invader Johnny and Ana Torquato for the reviews!
This chapter takes place on the same day the last one ended at. Just so you definitely now where this one picks up. ;)
Please enjoy!
Nothing will happen. Jade knows that nothing will happen.
It's still Friday. Nobody has dared flirting with Beck that very same day. Though Jade is sure as hell that that will start up coming Monday. All those stupid, idiotic girls will fall over themselves to finally get to him. Great.
But for now, she is safe. Nobody will get hurt. And it's fine for her to drive to the nearest grocery store to get the one ingredient her mother is missing for cooking a late dinner.
Her mother of course says she can also cook something else or they can drive together, but Jade is annoyed as it is and just wants to get something, anything, done herself. She can't lock herself in, because she is afraid. That's not who she is. Not to mention that nobody can get hurt today; she wouldn't have a motive.
So, she tells her mother to let her do this, and it's not like her mother has much choice if she wants them to eat dinner together at all: She lets her go, giving her the key for the car. And she says she will already start preparing dinner then, as far as she can get without the missing ingredient, which sounds good.
Jade knows nothing will happen, when she's clicking the car open with the key. She is almost at the door now. She will just quickly drive to get a grocery.
But suddenly, she feels that someone is behind her. She doesn't have enough time to turn around, to defend herself at all. They grab her by both arms, a hand gets pressed over her mouth and she gets pulled into the bushes at the side of her very own front yard.
She tries to throw the people off, lets car key and phone fall in the process, which she both held in her hands, and finally at least bites the hand away that's on her mouth. A girl makes a noise, then she gets pushed onto the ground and they all step into her view.
Romy and Joana, whom she both knows from school, have apparently grabbed her and pushed her to the ground. But they are not alone. Sonia is with them as well and has immediately picked up the car key and her phone. She throws the key to Jade now, but keeps her phone with a disgusting smirk. Jade notices that she wears gloves, with which you can still use a touchscreen.
They gang up on her now, corner her against the hedge that grows against their fence. Jade watches Romy pull out a gun. Only shortly, fear flares up inside of Jade. But no, this gun won't be real. Yes, Romy is shaking, but not enough. She wouldn't be able to point a gun at anyone like this. It's a fake, in hope to keep Jade under control with it.
She takes a deep breath, before she turns to Joana, snarling: "So you are part of this, too." A girl who hasn't been hurt yet.
Sonia snorts: "As if you any idea of what's going on."
Jade glares at her, while Sonia turns to the phone in her hand. The screen of Jade's phone isn't locked. It's unnecessary as she never leaves it lying around anywhere. Now, Sonia has easy access.
"Let's see," Sonia says as she starts looking around in the phone. "Here he is. Beck." And she starts typing and saying it out loud as if she is having the time of her life. She's texting him that they need to talk and that he has to come to the park that's closest to Jade's home.
Then, she hits send and turns back to Jade, who is still on the ground and waiting for what's to happen, for an explanation what's going on, so that she can do something about it.
"Beck's nice but if he's still ready to talk to you, he should get another lesson about you. He has to learn you're bad news. If he's smart, he stays away and everything will be fine."
Jade tries to understand, then asks: "He will get hurt?"
Sonia smirks again. "He will. You will break one of his bones as well."
Jade feels her heart pounding in her chest. "You are crazy. You can't do that." They can't, especially as they obviously aren't even too careful with each other, looking at Erica. What will they do to Beck?
"Just watch," Sonia says, then directed to Joana: "Now shut her up."
Fear flares up inside of Jade and stays this time. "Don't touch him! We're not even..."
But in that moment, Joana stuffs something inside of her mouth that makes her gag, and puts tape over her mouth. Jade tries to defend herself, but Romy promptly puts the gun away again (that's of course not real) and helps Joana, holds Jade down. Jade is strong, but both of them together manage to keep her in control.
Sonia meanwhile seems really bored by Jade trying to defend herself and looks back into the phone. "Let's see what else they text each other. Oh, look what kind of bitch you are. He texted you last night that he loves you and you didn't answer anything."
Because she called him to tell him she loves him too. But even if she could, she would never tell Sonia or anyone that.
Sonia looks at her as if she was digusted. "Of course, he got sick of you. He tried so hard and you... What else did he write?"
And how glad Jade is that she never texted Beck or anyone about her fear with all of this. How powerless she felt, how out of control and how sick that made her. To read that would give Sonia all the satisfaction in the world, Jade realizes. She luckily won't give her that.
But Joana raises her voice anyway: "You can't read his messages." As if reading Beck's messages is so much worse than hurting each other and now even Beck, just so he will fall out of love with Jade. As if that would be the biggest crime.
Sonia only shortly looks at her, then rolls her eyes, but probably doesn't want to alienate her. At least, when the phone vibrates in her hand, she only quickly reads the incoming message.
"He answered 'okay'," she says and then throws the phone on the ground next to the car keys, before pulling out her own: "I'll text Hannah that he's on the way."
Jade doesn't know that Hannah has just been released from the hospital and is waiting with Josephine in the nearby park. She just knows that Beck is apparently on the way to that place and that they want to hurt him and that she can do nothing about it.
She can hear the loud music out of her neighbor's home. Even if she would try to scream behind her gag, it's unlikely anybody will hear her. Not with all the other sounds of the neighbor, not with the neighborhood she lives in with her mother.
Her trying to scream will just make Sonia smirk at her again, triumphantly, because she will notice how scared Jade is.
And she will never be able to throw all three of them off. She can just wait and see what happens.
Maybe, her mother will notice that the car is still in the driveway and will come out to search for her any moment now – but why should she? She will be in the kitchen, starting to prepare the food.
And if the police would watch her, like they god damn should, they would long be here, would disturb the scene. But once more they aren't there when she needs them to fucking help her.
She closes her eyes for a moment, anger but primarily fear and panic inside of her. And one more thought: Beck.
.
.
Beck has no idea what's going on, but he decided to come. Who knows why Jade wants to talk to him here, but he'll probably find out.
He's going to the exact spot in the park, that has been mentioned in the text, but Jade isn't there. As is nobody else. He has seen a few people at the entrance of the park, but not around here.
He's pulling out his phone, checking if Jade has texted him once more, when he suddenly feels an enormous pain in his back.
He falls forward, blindly, as the pain spreads through his whole body. He falls on his knees, then all the way down on his stomach, when his hands don't catch his fall, instead directly grabbing his back.
It feels like someone has hit him with a baseball bat on the left side of his back. Not as strongly as possible, but still, it hurts terribly. Though through the pain, he is sure that that's exactly what has happened. He has been hit by a baseball bat.
He wants to turn around but his body isn't obeying him.
And then, there is Jade's voice, above him. "That's what you get for leaving me."
He makes a painful noise and then hears footsteps leaving. He can't figure out if it's more than one pair.
For a moment, he closes his eyes, then he takes a deep breath, clenches his jaw, before he finally turns around. He doesn't see anyone anymore. He does see that he has let go of his phone and it has dropped to the ground right next to him.
With too much pain he reaches over, grabs it and unlocks the screen. He sees Jade's last message, after he has just checked if she texted him once more.
He takes another shakey breath, before he leaves their chain and calls his parents instead.
