Chapter 4

- - - - -

"Archie, honey, are you okay?" Spike asked as they walked into his hospital room.

Snake nodded solemnly, still half asleep, "I'll be okay," he said his voice wheezing with pain.

Emma fought back her tears. She couldn't cry in front of her dad, it would make him feel horrible even though it wasn't his fault he might be dying.

Emma took a deep breath and stepped out of the hospital room, only to see Jimmy, Hazel and Paige in the room right across from Archie's.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" Emma asked, stepping in to the room.

"Hey Em," Jimmy said with a nod of acknowledgement.

"Jimmy is just in for his checkup, the doctor's are still positive that that bullet made him get a virus, but I doubt it," Paige said, shaking her head.

Hazel nodded in agreement.

Emma smiled at them and then Paige walked over to her.

"So what's this I hear about Sean being back?" Paige asked quietly.

"Where'd you hear that?" Emma asked.

"Well I work with Alex and I just got off of work and Jay showed up when we were there and told Alex about how you and him ditched school today to go down to Wasaga,"

"Jay told Alex that?" Emma asked, her eyes widening.

Paige laughed and shook her head, "No hun, of course not. Jay told me though seeing as you and I are best friends,"

"Oh," Emma said nodding her head.

"Paige, we're ready to go," Hazel said, wheeling Jimmy over to where they were.

"Okay, Em you need a ride?" Paige asked, pulling her car keys out of her purse.

Emma shook her head, "No I'm going to stay here, my dads in the hospital,"

"Yeah, I saw him earlier. Is he okay?" Paige asked.

"You should call us about these things Em, we're your best friends," Hazel said.

Emma nodded, "Yeah I know, sorry. His cancer got bad again, and he got admitted. But I was with Jay and..." Emma said drifting.

"Oh yeah," Paige said nodding.

"Do you like him?" Hazel asked with an excited smile on her face.

Emma shook her head, "Me and Jay? Please, no way," Emma said and then laughed along with her friends.

"Wouldn't want you hanging out with the bad crowd Em," Jimmy said jokingly, knowing that Sean used to be part of that crowd and he and Sean could actually tolerate each other.

"See ya," Hazel said with a wave.

Jimmy waved at her and Paige smiled, "Call me!" she sang out as they walked out of the hospital room.

Emma stepped out of the hospital room and down the hallway to the elevator, pressing the Ground Level button.

She got to the main floor and walked to the small Starbuck's in the café area.

"I'll have a decaf mocha," Emma said to the waitress.

The girl brought her the drink and Emma paid her and took a sip out of the Styrofoam cup, walking around the main lobby of the hospital.

She noticed somebody familiar wheeling an old woman around in a wheelchair.
Jay Hobart.

That is so cute. Emma cooed in her mind.

She walked over to him quietly, hoping he wouldn't see her.

She walked up behind him, standing on her tiptoes, "Hey Jay," she whispered in his ear.

She saw Jay tense up and turn around slowly, "Emma, hey," he said, smiling at her cockily.

Emma smirked, "I didn't know you worked here," she said, placing her hands on her hips.

"He's such a sweet boy," the lady in the wheelchair said with a smile and a blush rising to her cheeks.

Emma grinned at her, "That's so sweet," she said, turning back to Jay.

Jay grinned, not forced or anything, "I love it here, now Miss Miller, do you need me to take you back up to your room?" Jay asked.

The lady who Emma guessed was Miss Miller shook her head, "No, I'm alright, you go off with your girlfriend. You young people go have fun," she said and wheeled away.

"Wow, for a ninety year old, she sure can wheel," Emma said, her arms crossing over her chest with a satisfied grin.

"You know she didn't know we weren't a couple," Jay pointed out.

Emma nodded, "Yeah, I know,"

Maybe she thinks we should be. The thought had crossed Emma's mind many times before, but she always put it in the farthest back file cabinet in her brain, but it always came back out and yelled at her repeatedly. It was something she had had to fight off for the past year, since sophomore year.

"She's a sweetheart though," Jay said.

"I didn't know you had a heart, Hobart," Emma said, smirking at her newfound friend.

"Hardy har-har Nelson," Jay said, rolling his eyes.

"Well I didn't," Emma said, joking along with him. Until a figure walking into the hospital made her heart stop beating.

Jordan.

Emma grasped onto Jay's arm, he shot her a questioning look and then turned to where she was looking.

"What did he do to you?" Jay whispered into her ear.

Emma shook her head. She couldn't tell Jay what Jordan had done to her. It was too painful, she didn't want him knowing and she didn't want to think of what had happened again, even though it had flashed through Emma's mind constantly today and had haunted her dreams since the night it happened, before seventh grade had started.

"Hello Emma," Jordan said and brushed past her.

She nearly shrieked aloud when she felt his hand touch her butt lightly.

She closed her eyes, choking back her tears.

"Emma?" Jay asked and turned back to Jordan who was walking a way whistling a tune.

"I have to go," Emma said, and nearly sprinted out of the hospital.

"Emma!" Jay called after her, racing out the door right behind her only to see her running through the parking lot and chasing after a forest green mini van.

"Paige!" she called out.

The van stopped and Emma climbed in and it drove off.

Jay placed his hand on his head and sighed aloud.

- - - - -

"I thought you guys would have left," Emma said from where she was sitting in the front seat next to Paige while Jimmy and Hazel were in the back.

"Nah," Paige said shaking her head, "we were in the parking lot when we saw that new MI teacher walking in, Haze freaked when she saw him touch your butt so she said we should wait,"

Emma winced, remembering the feel of his hand on her rear end.

"Why is he here anyway? He freaks me out," Hazel said.

You're not alone Aden.

"I don't know, I wish my dad was still the MI teacher though, I don't like the new guy," Emma said, hiding any sign of emotion so that they wouldn't figure out what happened.

"I heard he raped that girl Darcy," Jimmy said.

Emma spun around, she remember Darcy getting raped because she had told them about it a few weeks back over summer vacation.

"When?" Emma asked.

"He heard it from me," Hazel chimed in, "and I heard it from Darcy who was really freaked when he showed up, he was pretending to be this guy from Montreal who was just a year older than her, they met over the net and had "similarities" and then like last year she met him at this hotel thinking it was him on a school trip and he snagged her into a room and raped her, pretending to be the guys teacher. And he used this fake name Charles Finland, I think," Hazel said.

Emma gulped, it actually had happened to Darcy, Emma got lucky, and Spike and Snake came to her rescue thanks to her friends.

"That's awful," Paige said, shaking her head.

"Yeah," Emma said quietly, sinking into her seat.

"You okay?" Paige asked.

Emma nodded, "I'm tired...could you drive me home?"

Paige nodded, "Of course hun," she said and turned the corner that led to Emma's house.

- - - - -

"Thanks for the ride," Emma said getting out of the van.

"No problem," Paige said with a wave and pulled away from the curb.

Emma walked around a corner of her house and through the window that led to her room.

"It's easier to get in that way," a guy's voice said on the other side of the curtain that separated part of the basement from her bedroom.

Emma gulped, scared it was Jordan.

She stepped quietly to the other side, pulling the curtain open. It wasn't Jordan.

It was Jay.

"What are you doing here?" Emma asked, putting a hand over her heart, which was beating uncontrollably from the fear of it being Jordan.

"You ran out so fast, I wanted to see what was wrong. You're terrified of the guy," Jay said.

"You would be too," Emma said very quietly and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Jay plopped down right next to her, "Why are you so afraid of him?" Jay asked.

"Why do you keep on asking that?" Emma remarked.

Jay shot her a duh look.

"It's none of your business," Emma said.

"Yes it is," Jay argued.

"How?"

Jay looked Emma straight in the eyes, "I need to know if I need to beat the living shit out of the guy. Because if he even laid a hand on you, he's dead,"