Hello again! ;) I just want to say again that I'm so grateful for all the reviews. And I just wanted to say that I'd envisioned Taylor Swift as Lia and Elle Fanning as Jess ;) I love the two of them, and they do look like sisters... sort of :P xx Ellie
Jess had run for a few minutes before she realised she had lost Ben and had found herself behind the school in a forest, sitting high in a tree as she shivered against the pain in her chest. Of all the things she could feel guilty about, the only thing she did feel that way about was leaving Ben, she would have liked his company at this moment and his familiar smell of old books, it reminded her of her father's office, filled with old fantasy novels and classics, brimming over the shelves as she walked into the room lined with at least 15 different bookshelves.
Tears came streaming down her face, and before she knew it she was sobbing, knees drawn up to her chest and her head buried down tight between them, trying to muffle the sounds of her torture as it made its way out of her body. She cried for her sister and how she must be feeling, she cried at the ache in her chest where her parents should have been, and the slow and torturous death that was not having them around, she cried for the pain she knew would crush her chest when she saw Anne again next, and every time after that she set her eyes on the woman that had the aura, smile and eyes that her mother had been gifted with.
And the thing that reduced her to a blubbering mess of absolute terror was the tears that could have filled a river. For the injustices that had been forced upon her by the skitters and their overlords, the training simulations and being whipped and shot when she wasn't good enough, for the constant injections and screams throughout the hospital as she listened to other people die.
Jess didn't know how long she had sat there crying - she believed that it would have been well over two hours, the sun was now high in the sky and the lunch bell had just gone - but she could hear the sounds of everyone moving off the lunch and realised it would be a good time for her to go back to the rooms and find Ben, she needed to say she was sorry for running off on him like that, she knew she wasn't ready to tell him what had happened while she was locked up in the hospital, but she knew that she wanted him around, and getting attached was a feeling she was wary of, but didn't mind all that much.
She wanted to be able to lean on Ben, to finally have a friend in her life and be able to feel happiness be given to her by someone other than Lia. Her big sister was her protector and her only family, she was someone she could count on, but she wanted someone who was more than that someone that she could laugh with in a way that her sister couldn't. And she wanted it to be Ben for some strange reason, she felt attached to the boy with the spikes, like they were both outcasts, not quite belonging with humans, but not belonging with the aliens… a faction all there own, and she knew that in the times ahead, they would lean on each other heavily throughout the months to come she could feel it.
Smiling, she looked over the edge of the tree and jumped the 20 meters to the ground, coming to rest on the ground as if she had just walked down a flight of stairs, another drawback of the skitters experiments. She found herself sneaking back into the school as if she was a fugitive, throwing furtive glances down every hallway before she turned it, and pressing her back against the walls in an attempt to hide if she heard a noise. Jess found herself hovering outside of Ben's door, before she turned away like a coward and walked into her room, noticing with complete happiness that the door between the two rooms was still open, since Hal had burst into the room this morning after Lia had screamed bloody murder at the pain in her leg.
She could hear a small boy counting, and quickly walked to the door, peering around it as she looked at a small boy's curly blonde hair, sitting on a couch as someone did pushups. "98… 99… 100… 101… 102" the smaller boy stopped counting as the older one stood up, slapping the sides of his legs as he bounced. Jess had to muffle the gasp that came out of her mouth as she realised that she was staring at Ben without a shirt, a fierce blush spread over her face as she watched him walk around the room as the boy who could only be his smaller brother talked.
"You just did 102 pushups!" he cried, Ben smiled, "I did?" he asked, not seeming to surprised by it but Jess knew that he was scared, just as she had been when she found out how far she could push her body. Jess blushed as her eyes ran over Ben's half naked body, not feeling scared or wary as he turned his back and she saw the spikes for the first time, the small black spikes looked more like bone than anything and held a whole system of roots beneath his skin.
She was interrupted by Hal's annoyed voice, "guys! Keep it down, I've got night sentry duty with Lia later!" he cried, she heard him roll over but couldn't see him, his bed obstructed by a large felt wall. Ben walked back through the room, seeming like he was looking for a shirt as he pawed through the mess that the three boys had made throughout the room. "Kinda gross huh?" Ben asked as he walked to the couch, revealing his flat stomach with no abs, which Jess thought was better than any six pack she had ever seen.
She stepped back a little as he came to face where she was standing, trying to keep herself hidden, before she realised she was being a creeper and she should move, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't bare to bring herself to pull away from the door. She heard Hal shush them and grinned, trying not to laugh at his annoyed voice and looked back to Ben and his brother, "some of the other kids you were with said that their spikes were going away." the little one said, seeming a little sad.
Ben sighed, trying to hold his anger in at that fact as he pawed through the clothes, now reaching into a backpack. "I know… mine aren't." he whispered, looking down and sighing, "maybe it's because the others weren't there as long as me and Rick." The little boy stepped closer, "do they still hurt?" he asked, reaching out as if he wanted to touch one and then, thinking better of it, moved his hand away before Ben turned around. "Not so much now, sometimes i'll forget they're even there, and then i'll lean on something the wrong way or bang into something and-" he cut himself off and smiled, looking down at his bag again as he found his shirt - which Jess wasn't too happy about.
"Can I touch one?" his brother asked timidly. Ben looked a little confused and turned, "sure?" he said, drawing out the word a little. The boy reached forward to touch one, and Jess watched in horror as Ben began to writhe in pain, standing up and breathing heavily, hands on his knees. Jess was ready to run into the room to help and oust herself, but something held her back. She watched angrily as Ben smirked and began laughing, "you jerk that wasn't funny!" he cried, Ben laughed tackling his little brother to the couch as he giggled, "sorry, couldn't help myself."
They sat on the couch together as Jess watched Ben start talking about the skitters and his time there as his little brother piped up and asked him what it was like living with them. "Did they talk to you?" he asked, Ben shook his head slowly, "not like you think… it was, you don't exactly have your own thoughts when you're with them, it's not like you're thinking at least not the way you normally do." he stopped and looked up, Jess got a little annoyed that she could only see the back of his head but ignored it.
"It's more like someones thinking with you… um, remember when we went camping with Dad, and you weren't feeling well, you were tired and your stomach hurt. Imagine if Dad knew everything you wanted, before you even asked for it." Ben stopped and looked down at his little brother, "you must have been scared." he said, Ben sighed and put his arm around his little brother, drawing him to his side. "When the skitters first got me I was never more frightened in my entire life, but after the harness it wasn't so bad." his brother huddled closer to him, smiling a little.
"Did you miss us?" he asked, Jess looked down and away from the scene, feeling tears pool in her eyes at the amount that that little boy couldn't comprehend, he was so innocent it made Jess' heart ache for the things he would find out as he got older. "I don't know." Ben said, drawing her attention back to the scene, "In some.. bizzaro, alien way… I think the skitters actually cared about us you know? They weren't monsters, they were our family. I know it sounds weird but… sometimes I still miss that." he whispered, rubbing circles on the boys arm.
Jess turned away, sighing deeply as she sat down on the couch in her own room, pulling her knees up to her chest and debating whether or not to walk into the room and talk to Ben. She felt a small tap on her shoulder and turned to see Lia lying on the bed next to hers, a pile of blankets laid over her head to hide herself as she tried to sleep. Jess jumped and smiled down at her sister, feeling a little guilty about this morning. "You feeling better?" Jess asked her sister, staring at the mop of blonde hair jutting out from random bits of the blanket, trying not to laugh.
Lia groaned a little, "not really, but I'm gonna push through, it should be gone by the time I wake up. You make sure that if you get the withdrawal too you'll tell me, right squirt?" she whispered, taking her hand the sleeve having ridden up a little to expose the veins on her skin, Jess winced at the pet name but nodded, knowing that she wouldn't be able to keep it from Lia anyways. She looked down at her sister and tightened her hands around Lia's, "so you and Hal huh?" she whispered cheekily, making a bright red blush splash its way onto LIa's face as she turned and buried her head into the pillow, a loud groan bubbling out of her throat.
"First stop sentry duty, next stop… and Lia's got herself a boyfriend!" Jess cried, hearing laughter from the other room, Lia grabbed the pillow from under her head and whacked Jess around the head with it, making her fall back onto the bed, holding her stomach as she burst out laughing, Lia pulling the pillow off her and putting it back over her head, Jess' laughter went on for a while until it died out, realising Lia was asleep as she sat up and looked around the room, her breath stopping short when she saw Ben standing at the door with a small smile on his face.
Her grin faltered for a second as a blush rose to his cheeks at being caught, "hey…" he whispered, looking a little embarrassed, "Hi…" she replied, standing and brushing her jeans off she walked out the door, motioning for him to follow her as she nodded her head at the sleeping figure of her sister. He followed her out into the courtyard where Ben's younger brother was playing soccer with some younger children, "nice kick Matt!" he called, smiling back at the boy, so his name was Matt… cute.
They sat down underneath a tree, Jess making sure to sit in the sun laying out and staring at the leaves above her. "I'm sorry for running off." she whispered, her eyes closing so she wouldn't have to see the worry on Ben's face, she heard his sigh and felt him lie down next to her, the electricity crackling between their arms, laying no more than 5 centimetres away form each other. "It must have been for a good reason…" he whispered, trailing off and turning his head to look at her, the bright blue of her eyes shaded from his view.
"I just…" she stopped, realising she was about to let out something big about herself to a complete stranger. "After the Skitters, I get scared of anything to do with Hospitals… or injections." Ben nodded, she could hear the movement against the grass next to her, "and Anne… well." Jess stopped and sucked in a deep breath, feeling the dull ache in her chest come rushing back, like a reopened wound. "My mother and father were killed when the Skitters came for us, and Anne reminds me of her. More than anyone I've seen, same eyes, same smile… same aura. It's unnerving to me because I watched my Mother die. And now she's standing right in front of me you know?" she heaved a huge sigh, forcing herself to talk around the lump in her throat.
"It's gonna get harder from here on out. And I'm not looking forward to it." she whispered, fingers tightening in the grass underneath her.