track #01 in cadence aurora di angelo

newjeans // hurt

TO EVERYONE, Cadence di Angelo was hurt. I am hurt.

I'm different from who I was before, simply because I've lost the person who would support me fully no matter what I did – no matter smiles or cries; no matter sun or rain.

I could describe my life before the Hunger Games – before I lost him forever – as a bright place where sunshine flooded the earth, illuminating every precious moment. But now, without Rylie, my life is basically just a dark void of nothingness. People used to call me Cadence Aurora di Angelo. I loved my name, yet now I despise it.

The thing is, even if my name sounded nice, Aurora no longer existed to me anymore. Sunlight no longer fitted my once bright and bubbly personality – all that was left was a hollow shell of who I used to be. What's better to describe my life without Rylie, than darkness, gloom and emptiness?

Every day, I miss Rylie. You may tell me my dead best friend would only haunt me in my dreams – but no. Never. Rylie Ashton isn't the ghost who haunted me before the revivals. He isn't the person whom I lamented, drawing images of his death. He isn't the one who blamed me for not being able to save him in time.

Rylie is my best friend and soul brother, and that never changes even when we're separated by the living and the dead. He's in heaven, and I'm in the world of the living; yet he's still here for me, even more so than people who actually are on Earth.

He died in a fatal car crash more than two years ago, and still, every day, he appears in my mind.

Rylie tells me, "Forget me, Cady. Move on. I'm still here in spirit, but you can't stay stuck living in the past forever," unlike how his spirit had previously blamed me for trying to make things right with the other victors. I don't know why, but somehow I think Rylie's constant blaming would be better than this.

I could never forget Rylie.

Every time I see Gwyneth and Kunboss goofing around although they're adults, all the times where Rylie and I did our best friend handshakes, the cackling laughter... come back to me. And most of all, myself and my piercing screams, wriggling in the medical worker's arms right after the crash, begging them to bring Rylie back.

He never deserved it.

Rylie is gone, and every time I close my eyes, his still-thirteen-year-old self, frozen in time, cracks a smile at now sixteen-year-old me.

"Go, Cady. I'll be here. You can look back at me, but please move on."

But this time, I don't wanna be the one to get hurt.

***

Footsteps crashing down the stairs bring me back from my thoughts, and I smile bitterly at the memories before letting my spirit return to the living room of the hoverhouse, where we still live. There are bad memories, recollections of death and the Hunger Games, but never once have any of us thought of moving away. We're all still here for each other, just Gwyneth, Eunice, Zoey, Kunboss, Aiden and I.

Tristan appears. He lives here too now. I forgot – Kunboss and Aiden have offered for him to move here with us ever since Ava moved out and he left to pursue his degree as our house is closer to school than his – and live in one of the guest rooms, which has been renovated to a yellow to suit his taste in color.

He's a member in our household now. So let me correct myself: we're all here for each other, just Gwyneth, Eunice, Zoey, Kunboss, Aiden, Tristan and I.

"GUYS, LIVING ROOM NOW!" Tristan yells from the stairs, and I cover my ears in momentary shock as everyone else stampedes down loudly, like an elephant just blew its nose.

Once we're all gathered, "Guys?" Tristan extends his phone at us. "Take a look at this." We bend over and in a few seconds' time, our faces are plastered with shock, anxiety and pure fear, our mouths dangling wide open.

"James escaped?" Gwyneth manages to whisper. "He escaped?!"

"Did the person we fear most, despise most, break out?" Aiden says, shaking his head and leaning closer to the article.

"It says here that someone broke him out." Zoey notes, pointing at the corner of the article, where a broken cell door can be seen.

"Who in their right mind would break the most hated person on Earth out of jail?!" Aiden exclaims, obviously fazed by the news.

Eunice purses her lips. "Maybe what's left of Rochbok," she offers. "Or another of his hidden accomplices."

I read the news again: sure enough, Alistair James, former prime minister of the New Regime, has escaped from the jail where he had been kept as a war criminal in Aurore, Byrok, a week ago. His jail cell is already scarcely monitored, so only when police officers checked his basement cell this morning was he found missing.

"Oh no. This is bad," Kunboss says, looking up and breaking the silence. "Wait, I think there's something more. Scroll down, Tris."

Tristan presses something and another snippet appears. "James has been spotted with a foreign woman, suspected to be his wife or the person who broke him out of prison? Please call 78359457 if you see someone resembling this woman," I read.

"Hopefully they don't try to do anything to us again," remarks Zoey. "If that really happens, then I don't know what I'd do. Probably explode or something."

Suddenly, Gwyneth's phone rings and she checks the Caller ID. "I'm sorry, I think it's something urgent," she says before retreating to her room, while the rest of us stay here and discuss what James' escape means for us.

In the best-case scenario, it could mean Rochbok is over once and for all.. But he escaped a week ago. He could be anywhere now. In the worst case however, it might mean James is coming for us. Again.

As Gwyneth's scream pierces the corridors and we hear the loud sound of something clattering to the floor, I sigh. That probably just proved my assumption correct.

We all rush up the stairs again, arriving at Gwyneth's beige room that has recently been repainted an icy blue. She stands there in the midst of it all, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, and we stare at the mess her usually orderly room has become, stationery and books clattered all over the floor and her phone just casually flung onto the huge bed.

We just stare at her in silence before Zoey and Kunboss kneel to pick up the pens and put them back in their organizers, and I join, gathering Gwyneth's law and psychology notebooks from where they lie open on the floor.

One particular page in her lecture notes for the psychology unit catches my eye: Criminals And How Their Minds Work. While Eunice pats Gwyneth's back and pulls her into a hug, I straighten my form, adjusting how I'm standing, and skim through her notes.

Criminals usually have more than meets the eye, and that can be found through interrogation. Hidden motives could possibly be more than just family feuds, but you can tell whenever you meet someone who has committed a crime for the sake of just doing it – of which chances are extremely unlikely.

If something happens, there is definitely a reason for it.

I chuckle and snap Gwyneth's notebook shut, closing my eyes and shaking my head. There is a reason for everything, but Rylie's death was totally in vain. Nothing could have justified his premature departure from Earth.

We stay in silence until Gwyneth coughs, wiping her tears away with her sleeve.

"They... they've got my dad," she stammers. "T-they've kid-kidnapped him."

"Who's 'they'?" asks Aiden, pointing out the logic, but probably at the wrong time.

"The point is, I don't know!" yells Gwyneth, throwing hands. "They want me to give them some stupid passcode or something. The social one. For everything I have under my account," she continues, taking the notebooks from my hands. "But I must save Dad. That's not an option. There must be another way..." she mutters, stacking the notebooks and shoving them into a shelf aggressively.

"Go. Just.. give me some time to process this," Gwyneth says, sighing, and we all retreat from the room.

But when I have time to think about this, Rylie told me to leave, and yet I'm still here hanging on to that last piece of happiness, refusing to accept the reality – that is – he's dead, and no longer here.

But he's here, I think. Even since he.. died – he's telling me that it's alright! He's been here for me quite literally through thick and thin. He's never left me from the start.

Gwyneth's dad has been taken, and I know I should be helping her find a way. But I just can't seem to set my priorities straight.

Am I the one hurt after all?

– a/n : things are starting to get juicy! what do you think will happen next? AND WHO TOOK MY PRECIOUS GWYNETH'S DAD!??? please comment!