Mimi has stayed for four days so far.

                Those may have been four of the worst days on the Girls’ Side.

                John and Cassie seemed to understand the position we were in, and neither of them dared to step out of line. I wasn’t entirely sure as to why Cassie was going with the secrecy. After all, she was a girl. She could have gotten both boys and Sofia nailed.

                I had to assume John was the reason.

                John was surprisingly quiet. He didn’t seem like his usual self, much calmer than normal. He held himself in a small ball, resting his chin between his knees. His eyes moved around the dark room for the hundredth time. He didn’t let Cassie touch him, which seemed to hurt her a lot. Any time she tired, John shrugged her off, shooting her a dirty look before falling back into the fetal position. I didn’t try to talk to him, not simply out of disgust. I didn’t want to risk Mimi hearing any of us.

                Sofia had been good, though. She tried to keep Mimi out of the house as much as possible so that we weren’t forced to keep it down. She came up with the idea that anytime there was light shinning in through the crack of the door that meant they were home.

                It worked fairly well.

                A few times I would listen to them talk in the kitchen above, just as something to do. I would sit on the top step, leaning my head against the cold wall, eyes closed. Their voices were muffled a bit by the door, but nothing too bad. Sofia was always tight with Mimi, but Mimi didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

                This reminded me of when Ellie was alive. She told me of life when she was living and anything before she could remember. There was a story once where, in the Second World War, a family remained hidden for years at a time. They weren’t allowed to make a single noise during most of the daylight hours, and had to remain fairly quite in the evening too. Eventually, they were caught by the enemy and sent to a concentration camp. They were killed shortly after.

                Genocide was going on at the time, where anyone of a certain religion was being murdered. I could remember our conversation after she told me of that.

                “Why would people go after a religion? Was it really that bad then?” I asked her, trailing my fingers lightly up her side.

                We lie in the bed, only a dim light for us to see each other. Ellie’s head was on my arm, her fingers playing with the edges of my hair.

                She sighed, “The leader was insane. He wanted to create a master race of blonde hair and blue eyed people.”

                I chuckled, “I guess you and I wouldn’t be qualified for that ‘master race’”

                “Neither was he.”

                “What do you mean?”

                “He had brown hair and brown eyes.” She giggled, “And the funniest of mustaches. It was ridiculous.”

                I raised an eyebrow, “What did it look like?”

                “It was just a patch here.” She pointed to a spot right underneath her nose. “Back in my time, everyone mocked him for that mustache.”

                She sighed at the memory.

                “Anyways, what happened with the people?” I asked, trying to bring the subject to what it was before. I didn’t like talking about her life before then. She always seemed to get a little morbid at the discussion. I tried to keep her from that phase as often as possible.

                “Most of them died.”

                “Most?”

                “Yeah, eventually they ended the war with Germany loosing. Well, Nazi Germany.”

                I nodded, waiting for her to continue.

                “They basically just told the Jews to go onto their old ways, which was stupid. Their houses and homes had been destroyed once they went to the concentration camp. Any family members they had were most likely dead or lost forever.”

                “Lost?”

                “They didn’t keep you in the same camp as your family.”

                I breathed out slowly. I had an understanding of the family bonds of her time were much stronger than ours. Even still, to be a small child and separated from my father would have been horrifying.

                “Yeah, I know.” She bit her lip, “The countries did try to help the Jews. They gave them Israel, which really wasn’t theirs to give.”

                “What was so great about Israel?” I asked.

                “It was basically the land of the Jews. It was their homeland. It was considered Holy land. It’s on the Girls’ Side now.”

                “Good thing this religion isn’t practiced still. I don’t think I’d be comfortable knowing my Holy land was on the Girls’ Side.”

                She giggled, “Imagine how the Jews felt. They were being sentenced to death and their Holy land wasn’t even theirs.”

                “Were—are you a Jew?”

                She shook her head, her hairs tickling my arm, “No. I’m Christian.”

                “What’s that?”

                “It’s basically the same practice, except Christians believe in Jesus, and Jews don’t. Well, we believe that Jesus was the son of God. Jews thought he may have just been a good scholar or something of the sorts.”

                I nodded, barely comprehending this.

                She gave me a sympathetic smile, before explaining further, “It’s like with your religion, Chin. You believe that Maine is the son of God, right?”

                “He’s not God, he’s Allah.” I corrected.

                “Whatever. Allah is the Muslim form of God.”

                “Muslim?”

                “It’s another religion that was very closely linked with Judaism. Basically like Christianity, save for their prophet was Mohammad, and he was an ordinary-ish man.”

                “Ish?”   

                She rolled her eyes, “Forget the ish. The point is, even though you use different names, Chin and Christianity are incredibly similar.”

                “I highly doubt that.” I leaned over, kissing her cheek.

                “You highly doubt anything I say,”

                “That’s not true!”

                She stuck her tongue out at me. I chuckled, pressing my lips gently to hers. Ellie smiled, moving her lips with my own at a slow tempo. The lights turned off, leaving us in total darkness. Ellie giggled, pulling away.

                “Good night, Clayton.”

                “Good night, Ellie.”

                I brought the back of my hand up, wiping away the water that had spilled over the rim of my eye. It was getting harder and harder to get through the days knowing that I wasn’t able to see her, or to avenge her.

                My eyes flickered over to John’s figure. He was still curled into a ball, but laying on his side. He was asleep.

                I wondered what time it was.

                The kitchen light was still on, which meant we had to be particularly quiet. My eyes stayed on the thin line, waiting for it to disappear.

                I could hear their voices chatting softly, this time to far away to make out any part of the conversation.

                Cassie was sitting a few feet away from John, her worrying eyes focused on him. I watched as she reached a hand out hesitantly, debating with herself. Slowly, she gently pressed her fingers onto his hair. He didn’t move.

                Cassie stroked his hair softly, keeping ever so quiet about it.

                A thought occurred to me that this may have been the first time she had been able to touch him since he went into lock down.

                Something blinked off. I darted my head to the crack, meeting bitch blackness. The voices had faded away, leaving us in silence.

                I stood up, walking down the stairs as quietly as I could manage. It wasn’t too hard anymore to learn the silent path.

                I walked over to where Cassie sat, watching her. She didn’t look up as I took a seat across from her, on the opposite side of the sleeping John.

                “Can I ask you something?” I whispered, my voice soft in the silence of the room. Our eyes darted to John, waiting to see if he awoke.

                When no response came from him, she nodded.

                “Why do you stay with John?”

                “You wouldn’t understand.”

                “I wouldn’t?”

                She shook her head, “No. You wouldn’t. All you care about is ruthless murder and keeping your hands clean.”

                I rolled my eyes, “I hardly care about keeping my hands clean. That’s all Sofia. But I have a reason behind my want.”

                “Oh really?”

                “Yeah.”

                “What is it?”

                “You tell answer my question first then we’ll see about your answer.” I stated simply enough, a hard edge to my voice.

                She sighed, “Fine.”

                “Fine?”

                “It’s because John’s the first boy that I’ve met that actually has a heart.”

                Oh the irony.

                I chuckled, “That’s a good one.”

                Her eyes narrowed, “I’m being serious.”

                “So am I.”

                “Forget it. You asked, so I told you. I don’t care if you don’t take me serious. It’s true.” She said those words as if she was trying to convince herself. “And I don’t see you holding up your side of the deal? What did John do that could make someone angry enough to chase them across the world to kill him?”

                I took a deep breath.    

“He killed my Ellie.”

                “Who?”               

                “She was my everything.”

                “Your ‘everything’?” Cassie’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion. I glanced back behind us, checking to see if the light was still out.

                We were in the clear.

                I nodded, “I loved her more than I loved living.”

                “So why don’t you go kill yourself to be with her…” Cassie’s words were mumbled under her breath, but I was used to hearing soft voices. I picked it up easily.

                “I would if I didn’t have unfinished business.”   

                “By killing my John?”

                “He doesn’t love you.”

                “That’s not…”

                “I loved Ellie.”

                ‘You don’t know this.”

                I turned so that our eyes were level, staring her in the face. “I may not be the smartest of guys out there, but this is one thing I’m certain of. I loved her more than anything in the world. I’m still in love with her.”

                Cassie looked away.

                “Look.” I shook my head, “You don’t understand the depth my feelings for Ellie went. And for John to just take it all away in that instant…”

                My voice cracked on the last word, leaving me hanging. I stared up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly, trying to clear my eyes.

                “I’m sorry he did that, but he wouldn’t have done that intentionally. Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?"

                “I walked into our house to see him standing there with a gun, and Ellie on the ground bleeding!” I hissed, trying to get the point across.

                “There must’ve been something…”

                I stood up sharply, unable to deal with her ignorance any longer, “Forget this. You talk to him about it. I can barely even look at him anymore. I thought we were best friends, but apparently, we weren’t.”

                Cassie opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. I turned on my heel, walking back to the stairs. I didn’t care for silence this time, just needing to be away from those two. I took a deep breath.

                I took a seat on the top step.

                I could still see Cassie petting John’s hair gently, her eyes focused on his body. I wondered what was going through his mind.

                A thought crossed my own.

                Cassie and I had just had our first conversation.

                It seemed almost unlikely to have happened.

                But yet, it had.

                A noise to my left caused me to stiffen. I turned my head sharply, holding my breath, hoping to be as quiet as possible.

                The door opened slowly.

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Guys, I do have a reason for why it's a month since I've updated. I usually go on the first few days to see how many votes or comments I got for that chapter, and when I logged on, I saw none for either. So I waited a few more days and when I got back , I only saw a couple votes, and one comment. 

And I lost like all motivation. 

So only recently have I gone back to check and see that I actually had comments& votes. Please, if you read this, not to sound desperate, but I really need support for this story.