• chapter two •
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Jess passed out of exhaustion and woke up by being tazered, again.

She screamed in pain and pushed herself against the wall.

"Please, no more. I can't take it anymore," She cried. He chittered and left.

Thanks for the morning call. Asshole.

As night time broke, she broke the lock off the door and quietly roamed the halls. She heard a quiet slam of the door and quickly crouched, she then saw Hal, from earlier, with a dead harness on his back. She sighed with relief.

"Psst," She spoke. He turned around quickly. She had a finger on her mouth as in saying 'Quiet'.
He furrowed his eyebrows and slowly made is way over to her.

"I know you," He whispered.

"Yeah, the night you tried to free those kids,"

"Why do they have you in chains?" He asked.

"I'm guessing you're not here for answers, you're here for someone. Who are you looking for?" She spoke.

"Ben, my brother and as many other kids as possible," He said.

"They should be following a Bug to a room to sleep, you join the end of it and try to silently kill it while it sleeps. I'll keep a look out."

"With chains?" He said.

"I've been wearing them for 7 months, I know how to move around without making a noise. Now go, they're coming," She whispered. He turned his head then nodded and stood up and joined the end of the line of harnessed kids. She held her chains and followed them after they went inside and closed the door.

After 10 minutes passed, Tom and Margaret came in. Jess heard a squeal of a Bug and they barged in. Tom killed the Bug and all the harnessed kids had their hands on him like they wanted him to stop.

"You okay?" Tom asked Hal.

"Yeah," Hal replied.

"Who are you?" Margaret asked Jess.

"My name's Jessica, I'm a prisoner here, hence the chains," She spoke, showing her the chains.

"She's okay, I've seen her before, when we rescued Rick," Hal said out of breath.

"What are your names anyway?" Jess asked while they were picking up the kids.

"I'm Hal, this is my dad Tom and that's Margaret," Hal said.

"Hi, You wouldn't have anything to cut this chain, would you?" Jess asked while showing them the chains. Hal used one of the Bug's burning prods to remove her chains.

"You look in pretty bad shape -"Hal started.

"I'm fine. I can pick up one of the smaller kids," I spoke while putting a young girl in a fireman's carry.

They left the building after they signaled two other men, Anthony and Dai. Then they left the hospital and they took Jess back to their camp.

✧

Hal informed Jess that there are over 170 people at their camp, which is currently held at the JFK Highschool, for the time being.
They were taking the kids back to unharness them since they successfully removed Rick's. They call the aliens 'Skitters' and the robots "Mechs'.

Jess informed them her story about being imprisoned by them and why. It took a while for them to believe her but they did.

✧

They reached the camp and a bunch of people were filling the school halls since they were coming through with the kids. Jess carried the same girl over her shoulder and they brought them into a makeshift hospital room, and they immediately started unharnessing them. Dr Glass, was their 'Combat Medic' officer, and she told Jess to stay put while a young girl, Lourdes, takes a look at her, making sure she was okay. Jess was covered in cuts and bruises and there was blood all around her spikes.

✧

Jess woke up with about 5 kids unharnessed and unconscious around her. She sat up and saw that her cuts were cleaned and stitched. She then saw Hal, Tom and Matt surrounding Ben. Hal look over at her and spoke  to Tom before walking over to her.

"Hey, how you doing?" Hal asked.

"Better than I've been for a long time," Jess spoke with a small smile. He looked over at Ben and his family.

"How is he?" She asked.

"He's okay, just want him to wake up," He slightly chuckled, she smiled.

"Hal!" Tom said. "He's awake," Hal got up and quickly walked over to Ben.

"Dad?" Ben spoke. She smiled and sighed

I missed Jason more than ever.

✧

- so I'm finally back to editing this book. sorry it's been taking so long, I got a lot on my plate atm, but I'll get there.
btw, a big shout out to flashingallen for making such a beautiful cover for this book. ♡