Halfway There | COMPLETE ✔ + Sequel

Chapter 17 - Fish Bowl

"Dani!" Bella shouted from her bed as she shot up and charged at me, putting her arms around my neck.

The look of relief spread across Kendall's face, "Oh thank god." I heard her whisper.

"Where have you been?!" Bella grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me back so that she could look at me better.

"Out, Bella. Why?" I knew why. Will obviously told her what happened and to anyone who didn't know what was happening it might have seemed as if I was having some kind of mental break down.

"Will said you kind of just walked out from the diner this morning and then you didn't show up to any classes. He just dropped off your bag so I know you didn't have your phone all day. I mean, we aren't your parents but come on, Dani, I think it's fair to say you had us all freaked out." She explained.

Of course they had the right to be freaked out. They had every right to think that something bad happened to me but as much as I wanted to tell her right then and there what I just went through, I couldn't. They couldn't know anything.

Still not knowing entirely what Nova wanted to do yet so I compromised, "I know and I'll tell you everything, I just need to sleep. I've had a really, really long day."

"It's only 7 o'clock." Kendall chimed.

"Yeah, Ken. And I've been running around the entire town all day. I need a minute if you don't mind." I was being harsh but I needed to be alone while for a little while to figure out what I was going to tell them.

"Okay," Bella said sadly as I climbed into my bed. "We're gonna go tell everyone that you're okay."

"We're really glad you're safe, Dani." Kendall said in a low voice.

I pulled the covers over my head as they walked out of the room. I didn't bother to watch them leave because if I could see the hurt on their faces, I would have jumped right out of bed and begged them to forgive me for being so cryptic.

A deep breath of exhaustion released from me when I heard the sound of the door click close. All of the friends that I have made here have all been really kind and understanding. They're the first people, since my dad died, that I've truly felt comfortable with and now I was keeping secrets from them. It was an awful feeling.

The moment my head hit the pillow, my eyes grew heavy and I realized how tired I was.

It was almost as if my entire day had just passed in a blink of an eye. In a total of less than fourteen hours I found out that Nova was apart of a very dangerous underground club, became a member of said club and to top it all off was told I needed to pretend to be Nova's girlfriend so they wouldn't kill me. I'd say I had the right to be exhausted by 7 o'clock.

I don't even remember falling asleep until I woke up the next morning to the blinding sun coming in through the curtains. I turned over with a groan, disappointed that the world hadn't collapsed into itself.

I was not excited to face another day. If yesterday I woke up intending to have breakfast with a friend and somehow by the end of the day I was being forced into joining an underground fighting club I don't even want to think what might happen today.

After finally accepting the fact that what happened yesterday was not, in fact, a nightmare I sat up in bed. I'm not sure why I felt disappointed when no one else was here with me since I still didn't have the answers they were looking for but I had a sinking feeling that today was going to be another long day.

If The Hit is as dangerous as Nova says it is then I couldn't tell my friends what I knew without putting them in danger too. But I also needed to come up with some kind of explanation that explained how and why all of a sudden Nova and I were together.