Rescue- Runaways 2

Chapter 14: Aaliyah

She's dead. I know she is. She is not. She is not. She is not. The hopeful and painfully unrealistic part of my brain was protesting my pessimism. And good lord, she left the knife here. Why was that? Honestly, it was tempting me at the moment, something I had not experienced since freshman year of high school. I was disgusted by the feeling.

I tore off my hoodie and pitched it at the wall out of sheer frustration. I did not even know why I was wearing it. It was not particularly cool down here. Stuffy would be a better way to describe it. "Aaliyah, Marcus." I heard a voice that sounded like it was coming from the stairs.

My feet made their way out of the bedroom in the direction of Luke almost automatically. I found Micaiah sitting with him. I was a little surprised. "What's going on?" I asked from the foot of the stairs. They were both sitting at the top. Marcus was standing next to me, and even Reese, Colin, and Skye were coming over.

"Yeah, what is going on? And where's Peyton?" Skye asked. "She has never been outside for this long." Luke was holding his phone in his hand and my stomach dropped. They were going to tell us they had figured something out. I had a sneaking suspicion that whatever it was wouldn't be good.

Luke exhaled. "Peyton ran away. For the second time, technically. She would kill me if she knew what I'm about to tell you, but I'm going to tell all three of you anyway. She's mentally ill. Specifically, she's depressed and anxious and pretty much losing her mind from all this. She wears long sleeves because she cuts herself. And at first we thought she ran away to commit suicide."

I looked over my shoulder at the shocked looks on their faces. Luke's monotone voice made it sound more like a high school lecture than a delicate explanation of someone's suicidal behavior. My breath caught.

"You tried to call her, didn't you?" Marcus confirmed. Luke nodded. I felt Marcus shift next to me and then place his hand on my shoulder. "She's dead?" Micaiah and Luke shook their heads. I think he and I felt the same jolt of hope shoot through us at the same moment because he took his hand off my shoulder and I exhaled loudly. "She's alive?"

"Colin, can you trace the call?" Micaiah asked him. He nodded, still a little taken aback by the whole situation. Reese was looking at Micaiah strangely. He just gave her a small smile and cock of his head, which seemed to satisfy her. "We'll find her," he said, turning his attention back to Marcus, Luke, and I. I did not know how reassured I was by the statement. Peyton could outsmart even Albert Einstein if she did not want to be found, but I agreed with it for the time being.

Skye stepped up beside me. "I'm sorry," she whispered in my ear before stepping back and meeting Micaiah's eye. "What do you want me and Reese to do?"

"We'll take this one step at a time," he answered. "The first is getting a location to start from. We'll work from there." Luke handed Colin his phone and he immediately started fiddling with it. Apparently, he was the most tech-savvy person here, even if he had never actually told us that.

Skye caught my eye, nodding up the stairs. Follow me, she mouthed. I raised my eyebrows in a skeptical arch. Micaiah and Luke stood at that moment, coming down the stairs to meet us. Then she headed up, and I followed, wondering what she wasn't telling me.

The sunlight was blinding at first, as it always was when we emerged out of the bunker, but my eyes adjusted quickly. She started walking in the opposite direction of the camp, gesturing for me to follow. Her dark curls bounced as we walked side by side.

It was strange standing so close to someone who was shorter than me. Peyton stood a good four inches taller, whereas Skye was just the opposite, reaching about halfway past my shoulder.

"You know her the best," she said bluntly.

I shook my head fervently. "No, actually, Marcus does. I only got close to her after we ran away. He's been her best friend for years." It pained me slightly to admit that out loud, but I was not about to lie to her or myself. There was something she and Marcus would always have that I could never hope to achieve. Even she and Eli seemed to be knit together at a deeper level. Compared to them, I was a passing affair.