The Program

Chapter Thirty-Four

Over the next few days, all of us teens -including Natalie as well- continued to go to the hideout and Natalie showed us a few different fighting styles. I wasn't getting the hang of it as quickly, but Jack was cheering me on, even saying that I should look at it as if I were Tris from Divergent, and he would be my Tobias.

The fact that he mentioned a book alone made me want to kiss him. But given the fact he compared himself to the all powerful Four made me laugh.

He wasn't exactly pleased by this fact.

And at the end of each day, we would go back to his house, continue with the same sleeping arrangements we were using, and do it all again the next day.

But on this particular morning, something a bit different took place.

I was sitting in the kitchen, eating oatmeal -which I wasn't exactly a fan of but I choked down as not to be rude- with Annie's mom when we all heard a commotion outside.

It was clear that the guards were keeping someone from getting to the door. I saw John's dad roll his eyes and open the door. All of us down here just watched.

"Excuse me. Is there a problem out here?" He asked, following by him saying, "Oh, Danny. Clay. What are you guys doing here? Who are your friends? Wait, just come in."

At this point, Jack and I both stood up. I exited the kitchen, Katie staying and smiling at me as I left.

Not long after, Jack was engulfed in a hug by his two friends, both of them spitting off words of how much they missed him and how he should have called and told them he was out of jail.

I just stared, not at them, but at the two people behind them. My best friends.

"Lexi," I heard Nate say, seeming to wait for the moment when I would walk to him. "W-we saw you on the news. You're awake."

I smiled and ran to both of them, Maddie wrapping her arms around me and Nate putting his around us both. "Yeah," I breathed out. "I'm okay."

"Oh my god, Lexi!" Maddie continued, the slightest bit of tears on her cheeks as she pulled away.

I felt horrible about not talking to them much since I woke up from the first coma. I'd been busy, wrapped up in all of this. But moments like these, the ones where we still cared about each other despite that, proved we were best friends.

Eventually, both of us two groups of happy friends separated. Jack turned to me, grinning as he turned to me. "Well, aren't you gonna introduce me, princess?"

I crossed my arms. "You met them at the hospital before. Remember that?" I answered, waving at his friends. "Hi, Danny. Great to see you again, Clay."

Maddie bumped my shoulder. "Wait. Isn't Jack, you know..." She trailed off. I nodded, and she smirked. "Are you two, like, together now?" I nodded again.

I could have said more, but right then, this came from the top of the stairs.

"Danny!"

Followed by John stumbling over his words as he tried to grab Annie as she ran down the steps. "Annie. No." And then failing. "Crap."

Annie's arms wrapped around Danny before anyone could stop her. I couldn't remember whether I had told her if he didn't remember or not at that moment. But in that moment, Annie didn't seem to give a crap. This was her friend, and he was safe.

"Um," Danny mumbled, rubbing at the back of his neck as she pulled away. "Hi?"

Annie knew instantly what that meant, backing away. "Oh." She knotted her fingers together, John coming up behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Sorry about that."

He coughed. "Uh, yeah. Don't worry about it." Sticking his hands in his pockets, he asked Jack," "What's going on here?"

Clay piped in, "Yeah. There are these really official government guards outside, dude. How bad of a crime did you commit?"

Jack only grumbled, running his hands through his hair and sarcastically saying, "Let's just say, the perks of being related to my dad are absolutely freaking amazing and leave it at that."

"Alright." Danny said, still eyeing Annie a bit.

"So, uh," I started, bringing the attention to me. "I'm confused. I mean, I get how Clay and Danny would be here, but why you guys?" I motioned to my friends.

"A happy coincidence I guess." Nate told me. "Me and Maddie went to your house looking for you because we saw you on tv exiting the hospital so we figured you went home. When we didn't find you, we decided to get a hold of John. The only problem; we don't know him besides for from the horror stories from you."

"Around this time," Clay began, John glaring at me for Nate's choices of words when mentioning him. "Danny and I bumped your friends and we discovered we could be of assistance. Let's skip a bit of what happened in between though."

Danny opened his mouth. "Long story short, we brought them here. But we only hoped to get some info on where you were from John, Lexi, not see you or much less see Mr. was in jail Jack."

"I guess I understand," I replied, biting at my lip and pulling a strand of hair behind my ear. "So, how's school been?"

Nate laughed. "It's always torturous. But it's even more so when you're not there."

"Anyway," Jack spoke, coming closer to me and wrapping an arm around me only for him to unwrap it a second later when my dad glared at him, causing him to put his hands in his pockets instead. "Since Lexi won't introduce me. Hi. I'm Jack. And i'm not going to lie, I haven't known Lexi long enough to know anything about you guys. Well, I mean, I have known her for a good amount of time, kinda. It's a long story."

I chuckled at Jack's nervous rambling, something I know I would be doing if we changed places.

Maddie giggled a little too. "I'm Maddie, and i've actually heard a large handful about you. Speaking of which," She looked at Annie. "It's nice to see you again, Annie." Annie waved slightly, still freaked about what she had done.

"And i'm Nate," He extended his hand and Jack shook it. "I remember seeing you at the hospital. It was a really confusing day."

"That is an understatement." John yelled from over with Annie, joining the conversation. "That day was all kinds of crazy. But I could see how it would just be confusing for you guys."

If anything more was going to be said, the world may never know.

Right at that moment, Natalie came down the stairs, most likely ready to take us to Bridget.

"Alright, we're doing something a bit different today. So we should get goi-" She stopped when she saw the visitors. "Um. Hello."

Maddie suddenly stepped forward. "You're the doctor, right? Elody Clarke?"

"Yes." Natalie smiled, grabbing her bag nearby. "And you must be Lexi's friends, from before."

It was awkward, more awkward than I even thought I would have to be when my friends were involved.

But I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it.

"Does anyone else smell burning?" Natalie questioned, sniffing the air. I was about to say that I didn't, but then it came; the slightest bit of smoke filling my senses.

John stared at me, then to Jack, and finally Natalie. And then we all stared at the smoke that had built up in the kitchen.

Wouldn't we have noticed the smoke before now?

Shouldn't the smoke alarms be going off?

I looked around the living room and everyone began to make their way to the door, Natalie telling us to hurry.

And that's when Annie frantically moved her head about. "Where's mom?"

I snapped my head to her. "She never came out of the kitchen."

And she clearly wasn't making any noise now.

But the fast growing flames making their way toward us didn't seem to care.

"She's probably hurt." Annie yelled, already making her way into that room, John stopping her before she even made it to the couch which was now developing fire. "We have to help her." She choked out.

Everything was moving in slow motion, at a strangely normal pace instead of one you would go at in this situation.

Everything seemed normal as John let go of Annie and he himself ran into the kitchen.

Everything seemed normal when Jack pushed me out the door with everyone else, soon followed by him doing the same to Annie, and ran after his brother even with fear present on his face.

Everything seemed normal when the guards and Natalie were instructing us the move away from the house.

Everything seemed normal when suddenly, the house went up in flames, the three people still inside.

Time only sped up when I heard screaming, and I couldn't make out if it was my own.

❒❒❒❒

"We are currently standing outside of the Evans' residence; the home of two of the mysterious coma patients." A woman said into her microphone, facing a camera. "A couple months back, a young man and woman again went into a coma, waking up mere days ago."

I thanked the firefighter standing front of me, holding the blanket to me that he gave me and continued to stare at the burned down house.

"But sadly, a horribly event has taken place today, as the house you can clearly see behind me caught on fire." She just kept talking about it, me drowning her out.

My mind went elsewhere.

Where were they?

They couldn't just be gone.

No one could find them. No Jack, John, or Annie's mom.

That's what the fireman said; there was no one inside.

Which left me with one conclusion; they were taken.

"We have that young lady who went into the second coma here with us today." I heard the news lady say, causing me to huff and looking down as something rubbed against me. It was Milo, the cat. He had actually made it out. I didn't know whether to be happy about that small victory or not. "Maybe she'll be kind enough to speak with us."

At her words, I turned around and stood up, careful not to kick Milo in my rage. "Or maybe she just went through something awful and would rather be left alone."

"I understand," She told me, walking closer. "But maybe you'd still like to share." She leaned the microphone my way.

"Nope." I stated. "I'm good." I sat back down.

Her mouth hung open at my tone and finality. But I didn't care.

All that matters is that I get my friends back.

And the first step to doing that would not be talking to some news reporter. Instead, I needed to speak with Natalie.

❒❒❒❒

I don't know how on schedule my updates will be. My laptop is having issues and I have to share with my sister.

But hopefully everything will still updated when it's supposed to be.

And yes, I do realize it's not Friday yet. But I had the chapter finished so...

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