FicWad

HURRICANE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“You guys are back soon,” Jared said as Shannon came into his room.

“We didn't get to go anywhere. Look.” Shannon held out a bunch of magazines for him to see. Jared grabbed one at random and just stared at a photo of him and Skyla leaving the restaurant a few months before, in New York - was it that long already? - and when they put the 'then' photo next to a 'now' photo, a very recent one of him and Skyla leaving the doctor's office just a few days before, you could tell the subtle differences in her body. He panicked.

“Has she seen these?” Jared asked him.

“She has. She is more than upset about them.” Shannon threw every magazine, a total of five with the same cover story, on Jared's bed. “You need to do something, and fast. This story isn't going away. And neither will Skyla.”

Jared rubbed his chin in thought. “She can go into hiding, can't she? I'll send Emma with her. And maybe Vicki can go as well. We can alternate.”

“We can. You can't,” Shannon told him. “But Skyla might agree to this. I turned around the minute I saw it.”

“Where can she go?” Jared asked him.

“My beach house. It's secluded, she's comfortable there, and no one knows about it. She'll be near the beach all day. And she's already got her own room,” Shannon told him. “Jared, think about it. If we were to put Skyla anywhere else, she would be in danger. But there she's got everything.”

“I know another place we could send her,” Jared said. He looked at Shannon with tears in his eyes. “You know where.”

“She would rather stay here. She has said so,” Shannon told him.

“But this would be for her own good,” Jared begged him.

“Going back home, knocked up, being called a whore the entire time she's there? Yeah, if I were her I'd take my chances with the paparazzi,” Shannon said harshly. He turned back toward Jared. “She doesn't want to go home. She told me.”

“When did she tell you this, when you and her were all over each other? Yeah, I know!” Jared sighed and crossed his arms. He had barely looked down when Shannon's hand came flying from nowhere. He hit Jared's head, but Jared just looked a little dazed as he got back up. He threw a punch back at Shannon but missed the mark and connected with his gut; he vaguely remembered someone trying to pull them apart but not before a cut lip, a few bites, and many scratches happened to both of them. Tomo pulled them apart and put each of them to an opposite side of the room.

“What's going on here?” he shouted at them.

“He accused me of making out with Skyla!” Shannon shouted, blood coming out of his cut lip.

“He called Skyla a whore, made out with her, and, just, I don't know what else!” Jared said. He had scratches down one forearm and they were openly bleeding.

“Jared, I'm sorry but Skyla would probably hit on a rock,” Tomo shrugged. “Shannon, you can get any girl you want.”

“I'm outta here. Jared, you can do whatever you want with Skyla.” Shannon walked out of Jared's bedroom. He stopped by Skyla's room to say goodnight to her, and ask her to come stay with him a little bit. He knocked on her door and waited for her to come and open it. “Skyla? You in there?” Shannon pushed her door open cautiously. He looked around her room and noticed it looked like it was ransacked, her clothes thrown everywhere. Shannon turned and ran back to Jared's room. He grabbed both Jared and Tomo and told them what all he had saw when he had opened the door. They all stepped inside and their mouths dropped open.

“Something happened.” Tomo said. “She left here in a hurry.”

“Looks more like she was kidnapped.” Shannon walked over to her bed and sat down on it. He noticed a note by her bed. “Look.” He took it to Jared and Tomo. They read over the note.

“She ran away... we have to find her,” Jared said.

“Who knows where she's at?” Shannon said. They all took a seat in one of the plush black velvet chairs in her room. “It looks like she's been gone for awhile. She probably packed a bag and ran, possibly out the back door for all we know.”

“You guys stay here and discuss it, I'll be back.” Jared walked to the living room and saw Emma talking to Vicki.

“Ouch, what happened?” Emma asked him, eying the bloody scratches on his forearm.

“Nothing major. Have you seen Skyla?”

“Not since her and Shannon got back earlier. Why?”

“She's gone.” Jared turned back around and headed to the kitchen to get three bottles of water. Earlier, when Skyla was with Shannon, he noticed that the baby's first sonogram was on the refrigerator. Now, he realized it was gone. He slammed the fridge door shut and ran back to the living room. “She took the sonogram.”

Emma looked at him blankly. “What?”

“The baby's first sonogram. She took it with her!” Jared knew she had to have taken something with her so she could remember them. He walked back upstairs toward Skyla's room where Shannon and Tomo were talking. “She took the baby's first sonogram.”

“That doesn't help us,” Tomo pulled a book out of the seat he was sitting in.

“Maybe one of the magazines I bought earlier can,” Shannon blurted out. He got up and went to get them. When he walked in his room, he noticed the items in his drawer were all misplaced, like someone had gone through it hurriedly. He poked through everything and noticed his map of California was missing.

“She has my map of California,” he said as he came back with the magazines. He tossed them on Skyla's bed and sat back down in his empty chair.

“So she can find her way. Has anything else gone missing?” Jared asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Let's keep an eye out for things that are missing that were there.” They all got up to leave and Jared noticed Skyla's window was open. “Look at her window. It's open.”

Shannon walked over to it and looked out. Her room overlooked a tree, and it was easy access to get to the ground. “She could have jumped to the tree and then jumped down. Easy escape if she's done it before.” Shannon stepped away from the window and left.





Skyla looked at the map she had and tried to figure out how to get from northern L.A. to San Francisco. She had already spent $100 out of the now non-existent bank account that her and her former friend Jessey Vargas co-owned on a cab to get her from the corner of their street to where she was, in northern L.A. Before she used the money, she had checked the funds constantly to notice her brother Jackson had put a gracious amount of money into the account each month for her. Now she was grateful for his actions because she had a few thousand dollars whenever she needed it. She sighed and gave up on the map; she hailed another cab to get her to San Francisco so she didn't have to hitchhike.

“How much from here to San Francisco?” she asked the driver.

“Too much for you,” he told her.

“I have $1,200,” she begged.

“Deal.”

Skyla got in the backseat and put her bag beside her. She pulled out her phone and noticed she had text messages from Jared, Shannon, Tomo, Emma and Vicki, all asking her where she was. She put her phone bag in her bag and pulled out the BlackBerry Jared had gotten her and checked it, noticing Jared had texted her on it too. She put it back up as well and pulled out her sonogram, running her fingers across the image. She gave it a kiss before putting it back up. She curled up against the jacket she stole from Shannon's closet and fell asleep, breathing in his scent.

“Ma'am, we're here,” the driver said a few hours later.

She woke up and stretched her arms out and paid him with her card. As she got out of the taxi, she noticed the driver had deposited her in front of a motel. She walked to the main office and asked for a room.

“Sure thing,” a tired looking girl told her. She handed her a room key and Skyla paid for a few nights. As she showed her where her room was, she decided to call her mom back home in Chattanooga.

“Thanks,” she told the girl. She set her backpack down on one bed and wrapped Shannon's jacket around her and laid down on the other. She pulled out her phone and dialed her mom's phone number.

“Hello?” her mom answered.

“Hey, Mom? It's me, Skyla,” she said as she held back tears.

“I know who you are, honey. What's wrong?” she asked her.

“I-I want to come home,” she told her mother, crying.

“Where are you at? You know I'll come get you,” her mother told her.

“I'm in San Francisco. Mom, there's something else. I-I'm pregnant.” Skyla sobbed.

“It's okay, sweetie. We'll talk about it when I get there,” she told her, and hung up.

Skyla wiped her eyes and curled up on her bed. She fell asleep there until she got a phone call. She looked at the caller ID, and noticed it was her mother. She answered it. “Hello?”

“Where are you at in San Francisco?” her mother asked her.

Skyla told her the location of the motel she was in and waited for her mom to hang up. Instead, her mom said, “Skyla, we aren't angry at you. But we feel if you had told us earlier about this then we could have helped you.”

“Yeah,” Skyla sobbed. She gasped for air as she wiped her tears. When she heard a knock on her hotel room door, she went and looked through her peephole and was thrilled to see her mom. She threw the door open and hugged her mother, sobbing.

“I'm here, now, it's okay,” Cecelia Miller said, tears running down her cheeks. She sat Skyla down. “How long ago...?”

“It's been a few months, but I've gone to the doctor,” Skyla told her mother. She pulled out her baby's first sonogram and showed it to her mom. She watched as her mom turned into a completely different person.

“I bet it'll be a little girl,” she said quietly.

“What?” Skyla looked at her.

“Nothing. Ready to go back home?” Cecelia looked at Skyla.

“Yeah. I'm ready,” Skyla grabbed her bag and followed her mom out of the motel room.