Chapter 184

184 A Little Surprise

When I woke up again, my eyes opened in a daze of confusion. I noticed that I was in a room-a hospital room. I think I was still in the YMPA, but I didn’t really know where I was. But it seemed like my legs were still stuck, so I tried to shake them off as I looked down at my body and found that there was a sheet over my legs.

“Hello?” I muttered, looking around when I heard the door open. Then Nikki and Tisiah came into the room with their faces pale, and their eyes wide in fear as they stared at me with fear in their eyes. “Nikki!” I shouted as she went to hug me, her eyes wetting with tears. But someone else came in, and it was Mr. Drails.

“How you doing son?” he said with a chuckle, but I could tell that he was extremely worried as he looked at us.

“Where am I?” I asked him with a hint of panic in my voice. “Why am I here?”

“Because you suffered quite some injuries in Charlie’s explosion,” he said with a sigh, then looked at Tisiah. “Tisiah, why don’t you get him some water?” Tisiah nodded as he left the room. Nikki leaned in closer and kissed my forehead, which made me blush because I wasn’t used to this kind of affection.

“It’s okay, Nikki,” I whispered, then looked at Mr. Drails with a puzzled expression.

“So what happened to Maddie Cone?” I asked, moving my position to where I could actually see him, but my legs were still stuck, so I had to move slowly as I leaned forward and rested my head against the bed. “What did you do to her? Did you kill her?”

“Well, the explosion killed her and the Xeno was destroyed,” Mr. Drails said with a nod, then walked away from the bed with a sigh. “But that isn’t important right now.”

“No it is important,” I said as I looked up at him with anger in my eyes, but he shook his head and raised his hand to silence me.

.....

“You’re lucky to be alive,” he said as he walked towards the door and then looked at me one more time before he left. “I’ll let the others know that you’re awake now.”

I nodded and sighed as Mr. Drails walked out the door, but then it suddenly opened again and Tisiah came in with a glass of water in her hand, but before she could walk towards the bed, I reached out and took the glass from her. “Thank you,” I muttered, drinking it down quickly as it felt so good in my parched throat.

Then Nikki looked at me with a look of sadness in her eyes, and she slowly walked over to me and held my face with both hands as she leaned in close and kissed me on the cheek. “You okay?” she asked and I nodded. “Yeah, just unsure of what my injuries were.”

Nikki smiled as she ran her fingers through my hair. “Well, you lost some of your hair,” she said with a chuckle and then looked at her hands while she saw me blushing.

“How bad?”

“Not too bad,” she chuckled, then hugged me and kissed my forehead again.

I could hear her whispering to Tisiah. “You should go now,” she added. “Go on now-I’ll take care of him.”

“Okay,” Tisiah said. “I’ll come back later.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nikki said with a smile, and then they both left the room. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” I said with a nod, as they both walked out the door and closed it behind them. I sighed in thought of what just happened, and then noticed that I was feeling a lot better than before, and even my legs were free now.

I sat up and took my wand out of my pocket. But when I did, I realized that my wand was no longer glowing. Clearly I needed to charge it up, but not knowing how I felt useless at the moment.

So I decided to sit there and wait until someone came in to check on me. After a while, I started to feel a little tired, and I got up to get a pillow so that I could lay down. Well, at least I can go back to normal for a moment, but who knows?

***

A month passed on, and things went on normally. Greg was normal, my life was normal, but everything was about to change for good-or bad-I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go at the moment.

I had finally gotten my wand back to working condition and was able to use it again. Greg didn’t lose his friends somehow, and they became friends with me-making me a bit more popular, even if I was still a nobody to most of them.

I was beginning to realize that being a nobody wasn’t all bad. In fact, it could be fun. And what was really interesting was that even though I was starting to become part of the school crowd, there were still some people that didn’t like me. But that’s just how it is.

I was at school one day, as I saw Greg and friends come over to me.

“Hey Connor,” Greg greeted. “How you’ve been?”

“The same way I’ve always been,” I said with a chuckle, as I walked with him and his friends towards the cafeteria. “How have things been with you?”

“Oh well,” Greg started, looking over at me. “You know how it is, nothing new to tell you.” I chuckled as I looked around. “I guess.” But then Greg sighed, as he looked at me. “Maybe there is something to tell you perhaps,” he said. Immediately I stopped, as I turned around and looked at him, and his friends looked at him with expressions of confusion on their faces.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You’ll see soon enough,” Greg said with a chuckle, but he wouldn’t say anything more on the subject. I nodded, but now I was very curious-very curious, as this might be the only interesting thing to happen to me this year.

Well, as I walked into the cafeteria, I found that there was no sign of anyone special from my class, and I was beginning to wonder what Greg meant by soon enough when all of a sudden I heard a whisper from behind me.

“Hey Connor!” I heard the whisper again from behind me. I turned around quickly and saw a guy standing behind me with his hands shoved in his pockets as he looked at me with a smirk. It was Tisiah.

“Whoa, what are you doing here?” I whispered to him frantically, trying to whisper so that the others couldn’t hear what was happening.

“I saw you go into the cafeteria, so I figured that I should say hi!” Tisiah replied with a smile, as his dark blue eyes sparkled with curiosity and humor. “The YMPA and this school is separate, you can’t be in here!” I shouted. Tisiah scratched his head. “But Greg asked me to talk to you though. He said that he needs help because someone wanted to talk to you, someone you apparently know.”

“There is no one that I know that no one else doesn’t know,” I said to him, then thought for a moment. “Wait-you said that someone wants to talk to me?”

“That’s what Greg said,” Tisiah replied with a smile, then he walked over to me as his hands went up in the air. “Don’t believe me, you can ask him.”

I muttered, “Is that the surprise he was talking to me about?”

Tisiah nodded as he walked over to where his friends were sitting, and he pointed to Greg who was just finishing talking to someone who looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember who it was. Tisiah and I sat down together and waited for Greg to come over. Greg looked behind him, seeing both me and Tisiah, and then smiled as he walked over to us with his friends.

“Hi guys,” Greg said as he came over to us.

“Hey Greg,” I said with a smile. “So you wanted to tell me a surprise?”

Greg nodded as he threw back his head slightly as his group of friends began to walk away, but then stopped and looked at Tisiah as he motioned for me to stay there. “This is a surprise for Connor, not you,” he said with a sigh.

“Yeah right,” Tisiah said with a grin and wink.

“Anyway, some anonymous tip told me something that would prove to be a big danger to EMO in general,” he said. “So including the YMPA and everyone?” I asked, confused by his statement.

“That’s right,” he said with a nod as he looked over at Tisiah. “Well, now that you know, you might want to tell Connor what it is.”

“But you’re going to tell him right?” Tisiah asked.

“No I just said you-”

“I’m not ready to tell him,” Greg said, as if I wasn’t listening to their whole conversation, but I was paying attention because I really wanted to know what this was all about.

“That’s why I was talking to you,” Greg added. “Now, you have the right to refuse it or accept it.”

“I’m refusing!” Tisiah returned, as if he didn’t have to ask.

“And now you know,” Greg said with a sigh, then he nodded towards me as if asking if I was ready to hear this. “Well, here it is, Connor,” Greg said with a serious expression on his face. “You know that I can’t reveal this information unless you agree.”

“But why?” I asked with a gasp. “You know I won’t tell anyone.”

“You know I can’t say anything,” Greg said with a sigh as he looked back at Tisiah with an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry.”

“I guess that means that we’re going to have to wait until tomorrow, huh?” Tisiah said with a sigh, and he looked at me.

“I guess,” I said with a frown, but then suddenly I realized that this could be a good thing-or a bad thing-depending on how you looked at it.

“Well, if it’s good news then I guess it’s good,” Tisiah said with a grin, as he leaned back in his seat with his arms behind him. “But if it’s bad news then we’ll be stuck waiting for days.”

“Well, it’s not like there’s anything else going on,” I said with a laugh, trying to relax my tense muscles.

“True,” Tisiah said with a smile, “but we could always go out tonight?”

“What?” I asked with a gasp, as my eyes widened in shock. “But the-”

“It’s fine, we can do that. There’s a diner down the street and we can tell Connor then. How about that?” Greg said, as we looked at each other. I nodded. “Fine, but this better not be some sort of trick.”