Classified ☑

[ chapter 44 ]

About a year later.

Beep. Beep.

I rolled over and slapped the alarm clock that read six thirty a.m. Feeling groggy, I started to get ready for the day. As I slipped on my tank top, I didn't miss seeing the scar from the gunshot wound.

I placed my finger on the scar and traced my finger around the edge of it, bringing me back to that whole day. The day Mark died and the day I found out the truth about everything. From my mom being alive to Shelly exposing who she really was.

Sadly, only one of us had made it out alive. Sometimes I felt guilty for killing Shelly, but other times I remembered she'd almost killed me herself. It ate at me for a long time, but Cole also often reminded me of how she set Mark up to die.

Lucky for me, Joseph, Cole, and Dante had come to find me just in time after realizing I'd snuck out of the house that night. They'd been able to track me thanks to my phone's GPS. When they brought me to the hospital the doctors had called in a miracle. They told us they didn't know how I had survived because of the amount of blood I'd lost.

Whatever it was, I was grateful to be alive. To see another day.

My dad and Mark weren't so lucky.

Thomas had succeeded in giving Gracie the flash drive. She and the FBI were able to take down TIA. They'd also tracked down Luther, so Dante's and Cole's dad was in their custody.

Lucille on the other hand had gotten away. No one had seen or heard from her since that night. It was almost like she'd vanished into thin air. The FBI had checked into all the hospitals in the state, trying to get some trace of her since she had been shot in the leg, but they came up with nothing. My guess was she was going to have to stay low the rest of her life, being on the most wanted list for the FBI and all.

Dante and Joseph had also moved on to bigger and better things. After everything that had happened, Gracie offered them to come join the FBI. Neither of them hesitated.

Gracie had offered Cole and me the same thing, but we'd both declined. Instead we finished out school for our senior year, but quickly became the outcasts though.

Cole became known as the lucky one who got away and I was known as the girl who was friends with two of the victims. Lots of theories had made it's way around town, my favorite being the one where I just so happened to not go on the trip with them so I must've been behind it all. Somehow word had gotten around that the police had tried to contact me, but my uncle told them that they couldn't see me. So, people speculated the worst scenarios. It got tiring real fast.

As far as our town knew, Mark and Shelly had been killed by a so called "kidnapper." At least that's what the media knew. The FBI didn't want the real truth getting out there, so they did their best to cover up what they could. They said it was to protect mine and Cole's identity. Apparently both of our dads still had enemies out there.

As for Thomas, he took the hit for being known as my uncle. People stopped going to his gym and it closed down. He didn't seem to mind though. Him and Gracie ended up getting together and he became a fighting instructor for the FBI. He was actually loving it.

After high school, Cole and I had both lost our way for a little bit. I took the year off from school and Cole went straight to work, picking jobs up whenever he could. I think we were both just trying to find a purpose to life again. Luckily we had.