The Haven High Book Series (Wattys2017)

Chapter 30

Lauren sat in a plastic hospital chair wearing her conjured track suit and a pair of slip on shoes. All the kids were wearing the same dull gray outfit, and they kinda resembled a prison gang rather than high school students.

They'd been in the stark white windowless room for hours waiting for news and everyone was getting really jittery. Each one of them had lived through a disaster and instead of being able to go home and process it; they were being kept prisoner -- God only knew where.

For the most part they sat in stony silence, but every once and awhile someone would start crying quietly, or a fight would break out over the tension that suffused the enclosed space. There was constant bickering among the kids about the stupidest things like: who got the last tuna sandwich, whether that was my seat or yours after someone would get up to use the bathroom, and she couldn't take it anymore.

She was dying for some news about Zach, Cam, Kyle and the others; and as it turned out, there were others. A dozen teens in total were in the fight of their lives and she could do nothing, she couldn't even see Zach.

She kept racking her brain trying to think of a solution. Always circling back to the same conclusion -- why couldn't the 'all-powerful' council fix this? It was their fault in the first place.

If the Royals hadn't been forced to go to their lowly shindig then they'd be in school right now gossiping over who hooked up with whom last night, not sitting here like a bunch of convicts waiting for parole.

Jesus she thought reflexively how does mom do it? Live her entire existence in one room?

Then it hit her.

The idea was so perfect she stood up and yelled, "I've got it!"

All of her friends leaned forward in their chairs. Meg jumped up so fast she knocked the sleeping guy beside her right out of the chair with her crutches.

"What," she asked, "You got what?"

Now the whole room was looking at her.

She gulped before she continued, "I think I know who can tell use what's in the poison."

You could have heard a pin drop in that moment the tension was so palpable, but she continued, "I'm part dryad."

Meg said, "yeah aaaaand?"

"My Mom is a nearly full dryad. Dryads protect trees and the forest right? In order to protect them they need to be able to communicate with them."

"Guys," she finished excitedly, "my mom can talk to plants. All we need is one of the shards and my mom can ask the concoction what herbs they are. She'll be able to tell me and I can tell Knight and George.

"We can save them!" Lauren announced excitedly.

By the time she had finished her little rant she was breathing hard and flushed.

Much to Lauren's surprise Megan sat down dejectedly, and no one was jumping up and down.

She had expected everyone to be jumping up and down  at her news.

Why wasn't anyone jumping up and down?

"Sugah please," Kelly, The blonde bombshell, simpered snarkily with her rich Southern drawl, "we're on lock down, in case you haven't noticed?"

"Duh  . . . did you notice that we're magical?" Lauren bit back.

"Michael," she pointed at a senior in a chair three chairs down from her. "You're like the best at glyphs right?"

"But what about the wards," a first year interjected from across the room?

"That's simple, if Michael uses Ryan's finger to draw the glyph the wards won't notice a breach because a Djinn won't set them off."

"I actually don't know if it will work but it's worth a shot," said another senior excitedly.

Lauren thought she might be the girlfriend of one of the critically injured students.

"But what about getting our hands on a magic shard? They took them all away?" Meg asked.

CJ spoke up then and said, "I've been saving this news for a special occasion, but I just recently developed an interesting new talent, I might be able to will a shard to me."

"And I can cast a locator spell so we can pinpoint its location," said a second year witch.

"How can we be sure any of this will work?" said the blonde sylph in the corner.

"We can't, but we've got to try." Lauren said emphatically.

"Yeah," a guy from across the room stood up, "We can't just sit back and do nothing. We can't just let them die."

Lauren couldn't even be sure what year he was in. After this she vowed to get to know everyone better; after all they had almost died together last night.

Meg interrupted Lauren's train of thought when she began to surreptitiously beckon to her.

Lauren thought she knew what she was going to say, and in the interest of full disclosure, she cut her off at the pass, "Meg just say it. If we're doing this, we're doing this together. They have the right to know all the hurdles that stand in our way."

Meg shrugged her shoulders and asked "Didn't you tell me your mom is a recluse or something and you haven't talk to her for years? How are you going to get her to talk to you now?"

"I have no clue, but believe me when I say," Lauren addressed everyone as her eyes swept the room; "I will do everything in my power to get my mom to tell me."

"Look guys I don't know if any of this will work, but I do know if we don't do something soon we might lose them all." Lauren's voice cracked and she cleared her throat to continue her speech, but she was cut of by Travis the man mountain.

He stood up then, and looked around the room, imploring everyone to get onboard with his eyes, before saying in his deep gravely timbre ," I don't know about you guys, but if the glyph doesn't work I'm ready to punch through some walls to get Lauren out. Who's with me?"

That was when the most miraculous thing happened.

Everyone who wasn't already standing stood up and started talking all at once and the ideas started flying.

A shiver of excitement ran up Lauren's spine as she thought with this much brain power working on a solution, coupled with the collective magic power of the kids in this room, there's no way in hell their plan won't work.

Now she just had to figure out a way to get her mom to talk.  

Tune in tomorrow to find out if Lauren figures out a way to get her mother to talk to her.

********************THANKS FOR READING***************

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