High School Diaries (A Throne of Glass Fanfiction)

Chapter 50

Unedited, so please ignore the typos and grammatical errors. 🏵️

They were all sitting in a circle, in the same medical room of the locked school, the bottle spinning in the middle, like their lives. It was funny, how easily laughs left their mouths, eyes shone with excitement and conversations just flowed amongst them, when a few months earlier, most of these people were barely aware of each other's existence. It was exhilarating.

Especially for Elide, who had been locked in this room for 2 weeks now. It was suffocating, having to stay inside the four walls, barely any contact with the world outside, except for the people stuck with her. More like visiting her like delivery guys, getting her food, clothes and news from the outside. She never thought she would say this, but she missed the crowd. But her being stuck here was for the greater good, for everyone around her. She could do her part, without getting out of the room, the easiest job ever. But she couldn’t wait to get out.

The bottle kept spinning, Lysandra had spun it a little too fast. Drunk giggles from her had not stopped and the tears on the corner of her eyes were now from happiness. She deserved it, all of it. Today was a special day for all of them, a minor victory but an important one for her and Lys.  

Slowly but steadily, they were taking businesses away from Arobynn and Maeve, throwing it under the name of Perrington or Vernon, anonymously tipping off the police about them and getting them shut. It was like a movie, they were undercover agents of sorts. Maeve and Arobynn weren’t able to track them, because the people they were sending were mostly them. And even if it was not, they’d somehow interfere and mess with the attempts that could get them caught by their masters. They were walking on the line of life and death, hell, they were playing skipping rope with it. It was dangerous, but they’d never felt freer, more in control of their lives.

The bottle stopped at Fenrys.

“Truth or Dare?” Aelin grinned up at Fenrys, leaning against Rowan’s shoulder.

“Dare.” Fenrys gave back an equally challenging smirk.

“Tell us a horror story.” There was a collective groan in the room. Elide rolled her eyes. Aelin knew exactly how to turn everything her way.

“You are just pissed that we decided to play this instead of horror stories.” Aedion said, Lysandra leaning against her. Elide’s eyes flitted up at Lorcan for a mere second. He was already looking at her. She turned away.

“Not my fault all of you are cowards.” She turned to Rowan for support, who just shrugged. Aelin’s lip had barely started to wobble in a pout when Rowan gave in. “A dare is a dare.”

“Okay. so let me think.” Fenrys hummed, deep in thought, as he was uncovering a deep memory, but in reality, Elide saw him google, “Short horror stories” beside her.

“That’s cheating!” Dorian said, his hand raised in protest, the emotion echoed by Aelin. Chaol just looked down at his boyfriend fondly. Was it her, or the room was getting more suffocating?

“You never said I had to tell an original story.” He cleared his throat, words slurred. Most of them were drunk, underage or not, only Elide, Lorcan, Rowan and Chaol were completely sober, even though Elide had taken a celebratory shot on Lsyandra’s insistence, despite being a lightweight. 

“I hate it when my brother Charlie, okay wait, I’ll change it. I hate it when my brother, Connall  has to go away. My parents constantly try to explain to me how sick he is. That I am lucky for having a brain where all the chemicals flow properly to their destinations like undammed rivers. When I complain about how bored I am without a little brother to play with, they try to make me feel bad by pointing out that his boredom likely far surpasses mine, considering his confine to a dark room in an institution. I always beg for them to give him one last chance. Of course, they did at first. Connall has been back home several times, each shorter in duration than the last. Every time without fail, it all starts again. The neighbourhood cats with gouged out eyes showing up in his toy chest, my dad's razors found dropped on the baby slide in the park across the street, mom's vitamins replaced by bits of dishwasher tablets. My parents are hesitant now, using "last chances" sparingly. They say his disorder makes him charming, makes it easy for him to fake normalcy, and to trick the doctors who care for him into thinking he is ready for rehabilitation. That I will just have to put up with my boredom if it means staying safe from him. I hate it when Connall has to go away.” He paused, looking around to see everyone hanging at his every word. “It makes me have to pretend to be good until he is back.”