Chapter 14

In the final chapter of Hex Driver, Katherine tries to save Claire. But it is after the fact that something new bothers her. At least she gets to go home.

The hallways were crowded with different alarms and sirens that were going off. Tons of Hex employees were running for the bomb. Simon decided that, at the last moment, he wasn’t going to get better and the ticking wouldn’t stop until it took him and Katherine out anyway. His sacrifice shouldn’t be in vain.

My magic wasn’t working quick enough, though. Claire’s vitals were slowly returning. I watched the machine’s numbers climb. The blue light was being absorbed into her chest, and her eyes slowly started to open.

“Claire, come on!” I shouted. If she didn’t wake up soon, the scientists would find us and hold us somewhere else. I tried not to look around the room. “Please, Claire, let’s go.”

Claire coughed, startling me. “If you don’t quiet down, I’m going to hit you.”

“Thank goodness you’re okay.”

“I’m not sure ‘okay’ is the way I’d describe myself right now.”

I swung an arm under her head and pulled her up. My hand was just before her chest, the blue light still flowing. Her eyes bounced around, glancing at my hand and the rest of her body to eventually my face, and then the rest of the room. It seemed to sink in, but I thought I’d give her a minute to collect herself.

“You’re going to run out of magic,” she told me. Her cold fingers wrapped around my wrist, and we stopped moving. She couldn’t feel the Hex Driver underneath my sleeve, and when she moved the fabric back to confirm her suspicion, her head snapped toward mine with a loud gasp. “You’re using magic without the driver?”

“Only because of the black veins that are almost completely gone. Residual effect.”

“Katherine, the Hex Driver coming off means,” she stopped. There was no reason to tell me that not only could I die if I keep doing this, healing without the device, but that I also wouldn’t be a part of Hex Academy. With everything that happened, Claire’s mind might not have registered the information we had heard. “You have to stop.”

“It’ll be okay,” I pressed my open hand to her chest. I blushed, being inches above her…

“Katherine!”

“What?”

“We need to go. I’m okay.” Claire jumped out of bed and stumbled forward, leaning her weight on me. I was strong enough to keep her up, normally, but my muscles were still weak from everything. We nearly fell face first on the ground, but caught ourselves. “Wait,” Claire whispered, “Where is Simon?”

The moment that I wasn’t looking forward too.

My pause must have been catching on to Claire. She lowered her head. I wanted to open my mouth and tell her what he had done to save us, what they did to him and how there was no way for him to come back from it. Simon and I both knew that the moment we saw each other.

“They used him as an experiment. He saved us, though.”

“Right, let’s get out.”

And that is what we did. The door was ajar, which was weird because I had closed it. A quick scan of the room and I feared something beyond Hex. Claire’s mother. She was in the room before, dead, I thought. Her body was gone and either was taken or moved. The latter couldn’t really happen. Her mind was gone, so Hex couldn’t control it. Claire didn’t notice and she didn’t ask for her mother, so regretfully, I shut my mouth again.

The scientists were busy with the large room down the hall. Simon blew up the side he came out of, the experiment’s wing. He must have made a pretty good dent in something that was concerning the entire company. It made for an easy escape, though.

A week went by fairly quick. Claire’s mother was still missing, and the police couldn’t find her anywhere. My parents let Claire stay with us, which was nice. Her attitude had changed a lot and we became closer friends. There was a void of emptiness in us as we went about our days. Probably the loss of Simon, who didn’t deserve to die.

A statement came on the news this morning about Hex, the famous company holding the volunteer experiment and the owner of the island. They claim that a small group of extremists had decided to set a bomb off inside of the leading factory, which no one seemed to really know about. The group said that an experiment that was going on from animal testing to human testing was the reason behind it, but officials who aren’t in Hex say they don’t know what their talking about.

In one of the images that flashed on the television, I could have sworn I saw Claire’s mother. The principal of Hex Academy had a whole new look about her. Wild and messy. There was a distinct black collar on her neck. It could have been someone else, but even Claire had to double check. She remained quiet with her own theories.

The company was filing bankruptcy due to the explosion. Their main experiments were ruined, and the company could no longer fund the volunteer experiment and maintenance over the island if they were to repair their own building.

My parents were bummed. We had just gotten here not too long ago and didn’t have a place to live back in New York. Since everyone had to go and her mother wasn’t around, Claire was going to be my new big sister. Our plane was taking us to New York. Good old home, somewhere, maybe in the same neighborhood.

And while everyone was passed out on the plane, I couldn’t help but to think of those images on the television. It had to be Claire’s mother. Even though I thought she was dead. Maybe she wasn’t, but I don’t see how.

Hex was done and over with, though. Good riddance.

Author's Note

All of my shorts have, to my recent knowledge, seemed rushed. Maybe they are. It is fun just to write up short chapters, though.