White Space Season 1

to lose you as a friend. You’ve been my best friend forever, man.”
    Tears stung Milo’s eyes, but he refused to let them flow in front of Alex.
    Alex continued, sniffling back his own tears, “I’m sorry he killed Manny. I’m sorry he killed Jessica. I wish it would have been me, instead of either of them. If I could go back in time, I would take the bullets. I’d take all of them!”
    Milo looked up, finally moved to speak. “Yeah? How about Katie? Would you let Katie take one of those bullets instead of Jessica?”
    Alex looked at him, confused.
    “What? Why would you even ask that?”
    “Real convenient that your dad killed the girl I liked, but not your girlfriend!”
    “What the hell are you saying? That I’m glad he killed Jessica? That he killed her for me, like he was trying to help me out or something?!”
    The accusation fell from Milo’s mouth without logic or sense. Yet, there was something that felt right about this path. Felt right in attacking Katie’s fate versus Jessica’s. Milo suddenly saw the center of his anger. Sure, some of it was directed at Alex for what Mr. Heller had done. But there was something else, something ugly, and surprising for Milo to see in himself — jealousy.
    Jealousy that Alex — once again — got the girl, while Milo’s first true shot at love, was dead and buried. And before he could stop the rest of the words from coming, they spewed forth like black bile in a stew of vomit.
    “It should’ve been Katie! Then you’d know how this feels! To lose someone you love!” Milo screamed, anger and tears mixing into an embarrassingly volatile concoction.
    Alex’s face turned an angry shade of crimson and he stepped forward. “ I don’t know how it feels to lose someone I love? I don’t know? I lost my dad! Yeah, he went nuts or something and shot up the class, but before that, he was my fucking dad! And now he’s gone, and I’m burying him this week. So don’t fucking tell me I don’t know how it feels to lose someone I love. I’d say on the scale of deaths, dad is a bit higher up there than a girl you had a crush on!”
    Alex unzipped his backpack, reached in and grabbed a thick black spiral, then threw it at Milo.
    “I brought this so maybe we can finish it together, but fuck it. You’ve already decided our friendship is finished.”
    Alex turned toward the door and stormed from the room, leaving Milo alone and crying, their last unfinished screenplay sitting in his lap.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 9 — Brock Houser

    Saturday morning…

    Houser woke up from the blackness feeling like he’d been hit by a truck.
    Light slowly bled through his blurred and sleep crusted eyes as he tried to turn his heavy head, and make sense of his surroundings.
    He couldn’t move.
    Houser’s arms were bound by straps.
    A machine was beeping behind him.
    “He’s waking up,” a woman’s voice said.
    What the hell?
    “Where am I?” he asked. Or tried to ask. A tube in his throat kept the words in his mouth.
    An overwhelming feeling of being trapped seeped through his brain. Houser struggled, trying to get up, craning his neck to see what the hell was happening.
    Several hands held his body down.
    What’s happening to me?
    “Please don’t move, Sir. You’ve been in an accident and we’re operating on you.”
    Operating?
    What happened?
    That’s when he saw the surgeon sawing his right leg off below the knee.
    Houser fell back into the blackness.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 10 — Warren Conway

    The Conway house
    Saturday afternoon…

    The phone rang.
    The screen said Jones, but that wasn’t the man’s real name.
    “Warren,” he said into the phone.
    “Hello, sir. I just wanted to report that the operation was a success.”
    “Good. And the flash drive? Did we recover it?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And? What was on it?”
    “We’re not sure. It was damaged by the water. I’ve got my guys trying to recover it now. What should we do about the mother?”
    “Do you think she saw what was on it?”
    “No. If she did, she wouldn’t have given it to Houser. And if she did, well, who’s gonna believe her?”
    “No,” Warren said. “I suppose not. And what about Mr. Houser? What’s the situation there?”
    “Mr. Houser has been taken care of.”
    “Good,” Warren said. “Stay by your phone. I might have another job for you soon.”

    TO BE CONTINUED…

::EPISODE 6::
    CHAPTER 1 — Sarah Hughes

    Hamilton Island, Washington
    Friday
    September 1 (11 days ago: