Believing Lies

by Elizabeth, Anne

  Henry stared at me; his mouth gaped open. He gulped, blinking his eyes as if he couldn’t believe it. “Sure. I just need to grab something from my room. Then I’ll go.”

  He went down the stairs, and I left the house. I didn’t have time to wait to see him leave. I had to go to the police. I heard a buzzing coming from my pocket, and I took out my phone to see what it was. My screen was blank. I realized there was another phone in my back pocket.

  Nick’s phone.

  I grabbed it with my convulsing hands, clicking the screen to open.

  From: Luke

  Kyle will see you soon, Nick.

  I panicked. Everything that I thought I knew about this whole situation was right. Every gut feeling telling me something was off was right. I was next.

  I should’ve gone to the police.

  Horror shook every bone in my body. He was coming to kill me. I was next. I only had one option left.

  I have to run.

  I ran to the street, right in the middle of it. I heard faint yelling behind me, so I turned to see Luke sprinting toward me. He was far enough away for me to just barely know it was him, but not too far for me not to notice the shiny, glimmering metal object in his hand.

  Oh god.

  My feet acted first, running without me even realizing it. I stayed in the street in the hope of getting someone’s attention, but there was no one. I was alone, being chased by someone who wanted me dead. I tried screaming for help, but it used too much of the energy that I needed to run. I knew Luke was right on my trail. I could hear him calling my name, getting louder and louder.

  How is he catching up to me?

  I realized that down the street was my school. I could go there and cause a scene. People would come out of their classrooms and help me. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. My feet were burning from going so fast. But I couldn’t stop.

  I made it to the parking lot, panting. Luke was a little farther behind me, waving his hands. The knife he was holding kept reflecting in the sun, blinding me.

  What is he trying to do?

  I ran for the stairs to the building and went to pry open the doors. My hand reached the metal, and I pulled as hard as I could. They wouldn’t budge. I tried again, but again they wouldn’t move.

  It’s after hours.

  No one is here.

  I’m going to die.

  25

  I turned around to see Luke coming up to the bottom of the stairs. Blood was smeared across his face, and he looked beaten up. He held his hands out to me.

  “Kyle, you’ve got to help me.” His body was shaking; the knife almost dropped from his hands.

  He’s acting.

  He just wants to hurt me.

  “Help you?” I spat. “You killed Nick.”

  His eyes widened, and fear slapped him across his face. “No, Kyle, I would—”

  “Get away from me!” I barked. I looked at the stairs we were on. The number of times I was on these stairs, waiting for my friends. The number of times I was by these stairs getting into fights.

  “Kyle!” Nick’s voice boomed. He ran up the stairs and hit me in the head. I was listening to music, so I took my earbuds out and slapped him across his shoulder.

  “Don’t hit me,” I barked. Nick just laughed, sitting down next to me. People were walking past us to get into the school. Others stood in the parking lot, talking with their friends and hanging out. Nick pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to me.

  “I’m going to give it to Noelle today.” He grinned, shoving the note in my face.

  I snorted, opening it up. I read it out loud.

  “Noelle, would you want to go on a date? Circle yes or no.” I looked at Nick, who was smiling ear to ear. He seemed pretty proud of his note.

  I tore it up in front of him.

  “What the hell, Kyle?” he complained, picking up the pieces.

  “We aren’t in middle school any more, Nick,” I informed him, grabbing my bag. “Man up and ask her in person.”

  “Hey, guys!” Mark called out. He was waving us down, trying to catch up with us. “Want to meet at the diner after school today? I’m trying to get that waitress to fall in love with me.”

  “Nick!” I yelled, freezing my butt off by the stairs. Snow was falling and sticking to my winter coat that wasn’t keeping me warm whatsoever. Nick waved, a tall, geeky kid following him.

  Luke?

  I rolled my eyes and jumped down the stairs. I gave him a fake smile before turning to Nick.

  “You are going to like me one day, Kyle,” Luke challenged. “You’ll see.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” I muttered. Nick gave me a look before strutting up the stairs. He was gloating about how Noelle and he had a date the night before. He was practically jumping around like a kid. He started talking about the whole date and how well he thought it went.

  “Then I walked her home, like the gentlemen I am.” He patted himself on the back. Luke was beaming at him, looking as excited as Nick was for their relationship.

  What a weirdo.

  “Luke!” I yelled, waving the tall guy over. You could see him in any crowd. He saw me and smiled, grabbing someone’s arm and pulling them alongside him. It was Noelle. She had to run to keep up with Luke’s long strides that he called walking. She came up to me and slung an arm around my shoulder.

  “Hey, Kyle!” She wrapped her other arm around me, giving me a quick hug. She let go after a second, still smiling. Her cheeks were rosy red and matching the tip of her nose. Luke grinned at me, messing with my hair. He was wearing a T-shirt that he got at the protest that weekend about seals.

  “We stood in front of the office for hours holding signs—”

  “And this is when I put my headphones on and pretend to be listening.” I interrupted Luke, which made him pout. Noelle laughed, saying that she’d listen. I played some rock music while Luke was blabbing on about saving the seals. Nick came running up to us, kissing Noelle on the cheek when he reached us.

  “Hey, guys, what did I miss?”

  “Maybe I should kill you and then Nick when he comes here tomorrow alone,” Mark muttered into my ears. My head snapped toward him, and he grinned knowing it bothered me.

  If only he knew why…

  Then he wouldn’t bother me.

  I wanted to fight him at that moment. I wanted to grab him by the head and smash him against my kneecap. Or throat punch him and watch him fall to the concrete. To watch as his eyes roll to the back of his head, and he was quiet. Then I looked at Noelle with fear in her eyes. I already saw myself as a monster; I couldn’t let Noelle see me like that too.

  Whatever expression I had on my face before, I wiped it off. Mark’s grin fell, and his eyes glared into mine. I took my anger out on my hands as I closed them into tight fists. I felt the nails cut into my skin, and the blood started to drip. By the time I realized I was bleeding, Mark’s fist came flying into my face. The impact landed right in my eye. I knew it was bruised and swelled immediately after. I let my body fall to the ground, and my head smashed into the pavement.

  “Hey!” Luke complained. “Let him be! He didn’t do anything!”

  Luke was pleading with me. He looked so tired and weak. For a second, I let myself believe him. Maybe he was framed. Maybe he wasn’t a murderer. I looked at his hands and noticed his fists were bloody and bruised.

  Was he in a fight?

  Did he win?

  At that second, the sound of a gun exploded in my ear.

  And I fell to the floor.

  26

  I didn’t feel anything. There was no pain, no light, or any blood. I searched my body for the bullet hole, and I stopped when I saw the hole in Luke’s head. Behind him stood Henry, holding Mom’s pistol. His hands were shaking, and he dropped the gun. It went off a second time, from the impact, and shot Luke’s lifeless body in the stomach.

  I turned to the side and vomited. Henry appeared at my back, tapping it as if he were helping me.
After a few minutes, Henry grabbed my waist, lifted me over his shoulder, and took off running. Everything was dizzy. I looked, and all of the stop signs were blurry, and passing cars were hard to see. But Henry kept going. I blacked out.

  I woke up and we were in the forest. Henry was pacing back and forth, shaking his hands. I sat up, leaves sticking to my back.

  “Oh god, I just killed someone,” he whispered, not knowing I was awake. “I just shot the boy.”

  I stood up, and Henry noticed me. He wiped the expression of fear from his face and smiled at me. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, brushing off the leaves and dirt from my back. Henry walked over to me and wrapped his arms around me.

  What is happening?

  I thought of Luke’s dead, unmoving body at the front of the school. I thought of what Ms. Cloud’s reaction would be when she found out her son was shot with a gun. I wondered what her reaction would be when she found out he killed someone with a gun.

  “I thought you hated me,” I muttered in Henry’s ear. He pulled away from me and shook his head.

  “I don’t like you at times, sure,” Henry admitted, backing away from the hug. “But you’re my brother. I couldn’t lose another brother.”

  I noticed the backpack Henry was wearing, and I asked him what it was.

  “Oh, just clothes and such. I grabbed it when you asked me to go out because I was going to go see a friend.”

  I nodded, then a thought ran through my head.

  “Oh my god!” I yelled, walking away from the forest. “I need to get to Marie.”

  “No,” Henry said, grabbing my wrists. “We need to go to the police.”

  I shook my head, prying my arm away from him. I remembered Marie’s fragile state when I left. Her finger hovering over the trigger, ready to shoot at anything that moved.

  “Marie is scared and alone.”

  Henry gulped. “Okay, how about this? We go to the police and tell them everything that just happened. I’ll go home and get Marie.”

  I nodded, turning to walk, when Henry grabbed my shoulders. His face darkened, and he tightened his grasp on me.

  “But Kyle, you need to tell the police you shot Luke.”

  ~

  Henry convinced me that he could go to jail because Luke wasn’t attacking him. We created a story where Henry had the gun, but Luke tackled him, which made Henry drop it. I picked it up and shot Luke in the stomach, then again in the head when he tried to slash Henry with a knife.

  We went to the police station and told them just that. The officer I was with the last time took me into a little investigation room. It seemed like we spent hours there.

  “Alright, Kyle, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

  I nodded, going through the whole thing with her. I started with coming out of my house, leaving out the part with the phone. I jumped to see Luke with a knife and running. I told them about being at the school and how I was yelling at him. Then the rest I just told them what Henry said to say.

  “What kind of gun?”

  “Pistol.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  She didn’t ask me any more questions and told me I was free to go. Henry was already out, and they said that they were going to send someone for his mom and told us that I had to stay.

  “He’s a minor, and we need his parents here before he can go.”

  Henry nodded and sat down beside me. I turned to him, waiting for him to realize what he needed to do.

  “Henry,” I said. “Marie!”

  “Oh right. I’ll go get her,” Henry said, standing up. He left the station and walked away. I watched him until I couldn’t see him any more. I was waiting patiently for my parents or even Henry with Marie. I was starting to make friends with the lady behind the desk when I overheard something.

  “You think they match up?” The officer that said this had a mustache that looked like a worm on his upper lip. The lady he was talking to was short with black hair.

  “Yeah, except with this case,” she said, pointing to one folder. “Cloud was killed with a pistol, according to the kid. The older boy brought in a revolver, which is what Walter was killed with.”

  What?

  “You don’t think they…”

  “No, how stupid could they be to bring in the murder weapon of another case?” the lady asked, slapping him with the folders. “I think the kid doesn’t know his guns.”

  But I do.

  He had a pistol.

  I thought about where Henry would’ve gotten a revolver. My breath got stuck in my throat as if someone just shut it off. I stood up and tried to walk out the door.

  I need to get to Marie.

  Tears streamed down my face as I screamed at the officer holding me back. He had ahold of both my arms, bringing me to the ground. Everything was happening slowly to me. I started begging for them to let me go, that my friend was in trouble. Whispers were exchanged, and the image of Marie dead on the floor in my room taunted me.

  He killed her.

  Epilogue

  Henry’s Room

  There was no one with him. He was alone in the empty, broken home of his. Darkness surrounded him as he made his way down the stairs. Flicking the light on, he walked around his room. The walls were painted black with red dripping down them. His collection of weapons was expanding and seemed to overflow from the hiding spot under his bed. Guns and knives take up a lot of room; Henry was going to need to get a bigger spot to put them all. He couldn’t imagine parting with even just one deadly weapon. The posters hung up on the walls contained things from a horror movie. People getting their skulls smashed in so hard that they looked like a broken, plastic doll. Another poster had a detached head placed next to a body. The eyes had bugs crawling out of them, peeling back the eyelids to escape from its mind.

  Henry giggled, thinking about Kyle, who was most likely freaking out about the gun switch. Kyle had no idea that the revolver Henry turned in wasn’t the actual one. He didn’t have time to deal with the girl just yet.

  “I have a girl coming over.”

  Henry stared at Kyle, unsure of what to say. Out of all the excuses he could’ve used, he picked that one?

  “Sure. I just need to grab something from my room. Then I’ll go.”

  Henry went down his stairs to his bedroom when the door from upstairs slammed shut. Henry knew Kyle’s friend was waiting in his room with his gun. Her fingerprints getting all over the trigger button. He had followed them from Luke’s, making sure his plan was going perfectly.

  Henry grabbed Luke’s phone from his desk and sent a text to Nick’s phone.

  To: Nick

  Kyle will see you soon, Nick.

  Those kids didn’t even try to hide anything they were doing, Henry thought. Walking through the streets with a gun, yelling in Kyle’s room. Henry saw them as amateurs. They were like ducks being hunted by a hunter. They had no clue what they were messing with.

  Henry started up the stairs, going to Kyle’s room. He could hear the panicked breathing from the girl inside; she was a terrible hider. Henry knew how easy it would be, how it wouldn’t be as fun as the others. His hand traced the handle, the cool metal sending shocks up his back.

  He went to open the door when a noise from downstairs echoed. Luke was early; he was too early. He wasn’t supposed to be here for another five minutes. Henry quickly readjusted his plan and headed downstairs to deal with his problem.

  “I’ll come back for you.”

  Henry sat down on his broken chair, leaning his head on the desk. Blood splattered across his arm. He was unaware of who the blood belonged to. He turned to his closet where Mark Evans’s dead body remained. When he heard of Mark dying at the hands of someone else, it made him boil with anger. So, he thought that if he couldn’t kill him, he deserved to at least have the body.

  Henry took out his key and unlocked the drawer beside him, pulling out a journal. He flipped through the pages until
he landed on one with blood smeared all over it. Nick’s name was written in black ink, crossed over with an X. Henry smiled to himself, remembering the night his plan took off.

  He could hear the arguing of the teenage boys ahead. Henry peeked his head through the bushes, clutching the revolver to his chest tightly. As if it was a toy and some kid was going to steal it. He saw Nick push Kyle’s chest. Henry knew the time was coming. Kyle couldn’t control his anger, never mind his strength. Henry squatted down, aiming the gun at Nick’s head. He was far enough away for them not to see him. Nick yelled something about lies, and Henry watched as Kyle’s eyes turned red. He pushed Nick with both hands, resulting in Nick falling to the ground. Right before he hit his head, Henry pulled the trigger. He was aiming for his head, but it hit him in the back of his neck. Henry cursed silently, waiting for Kyle’s next move. Henry observed as Kyle reached down, trying to clean up the blood. After a few minutes, Kyle took off running.

  “Perfect,” Henry muttered, stepping out of the bush he was hiding in. He walked to Nick, leaves crushing beneath his feet. He stood over the lifeless boy and watched the blood pour from his head. Henry realized that Kyle pushed him hard enough that it cracked his head open. Henry bent down and took some blood in his hands. He started smearing them on the trees and the ground, making it look like the kid struggled. He then wiped off any fingerprints Kyle might’ve left behind. He didn’t want his brother to suffer at the hands of someone else. He grabbed the phone from Nick’s pocket before grabbing him and throwing him over his shoulders. He knew exactly where to put him; he had picked out the spot the day before.

  When Henry arrived home, he unlocked his drawer and crossed out Nick’s name, smearing his blood on the page. Henry leaned back in his chair, wiping the sweat from his face. Then, he did something he hadn’t done in an exceedingly long time.