by Jesse Grey
“Oh,” The beautiful olive skinned Thalia Cobbins gave the four of them a feeble grin. “I was wondering if I’d see you all before the day was done, just to see how all of you are…easing back into things, considering.” She gave them a wave to sit down, which they obliged once she too took a seat behind her huge mahogany mammoth of a desk. “What can I do for you today?”
“It’s about Sumner.” Abram took the lead for them.
Mercer threw the polaroid on the desk as Cobbins flipped it over and gasped. “Sumner’s back.”
Before Principal Cobbins could ask them any follow-up ques-tions, the office door swung open feverishly, revealing a tall, leggy blonde.
“Ms. Wheaton, this is a private matter.”
Kirby glanced at Mercer, who shook his head at her as if begging her to leave and forget her involvement, before looking away and nodding at Principal Cobbins. “I’m part of this matter, Mrs. Cob-bins.”
“Kirby—”
She ignored Mercer, pointing toward the picture on her desk. “The polaroid? It was me,” she breathed easily. “I took that picture.”
Everyone gawked at Kirby Wheaton then, Mercer wishing she had heeded his warnings while the others wondered who she was and what connection she had to Sumner Shadows.
5
BEGINNINGS
Lissa couldn’t stop laughing. When she had met the new kid of Westbrooke High in her AP Algebra class, she hadn’t expected to hit it off with him right away, but they had an instant rapport. And she couldn’t lie, it helped that Sumner was totally hot. Plus, their whole way to lunch, he kept making her clutch her stomach from laughter.
She couldn’t wait for Sumner to meet her friends. He’d fit right in with their social dynamic. Once they made their way through the lunch line, Lissa led Sumner over to her friends’ lunch table, the one right by the back door of the cafeteria.
“Guys,” she started as they approached the table. “This is Sumner Shad-ows. He’s new to Westbrooke this semester.”
Her three friends looked at him with noncommittal curiosity as they sat down at the table. But Lissa saw something else flash across Mercer’s face that turned his handsome features dark and thunderous. She thought she recognized anger among his chiseled looks.
“Sumner, this is Bridge, Mercer, and Abram.” She told him, going around the table.
“Nice to meet you.” Bridge smiled.
“Yeah, welcome to Armor Falls.” Abram chuckled lightly.
“Thanks,” Sumner said, shifting in his seat slightly. “I’m not exactly new to Armor Falls though.”
“Really?” Lissa’s interest peaked as she started to eat her salad.
Sumner nodded. “My dad owns Arclan, that asylum that shut down dec-ades ago?”
“Seriously?” Bridge said as he finished his Sprite.
“Yeah, we moved back from Hanover so he could open it back up.”
“Okay, enough.” Mercer growled. “Are you seriously going to continue like you didn’t blow me off earlier?”
Everyone stared at Mercer at first, then at Sumner and the scrunched up look on his face, confusion seemingly spreading like a fiery plague.
“I’m sorry,” Sumner spoke softly to Mercer. “Did I do something to upset you?”
“Oh, please. You know what you did.”
Sumner hesitated in a dramatic display of facial contortions. “I do?”
“Does ‘drop dead’ ring any bells? This morning, by your locker?”
The tension around the table was a spring aching to attack, which Lissa feared there was no coming back from.
“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re going on about. I’ve never met you before now. I didn’t even know your name before Lissa introduced us.”
“Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding.” Lissa breathed cautiously, hoping to put an end to the current unrest.
“I’m really sorry if I did anything to upset you. I really just wanted some friends upon my return to Armor Falls.” Sumner sighed. “My apologies.”
Lissa thought Sumner was going to leave the table when he grabbed his tray, but Mercer scoffed and put up a hand in defeat, that somehow deterred his thoughts of exiting.
“It’s whatever. Being the new kid sucks.” Mercer gave him a weak grin. “Forget it.”
“Cool.” Sumner smirked, causing Mercer to wonder if he had orchestrat-ed the entire apology.
About three weeks later, Sumner was practically a long lost friend they never knew was missing from their group. Sumner had somehow become their de facto leader, something that Mercer couldn’t help but resent. Before him, they were all best friends, just hanging out and having fun. But ever since Sumner had entered their inner circle, he’d become their unspoken ringleader, wrangling his circus acts to attend to his bidding. Which was why Mercer was reluctant to go to Sumner’s sleepover. He’d arrived with Bridge, who was trying to get him to quit being so obtuse.
“Merce, relax.” Bridge began as they walked up the long driveway to the archaic Shadows Manor. “I know you’ve been cautious of Sumner ever since that initial lunch, but—”
“He told me to drop dead, B! I swear, I don’t know why he lied, but—”
“But drop it. Give Sumner a chance. You have to admit, he’s been pretty awesome to us these past few weeks.”
Mercer sighed. From the spontaneous weekend trip to New York to sneaking them into the hottest clubs in New Hampshire, befriending Sumner definitely had its benefits. Maybe Mercer was being too hard on Sumner. Maybe it had been a misunderstanding that first day. He just needed to just accept that Sumner was their friend now and he was a good person.
“Alright, I’ll let it go.” Mercer finally accepted.
“That’s the spirit, Elsa.”
The two pals laughed as they quickly made their way up to the enor-mous mansion and knocked on the front door. After a beat, the door opened and Abram stood before them.
“Hey Abe.” Mercer smiled.
“Come on in,” Abram grinned. “Sumner and Lissa are downstairs.”
“Making out probably.” Bridge laughed as they entered the Manor, let-ting the door close behind them.
Abram shuddered. “Dude, I just came up for a snack. Don’t ruin my ap-petite.”
Just then, a middle-aged woman came out of the nearby kitchen with a tray of freshly baked brownies on a silver platter.
“Hello,” she smiled at them. “I was beginning to wonder when Sumner’s other friends would arrive.”
“Mercer’s always late and I always end up having to wait on him.” Bridge laughed, earning him a playful shove from Mercer.
“Thanks for the brownies, Mrs. Shadows,” Abram nodded, holding out his hands to take the tray, which she gleefully obliged. “I’ll take ‘em down.”
“I’m Bridge by the way.” He waved lightly.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Shadows.” Mercer added.
She smiled at them and returned to the kitchen, leaving them alone in the foyer.
“Follow me.” Abram led them with the brownies in tow, descending to the basement which composed of Sumner’s entire bedroom, save that for the small laundry room tucked away in the corner. Lush carpet met their shoes and expensive antiques assaulted their eyes. It was as if Sumner’s room was an Ikea.
“Wow.” Mercer and Bridge said in unison.
Sumner and Lissa seemingly materialized out of nowhere, grinning up at their friends.
“Hey guys,” Sumner spat evenly. “Welcome to the best part of Shadows Manor; my room.”
From his California king bed to his full-sized refrigerator, Sumner pret-ty much had everything. The latest MacBook. Air hockey table. Giant sixty-inch TV. Walk in closet complete with clothes that truly belonged to some photoshoot that would have been perfect for the likes of Joseph Gordon Levitt rather than Sumner.
“Jesus, Sumner,” Mercer barked. “This is insane.”
Sumner laughed as he took the tray of brownies from Abram and set them down on the huge
table in the dining room niche of his room, taking one and biting into it. “It’s pretty great, right?” he smirked. “I have a secret passage behind the fridge too. I love a damn secret passage.”
“Ooh, let’s see it.” Lissa smiled.
“No, no,” Sumner chuckled. “Only I’m allowed to know about where the passage leads.”
“You and your secrets,” Lissa shook her head. “B-Merce, you have to see the bathroom.”
Calling them by their collective moniker, Lissa pulled Bridge and Mer-cer toward Sumner’s luxurious bathroom. Abram found himself in front of the TV that had been playing softly in the background.
“Hey, isn’t that the asylum your dad’s opening?”
Sumner joined him, grabbing the remote and turning up the volume as the newscaster on TV showed footage of Arclan Asylum.
“Arclan Asylum was shut down in the late eighties by Arclan Shadows, the original owner of the establishment, but his son, the renowned business mogul Hendrick Shadows, is opening it back up in just three days.”
When she continued to drone on about psychological studies, Sumner turned off the news and tossed the remote on the ottoman just in front of the couch.
“I have a genius beyond Einstein of an idea.”
Bridge, Lissa, and Mercer came back from fawning over the bathroom, catching the remark Sumner had just finished making.
“What idea?” Bridge asked.
Sumner smirked. “We sneak into Arclan.”
They all looked at him like he was being committed to Arclan as op-posed to breaking into it.
“What? Why?” Lissa crossed her arms, an apparent sign of her disap-proval.
“Big, empty asylum left for us to explore! Come on, you guys. It’ll be just like we’re on American Horror Story.”
“People die on American Horror Story, Sumner.” Mercer croaked. “Literally every episode is murder central.”
“Come on, Mercer. ‘Asylum’ is your favorite season.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to live it!”
“It would be a little cool,” Bridge commented. “Merce, you love this kind of stuff.”
“I have to say, it’d be pretty awesome.” Abram admitted.
“I guess I’m in.” Lissa sighed nonchalantly.
“Don’t be a wet blanket, Merce,” Sumner cooed. “It’ll be fun.”
After a prolonged pause, Mercer scoffed. He really didn’t like the idea at all, but he didn’t want to bail on his friends.
“Alright,” He caved, stirring echoes of excitement from his friends. “But if we get caught, you’re all getting thrown under the bus.”
“But how are we going to bypass your dad and stepmom, Sumner?”
Bridge nodded at Lissa’s comment. “And what about Arclan? Is anyone there working security?”
“We don’t go now, crazos.” Sumner gave a faux theater class face. “We leave, under a clove of darkness. Midnight is our only friend now.”
“You’re mental.” Mercer said, laughing with the others as they took some brownies and waited for the stroke of midnight to break into Arclan Asylum.
“Can we stop now?”
Detective Alston Dagger sighed to himself. Ever since he had agreed to move to Armor Falls and take on the ever confusing Sumner Shadows case, he knew he’d have to ask the witnesses to re-tell years of detail surrounding the young attempted murderer. What he hadn’t anticipated on was the extreme whining of the said wit-nesses.
Over the past several days since Sumner’s former friends had no-tified the police about the possibility of Sumner being back in Armor Falls, Detective Dagger had been interrogating his friends relentless-ly, determined to find something in their stories that contradicted their earlier reports. He had even been inspecting them separately to compare their stories. But now that the first week of school was done, Dagger was afraid he’d never solve the Sumner Shadows case.
“We’ve been at this for two hours.” Mercer continued.
“I think we’ve told you enough about how we first became friends with Sumner, detective.” Alex agreed.
“Do you two realize how serious this is?” Dagger banged his fists on the table Alex and Mercer were sitting at, causing them to jump in fright. “Shadows has been missing for nearly seven months. He almost killed you and your friends! Who knows what other crimes he’s committed since.”
“Look, we’ve come here right after school all week to answer your questions and—”
“And you’ve complained the whole time! This is an ongoing in-vestigation and I will not rest until I have every detail of this case memorized by heart and—”
“Detective Dagger,” The door swung open to reveal a stern, but beautiful brunette cop staring at Dagger with combustible rage. “That’s enough.”
“Do I need to remind you again about interfering with my inves-tigation, Officer Llewellyn?”
Adelaide Llewellyn scoffed. “Captain’s orders. He said you have ten minutes with Wheaton and then your time is up.” She then gave a small smile to her son and Mercer. “You two can join Abram and Bridge across the hall until all the parents arrive.”
Much to Dagger’s chagrin, Alex and Mercer got up and exited the interrogation room with Alex’s mom. Once outside, Alex gave her a nod.
“Thanks, Mom. He was getting pretty intense.”
“Alston’s always been intense,” she sighed, clearly knowing the detective in some aspect. “Just wait here.”
As she left them, they watched as another officer escorted Kirby toward the interrogation room with Dagger. Mercer’s gaze wandered in her direction, a desperate desire to talk lingering in her eyes. All week, Dagger had told the five of them to have no contact outside of the police station, at least until the end of the week during Dagger’s reign while he began his investigation. All Mercer wanted was to tell Kirby how sorry he was for dragging her into the darkness that fol-lowed the name Sumner Shadows.
Without a word, Alex lead Mercer into the other interrogation room where Abram and Bridge were talking amongst themselves. They sat down at the table, their conversation turning towards the others.
“How was Dagger?” Abram smirked as Alex and Mercer took their seats and huffed.
“More irritable than usual.” Alex admitted as he crossed his arms.
“He’s interrogating Kirby now.”
Their eyes rested on Mercer, glancing between each other before Bridge spoke up.
“Merce, I know we all haven’t been able to talk to each other since Dagger took the case, but do you think maybe you’ve misjudged Kirby’s innocence in all this?”
Shocked, Mercer’s mouth fell open. “You all still think Kirby helped Sumner back into town? Are you joking?”
“Think about it. She shows up just in time to have a picture of Sumner at the cemetery and she just so happens to bump into you on coincidence?” Abram explained.
“I think what they’re trying to say is that your judgement is clouded.”
“By what?” he snorted.
“By your crush on Kirby.”
Mercer gave Bridge an even look. “Excuse me?”
“It’s obvious,” Alex laughed lightly. “All week you’ve been sneak-ing glances at her, acting like you want to drop everything and talk to her.”
“I don’t have a crush on her, I just met her.” Mercer said, setting the record straight. “I tried talking to her in our history class but she’s been avoiding me. I know Dagger told us not to talk, but I hoped she’d let me explain.”
“Dude, you totally like her.” Abram laughed.
“Shut up,” Mercer smirked. “I just wanted to explain everything to her. Before all this, I thought we could have been friends.”
Mrs. Llewellyn barged into the room then, giving them all a shaky smile. “Time’s up. Let’s go.”
Eagerly, the four friends got up and followed Alex’s mom through the police station until all their parents were staring back at them at the front entrance.
“You’re all f
ree to go.” she told them.
“Addie,” Mrs. St. James came up to Mrs. Llewellyn as the kids dispersed from the adults. “We’re still meeting at your place?”
“Absolutely.” she nodded.
The four friends glanced among each other, jumbled looks among their collective features. Mercer looked around, seeing Bridge start to walk over and talk to Mrs. Llewellyn. He started to wonder over to the rest of the Llewellyn family, apparently leaving with them, but Mercer grabbed his arm.
“Where are your parents?”
“That’s a conversation for later.”
“Why are we meeting at your place?” Abram whispered to Alex as they approached their parents.
Alex sighed. “Knowing my mom, to be told the terms and condi-tions.”
About an hour later, the four friends and their respective families were gathered up in the living room of the Llewellyn residence. Ade-laide Llewellyn had quickly changed into civilian clothes and hurried back downstairs to her guests. She found herself in the kitchen to grab some water for everyone when she found her children already doing so, bringing a bleak smile to her lips in spite of the detrimental circumstances.
“You both read my mind.” she beamed at them.
Her twins gave her the same sort of wobbly grin as they finished gathering everyone’s drinks.
“Mom, what is this all about?” Faith questioned, finishing putting the drinks on a couple of platters.
“Does it have anything to do with the visits to the station?” Alex asked.
“In a way,” their mother said, letting her words drift farther and farther apart. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Helping her children, the Llewellyns brought their guests the drinks and sat them down together on the massive coffee table sur-rounding the circle of seating in the living room.
Abram sat with his sister and their parents, both siblings twid-dling their thumbs nervously, an apparent family trait. Mercer and his two dads were talking amongst themselves, almost like Mercer was arguing with them about something. And Bridge’s parents were absent completely, as he had ridden with Alex and his family for rea-sons unbeknownst to practically everyone in attendance.