by Jesse Grey
Hugo paced in front of him, not helping Straton with restraining his impending freak out episode. Sweat beaded down the side of his chiseled face. His eyes wore heavy dark bags, signs that he hadn’t slept all night, worrying about whatever it was that he felt the need to break to Straton before he even woke up for the day.
“I remembered something.” Hugo said, shaking before his best friend. “I guess I blocked it out because I was drunk and thought I had imagined everything on my way home that night.”
“What night?”
“The night that Sumner visited you, here at Heartmyth.”
Straton stared blankly ahead at Hugo, feeling unnerved beyond comprehension. “You were at a party the night Sumner showed up here.”
“I was.” Hugo nodded. “But on my way back to the dorm, I saw him. I saw Sumner.”
Straton scoffed. “You saw Sumner? You’re sure?”
“Well, no, I wasn’t at first. But now I’m positive that it was him I saw that night, just outside our building.”
His eyebrows flexing their inquiring muscles, Straton felt his na-chos from his midnight binge last night finding their way back up, his whole body feeling uneasy. “Hugo, you have to be one hundred percent sure. I mean, you were sauced out of your mind. I still re-member the severe degree of your hangover the morning after.”
“That doesn’t mean that what I saw wasn’t real, Stray.” Hugo huffed, Straton ignoring the nickname that Hugo knew he hated. “And I saw him call someone.” he blinked away tears of terror. “I’m afraid to go to the police after what they put you through.”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not telling them anything. No one has to know about this, you hear me? No one can ever find out you saw him that night.” Straton pulled Hugo into a caring embrace as Hugo struggled to keep his wits.
Just outside Hugo and Straton’s dorm room door, a horrified Faith leaned next to the closed door, a hand over her mouth in shock at Hugo’s possibly huge revelation.
Faith rushed back to Westbrooke High at record speed, quickly can-celling on her lunch with Straton, all while replaying in her mind what she had heard to keep every word fresh on her zealous tongue.
Running from the parking lot to her brother’s calculus class, she flung open the back door of the building and heard the end of sec-ond period bell blare. Faith ran through the math and history build-ing, sifting through the surge of students to get to the front of the building and almost ran right into her brother.
“Jesus, Faith.” Alex laughed. “You scared the hell out of me. Didn’t you ditch the rest of second period to have a lunch date with Straton?”
“Alex.” Faith breathed in large gulps, saying his name like it was the remedy to an age old hex. “Where are your friends?”
“They went with Abe to his locker before we went to lunch. I hung back to use the bathroom.” He gave her arched eyebrows for the surge of fear rolling over her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Hugo, Straton’s roommate.” Faith gulped again. “The night that Sumner went to Straton for help. Hugo saw him.”
“He what?”
“Hugo saw Sumner after he left the dorm. There’s a couple other details, but Alex, he saw him. Hugo saw Sumner.” she explained, struggling to not scream. “And he saw him call someone.”
Abram and his friends made their way to his locker, looking around for Alex as they came up on it.
“What the hell is taking Alex so long?” he wondered aloud.
“Who knows,” Bridge said, smiling. “Although I’d say you would, judging by those hickies.”
Abram sighed deeply. “Please don’t. I’m already gonna have to dodge questions from Willa when I ask to borrow some concealer.”
“I don’t think she has your shade.” Mercer said, still laughing at Bridge’s sentence.
“She does.” Abram added. “For emergencies like at the pep rally last year. Just please, no more hickie or Alex related berating.”
“But you were together last night, right?”
As he put in his locker combination, Abram thought about Bridge’s question and decided to just give him something so he and Mercer would shut up and quit playing The Hardy Boys when it came to him and Alex.
“Yes.”
Mercer and Bridge shared a grin of Cheshire Cat proportions as Abram got his locker open, something falling out and landing on the dirt ridden floor.
“What’s that?”
Ignoring the question, Abram picked up the folded piece of paper and opened it, his eyes widening as he read it.
“Shit.”
Bridge ripped the paper out of his hand, holding it out so Mercer could read it with him, their hearts pumping faster after they read each word. Alex came sprinting up to them then, about to blurt out what he had learned, only stopped by all of their somber looks.
“What?” he said.
Handing him the note, Bridge looked him over to see his reac-tion while Abram and Mercer turned to do the same, waiting for Alex to read the ominous message. A river of anxiety, Alex felt his veins tense up as he read over the handwritten letter twice to get the full effect of its meaning.
Missing those Paiges? Come find them. 1661 Karder Cove.
Alex let out a gasp as he finished rereading the letter, though he didn’t exactly recognize the address at first.
“Oh god.” he sighed.
“Two weeks with nothing and we’re back to this psycho ruining our lives.” Bridge said begrudgingly. “I’m so over this.”
“That’s not the worst part.” Abram said in a paranoid tone.
“Abe, this is the worst part.” Alex exclaimed, trying to keep his voice between them and not the entire school. “This person stole those papers. Look how they spelled pages. They definitely broke into Paige’s house while Bridge was staying there.”
Abram looked at them all widely, disbelief reveling against his pores. “None of you remember that address?”
“Should we?” Mercer inquired.
He scoffed, wishing so hard that what he was about to say wasn’t the truth. “1661 Karder Cove is the address for Shadows Manor.”
12
THE SIREN SONG
Taking a break from cooking the breakfast he was preparing, Mercer tried calling Kirby again. He had invited his friends over for breakfast before school to discuss the anonymous message that was left in Abram’s locker yesterday, but before that happened, Mercer wanted to get a hold of her. They’d had plans to see a movie yesterday, but he never heard from her, not even after several texts and calls. It was starting to really worry him, especially since he could really feel himself falling for Kirby.
“I think you’re burning the omelets.”
Bridge entered the kitchen then, gesturing toward the stove where Mercer’s omelets were getting a little crispier than he had originally planned.
“Damn.” Dropping his phone on the counter, Mercer ran to the stove, tending to the omelets before they were inedible. As he did so, he felt Bridge’s scrutinizing burning a chasm into his back.
“Are you okay?” Bridge questioned, taking a seat on a stool at the kitchen island. “You seemed pretty bummed during our musical marathon last night. You didn’t even sing ‘Light My Candle’ with me.” he chuckled lightly.
“It’s Kirby.” Mercer sighed.
“She still hasn’t texted you back after blowing you off?”
He shook his head. “Something’s wrong. I can tell she’s not tell-ing me something, something that’s really bothering her.”
Bridge shrugged. “I told you, she’ll tell you when she’s ready, Merce. Especially if it’s something big, which, judging by the lack of contact, I’d say it is.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Mercer scoffed, finishing some more omelets and setting them on a plate before taking a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. “My dads said the same thing before they left this morn-ing.”
A knoc
k on the door echoed through the kitchen as Bridge grabbed the remote for the small kitchen TV.
“Come in.” Mercer yelled to the front of the house.
“I’m gonna turn on GMA. Halsey is on this morning.” Bridge said, already flipping through the channels to find his program.
“You and Halsey.” Mercer shook his head as the front door opened.
“Hey, I love her. She’s my queen.”
“Who’s your queen?”
Alex and Abram appeared from the front of the house, carrying a tray of Starbucks and setting it on the kitchen island’s marble coun-ter top.
“Halsey’s on Good Morning America and Bridge is fangirling.” Mercer smiled.
“I love her.” Alex grinned, gesturing to the miscellaneous coffee. “We got everyone’s favorite.”
Bridge cooed when he grabbed his iced caramel macchiato and took a small sip. “Now you are my queens.” They both laughed, and Bridge couldn’t help but notice the genuine smile on Abram’s face. “You feeling better?”
Abram grabbed his own white mocha, nodding as Mercer set out a couple plates to put the food on, laying down a breakfast buffet consisting of omelets, cinnamon rolls, and bacon on the kitchen island while Mercer and Alex grabbed their own coffees. “Yeah, I’m okay.” he agreed. “I think just talking about how I was feeling after Arclan helped a lot.”
“You can always rely on us to get where you’re coming from.” Mercer mentioned, mewling into his mint chocolate chip latte. “Eve-rybody dig in.”
They all got their own portions of the delectable food, gnawing on the food and sipping on their sugared up coffee drinks. But the nice morning moment didn’t last long, since they were there for business.
“So,” Bridge started between biting into a cinnamon roll that had the most icing on it. “When are we crashing Shadows Manor?”
“And why would we do that?” Mercer asked, finishing his omelet.
“Because we need to know what those papers have on them.” Bridge displayed, gesturing wildly with his cinnamon roll. “Whoever stole them took them to Shadows Manor, so let’s go get them back.”
“It sounds like a trap to me.” Alex added. “Why give it back to us at all? And why take it to Shadows Manor for us to retrieve?”
“It’s a game,” Abram said, not fully realizing it until he voiced so, taking one last bite of bacon. “Whoever took the papers is in control of their own self-conjured game, and they want us to play along.”
“For what reason though? They want us to tell the police about everything that happened that night. Why give us back something to deter us from that?”
“Mercer, this person just wants to play with us so they know we’ll do what they want, just like they want us to start confessing.” Abram explained. “The papers probably aren’t even there.”
“Then why go?” Alex said, sipping into his entirely black coffee save that for the added single packet of sugar.
“We need those papers. Who cares why this psycho is offering them back.” Bridge stated, slurping his coffee with no abandon.
“What if they can’t figure it out?” Alex prompted. “Maybe Sumner put something down only we’d know or understand and they need us to solve it. This person likes being in the know, obviously, so maybe they need our help to achieve that with the papers.”
Bridge nodded eagerly. “That actually makes sense.”
The TV changed from the morning talk show to an important news bulletin, splitting their attention to the television.
“We interrupt your programming for a special news report. After a violent outburst, a patient has escaped from Arclan Asylum.”
“Jesus.” Bridge said.
“The incident left three patients injured,” the newscaster went on. “Police suspect that Sumner Shadows could be connected to how the patient was able to escape.”
“I’d hate to be Dagger right now.” Mercer admitted.
“Sumner wouldn’t risk his own safety to break someone out.” Abram said. “The media has no clue what really goes on with any-thing their reporting.”
“Maybe the person Sumner called broke them out as a distraction for him.”
Everyone looked away from the TV and latched on to Alex’s fea-tures as they gawked at him while he just sat there with his arms crossed over his chest.
“What?”
“What are you talking about ‘the person he called’?” Abram asked him.
“Hugo, remember?”
“Who the hell is Hugo?” Bridge croaked.
“I didn’t tell you guys about Hugo?”
“Are you talking about Hugo Krcmaric? As in Harley’s older brother?” Mercer sparked.
“I don’t know, maybe.” Alex shook his head. “I started telling you guys yesterday, but then we got the letter in Abe’s locker. I must have forgotten.”
“So what’s going on?”
“Faith went to have lunch with Straton yesterday and overheard his roommate telling him that he saw Sumner the night he tried to recruit Straton for help. And he was calling someone when Hugo saw him.”
“Who?”
“No clue.”
Bridge scoffed. “That’s all you have?”
“That’s all I know!” Alex lamented. “Short of talking to Hugo himself.”
Mercer raised his shoulders as a gesture of complacency. “Not a terrible idea.”
“I’ll see what I can do, I suppose.”
Bridge groaned as he glanced at his phone. “We should head to school.” Shoveling in a couple more pieces of bacon into his mouth, he groaned in satisfaction. “Thanks for breakfast, Merce.”
He smiled. “Nothing like talking about crazy people trying to de-stroy our lives to work up an appetite.”
“See you at school. We gotta go swing by my house and get Faith.” Alex established.
As Abram and Alex left, Mercer grabbed his phone, which didn’t have any new texts from Kirby, and slipped it into his pocket with a sigh.
Bridge clapped Mercer’s shoulder. “Talk to her at school since it’s bothering you so much.”
“I will.” he nodded, sighing again as he grabbed his car keys. “I’m just afraid of what might happen once I do.”
Kirby walked into Westbrooke High that morning, unable to leave the thready cocoon of her mind, the turbulent thoughts leaving her unable to hone on much else. Ever since Priscilla had contacted her, Kirby had been practically comatose, her actions condemned to au-topilot. She’d been avoiding Faith and Willa and their constant is-everything-alrights and are-you-okays. Even Mercer had made his way onto her Must Avoid list. Priscilla’s call had reminded her what week this was for her, and the reminder was all too heavy, a moun-tain of jagged baggage on her lungs. Especially when the one person who understood how she was feeling was unable to reach her.
She quietly made her way to her locker, void of all thought, dig-ging through its contents to attempt to locate her Spanish textbook. All she wanted was to disappear until she forgot this week, until the residual pain from her past ceased to resonate at the surface of her psyche.
“Kirby?”
Hearing his soothing voice, Kirby couldn’t resist the urge to turn to Mercer, only to see his forlorn features, darkening her already cloudy thoughts. Still, Kirby forced a vibrant smile to her face, hop-ing it was at least quasi-convincing.
“Mercer, hi.” She continued her stern command to look anything but devastated.
“Kirby, talk to me.” He neared her, closing what already little dis-tance remained between them, making her yearn for his touch, though she knew she’d fall apart in seconds if he consoled her. “Something is going on. I’m not mad at the silence, I’m just worried. I know we never said anything about us being official and dating, but you can tell me. I’m right here. Just let me stay.”
“I can’t.” she breathed in hitched parts, tears swarming around her eyes, breaking her vow of faux positivity. “This, us...I just can’t right now.”
She threw her
locker door, allowing it to slam shut and rattle its neighboring lockers. She went to leave, but Mercer hustled to stand in front of her, obscuring her path.
“Just like that? Kirby, whatever it is, you know I’ve endured my share of dark times and—”
“Mercer,” Kirby grabbed his free hand that wasn’t covered up by his sling, concentrating on keeping it together, looking into his dreamy ocean eyes. “I’m not okay. I’ve been okay until now because this investigation has been a blessing of a distraction and you’ve been so amazing to me,” she laughed lightly. “I mean, look at you.” She nodded toward his sling. “You saved my life at Arclan.” Her somber sensations returned. “But this week, and definitely today, I’m not okay. I don’t want to drag you into this.”
“Kirby—”
“Remember when you wanted to keep me away from everything involving Sumner? It’s just like that except now the roles are re-versed.”
“And just like then, I’m already in this.” Mercer squeezed her hand tightly. “Don’t push me away when…” he sighed. “When I’m already falling for you.”
“Don’t,” she sniffled, pulling her hand away from him. “I’m sorry, Mercer. I just can’t.”
Mercer went to stop her, but Kirby rolled his attempts away by storming down the hall, patiently waiting for a break from her tur-moil, all while tears broke their bubble and spilled from her eyes like faucets turned to full capacity, for Mercer and for her happiness.
They had almost forgotten what the inside of an interrogation room looked like until Dagger had called them to come down after school. They had spent the rest of the school day trying to console a stoic and silent Mercer to keep his mind off of Kirby. And it wasn’t help-ing to be sitting back in front of Detective Alston Dagger again.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the news about Arclan.” Dagger started.
“This is about that patient that escaped?” Alex sighed collectively for them.
“Yes and no. It’s about Sumner.”