Sever

by Jesse Grey

  “Yeah” Mercer stated. “Come on. We need to get going.”

  “I’ll lead. Let’s go.”

  Bridge took over then, guiding them towards the basement door that led to Sumner’s bedroom. He figured they’d have to break into the mansion to hunt for the missing pages, that their tormentor would make them scavenge for what they thrived to find. But their stalker must have been as impatient as they were to get some an-swers.

  “Guys.” He stood there before the basement door, waiting for Kirby and Mercer to join him and see that their search was already over.

  Because on the basement door, hanging by a single strand of chrome duct tape, were two pieces of paper.

  “That’s it?” Kirby asked, looking at them with dumbfounded eyes.

  “They’re getting desperate.” Bridge commented, grabbing the folded up pages swiftly.

  “Who’s desperate?” Both Mercer and Bridge were suddenly aware that Kirby didn’t exactly know everything.

  “What do they say?” Mercer was ready to know what infor-mation they risked their lives for.

  “Who’s there?”

  The voice didn’t belong to any of them, all of them motionless and overcome with fear. They stood still, not making any noise, not even fully breathing to keep quiet.

  “This is Armor Falls PD. If someone is there, come out now.”

  Eyes flared, they ran. They went back toward the tree line, back to the obscurity of the darkness. But the cop acted quickly.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  But they were in the trees by now. They kept running as the bul-lets started, weaving their way closer to safety and away from the gunfire erupting from the grounds of Shadows Manor. The police officer stopped firing, presumably to inform his fellow officers about them, but they’d be long gone by the time the cops began searching.

  A few minutes later, they were back at Mercer’s Jeep, hidden be-hind some shrubbery and trees just beyond the forest down the road from Karder Cove. It’d probably be only minutes before the police came, but they had several places to look, buying them plenty of time to work with.

  Kirby ran up to the Jeep, leaning on it to catch her breath. Bridge immediately ran to the front seat and grabbed his phone to use as a light. Mercer was the last to approach his vehicle, joining them at the hood of his vehicle.

  “I hope whatever is on those pages was worth getting shot at.” Kirby said, Bridge fiddling with his phone to turn on its flashlight.

  “They better be,” Mercer looked like he was shaking a little bit. “I’m already having flashbacks from the passageway.”

  The huddled around Bridge as his phone’s flashlight roared to life, illuminating the hood of Mercer’s Jeep in total vibrance. He placed the papers on the hood and unfolded them, the page on top coming undone from its creases. Staring confused, they saw that the first page was a scrawling of Sumner’s inner rage.

  They think they can defy me. They all do. They’ll see, they’ll all see. I’ll get them all in time. Streetcar will be the first one, she’ll be so close to the truth and yet she’ll never learn of it. They’ll find out that I always get what I want in the end.

  No one said a word. They just kept staring at the message over and over. Bridge folded the first page up and stuffed it in the pocket of his jeans, Mercer reaching to flatten out the second piece of paper to assist.

  The second page wasn’t as difficult to follow or think about. It was just the same two words written repeatedly, every time the two words were scribbled, the writing looked angrier and angrier.

  “Oscar Runner?”

  Kirby’s questionable echoing of the name fell on incapable ears. The two young men didn’t know what the name meant any more than she did. But the name was covering both sides of the page, so it had to mean something pretty important.

  Sirens were heard in the distance, rising like coyote howls in the night, making them stir in antsy circles. “We don’t have much time. Let’s go.” Bridge nodded as they scrambled into the Wrangler, trying to wrap their heads around the utterly vague findings that made up the two pages Sumner had poured his murky soul into when he had been hiding in the room beneath Arclan Asylum.

  14

  SHE KNOWS THINGS

  Any breakthroughs yet?”

  Alex sighed at Mercer’s question as they approached the latter’s locker. Ever since they had retrieved Sumner’s pages from Shadows Manor last week, they had been trying to figure out their meanings, but they were coming up short. Now it was the following Monday, and they still had less than zero leads.

  “No.” Alex finally told him, while Mercer grabbed some books from his locker and slid them into his backpack. “I understand now why our anonymous friend wanted us to figure it out. If we’re hav-ing this much trouble solving it, I can’t imagine what they thought of them.”

  “What about the Streetcar thing?” Mercer stated, slinging his backpack over his good shoulder. “Didn’t you say you knew some-thing about a play with that name?”

  “A Streetcar Named Desire,” he nodded. “But even if that’s the ref-erence Sumner used to nickname someone, we have no idea where to start.”

  “The notes said ‘she’ though.”

  “The ‘shes’ of Streetcar are Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski, I looked it up. But seeing as we don’t know anyone with those names, we have nowhere to start.”

  Bridge and Abram, who had gone to the cafeteria to grab some food for everybody, appeared around the corner of the hall and found them straightforwardly next to Mercer’s locker. They passed their friends some hashbrowns, which were gratefully taken by hun-gry hands.

  “No progress must be contagious.” Bridge added, overhearing their conversation. “The feeling of helplessness must be too.”

  “I know.” Alex said, a sigh heaving his lungs for a second time. “I think finding out what the messages mean will help us unravel who is trying to mess with us though.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Bridge agreed.

  “How?” Abram asked.

  “Because I’ve been thinking that they want to understand every-thing that led up to the cemetery just as badly as they want us to tell the truth about that night.”

  Mercer was just about to argue when a familiar face started to saunter up to them.

  “Harley?”

  The bright redhead smiled at Mercer. He hadn’t seen her since they’d broken up several months ago after the whole Sumner thing went down and Abram had gone away. She looked as beautiful as she always did, with her fair skin and freckles that she shared with her brother. Like usual, her hair was tied back in a ponytail.

  “Hey, Mercer. It’s been a while.” She didn’t give him time to re-act, instead setting her eyes on Abram. “I’ve actually been looking for you.”

  “Me?” Abram and Harley had rarely spent time together without Mercer, or even the others, present. “Why me?”

  “Well, I’m captain this year and—”

  “You’re captain?” Alex interjected, trying his best to hide his sur-prise.

  Back before his transition, Alex had been on the cheer squad and before everything changed, he was the front runner for captain. Of course, he’d left cheering behind but he never figured Harley, who hadn’t been on the team for very long, even when he was on the team, would take his place.

  “Weird, right?” Harley laughed, admitting to the abnormality. She focused once again on Abram. “As I’m sure you know, Homecoming is this week and Troy, one of our cheerleaders, sprained his ankle and can’t do the pep rally Friday. I was wondering since you used to be on the team…”

  “You want me to cheer in the pep rally?” Abram scoffed. “And learn the routine in four days?”

  “I know it’s really short notice and you quit the team after what happened with...Sumner, but we’re really desperate.” She then looked to Alex. “I could use your help too, if you’re interested.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve left that part of me behind.” Alex
stated.

  “Yeah, I don’t know.” Abram shook his head. “Four days—”

  “Is plenty of time, I swear. I’ll practice every day with you per-sonally. You always were really quick with choreography and I’d really owe you one.”

  Right when Abram was about to politely refuse Harley’s request, Willa turned the corner, noticed their gathering, and ran right over in an instant. “Before you say no, you should remember that I'm on the team and you’ll be helping out your little sister.”

  Sighing, Abram finally nodded, quickly giving in. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  Willa hugged him in a fit of joy. Harley smiled behind them and said, “Thank you so much, Abram. I’ll meet with you after school in the gym?”

  “Yeah, I’ll meet you there.”

  As Harley and Willa retreated in a fit of happy hoorays, Alex gave Abram a head tilt and a questioning gaze.

  “Are you really sure about doing this? We already have to find out what these notes mean, do you really have time to cheer?”

  “I’m not letting this person completely run my life, Alex. It’s just for the pep rally. Plus, it’ll help me take my mind off of everything we’ve got going on. Cheering always did help me focus.”

  Alex wanted to protest, but he knew how hard Abram had fallen after the confrontation with Sumner underneath Arclan weeks ago. He’d been so vulnerable and on the verge of another breakdown. Alex, despite still not really knowing what the future held for the two of them together, just wanted Abram to be happy. And if cheering in the pep rally helped him gain some focus in his life, there was no way he was going to stand in his way.

  “You’re right. You have a right to your life, we all do.” he finally said.

  “We’re no closer to figuring the messages out anyway.” Bridge nodded. “Maybe until we do, we can have some semblance of a life.”

  “Maybe. I’m still going to hit the library and look through past yearbooks for clues, for anyone named anything remotely ‘Streetcar’ adjacent. Maybe we’ll get lucky and figure this out before something bad happens.”

  Alex left them in the hall, retreating to try and find out what the pages meant and, in correlation, find out who was holding the truth over their heads, worry lacing its way into every emotion he had un-til they figured out who was trying to get them to tell the world their innermost secrets.

  Later that night, as the sky grew to a dark shade of eggplant purple, Athena Wheaton was pulling brownies out of the oven and setting them on the kitchen counter for Kirby and Mercer, whom she had invited over so she could get to know her daughter’s boyfriend.

  It made her apprehensive to meet Mercer, given the string of events that came with Kirby’s last boyfriend back in New York. But during dinner, Athena’s worries had been severely lessened upon getting to know the pseudo-infamous Mercer Meadows. It also didn't hurt that he had saved her daughter’s life that night under Arclan. Mercer was a really good kid, and she knew that he was good for Kirby, especially with everything she'd been through.

  She poured them a glass of milk each and set them down next to the brownies.

  “Thanks for the brownies, Ms. Wheaton.” Mercer beamed as he reached for the dessert. “And thanks for inviting me over for din-ner.”

  “Yeah, thanks Mom.”

  “No problem.” Athena smiled, giving them genuine approval. “So, Homecoming is pretty soon.”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna ask this guy in my history class to go with me.” Kirby commented sarcastically.

  “Ooh, he’s hot. I say go for it.” Mercer said with a laugh, Kirby joining in quickly.

  Athena smiled and shook her head, a knock on the front door breaking all of them from the warm comfort of laughter and good food.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She left the teenagers in the kitchen, hastily making her way to-ward the front of the grandeur house. But when she made her way through the foyer and opened up the door, she was met with the dark of the growing night. She surveyed the street, not seeing obvi-ous signs of anyone, at least not anyone that wanted to be seen. Grabbing the doorknob, she turned to go back inside when her eyes caught on a folded piece of paper on the welcome mat.

  Bending down to pick it up, Athena opened it, a gasp leaving her lips as she read it over. Athena looked back inside, where she could just make out Kirby and Mercer, laughing and feeding each other pieces of a brownie.

  Her eyes returned to the letter, then back into the night, franti-cally seeking the sender with cautious optimism. She was about to call their name, but knew that it was a mistake to do so. They gave her this letter as a warning, a last resort. And she couldn’t just do that to them, for the owner of the letter was someone Athena knew very well, someone the police were very interested in finding.

  Because the one who had sent Athena Wheaton the message, was the escaped patient from Arclan Asylum.

  The next morning, Abram and Alex lazily walked into the Meadows residence. Mercer and Bridge had asked them to come over after overhearing Mercer’s dads talking to Dagger, who wanted them to go down to the station after school again.

  “Good, you’re here.” Bridge said, turning down the small TV in the kitchen.

  “So what’s going on?” Abram said, taking a seat at the kitchen is-land with the others.

  “Dagger called my dads this morning, saying that he needed to see us after school today.” Mercer regaled. “Then he mentioned that something was being released to the public this morning that he wanted to talk to us about when we get to the station.”

  “It’s too hopeful to think he found something on Sumner.” Abram sighed.

  “Guys, I think we should reconsider telling Dagger about the night at the cemetery.”

  All eyes clung to Alex, mouths agape with dripping discomfort.

  “You’ve lost it, Alex.” Bridge yelled. “This isn't some eye witness report we’re keeping from the police, it’s murder!”

  “I’m not saying right now,” Alex sighed, trying to explain himself. “But if we can’t figure out who is doing this to us, we’re going to need a Plan B. We can make a deal with Dagger and—”

  “No.” Mercer grunted. “Dagger knows we’re holding something back. Even if he says we have some sort of understanding or plea, murder is murder.”

  “Not to mention obstructing justice or whatever it’s called when you withhold as much information as we have.” Bridge said, malice and annoyance sparking on the end of his tongue like firecrackers.

  “Just as our saving grace, guys. It wasn’t our fault. Sumner planned everything, every event that went on that night. I don’t want to relive any of it by retelling it, believe me, but if we’re backed into it by our stalker, at least we can do it on our own terms.”

  Abram patted his hand tenderly, grazing his knuckles gingerly. “Let’s worry about that later. We won’t have to go that far. We’re gonna figure this out. We have to.”

  “Breaking news in the Sumner Shadows case...” The TV’s low voice whispered in quick drawls, taking the reins on their attention.

  “Turn it up!” Mercer roared.

  Bridge scrambled to find the remote, pounding the volume but-ton until it sounded like they were in the newsroom.

  “Police have finally released this image of the escaped patient from Arclan Asylum.”

  The screen went to a picture of a young woman instead of the newscaster, a very pretty brunette with blue eyes, eyes that looked like they could hold massive, damaging secrets.

  “Police have identified her as Blanche Baxxen, who was sent to Arclan Asylum just shy of two months ago. After further investigat-ing, this image was found.”

  A pixelated picture of Blanche and some guy at a bar, with only half of the guys face visible, showed up on the screen. But they could tell that the guy in the photo was Sumner.

  “It is believed that the person with Ms. Baxxen is none other than Sumner Shadows.”

  The newscaster went on, putting up pictures of both Blanche and Sum
ner, asking anyone with any information to contact police immediately. They continued to talk about Sumner and Blanche’s possible connection and how it played into her escape from Arclan, while they tried to digest the news.

  “This is it,” Alex said with more vigor than he thought possible. “Blanche is the one who helped Sumner. She’s the one Sumner talked to when Hugo saw him the night he went to Straton for help.”

  “She’s Streetcar.” Mercer said in disbelief.

  “So Blanche was working with Sumner, but broke away once she discovered his psychosis somehow, just like we did.” Abram deter-mined.

  “Then how did she end up locked away in Arclan?”

  Pondering on Bridge’s question, they knew that this was huge. They knew one piece of the mysterious messages laid between the lines of the pages Sumner left behind, something that was connected to the entirety of why Sumner snapped that night and turned their lives into a parallel universe of normal.

  All day at school, each of them had thought about the novelty of finding Blanche Baxxen, while still keeping it from their siblings and romantic interests. A part of all of them was very eager to get to the police station, but once they arrived, nerves overcame them, like some sort of antibody mind control. They had no idea what exactly Dagger wanted out of their visit, and they hoped he’d at least be con-siderate of their communal state of mind when it came to the news.

  Once they were back in the interrogation room they were overly accustomed to, they waited for Dagger to join them, since the room was vacant for the first time since their meetings with Dagger had started.

  “Well this is weird.” Bridge scoffed. “Dagger’s always here before we come in.”

  “Do you think they found Blanche?” Alex asked.

  None of them wanted the police to find Blanche, not at first. Blanche had answers, answers to almost every question the friends had. They had to find her and get some solutions before the police or Dagger got ahold of Sumner’s ex-accomplice.