Sever

by Jesse Grey

  Dagger burst into the room without preamble, looking at them once before taking a seat at the table. They stood frozen, standing in front of their seats and staring at Dagger with uneasy masks of agita-tion.

  “Take a seat,” His voice shook with demand, causing them to pull back their chairs and sit down at the table before he opened up his mouth again. “There’s a lot going on today.”

  “Is this about Blanche Baxxen?” Alex quipped, piquing the detec-tive’s interest, judging on the height of the man’s eyebrows.

  “Indirectly, I suppose.” He adjusted in his seat. “Once we realized that the patient that escaped Arclan Asylum was Ms. Baxxen, we searched for her face everywhere, and found security footage with Blanche and who we think is Sumner.”

  “It is Sumner.” Abram said.

  “His face may be half visible, detective, but we’d know it was him if his chin were the only thing we could see.” Bridge stated, folding his arms across his chest, a failsafe sign of his growing irritation.

  “No question.” Mercer dipped his head, coinciding with the unanimous declaration.

  Dagger fiddled with his fingers, fidgeting his digits while his brain’s gears churned faster and faster. They just sat there, waiting for him to talk again.

  “How sure are you?” He cut his eyes at them sharply, stabbing jagged stares in their direction.

  “A hundred percent.” They answered all together, proving to the detective just how positive they were.

  “Alright, good. That’s one thing covered.” Dagger had a more comfortable look, like he was finally at a place of ease. None of them were surprised when his facade changed to one of stern determina-tion. “Now I have to ask. Do any of you know anything about Blanche Baxxen?”

  “Why would we? We’d never heard the name until this morn-ing.” Mercer nervously cracked his knuckles as he spoke.

  “I think Blanche was helping Sumner,” Dagger said, telling them what they already knew to be true. “They’d have to be pretty close, don’t you think?”

  “Detective, we severed ties with Sumner when he tried to kill us.” Abram told Dagger, starting to get angry at the underlying accusa-tions. “When are you going to get that we don’t have anything to do with him? We don’t know where he is, we don’t know who he’s been in contact with, and we sure as hell don’t know some girl he tricked into aiding him with whatever plans he concocted in that massive murdering brain of his.”

  Abram’s nostrils retracted like a metronome, fed up with these investigations and feeling like he was still connected to Sumner.

  “Abe, calm down.” Alex told him in a low voice.

  “It’s okay.” Dagger gave a brief grin. “I’m sorry, Abram. I didn’t mean to make you think I’m suspicious of you and your friends help-ing Sumner. I’m just trying to crack this case, using every angle I can to try and get this thing closed, for good.” He cleared his throat, glancing at the clock, looking back at the four friends. “Which is why I was wondering if you’d continue telling me more about Sumner.”

  “That’s why we’re here?” Bridge scoffed.

  “You’ve demonstrated the beginning of Sumner’s hidden psycho-sis,” he nodded. “But you guys forgave him.”

  “We told you, he—”

  “Gave a compelling apology, I know. Just tell me about the time you brought him back into the group, when you let him back into all of your lives.”

  Forgiving Sumner was one of all of their greatest regrets. After the pool drowning incident, they were free from him in every en-compassing way. But when Sumner told them why he was the way he was, he’d appealed to their deepest sympathies, and they’d com-mitted a dark crime against their once promising self-worth.

  Bridge craned his neck, letting it pop a couple times, eyeing De-tective Dagger evenly, while his friends tensed up and shifted un-comfortably in their chairs to await the flashback to their lives.

  “Ironically, the day Sumner convinced us to award him a fresh start, we were all by a pool.”

  For Sumner’s former best friends, being free of his constant pranks and hijinks proved to be what each of them needed. They all felt free to be them-selves again, like before Sumner ever infiltrated their lives upon his arrival to Armor Falls. Freedom was their new adrenaline, and that was all they needed to sustain their newfound cautionless friendship.

  They were at the community pool, enjoying some time to themselves. Mercer had brought his girlfriend of almost three months, Harley Krcmaric, who was busy talking to Lissa while they went to grab some snacks from the concession stand, leaving the boys tanning in reclining chairs by the pool.

  “This is perfect,” Mercer smiled behind his Ray Bans. “Who knew end-ing a friendship could make you feel so good?”

  “It’s been a perfect summer.” Bridge agreed, flipping down his shades as he ogled the insanely hot lifeguard. “Isn’t that Orry Hatchet from this year’s graduating class?”

  “Keep it in your pants, B. Orry doesn’t bark up your tree.” Abram said, reapplying some sunscreen to his vulnerable face.

  “He hasn’t met me yet.” Bridge smirked, his mouth upturned on its back in a illustration of self-assurance.

  As they laughed off Bridge’s advances, Lissa and Harley sauntered back from the concessions when they all noticed a familiar face through the crowd of random pool-goers. A face they hadn’t seen since that fateful spring break day almost four months ago.

  Sumner made his way through the shocked faces of the strangers around him, until he strode up to his former friends and saw the frightened turned irate features that they bore.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Abram leapt up from his chair, inches away from him. “Go home, Sumner.”

  “I just want to talk,” He put his hands up in mock protest, shifting his dark eyes to set upon each and every one of them, but finding nothing but disdain caking around their corneas. “Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking for.”

  All of them were a little too stunned to say anything at first. But then Lissa cleared her throat and eyed Harley with extreme seriousness.

  “Harley, can you give us a sec?”

  She gave them a nod, gave a look to Mercer, and went toward the deep end of the pool. A few feet away was a stone patio table, complete with a rainbow umbrella. It was a little more secluded than their current position out in the open where they were already collecting several staggering stares from various onlookers. Lissa led them over to the patio set, everyone trying not to make it too obvious that they were sitting as far away from Sumner as they could on the stone seating.

  “I know you guys hate me,” Sumner began, sighing idly. “And honestly, I don’t blame you. But I came here for one reason, and I just want to do that and I’ll be out of your lives. Permanently.” They sat silent, gaping at him and waiting for him to continue, so he took the cue. “Nothing can ever excuse what I put you guys through, but I told my therapist that I at least had to apologize for the things that I’ve done.”

  “Therapist?” Lissa stated, mirroring her friends’ looks of misperception.

  Sumner nodded, remaining in a total state of calm and peace, which to the friends was an opposite archetype for him. “I’ve been seeing one for a while now, since summer started. I’ve really been trying to focus on my issues and working to move on from them.”

  “You expect us to believe this after all the shit you pulled?” Abram scoffed.

  Rather than getting mad, Sumner just sighed. “No, not really. But I have.”

  “Are we done?” Mercer huffed, sharing Abram’s feelings as he searched for Harley among the crowd.

  “Look, I’ve done a lot of terrible things to you guys, with the pranks and everything. After talking my issues over with my therapist, she thinks that I might be bipolar. Getting used to taking meds every day is a little strange.” He laughed a little, trying to ease the tension he felt emanating from them, but when he arrived at the deduction that it was useless, he went on. “And with talking e
verything over with her, I realized that I kept in a lot of stuff from...when my mom died.”

  The bipolar diagnosis made a little bit of sense, though they hadn’t ex-pected it. Even more unexpected was the mention of his mother’s passing. Sumner never used to talk about his mom or her abrupt death. All they really knew about it was that she had passed away here in Armor Falls, when Sumner was six and before he and his father had left New Hampshire to get away from the pain.

  They saw tears bubbling to a boil against his dark eyes. For a second, as just a passing thought, they felt sympathy for him. But then they thought better of it and kept their stoic facades pasted on their faces.

  “I think I kept a lot in about her death,” Sumner coughed the lump form-ing in his throat away. “And I think that moving back to Armor Falls brought back too much, way too much for me to handle alone.”

  “Sumner—”

  “Let me finish, Lissa. I’ve come to the conclusion, and Dr. Croft agrees, that I felt like I had no control over my life with my mom being gone and coming back to town really intensified that. So I found you guys and con-trolled you. And nothing can justify my actions, but I’m so sorry. I’m so deeply sorry about everything that I’ve done. I may not have any friends anymore, but I think maybe that’s what I need. I just want to move on from the past and finally be happy. That’s what I want for you guys too. I just want you to be happy. And now that you’ve got me out of your lives, you finally can be.”

  Sumner looked over to see Harley wading around in the pool, talking to someone from school and laughing. He gestured over to the redhead and then set his eyes on Mercer. “I’m really happy for you and Harley.”

  “Thanks.” Mercer grunted, not really committing to the response.

  Lissa shifted in her seat, which enabled Abram to wrap his arm around her in an effort to comfort her. Sumner took notice pretty quickly.

  “Wait, are you guys—”

  “Yeah,” Lissa gave a weak grin. “For a while now.”

  They all thought they saw a flicker of rage behind the calm exterior of Sumner’s countenance, but they must have imagined it, because it was swiftly swapped with a huge teethy smile.

  “That’s great.” he said. “But listen, I don’t expect your forgiveness, I just wanted to apologize.” He stood up from the table and smiled nervously. “I guess I should head back to Sunshine Shack.”

  “I’m sorry, to what?” Bridge asked, his brows wobbly with weak interest.

  “Sorry,” Sumner laughed. “I’m talking about Shadows Manor. It’s this little code I came up with that I do sometimes, coming up with the opposite of what I actually mean. I need to work on that too because my therapist says it’s not helping my bipolar symptoms. Anyway, I’d say I’ll see you around, but, you know.”

  He left them sitting there at the patio table, intending to leave the swim-ming pool, but Lissa beckoned him back.

  “Sumner, wait.”

  While he turned around, her friends gaped at her with new shock.

  “Liss, what are you doing?” Abram whispered harshly.

  “All that stuff about his mom, it makes sense.”

  “And if he is bipolar, he can’t help that.” Bridge said with shaky confi-dence.

  Sumner was beginning to walk back over to them while Mercer hurried-ly argued. “He’s a liar.”

  “He’s sick.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I mean clinically.” Lissa told him. “And he lost his mom. I can’t even comprehend how I’d react to that.”

  “Same. Who knows how I’d be if I lost either of my parents.” Bridge nod-ded.

  He was in front of them again, looking uncomfortable just standing there like a defendant in front of a very biased jury.

  “Probation.” Lissa decided, seeing a nod from her friends in her periph-eral. “If we ever hung out again, you’d have to prove to us that you wouldn’t ever treat us like before.”

  Changing from confusion to astonishment, Sumner scoffed in spite of himself. “You’d actually do that, give me a practically millionth chance?”

  The friends gazed at one another. Trying to mend things with Sumner was complicated, especially with how liberating their lives had been since they’d ditched the rocky friendship. But if Sumner was suffering from bipo-lar disorder, they owed it to him, and the late Marjorie Shadows, to see if he really was attempting to rehabilitate himself.

  “Maybe we’ll hang out next week as a trial run.” Lissa gave him a beaming smile, full of hope.

  A glowing glaze over his now cheerful face, Sumner smiled at them. “I can’t thank you enough. But I really should get going. See you next week?”

  They shook their heads positively as he faded into the sea of people, while his soon to be best friends again wondered if they were making a monumental mistake they'd live to lament in the years to come.

  Alex finished retelling the memory and Mercer stood up from his chair, his eyes wide with recognition.

  “That’s it.”

  Joining the friends, Dagger sent a look of displaced understand-ing at Mercer. “What’s it?”

  “Detective, can we be excused for today?” he urged.

  “Is everything alright?”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s good.” Mercer grunted. “It’s just,” he craned his head, thinking of an excuse. “We’re in the pep rally Friday and we really need to practice. Are we good?”

  He could tell by the detective’s expression that he didn’t exclu-sively trust this claim, but Dagger just let out a sigh and stood up, delivering a positive reaction.

  “Alright, you can go. I’ll talk to you all soon.”

  “Thanks, detective.”

  Mercer almost ran out of the door, provoking his friends to ponder the reasons for his earlier exclamation while he beckoned them to hurry up and follow him outside. It wasn’t until they were down the sunset lit street and away from the police station, in a pretty secluded side street, that they confronted their friend.

  “What was that all about?” Alex folded his arms over each other as the chilly evening air blew over him.

  Bridge snickered. “Whatever it is, we skipped out before Dagger started his usual rambling, so I say bravo.”

  “During our remembrance with Dagger, I got an idea and I think I might be onto something.”

  “About what?” Abram asked.

  “The other message Sumner left behind.” Mercer said. “When we forgave Sumner that day at the pool, he told us about his opposite code thing when he described Shadows Manor.”

  “So?”

  “So, what if that’s what he did with the second page? We haven’t been able to find anything about anyone with the name Oscar Run-ner. Maybe it’s because we have the wrong one.” His eyes were lit up and his heart was slathered in excess amounts of excitement. “I’ve watched enough award shows with my dads to know that, since the Oscars are for movies, the equivalent to it is its TV counterpart, the Emmys.”

  “Hold on.” Abram breathed slowly. “So we should look for Emmy Runner?”

  Mercer scrunched up his face. “Not what I was thinking exactly, but that’s an option we should explore. But I think both names are part of the code.”

  “And the opposite of runner is what, stander?” Bridge scoffed.

  “I was thinking of a more popular last name, B.” Mercer stared at them with extra vitality, finally sure of himself. “We don’t need to be looking for Oscar Runner.” he shook his head. “We need to be searching for Emmy Walker.”

  The evening sun was starting to set behind lilac clouds and dusk initiated its process to the sky when Straton Jacobs got back from the gym. He was half surprised, half not-at-all when he found the dorm room empty. A part of him envied how easily Hugo was able to make friends. Straton did okay, but he was too focused on school to go out drinking during the week.

  Setting down his gym bag, he absentmindedly turned on his TV while he got ready to hop in the shower. Some news report droned on in the background, gra
bbing a towel when he heard the news program mumble something about Sumner Shadows.

  “What the hell?”

  He careened toward the television, seeing what looked like a re-peat report, talking about a new development in the case involving Sumner. Straton was about to just go shower and catch the report later but a face popped up on the screen, one he immediately recog-nized, as they talked about the escaped patient from Arclan Asylum that caused a gasp to fall from his dropped jaw.

  “Blanche?”

  Upon continued listening of the news, he learned that the police believed that Blanche Baxxen had helped Sumner in hiding in Armor Falls. Then they unveiled a gritty, foggy photo of Blanche and Sumner at a bar.

  Straton grabbed his phone, needing desperately to contact some-one else who knew Blanche Baxxen when a series of erratic knocks ricocheted across the surface of his door.

  He raced to open it, revealing a face he hadn’t seen since before his summer semester at Heartmyth had started.

  “Sterling.”

  The young woman fell into his arms, basically collapsing against his currently sore frame. Sobs erupted forth from her nude shaded lips, concern and worry tangling up around Straton’s already accu-mulating emotions. When they parted, Straton stared down at his younger sister with wide scared irises as her eyes reddened with pre-vious sentiment.

  Sterling Jacobs fixed her newly dyed honey brown hair, wiping her face so it was free of stray tears. “You heard?” she ultimately spoke, her voice teetering with unstable uncertainty.

  He nodded lightly. “Just now.”

  Sterling shook her head. “This person the news and police are de-scribing, this isn’t Blanche. You know that.”

  “I know. How did she even meet Sumner?”

  “I wish I knew,” she cried again. “It must have happened during this summer, following graduation. But she wouldn’t do this, Stra-ton. She wouldn’t help someone who tried to commit murder.”

  He inhaled an intense breath, exhaling the carbon dioxide twice as hard. “Dagger is sure to bring us in for questioning soon. Or in my case, further questioning.”