Sever

by Jesse Grey

  “You kept this a secret on purpose, I’m guessing?” Faith nudged her boyfriend playfully.

  “He asked me to.” Straton nodded. “So they could keep the reveal a secret.”

  Hugo gave his wildest smirk. “How could I say no to a date with such a gorgeous proprietor?”

  Throwing her head back, Willa howled. “You’re too much, Hu-go.” She leaned in close to him and whispered in his ear. “And I love it.”

  “Okay, no more of that while I’m around.” Abram laughed, look-ing at Willa with astonished eyes. “You look beautiful, Willa.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I guess this is why you didn’t join us in the limo.”

  Willa agreed to his open-ended question presented as a regular statement. “Hugo took me in his BMW.”

  “My BMW.” Straton corrected.

  “Enough chatter, let’s dance!”

  Leading him by the hand, Willa guided Hugo to the massive dance floor. Faith and Straton followed them shortly. Kirby would have loved to go with Mercer and shimmy to the baseline of the lat-est Calvin Harris track, but since it was just them standing with Abram and Alex, she had something she needed to discuss with them. But she needed Mercer gone to enable the dialogue.

  The perfect excuse to get Mercer away from her much needed exchange with his friends appeared through the crowd in the guise of Harley Krcmaric, who had noticed her brother’s presence and had stopped to talk to him and Willa.

  “Why don’t you go dance with Harley?”

  Even his friends were a little shocked by her proposition. Mercer still gave her his best raised eyebrow.

  “You want me to dance with my ex-girlfriend?”

  She shook her head at the stereotype where she automatically had to hate her boyfriend’s ex without question or explanation. If she didn’t like Mercer so much, she would have delivered a lecture.

  “Mercer, do you still have romantic feelings for Harley?”

  “Of course not, but we’re still friends. Well, acquaintances.” Mer-cer shrugged. “I mean, we have history.”

  “Then why would I care? It’s fine, just go catch up.”

  “Why are you sending me away all of the sudden? What am I missing?”

  Thankful that she thought swiftly under pressure, Kirby tapped her camera, hanging conveniently around her neck. “Just need some candids of the nominees for the yearbook. I’ll cut in shortly.” Kirby smiled at him comfortingly, making sure to add a wink to ease Mer-cer’s surely lingering doubts.

  “Alright,” he said, content with her acute analysis. Leaning in, Mercer gave her a quick kiss, softly skimming her lips with his own. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

  Her smile faded as he vanished from their area just off the great dance floor. When she turned back to Alex and Abram, they were fixing their outfits and flexing their muscles with their best poses for the pictures they assumed she was about to start taking.

  “Okay, where do you want us?” Abram inquired.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You told Mercer you needed candids of the Homecoming nom-inees.” Alex repeated her previous words.

  “I do,” she assured them, ensuring her boyfriend’s best friends that she hadn’t lied to him. “What makes pictures candids is that you’re not looking into the lens when someone takes the photo. But that’s not why I sent Mercer away.”

  Dubiety spread among the two young men. “What do you mean?” Alex asked.

  “We need to talk about Straton.”

  “Straton?” Abram didn’t like hearing confessions involving the guy that was dating his boyfriend’s sister. “Why Straton?”

  “Because he’s telling Faith about the whole Blanche thing that’s happening tonight.”

  The very questioning glances that Alex and Abram wore grew with savage intensity. They all took a second to stare over at Straton and Faith, who were dancing closely together as the song shifted to a much slower pace, talking amongst themselves quietly.

  “Why do you think that Straton would do something stupid like that?” Alex wondered.

  “That’s exactly what he’s doing.” Kirby nodded, scoffing at their nonchalant musings about her findings. “I’m a photographer, what I do is watch people and if you think Straton is too conscious heavy to tell Faith everything, you don’t know him at all. I promise you, Stra-ton is telling her every detail of our meeting with Blanche.”

  “Dammit.” Abram swore.

  “We need to go ahead and bring Willa into this.” Kirby sighed.

  “Absolutely not.” Abram shook his head vehemently.

  “Abram, your sister is already tangled up in this. Sumner sent that picture directly to her.” She shook her head. “It’s time to bring Faith and Willa into the Slayer Society.”

  “Hey, I take offense to that.” Abram huffed.

  “Yeah, I’m not too keen on that label either.”

  Kirby laughed a little at how personally they were taking the moniker. “Chill, you guys. It’s not like you guys are the ones who killed someone.”

  Thankfully, Kirby decided to turn away and stare at Faith and Straton then, allowing Alex and Abram the time to stare at each oth-er, still glad that Kirby didn’t know the whole story about the attack in the cemetery.

  Out on the dance floor, Straton in fact was overcome with guilt and had decided to tell Faith everything about Blanche. He had to tell her. After making the mistake of lying about his friendship to Sumner, Straton couldn’t risk ruining his newly reconciled status with Faith by keeping something of this caliber to himself.

  “Faith, I have to tell you something.” Straton started, their slow dance continuing as he spoke. “Something important.”

  Intrigue pulsed back against her hazel eyes. Faith kept her arms wrapped around her boyfriend’s neck. “Alright.”

  “I don’t want there to be any secrets between us anymore. Which is why I want to tell you that tonight—”

  “There’s a meeting with Blanche Baxxen.”

  He looked at her like she had suddenly started speaking in tongues. “What? You know?”

  Faith gave him a smirk in response. “Of course I know. My brother isn’t nearly as quiet as he thinks he is when he’s on the phone with his friends. That, and he leaves his phone laying around too often. So tell me, what’s happening exactly?”

  “It’s happening here at Homecoming.” he continued. “We’re meeting her here so she can explain what happened when she met Sumner.” Straton sighed. “I’m also sorry, about not telling you about me and Blanche.”

  “I’m sorry, you and Blanche?”

  Straton, overcome with befuddlement, scoffed. “You didn’t know that part?”

  “Straton,” Faith detached from him and stared back at him ex-pectantly. “Why don’t you just start from the beginning and tell me everything you know about Blanche Baxxen.”

  A little later, it wasn’t long until it was time for the Homecoming Court’s karaoke event. The music from the DJ had stopped and the sing along had begun. Faith and Straton were up, the second to last performers of the Court nominees.

  While they were singing, Willa and a loosely following Hugo, found her brother and his friends standing away from the gathering of the student body and keeping to themselves.

  “Willa, are you—”

  “Okay?” She said, interrupting her brother when they came upon them. “No, I’m not okay because I’m just now finding out about this Blanche thing.”

  “What?” Abram looked at his friends, then Kirby, before his eyes rested once more on his sister, wondering how she had found out. “How did you—”

  “Faith.” Willa admitted. “Straton told her everything before they went on stage. She found me and Straton told us everything. Abram, what’s going on?”

  He looked back to his friends for, well, he wasn’t sure why. But when his eyes went back to Kirby’s smirking facade, she just scoffed and said, “I told you.”

  “Should we?” Abram pondered to hi
s friends.

  “Aren’t we forgetting how dangerous telling people about this is?” Bridge shook his head, eyeing each of them so they could actually see his throbbing vein of concern.

  “Kirby’s right.” Alex added, nodding at Abram. “Abe, they’re al-ready involved.”

  All of their focus was shifted when they saw Sterling enter Homecoming, sauntering through the wide oak double doors of the gym. As a collective, they left their conversation for another time and Abram led them over to the girl, whose eyes were expanding as they got to her, startled at the large quantity of their group.

  “Sterling.” Abram nodded, his own way of greeting her. “Is it time?”

  “Almost.” She reacted positively. “We better get going.”

  While they had been talking and meeting with Sterling, Faith and Straton had wrapped up their song, cheers meeting them at the song’s completion.

  “And last up for the Court Karaoke are nominees Alex Llewellyn and Abram St. James.”

  The crowd immediately turned to where they were huddling at the doors of the gym. They clapped for them to storm the stage and begin singing their song of choice.

  “What do we do?” Alex inquired to his friends.

  “You two are going to do your song.” Mercer told them. “We’ll take care of this.

  “Don’t you think a crowd is going to be a little noticeable while we sneak out?” Sterling urged. “Go do what you have to, but it shouldn’t be this many of us meeting with her. Who are these peo-ple, anyway?”

  “Mr. Llewellyn, Mr. St. James,” The teacher on stage bellowed into the microphone. “We’re waiting.”

  “Go.” Mercer stated. “I’ll go with Sterling.”

  It didn’t take long for Abram and Alex to disappear into the sea of students and make their way towards the stage. When they were out of range, Kirby turned back to her boyfriend, adamancy lathering her usually supple features.

  “I’m not letting you go alone.” she scoffed. “I’m coming with you.”

  “And what are we supposed to do?” Willa asked, still holding on-to Hugo’s hand while he stood silent.

  That’s when Bridge happened to look away from the group as Alex and Abram made their way through the excited applause and onto the stage, catching the eyes of Ben as he looked out. Ben saw him too, lingering at the start of the hallway that led to the strength and conditioning room as well as the various offices of the coaches and the locker rooms.

  Bridge cleared his throat, sending his friends an audible signal of his soon-to-be departure. “Yeah, I gotta go.” He shook Mercer play-fully. “You’ve got this, right?”

  As Bridge left them for unknown pastures, Straton and Faith made their way to the rest of the group.

  “Is it happening?” Faith gestured to Sterling. “I’m Faith, by the way.”

  “Sterling.” She smiled at her, eyeing her brother evenly. “We’re trying to minimize the quantity of this meeting.”

  “Well I’m going.” Straton demanded. “I’m not letting my sister go without me.”

  “Fine.” Mercer interjected. “The four of us should go then.”

  “Straton,” Faith went to argue, but he stopped her in seconds with his own words.

  “I’ll be fine. Just stay busy and dance.”

  “Come on.” Willa let go of Hugo and grabbed her best friend’s hand. “Let them do the hard work.”

  The two girls left for the dance floor to watch Abram and Alex perform their song as they readied their already previously chosen track to sing along to.

  “Be careful, dude.” Hugo told Straton, following his date to watch the upcoming finale to the Court Karaoke event.

  “Okay.” Sterling said, nodding at her brother, and then at Kirby and Mercer. “Did anyone set up a ladder or something to help us get to the roof?” When she was met with vacant stares, her mouth fell open. “Seriously?”

  “It’s not like we knew what to do.” Mercer huffed. “It’s not every night we do something like this.”

  “Let’s just go.” Straton stated. “We’re wasting time discussing what to do when we should just be figuring it out as we go.”

  The four of them did their best to conceal their exit from the gym in pursuit of finding Blanche and learning what she knew.

  Bridge heard the opening bars of ‘Keep On Loving You’ by REO Speedwagon as he made his way down the hallway, away from the dance floor, rolling his eyes at Abram and Alex’s song choice. He on-ly knew the song because both of them had an obsession with music from the eighties. But Bridge didn’t have time to listen in on his friends’ performance because he was following Ben.

  He looked around the corner and saw Ben standing at the end of the hallway, a smirk transfixed on his face as he walked backwards to the boys’ locker room.

  “Really?” Bridge said to himself, smiling mischievously as he made his walk over to the boys’ locker room, which, of course, was empty save that for the ever sexy Ben Magnus. “Locker room fantasy?” Bridge went up to his boyfriend, standing in front of him and crossing his arms in feign inspection. “Someone’s been watching porn.”

  Laughing for a split lapse of time, Ben pulled the younger man toward him, wrapping his arms around his athletic frame. “I’ve been seeing a high school student, I might as well give in to the scenario, shouldn’t I?”

  That’s all it took for them to start kissing, removing each other’s clothes in between heated breaths and softened moans. Time seemed irrelevant to them as they quickly undressed one another. Both men felt completely free as they relished and ravaged their bodies, making love to each other like it was a habit, like it was something that they’d do for the rest of their lives together. Unbeknownst to them though, their time with each other was destined to be short lived, especially since someone was just about to stumble upon their secret sexual rendezvous.

  Neither Bridge nor Ben heard the person who had discovered them in the locker room until they screamed. Bridge was actually in the throes when he turned to see an open-jawed Paige overlooking their tryst.

  “Oh my God!”

  Letting go of Ben’s ankles, Bridge worked on getting his clothes together and throwing them on in a blur of scrambling to be clothed. Ben was working at light speed to get off the bench they had been using and already had his shirt and slacks on when he faced his fian-cé.

  “Paige, I can explain.”

  “Don’t give me that cliché shit, Ben.” Paige dared a brief glance at Bridge, disgust on her face as he finished getting dressed, his outfit back to resting on his bones once again. She looked back at Ben then. “You’re sleeping with a kid in high school? And he’s underage!”

  “I’m so sorry, Paige.” Bridge felt embarrassment and guilt-tinged tears starting to descend down his face. “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t.” She put out a hand. “I let you into my house. I gave you a roof over your head, fed you, and you’ve been screwing my fiancée the whole time!?”

  “Paige.” Ben pleaded with his tone rather than deciding it wise to move. “It’s not...I actually have feelings...it’s not just some fling.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Paige yelled, shaking her head violently, her blonde shoulder length hair following her berserk movements. “This can’t be happening.”

  “I’m so—”

  There was no chance for Ben to offer up an apology due to Paige issuing a hard, calculated slap across his stubble-slathered face. Even Bridge recoiled at the commotion, feeling like he had almost felt the sting of her hand on his own sizzling skin. Ben didn’t move except for the act of grabbing his cheek and staring back at Paige in raw awe.

  “I can’t believe you, Ben.” Paige admitted, vital vigor vibrating her vocal chords. “Here’s your ring.” She ripped it off her finger and tossed it at him, hitting his chest and bouncing off, skidding across the dirty floor of the locker room. “And I was even carrying around this stupid mockup of what our wedding invitations could look like to show yo
u tonight.”

  Reaching into her blazer’s inside pocket, Paige pulled out a piece of paper, her own personalized stationary, and crumpled it up before throwing it in Ben’s face as well.

  “Good riddance, Benjamin.” Paige concluded, a deadlock stare in her eyes. She looked back over at Bridge, delivering a devilish glare of death his way, her eyes pulsing and saturated with severe, explo-sive spite. “I hope you don’t think you’re off the hook. You’ll get what’s coming to you, you can be sure of that. Go to hell, the both of you.”

  Sobs started to spill out of Ben with ease when Paige stomped out of the locker room and pummeled the hallway with her stilettos, Ben standing in place as sorrow built a fortress within him like some sort of toxic disease, ready to rupture fatality into his bloodstream. Bridge didn’t even look at Ben, not at first. Instead, he picked up the engagement ring and the balled-up paper, returning to him and holding them out for him to take.

  “Ben, I…” The older man ceased his cries long enough to make eye contact with Bridge, an action the latter was thankful for after their dynamic had just drastically been altered. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “That’s because there’s nothing left to say.” Still somber and visi-bly distraught, Ben cradled Bridge’s face and planted a finale of a kiss against his lips, pulling away from him and taking the ring from Bridge’s waiting hands. “Nothing but goodbye.”

  “Ben—”

  “I’m sorry, Bridge. For everything. I just hope you know that…” He had to stop himself from choking on his diction. “That this, us, was the most real thing I’ve ever had.”

  Bridge felt his own emotions catching up with him. “What’s go-ing to happen now?”

  “You’ll go back to your friends, your life.” Ben laughed in frustra-tion at how he wished he could do the same, even though he knew there was no chance of that happening. “As for me, it’s all over.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I have expectations to fulfill.” he screeched. “My parents expect for me to get married, to a woman, inherit my father’s psych center, sire some biological kids…”