Now for the ladies. First, Moriah Edgewood. Moriah, you were oblivious to my longstanding crush on you. You stood idly by while I was teased for being your brother’s boyfriend, when you knew I hung around because I liked spending time with you. You could have easily dispelled the rumors, but you chose to put yourself first. Must the price of popularity always come at another’s expense?
Lainey Araya, you were my best friend in high school. You were my light in the darkness, my hope when all seemed lost. But you had your own problems to deal with and thought your issues were bigger than mine. You would rather wallow in your own self-pity than be there for anyone else. Thanks for ditching me and proving no one should be trusted.
And dear Amy Evans, you were the worst of them all. You had no shortage of ways to torture me, but one event in particular was branded into my soul. You agreed to accompany me to the sixth-grade dance for the express purpose of humiliating me by standing me up. You thought it would be funny to go with my worst nightmare instead. Amy, you turned the whole school against me. You pushed me away until the boy who once adored you felt nothing but loathing at the sound of your name. You took our childhood friendship and tore it to shreds. And for what? Your glorious rise to queen bitch? What did I ever do to deserve your hate? One day all your friends will leave you, and you’ll have nothing left but your own toxic company. What a punishment that will be.
Finally, Kristina Pierce and Roseanne Tryniski, a.k.a Amy’s faithful minions. I must applaud you for your tremendous ability and relentless determination to annihilate any shred of self-esteem I ever dared possess. You accomplished your goal and then some.
There were those who left me alone. I thank you for refusing to add to my suffering, but your negligence did far more damage than any unkind words and brutal beatings could. You dehumanized me. You made me feel invisible, unlovable, and unworthy of being included. You failed to acknowledge my existence, let alone my pain. What I would have done to know you cared. A simple “hello” could have made all the difference. A “how are you?” could have changed my life. But when all I needed was a friend, you gave me nothing but indifference.
There were of course teachers and school counselors who offered the occasional “it’ll all be okay” or “things will get better soon.” Thanks for your well wishes, but I suppose that is your job. What will be their reactions to my last words, I wonder? Surely the administration at Rose Lake High will be shocked into uproar as this will have been the fifth suicide experienced by their student body in the last eight years alone. That is not a record they will want publicized. They ought to investigate what they are doing wrong. Perhaps Bayside Middle School will mourn my passing, for their student population caused my depression and temporary insanity. I doubt East Side Secondary will care; they will most likely rejoice.
The last group I wish to address are my fellow, ill-fated outsiders. All you losers, loners, misfits, and freaks, you will undoubtedly feel the pain of my absence as my tormenters will no longer have me to destroy. I apologize for leaving you to your fate, and I pray you will handle it better than I.
There is one person, however, whose forgiveness I beg for. Rocky, you were my childhood best friend. I am so sorry I hurt you and that I must hurt you again. I will miss you terribly. You were a loyal friend and the only reason I did not do this sooner.
I sincerely hope my death will make a difference. I hope these words inspire change. I guess that depends on this website being discovered. I pray no other soul ever experiences the agony and isolation I endured. I pray everyone who is suffering finds a shoulder to lean on or a helping hand to guide them through the dark. Unfortunately, I did not find these comforts, so with these final words, I seal my fate.
To all of you, goodbye.
-Damien Gray
Charles reread the note twice, confusion and exhaustion clouding his thoughts. If Damien Gray had killed himself, how was he still alive? The note’s author had to be the same Damien on campus. The picture proved he knew Amy, and she had been specifically mentioned in the note. Perhaps Damien planned to kill himself at a later date, and the note was a work in progress. Why, then, had it already been restricted?
Charles climbed into bed and tried to fall asleep. He lay awake for hours despite his exhaustion. Damien’s experiences were unsettlingly similar to his own high school traumas. Isolation had once threatened to imprison him like an impenetrable barricade that cut him off from the world. His loser status had been tattooed on his mind, a constant reminder of life before Zack and Amy. He understood Damien’s sorrow. He shared the same pain.
Eighteen
ALEX SWEPT HIS gaze over his frightened collection of students. They were boring as hell, all huddled together and united by terror. Fury bubbled within him like a steaming cauldron of lava. Alex wanted backstabbing, he craved bloodshed. He had taken an entire class of sixth graders prisoner, and they were disappointing their viewers. The blissful elation he had had at the beginning had swiftly dwindled into boredom. His main target, Chris, had missed out on the fun, and Zack was too dumb to realize, or too selfish to care, that he had the power to save the rest.
Alex had received several unsatisfactory donations. Aside from Ryan’s parents, none had provided the massive cash payouts he desired. It was up to him to stir things up. His lips parted in a slow spreading grin.
He swept his gaze over the class once more. Most of the students were cowering against the back wall. Nova sulked alone in a corner. Alex eyed her with contempt. He missed the guys he used to control while ruling Assassin’s Honor. Nathan had been especially fun to manipulate. Peter had always been stubborn, but Alex had enjoyed the challenge.
The only one Alex never missed was Ash. He had been a sweet, little kid when Alex had first met him and had proved pathetically easy to control. But Ash had gotten heavy into drugs which had turned his mind into a swirling whirlpool of unfathomable confusion. His thoughts had been clouded and messy, and influencing him had been more trouble than it was worth. The one time Alex had tried, he had gotten tangled in drug-induced nonsense and fought for hours to escape Ash’s mind. Alex rested his chin on his palm and studied each young face in turn. None of the kids in this room were on drugs. Not yet, anyway. Some would no doubt start using to forget the nightmare he had created.
He joined Nova in her corner and draped an arm around her shoulders. “How you holding up?” He was an expert on pretending to care.
She shrugged him off and took a couple steps away. “I’m fine.”
“Come on, you can’t still be mad I didn’t call you when I escaped.” Frustrating or not, his sister was all he had to work with, and he needed her on his side one hundred percent.
“What’s going to happen after all of this is over? You going to leave me in that stinking orphanage again?”
“Of course not.” Alex softened his voice and faked an apologetic frown. “I never meant for that to happen. After this is over, you and me are out of here. We’ll take off to Europe or South America and make a brand-new life for ourselves. No more orphanages, no more stupid human classmates. Just you and me livin’ it up on the beaches.”
“Can we go to Brazil?” Her words were raw with hope.
Alex smiled at her childish fantasies. “Whatever you want. We’ll have heaps of money. We’ll travel wherever we like.” Nova gave him a sad, wistful look. Alex pursed his lips. Did she believe him? Two years apart had made her grow up fast. Reading her was not as simple as it used to be. “Can you help me out with something?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Those Brazilian beaches are calling.” He flashed her a genuine grin.
“What do you need?” She asked the question on a weary sigh.
He briefed her on his plan. She got the camera ready while shooting him several sour looks. Alex marched into the center of the room to address the shell-shocked class. “All right, losers, listen up.” Nova panned the camera around the room, getting footage of the barricaded door, the blacked-out
windows, and the mop bucket the students had been using as a toilet. It was important to keep the viewers up to date in case they were tuning in for the first time. Shock fueled sensation, and sensation sparked donations. “Has anyone ever heard of the game Russian Roulette?” Silence gripped the room. He waved the gun in a red-haired boy’s face.
Ryan Rivera, the rich black kid, tentatively raised his hand as if he was answering a tricky question in class. “Isn’t that the game where a bunch of people sit in a circle and take turns shooting themselves in the head?”
“Ryan, my man! You’re always my star student.” His description had made Russian Roulette sound even more gruesome than usual. It ought to catch the attention of anyone watching. “Russian Roulette is a game of survival.” Alex paced the center aisle. “I will select six of you to participate. Five of you will live, one of you will die.”
Sam raised her hand. “But Ryan just said that everyone shoots themselves in the head. Wouldn’t everyone die?”
“Everyone shoots themselves, but there’s only one bullet in the gun. No one knows which person will be unlucky enough to blow out their brains. You guys get it?”
They stared back at him with stunned, vacant expressions. Several of them were tensed as if about to run. Alex grinned. There was nowhere for them to go. The high he got from cornering his victims was sweeter than chocolate, better than sex. He paused to savor the moment and relish in the ripples of horror he had created. His viewers would be morbidly glued to their screens. He had sentenced a sixth grader to death.
“Anyone with a blue nametag can go join Nova by the window. You will be exempt due to friends and family who value your lives. The rest of you stay where you are.”
Half the class ran to Nova as if she were the safe zone in a deadly game of tag. She checked for blue nametags and shoved the rest away.
“Here.” Ryan peeled off his nametag and stuck it to Sam’s shirt. “You’ve already been shot once. You can have mine.”
“Those are non-transferable.” Alex slapped the nametag onto Ryan’s forehead and shoved him toward Nova. “Get over there where you belong.”
Ryan joined the rest of the exempt students, his expression solemn and his eyes full of hate. Alex threw him a look of deep contempt. Ryan was a Dark. Why was he putting human lives before his own?
Alex surveyed the leftovers with a hungry gleam in his eye. Susan was there, of course. Amy could barely keep clothes on her little sister’s back, much less afford a down payment on her life. It would be fun to see Susan die after all the trouble Amy had caused. Sam had been trouble from the beginning, and that Sarah girl had tried to give her painkillers. The Hispanic boy beside Sam was also up for grabs. But the other two guys sitting with them had already participated in one of his activities, and he wanted to spread out the misery as much as possible. No one would make donations if he always tortured the same students. He cleared his throat importantly. “José Garcia, Caleb Maxwell, Brett Armstrong, Sarah Matthews, Samantha Williams, and Susan Evans. You six will get to play one of the most exciting games in history.”
He waved his gun at the chosen six. They scrambled to join him in the center of the classroom. “The rest of you may want to stand back. This could get a bit messy.” Susan trembled with terror. Alex showed his teeth in a shark’s grin. “It’s funny how you keep calm when it’s your friends in trouble, but the second it’s your own life on the line, you’re nothing but a scared little bitch baby.”
“Leave her alone!” Daniel’s words were threaded with anger. Alex knitted his brow. Something about his defense of Susan was annoyingly familiar. It tugged at his mind like a clue in a crossword.
“You wanna take her place?”
Nova jerked her head in Daniel’s direction, her tired ocean blue eyes sparking with alarm. “No, he doesn’t. Alex, get on with it.”
“Aww. Does wittle Nova have a boyfwiend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red than her hair.
Alex’s heart soared with triumph. Nova had a crush on a weak human boy. She had handed him an ace. Manipulating her would be easy from now on. “Whatever you say.” He turned his malevolence on Daniel. “Sit down and be glad my precious sister likes you.” He handed the gun to Susan. “All right, sweetheart, how about you go first.”
Susan took the gun and gripped it with both hands. She pointed it at Alex’s chest and pulled the trigger.
Nineteen
KIMMY DROPPED INTO an airplane seat with a weary huff of relief. The stress of check-in and security was behind her. Five uninterrupted hours of people-free alone time lay ahead. She snuck a quick glance at Peter. He was gazing around in wide-eyed delight, awestruck at flying first-class. Kimmy hid a soft smile. Peter was such a child sometimes, an unexpectedly endearing personality trait. It softened his hard exterior and allowed her glimpses of the boy who had put his own life at risk to help a nine-year-old he had barely known.
“What are you smirking at?” His green eyes crinkled cutely at the corners when he smiled.
“I’m not smirking.” She squirmed in her seat and averted her gaze. Had she been smirking? What was a smirk, really?
Kimmy was mildly autistic. Small talk for her was like taking a test after misplacing a cheat sheet that everyone else held. Social situations were like a final exam that no one had allowed her to study for. The meeting earlier had been far more challenging than arresting Alex twice in one day.
Peter was staring at her. Heat crept into her cheeks. She shot him what she hoped was a questioning glance. Her friends claimed her inquiring gazes made her look like a frightened owl. Anxiety fluttered in her stomach, and her cheeks grew hotter still.
Peter turned away to look out the window. Kimmy breathed a sigh of relief. Small talk was over. Time for a nap.
They fell into companionable silence during takeoff. Kimmy relaxed, the upward swoop of the plane lifting her away from her anxiety. There was joy in leaving solid ground. It emboldened her and freed her, if only for a moment.
Peter leaned back in his chair the second the seatbelt sign pinged. “How did you spring for first class tickets? Do these really become beds?” Kimmy winced. Multiple questions made her head spin. She pressed the button on his armrest. He flopped backward, mildly surprised. “Apparently they do. Hanging out with you has its perks.”
“Are you flirting with me?” His easy banter made everything murky. Kimmy liked to know what was going on.
“No!” Peter gasped. “I just meant… all this.” He gestured at their drink menus and the expanse of leg room at their feet.
“Of course.” Kimmy nodded, her cheeks burning embers of shame. She had good reason to avoid small talk. She embarrassed herself and everyone around her the moment she participated in frivolity.
Kimmy pretended to drift off to sleep and eyed Peter from beneath her lashes. She was oddly drawn to this cute human boy. He was attractive with his bodybuilder looks and amazing sea green eyes. He had a history of hanging out with Darks and of switching from villain to hero in the blink of an eye. She had a history of liking guys who met that description. Her roommate, Tommy Stratton, was a prime example.
She and Tommy had an on-again off-again affair that amused and confused their friends. The couple had radically dissimilar life goals and possessed startlingly opposite moral codes in that Kimmy had high morals and Tommy had none. But whenever she saw him shirtless, all reason went straight out the window.
Kimmy released a weary sigh. Peter was staring again. She couldn’t fault him for it. She was out-of-this-world attractive, a side effect of being an angel. She had thick midnight hair and vibrant deep blue eyes. Her skin was perfect porcelain, her body slender without effort. She scarfed boxes of donuts on the regular without gaining an ounce or getting a hint of a pimple. If a blemish ever dared appear, she healed it in a nanosecond. She was literally flawless, on the outside at least. Guys loved her, and girls hated her. That was how it had always been. Her best friend
and other roommate, Felicia Pacherri, was the one exception. They had known each other since babyhood and had been best friends since high school.
“I know you’re not asleep,” Peter murmured.
Kimmy’s eyes flew open. She met his calm sea green gaze with an anxious flutter in her chest. He was much more observant than the average human. “I am trying to sleep,” she lied. “You should be doing the same. I’m not sure when we’ll get another chance.”
He flashed her a smile and fluffed up his pillow. Kimmy gazed up at the ceiling and rolled her eyes. Why did he have to act so cute all the time? She had arrested him. He was the furthest thing from dating material. Why, then, was she longing to touch his biceps?
Kimmy woke to the plane hitting the tarmac. Early morning light was streaming through the windows, throwing her internal clock into jet-lagged confusion. It was 6 A.M. in Toronto, 3 A.M. in Vancouver, and midnight according to her groggy brain. Peter slumbered peacefully on her right. She let him snooze until the seatbelt sign dimmed. “Wake up, sleepyhead.” She poked his shoulder.
He dazzled her with a boyish grin. “First you tell me to sleep, then you wake me up. Make up your mind, lady.” He retrieved their bags from the overhead compartment.
Kimmy reflexively reached for her own. Peter shouldered it and led the way down the aisle. She shuffled after him in a stupor of confusion. Criminals she arrested were supposed to dish out death threats, not open doors for her and carry her stuff.
“So, where we headed?” Peter joined a queue of people waiting for a taxi.
“Prison,” she blurted without thinking. He shot her a look of startled horror. “Sorry. We’re visiting Nathan Johnson is all.”
“You think he’ll talk to me?”
“He’s more likely to confide in you, a former friend, than an official with the ability to lengthen his sentence.” Unease tugged at her heart, a million red flags waving in her face. Was she seriously going to do this? Drag Peter straight back to his ex-gang leader? What if Assassin’s Honor had more power over him than they realized?
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