by Alina Banks
Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulders and drew me to his side. “I know for a fact she’s waiting for something else. Something specific. I can’t tell you what it is because I promised her I wouldn’t. She has her reasons for the choices she’d made, like you said, and I think it was best for you to grow up the way you did. Your mom…for as long as I knew her, she had this weight on her shoulders. Now, we’re here and everything is different, but that’s not a bad thing. You had the chance to be a child, even if we did move a lot, and that’s more than she ever had.”
I looked at him, not completely understanding his meaning. “Mom has stories for me?”
“Yes, she does.” He rubbed my arm reassuringly. “We were kind of hoping this would skip a generation, and you’d never have to walk the same path she did, but from what you’ve said, things are already changing for you, which is something that will keep happening. Being here, being where your family has been for generations, was always going to have some kind of an effect.” He shrugged. “We just…I don’t even know why. As far as we know, a generation has never been missed, although there have been times when someone has been different than the others, for whatever reason. Nine times out of ten, that reason was because they’ve been needed for something specific.”
Chapter Ten
I couldn’t help but think cancelling homecoming would be the best thing we could do for everyone involved, but people wanted to pretend everything was fine. Things weren’t fine. Two students were dead, and yet, as everyone gathered for the game, it felt as though no one even remembered those things had even happened. Sasha, for some reason, had made the decision to join me. Her presence had a calming effect on me, her warm weight against my ankles was a silent reassurance.
Sabrina and James were with me, the way they always were. For the first time in my life, I actually had friends, and that wasn’t something I was used to. I’d avoided almost all school related activities, purely because I had no one there to convince me it would be useful for me to go. But this time, it was possible that Sabrina might have been right, because Mom was unlikely to leave Clermont as quickly as she had left other places.
James glanced over at me. He looked about as happy with the situation as I was, but Sabrina had also managed to convince him that it would be good for us to do something normal. “How is anything about this normal?” He brushed a hand through his hair. “I’ve never wanted to be anywhere less than I want to be here.”
Sabrina laughed. “Honestly, James, I don't want to be here either. I just…” The amusement faded. “With so many people here, I feel like this might be a good time and place for whoever it is that’s attacking students, to make a move. Even though everyone knows the situation, it’s likely people will be going off on their own, for whatever reason, and I thought maybe we’d be able to stop them.”
It was clear that Sabrina was genuinely worried for everyone. “You aren’t wrong.” I looked around at the group of high schoolers and felt a small stab of envy at how easy it was for them to let go of all their worries for a night. For me, it was much more complicated. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Everyone will most likely stay together until the game is over, then they’ll start splitting up. There’s going to be a rush of people leaving when the game ends, so if we stay here, we might not make it out in time.” Sabrina tapped a finger to her chin. “Maybe we could wait out by the school. We should be fine as long as we stick together.”
“Okay.” I gave her a smile. “I’m definitely willing to help if you really think it will stop anyone else from getting hurt.” I shrugged. “I just don’t understand why it’s so easy for them to forget what’s already happened.”
“For now, they think they’re safe. Two deaths don’t mean there’s a serial killer around, but we might be one of the only ones who think there’s something more to this, so we believe they have a reason to be scared. The best thing we can do is to keep them safe, even if it means they can keep burying their heads in the sand.”
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t manage to concentrate on the game. I wasn’t interested in who won or what happened on the field, although it did seem like both Sabrina and James found themselves truly enjoying the game. At least they were able to focus on something else. Something normal.
I found myself daydreaming about Mom and how much time we’d spent traveling from one place to the next. That, for some reason, led me back to Alice and who she might have been. I gave myself a mental shake and tried my best to watch the game.
After what felt like hours, it was almost over, and I couldn’t hold in my sigh of relief. Laughing, Sabrina wrapped her arm around my shoulders, more herself than she had been since we went exploring the woods together. “We have a job to do.” She looked at James. “How about…”
Sasha made a sound, reminding me she was there, and then she was running towards the school. I glanced at Sabrina and James. “The two of you should stick with the plan. I’ll go after Sasha.” I shook my head. “I’m sure she knows something.”
Nodding, Sabrina’s eyes met mine for a moment. “Be careful. If anything happens to you, yell or try to get our attention somehow.” She hugged me fiercely.
“Will do.”
I took off after Sasha, following her into the school itself. The silence was deafening. Normally, the air was thick with the hubbub of students chattering and lockers slamming, but all the sounds were coming from outside. The only noise from within the school was the sound of me running after Sasha. Her paws were soundless, and she was quick without leaving me behind. She wanted me to be able to keep up with her. Clearly, she knew something and needed my help for whatever it was.
When we reached a classroom, she stopped outside it, and when I glanced through the window in the door, I could see Alex, who was pacing from one side of the room to the other. The key for the door was in the keyhole. Without really stopping to think about it, I unlocked the door, and then I stepped into the room.
Alex raised an eyebrow when he saw me. “What are you doing here, Ana?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter?” My eyes met his, and I wondered how he knew my name. “What were you doing in here?”
“Principal Woods said it was detention, but then he locked the door.” He shrugged. “Now, at least, I can actually leave, although I still don’t understand why he would lock me in here.”
Once more, I was reminded of how I felt when I was around him, and I shook my head. Even though I had literally no evidence that Principal Woods had anything to do with what was happening, I knew my gut was telling me that he was the culprit. He was the one killing people, I just had to figure out why.
I opened my mouth to say something, but suddenly, screams tore through the air. They were coming from outside. Just as I was about to move over to the window, echoing footsteps sounded in the hall. I didn’t have time to think before I reacted. I grabbed Alex’s arm and led him to another classroom. As I walked away from the door, I made sure to lock it. We needed all the time we could get.
In the next classroom, Alex took over, tugging me over to the teacher’s desk. “Come on, hide under here.”
“You think it’s the principal.”
He shrugged. “Who else is it going to be?”
Both of us crawled under the desk, and Sasha slipped in after us. In such close proximity, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how good Alex smelled. Great. This was definitely the time and place for those thoughts. I shook myself mentally, telling myself I needed to focus on the situation at hand, not on what the guy next to me smelled like. He probably thought I was insane, anyway. What kind of person wandered around the school with their cat? I glanced at Sasha, who looked at me and nuzzled my hand. The more time I spent with her, the more certain I became that she was something more than a cat. She wrapped her tail around my wrist, and we both focused on the sounds from outside. Slowly, far slower than I thought possible, the footsteps stopped at the door of the classroom Alex had been held i
n. I held my breath and waited for whoever it was to unlock the door. The sound of a key turning in the lock had never been so loud.
They didn’t seem to be moving, but then it sounded like they were checking all the possible hiding places in the room. The sounds of chairs screeching and clattering across the floor stopped almost as soon as they had started.
“Where did he go?” The principal’s voice echoed slightly. “Could he have climbed out the window?”
“Left the window open.” Alex’s voice was barely a whisper, but I could still hear him. “I wanted him to think that was how I got out.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“We’ll wait until we can’t hear him, then we’ll make a run for it.” We could still hear the sounds coming from outside, and it was a small relief that one of them was the distinct wail of an ambulance. “We need to find out what happened.”
Sabrina gave us a shaky smile before she started to explain the situation. “It was just the two of us, so it was impossible to keep an eye on everyone, and it sounds like one of the girls went into the forest. Apparently, she’s not too badly hurt, but it’s bad enough that they called an ambulance for her. I heard that whoever or whatever attacked her was distracted, although I couldn’t tell you what distracted it.”
Alex and I glanced at each other. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was. Could it be the principal, and if it was, why wasn’t he focused on the girl in the woods? He could be after specific people. I shrugged. “Alex was locked in one of the classrooms by Principal Woods.”
“He said it was for detention, although I had no idea why I even had detention, but when he left, he locked the door behind him. Maybe it was just because he thought I wouldn’t stay there if I wasn’t locked in, but when he came back, it sounded like he was pretty upset I wasn’t there anymore.”
“We were hiding in one of the classrooms nearby, so it would have been easy enough for him to find us, but he didn’t seem to bother looking for that long. It’s possible he did think you’d escaped out the window, which probably would have led to you breaking your leg if you’d tried it.”
“That’s the whole reason I didn’t try.” He shrugged. “When you got me out, I’d been in there for about three hours. I don’t understand why he would have done that, but maybe there was a reason. None of this makes sense”
I glanced over at Sabrina, and she nodded. “There is a chance he might have wanted to talk to you, because we told him about seeing you in the forest the other day.”
“No, he already talked to me about that.” Alex’s eyes met mine for a second. “When did you see me?”
“Oh, it was just for a second, we saw you when you were coming out of the forest a few days ago. We were worried about you.” I hated lying to him, but I didn’t want to say anything about the cabin. It wasn’t as though I had any reason to trust him, even if Principal Woods had locked him in a classroom for no reason. “Did he tell you why you were supposed to have detention?”
“Honestly, he didn’t say much to me at all.” He frowned. “I don’t know why he’s been acting so strangely recently. There’s definitely something about him that isn’t normal, but I’ve got no idea what it is. Maybe it is just that his students are being killed, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, because it’s not as though there’s a lot he can do. If we’re stupid enough to keep going into the forest…”
James gave Alex a look. “Why were you in the forest? We didn’t want to assume, but it can be easy for people to jump to conclusions.”
Alex nodded and gave us a small smile. “I understand. I don’t have anything to do with the deaths, but my family does have a cabin out there, and I…this is going to sound really stupid. I wanted to check to see if our cabin might have been used by the murderer. I thought it was possible they might have chosen a random cabin out there, and no one’s been out there for a long time, so I did it because I had to do something. With everything that’s happened, I couldn’t just sit there and wait around for someone else to do something. I’m not that kind of person.”
“There are people who think you killed Wayde because of Dante.” Sabrina shrugged. “You’ve always been one of those people no one knows anything about, Alex, so it’s easier to come up with stories like that because of it.”
“Yeah, I can understand that. Dante and I were close once, back before he started hanging out with Wayde, but it wasn’t my job to save him from himself. All he wanted was a way to get his friend back, and I always knew that it would cause more issues if Wayde was gone. I remember when my uncle decided to ground Dante in an attempt to keep him away from Wayde, but it didn’t work. Instead of listening to my uncle, Dante seemed to close in on himself. Fixing the problem was going to take more effort that my uncle was willing to put in, so he just gave up. Now, Dante’s more broken than he ever was before, and the only person I can blame for that is my uncle.”
“Sometimes people are more complicated than they seem.” I looked at Alex as I spoke. “I can understand blaming your uncle, but I think the person you should really blame is Dante, because he’s the one who ended up making the choices that led him down this path. From the looks of things, there’s nothing your uncle could have done to stop him.” I shrugged. “At least, not something that would really have done that much good.”
“I’ve tried talking to Dante more times than I can remember. I’ve tried to get him to see why the choices he made were the wrong ones, but he wasn’t willing to listen to me. Instead, he told me that I was the one who needed to find a new path, because I had no one in my life and he did. He didn’t understand that Wayde was the problem. Now he has no one, and I don’t know what I can do to help him.”
Chapter Eleven
“Considering how things worked out, I don’t believe it was Alex.” I brushed a hand through my hair. “At the time of the attack, I was with him. We heard the screams.”
Sabrina nodded. “You could be right, if the murderer is operating alone.” Her eyes met mine. “We don’t know anything right now, and that’s the way it’s been ever since this started. Whoever is behind this is doing everything in their power to hide it, which means we need to find out more on our own. Somehow.”
“We need to go back to the forest.” James looked between the two of us. “Going back really does seem like asking for trouble, if the killer is out there. After today, that’s logically the most likely place they’ll be. There’s a chance we could be the next targets.” He sighed and seemed to reconsider. “As much as I want to know the truth, that’s not something I’m willing to do. At least, not until we have more evidence.”
“How do we even know if we can trust the evidence?” It seemed like the more we found out, the more questions I had. I needed to head back to the library. Alone. “Someone attacked a girl at homecoming. There were so many of us there, it seems like whoever did it knew someone would break the rules and wander into the forest, which tells me they were watching us, waiting for the right moment. It means they’ve been planning this, and part of that planning would be making sure they didn’t get caught. Could the girl say anything about what happened to her?”
“No, she couldn’t.” Sabrina nibbled on her bottom lip. “James and I were the ones who found her. We saw her stumble out from the trees, and she could only tell us that she was grabbed. She was more scared than anything, honestly. She could barely talk, but I did what I could to get the story from her. They came at her from behind, so she didn’t get a good look. She thought that she’d be able to fight them, because that’s what everyone thinks they’d do, but she froze up. She was so embarrassed to admit that. She didn’t seem to have any injuries. It’s almost like they grabbed her, but then realized that she wasn’t who they were looking for.”
“Okay, so either we’re looking for someone who prefers to kill males, or there was some other reason she wasn’t the right person. If we find out the reasoning behind the killings, we’ll definitely stand a better c
hance of working out who the killer is.”
Mom gently grasped my arms. “Nothing happened to you.”
“The girl went into the forest for some reason. I went inside the school building to help a friend out. I’m perfectly fine, Mom.”
After a few moments of staring into my eyes, she nodded and took a step away from me. “She was fine, but in shock. That’s to be expected, considering what happened. Being grabbed like that…” She sighed. “I want you to be more careful, Ana. Do not go into that forest. There is no reason for you to put yourself in danger. Let the professionals handle it. The person who did this is dangerous. You don’t know anything about them.”
“No, I don’t. I’m sure you know more than I do.” I almost smiled. “This has something to do with everything that happened before, and I know you aren’t ready to talk about it yet. Whatever happened was bad enough that you chose to leave Clermont, which…I can understand the choice. It just feels like I’ve been affected in ways that I can’t fully understand because I didn’t grow up here. Not being here meant I wasn’t taught about who I really am, and I think that’s partly because you had hoped that I would be able to avoid whatever is happening here, but now it’s happened. You have to come to terms with that.” I shrugged. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be waiting.”
Mom stared at me. Sasha jumped onto my lap and fixed her feline gaze on Mom.