Trigger

seventeen • blame

"Oh. So am I just going to stand here?"

"You could sit."

I roll my eyes, gritting my teeth to keep myself from calling him a smartass. Instead, much to his amusement, I sit on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island.

Finn doesn't go back to cooking, though. "You know, you really should be getting more sleep. I don't think you should be up at three in the morning."

My heart skips a beat as he brings up last night, but I force myself to keep a cool and collected expression. I can't let him know that he caught me off guard. "Well maybe you should take your own advice."

"I've always liked waking up early. It's something Levi and I didn't share in common."

"I have a feeing you and Levi didn't share much in common. He's not a killer, after all."

Finn laughs loudly at that. "He killed his own parents!"

"That was an accident! It's not like he meant to crash the car!"

And oh shit, was that the wrong thing to say.

It only takes me a couple of seconds to realize that Finn had no idea that I knew about the accident. He doesn't even know that I'm looking into Levi's past, let alone going to orphanages and asking about his behaviour after the incident. Finn's crooked and evil smile instantly drops, almost taking the warmness of the room with it and replacing with an icy fear. I try to keep myself from shivering.

"So you've been doing your research, huh?"

I shrug, trying to seem casual. I'm not as good of an actor as Hannah, though, so I knew it's not super believable. "They were online. Curiosity is in a human's nature."

"No one said you could fucking do a background check on him-"

"And why do you care suddenly?" I find myself snapping, standing up from my seat, eager to gain more height so he doesn't appear as intimidating. "You didn't care much when you practically shouted it at me, twice! You're putting the blame on Levi for- for God knows what reason- when it was an accident! You're probably one of the reasons he feels so guilty!"

"No! He feels guilty because he caused the car crash that killed both his parents, and almost me too!"

"So this is what this is about? Payback for him breaking your arm in the goddamn accident?"

"You don't even know what went down in that accident, Kinsley. You think that just because you read a couple of articles online that suddenly you're a fucking expert or something. There's a lot that the reporters don't know. There's a lot that Levi doesn't even know, and anything that he did, I made sure went down in the grave with him. I have no intentions of reviving it."

The oven timer goes off.

Finn takes a step back- much to my relief. "Chicken's ready. Thanks for the help with dinner, Kinsley."

I don't respond, simply dodging him and exiting through the back door, eager to find an escape through the forest.

x

After some hiking, I find a big rock to sit on that overlooks the lake, a nice and relaxing spot for me to gather my thoughts in.

My mind is still replaying my conversation with Finn. Finn was... angry about something. Something Levi perhaps did? It's the only thing I can really think of, to be honest. He had just been so angry and bitter when he talked about the topic, especially the things that the reports and Levi didn't even know. And the secrets.

I chew on my bottom lip until I feel like it might start to bleed. Could Finn have more than just Levi's blood on his hands? Could he have tampered with the car, maybe the brakes? Finn would need a motive, though. He'd need something that would make him hate Levi so much that he would want to get rid of their whole family.

I just can't see Finn hating Levi. I think back to the Levi and him were talking, when Finn had told Levi that he was normal and he just had to try his best not to try and remember the accident. Finn had tried to comfort Levi, tried to make sure he was taking his pills- which I now realize were tampered with all along- and helped Levi inside when he was having a breakdown.

It just didn't make sense.

Thinking about the whole mess, though, always leads me back to the accident. I pull out my phone, searching up the accident once more and looking through several articles. I want to find something, anything, from those articles that I may have missed. Who knows; maybe that small piece of information will be the answer to all the questions running through my head.

I don't find much, though. There's a couple of things I make a small note of in my head- Finn being at a friends house when they had picked him up, Levi only having a five months of driving experiencing when his parents had let him drive, and the fact that his mom was due to leave for a trip the next week. I don't really know how any of those could be relative, but I still screenshot all three.

I'm just about to give up when Hannah calls me. I eagerly pick up the phone, pressing it to my ear, my breath hitching when I hear her words.

"Where are you? I think I may have found something."

xxx

Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed :) I'm sorry that chapters are so short with this story, but I just find the chapters end naturally a lot shorter with this story than other ones xD If you do want long chapters, though, you should check out my name story called 'What You Became' because I just wrote a three thousand word chapter for that story before that one (;;;;

But anyway, if you enjoyed this please be sure to comment and vote! Thank you for getting this story to #6 in Mystery/Thriller- it's what made me want to write this chapter! Love you all so so much! (: xoxo