Kill Or Be Killed

Chapter 5

"Vera, I just-" he sighed. "Where do I start?"

"You're the one who wanted to meet," I responded curtly. "You tell me."

"I, um, I just wanted to say sorry."

"As you have before."

"I wanted to say it one last time," he continued. "When I first saw everything that had happened, I was confused. Scared. Shocked. Everything was so strange and none of it made any sense... I thought I was going crazy. That maybe I had some mental illness or something. I waited days, wondering if I had made a crazy story just trying to cope with Jason's death. It was only when Julia falsely confessed that I thought what I saw may have been true. I should've said something then-"

"So why didn't you?" I asked, sitting up straight and moving my sunglasses up. "Why didn't you tell us that we didn't kill Jason?"

"Because of Secret Keeper," he replied. "I had gotten the first note later that night and thought that it was part of the insanity, but when Julia confessed, I thought them over and knew I couldn't tell anyone yet. You read the first one. I needed to make sure I knew who Secret Keeper was before I could tell anyone. I started to record who I was around whenever I had gotten the cards, thinking I could figure out who Secret Keeper was before taking action."

"And did you?" I leaned forward. "Do you at least have a suspect?"

"No."

"And you still didn't want to tell any of us, even after realizing you had no way of knowing who Secret Keeper was?" I asked him. "You didn't even think to tell me or Jordan privately?"

Tyler hesitated before answering slowly. "The next time I had gotten the card after the funeral was during the race."

I blinked. "Where did you find it?"

"In my car."

"But that's impossible," I told him. "We were almost always around the car. If someone else had placed the note we should've..."

I trailed off as the realization slammed me in the face. "You thought I was Secret Keeper."

His guilty expression was enough of an answer.

The thought stung even though I knew it was valid reasoning. Still, I tried to calm myself down.

"I'm sorry about that, I just-"

I held a hand up and he stopped talking.

"It's fine," I told him. "Even I had thought you were Secret Keeper not so long ago. We're all doing things we regret, thinking things we never would."

"So, you forgive me?" He tilted his head, brown eyes sparkling from the sunlight spilling through the windows.

I thought it over. If I was being honest, I missed his presence. Plus, what I had said was right. We had all done things we regretted, like pretending to not know who killed Jason, despite believing themselves to be the killer. His mistakes were dull compared to mine.

I nodded. "I forgive you."

Tyler sighed in relief and leaned back, pausing for a moment before saying, "I never managed to-"

I held my hand up again.

"No, this is my relaxation time. Leave," I said and leaned back into my chair, placing my sunglasses back in place before making a shooing motion.

Tyler let out a laugh and held his hands up in surrender. "As you please, Your Majesty."

I couldn't help the smile tugging at my lips as he left. It felt nice to slip back into our easy friendship.