To see if the last part of my plan works or not, all we have to do is wait until sunrise. That, and keep Brayden away from the vampire/werewolf girl to stop her from inviting her in again.
Thankfully, both things are easily accomplished by tying Brayden with some shoelaces and cramming him inside the vent with all four of us inside.
On one side is Hayden, only halfway with his feet dangling outside; on the other side, Okayden, sitting criss-cross apple-sauce while making pug noises every time he breaths. The tension between the two is palpable, and not in a "miss me, you fool" kind of tension. More like a tension cable swaying in a storm, and I'm an unsuspecting bird about to be instantly cooked by a zap from the dangling noodle.
Needless to say, me and Brayden are between the two. And it's as quiet as you can imagine. Mostly because everybody is as tense as a teenager self-discovering in the shower when his relatives are in the house and had a little bit too much of Uncle Jimbo's patented face-melting chili, but also partly because Okayden hasn't stopped fiddling with my feet for the last hour or so.
He is surprisingly gentle.
Not a word is shared, not a peep is uttered. Everything is as quiet and still as a goose on a pond, and just about as menacing. After an hour or two, Brayden dares to say something, which is shut down by Hayden before he could finish the first syllable. It isn't a particularly interesting syllable, so I will refrain from adding it here and wasting your time.
"Zip it, wundertwink. You got horny for Werepire and got us fucked! Now we gotta wait in this tight, moist hole until things cool down."
Brayden gives him a killing stare, but his eyes are as soft at him, so it's more like a gentle pat on the back. "well, la dee da. if god didn't want us to be horny for werewolves and vampires, he wouldn't have made them so hot! also, not to be a tracy technicality, but technically, this is yer fault for being thicker than a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich and not fitting into the vent, which lead clifford the fit a-f werepire here to snatch ya."
Oh boy, now we're pointing fingers. And I haven't cut my fingernails yet.
"Oh, word?" says Hayden, trying to shimmy his way deeper inside. He fails. "If we finding blame, then this is all Ayden's fault!"
And here we go.
"It was his dumb sleepover idea that got us here in the first place!"
"yeah!" chimes Brayden, "and he was the one that got my queen in here and started this whole kerfuffle. god, i wish i had been the one that got her in. enter my chamber, you hoof-footed queen."
And now, it falls to me. I can say that this is all Hayden's fault for being such an aggressive ball-hogger during dodgeball, or Brayden before him for putting us in this fucking secret-room LaCroix shit-show, or even Okayden, who did nothing wrong, but enabled us to stand up to Lieutenant Colonel Fuckwad, or whatever his name is.
But I'm better than that. We can always point a finger at another person and call them the root of our evil. I can blame my parents for birthing me as a bad boy in a world that gobbles them up as breath mints. They would blame cheap beer and a porta-potty at a Grateful Dead concert. Who's next? The Sumerians who invented beer? Or worse, George Harding, inventor of the porta-potty? See? We ain't even through the circumstances that created the Grateful Dead in the first place.
This dies with me.
"You're right," I say, owning up to it. To everything. "It was my fault. Everything. You were all cool before I arrived here. I came in, kicked the hornet's nest, and fucked everything up. You all deserve better. I'm sorry. I do this wherever I go. I'm the King Midas of shit. I need a minute. Excuse me."
They try to protest, to tell me to stop, but it's no use. Everything has gone to shit, and it all started with me. I'm the one who came in and altered the status quo of this place. Everyone was happy and content in their roles, and I had to come in and fuck it all, like I always do, and like I've always done.
How foolish of me to think that this time it would be different.
Thankfully, Hayden is kind enough to move out of the way for me to get out of the vent, and with the same impetus, I leave the school for the night. I'm not afraid of what will happen, for the worst has already happened. All I have to do is wait until morning, and figure out what to do from there.
I wonder if getting a GED is any hard.
"Is everything okay, Mr. Messina-Park?" asks Principal Strickland, seeing us two, as agreed, outside the school at the first strike of dawn, and none the wiser to the last six chapters or so. "You look a bit...odd, this morning."
"Me? I'm very okay. Much well. Am Okayden, see? Very well-fed, have many Instagram followers. Timothy Charmintine and all," says a man who is very much not Brayden, but is dressed in his clothes and is aggressively...Eastern European? And probably late 40s.
Brayden stepped off at some point during the night, saying he was going to catch that flight to Belize, and that a "body double" would take his place. I mean, he's a body alright.
"You sound...off."
"He just got a little bit of flu, Mrs. Strickland," chimes Hayden, who decided to stay around in case things went south.
"I see. And why are you here, Mr. Wilson?"
"Oh, I'm...eh..." he stammers, but I cut him before he can make a fool out of himself.
"He forgot his cooler inside, so he just wants to get in quick and get it, first thing in the morning, right? He has a brunch, and he needs his cooler back, asap."
"Yeah," he says.
"Isn't that your cooler that you have there?" she asks, pointing at the cooler he used earlier to store his "sleepover supplies."
After a few seconds of doing nothing and staring at the void of his soul, he speaks up. "This is my spare cooler. Has bad juju. I need my main one."
"Okay, then," says Principal Strickland. "These are officers Reiner and Iglesias. They were so kind as to come here and inspect the scene before anything else happens as to not to raise a fuss. They will also interrogate you two on what you know and don't know."
"Brayden knows many things," says "Brayden," rubbing his hands with a smile. "Me will help you get bad guy, and if bad guy is Brayden, is okay. Jail is fun, have time to exercise, three meals a day."
"Right," says the principal, pivoting away from him and staring at the officers. "I also invited the student council president to oversee as a representative of the students...and to avoid any litigious lawsuits that might come from this. I'm hoping this is fine?"
Lee is coming? Oh, shit.
And right as I say that in my mind, she appears, smelling like fresh morning dew, with her bouncy locks swaying with every—okay, almost went monologuing there. Keep your mind in the game.
"Sorry for being late," she says, almost as if an angelic chorus were going through puberty once again, but, like, not when their voices crack and sound like a damaged honker? You know? Like a bunch of heavenly castrati. You get the idea. "I was...momentarily detained. But I'm here."
"Good," says the Principal while opening the front gate. "Now, let's get this over with before the press has a field day with us."
We move like the world's worst Roman phalanx to the vending machine, I give a silent prayer to Saint Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of lost causes, that my cockamamie scheme would work. Not to be confused with Saint Jude Law, patron saint of strong jaws and other kinds of cocks.
"Okay," says one of the officers, plunging a coin into the machine and pressing whatever number, "let's see what's all this nonsense."
My buttcheeks are clenched, and my breath is being held so tight that I'm essentially pressurized. I'm a shit submarine.
The vending machine slides open perfectly. And there she is, in all her glory, smushed against the invisible wall dividing the secret hallway and the school. She lets out a demeaning howl, showing row after row after row of jagged teeth. It feels as if three beasts, one more wicked than the other, were harmonizing on a devil's tritone.
And just like that, the vending machine is slid back shut.
"Yeah, you got one of them vampires here," says one of the cops. He takes out a pad, scribbles a few notes, and hands it to the principal. "They're pests, mostly. Nothing too criminal about it. Just like getting a rat or somethin'. I do have to write you a fine for it, but for the most part, they're classified as pests. Call Pest Control and they will send a priest over. Have a nice day, ma'am."
They leave without making any more questions or follow-ups. Principal Strickland gives me and "Brayden" a look that suggests that she knows we have something to do with it, and she knows that we know she knows, and if everybody can keep quiet about this, it is gonna be for the best.
Kinda went like this: >.>
I unclench my butt and release the pressure. For now, we are safe. I am safe.
But for how long, I wonder?
Hayden grabs me by the shoulder and pulls us closer, cheek to cheek, spittle to spittle. "You did it, brother. Once again, you're our own personal Jesus. But seriously, what the fuck is going on? Why were the cops here? Why don't you tell me over breakfast? Some pancakes, maybe? I know a place. My treat."
Before I can say anything, I feel someone grabbing my arm. Something soft, and moist, and oh so tender. It's Lee, which has a surprisingly hard grip.
"Excuse me, Mr. Gomez," she says in her sweet, forest fairy voice. "May I have a word with you?"
I hope she can't feel my hair standing on their end from only mentioning my name. Also, my boner.
"Sure," I say. Oh, God, I can feel her warmth. "Hayden, why don't you go on ahead? I'll talk to you later, okay?"
I can't even hear his response when Lee drags me away from him. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this, but this sounds like some endgame kind of stuff I'm about to do.