The nurse dropped me off at the school drop-off line, where reporters surrounded me like moths to a fire. With their cameramen and bulky microphones, they throw out crazy questions and snap pictures with the flash on.
When I stop moving, they stop moving.
"Reyna, what dirty little secret have you been hiding from this damaged world?" This woman's camera has a blinking LED light on me and her grin is like a shark: too many teeth that show for the wrong reasons.
I look around me, where similar reporters await a response.
Clearing my voice, I look back to this reporter. "Look, lady. I got forcibly sedated but climbed out of bed to make myself vomit. Along the way, I ripped some stitches and almost pissed my pants when I escaped my room and ran into the woman who put the needle to my neck. I really don't feel like answering your questions or fueling your podcasts or whatever. So...bye."
I weave through reporters who rub elbows with me and poke sensitive spots to try to get me to talk. They ask questions relating to Allister and Della and Hanzo. These people are sick. "Move away, come on. Out of the way. Out!" a bold voice orders, parting the crowd like a modern Moses. A familiar face finds mine and grabs my arm, pulling me through the needy people. "Hey, kiddo."
"Mr D," I acknowledge with a sigh of relief. The sheriff leads me under a roped-off section of the car loop.
"You're crazy, Reyna. You were in the hospital thirty minutes ago and now you're here?
I see why you're my daughter's best friend. But we aren't here to discuss social politics."
"Right," I assure. "I need to get in the school. Do I just...walk in?"
Mister Desario shakes his head. "Not so simple. We have someone neutralizing the situation and scoping out the gymnasium. Also, there are no cameras around here, so how does the killer know if you're here or not?"
Frustrated, I sigh. "No idea. And the entire school has a sort of intense firewall?"
"Yes, but a call was able to go through to the school from Enzo King." I heard that on the news. It doesn't settle well for me. It sounds like the firewall is a selective one that only patches people through when it wants to. If Enzo is still working for Type...
Let's just hope I don't have to go down that road. It won't end well for either of us or anyone within a mile radius.
"So if the firewall has some weaknesses," and Enzo isn't working with Type again, "then someone can be a mole on the inside and report to the killer."
"You think a student is working for the killer?" Desario doubts.
"They already are," I answer, reflecting on Freddie. "I mean, at the carnival when you arrested the cloaked people. They were all students, weren't they?"
Grudgingly, he nods. "Yes. It's possible but it just seems too insane. What motivates these kids?"
Now, I reflect on Enzo. "Drugs and money."
Sheriff Desario shifts his weight between his feet with unease. "Well...do you know what you're supposed to do in there, kid?"
I use a lot of my energy to sigh and swallow my nerves. "I believe so."
"Reyna, I'm not supposed to do this, but..." Desario looks around before handing me a pistol. "There's a serial killer in there with a special request for you. I wouldn't go without protection." Instantly, a part of me thinks that Enzo is in there and that's enough protection for me; I'm safe with him. But then the sceptic in me goes, yeah, Enzo is in there and the red flags are arising.
Taking the gun, I stuff it in my waistband. "Thanks."
"How bad is that?" Desario nods at my torso, where small bloodstains seep through my white shirt.
"It's been worse."
"I'll patch you up really quick, then you've got to head in."
The sheriff's walkie-talkie sounds as a familiar voice sounds through the speaker. "No cameras have been spotted. The kids are all talking but not saying anything."
"Bring your talkie to the principal of the school," Desario orders, digging through the first-aid kit. "We're going to collect all the cellphones."
"My cover will be blown," Enzo informs. "And there's no sign of Reyna."
Desario wraps gauze around my broken stitches and patches me up. "I'm aware. As for Reyna, she's heading in."
Desario nods at the entrance. To me, he says, "Go save some people," as if he said he had to go get some groceries after work.
Body feeling like cement, I walk up the sidewalk to the double doors. I already hate going up here, but now I loathe it. Now, I have to confess to the whole world that I killed Freddie. I think of all my friends that I've lost and how much I've suffered for it, and suddenly I don't feel so intimidated by the situation. "I've been through worse," I assure myself, swinging the doors open.
The hallway is deserted of everything but a trail of pictures cut out as rose petals. Bending down and picking them up, a haunted feeling passes through me.
Pictures of my childhood are among the first few images. They go so far back to whenMakai and I was still playing together. Old pictures of my mother hit a spot close to home. The more I file through the petal-shaped pictures, the more I discover what I couldn't see when I was little. My father was never happy. He was always scowling or disinterested in the activities at hand. Concluding my childhood images, there's a picture of Makai and me with a man whose face has been scratched out. Who was he? Where is he now?
The next few pictures are from when I was in elementary school. They aren't classic school mugshot pictures you'd find in a yearbook. What's disturbing is that these have been taken outside of windows, through bushes, or between cracks of a wall and classroom door. Someone had been watching me and I never knew it.
Soon, the pictures are more present. They're images of me eating dinner, or getting into my car, or me in my own room. What's scary, is that the perspective of me eating dinner is from my living room; me getting in my car and driving is taken from the small opening from my backseat that leads to my trunk; I in my room was taken from my own closet.
The remaining pictures dwindle at the doors of the gymnasium. They're of Enzo and Aero and the man I recognize from the morgue as Giovanni King. Somehow, the King family is more involved with the killer than just Enzo. These killings run deeper than Enzo being casually hired used. Something personal had to have happened between the copulas and King family. Maybe even the Keanu's are involved.
Slowly, I push the squeaky doors open and capture the attention of everyone. Their pockets are emptied of cellphones and their expressions are all but repressed. These people are as hungry to know what I've hidden as the reporters outside.
I head to the podium on the stage. Behind it stands Enzo King. My insides swirl with relief just with the fact that we're in the same room. But my head makes infinite calculations about the chances of him still working for Type. Meeting eyes, my qualms vanish as he passes a confident smirk to me; customary Enzo who is sure of himself and everything he does. But in his hands that are too tightly folded together and the clench of his jaw, something is wrong.....
Enzo offers me a calloused hand up the stage.
"What's wrong?" I question Enzo as I scan the crowd for anyone I'm comfortable with other than Enzo. Makai, Maren, Kellin, and Aero, and Ozzy are nowhere in sight. Where are they?
"We've sent our dedicated friends into the mainframe computer systems to knock down the firewall," he whispers, breath hot on my cheek. "They'll also be checking the collected phones for any mysterious texts from our dearest killer, Type."
"That's good," I say with a nod. "But I asked what was wrong. Now, what was up."
"Nothing's wrong. I'm just angry that Type's making you do this."
He's lying. I know Enzo a lot more than I did when we first kissed back in my car. I'm familiar with the expressions he makes and the reasons he makes them. "Why are you lying?"
"What?" he questions, grabbing both of my hands and bringing them to his chest. I know this trick, too. He does this to charm me and make me forget about what's really troubling. In any other situation, it would have worked. "Why would I lie?"
"I don't know," I admit, biting my lip and ignoring the opening hole in my gut. Maybe because you could be the one killing my friends and slicing me open. "I may not notice everything as you do, but I notice you. What aren't you telling me?" I croak.
"Reyna..." he utters in disbelief as I drop my hands to my sides.
"Now if you'll excuse me; a formerly drugged, currently bleeding, soon-to-be hated high schooler must confess to murdering. Typical Monday, right?" I bite before turning away and heading to the podium. I search for a familiar face in the crowd to ease my tension but find none.
Clearing my throat, I open with, "Is this thing on?"
"Duh!" a wily voice shouts from the crowd. I pinpoint a kid I've seen here or there named Adriano Santiago. "Also, you're invited to my party next weekend."
"Thanks?" I chuckle through the mic before sobering up. "As you all know, I've been threatened that if I don't reveal a secret, many of you may die...that's not exactly a great way to start the school week if you ask me..."
Unsurely, I look over the eager and scared faces of SHS. "It used to be Allister who sugarcoated and Della who bluntly stated everything. I used to edge my way around both styles of breaking the truth to everyone, but now I think I've taken to Adelina's style." Then, two things happen at once.
The doors burst open with Makai leading the way. He would exclaim that he traced therE at who was monitoring me, and Enzo would tackle them to the ground to bring to to Sheriff Desario. I wouldn't have to confess to anything and I would've been able to roam the school without being #1 Public Enemy.
But I said two things happen at once – Makai running in was just one of them.
As I uttered the words, the doors opened.
"So here it is..."
Makai is about to open the creaky doors now.
"I ki –"
"We found the rat!" Makai exclaims, voice overpowering my own.
Phew. That was a close one.