Kai's Pov
Last night, almost everything was a blur, I didn't even remember how I made it home and on my couch, still in yesterday's clothes. As soon as I woke up, it was inching closer to noon. I was in a fit of sweat, drawing almost all of my friends' attention.
"Victoria, she's up," Zayn yelled, meaning my sister was most likely in her room somewhere and not in the living room like most of us were. "You were out for a while, how do you feel?"
I know I spent most of the night with Niall because I remembered getting a bruise on the side of my head from one of the guards. From the moment we walked inside Lucy's office, I couldn't remember much, especially what we had talked about verbatim. Sticking out of the side of my jacket were pictures and sticky notes I assumed were from last night—wait, they were glued to a wall. But the way they were shoved inside of my pockets, I couldn't remember how Lucy connected them. As soon as I saw Ariana though, things made a bit more sense, Niall and I were searching for answers, answers that she wanted. And last night, Lucy gave me all of them, I just couldn't fucking remember what they were.
I didn't realize that I had spaced out until Lauren started to step closer, snapping me from my thoughts. Without thinking, I stepped further away from her, pulling the gun out from the side of my pants leg, to which she threw her hands up in defense while everyone else remained confused.
"Kai, what are you doing?" Lauren questioned, my eyes falling on her.
"I don't trust any of you." I clamored, everyone looking at me like I was crazy.
"Hey," Victoria let out softly, in an attempt to get closer. "You were drugged last night, you're probably just coming down, okay? But none of us has done anything, most of us went to the party with you and everyone else was together."
"Baby, put the gun down, you're gonna hurt someone," Ariana spoke up, unsure of what to do.
"This is ridiculous." Camila sighed, holding her hands up as well.
Shawn only shrugged, unbothered. "Maybe she's still coming down like Victoria said."
I laughed sarcastically, putting my gun on the table as I took out the contents inside of my pocket, mostly containing everything I grabbed from last night. "I know everything."
"Kai, come on, this is ridiculous," Lauren began, looking down at the table.
"No, I think she's onto something," Zayn said, stepping closer to the table as he picked up one of the pictures, turning to Ariana and Lauren. "What the fuck is this?"
"I—what?" was all Ariana managed to get out as Lauren stood there frozen.
"So you've been lying to us," Victoria confronted, turning to Lauren and Ari like everyone else did. "Both of you two always made it seem like you hated each other, but if my eyes aren't deceiving me, it looks like you're fucking kissing."
"Damn Lauren, you're almost as bad as Camila and Shawn." Courtney brought up, earning a few laughs from Tommy and Cole.
"No that's not what it looks—we did kiss, but it was a long time ago. It was in the heat of the moment, I don't know why it happened, okay?" Lauren elucidated, only growing defensive as Ariana made an effort to step closer to me.
"I swear I'm not doing anything behind your back with Lauren, I didn't know anyone knew about it. One day she just kissed me while we were arguing, a—about you actually and so we agreed not to talk about it since!" She clarified, trying to explain as best as she could while still full of emotions.
"No, I believe you," I said, which was true and calmed the two down as I grabbed another one of the pictures, this time it being one that Lucy took outside of my house of Ariana standing outside of my window, looking at Lauren and I. "Where were you really when you 'left for college'?"
Ariana looked at the picture, her mouth slightly open, realizing how bad this looked. I could tell she was at a loss for words and I was too. I loved her and I wanted it not to be her, but the more we went through everything, the worse it got for her.
"It was taken the year after we graduated..." Courtney trailed off, reading the back of the photo as she looked up at her friend in revulsion. "If you were the one who fucking ruined my life in high school—"
She stopped Courtney mid-sentence though, "I stayed because Madison knew Greyson didn't shoot her, we just needed proof. I blamed myself for Madison losing Max back then, because I should've left him alone that day and maybe he wouldn't have done the things that he did. And I owed Greyson answers after falsely accusing her, so yes, I did stay here for college but to fix the shit I did."
"That doesn't make sense, how were you able to stay hidden for so long?" Cole pinpointed, folding his arms.
"I lent her one of my safe houses," Zayn admitted, catching nearly everyone by surprise. "She told me she wanted to make things right with Kai and I trusted that, so I helped her."
"And what about this picture taken Sophomore year of her and Kehlani?" Courtney continued, still cautious.
"Mac knew that Kai had a lot of family things going on, she had just lost her parents and he wanted to make sure she was okay," Ariana explained, as best as she could considering she was being questioned by almost everyone. "I went to check on her while he was in the car, so I called him to let him know she was fine. I wasn't fucking spying on her and I'm not TPR, I would never hurt her or any of you."
"It wouldn't be your first time," Lauren mumbled and Ariana cocked her head back, turning to her.
"What?"
"You heard me, it wouldn't be your first time hurting her—"
"Lauren, stop," I said, grabbing my girlfriend by her waist and pulling her closer to me, so she wouldn't approach the woman. "Ari, it's not worth it, okay?"
"No, she has a point," Victoria added, turning to the green eyes. "Is it so far-fetched to think you're TPR? I mean, the only picture Lucy had of you was you hiding Hailey Baldwin for Kai and I mean, you've always been obsessed with her, so why not ruin her life just so you can be there at her beck and call?"
Lauren brushed her off, shaking her head. "Or it means I'm really good at what I do. The rest of you have pictures on pictures, there's just one of me,"
"Lucy's not dumb though and she's been taking these pictures for years, I've seen some from years ago even. You mean to tell me that throughout all of these days, weeks, months, and years, she only got one picture of you? Bullshit. Why would she only take one picture of you and not everyone else?" Shawn pointed out, being the first smart thing he said all night.
"That doesn't mean Lauren's had anything to do with this though, you only have two pictures, and we all know you're not careful," Camila blasted back, as most of us just watched this play out.
"This is the game you wanna play Camila?" Shawn chuckled sarcastically, fishing through the pictures before he found a sticky note of names circled in red, reading: Kehlani, Mac, Lucy, Frankie, Otto, Lauren, Camila, Niall, Victoria, Zayn, Max, and Ariana. "We all know why Otto, Kehlani, Mac, Frankie, and Ariana are on the list, but you, Lauren, Niall, Zayn, and Victoria? Please enlighten me, Camila."
"Shawn, that list proves absolutely nothing, she even put herself on it," Zayn interjected, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Or are you saying that because you're on it? The list makes sense to me," Shawn shrugged, looking over at me now. "Think about it Kai! Zayn and Victoria have always been under your wing, is it crazy to think that they could be TPR? I mean what if they wanted your business, that they grew tired of being under you?
Or Lauren, who has always been obsessed with you, deciding to ruin your life so that she could use your vulnerability to her advantage and finally get you? And what about Camila right? Hers is simple: revenge. Lauren's always wanted you more than Camila, I think that's obvious. Mila probably always hated that and grew fed up by it as time went on. You know the saying, 'If I can't have what I want, neither can you', it makes sense.
And we all know Niall, the hero, the boy next door, he's always had a crush on you. What if he's been behind all this, so he can be the hero like he always is. Isn't it weird how Niall's just always there? Whenever you're in trouble? And as far as Lucy being on the wall, hypothetically, if anyone found a wall of me stalking multiple people, I would be fucked. So of course she'd add her name just to take the blame off her too, so if she was caught, she just could say, 'look it's not mine, even my name's on the suspect list'."
"Shawn, you know well that's not true, I would never do that to Kai and I didn't even want the business to begin with...this is bullshit," Victoria fended, examining at Shawn with disgust.
"Don't believe this shit, Kai." Zayn spat, turning to me with his eyes full of hurt. "Victoria and I have kids, do you really think we'd do something like this? To add to high school drama? We've moved on, and Victoria's right, what Shawn's saying is bullshit."
"For revenge, Shawn?" Camila glared, letting out a sarcastic laugh. "You've gotta be smarter than that, I didn't even grieve me and Lauren's relationship. If anything, I rather have the one in charge, no offense Ariana." Which the Italian gave her a small reassuring smile, however pulling me in closer. And I knew that meant Ari didn't care for Camila's comment.
"Camila, that was harsh," Cole pointed out, although she didn't really seem to care.
"No it's fine, I wasn't gonna stay with a cheater anyways." Lauren shrugged, causing me, Ariana, and Courtney's mouths to fly open in shock. "Kai and I did have a fling and it ended months ago. It's obviously over and we're friends, so of course, I care about her and always will, but I'm not obsessed. I just had the balls to admit my feelings for her while the rest of you waited for a fucking page to expose yours."
"Damn, she's lowkey right," Tommy laughed lowly, cracking up in the back with Victoria and Zayn. He sat up from his spot on the couch, coming over to look at the pictures himself, after he was done. "Guys we have to think, not argue, because we don't know how accurate Lucy was, and what if TPR is someone that's not on the list?" Then Cole and Tommy started to work on the table quickly, sorting the different pictures and sticky notes while the room was tense, everyone sticking to different sides.
I was frustrated for other reasons than everyone else because I knew all the answers to everything, but I couldn't remember them. I know Lucy told me and Niall that she drugged us, but I forgot why too. Obviously, she wanted me to know everything for reasons I couldn't remember and I know I trusted everything she told me because it made perfect sense. Lucy had always been really smart, I just never expected her to be the one to figure everything out, I would've guessed Ariana or Zayn.
"Okay, so obviously me and Tommy are out of the picture and we can all agree considering there are no motives, pictures, or evidence against us," Cole proposed, which everyone agreed with him. "We haven't talked about Kai yet, and Lucy's taken pictures of her the night of Lovato's party, of Madison's party, the day of the incident, and some other miscellaneous ones."
Zayn picked up a sticky note, which read,
"SHE IS THE REASON" underlined and bolded, with green sticky notes posted around it, reading, "WHY???". Noting the blue string residue left on the sticky part of the note, and the same residue on a picture of me, he put the two together.
"I looks like Lucy had a working theory that Kai's the 'reason' behind this but she had no idea why, right? So what if she was taking pictures of Kai to see who she interacted with and what she was doing for her to be the reason why TPR was focused on her," He described, while everyone listened. Nevertheless, every few seconds or so, someone's eyes would stray to someone else in the room, letting me know that they were still all accusing each other mentally, especially Shawn.
"So maybe Shawn was right!" Cole shouted excitedly, a little louder than he intended to. "Look, under Niall's name and picture it says, 'MOTIVE: LOVE???' and he's the only person who Lucy added a motive for."
I noticed everyone ignored the picture of Kehlani and Mac with my mom, the one where they were at a park and he was looking over a folder. I still didn't understand the "PROJECT RESURRECTION" written under the photo, but no one else seemed to be worried about it. I knew it had to mean something though since Lucy was hinting at it and it was already suspicious enough, my mom was meeting with the two at a lowkey spot, and I wasn't there. So while everyone was paying attention to Cole, I made sure to slyly grab the picture, stuffing it in my pockets.
"Wait, so what are you saying?" Victoria questioned, while Cole grabbed a picture from the table.
"It's Niall."
"No," I said, interrupting the two. "It can't be Niall, I was with him when we found all of these and he looked just as shocked as I was. Lucy would've just had her guards kill him yesterday if she thought it was him. I know it's not Niall."
"Kai, all the evidence is pointing to—"
Ariana interrupted Tommy though, "If she says it's not Niall, then it's not him. I trust her."
"Same," a few others added, but Cole, Lauren, Tommy, Shawn, and Courtney didn't seem so convinced.
"Shawn was literally just pulling things out of a hat, I'll take my chances with Kai," Camila shrugged, as Victoria and Zayn approved.
"No you're right, he was just using the information Niall and I stole from Lucy and we'll keep drawing circles without seeing how she put everything together. Instead of sitting around and accusing each other, I should go ask Lucy," I went on to explain.
Courtney smiled, inhaling happily, "Finally, a good idea."
"Kai, we can't go see Lucy," Ariana said and I gave her a weird look. "Dalton, Liam, and Charlie found the wall too. They were convinced it was Lucy and shot her."
"You can't be serious," I sighed, taking a deep breath and sitting on the couch. My hand covered my forehead and I was pissed. This is why you never jumped to conclusions and start waving your gun around.
"Wait, so what are we gonna do? What does this mean?" Victoria asked, while the rest of the room stood around, unsure of what to do.
Ariana was just as stressed and frustrated as me, knowing what this meant. "It means that TPR just fucking got away with it again."