Chapter 7
Her grip on her backpack tightened. Her lungs felt constricted. Her palms became sweaty and clammy. Her eyes looked paranoid.
Icee had never felt terrified like this in her entire life. She was afraid to take another step forward, into that dreaded classroom after the revelations she found out.
One of them was responsible for hurting Carla and murdering Patricia. The text message and the intruder in her house yesterday proved it. It also proved Aaron's theory. But . . . that's impossible. They're just high school students!
The thought of high school students capable of doing something this monstrous makes Icee feel sick to her stomach. It made her thought otherwise. Somehow, she found this faith inside of her that nobody did anything. Unless she was presented with hard evidence, she won't believe even a fraction of Aaron's theory.
She jumped when she felt a hand on the small of her back. She quickly turned her head, her heart thumping in her chest, thinking it was the perpetrator that she just dismissed in her thought.
"Relax," Aaron's soothing voice whispered in her ear. "It's just me. Calm down, you look like you're gonna shit yourself."
If only I wasn't terrified, I'm going to beat you to death, she thought while she glared at Aaron.
Aaron inhaled sharply when he saw the expression on the girl's face. She was really pale; it looked like she was sick. Damn it, she must be so scared right now, Aaron thought. He has no idea what could make the girl feel better. He actually thought she was going to be perfect for the other pair of eyes for this case when he met her for the first time. She was fierce, like nobody could drag her down so easily.
At least that was what she showed for the first few days. Now that Aaron has the possibility to get to know her better, he concluded that she was too weak for this. It made him want to take back the words he said last night at the hospital. Even so, he still needed to keep an eye on her for she knows some information that could never be released from her lips.
"Calm down or they'll know what's up, Icee," Aaron tried again to calm her down. He sighed, frustrated. He grabbed the girl's hand and pulled her away from the classroom.
Icee let him do what he wanted. She never wanted to step foot in that classroom again and she was glad that Aaron was having the initiative to do so. She only reacted when she realized that they were walking towards the parking lot. "Where are we going?" she asked.
But Aaron didn't answer her question. He opened a car door and let Icee slide in the front seat as he positioned himself in the driver's seat.
"Where are we going?" Icee asked again when Aaron started the car's engine.
"Away from here," he finally said and Icee released a shaky breath.
He started driving to someplace but Icee was too preoccupied with her thoughts to even care. She stared out the window as she tried to make sense of their situation.
"Who's doing this?" she asked. It was supposed to be asked only to herself, but she didn't notice that she said it out loud.
"We have a number of suspects and the most suspicious right now is Agata."
Icee closed her eyes as she tried to regain her normal breathing pattern. "Why her?"
"Well," he started, "she knows so much information about everyone. And I'm not surprise if she is spying on us right now," he said. The thought of someone spying on them right now made Icee experience chills down her spine. It was terrifying, somebody who was easily listening in to their conversation right now.
"That's just circumstantial," she concluded. Every damn thing that comes out of Aaron's mouth was just theories that need proof. Without proof, it remains as theories. This means Agata may be innocent.
"It is. We don't have definite evidence, Icee. That's why I agreed to help my mom in the first place. To tell you the truth, this has been happening for years and it still hasn't stopped."
The conversation made Icee squirm in her seat. It has been what!? "What do you mean? Then why haven't I heard anything of it?" she asked.
"Course it wouldn't be released to the media! That would be stupid, stupid," Aaron chided.
Icee was consumed by a disturbing thought and she tried to dismiss it but it kept bothering her. "It was the Principal, wasn't it?" she mumbled. Aaron gazed at her for a second before returning it back to the road. He was relieved that she was finally putting two and two together. "He didn't want to ruin the reputation of the school. That's why nobody has heard of the murder o-or the assault!"
"It was only labeled as a Missing Person case. This way, they would assume that the student may have run off to somewhere," Aaron finished.
"But if the Principal is already covering the incidents, somebody may be taking advantage of it," Icee concluded. Her mind was swimming with countless theories, each one of them was worse than the other.
"Good! You're finally getting it!" Aaron remarked. "Do you understand why our classmates were the suspects? It's because only we know what was truly happening. It was explained to our section only. The only thing that was bothering me until now was you, Icee. Why did the Principal transfer you into our section? Another student may mess things up if he would know what's up. It can ruin his plan about hiding the truth."
"I don't know. I had a pretty bad grade last year," Icee said, preventing herself from thinking of theories that could back it up. And then she added, "Wait. If all of you are suspects, doesn't that mean that you're a suspect, too?"
Aaron only nodded, not saying a word. The car was silent once again and Icee was left alone with her thoughts, again. She got scared once again as the possibilities of Aaron being the perpetrator was high. He has access to police information. His mom got weapons for being part of the police force. He's acting like a crime-fanatic that he could've made this situation to solve for himself. And . . . he's alone with the only innocent one in the class.
"Say, the police visited you last night, didn't they?" Aaron said, interrupting her thoughts. He wasn't asking. He was confirming.
Icee sighed. She knew that he'd bring this up. She didn't know whether to trust Aaron or not with this information. Before she knew it, she was blurting, "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I think someone was in my house last night. I was alone; my mom's gone for three weeks at most." Icee immediately cursed under her breath. Good going, Icee. She just realized that she gave out that she's alone for three weeks to a possible criminal.
Icee glared at Aaron when he suddenly snorted. "You should really learn how to think before you speak," he told her. "Lock your doors and double check your windows before you go to bed, ok?"
"That doesn't actually make me feel safer," Icee grumbled. She noticed that they were nearing the edge of the town. Icee became restless as she drummed her fingers on her seat.
"Do you want me to stay at your house?" he suddenly asked. Icee was caught-off guard. Did this guy just ask if she wanted him to stay at her house?
"Sorry, my house is allergic to people with balls," Icee blurted out without thinking.
Aaron snorted once again as he tried to contain his laugh. "That's too bad then," he said. "Anyway, it looks like you're all calm now. Should we go back?"
Icee breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes please. I thought you were gonna kill if I say that. Like, we're here in this deserted place where nobody would hear me scream for help and it'd be much easier for you to dump my body somewhere it can't be seen easily."
Aaron had a grin plastered on his face the whole ride back. He seemed to have second-thoughts about abandoning Icee after he just saw her attitude take a 360-degree turn. He never thought that the fierce-Icee he knew would come back as quickly as the afraid-Icee did.
"Hey," she broke the silence. "The intruder knew my mom. He said he wanted me to tell him when she gets back. Do you think this would be a separate case?"
"I think so. What would your Mom have to do with the murder?" Aaron tried not to think how the murder was connected to her mother. Another theory would most likely mess up his current one.
"Aaron," she said, somehow breaking the short silence that followed after his remark. "Don't you think that this is too dangerous? Your lives may be at stake. You could be killed by being nosey."
"That's not what a real detective would say. I'm enforcing justice here, Icee. Everything I do, it's to make things right," he answered almost immediately, as if he knows what to say by heart.
Icee turned her head away to hide her smile. She can't help but feel awe about this guy's courage. And he isn't even a real detective yet! His mom's courage and bravery must have rubbed off on him.
"That's stupid," Icee muttered.
Aaron's phone started ringing a few minutes later and he switched it on the speaker's mode because he was driving. A woman's voice was heard. "Aaron, dear? Where are you?"
Icee immediately thought that it was his mom.
"I'm just entering the town. I just went out to the cliff," he answered.
"I told you not to go there again, didn't I? Obviously, you won't listen to me." Her mother sighed. "Aaron, Harriet is missing. Her parents filed a report that she didn't return home last night. You saw her last night when you told me you had a classroom meeting, right?"
Aaron cursed under his breath while Icee's heart rate quickened. There's another, again!
"Okay, I'm going to school right now," Aaron said before ending the call. He drove faster and Icee clutched her seat.
"Have you noticed anything about the victims, Icee?" he asked while his eyes were still on the road.
"They're all girls," Icee answered.
"Correct. But it doesn't mean that our attacker is a male. But at least we know which people we should keep an eye on. And that includes you. Here." Aaron fished something out of his pocket and gave it to Icee.
Something cold and hard hit Icee's hand and she stared at the object that Aaron handed to her. "Just for emergencies. Keep it in your purse," he said.
It was a gun. A revolver. Her hands started trembling as she put the gun into her purse, panicking. She's never held a gun before and she sure as hell won't use it against anyone. Not even when her life is in danger.
They reached their school faster than Icee expected. She meant what she thought earlier, she was never stepping foot inside the cursed classroom again.
"Let's go, Icee. Unless you want to stay and watch if you see anyone suspicious," Aaron said as he opened his car door. Icee fumbled with her seat belt and opened her car door, following Aaron closely behind. She didn't want to risk being left behind. The perp might just be lurking near them!
She ran after Aaron, but stopped when he suddenly stopped. There was a crowd in front of them.
"What the actual fuck," Aaron mumbled under his breath as a horror-stricken expression was shown in his face.
Icee wondered about his expression but she can't see past the crowd. And so she decided to jump. The moment she did, she wished she didn't.
In the center of the crowd lies a body. A dead and bloody one.