_______________________________
"I'll face my fear of the evening,
Once I get used to this feeling,
I can't sleep,
That's when you're torn away from me."
Eyelids - PVRIS
_______________________________
XV.
\\ MASTERMIND //
The next day...
There's a whole level of tiredness when it starts to feel like your eyelids are magnets. The pull so strong that they can barely be kept open. And that was exactly how Arden felt walking through the courtyard as she headed towards where Rowan texted her to meet.
As Rowan promised her yesterday, she sent out a text to her and Elisia telling them to meet in the quad before class to discuss everything that had happened in the past week. She also said she'd find a way to get ahold of Hailey, but so far, she was no where to be found.
So, deciding not to wait for her, the three of them found a spot to sit away from everyone else who was hanging around the quad, that way they could talk.
"You okay?" Rowan frowned as she looked at Arden.
She clearly could see how Arden dragged herself over and plopped down between them. She had nightmares— well...one nightmare over and over again all night last night so she got barely any sleep.
"I'm fine," Arden assured her, "Just didn't get a lot of sleep last night."
When she woke up this morning, she could barely even get out of bed. She did the bare minimum to get ready too...throwing on some leggings and a t-shirt, then throwing a hat over her messy hair. In fact, Arden probably would have skipped today if it wasn't for this meeting they had to have.
"Did anything happen with Brandon yesterday?" Rowan asked her curiously.
"Other than him acting like an ass? No, not really." Arden sighed, "I do feel like he's hiding something though. When I mentioned the video of Dunbar, he deflected it."
She recalled the conversation they had, and how he told her to stay away from him. He was clearly hiding something.
"I'm not giving up though." Arden assured them, "I'll keep at it."
Rowan nodded, then shrugged her backpack off. Arden glanced over as she unzipped it and started rummaging through it for something.
"I went through Trevor's backpack," She told them, "I found this."
Looking over, Arden saw her pull a camouflage scope, showing it to them. Frowning, she wondered why he would have had that in his backpack, especially at school. It was definitely suspicious.
"Looks huntery, right?" Rowan asked them.
"It's a scope," Arden told her, "It attaches to a rifle and when you look into it, it helps you see you target better. My dad took me shooting once for a self-defense gun safety class."
Rowan nodded, putting the scope back into her backpack and Elisia looked at her and Rowan wearily.
"Hunting season," Rowan sighed as she reminded them, "Could be him. It's clear he hates me. I just don't know why."
Arden frowned as well, "Hates me too."
That was when Hailey approached, "A note in my locker? Really?"
"Well, you're not answering your phone so..." Rowan rolled her eyes, "Welcome to the 90s."
Hailey sighed in frustration, obviously not wanting to be here in that moment, but she sat down next to them.
"I'm just saying the three of you guys together give me anxiety." She grumbled.
"Elisia got a message." Rowan looked at her, "She basically got attacked."
That was when Hailey looked up at Elisia with a look of worry across her face at the news that someone went after her.
Elisia nodded, confirming what Rowan said, "Someone in a bunny mask shot me with a paintball gun."
Elisia then stood up, turned around and lifted the back of her shirt up to reveal a huge bruise on the small of her back. Arden's lips parted at the deep blue and purple coloring. She knew that Elisia had been attacked, she just never realized how serious it was.
"A bunny mask?" Hailey swallowed, "I saw someone in a pig mask and a monkey mask."
Arden's eyebrows furrowed, "When?"
Elisia saw someone in a bunny mask, Hailey saw people in a pig mask and monkey mask, Arden saw someone in a bear mask. Rowan got at least two texts from monkeyman. How many people were in on this 'hunt'?
"At my audition," Hailey answered, "They drove off in a blue truck. I didn't want to say anything."
"Yeah, ignore, ignore, ignore." Rowan said in frustration, "We get it. But Trevor's a hunter, so he probably has a paintball gun."
"Should we leave town?" Hailey looked up at them.
Elisia turned, looking at her in irritation, "Is that your solution for everything, just leave? Why don't we take a bunch of pills? We could do that."
Biting her lip, Arden shrunk back uncomfortably as this conversation suddenly took a turn. Hailey looked at Elisia with parted lips, as if she finally realized the truth.
"Is that why you're mad?" She asked.
Elisia said nothing, just rolled her eyes, and ignored her. Rowan frowned...and spoke up in attempt to ease the tension and get the conversation back to what was happening.
"Hailey, when this happened, did you get a message?"
She nodded slowly, "Yeah...it was something like 'we like a moving target'."
"Did it have the hashtag #thezoo?" Elisa asked.
"Yeah." She nodded again.
"RagingGrizzly sent me the same hashtag. The same one we all got at Nikki's party." Arden recalled, "What does that mean?"
"That's what I was wondering. I found a website called the Hilland Zoo." Elisia told them, "It's a basic message board, like Reddit or something...it's for Hilland High School students. It's a place for kids to post revenge fantasies about their bullies, vent about random shit. But everyone has animal names and animal profile pics, and they throw these massive anonymous parties where everyone wears animal masks."
Elisa then took out her phone and pulled up the Hilland Zoo website, holding out the screen to them, "Look familiar?"
Looking at the screen, they watched as Elisia scrolled through pictures and pictures of people wearing animal masks. Some where at parties, others in backyards, and other random places...but all had on the masks.
"The whole point is that no one knows who they are." Elisia went on, "I found some random post by RabidRabbit, but there's nothing relevant. We need someone who can search through thousands of comments and fast for Monkeyman or RabidRabbit."
"Or Pigmania."
"And RagingGrizzly."
Arden's mind instantly went to Brie. She helped them so much all those months ago with stuff like this...and now she was gone. What were they supposed to do without her now?
"Brie actually gave me the name of someone just in case we needed anything while she was gone." Rowan told them, "Stinger."
"Stinger." Hailey repeated, not sounding optimistic, "Sounds promising."
@ @ @
AFTER SCHOOL
The last place Arden expected for this Stinger person to tell them to meet them at was at an old, abandoned church. But there they were, walking through the front doors of a church that was supposedly shut down years ago after the church couldn't support itself anymore and money ran out.
Walking in, Arden was surprised that for the most part, the church seemed pretty clean and nothing was falling apart. The only thing that made itself known as abandoned was the graffiti spray painted on the walls.
As they walked through one of the pews and down the isle that lead to the front, they saw a bunch of computers and technology set up, but no sign of Stinger.
"Brie has some weird-ass friends." Hailey noted, looking around.
"I heard that."
A voice coming from above them made them turn around and look up at the balcony seating, where a guy stood. They only caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared, making his way down the stairs to meet them.
After a moment, he came around the corner of a doorway and Arden noted that this guy was probably a few years older than they were, a tan complexion, dark hair, and tattoos. He wore all black, and walked towards us confidently.
Dude...this guy is pretty hot. She noted.
Rowan interrupted her thoughts, taking a step forward, "Stinger?"
He nodded, "You're Brie's baby sister. Recognize you anywhere."
"Thanks for agreeing to meet," Rowan thanked him and then gestured towards the rest of them, "These are my friends - Hailey, Elisia, and Arden."
"Nice to meet you." He said, holding up his laptop, "I really went down a rabbit hole with this whole zoo thing. Pun intended."
He walked past them, up to the front where everything was set up and we followed behind him.
"First off, kids these days are mean." Stinger looked back at them, "Ya'll are assholes."
He smirked as he set his laptop down on the podium. They gathered around him, letting him continue.
"Anyways, everyone on this site is pissed at someone. It's like a virus, viral." He explained, "One person says one thing and it spreads like mold, like disease. It's gnarly."
Rowan spoke up, "Were you able to find anything?"
"You told me to look up the username @m0nk3ym4nn. I pulled up one of his earliest posts." Stinger said, bringing it up on his computer screen for them to see, "Says something about how he's got to punish the girls for always disrespecting him?"
Arden looked at the post and her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at the post, and a specific comment he made caught her attention.
It read: I WILL MAKE THEM PAY. ALL FIVE OF THEM.
"Wait," Arden pointed to the comment, "All five of them?"
But he only came after Rowan, Elisia, Hailey, and her. Maybe it was a typo...a mistake? Why would Dunbar have typed five if he only targeted the four of them?
"Dunbar's dead," Rowan sighed, "So what we need to figure out is who wants revenge now."
Stinger looked at them in confusion, so Hailey spoke up and explained, "Someone started using his account after he died, but now there's this bigger group coming after us, all different animals."
"How are they communicating?" Rowan asked, "How are they even coordinating? Can you figure that out?"
"I signed up. You have to make an animal name." Stinger said, "I picked BeeSting. Menacing, right? I'm floating around, making friends, asking questions. If there's a leader, I'll find him."
Arden looked at the screen, hoping that Stinger could help them figure this out rather quickly. Hopefully, this could be over sooner now that he was doing all this digging.
"Thank you for doing this," Arden told him.
He gave her a nod, smiling slightly as he stood back while Elisia scrolled through all the posts on his laptop.
"Hey, can you track a phone that's off?" Rowan asked him curiously, "Even dead?"
He thought about it for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest, "It depends."
"The police report said they never found Dunbar's phone." Rowan told him, "I'm wondering if someone picked it up from the party and logged in as Monkeyman."
"And then decided to pick up where he left off," Elisia stood up straight, "Punishing us."
Arden glanced around to Elisia, Hailey, and Rowan at this theory. It seemed the most likely. But the question remained...who was King Cobra now? And why were they doing this?
@ @ @
After they finished going over everything with Stinger, Arden figured it was probably best that she headed straight home afterwards. She was already in hot water with her mom over staying out late with Hawk that one night...and she really did not want to get into anything more with her right now. Especially with everything going on.
The sun had begun to set when Arden left the abandoned church, giving her a pretty peaceful walk home. For the twenty minute walk home, she just listened to music and enjoyed the changing colors of the sky as the sun slowly disappeared behind the horizon.
By the time she reached the street, the sky was darker and she pulled her headphones out of her ears and shoved them into her pocket. Her plans for the rest of the night was to finish up some homework, eat dinner, shower and go to bed.
But as Arden approached her house, she could hear yelling and the sound of a door slamming...and it sounded close, which caused her to frown.
Arden looked around, pinpointing the noise to the driveway right across from hers. It was coming from Brandon's house. Stopping in front of her driveway, she looked across the street to see him storming outside. Her eyebrows furrowed as she watched him kick up dirt in anger, cursing under his breath. He looked upset, but she couldn't figure out why.
Suddenly, he turned around and his eyes met hers as he realized she was there. Arden stared back, not looking away, with a curious look across her face. She actually felt concern for him, because it did look like something was really bothering him.
"You okay?" She asked him.
Brandon's lips parted, like he was going to say something, but nothing came out. After a moment, he closed his mouth and turned back around, walking away. Arden watched as he opened the gate to his backyard and disappeared as it closed behind him.
Sighing, she slowly started walking again, back towards her house.
She needed to figure out what is up with Brandon.
Could he be the one behind all this now?
________________________________
"Our eyes fighting the light,
But I'm not ready to say good night."