Chapter Five
~Shock and Murder~
Laura had run home as soon as her legs were strong enough to carry her. Run from the scene that lay before her. Run from the memories there.
She lay face down on her bed, the door to her bedroom locked. Away from her parents, away from her sister, away from her dog, away from everybody.
She hadn’t told any of her friends what happened. She hadn’t told anybody what happened, for that matter. She had dozens of missed calls from her friends so far, wondering why she didn’t show up in last class, wondering why she wasn’t there to walk home with them afterschool, wondering a hundred different things. She ignored them all. She was in no mood to talk to anyone.
It felt like in that one afternoon, everything had collapsed around her. She dreaded what school the next day would bring. An encounter with Logan, in first period math, for starters.
Her world was collapsing around her, Logan was at the heart of it all. If Logan hadn’t shown up in the hall, maybe things wouldn’t have gone that way with Brady. If Logan hadn’t come to school in the first place, maybe she would have bumped into Brady sometime after school, instead of having to endure detention in math. If Logan hadn’t been there to beat all those guys senseless, warning them to stay away from her, maybe she’d still had a chance with Brady.
The rational part of her brain told she couldn’t blame Logan entirely. It told her that Brady was an a*shole, and that she shouldn’t feel heartbroken over him. But she did. Years of utter infatuation over him weren’t swept aside just like that. She found herself being overwhelmed completely by her emotions, and it wasn’t a feeling she was familiar with.
How was it that Brady had become such a jerk? He was so nice before, so quiet and well-meaning and polite. She couldn’t believe what he tried to do to her. Could it have been his friends, the three guys he was with, pressuring him into doing something like that? And was she a special target, or would they have done the same to any girl they found that day? Or, for that matter, had they grouped up on lone girls like that before?
Laura wouldn’t believe it. Not out of Brady. He wasn’t like that. She knew that.
Or… she thought she did, were it not for a small voice telling her that yes, he was like that. She refused to listen. She had held out for him for so long, lusted after him for so long, that she couldn’t just flip a switch and forget about it all.
She buried her head further in her pillow and sobbed. Brady was like that, and he had tried to do things to her. Along with three of his friends. Anything her imagination had conjured up before about what he was like was coming face to face with reality. And reality was winning.
Stubbornly, she pushed herself up from bed. Reality was winning, and she couldn’t just hide from it. And reality was that Logan, of all people, had rescued her from her assailants. And that one of her assailants was Brady.
She nearly broke down again after that last thought. Instead, she shut her eyes tight, and willed the pain to go away. After a moment, it did subside, and Laura could open her eyes.
The reality of things was that Logan had saved her, and if he hadn’t been there she couldn’t say what might have happened. But it would have been much, much worse.
Logan had saved her, and she repaid him by punching him in the gut. Idiot! Complete and utter idiot! Logan had risked his wellbeing, had risked himself, just to help a girl he saw was in distress. He had faced four guys much bigger than him without blinking, all for her. How could she have been so blind, exploding at him like she had?
She stood up. It was because she let her emotions take hold of her in that moment. It happened so rarely to her that she didn’t know how to react. But now she knew. If she ever felt even the tiniest shred of emotion trying to come to life within her, she would push it down as harshly as she could. Push it down and keep it there, locking it away forever. She never wanted to be vulnerable enough to do something stupid again.
And she knew she had to thank Logan. It was going to be hard, but she had to do it. She was determined to, now. It was too bad she didn’t have his phone number, so she could text or even call and apologize.
The apology could wait until tomorrow, at least. She though it would be an awkward, uncomfortably tense moment for her. And after the way she reacted to his rescue, she doubted very much he would want to listen.
She heard scratching at the door, and opened it to let her dog in. The great thing jumped up to her, and she caught him in her arms, letting him lick the trails of her tears away.
--
Laura woke up late the next morning, and had to rush to school. She arrived fifteen minutes late despite her best efforts.
She got a stern look from Mrs. Millburn when she opened the door to interrupt lecture. But her eyes instantly darted to Logan’s spot at the back. It was empty.
A strange mix of relief and disappointment flooded over her as she walked to her seat. Logan wasn’t there. Meaning that she couldn’t talk to him. Which meant that the apology would continue to loom over her until she saw him.
She watched the door the entire class, hoping he would come through it, hoping he was late just as she was. But he never came. And when the bell rang to dismiss class, Mrs. Millburn called Laura up to her desk.
“Yes?” Laura asked over the sounds of shuffling students and brass conversation behind her.
“I just wanted to inform you that your arrival today was unacceptable, Miss Cubus.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I overslept accidentally this morning. It won’t happen again.”
“Hmm. You better see to it that it won’t. I also wanted to let you know that your presence afterschool today will be unnecessary.”
“What? How come?”
“As I’m sure you noticed, Mr. Sutherby didn’t come in today. I was informed by the office that somebody called in an absence for him for today. So, seeing as he won’t be here, I see no point for you to come in by yourself.”
“Oh.”
“Of course, come Monday, I expect to see both of you here precisely at 3:15 PM. You will have the opportunity to make up today’s session then.”
“Ok.” Laura turned to the door. “Thank you, Mrs. Millburn.”
Laura shouldered her way to her next class through the thick throng of students in the halls. After an agonizing 90-minute science lecture on the anatomy of the bacteria cell, it was finally time for lunch, where she would see all her friends.
She found them in the cafeteria, sitting around their usual table. She made her way over to them, and Stacy was the first to notice her, and jumped out of her seat to grab Laura in a big hug.
“Laura!” she exclaimed, “where have you been? We were all so worried!”
“Worried? Why?” She hadn’t told anybody what happened yesterday, and she doubted Brady or any of those guys did. And since Logan was absent, he couldn’t have mentioned anything either.
“Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Somebody was murdered near us last night!”
“What?” Laura was shocked at the news. And somewhat relieved that it hadn’t had anything to do with her.
“Yea, it was all over the news and TV this morning.”
“This morning?” Laura said as she sat down. “You know I don’t watch TV in the mornings.”
“Duh, which is why I was calling you all last night!” Stacy’s dad was a news anchor, which gave her an inside scoop to anything that happened in town before anyone else. “We couldn’t figure out why you were missing yesterday, and none of my calls went through, so when daddy told me what happened, I got scared, because, you know… you never know what might happen.”
“Wait, so what happened exactly?”
“Some guy was murdered here yesterday,” Molly offered.
“Like here, here?” Laura asked.
“Here, here,” Molly continued. “It happened outside a bar nearby.”
“Well, what was so special about it?”
“Nothing really, not at first, but then the police found out that the guy who got killed was a hitman from Portland.”
“A hitman?” Laura was getting interested. This was completely unlike anything their town was used to.
“Yea, that’s what the police say.”
“Well, what was a hitman doing here, anyway? And if he was the one who got killed, he had it coming, no?’
“No, you don’t get it!” Molly jumped in.
“Don’t get what? Can someone just tell me the full story?” She looked to her friends. “Stacy?”
“Ok, so it goes like this,” Stacy began. “A fight broke out at a bar last night. Which is unusual by itself, since not many of those happen here. It was Black Bear Pub, just a few blocks away from the movie theater.
“Apparently, this hitman was involved in the fight. The two guys took it outside, but nobody paid it any mind. Nobody wanted to interfere, from what I heard. Anyway, that’s not the important bit.”
“Well, what is?”
“When they found the guy later, the hitman, lying out in the back, he had all his blood drained out of him.”
“Wait, what?” Laura was, for the first time this whole conversation, completely taken aback.
“That’s why the news is so big,” Kelly explained.
“The guy had two gaping holes in his neck,” Stacy continued, “right beside each other. The cops say they looked like bite marks.”
“Bite marks?” Laura laughed nervously. “What, like a vampire or something?”
“I know, right? It sounds like something out of one of those books,” Stacy said, “but it’s true. The police say the guy got knocked out in the fight, and they’re not blaming the other combatant for the death, but they’re trying to find and question him anyway.”
“Wait, so the other guy got away?”
“For now, but that’s not the real important bit.”
“And then what is…?”
“The police issued an animal warning.”
“An animal warning?”
“Yes. They say the guy got knocked out in the fight, and when he was unconscious outside on the ground, some animal killed him.”
“An animal sucked his blood?”
“Yes, that’s what they say.”
“But what kind of an animal could do that?”
“They don’t know,” Tracy admitted. “My dad told me they called in specialists from Portland, agents from the CIA and FBI, different scientists, zoologists, and those morgue guys to try to figure it out.”
“So then if it’s all taken care of,” Laura said, thinking, “and there’s no like… hitman, or serial killer on the loose, why were you so worried?”
“Well, they placed that warning out for the animal. They don’t know how dangerous it might be. They told everyone to keep off the streets, especially if they were by themselves. And it happened so close to us, you just never know…”
“Know what?”
“Know what might have happened! You walked alone here this morning, and from school yesterday, right?”
“Oh my God, that’s right,” Laura said, finally understanding the gravity of the danger in her mind.
“That’s why we were worried something might have happened to you. You didn’t come to last class yesterday, after all, and after I started getting the updates from my dad, I just didn’t know…”
“Wow. Well, thankfully nothing happened.”
“That’s right. Thankfully not.”