“Yeah, older teens or something. But watch. It gets crazier.”
Ari watched as a guy rushed to the Vigilante, stopping his attack. The new guy had on gray sweats and a black jacket. His baseball cap fell to the ground as he challenged the Vigilante, revealing short-cropped hair. His motions were fluid. Skilled. For a moment the kid might have had the upper hand, but the Vigilante did something totally out of character. He reached his hand inside his jacket.
“Oh my God, is that a gun?” Ari cried.
He leveled the gun at the man in the sweats, who stood before him with his hands up. He’d surrendered. What was the Vigilante doing? Why did he have a gun? “He never carries a gun,” she said. The man glanced upward and he looked directly at the camera. His movement was enough for Ari to see his face. She gasped.
“I know him. He’s from the GYC.” Raising her voice she called, “Davis! Come here! Davis!”
“What?” Rebecca asked.
Before she could answer, Davis stood by her side and also asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Alvarez,” she told him, pointing at the screen.
He didn’t reply but she felt his body stiffen. They stood silently and watched the screen as the Vigilante ordered Alvarez down on his knees.
“What is he doing? What’s he doing?” Ari asked.
The Vigilante lifted his gun and held it to the boy’s head. Ari shifted her body toward Davis but couldn’t stop watching as the Vigilante fired the gun. Alvarez’s body rocked from the bullet and dropped to the ground. The screen went black.
“Oh!” she cried, pressing her face into Davis’ shirt. Rebecca ran from the room, slamming the door to the bathroom down the hall. The sound of her retching echoed down the hallway.
Davis gently pushed Ari back and walked away.
“Wait! Davis, where are you going?” Ari asked, following him.
Without responding, he walked out the front door, slamming it shut behind him. The glass shattered from the force, sending pieces down to the ground like hail.
***
“What happened here?” Nick stepped over the pile of swept up glass. The maintenance guy was in the middle of replacing the door. “Did the kids get in a fight?”
“Valid assumption,” Ari said. “But no. It just broke when someone closed it. The glass must have been faulty or something.”
Ari didn’t follow Davis the night before. The group was still in process and she couldn’t just leave. Holding back tears, she thanked the men from the GYC for coming. None of them realized one of their members had just been executed on camera.
“Let’s go to my office,” Ari said to Nick.
Once the door was shut, Nick pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m sure you saw the news last night. About that kid from the Youth Center?”
Nodding into his chest, feeling uncomfortable with their closeness. “Yeah, I saw it.”
“Had you met that kid before? I know you have a student there.”
“His name was Oscar Alvarez. Oliver and I saw him fight. He was very talented.” Ari was surprised he fell to the Vigilante, but she supposed a gun outweighed even the most skilled hands.
“Guess the Vigilante isn’t such a good guy after all,” he said into her hair.
“No, I guess not,” she agreed. Ari pulled away and sat down. If the Vigilante wasn’t good, then what did that mean for her? The two times he’d saved her? The two different times she suspected he’d been in her room? She’d suspected Davis had been the Vigilante but now? It was impossible. Who was it? “I wonder what happened, why he used the gun.”
“Maybe he decided to finally show who he really is? Whatever he wanted to prove, the cops are all over this. He’s now considered armed and very dangerous. Their top priority.”
Ari stared at the pile of papers and files on her desk. Shanna’s was on top. She was willing to give her another chance but she had to track the girl down first. She was so close to graduation that screwing up now seemed idiotic.
“What a mess.” Ari had to admit her caseload looked more and more depressing. Hope and Shanna were missing. Maria was dead. Now Davis would have to go to another funeral. She thought about how upset and hurt he seemed yesterday.
“Hey,” Nick said, rousing her from her thoughts. “You okay?”
“Just thinking about how these kids seem to be drowning. Either running wild or being murdered on the streets. I keep trying to find a way to help, but nothing seems to work. It doesn’t matter what I do or you or Davis … we can’t save these kids.”
A line creased between Nick’s eyes. “Davis?”
“Yeah,” Ari said. She shifted around some papers on her desk. “I really should call him. He was here when it happened.”
“Here? With you?”