Matt frowned. It wasn’t Faith, it—
The knife slid into his abdomen with shocking ferocity and immediately back out with equal vigor. Matt collapsed forward, knocking his head against the bench, while his mind remained a step behind. What just happened? Was that an accident?
The figure stared down at him in hatred.
Matt’s mind scrambled to make sense of it. He was half on the bench, half on the floor. He couldn’t find their name. “You. What the hell did you do to me?”
The reply was swift—a powerful downward thrust into his skull. Matt screamed. His attacker yanked with gloved hands on the hilt until the knife tugged back out, and the rest of Matt’s body fell onto the hard ceramic tile. He was still conscious as a crumpled piece of paper materialized from the pocket of his attacker’s hoodie.
The figure kneeled before him. Held out the paper in front of his eyes. Smoothed it down.
It was an article that his mother had printed out several weeks ago. Matt had carried it around in his backpack for a few days before it had disappeared.
His eyes widened with a deeper fear.
The figure, content that Matt understood what he was seeing—the personal violation of it—returned the paper to the hoodie’s pocket.
Matt wanted to speak. He couldn’t. The last thing he saw was an arm, splattered with his own blood, as the sawtooth edge of a large hunting knife carved around the circumference of his head. With a squelch that signaled the release of suction, it popped open like the lid of a jack-o’-lantern. His brain was slashed into mush. And then the top was placed back on.
Nice and tidy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The cops were removing students from the classrooms, one at a time, for questioning. It had taken twenty-four hours for Haley’s memorial to appear, but the front corner of the school was already blanketed in fresh roses, poster-board collages, and footballs. Dozens of small red flags, normally affixed to cars and trucks on game day, had been planted in the ground and were flapping in the wind. Tonight’s game—the final game of the regular season—had already been forfeited. It was the first forfeit in team history.
The entire campus was stunned with disbelief. Half of the students were dressed in school colors. Several openly wept. A dozen stuffed-animal lions had also appeared overnight at the memorial, because Matt’s team number was twelve and their mascot was Leo the Lion. Last year, the youth groups had protested to change his name—Leo was too astrological—but this morning, their most vocal objector had led a prayer by the flagpole while wearing a LION PRIDE sweatshirt.
A custodian had found Matt’s body. The nearly two hundred mourners at Haley’s candlelight vigil had witnessed the cops and ambulances scream onto the scene.
Makani had been home for less than an hour, the taste of Ollie still tingling on her lips, when the cavalry of lights zoomed past Grandma Young’s front window. It looked like every emergency vehicle that Osborne had to offer. The news hit social media first, as it always did: There’d been an accident at the high school.
UPDATE: There was a body.
UPDATE: It was a student.
UPDATE: It was Osborne’s favorite student.
The town climbed from local to statewide news, and the obligatory journalists had swarmed in, swelling their presence. Matthew Sherman Butler. Haley Madison Whitehall. When people died, the media turned them into three names. Makani had hardly known either of the victims. It felt wrong to have this much information.
The reporters clustered along the perimeter of the campus, nabbing strays for exclusive interviews. Makani had bolted around the feasting horde, but plenty of other students were willing. One news crew even had the nerve to duck beneath the crime-scene tape to film the trash bins where Matt’s backpack and duffel bag had been discovered, presumably stashed there by his killer. Makani had heard the furious shouts of the police officers all the way from the quad.
Haley had been murdered at home, and Matt had been murdered at school.
Haley had been beloved in drama, and Matt had been beloved in football.
One victim, two victims.
These things made a difference.
A rumor circulated about canceling school, but Makani assumed it didn’t happen so that the questioning could take place more easily. It seemed probable that the cases were connected; there were too many similarities. Everyone, including the teachers and administrators, would be required to face an officer by the end of the day. Students were called out individually. The order was supposedly random, but it was clearly alphabetical.
Justine Darby, Oliver Larsson, Alexandra Shimerda, Makani Young.
She would be the last to go.
When Darby returned to their second-period physics class, he grabbed an empty seat beside Makani and Alex.
Makani pressed him for details. “What kind of questions did they ask?”
“Easy things,” he said.
They didn’t bother to hide their conversation. Everybody else was already talking. Phones, normally forbidden, were on full display as students grieved and searched for new information. It was difficult enough to pay attention on an average Friday, but even the teachers knew that no lessons would be taught today as they adopted the dual roles of counselors for the students and secretaries for the officers.
Mr. Merrick, the physics teacher, was engaged in a discussion with two football players whose heads were down. Breaking another school rule, he had a hand gripped on one of their shoulders. Comforting. Underneath Mr. Merrick’s bushy and uncultivated eyebrows, it looked like he was trying not to cry.
“They asked if I knew the victims,” Darby said. “If I’d ever heard any rumors about them, if I knew anyone who might not have liked them, where I was last night between six and seven. That sort of thing. The officer was really nice.”
“Did you get Chris?” Makani had glimpsed him in the hallway before class. With his pale skin and white-blond hair, it was easy to identify him as Ollie’s brother. Chris was a bit broader, though, despite being more slender and less muscular than most cops.
“No, it was the lady. Officer Gage. Kinda hot, actually.”
“And good at her job,” Alex said, not looking up from her phone.
Darby waved a dismissive hand. He was a feminist, too. “You’ll be fine,” he told Makani, because her head was cowering and her elbows were burrowed against her sides. Unconsciously, she was making herself smaller.