Chương 19: Aftermath

The funk of balls, feet, and death had been suddenly replaced by antiseptic and a blue-white LED that seared my retinas after who knows how long in that red emergency lighting. My brain stalled out trying to understand where I was and how I got there. And I had this weight on my chest, but couldn't tell if it was internal or external.

STATUS CLEARED: UNCONSCIOUS FEAR: 45% (Nervous) LUCIDITY: 85% (Stable) My vitals had stabilized, but Fear was hovering way higher than it had all morning, and that 85% Lucidity left me with that cotton-headed feeling you get from a nap that went on too long. It very much sucked, but I was glad to have experienced the game mechanic in a safe setting, instead of mid-fight against some masked killer.

There were three additional notifications, but I pushed them aside to focus on sitting up; however, the weight on my chest made it difficult.

"She opened her eyes!" Tre's soft vinyl face appeared, smiling down at me, his head blocking the glare of the square light mounted into the metal ceiling.

"Hi. Glad you're back." Another face appeared next to him. A lady I didn't know, but she had a PARAMEDIC patch sewn into her navy uniform. Beyond her, the metal walls were lined with cabinets and medical equipment. I am in an ambulance. The auburn-haired medic shone a small light into my eyes and nodded.

"Pupils look good," she said to Tre. Then, she raised her eyebrows at me.

"You're lucky your friend caught your head before it hit the tile, or you'd be looking at a pretty bad concussion." Wait… the Grindhouse has emergency responders? I blinked a few times, trying to formulate some words to speak.

"Is she free to go?" Tre was all business. The medic nodded.

"Yup. Unless she wants a ride to the hospital just to be safe." My mind was still trying to catch up, made harder by the reality-breaking scene of a paramedic earnestly talking to a toy.

"No." I shook my head in hopes my brain would feel less like spaghetti.

"I'm okay." Tre climbed off my sternum and stood beside me on the gurney. And suddenly I could breathe easier. Then I shot up like the Undertaker.

"What about Austin?!" I had to squeeze my eyes shut to stop the spins. After a few seconds, I tentatively opened them again, and the room wasn't twirling around anymore. The brightness outside the open back doors forced me to squint to see that another ambulance was parked a few feet away. Two other medics loaded a covered body into the back. And then everything made sense. But the sounds around me faded away into the rush of a receding tide. The wave was growing.

I anxiously searched the parking lot, relieved to see Sameer and Isabel leaning on a cop car. Sameer was wrapped in one of those silver blankets, hunched over with his hands in his face, shoulders shaking. Isabel sat beside him, back slumped, face ashen. She said something to Sameer, but he didn't acknowledge her. The red wave inside me crested, then broke, losing its shape.

The roar in my ears thinned, and the sounds in the parking lot rushed back in, but it was impossible to hear what Isabel was saying to Sameer over the din of ambulance engines and crackling EMS radios. Tre pointed at Sameer.

"We thought he was going to collapse, too, but he just sank to the floor sobbing."

"Well, thanks for not letting me get concussed." I smiled warmly at him. Tre made an 'aw shucks' face.

"Don't mention it, pal."

"What happened?" I asked.

"The second you went down, the power came back on. A coach found us, the school called the cops, and sent everyone home."

"What about Austin?"

"EMS arrived, took you and Austin out on gurneys, and we followed." He put his hand softly on my arm.

"But Nora. The school looks like… like the fires never happened." The lack of firetrucks in the parking lot confirmed that bizarre detail.

"As we ran out of the school, there were no other bodies or damage or anything. Maltheris or Plaxx or someone wiped the zone as if none of it had happened." Tre's eyes drifted back to the other ambulance, where EMS workers had secured Austin's body and had closed the doors.

"Except it did." Rubbing my eyes, I exhaled and rolled my shoulders loose. My jaw was sore. I rolled it side to side. Only then did I realize I'd been grinding my teeth that whole time.

"Let's check on Isabel and Sameer," I said as I swung my legs off the gurney, worried that if I sat here too long, I'd never leave. My first attempt at standing was a big fat fail; I tipped back onto the gurney the moment my feet touched ground. On the second, I found shaky stability and stumbled-walked out of the ambulance. Feeling had returned to my legs, right until I nearly pitched off the tailgate. Thankfully, the medic caught me.

"Take it easy on yourself, honey." Isabel watched my faltering descent from the ambulance with a grim determination I hadn't seen on her before. Sameer stood up and shrugged off the blanket. He mumbled something to her, face blank, then walked to an awaiting car. The second he was inside, it drove away. Didn't even wait for him to close the door. After a moment, Isabel walked over to my ambulance.

"Is he okay? Who picked him up?" Guilt pricked at me for pestering her with so many questions at once.

"He's very much not okay." She didn't miss a beat.

"And that was his mom." Tre tracked the car's movement as it disappeared around a corner.

"He went home?" You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Isabel nodded, then focused on me.

"How're you feeling?"

"Like I survived Wrestlemania. How are—""Ms. Price?" A rail-thin cop with patchy facial hair interrupted her. Isabel loudly exhaled.

"Give her a minute, Rowe! She just woke up."

"Isabel! Stop," he whined, looking much too young to be in charge. I instantly knew this was the infamous Deputy Shit-For-Brains. He carried false bravado with each overconfident step, even as sweat was beading on his brow, as his cheeks flushed pink.

"Sheriff said to come get her. I'm gettin' her. Don't obstruct my justice." Isabel stepped back, shooting me an apologetic look as Rowe put himself between us.

"It's fine. I want to find who did this," I said to the deputy.

"Take me to your leader." Tre tugged my pant leg.

"We'll wait right here." I followed Rowe back inside the school. Deputy Rowe led me through the main entrance and down a hall that should have reeked of smoke. Instead, it smelled like that specific brand of institutional air freshener that all schools seem to buy in bulk. There were no signs of what we'd just experienced. It was exactly what Plaxx had done to my house after the tutorial. The school was reset to the condition it was in this morning when we arrived, with no smoke or fire damage in sight.

It was like nothing had happened. We didn't walk far. Rowe turned me toward the administration office and held open the door with an awkward half-bow mimicking all the police procedural shows at once.

"Sheriff's waiting," he announced as if the President had arrived. The office was exactly like it had been earlier, except everything was clean and pristine now. The control panel that Tre had rewired was intact. Its cover plate sat flush against the wall, screwed in place, as if it had never been touched. Don't let them intimidate you, Tre reminded me over the Mindbleed. The walk inside had given me some time to plan out how to handle this interaction, but I really appreciated Tre's encouragement.

Sheriff Hardin sat behind Principal Hoffman's desk, filling the space with the kind of presence that suggested he'd never been in a room he couldn't dominate. He was around fifty or so, with iron-gray hair cut military-short and a face that reminded me of a bulldog. His uniform was immaculate, his badge polished to mirror shine, and the sunglasses tucked into his breast pocket were those butt-ugly mirrored kind all cops own on TV.

His whole look and vibe felt straight out of Central Casting's idea of "Small-Town Sheriff (authoritative)." Hardin gestured to the chair opposite him.

"Ms. Price." His voice had a Southern drawl mixed with a kind of New York cop accent.

"Have a seat. This won't take long." I stayed standing.

"Do I need a lawyer?" He crossed his arms, exhaling bitterly.

"You're not under arrest, Ms. Price. This is a conversation."

"I've watched enough SVU to know 'conversation' is cop-talk for 'we want to toss your rights into traffic.' Also, aren't there laws about interrogating minors?" Rowe's leather holster squeaked as he shifted his weight behind me.

"It's not an interrogation—""Deputy." Hardin's voice boomed through the room. Rowe shut up immediately.

"Do I need a parent?

'Cause that might be difficult for me, seeing as how mine are dead."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Price." The sheriff never stopped coldly assessing me.

"Technically, we should have a guardian present. However, given the circumstances—a fellow student was murdered on school grounds—I anticipated you'd want to help us find who did this." Either sit and talk or admit you don't care and go on the suspect list.

"Of course I want to help," I said as I sat down across from him.

"I'm just a little shaken up. Forgive me for asserting my rights. I don't want to be taken advantage of." Some version of annoyance (or maybe amusement) flashed across his face before it settled back into professional concern.

"Your generation's been raised to question authority. I can respect that." It did not sound like he respected it. He opened a notebook and clicked his pen.

"How well did you know Austin Regan?"

"I met him today. It's my first day here."

"First day at a new school, and you ended up with a total stranger when he died."

"I wasn't with him when he died. We found him in the locker room after someone killed him. That's not the same thing."

"Interesting choice of words." Hardin's pen stopped moving. His eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made me want to squirm.

"'Someone killed him.' Do you have some idea of who may have wanted him dead?"

"No."

"Then how can you be so sure someone killed him?"

"Are you suggesting he gave himself a Colombian necktie?" Hardin leaned back in his chair.

"Where does a young girl such as yourself learn such ghastly terminology?" I couldn't tell if he was impressed or irritated.

"I watch a lot of TV." Hardin looked past me at Rowe.

"Deputy, do kids these days watch a lot of crime shows?" Now he was playing the incompetent part. The guy asking me smart questions about word choice had pivoted to "kids these days" bullshit.

"Can we skip to the part where you ask me about the fight in the cafeteria so I can go home?" I allowed a hint of annoyance to bleed through my helpful tone. Hardin licked his lips, making a tacky sound.

"Sure. Why don't you tell me about it?"

"I can't tell you anything you don't already know."

"Try me." An annoyed grunt escaped me.

"Evan attacked Sameer, and Austin stood up and came to Sameer's defense. Then Austin was murdered."

"And that's all?"

"I assume you're eager to build a case against Evan and pin this all on him."

"I'm eager," Hardin said, voice gaining a callous edge, "to find out who butchered a seventeen-year-old boy in my town."

"How's that going so far?"

"You're not the first to mention the altercation. Dozens of witnesses saw Evan threaten Austin.""'Threaten' is a little hyperbolic. He was pissed about what Austin said about his dad, but he didn't threaten—""He slammed a fist on a table hard enough to send food flying," Rowe interjected from behind me, apparently finding his balls again.

"That's assault."

"Only against the table," I corrected.

"He didn't hit Austin."

"But he wanted to," Hardin said.

"Didn't he?" I turned back to him.

"I can't know what was in his mind. And I don't think you can prosecute people for thought crimes, anyway."

"You're new here." Something sinister crept into his tone.

"But we've been dealing with this particular individual for months. I'm honestly shocked Sameer survived." I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood. Sheriff Hardin carried on.

"Evan Ortiz has been carrying the loss of his dad for a long time. He's struggling to accept that he's gone."

"He's pissed that everyone assumes his dad was driving drunk." I crossed my arms.

"Austin shared information that backs that assumption up. But as sheriff, you probably already uncovered all this during the investigation of the crash." Hardin's pen moved across the page. Then he looked up at me.

"Let's talk about you for a minute. You and your friend show up in Whisperwood out of nowhere, and by the end of your first school day, you manage to discover a murdered student alongside a person of interest in that murder. That's quite an interesting first day, Ms. Price."

"We found Austin because we were looking for him. He'd been with us until the fire doors separated—""The fire doors that closed despite there being no fire."

"Yeah. Those fire doors," I said.

"Are we really pretending you didn't just hear all of this from Tre and Isabel?"

"Yes. Ms. Hoyos told a similar story." He said her name as if it tasted like sour milk.

"She has credibility issues of her own in town. Shoplifting vandals don't make reliable witnesses."

"And Tre?"

"Your friend is an unknown quantity. Much like yourself."

"So, our story doesn't count. Got it. What about Sameer? He was trapped on the other side of those fire doors, too. We were trying to get him and Austin out."

"Both were trapped behind heavy doors, and yet, one of them ended up brutally killed in an entirely different room." I didn't have a clean answer for that, and he knew it.

"Sameer," Hardin continued, "has no verified alibi for the window in which Austin was killed. And outside of each other, neither you, your friend, nor Ms. Hoyos has a solid alibi either."

"That makes us guilty?"

"I didn't say that. Because I also have a suspect with a documented history of violence toward Sameer Patel and anyone associated with him. And he claims to have been off school grounds right when things got ugly."

"Evan."

"Several students reported you and Evan's girlfriend chatting it up in the bathroom."

"Yeah. Summer came in to apologize for Evan's outburst."

"And was Evan with her?"

"Not in the bathroom." Hardin's expression never changed. The sheriff came around the desk slowly and opened the office door.

"You're free to go." His voice was low, tense.

"But a word of advice: You're new here, a stranger. I strongly suggest you be careful about the company you keep." Rowe opened the door, eager to escort me out.

"Come on." He touched my elbow. I jerked my arm away.

"I know the way out!" I shut the door behind me, a little harder than I meant to, and headed toward the exit down a too-clean hall. My neck was hot, and I didn't know where to direct my anger: Sheriff Hardin or the game itself. Maltheris reset the school, knowing it would make me a liar. He wanted me to look guilty and insane. But Hardin was clearly ready to serve up Evan on a platter. And the worst part was, I agreed with him. But then… was that me, or was it just what Sameer believed?

Tre and I had been on his side from the jump, and I couldn't be sure it was because he seemed trustworthy or because Maltheris wanted us to. If we were ever going to complete Zone One, we had to unmask the killer. To do that, we needed tangible evidence. Hardin's bullshit and my muddled hunches weren't enough. We had to get that crash report.