Welcome back to this chapter, with will pretty much solve the mystery.
I planned this story like this all along, but I seriously debated with myself after I realized how much you love the mystery if I shouldn't change how to tell the story. But I think it makes the most sense like this, for the readers to already know from this chapter onwards. I hope you will like it. :)
While I thought about the story like that again, I also realized that I will probably have ten chapters all in all, not just nine. Just so you know.
Thank you to Invader Johnny, alicheriee, Dare to be Something More and Rose-Aki once more for the reviews!
Welp. Please enjoy this chapter!
The next day, everyone is still talking about Erica. There are a lot of rumors going around, but what everyone agrees upon, what everyone quickly knows, is that Erica's right knee got shattered. She walked through the park, coming back home from a friend, Liza, and there, someone apparently came out of the bushes with a baseball bat and hit her knee.
The pain was blinding, so she also wasn't able to see her attacker – or forgot if she saw them before getting attacked.
Robbie gets sick when he hears about all of it; he gets even sicker about the fact that many people promptly talk about Jade again. Some say that nobody can accuse her of this without proof. But many others seem absolutely convinced that she did it. Which is unbelievable.
"How does she know when to find all of them alone though?" Robbie hears one of them ask. Because if she did this, she also attacked Josephine and Romy.
"Joe and Romy had routines and everybody knew about those," Hannah, Josephine's best friend, answers, who is as pale as those two these days. "And even I knew Erica wanted to meet up with Liza the day before yesterday and wanted to walk home. They talked about it in our Math class, in which Jade also is."
Which doesn't mean anything. Though obviously, everybody knows by now that all three girls have flirted with Beck and have been seen by Jade doing so. And then, they got attacked by someone.
But Jade can't have done it. And it's horrifying as it is, without assuming someone out of their school did it.
They say that Erica's knee will never get back to normal. It got shattered so badly that she will have problems for the rest of her life.
Robbie is the one out of their group of friends to say it: "She is a dancer. They say the doctors aren't sure she ever will be able to dance like she did before."
He sees that that thought also makes Tori, Cat, Andre and Beck sick. And maybe, Jade also seems paler than usual.
.
.
Sonia needs to pull Joana away at some point. She is openly crying by now and that's just stupid. She has to get a grip of herself. They all do. Josephine, Hannah, Romy and Joana. But they are all making a big thing out of this, behaving like idiots, making sure they will get caught. She won't have this.
And they are actually giving her the fault for this! Like it was! That stupid Erica pulled away. That's the only reason she hit her knee, instead of just her leg. It's Erica's own fault, seriously.
Sonia won't have her plan ruined by these idiots. The plan she orchastrated so carefully.
She got the idea less than a year ago, when Jade was in a play of an older classmate, where her character killed other women after they dated the man she loved. In the end, she also killed the man.
Killing off other girls of course would be too extreme. But hurting them a little... Sure enough, everyone would find it believable that Jade finally snapped. She has hurt girls before out of jealousy, has pulled hair and scratched faces, before Beck was able to pull her away. Granted, that was mostly still at the beginning of their relationship, but everybody knew she was still extremely jealous.
And if Jade would start hurting girls, Beck would hate that, right? Beck was a good person. He was the perfect boy. He would hate Jade hurting anyone like that and would finally leave her.
That was the plan. She knew she would need to get herself accomplices. It was just easier to hurt other girls with their permission, instead of having to hurt them without it – and with the risk of them actually seeing and identifying her. Though she knows if Beck isn't convinced of leaving Jade after they are all hurt, she will start hurting others, even if the other girls don't know that yet. But Sonia will make sure to persuade more classmates to flirt with Beck too (even if they will all be scared after all those attacks), will have Jade see them and will then attack them. She knows. And her accomplices don't need to know yet.
They are so naive. She needed some time to convince each of them. But they know, just as well as she does, that Beck deserves better than Jade. They of course think they are better – which they aren't. But she doesn't need to tell them that yet. They will never have a chance though. Hell, they have flirted with Beck for years now without him even noticing.
She hasn't flirted with him for some time now, while he always smiles nicely at her. She has tried herself before.
She was never worried about this Jade thing though. Nobody marries their high school sweetheart, right? But they are still together now and they only have very few months to go until they graduate. They have to break up now, for Sonia to get her foot into that door.
She tried getting to him, when they were seperated for some months over a year ago. Instead, he picked Meredith for his first date out of his relationship with Jade. And then got together with Jade on that same date. He apparently wasn't over her. Sonia will make sure he will be over her soon.
She has carefully picked her accomplices, has started conversations about this plan without giving too much away at first. By now, they are fully on board.
She was the one who broke Josephine's hand that one day, stepping on it with ugly boots like Jade wears them – and wore them that day which they planned.
They of course also had to make sure Jade wouldn't have an alibi for that attack, or any other. She especially couldn't be with Beck, as Beck would then know for sure that it couldn't have been her. And he needs to believe she did it, for him to leave her.
So, they had one of them watch her during the attack – and one person Beck, because they also need to make sure she isn't on the phone with him or something, which they wouldn't be able to see, looking from a bush in front of her house into her window on the second floor.
They also watched each of them, while she, Sonia, then punched Romy in the back with a stupid wristband with cones on them, like Jade wears them, around her hand. Tina, Romy's stupid best friend who isn't involved in this and doesn't know anything about it, played her part really well in it. She immediately told everybody what happened, without anyone needing to prompt her much.
And then came Erica. While the other two just closed their eyes and let it happen, Erica didn't. They did it in her living room. Erica sat down and Sonia wanted to hit her on top of her leg with the bat. Sonia's parents were still out. She was supposed to tell them afterwards that she was attacked in the park.
But Erica opened her eyes when Sonia already swung the bat and then she pulled away at the very last second. Sonia hit her knee without planning to. And now she's the bitch, right.
Erica cried out of pain – Josephine and Joana who were with them cried out of shock. Which was just unneccessary.
They brought Erica to the park, did their best not to be seen. Erica called the ambulance herself from there, because all of them obviously couldn't be with her. One of them walking into her in the park after she has been injured would've been too much of a coincidence.
Luckily, very few people could've seen them as Erica lives right next to the park and noone was around there at that very moment.
Anyway... Sonia called all of them together afterwards. Joesphine and Joana freaked out as it was and wanted to call the ambulance right away, still in Erica's living room, ruining their plan. Only she, Sonia, kept a cool head and made sure, Erica would too, as soon as she would get asked about everything.
Now, she told everyone else to stick to the plan as well. She made sure they knew that they already could go to prison for everything that happened and that they therefore better shut up about it.
She guesses one of them could let it slip eventually. She can't have that. She has to get this done. She has to show those girls that it's worth it. Though obviously none of them will actually get Beck. She will. But at least they will witness Beck falling out of love with Jade, which they all waited for since pretty much Freshman year, when he fell into love with her.
It's unbelievable that he is actually still into Jade, though she's such a bitch. Always so dark and impolite. Always mean, even to Beck. Always demanding from him that he tells her certain things or brings her coffee. Never thankful though Beck deserves every thanks in the world for every step he does. Jade doesn't respect him. She probably doesn't even love him, just considers him her property, while he only seem to have eyes for her so much of the time. But well... It will soon be done.
Sonia is ready to go to all lengths to get her.
Josephine and Romy both would have preferred their parents not calling the cops because of their injuries and the supposed attacks. But with Erica, of course the police has to be involved now.
Sonia doesn't care. She has speculated from the beginning that they would be involved eventually. Of course, depending on how far they would have to go to convince Beck. But Beck is a good person who wants to believe the best. So, they have to go all the way.
She will make sure, he and everybody else knows that Jade did all of this – even if she didn't.
Until now, they haven't dared to say that they saw her attack them as maybe she has an alibi after all. Maybe, she's on the phone with one of those awful friends or something, though she doesn't seem like a person socializing with them at all.
They can make sure, Jade is home alone, but not if she's on the phone with anyone. But as long as she isn't on the phone with Beck, which they can check by also watching him and making sure he isn't calling anyone... They can make the others unbelievable as well, if anyone is willing to give her an alibi. As long as Beck isn't on the phone and therefore knows for sure...
She will have the others hurt her next. And she will say Jade did it.