Chapter Eight:
Suspicions Arise
I took a shower in the morning and rubbed my neck. The aching muscles hadn't yet decided that they wanted to stop complaining. I decided to visit Vi to see how her "almost-date" with Jay went.
"Come in," I heard faintly when I knocked on her door.
In one look I could already tell that Vi hadn't slept a wink. "Have fun?" I asked.
She nodded, but tiredly. "Great time with Jay. My bed seemed to be jealous though. Kept me up all night…"
I smirked. "Maybe it's pissed at you because of Trish."
"Maybe, because after I told it I'd visit Trish in the morning it decided to let me sleep." Vi rubbed her head. "Hey, lemme get dressed and we'll do just that."
"Sounds good," I replied. "Meetcha downstairs."
I decided to make Vi and me some breakfast while I was waiting for her to get dressed. After finally deciding on eggs, toast, and some bacon, I started cooking. Mom had enrolled me in a cooking class when I was younger, because she hadn't known how to cook when she was young.
"And I'm not going to have you go through the same shit I went through when trying to learn how not to burn water!" I'd remembered her saying.
I chuckled at the memory. I did miss my mom. I missed how, when I never wanted to get outta bed, she'd pick me up out of it and threaten to throw me in a tub full of freezing-cold water. How she used to get angry whenever her favourite team lost, and then she made me think that we were descendants of sailors by the way she swore so much. And I missed when she used to smile and be there for me whenever something bad happened, like when I'd gotten seasick and ended up showing the ocean what I'd had for supper the previous night.
"Get your hands off me!"
I paused when I heard the outburst. It was a male voice, easily, but the hostility in it made me reconsider wanting to check it out.
"Listen to me! All you've done since I've known you is bring me misery! I'm not going to let you do that to anyone else!" It was another male. I couldn't really recognize their voices very much.
The first voice snorted. "Right. Because you're the hero. The goddamn golden boy. I'll keep that in mind next time, if I want to care. But you're not going to stop me, and if you keep living in that fantasy of yours, I'll personally stick you inside of it for the rest of your miserable life, and you'll suffer through it the way I want you to. So stay the fuck away from me!"
I heard a door slam in anger. Tentatively, I opened the door to the kitchen a crack and looked through it. Jay's fists were bunched-up in anger, his shoulders shaking as he tried to get some control over himself. Who was he arguing with?
"You okay?" I asked as I opened the door some more.
Jay looked at me and tried his best to smile. "Oh, you heard that?"
I'm surprised no one else heard it, actually. "Yeah. What was that about?"
Jay looked at the door again. "A… disagreement."
"Sounded like a lot more than just a disagreement."
Jay's brow furrowed, but he relaxed and sat on the couch. "Maybe, but it's over with for now. We'll see if my message gets through."
"To who?"
He shrugged. "Best to leave you out of it for now, Kayce. You might not like the end result."
"Hey, I'm you dorm-mate. I should know. I mean, whoever you're fighting with, you'll need a mediator, right?" I sat on the couch opposite him. "Maybe I can help."
Jay considered this by rubbing his chin. "Yeah, I think that'd work. But I'll need to find somewhere secure to tell you my side of the story. I'm sure he's found some way to listen-in. After-all, he ambushed your cousin, Trish. Who knows who else he's manipulating?"
"Who ambushed Trish?" I asked forcefully.
Jay blinked. "What, you don't know? Then maybe you should ask your cousin. It'd be better to ask her than hear it from me, right?"
I nodded. I was going to visit Trish, anyway.
"Hey, do I smell something burning?"
I gasped and shot into the kitchen. I managed to save the eggs, but the bacon was beyond repair. I could hear Jay laughing at me from the living room, but I ignored it and managed to get the toast too before it got burnt.
A while later, after Vi had come down and eaten with me, Jay left the living room and we set off to see Trish. We were allowed to visit her now, since the school's doctors and physicians had verified the extent of her damage.
But Trish wasn't exactly conscious. Vi and I ended up waiting by her bed and talking to her instead, hoping that she'd hear us. I wondered when the school would contact Cole and Lucy, but I had an inkling feeling that they wanted to keep the situation hush-hush until Trish woke up and they found the person who attacked her.
Which made me think about what Jay said again. Ask Trish? How in the hell would I do that?
Vi decided she needed to go to the bathroom a while later, so she left Trish and I alone in the infirmary.
I rested my head in my hands and heaved a sigh. "Who the hell could've done this t'you, Trish?"
One of the doctors came in and saw me, so he strode towards me and handed me a bag. "These are Trish's things. Could you tell me if everything's in there? It would help with our investigation."
I nodded and sorted through Trish's things. It was stuff from what she'd had on her the day she was attacked. She didn't have much—there'd be more if they'd put her clothes inside—but there was something in the bag that I…
"Is everything in there?" the doctor asked.
I nodded. "Yeah. Everything's here."
The doctor didn't seem pleased or displeased. "Thank-you. You may keep her things until she wakes up."
Damn right I am. "Thanks."
When the doctor left, I grabbed the thing inside of the bag that definitely didn't belong. I'd recognized it instantly.
Nicholas's pendant.
What the hell did it mean? How could Trish have gotten her hands on something that valuable to Nicholas?
Unless he was lying.
Maybe Nicholas really didn't lose his pendant. Maybe he was the one who attacked Trish, but she managed to fight back—if only for a moment—and take something of his. It was a clue for me. But then… did that mean that the person Jay had been fighting with was Nicholas?
I knew I was right! I knew that Nicholas (as made evident by his smile) was just being too careful!
That's one hell of a lesson, I thought with a frown. That'll teach me for trusting someone in the first goddamn week of school. I closed a fist around Nicholas's pendant. Well, I'm gonna make sure that he doesn't hurt anyone else!
That was when Vi decided to make her triumphant return from the bathroom. "What took you?" I asked.
"D'you know how hard it is to keep looking this good? My five-inch stilettos hurt more than a boxer's face after a match!" she complained.
"Then you shouldn't be wearing those! How the hell're you gonna run away from a bad date?"
"I'll tie 'im up with whatever piece of technology I can find and walk away, looking amazing the entire time."
I shook my head. Vi wouldn't be into that stuff if it weren't for Jay… Speaking of which, I needed to speak with him. Like he said, we'd need somewhere secret. I couldn't trust Nicholas.
Vi and I left Trish and finished up what homework we had as the afternoon waned into the evening. I hadn't seen Nicholas or Jay, but I wasn't too disappointed.
Cy was in the room when I finally went upstairs, deciding it was time for bed. "Hey," she greeted.
"Evenin'." I flopped onto my bed and fidgeted with the pendant in my pocket. "School tomorrow."
"Yep."
And my attempts at small talk tend to suck. A lot.
I changed into my PJ's and decided that, at school, if I saw Jay, I'd need to talk to him.
But the thought of school immediately made me facepalm. Nicholas and I were still partners in History, and I'd need to be really careful around him.
Or I may end up a l'il worse for wear than Trish.
