A/N: I don't think anyone's actually actively reading this so, I won't even bother to apologize for being late. ENJOY!
Chapter 8: Light At the End of the Tunnel
The silhouette is angry. Very angry. Last night was a complete failure. Well, she did purge the world of some filth… but they revealed her identity! So now she had to hide in the basement all day, sitting between the dusty boxes. The silhouette quickly climbs the stairs. Room 210. The room of a Finnish boy and a Swedish giant. She'll target the Swedish giant first, he scares her.
The silhouette unlocks the door, not bothering to be silent. Why should she? They're sleeping. She'll make them sleep with the gas. The silhouette opens the door slightly. The silhouette throws the gas inside. The silhouette waits.
Oh, how she wishes she could kill that Dutch guy from yesterday all over again. That asshole ruined EVERYTHING. That's why- That's why she's going to visit at least three rooms tonight. She needs to speed things up. The next room will be 104 and then 009.
The gas stops, the silhouette enters. The room is dark, she doesn't bother stepping lightly as she approaches the first bed she sees, already forgetting about her plan of killing the Swede first. The knife glides out of the silhouette's sleeve. The silhouette raises the knife and readies herself to attack-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
The room is awfully silent as we wait, the only sound audible is a soft pitter-patter of rain. Yao said he would give a clear signal when she's inside their room. But what is a clear signal? A message via SMS? A loud scream? Smoke signals? Why couldn't that Chinese idiot elaborate?
Beside me, Laura is picking at her nails, biting at the loose flaps of flesh. I absentmindedly lower her hand from in between her lips.
"Don't," I tell her. "You'll bleed."
"But I'm nervous. I need something to distract myself with," she reveals. I sigh and offer my own hand.
"Just hold my hand instead. No need to harm yourself out of nervousness," I say to her in a soft tone, glad that the darkness hides my blush. Will she accept? God, why am I so nervous? Must be the anticipation.
"Thank you," Laura mutters as she takes my hand in both of hers without hesitation. She holds onto it tightly and softly starts playing with my fingers. I look away from her, hoping she won't see my red cheeks. My eyes meet with Ludwig and Kiku sitting on the bed opposite of us.
'Smooth,' Kiku mouths towards me, smirking and nodding. I roll my eyes at him.
'Shut up,' I mouth back. Kiku chuckles softly. Ludwig on the other hand looks sadly at us. I wonder what he's thinking about. I then realize he's probably thinking about Feliciano. Oh dear. Here I am, flirting with someone when his boyfriend died four days ago. And now I feel bad. But I also can't pull my hand away, Laura won't let go so easily.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" A loud yell suddenly resounds through the building once more. Lately, there has been a lot of screaming around here, hasn't there?
"That was Yao. I think that's the signal," Ludwig jumps up, his expression turning sober again.
"Subtle," I comment. The four of us make our way towards the door. I push the door open; it not being locked. We quickly run down the hall.
"Alright, good luck," I wish the other two as we split ways at the stairs. Laura and I dash down the stairs as we hear the struggling upstairs in room 210. I just hope they'll be able to subdue her without any serious injuries. Or deaths, God knows we've had enough of those.
We quickly exit the building. Laura is clutching one of the two cameras Eduard is lending us in her hands. The other is in room 210, filming what's happening in there. With everything we'll be filming, the court won't be able to deny the evidence we're giving.
"I hope Emilia is awake," Laura huffs as we run through the night across the school grounds. I close my eyes slightly to avoid the rain from blinding me by falling into my eyes. The staff's rooms are underneath the school. They live in the very luxurious basement there. That's where we're going right now. We'll be recording everything inside Benita's room. And we'll be making sure the evidence gets to the police safely without trouble. And that it won't be contaminated by anyone who gets it inside their heads to destroy the evidence.
That's our job. Since I'm injured and can't fight. And since Laura wants to stay with me. And in case that murdering bitch escapes the others, we're prepared to take her out too.
The teenager underneath the silhouette suddenly starts yelling at the top of his lungs. It's so loud, the silhouette staggers back in surprise. Fuck that's loud, she thinks. But she quickly recovers. That dickhead's not sleeping, she rages! She'll slaughter him! And it won't be pretty. The silhouette moves towards the teenager again, raising her knife high. Said boy is sitting upright and clutching his pillow. She'll kill him!
THUMP
A pillow hits her right in the face. There's so much force behind it that the silhouette sways to the side. She growls in anger. She looks up to find the other occupant of the room is also wide awake. Another hit to the face by the pillow. This time, the first boy hit her in the face. Both boys look ready to hit her with pillows until she runs away.
The silhouette has other plans. She's going to murder them. Slaughter them. Kill them in the most painful ways. Make them experience pain. Just like she has experienced pain all those years back.
THUMP
Another pillow to the face. The silhouette lifts her arms to shield her from the next hit. She reels her left hand forward to slash the knife out. The knife scratches the smaller, black-haired boy. She wants to cheer in delight. Until hands suddenly grab that arm.
I look around the room as Laura films everything. Emilia is showing everything to Laura so I can look around undisturbed. My eyes fall upon the news articles. Two particular ones pull my attention. I slowly step closer to look at them. They've been framed. But the edges are uneven as if they were ripped out in anger. Of the first article, the left underside corner is burned away. But the fire was put out before the article could disappear wholly.
"That are a lot of gas canisters," Laura comments behind me. I look at the title of that first article. 'James Brooks, accused of the rape of Benita Irakoze, declared innocent'. Under the title is a photo of our very school, H. Academy. My eyes widen at the names. I know that man!
My eyes then fall upon the only other framed article. 'Two men brutally murdered in an alley in London' is an article all too familiar to me. I already know that the third line of the article states, 'The two bodies were discovered by the fifteen-year-old son of one of the victims'. Images flash before my eyes again. Two bloody bodies in an alley, a silhouette fleeing in the distance. I quickly look away from the article as a connection is made in my mind. A horrible connection.
The strong grip makes her turn her head to the side to look. The tall blonde German boy that attacked her with a chair all those nights back looks her right in the eye. He squeezes. She groans and drops the knife.
The next thing she knows, the boy behind the German comes in close with her. The silhouette's eyes widen. His arms clench around her hips. No. No. Not again, not the hips. She's lifted. The black-haired boy suddenly leans backwards. The silhouette can only gasp before she's thrown to the floor. Hard. The ground comes too fast and hard. The air leaves the silhouette's lungs. It hurts.
"Was that an Ura-nage?" the one she cut earlier asks.
"I do judo," the boy that threw the silhouette to the ground replies simply. The silhouette wants to come upright again. She must fight! She must kill these boys! She can't live with herself if she doesn't. The one who hit her with a pillow first suddenly plants his foot harshly on her chest. Right in between her breasts. The foot pushes down.
"You've lost, give up," the boy growls angrily with a Russian accent. The silhouette stares up. Did she lose? To boys?
"So, in conclusion… we have her," Ludwig says over the phone. He sounds both very happy and like he's been crying. I decide not to point it out.
"Terrific," I say with a genuine smile, we then say goodbye and hang up. "They've caught Benita, plus they've tied her up with some rope they stole." Laura and Emilia smile brightly as I tell them that. I step away from the wall of articles I was reading, leaving them alone for a bit, but one article I have taken a photo of. For later reference.
"God, finally," Laura exclaims in pure relief. The box she was looking through, with gloves on of course, is already being forgotten as she stands up.
"I'm so glad," Emilia says with a hand over her heart. "I feel terrible having to let students take care of this. But I'm glad that it worked out," she sighs in relief. I smile in joy as I turn towards Laura. As she sees my smile, she starts laughing and smiles back.
"We did it! The plan worked." Laura suddenly jumps at me and takes me into an all-enveloping embrace. I gladly hug her back, pressing our bodies tightly together. We both laugh and I even lift her up a bit in the joy of the moment. "This is actually over," Laura says as I set her down again. She pushes herself a bit backwards to look up into my eyes. Not that she's that much smaller than me. She's quite tall for a girl. So, we're almost the same height.
"Yes, it is," I confirm to her with a smirk. Suddenly her hands are on the side of my face. She pulls my head down a bit and reaches up herself. And then, in the spur of the moment, she kisses me. I'm both blissed out in pure joy and astonished that she would actually kiss a guy like me. She pulls back with a smile and a blush on her face. I smile back.
"I love you, Arthur. You brilliant little genius. Your plan worked. You saved us," she giggles and then takes me into an embrace again but keeps facing me. I chuckle and kiss her this time.
"You're welcome." I joke. She gives me a stomp in the side, the not wounded side. I laugh and brush some of her hair out of her face.
"Most people would say their confession back, you idiot," she pouts. I laugh and give her another little kiss.
"I'm sorry, I love you too, Laura." She then smiles contently and lays her head on my shoulder.
"That's what I like to hear," she sighs. I contently hug her a little closer and chuckle. I can get used to this.
The next morning, the whole student body is rejoicing. They're partying in the breakfast hall and congratulating all of us who caught the murderer yesterday. Plus, the sky has cleared and the sun is shining beautifully.
"I knew you could do it," Tino says happily as he hugs both me and Kiku closer. The wound in my side stings in protest, but I can't possibly tell anyone that and bring the mood down. I'll just silently suffer through it.
"Yeah, you guys are the real heroes here, you kept on investigating and now you finally caught her," Mathias cheers happily. I smile more out of necessity than sincere happiness. I look around the table. So many people are sitting here who would normally never even have considered sitting at a table with me. Except for Laura and Kiku of course. They've been a constant through this whole ordeal.
"Is there something on my face?" Laura asks as she catches me staring at her from the side. She gives me a bright smile. I feel myself starting to blush uncontrollably. How can she be this beautiful but cute at the same time? The green ribbon in her hair bounces happily as she giggles at the expression I make after being caught.
"No," I say as I quickly look away, trying not to embarrass myself any further. I startle as a warm hand suddenly lays itself on top of mine under the table, dragging our hands in her lap. I turn my face back towards Laura to look. It's her hand alright. I can feel my head heat up even more. But Laura herself also seems to be blushing now. She chuckles and entwines our fingers. Then, she seems content and smiles again. I'm too embarrassed to smile back but I squeeze her hand in reassurance that I'm okay with this.
"And then Kiku went and did an Ura-Nage on her," Yao tells the Nordics all of their stories enthusiastically. His chest has been bandaged; you can see the top of the bandages peek out of his button-up.
"Really? Was she knocked out?" Mathias matches Yao in enthusiasm.
"Unfortunately not, no. But we did defeat her and tied her up with some rope we stole from the school," Ivan continues the story.
"I don't really feel like we deserve any praising," Ludwig suddenly mutters from across the table. I look up at him.
"Why not?" Kiku questions from beside me.
"So many people still died because we were only able to catch her tonight," Ludwig points out. "I counted, eighteen people died. Seventeen boys, one girl. Three were injured, including Matthew who was killed later on. And of the ones who were attacked-" he pauses- "only I escaped. If you don't count Arthur, who was absent from his room when it was targeted and very lucky," he sums up. At that, the whole table becomes silent. Even the enthusiastic storytellers become silent at this. All around us, the room is still rowdy, but it still feels like a bubble closes itself around us and muffles all sounds.
"Eighteen-" Emil, the boy from Iceland murmurs, breaking the silence only briefly. Eighteen is a lot of people. Considering there were 118 people in this school, divided across six years. From the age of twelve until the age of eighteen. That's about 15% of the student body that's been killed. Counting the two injured ones, me and Yao, that's 17%. 17% is a lot.
"What was even her reason for doing this?" Ivan breaks the silence. No one has an answer. So, we stay silent again. I do have an idea. But I don't want to say anything without confirming it first. I need to be certain before I make any accusations.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," Laura suddenly stands up, still holding tightly onto my hand. "Let's go ask her, we don't have any lessons today anyway," she states. She keeps a hold of my hand and starts dragging me up and out of the cafeteria.
"Right," I quickly catch up to her and go walk beside her. It would be a bit embarrassing to have her drag me all the way.
Four people followed us. Ivan, Yao, Kiku and Ludwig. We stand in front of the door to the classroom where she's currently locked inside. The headteacher is standing next to the door. I fumble with my phone nervously. Just in case, I'm going to record this. If she spills anything, we'll have proof of it. I doubt she will be loose-lipped to the police. But there's a chance she might speak to us.
"I don't know why I agreed to six students seeing her," he mutters to himself as he looks us over. "Just make sure she doesn't escape. I know you four," he points at Kiku, Yao, Ivan and Ludwig, "took her down. But that doesn't mean it'll work a second time. Just-" he sighs- "keep her tied up and don't provoke her." The headteacher turns the key inside the lock. He then opens the door. "Knock five times if you want out," he whispers towards us as we enter. I give him a curt nod. Once we're all inside, the door is locked again. I look at the room. An emptied classroom with closed curtains and only one chair in the room. And tied by the ankles and wrists to that chair, is the murderer.
"Ah, the heroes have come to visit me," are the first words she says.
Endnote: We're nearing the end of the story! Yay! Only one more chapter to go after this in which the murderer's motives will be revealed.