A/N: This is it! The CULPRIT IS FINALLY REVEALED in this chapter. From this point on, the story will move toward capturing the culprit. MAJOR spoilers are ahead. PLEASE, if you choose to leave a review, do NOT leave any spoilers in your review. The reviews show the most recent first, and we do not want to spoil the biggest reveal of the story to those readers who might not have read this far yet. Thank you so much for considering others and reading this far if you have. I am sorry for taking so long to get this chapter out; I wanted this reveal to be perfect and how I imagined it! Thanks for all the support, reviews, and reads as always. Hey Arnold forever!
Phoebe Heyerdahl crumbled the newspaper in her hands as she read the caption continually. Her eyes blinked rapidly to try to keep the panicking pace of her reading. Helga G. Pataki Seeks A Shrink. The paper itself seemed to pulse as the fumes of the friend of our victim flew out of her fingernails. Finally, the fingernails ripped page after page, and Phoebe witnessed the scraps fall to the gymnasium floor below her.
"Phoebe?" Gerald Johansson grabbed onto his girlfriend's forearms, concerned at why she was acting out of anger. The distant and disturbing ferocity of her fury flew through the pages of the issue of the newspaper and the embers of her eyes ignited.
"Read it. Fucking read it!" Phoebe snapped out of the traumatic trance and pulled out under her boyfriend's hold to head over to Arnold Shortman, who was heading out the double front doors to the gymnasium.
"Phoebe?! What the hell?!" Gerald called back out to her, but she could not hear his cries. He shook his head and sighed. "How am I supposed to read this? It's in shreds!"
Gerald doubled over to gather the debris of Phoebe's outburst with the newspaper. Unfortunately for him, he would have to find another issue to read what set off Phoebe to a surface that he had never seen from her before. At first, he deliberated if he should search for her and attempt to soothe her storm. Since she was chasing Arnold however, he assumed that the article within the newspaper had to feature him or Helga. If so, he ultimately determined that Phoebe was powerful enough to resolve the predicament on her own. Besides, he did not desire to block the path of Phoebe. He was not the most intelligent student amongst his peers, but he was wise enough to not engage with Phoebe in such a state.
Positioning the pile of paper into the clasp of his hands, he succeeded to scoop up the damage done. The moment he stood from his knees, he clashed into the clutches of another P.S. 121 student.
"Hi, Gerald."
Phoebe's irritation and impatience had intensified with each step of her shoe. It was time for this to end. It was time to know the truth. It was time for peace between the peers of P.S. 121.
Even though she hustled as hastily as she could in high heels, she was not able to reach Arnold, who escaped out of the chaos through the doors and up the stairs to the exit of the school building. She assumed that he was going after Helga, who had left into the nuclear night right after the disastrous drop. She stopped to catch her breath and realized that she could speak to Arnold and Helga later. She would give Arnold the chance that he yearned with Helga, and let Helga find comfort in him for a moment.
While attempting to process the puzzle that was poured out all over the gymnasium floor, she noticed another student seeking to slowly sneak out the back door of the gymnasium, which was the hallway that would lead to the locker rooms, and an exit.
"Of course!" Phoebe hitched up the hurdle that was her dress and tumbled to try to catch the convict before they were able to achieve his or her escape.
Bursting through the back door, Phoebe kicked off her high heels and pioneered to pursue the criminal, who began to pick up a pace. The chopsticks in her hair kept her hair from falling into her vision, and the sweat of her pursuit prickled her forehead as she locked onto the target. Huffing, she hoped that she would overcome the obstacle ahead. She had to. Helga did not deserve this ending, and she was going to give her one more chance to write a new one.
The promise to help her best friend pushed her to finally outrun the con, and Phoebe was able to reach the exit door before guarding it with the remaining strength she had left in her little body. She struggled to breathe and coughed before the culprit tried to stop his or herself and ran into her frame, before falling to the ground in front of her.
"Lila Sawyer." Phoebe spit, letting the adrenaline and the lack of air control the number of words that she could form. Lila, completely in shock that Phoebe caught up to her and acknowledging her exhausted appearance, shoved her bright red hair out of her green eyes before extending her arms and legs onto the coldness of the concrete tile below them.
"You aren't going anywhere." Choking, Phoebe let go of the door handle and sauntered to stand over Lila sprawled in a snowflake on the floor.
Lila rolled her eyes and flipped her hands over to sense the edges of the tiles that patterned the floor.
"Why?" Phoebe coughed again and swallowed in another gasp of air before asking again. "Why did you do this?!"
"How do you know it is me? Anybody could have written that article." Lila argued back, pulling up her knees now to stretch herself out. Phoebe stepped over the red-haired raven before guarding the area between the barriers of the doors and the culprit in question.
"No, that's where you're wrong! Not just anybody could have written that article. You were the only person other than me that knew that Helga was seeking help from Dr. Bliss. You betrayed your friend and her secret!" Phoebe snarled as she whipped around to withstand the wrongdoings of the farm girl that she thought was her friend.
Lila started to snicker; a voice that dripped with venom that forced Phoebe cringe. "No, Phoebe. For once, you are wrong. Two people other than us knew Helga's secret."
She continued to chuckle, her nails clawing at the tiles, scratching the surface. Phoebe stunned, struggled to look for the lies from Lila's emerald eyes, but could not find any falsehoods but the pupils of principle.
"How? How is that possible?" Phoebe scrambled, stumbling on the disorientation of her conclusions and discoveries. Pointing out her finger at the former friend and forthcoming fraud, she managed to stifle out a statement. "No, you're lying!"
"Oh, Phoebs. You just do not know everything. Does that bother you? Not knowing everything?" Lila cackled to our Japanese hero, who kept contemplating scenarios and solutions in her head.
How was this possible?
"If that's the case, then who knows?" Phoebe decided to fish, and took Lila's bobbling bait. The waters of the uncertainty and unknown of the Lila Sawyer and her possible lies were drowning her. She could be the prey of a trap. If that all of this was true though, then why would she flee from the scene of the crime?
"Why don't you ask your best friend's football headed god?" Lila teased again, still stretching her star. "Isn't that what she calls him?"
"Arnold knows?"
"Of course, Arnold knows! That is how I got him to come to the dance with me. I told him that if he didn't go to the dance with me, her secret would be revealed. I wrote the article, and I would publish it."
"Wait, but Arnold came to the dance with you! Why did you reveal the secret then? That doesn't make any sense." The Asian genius tried to place piece by piece of the crime together, but there was something missing. There was a piece or person that was still missing.
Lila quickly stood up in that second, edging herself closer to Phoebe. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. I did not put those articles in the disco ball. It wasn't me."
Now Phoebe really was confused. It had to have been Lila. However, if she was telling the truth, which she doubted, then who put those articles in the disco ball?
"You don't believe me, do you?" Lila sighed, and wrapped her arms around herself, to warm herself from the cold temperature of the concrete she had laid on.
"No, Lila. I don't." Phoebe exhaled and circled around to face away from the foe she had been fighting for a week now. "I did at one time."
"I don't know why you are here trying to act like the good guy anyway!" Lila put her hands up in frustration, before lingering a little further away from the emergency exit doors. "You aren't any better than me."
"I'm certain I don't know what you mean." Phoebe assured, still not turning to test the troubled eyes of the green-eyed goblin.
"Are you ever so certain you don't know what I mean?" Lila taunted, turning back around in a twisted turn. "I'm oh too certain you do."
"I don't know what you are talking about." Phoebe asserted, still refusing to acknowledge Lila's challenge to combat her. She was not looking for a fight.
"I know you did not tell Arnold and Helga the truth. You could not dare to tell them, could you? You didn't want them to know that you aren't the good girl you've always been." Lila continued, positioning herself to sit on the air conditioner that was set up in the hallway that they were in.
Phoebe confirmed nothing and let the silence around the two linger on.
Lila laughed once more. "Oh, this is ever so GOOD! Everyone will love to know that Phoebe Heyerdahl is a coward and a liar!"
"Stop it, Lila!" Phoebe suddenly spun to spit the warning to the woman waiting for her confession.
"You never told Arnold and Helga that I'm the one! I'm the one that hit Helga with the wine bottle!" Lila yelled, jumping off the air conditioner to approach her opponent.
"How could I?" Phoebe screamed, using the last arsenal of air she had saved in her lungs. "How I could tell one of your best friends and the boy who liked you that you did this?! That you were capable of something like this?! You were our friend! We trusted you!"
"You just don't get it, Phoebe." Lila whispered, and whirled out of the range of Phoebe's steaming stance. "You just don't fucking get it. Even after this all time. And I thought you were the smart one."
"Ugh, Lila. Just tell me what I'm missing here." Phoebe rolled her eyes. "I'm tired of playing games and I want to check on Helga."
"Stop trying to pretend that you are protecting Helga. I protected her that day! Hitting her on the head with that wine bottle was the best thing I could do for her!" Lila started to pace in the tiny space that the two had in between them.
"How is almost killing someone the best thing you could do for them?!" Phoebe contested. "Last time I checked, that's not really doing anyone any favors! Unless that favor is a hospital stay!"
"But it is, Phoebe." The demeanor of the demonic Lila Sawyer suddenly shifted, and Phoebe could swear a tear start to smear through the country chick's cheek. A silent sob snuck out from her mouth, and a cry came out in the complicated air of the fight.
"Lila?" Phoebe, despite being confused in the explanations and enigmas of the confrontation, slowly started to seek the destroyed layer that is Lila Sawyer. "What is going on? What do you mean it was the best thing that you could do for her? What do you know that we don't?"
"I can't tell you, Phoebe. She will know I told you." Lila murmured, and moved to wipe the makeup that was wrecked from the tears of the truth.
"Lila, if someone is making you do something you don't want to do, you don't have to do it. I can help you." Phoebe assured Lila.
"I wish you could. But it is too late. At least for me." Lila whispered, wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes. "I thought I had one more chance. I hurt Helga trying to save her, but it looks like that didn't stop her."
Phoebe wrapped her arms around the shoulders of Lila Sawyer, which she admitted, was not how she expected this evening to transpire. "Didn't stop who?"
"It's Rhonda. Rhonda Lloyd."
