Tristan had never been to the hospital for anything other than a checkup before. The sight of a room filled with miserable looking people hit him much more than he expected.

No, what really caught him off guard was the new victim. Another kid. Just thinking about it brought him back to just a day earlier, when he found himself standing in a pool of a Rose Aldrich’s blood. He felt his legs starting to tremble.

How did it end up like this?

Thinking back to the watch sitting in his apartment, he knew that he was partially responsible for whatever happened today. After all, he was keeping it a secret from Nicolas and Arlene.

He looked at their backs in front of him, and then to Bridget at his side. His stomach churned like a boat taking on water and capsizing. There was no way he was going to tell them anything. There was no telling how they might react. He was surrounded by maniacs.

They arrived at the hospital around 9:30. It had been difficult to get downtown, and after getting to the crime scene and talking with a few officers, Nicolas decided that they would go to the hospital where the comatose victim was. He left some gumshoe types to look through as much of the security footage as they could.

“Mr. and Mrs. Moretti. I’m detective Nicolas Blane and this is my partner Arlene Ferguson,” Nicolas spoke first, pulling his badge from his jacket pocket. “I’m sorry to be coming to you during this very difficult time. If possible, we’d like to ask the two of you some questions about your son in private.”

The middle-aged couple nodded their heads in pained silence.

“Tristan, you stay here with Bridget,” Nicolas turned back to him. “And don’t talk to anyone if you can avoid it.”

Tristan expected Bridget to tell Nicolas that she could talk with whoever she wanted to, but she simply turned on her heels and walked away toward an alcove of chairs far down the hall from the larger waiting room.

Nicolas and Arlene walked down the hall in the opposite direction, followed by the victim’s parents until they were out of sight.

Tristan glanced around the room. There were four teenagers, three girls and one boy, as well as a man in his mid-twenties wearing a baseball cap. They all sat quietly, and they didn’t seem particularly interested in him.

Except the boy. Was he a family member of the victim? A friend? Tristan had no idea, but the teenager looked back with a gaze so piercing it could cut right through him.

His heart raced. He had no reason to feel anxious, but something about the look frightened him. It was one of pure hatred. He felt a panic attack coming on. He had to get away. Now. Without another thought, he turned around, walking to the alcove where Bridget sat.

“So,” he sat down across from her. He took a deep breath as he tried to cool his nerves. “You must go through… a lot of guitars.”

“You really are an idiot,” Bridget said, crossing her legs. “Trying to crack a joke to lighten things up.”

He couldn’t deny that she was right. Honestly, he wanted to just crawl into a hole and die.

“Look, I’m not really the type to hide how I’m feeling,” Bridget said, turning her head toward a stack of old magazines sitting on a table against the inside wall of the alcove. She reached over and grabbed one. “You don’t need to try and pretend like you aren’t sad. It’s written all over your face… uh, what was your name again?”

“It’s Tristan,” he said, looking down at the floor. “And it’s that obvious, huh?”

“Obvious? You’re practically screaming it in my face,” she opened up the magazine, flipping through a couple pages. “So shut up.”

Tristan did as he was told. He settled into his chair, looked up at the ceiling, and let his mind wander. What was New Universe doing right now? Was she looking forward to seeing him? Thinking about someone like Nicolas listening in on his potentially intimate conversation made him sick to his stomach. He wondered if he should just cancel the whole thing right then and there.

He removed his phone from his pocket and opened up the Clock Link app. It had been an entire day since he last looked at his profile, something that would never have happened before he was mixed up in all of this. The History Girl’s group chat was filled with messages. He would have to go through them later.

He had also received a number of messages from her.

New Universe: “Hey~!”

New Universe: “I guess you’re busy today.”

New Universe: “Just wanted to let you know how excited I am about our date tomorrow. I’m going to be all dolled up, so look forward to it!”

He had to do it. He could cancel the date and then delete the message from his inbox history. That way, she’d never show and he could play it off like she stood him up. He started to type out a message to her, but stopped halfway through.

No, that wouldn’t work. Nicolas was too thorough. If she didn’t show up at the café, he would demand that he send her a message asking where she was. If she replied back with ‘I thought you had to cancel’, the whole thing would blow up in his face.

He hit the backspace button until the message box was empty again. Empty. That’s how he felt. He was going on his first date, and it was with a girl that genuinely seemed interested in him. Of course, someone just had to ruin it.

“You look like you’re ready to kill someone,” Bridget said.

He realized that his gums hurt. He was clenching and grinding his teeth as hard as he could. He tried to relax. “Written on my face again?”

“Clear as day,” she said. She looked back at her magazine, but then looked back up. “Hey.”

“What?” Tristan sighed, putting the palm of his hand over his eyes in a feeble attempt to fight off his oncoming headache.

“You don’t really seem like the detective type,” she said. “Why are you hanging around a piece of shit like Nicolas anyway?”

“That’s because I’m not a detective,” Tristan said. “Never have been, never wanted to be.”

Bridget looked him up and down. “Not sure what good you’d do for an investigation,” she said without a single hint of hesitation in her voice. “No way you’re an abnormal.”

“Unlike Nicolas, I don’t know your jargon,” Tristan said. “Type-1, Type-2, abnormal. Sounds like a diagnosis for diabetes.”

“Figures,” she let the magazine rest in her lap. “I’m a pretty good judge when it comes to picking out people, and you’re obviously as normal as they come.”

“You’re not even going to explain what you’re talking about?”

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“Why should I?”

He wasn’t sure how to answer.

“So, normie,” she said. “How did you end up tagging along with the psychopath and the ice queen?”

“Why should I tell you?” He tried imitating her tone of voice, but immediately regretted it.

“Because if you don’t, you’ll piss me off,” she pointed at him with a flick of her wrist. “And if I’m pissed off, I can’t guarantee I won’t break something. Something like you.”

He knew she was serious. She had smashed a guitar into kindling like it was nothing. He was clearly not in a position to be mouthing off.

“I was the type that, uh, never left the house,” he said.

“Not surprised.”

“Well… I ended up making the stupid mistake of leaving on April 1st,” he tried to ignore her insult. “I was downtown, and then forced to be involved in something I never asked to be.”

“The dead girl, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing hard.

“You knew her or something?”

“I mean, I guess I didn’t know her personally,” he said. “She just worked for a convenience store near where I live. She delivered stuff to my house from time to time.”

“You have them deliver to you?” she narrowed her eyes.

“I was a shut in!” Tristan stammered, his cheeks flushed. “I couldn’t go to the store so I made the store come to me!”

“So you’re all torn up over it or what?”

“Of course I am,” he said. “I saw her dead right in front of me.”

“And what about the boy down the hall from here?”

“Of course, I…” he found his mind drifting back to his apartment where the watch was tucked in his desk drawer. “I… feel sorry for him. Are you saying you don’t?”

Bridget paused a moment before picking the magazine off her lap and setting it back on the table to her left. “For me, the question isn’t how I feel,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “The question is if I’m going to do anything about it.”

“Huh?”

“If you’re not going to do anything,” she sat back in her seat. “Then as far as I’m concerned, you have no right to feel anything.”

“Me? Do something?” Tristan asked. “That must be easy to say when you have super human strength.”

“Bullshit.”

“You have no idea what it’s like to be weak.”

“I’m a good judge of people,” Bridget grabbed the armrests of her chair, causing the wood to splinter. “And all I see in front of me right now is someone that wants to be weak. Someone that wants to wallow in their own fucking self-pity.”

“What the hell do you know?”

“I would be surprised if you cared about a single person other than your fucking self.”

That shut him up.

“Give me a break,” Bridget reached back over to the table of magazines, snatching one up and turning to a random page.

They sat there for a few moments silently, both of their emotions still hanging in the air.

“You kids ready to go?” Nicolas appeared at the entrance of the alcove, Arlene by his side.

Bridget ripped the magazine she was holding in half.

“Did you find anything?” Tristan asked, making no attempt at changing his tone from his argument with Bridget.

“We interviewed his parents, as well as his siblings and apparent friends,” Arlene said. “As of now, it would appear they know nothing that would lead us to believe he would be targeted for any particular reason.”

“So in other words,” Nicolas said, stretching his body out like an old man. “We’re at a dead end. We could be dealing with random attacks for all we know.”

Random attacks. The thought ran through Tristan’s head. They likely weren’t random at all.

He thought back to the red watch in Rose’s picture. He supposed that it could have just been a regular watch. They were out of style, but it wasn’t as if no one used them anymore.

Still, he couldn’t get it out of his head. If she had been murdered for it, then it meant that the boy today could have been attacked for the same reason.

He glanced over at Bridget, who was still holding the pieces of the destroyed magazine in each of her hands as she got up out of her seat.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he really didn’t care about anyone but himself. That was certainly how he had been living his life for the last year. His family was only useful to him as long as they would enable his lifestyle. Friends? Yeah, right. The number of friends on his Clock Link profile were meaningless.

Well, expect for maybe one. New Universe. He didn’t know what she looked like, or even her name, but the connection between the two of them was something that was real. It needed to be.

And what about Rose? Sure, he didn’t know much about her, but did that really matter? He pictured opening the door of his apartment and being greeted by her big smile. Small talk about the weather. A comment on the shirt he was wearing. Her bloodied dress. Her lifeless hand stretched out toward him.

It may have been insignificant to her, but she had been kind to him. He took that for granted. He took everything in his life for granted.

He thought back to the watch in his drawer at home. If he wore it, would he become a target? There was only one way to find out.

Arlene’s phone rang.

“Yes?” she answered it, emotionless as ever. “Understood. Send it.”

“What was that about?” Nicolas asked.

“A suspect.”

“What!?”

“Someone moved places in the security footage,” she said. “They are sending a picture of the suspect as we speak.”

“Wait, like they were in one place on camera and then in another when it turned back on?” Tristan tried to keep his voice low.

“Correct.”

Arlene’s phone buzzed. After taking a glance at the screen, she held it out for them. The picture was in full color, and showed a street filled with people. After letting them take it in, she pointed toward the center.

She was pointing at a woman in a ski cap. She was tall, and her hair was long and blood red.

There was no mistaking it. Tristan had seen her going into the convenience store in front of his apartment.

The convenience store where Rose Aldrich worked.