The payback rule in Ravenville was simple.
If somebody tried to kill you, and failed, then their life was on the line. Their friends could not protect them, and they could not feign ignorance about it. They could try to fight back, but the payback rule did not go both ways, so if the issue failed to be settled at the first payback attempt then the victim could continue trying to even it out until one of them was dead. But nobody could simply claim another person had attacked them and get a free kill simply by citing the payback rule. There had to be tangible evidence of the culprit, something to prove it was a specific person beyond a reasonable doubt, and it had to be presented to a third party unaffiliated with either attempted killer or attempted victim before payback could be really, properly pursued. Simply put, if you had evidence of who had tried to kill you, and you showed it to somebody else you didn’t know in order to sign off on it, then you had a freebie to kill them, and do what they had failed to.
Michael understood all this very well. He understood that for very many people, he was that unaffiliated third party. The reviewer of evidence, the one that passed judgment. He also knew that he was, in just as many cases, the one that carried out that sentence and maintained the payback rule. That was just how it was. He was given a case of somebody asking for payback, they presented evidence, he decided if it sounded good enough, and moved out from there. Sometimes he had to do the investigation himself, gathering the evidence for those that had survived but badly injured, but ultimately they still had to prove it and assemble the evidence together. That was how it was.
He understood all that very, very well.
But it did not explain why, between fourth and fifth period on a Wednesday, Sarah was trailing behind a mousy girl with dark hair, thick glasses, and bandages wrapping around her neck that stopped before a trail of butterfly strips going up the side of her face. She was whispering to the girl, gesturing like she was trying to get her attention, but she wasn’t stopping even as the transfer between classes continued and people kept drifting through the halls.
Michael stopped in his tracks and leaned against the wall, taking her in as she approached. The bandages were fresh and the blood still red underneath the butterfly strips, with no sign of scabbing visible. She was looking at him with certainty, like she knew exactly who he was and knew why he needed him. The flinches in her face were poorly hidden, corner of her mouth twitching like it kept freshly hurting and she wasn’t used to it.
He had a feeling of what this would require.
She stopped in front of him, taking a pained breath before beginning.
“Somebody tried to kill me last night.”
“I inferred.”
“Yeah, I was sure that you did.” She cleared her throat. “Michael Jay, my name is Jane Polera, and I would like to claim payback.”
“Noted.” Michael stood up off the wall. “Do you know who tried it?”
“No,” She replied immediately. “I don’t have enough evidence, and I don’t know where to begin. I know that you do your own investigation sometimes if people agree to help out, and I’m willing to go along with that. But I want payback on that.”
He nodded, but held his tongue on a response as Sarah pushed past the crowd and threw a hand on Jane’s shoulder, trying to pull her away.
“Jane, no, don’t do this–”
“Sarah, there’s no other option,” She snapped back. “I’m getting payback, and I’m going to know that I’m safe.”
“Well, I–okay, fine, sure. But you can’t use him.” Sarah gestured at him. “There’s the rule about impartiality and the whole disconnection thing–”
“I don’t know her.” Michael shrugged. “Seriously. If she’s your friend, then I wouldn’t know, and it still counts.”
Sarah blinked in confusion, and Jane poked at the hand on her shoulder. She removed it, stepping away from the two of them, and Jane turned back to Michael, waiting for his verdict.
He would do it. It was his role, and this was how it was. If she wanted him to execute her payback before bringing the police in for some reason, then that was fine with him. Considering that she was asking him, her parents likely hadn’t noticed or had bought whatever excuse for the injuries she had come up with. It was a simple invocation of the payback rule.
But he didn’t want to do another simple invocation, like he had done so many times before. That was boring. And he had the chance to do something interesting, now. To tie two things together.
“I will take you up on that,” he answered. “I will investigate and find evidence as to who did it. However, I would like to add an exception this time.”
Jane nodded, and he pointed to Sarah. “I would like to bring her into this. As an assistant and stand-in for an evidentiary guiding sight.”
“Is this because of you teaching her?” Jane seemed to actually smile. “I guess she really needs some firsthand experience. She told me about the puking.”
“Jane, what the hell?” “Sarah, it’s pretty funny.”
“I had just–you know, why wouldn’t I be vomiting? You would be stressed in that situation too!”
“Oh, absolutely,” Jane said to her. She flinched from the pain, reaching up to the butterfly strips, but she still grinned at Sarah. “But I’m so going to make fun of you for it. You ruined that shirt with all that hose water.”
“Shut. Shut up. Shut your mouth.”
“Okay, fine.” Jane shrugged, turning back to Michael. “But, yes, I’m okay with Sarah filling my role here. As long as I get the payback, that’s what I care about. That’s all.”
“Understood.” Michael scanned the hall, judging how much time there was left, and he gestured for the two of them to follow him as he began moving. “We should relocate to somewhere quieter, then, as this is not a conversation to be overheard.”
He didn’t look back to see the others behind him, but he could tell that they were following as he took the next turn off the main hall and ducked into a classroom he knew was always empty around now. The lights were off, but the blinds were open, leaving the room lit in a way that the main color was the white of the walls and the black of the floor carpeting blending together into a faintly gray hue covering every surface, a shadow covering the very air and bringing the entire color of the room a step away from what it was and closer to nondescript vagueness, the pigment value of absence. The desks were dust free, and the posters with quotes from books that Michael only remembered because he had been forced to read them were still hanging on the wall. It wasn’t an abandoned classroom, just empty for a few hours, still used to people moving in and out and occupied by people leaving impressions behind. A good place for a conversation that he didn’t want to be overheard.
Michael stopped in the middle of the room, surrounded by desks, and Jane slowly sat on top of another one. She began to move like she was going to cross her legs on top of it, but flinched halfway through and just let them hang off, feet half on the ground. Sarah took a seat next to Jane, taking her backpack off and putting it on the ground next to her. She looked confused and suspicious, and Michael understood. It was something of a short notice to be thrown into a much more serious position, but he wasn’t going to backstab her. This was more to continue seeing if teaching her would be worth the effort. He had begun the plan for entertainment, and now was being met with a sinking feeling.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He didn’t appreciate it.
“What do you–ow–want to know?” Jane asked, smile gone and tone evening out.
“Several things. But first, a timeline, location, and description of the attack.” He slid a small notepad and a pencil out of the corner of his backpack, provoking a more curious look from Sarah that he ignored. He just motioned for Jane to begin, and she did.
“It was last night, in my basement. I was nostalgic and looking through some old sport equipment from when I was in elementary school, so I was in my basement in the piles of old stuff that we keep down there when I heard somebody forcing one of the windows open. I tried to grab something to use as a weapon, but they got inside, and I grabbed a lacrosse stick to fight them off. They cut my face, but I managed to hit them somewhere on the hand before they tried to cut my throat and run.”
“They landed a cut on your throat and then left?”
“I don’t really get it either, but I think I hit them hard enough that they were too injured to finish the job or something. I don’t know.” She reached up to rub at the bandages, only to jerk her hand away with a hiss of pain. “They didn’t hit any arteries, it was just a bunch of small cuts. I don’t get it.”
“It could mean a lot of things.” Michael didn’t look up from his notepad. “Did you see any facial features?”
“No, I didn’t really see any of him. I think it was a him, from how he sounded, but I couldn’t see anything about his face. He was white, but that was about it.”
“Gloves?” “I think so.” “Any idea of the weapon?” “Sharp, but I couldn’t see anything. I don’t think it was shiny.”
“Noted. Was there anything distinguishing that you saw at all? Clothes, shoes, perhaps a car?”
“Nope. They took longer to climb back out the window than I thought they would, but I wasn’t too focused on them because I was worried about my throat, you know. I think I hit them pretty hard, but I don’t know anything for sure.”
“Is that all?”
“It was late last night, so it was kind of dark in my basement, but yes. That’s all.”
“Alright.” Michael slid his backpack off one shoulder and placed the notepad and pencil back into the side pocket, making sure the notepad was facing inwards. Not a lot of evidence, but sufficient, and with an examination of the crime scene he was certain he could find more details and leads.
Sarah tapped Jane on the shoulder to get her attention. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Somebody tried to kill me. I kind of do.”
“But–there has to be another way. You can scare them off, or–maybe they won’t come back!”
“Sarah.” Jane wasn’t smiling this time. “These are the rules. I, I was the victim, they failed, and I need to get payback. That’s the only way that this will stop. That’s just how it works.”
The bell rang, shrill and sharp, signaling that they would officially be late to the next class, and though it was muffled from inside a classroom without one mounted inside, it was still loud enough to almost drown Sarah’s next words in a cacophony signaling that the day was not yet over.
“It shouldn’t be.”
“It’s just how it is, Sarah. You know that.” She gestured to Michael. “That’s why you’re learning from him, isn’t it? To understand the rules?”
Sarah pursed her lips, and Jane’s shoulders fell. “Don’t tell me this is about that again.”
“It’s not! Okay, maybe a little bit. You know how much I care about this.”
“Sarah. This is just how it is. That’s that. You can’t go looking for something more if there’s nothing else there.”
“There has to be something.”
Jane sighed. “Leave it, Sarah. Just–leave it.”
“I am still here,” Michael interjected. “If this is settled. Jane, I would like to come over to the scene after school today, assuming that you haven’t dramatically altered the basement.”
“No. My parents were going to replace the lock on the window, but that isn’t until later tonight. I told them I got attacked by a raccoon I let in because I heard things outside and that I just broke the lock.”
“Good. I’ll be there after school then. You too, Sarah.”
“Yeah, I–” Sarah took a deep breath, smoothing out her hair before speaking again. “I’ll be there. Jane, are you sure you want me here for this?”
“You might as well use your burning desire to investigate things for a purpose. And I trust you, yeah.”
“Okay.” Something seemed to harden within her eyes. “Then I’ll find out who got you. I don’t think you should kill them, but I’ll find out who stopped you.”
Michael glanced between the two of them, Sarah wearing an expression like she had swallowed a bitter pill and Jane looking at her with trust and worry, and gave a single nod. “In that case, I shall see you later today.”
He left the room and moved through the now-empty hallways with haste, one final move left on his mind. The suspect list was admittedly thin, without evidence, but he would take any lead that he could get. He should, by his own rules, have waited for Sarah to suggest such a thing, as she was in the position of needing to direct the investigation. But Jane had said something that, almost certainly devoid of intention, had brought back the odd feeling he had previously felt when Brad showed up at Sarah’s doorstep that night.
Ducking into the bathroom, Michael slipped into a stall, locked it, and began looking around in his backpack. He didn’t like carrying around what amounted to incriminating evidence on his person, but it was in many ways the safest option, especially if his parents saw it and worried that he had left his own phone at home.
There wasn’t much battery left in Matthew’s phone at all, and Michael expected that it would only last for another few calls at most. He didn’t have a charger for it. But he had a hunch.
Jane was right. Somebody had just tried to kill Sarah. And while there was no evidence that the attempt on Jane was connected, they were so close together in terms of timing that he had suspicions. Nothing on this phone would prove anything, but it could give him an idea.
The phone’s menu was still on the call history when he flipped it open, and the last two calls were still one to Brad and one from Brad that had been missed. Past that, though, things began to make sense. Several calls to not only Brad the day before the party, but to his friends, names that Michael did somewhat recognize. Joe Walnut, Aaron Fitzrun, there was a Kelly listed that he didn’t recognized but assumed to have been the girl that Brad had shown up with last time. Further back before the party, the calls were less frequent, but Brad had been the primary contact for the last month, and it was virtually only calls between these people. A few calls to his parents, one to a number that Michael recognized as the main pizza parlor down on the main street, but otherwise it was primarily to Brad and his friend group. Nothing too new or special. Nothing that directly gave evidence, and nothing that validated the hunch, but it was strange.
Something in Michael wanted to really push his luck, to try calling one of the people in here and seeing what they knew. Not Brad, but maybe one of his friends. Even if he said nothing, merely let it play, he could gauge their reactions, or maybe he could interrogate them and ensure their silence by invoking the threat of the payback process.
But no. That would be a poor idea. If they found out he was responsible, he could expose himself. And they wouldn’t need payback to come after him. They could just try to kill him, at any point. There was no rule limiting when that could happen. They could just do it.
No, he wouldn’t do that. Even having the phone was a risk. He had gained all the information that he could from it, and now every moment that he had it would be a moment that he could incriminate himself. This had produced all the evidence that it could.
Michael dropped the phone into the toilet and flushed, zipping his backpack up as he watched the phone spin and vanish down the drain. His stomach felt like it should have gone with it, sinking through the floor, but there was nothing to back that up. This investigation would proceed independently, Sarah and Jane would present their case, Jane would say if she wanted the full execution of payback or just a warning, and then things would continue as normal. That was how it was.
It may have been empty, but perhaps this time it could be interesting.