Ally and Lilly broke off from their own crowd and started walking toward the gym. “This is some crazy shit,” Lilly said, looking to her as they pass classrooms on both sides. “It’s almost like it isn’t even real.”

Ally looked to her, “Yeah…my stomach just doesn’t sit well knowing that someone did this to her.”

“It makes my blood boil.”

The doors of the gym were heavy to open, but Ally was able to push it and prop it stuck. Thankfully, it had not been locked.

“You could argue that if it were then it’d just narrow down possible scenes of the crime,” Jace said.

“True, although I guess we’re here to be more thorough than quick.”

She and Lilly saw that the gym looked to be spotlessly cleaned like it was every night. “If it happened here it wasn’t in plain sight,” Ally said, looking out across the spacious room. Decorative blue and gold banners spread out across the walls that all said some variation of “WOMBAT PRIDE!”

“I don’t think I’d be able to play in here ever again if it had,” Lilly said. “They both always came to my games…”

Ally walked closer and put a hand on her back, “Hey, it’s going to be okay…Rosie’s still alive. She’s going to be okay…this all is.”

Lilly gave her a weak smile, nodded, and then turned to the set of bleachers furthest from the door they entered in. “C’mon and help me.” She moved to its side and began cranking the lever that extended the bleachers out.

Ally nodded and stepped behind her, placing her hand on Lilly’s and cranking it with her. In the short time Ally’s known Lilly she knew that in a situation just like this Lilly would be the first person to take the obvious opportunity for innuendo and make some joke of it. It was one that even Jace would consider too on-the-nose.

Now, though, Lilly wasn’t in a joking mood. Neither was she, but it made her even less so to be aware of it.

They fully extended the bleachers and let go of the lever.

“You know…” Lilly began, “I used to be scared of these things when I was younger.”

“The bleachers?”

“Stupid, right?” She said, not looking at her. “There was something about how open of a space there is under every seat…it was kind of like that feeling you get when you think there’s a monster underneath your bed.”

Ally cocked her head to look at the bleachers, “Yeah, I guess I can see that. But it’d be pretty hard to fall through there unless you were trying to.”

“It’s not that hard if you’re trying to…”

Ally looked at her. “Have you tried to?”

Lilly grinned, “Yeah. Nothing cheesy like face my fears or whatever bullshit they put on TV.” She began, climbing up from the side and sliding her thin body through the space underneath the seat, landing on the other side. “I used to get bullied a lot when I was younger because I didn’t play well with others. Chicken or the egg situation, really. I guess I could be responsible if you went back far enough, but it still ended up being a lot of people versus myself. It wasn’t anything more than teasing until sixth grade. That’s when people like Ashley started becoming…well, they became little bitches. But they became aggressive because they realized how much they could get away with.”

“Are their parents really that powerful?” Ally asked.

Lilly rolled her eyes, “Ashley’s parents are richer than any else in this town. Anything they don’t own they know who does and has some sort of sway over them one way or another. Anyway, what it boiled down to was that Ashley and her little gang…there were two more girls that no longer go here that were with her at the time…they all beat me up I think a total of three times that year.”

“What?!” Ally stepped back, “That’s crazy. And they never got in trouble?”

“The two girls did, only accessories as far as Ashley cared. They got booted out to military school I believe. Ashley went unpunished. The fourth time that they tried to get at me I ran in here. The bleachers were just like this—I think a class had just gotten through with. I had no other choice but to hide myself underneath the bleachers. And it was under there I found someone else had the same idea as me.”

Ally’s brow furrowed as she looked at her close.

“I didn’t first meet the twins at breakfast,” she said, her eyes closed. “I first got to know them there, yes, but that encounter under the bleachers is where we first saw each other. We didn’t say a word. It was way too risky to. We huddled against the wall and prayed nobody started to wind those seats back up. We would have been found out definitely if so…these all would start to come back in to the wall and we’d either have to make a sound or be crushed.”

“So nobody did end up winding it back in.”

Lilly nodded. “We weren’t found, and we left just as we had come in. We went our separate ways and when I saw them that next morning in breakfast that’s when I approached them.”

“I had no idea,” Ally said.

“Yeah, that was the last straw for me…that last time being chased. That’s when I started training and joined the volleyball team. I wanted to show them that I wasn’t some scared kid who hid from them.”

“But…you were…are.”

Lilly looked at her with something she couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t anger, but it wasn’t humor. “Yeah, I guess I am still that person.” She backed away from the opening, looked around the ground underneath the bleachers for a little longer, and then slid out. “I guess we’re not really all that different than how we want to be.”

“I’m…sorry,” Ally said. “You seem to be much braver than me, so I think you might be underestimating yourself.”

She shook her head, “I’m not brave. I’m just a bitch. Useless, too. Couldn’t protect my best friend and now I can’t find any god damn evidence to find out who did,” she slammed her fist into the wall.

“Hey hey hey,” Ally pulled her away and clasped both of her hands around the fist that now sprouted blood. “You aren’t to blame for this. And we’re both going to find whatever it is we need to, and if not then someone else will and we’ll figure it out together.”

“Now enough of that poor-me attitude,” Jace said, as if speaking directly to her.

“Now enough of that attitude,” Ally repeated, lightening the blow. “We’re on an investigation.”

Lilly looked up to her, “You know, sometimes you can be tough yourself,” and grinned.

“Yeah yeah, I’m supposed to be the emotional one and you’re supposed to be the soulless one. Now come on, let’s check the other sets of bleachers quick.”

Lilly nodded, then held her fist in her hand and took in a sharp breath. “Oooh the pain just set in.”

“That’s why you don’t punch walls.”

She flexed her fingers and was relieved to see that none of them were broken. “Yeah, I realize that.”

Ally walked over to the set of bleachers closer to the entrance and extended them out just the same. Just like before there wasn’t anything there. The other half of the gym held just the same amount of interest.

“Dang, this place is cleaner than a whistle,” Ally said, climbing out from under the last of them.

“Let’s go check the locker rooms,” Ally said, “I’ll take girls and you take boys?”

“And have you killed by the murderer in hiding? Have you never watched a single horror movie in your life? Never split up while investigating.”

“Right…” Lilly said.

They walked in the men’s locker room first. Ally looked around with an obvious wonder. “Even though it’s exactly how I expected it to look it’s still a bit weird seeing the inside of it for the first time.” The inside was just as clean as the gym outside had been. There weren’t any clues.

“You’ve never been?” Lilly asked.

“Why would I?”

“A fair point.”

“Why, have you?”

“There was a time back in seventh grade when our locker room had some sort of mold growing inside it that was so bad we couldn’t use it for like a month. We had to alternate using this locker room with the boys.”

“A whole month? That’s kind of crazy.”

“Yeah, guys are a lot cleaner if they realize they might get judged for how messy they really are,” Lilly laughed. “It’s not that scandalous as I made it seem.”

“Scandalous?”

“I would have thought you would have asked if there were any complications with the boys and the girls using the same locker room.”

“I…I really didn’t think much of it.”

Lilly turned, “I thought so,” And chuckled.

“What?” Ally asked.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Is there anything over there in any of those lockers?” She asked surreptitiously, opening one nearest to her.

Jace beside her was chuckling as well, he was trying his hardest not to burst out laughing.

“What are you laughing at?”

“That you don’t get it.”

“What is there to get?”

“You know it. Otherwise I wouldn’t know it. You just don’t let yourself feel it.”

She looked puzzled, but then she saw it on Lilly’s face. She was blushing. She couldn’t help but find warmness in her own face. “What is…this is not the time!”

“Is there really a time?”

“This is the worst possible time to do anything but look for clues.”

“That isn’t going to stop you from looking back now, is it?”

And as he said it she flashed back instantly to first meeting Lilly. “Maybe you just haven’t been bitten by the right person.” It was something she felt but that wasn’t important. It wasn’t important in anything but just something she felt once—no not just once why was she just lying to herself to make it sound better from the outside none of this was going to help find who killed Josie and none of it at all was going to help if she couldn’t stop just stop please stop thinking about—

Lilly was standing in front of her, holding her by each arm. She smelled like flowers like she always did. Ally looked back at her, shaking. No oh god no why is she looking at me like that I promise I wasn’t thinking it again I tried so hard to keep focused it just wouldn’t stop and to hear how hard you had it only made it worse I just wanted to—

“Can I kiss you?”

It broke through everything. Ally wasn’t sure who asked it. She hoped to GOD it wasn’t her. She didn’t know what she would do now—probably just shrivel up and die herself…but then she realized that it wasn’t her who asked.

Lilly did.

“I…I…uh….y-yes…” Ally stammered out. “I’m sorry…I…”

And Lilly kissed her. Everything stopped, and then started back up slowly as she finished.

“I’m…not sure why I didn’t have the courage to ask that any time before this,” Lilly said, and she looked down, “I um…am not brave. I know we’re investigating Josie’s murder, and I know it’s so stupid to ask but I couldn’t stop thinking about it since I first met you.”

Ally was speechless. Her mind was reeling, trying to recover.

“I…” she looked to the side, down, then back up to her, regaining her resolve. “I told Rosie about what I felt that very first day and she told me to ask you. She pushed me to do it and I kept chickening out. I almost did it when I asked to go to your house…but I chickened out then too and invited them both.” She was talking faster, nervous. “I need to focus to find out who did this to my best friend, and I couldn’t before because I kept thinking about how scared I was. It invaded every thought like a poison and…”

Ally kissed her back. “I know,” and nodded. “I…I know. Now, let’s focus, together, okay?”

Lilly nodded a smile bigger than any she’d seen on her face.

They checked the rest of the lockers, there was nothing else there aside for what they expected to be. All that was left was to check the girl’s locker room.

~…~

Aoi opened the doors to the library slowly. The smell of blood hit him heavy when he stepped through. Carlos was behind him and even he recoiled as he began to smell.

“Aughhk…” Carlos began, “I think we found something big.”

Aoi walked out past the librarian’s desk and the computer stations to their left. The bookshelves were stacked in rows. Between the second and third bookshelves he could see the bloodstains in the carpet. It was a thick crimson sight that took him by surprise. “Oh…god…”

Carlos didn’t enter the library, “How bad?”

“Bad.”

He stuck his head in, and then let go of the breath he’d been holding when he saw. “That’s it?” He walked closer toward it, looking down, “Gosh, I thought there were guts or brain matter or something.”

Aoi was definitely taken for a loop.

“I mean, it sucks that someone died, yeah. But I mean it’s just blood.”

“Yeah…just blood.”

“Psh, you probably see this much if you break something.”

Aoi took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t so much know. I’ve never really broken anything.”

“Shit, really?”

Aoi nodded, bending down in front of the blood. The smell made him woozy for a second, but he adapted quickly. “Nah, closest I get is a pulled muscle when I’m at it too long in the pool.”

“By it you mean…” Carlos began.

“Well having gloriously hot gay sex of course. To me that’s just sex, though,” Aoi said.

Carlos’s eyes widened, “No way…”

“Yeah I’m just joking. I may be good, but not that good. No, I swim when it’s nice out and train when it’s not. Other than that I’m just taking it easy.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be taking much of anything easy after something like this,” he said. “Wait a second…” he looked around the floor. “If there’s blood here, then where is the object that caused this?”

Aoi began to think. He rested his head on his arm and tapped his forehead. “I don’t think a book could have done that kind of damage…but we can’t rule it out until we have more to go off of. Are any of those there on the shelf off to you?” Aoi asked.

Carlos turned to look at the books on the shelves. The only ones with any sort of blood on them are on the third bookshelf’s lower side. Blood must have splattered onto some of the spines, but none of them concentrated enough to be a source.

“They’re all off to me. I never come in here.”

“Neither do I.”

Carlos laughed. “Shit, why’d you pick here to investigate, then?”

“I assumed it’d be empty,” Aoi shrugged his shoulders.

Carlos grinned and shook his head, “No way, I don’t buy it. You’re one of them smarts that’s at like the top of the class.”

Aoi shrugged, “I have a good memory. That’s about all there is to it.”

“Huh, and here all this time I thought you were just trying to show off.”

Aoi took a deep breath, “No, no I don’t care much for the attention. Well…unless it’s concerning Derek. I’ll admit I’m a bit vain when we’re acknowledged publicly. Took quite a bit of time for people to get used to it, you know?”

“Yeah…uh, I know some of the others gave you shit about that at first.”

Aoi didn’t falter, he only gave his same old-goofy smile. “I know a lot of those same others still give you trouble for being west-end.”

“Seems there’s a common thread,” Carlos said. “I can’t believe I expected much of anything positive to say to you.”

Aoi grinned, “Consider me a player for both teams. It seems to work for more ways than one.”

Carlos shook his head and laughed, and then all of a sudden his eyes went wide. “Wait a second…I think I see something here.” He walked closer to the blood and bent over, reaching his hand and picking out something from inside. It looked to be a small slip of paper—just like the ones that came out of fortune cookies. It was coated in blood, but Carlos could just barely read what was printed on it:

I KNOW WHO KILLED CARLEIGH HEIGHTS.

“Holy shit.” Carlos said, letting go of the slip and taking a step back.

Aoi looked up, “Huh, thought you said it wasn’t that—” He looked at the slip as it fell to the ground. “Oh…”

“…The question is if this was the victim’s or the killer’s.” Carlos said.

“Whoever’s it was means that this just got a whole lot more complicated…” Aoi said.

“I just thought of something.” Carlos said, shaking his head. “The morning announcements back in homeroom said something about keys going missing? You remember that?”

At first Aoi wondered what it had to do with the slip of paper or the murder, but then he remembered His eyes lit up, “Oh yeah!” he was pointing now, “Yeah the trophy case was broken into, right? Something like the master keys were stolen and the basketball, volleyball, and soccer trophies were all stolen.”

“What if one of them is our murder weapon?”

“That’s a possibility,” Aoi nodded. “I’ll grab this,” he said, taking the slip of paper with him carefully. “C’mon, let’s go check out the trophy case and see if there’s anything there we can find.”

Carlos nodded and the two of them left the library.

~…~

Tyson and Adam stood opposite of one another in the cafeteria—still yet unsearched. As soon as they entered a disagreement had erupted forth between the both of them.

Tyson’s brown eyes narrowed, “What happened to you?” He asked. “You used to be so motivated.”

“Motivated? Used to? Nothing’s changed,” Adam shrugged.

Tyson bit his lip. “Yes, it has. Ever since you hooked up with Ashley you’ve been drained of everything you used to be.”

“Y-You shut it,” Adam snarled, “She hasn’t done nothing.”

“Exactly,” Tyson sighed. “Listen, do any of the times we had mean nothing to you?”

“Ask Carleigh that question.”

“I didn’t kill Carleigh. I had no reason.”

“You wanted her money,” Adam said.

“How does that even make sense?” Tyson asked.

“It’s so obvious,” Adam retorted.

“No, it really isn’t,” he crossed his arms.

“We gave you a chance, Tyson! And you blew it! West-enders can’t ever be more than garbage.”

Tyson looked at him stern, “Do you even hear what you’re saying? You’re trying so hard to spout Ashley’s talking points you’re ten steps removed from the actual conversation.”

He went to argue, but some sort of sense must have entered his head as he stopped and looked at him.

“I’m not, nor was I married to Carleigh. I’m fourteen, far from the legal age of marriage.”

“S-So?” Adam argued.

He was getting defensive.

“Any money she or her family has would not then go to me when she died. I had no reason to kill her for money.”

“Well, it’s obvious that you didn’t realize that until after you killed her, duh.” He crossed his arms.

“Really?” Adam cocked his head. “Do you know who saved you from failing Biology last year?”

“…you,” Adam tried his hardest not to look at him.

“That’s right. And Music Theory?”

“…you.”

“…And Algebra?”

“What’s your point?”

Tyson sighed again and placed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Do you think I’d not know that? Seriously.”

Adam looked aside, “…no.”

“I wouldn’t kill her. I loved her.”

Adam rolled his tongue in his mouth and was bobbing his head up and down.

“Come on, you have got to see that Ashley’s just a prejudiced bitch who’s filled you with her nonsense.”

“She didn’t do this!” He cried out.

Tyson held up his hands, “I didn’t say she did. Although it is very suspicious that she’s so intent on saying I did do it, and we cannot deny that she’s got a prejudice against the twins, no?”

Adam was now tapping his foot, faster, and then faster. He growled a sort of sound and then began pacing back and forth, shaking his head. “No, nope. She’d not do anything like that, she—” and then he stopped in his tracks and looked straight at Tyson. “They didn’t charge you with a single thing?”

Tyson shook his head.

He nodded and then looked to the floor.

“Look, let’s just look around, and we’ll find what we find,” Tyson offered. “But please keep baseless accusations at home; I’ve been blamed enough for things.”

With the smallest of nods Adam agreed. “….okay.”