Simon Death High (10 page)

“Oh, your drunken dad...I don't even think
he knows you're gone—which is the perfect lifestyle for a criminal,
right? You have a history of fighting and more fighting,” Tyler
laughed.

“That doesn't mean I’m a killer. That's a
big difference, buddy,” she said quickly after. “If you think
you're gonna make me crack, ha, you've got a lot of learning!”

“What does that mean?”

“I know what you're up to,” Linda said, as
if she were a police. “Michael didn't kill Hannah and she isn't
even dead. You're trying to scare us, and trying to make us tell
the truth.”

“So, you guys are lying is what you're
saying?” Tyler said. “So, you guys are working together?”

“No, we just have each others back. We are
all best friends.”

“You can never truly know a person until
you're in their shoes.”

“I think you're just trying to end this case
so you can go back to California. You're trying to pend this case
on one of us because you want to move on with your life.”

Tyler began to laugh—the kind of laugh with
no sound, with his mouth wide open, “You think you're so smart, but
you're not. You didn't even know I was a cop. So, you don't know
crap!”

Linda crossed her arms and pouted her lip.
“I'm not going to say anything else. May I leave?”

“Not until you tell me what you know.”

“I won't say anything else because I’m a
minor and need an adult or lawyer.”

“Fine! So, should I even bother talking to
Adam or will he need a lawyer too? What was the point of me
bringing you guys here?”

“Yeah, what was the point?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Can I go home now that you have insulted me
and called me a dumbass.”

With an attitude, Tyler snatched Linda up
like she was a child. He pulled out his cigarette as if he were
going to light it and pointed for her to leave the room. Linda held
her breath as she saw Hannah, Michael, and Lucy hugging. As she let
out a sigh of relief, Linda ran over to them and kissed Hannah.

Adam walked over to them and he began to
cheer. “Hannah, you're alive!” he cheered again. “That's awesome
because they told us you were dead.”

“Um, yeah,” Hannah said. “Lucy told me
everything. I cannot believe they would do something like that.
They told me and Michael that Linda was killed.”

“Did Tyler try to intimidate you too?” Linda
asked.

“Of course,” Michael added. “I just want
this day to be over...or this whole era of my life to be over!”

Tyler slammed his office door shut due to
them talking too loudly. They could still see him typing at his
desk. It bugged nosy Linda to not know what was on his mind. That
was the time she wished she had superpowers—she would want to read
minds.

“What is going on?” Hannah said. “Why are we
here? Why us?”

Linda began to laugh, “He said that one of
us is the murderer!”

They all stayed silent and looked at each
other. Linda’s arms were crossed with her knees bent inward, Hannah
was rubbing her arms as if she were cold, Lucy was twitching, and
Adam was staring at everyone with huge eyes—they may have been best
friends but no one was innocent.

Michael stiffened his shoulders, “Why would
he say that?”

“But, he's just trying to throw us under the
bus. We could never do anything like that,” Linda said.
“Right?”

Hannah tried to hold in her laugh, “We are
like the last group of people you would suspect to be murderers.
You have me, a dancer, Linda the school tramp...
no offense
,
Michael the gay kid, Adam the social butterfly, and
Lucy...the...
dork
?”

“This isn't funny, Hannah,” Michael snapped.
“What if we go to prison for a crime we didn't even do? I can't
live in prison.”

“He's right,” Lucy said. “We need to figure
out who really is doing this before we get in trouble.”

“People are going to look at us differently
now,” Hannah said as she thought of the evil things people would
say to her. “Everyone is going to think we are the murderers. You
know how this town is—everyone knows everything! We will be
headline news by morning. Why would they even pick us out of all
the cliques in school? I think the glee members are more suspicious
than us.”

Michael bit his lip and raised his hand,
“Um, well it's a funny story...but remember when Linda was
suspicious of you? Well, I was too and I talked to a police here
named Jacky. I gave him a paper and I swear I was going to write
Tyler's name on it because I heard him talking about Linda.”

“How is this relevant to me?” Hannah
snapped.

“Well, Tyler had walked into the police
station and at the time I didn't know he was a cop too. He lied and
said they fed him there. So, I thought if I wrote one of our names
they would just investigate all of us to get to Tyler. So, I wrote
your name, Hannah.”

“What? This is your fault!”

“No!” he cried. “Please, don't blame
me!”

“Now, they think we are murderers!”

“But, we know we are not,” Linda said.
“We've all been accused. Lucy is right, we need to do our own
investigation.”

“Let's do one thing at a time,” Adam said.
“Like getting out of this situation. I want to go home and
sleep.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, “Sleep is the last
thing we need. We need to handle this situation before class
tomorrow.”

With her eyes on Adam, Linda cleared her
throat, “So, are you guys back together?”

“No,” Adam said.

“Yes,” Lucy said at the same time as him. “I
mean...we should be since I’m pregnant.”

“You're not pregnant,” Hannah snapped. “Stop
lying! Adam obviously doesn't want to be with you anymore.”

“How would you even know if I am or
not—”

Michael snapped his fingers, shutting them
up. “Stop fighting. This is a tough time. We need to stick
together—even if we are not agreeing on everything.”

“Once again, Michael is right,” Linda said.
“We are all friends. We will stick together. If any of us are in
trouble...we all go down.”

“We are in this together,” Lucy said.

“Why is this starting to sound more and more
like a Disney movie?” Hannah chuckled.

Tyler walked back into the room, “You guys
are all free to go home since we have no proof yet; but, we have
our eyes on you.”

“Is that a threat?” Linda said.

“Maybe; but you never know if you're being
watched or not,” Tyler winked. “It was nice knowing you guys.” He
walked back into his office and slammed his door shut.

They all felt weird leaving the police
station with no handcuffs. They felt like they were on the show
To Catch a Predator
when the men thought they were free to
go, but then they would get attacked by cops and arrested outside
the home.

Hannah tip-toed outside to the front of the
station, afraid she would be attacked. “They must don't think we
are that bad, since they are letting us go home.”

Michael shoved her to shut up, “Let's just
go home and not talk about this situation anymore. I’m going to get
acne stressing about this and you don't want to see me with acne.
It's not cute.”

“So, you think you're cute?” Adam joked at a
not funny moment.

“Just shut up!” Linda snapped. “We are in a
sticky situation.”

“Yeah, what about me?” Lucy said. “I'm
pregnant.”

The gang looked at Adam and he shook his
head no. But, why would she lie about that? Although, Lucy had a
history of lying about things, she was too smart to lie about
something like that. She was also too
smart to
get knocked up at the end of the school year. Either way...it was
pretty twisted.

10 | Misguided

The gang tried to ignore
the stares as they walked the halls. It's one thing to get accused
of being apart of a murder group, it's another thing to feel like
as though they were actually guilty.

Linda leaned her head on
Michael’s shoulder as they ate lunch by their lockers instead of
their usual table. “Everyone keeps pointing at me and
whispering.”

Lucy sighed, “Don't they
always.”

“But, this time it is
because they think we are involved with it. We have to do
something.”

Adam tied his shoe
strings, “Like what?”

Linda sat in closer to the
gang, “Let's go back to our junior year when Mandy Perez was
killed. Tyler said it's all connected. What do you guys know about
it?”

“I don't know anything,”
Adam said. “I talked to Mandy before—that's it.”

“Mandy was a cheerleader,”
Hannah added. “She would stop and talk to me when I used to work in
the mall. The last time I saw her was the day before she died. I
think she said she was buying some baby clothes.”

“Was she pregnant?”
Michael said. “Because, I remember seeing her at that dance not too
long before she died and she was talking to Mr. Conner a
lot.”

“Okay, we are getting
somewhere,” Linda said as she jotted down notes. “What do you know,
Lucy?”

“Mr. Conner has a history
of being arrested,” Lucy said.

“I mean about Mandy,”
Linda rolled her eyes. “Who cares about a teacher!”

“How did you know?”
Michael said. “About Mr. Conner?”

“He's been arrested for
soliciting prostitution,” Lucy said as if it wasn't a big
deal.

“Ew,” they all
gagged.

“How would you know this?”
Hannah asked.

“I just know things,” Lucy
rolled her eyes. “Don't worry about it.”

“And Mandy wasn't
pregnant, her emo friend was,” Hannah said. “I remember her saying
it in those exact words.”

“Also, I know Mandy's
boyfriend. He was a little crazy, I’m surprised she stayed with
him,” Adam said.

“Hey! Have you guys
noticed that all the people killed were girls and they were either
a cheerleader or on the dance team,” Linda said. “And you remember
last year that little freshmen died
too, she was on the
dance team!”

“But, Karen died in a car crash,” Michael
said.

“No, she is too much like the others to let
slide by.”

“She was friends with that emo girl too!
What happened to her?” Hannah said. “The emo girl...”

“She graduated and moved, duh!” Michael
said. “Which I want to do.”

“Who are all those girls connected to
daily?” Linda said as everyone shrugged. “Jocks! Cheerleaders and
the girls from the dance team are always around jocks.”

“The jocks are nice; right, Adam?” Hannah
said. “They would never kill anyone.”

“You don't know that,” Linda said. “Here,”
she paused as she handed each of them a paper with a name on it.
“Your job is to get information from these people.”

“This is a really stupid idea,” Lucy
said.

“Do you want to go to prison for the rest of
your life?” Linda snapped as they all said no. “Then, just do
it!”

“Ew,” Hannah shrugged. “I have the worst
one. Why should I talk to the jocks?”

“You just said they're nice,” Adam said as
he read his, which was to talk to the dance team.

Hannah peaked at Adam's paper, “We should
switch.”

“No way!” he beamed.

“No, keep the ones I gave you. I gave them
for a reason,” Linda snapped as hers was to talk to Cassidy White,
the emo girl in Mandy’s eyes. “Now, go!”

Lucy walked toward the English classes to do
her job—talk to Mr. Conner. Michael spotted her going to the class,
so he followed behind her, trying to spy on her.

With her little hands, she knocked on the
door and let herself in. Michael walked behind her, without her
noticing and he listened through the crack.

“Um, hi Lucy?” Mr. Conner said. “Is
something wrong?”

“How are your college courses going?” Lucy
said awkwardly.

“Well,” he nodded for her to sit. “What is
wrong? Do you like the other English teacher?”

“Yeah, it's a good class. I’m not here to
ask for any more money, but—”

“It's okay; if you want I can always go
online to find you, Sugar Beam,” he winked. “I have money, if that
is what you're wondering. I’m also available—”

“No—”

“Is this about you and your friends getting
arrested?”

“No—”

“I know you guys didn't do anything. It's
odd because most of the murders happen on the weekend, but no one
else died this weekend. That's why the town was in fear when you
guys came back.”

“They think we are the ones because when we
left when the murderer decided to chill out?” Lucy snapped. “That's
not fair. I wish I had someone to talk to about all of this. I wish
I could just call my parents and tell them everything is okay with
me, but that's what I get for getting emancipated.”

Michael gasped and then he slid away from
the door. He tried to think back to all the times he spent with
Lucy, which was daily and she never mentioned being
emancipated.

He walked to the lab room and read his paper
which was to talk to all the members of the Associated Student Body
(ASB) and glee club members. He moaned, because he didn't want to
talk to them. Although, he was a glee member not too long before he
joined the swim team, he didn't like any of them. They weren't like
the actors on TV—they were arrogant brats just because they lived
on the richer part of town.

Quickly, Michael placed his badge into the
basket for IDs and pulled out a computer number and ran over to
one. He remembered Mr. Conner called Lucy
Sugar Beam
, so he
typed it in the computer. Since nothing was blocked on the school
computers, he clicked on the first page that came up, which took
too long to load.

He jumped as he felt a tap on his shoulder,
just to realize that it was Linda. “You scared me!”