Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong (27)

No. No, no, no.

This is not the place. It cannot be the place. It… It…

I know now why I’m here. To face this. To picture it. Luka walks out of that bathroom —

“Geez, Luka, I thought you were going to take up residence in there.” 

He laughs. “Sorry. Just trying to get the rest of this makeup off. I swear, if I have to do another hundred-year-old musical…” He makes gagging noises. “You need to write me a part, Skye. One that I can…” A theatrical wave. “Truly inhabit.” 

“Annoying geeky older brother?” 

“No, annoying geeky older brother superhero.” He slings his arm over my shoulders as we head for the exit. “Like Spider-Man, except without the costume. Just a regular-guy superhero.” 

“Uh-huh, you need a tragic backstory for that.” 

“I have one. Forced to live with an annoying geeky little sister.” He grins. “You asked for that.” 

I sigh. 

He squeezes my shoulder. “Write me a story, Skye. Make me a hero.” 

I see us walking out, his arm still draped over my shoulder as the lights extinguish behind us.

Make me a hero, Skye.

I can’t, Luka. I want to. I want to so badly and I… I can’t. 

My gaze falls to the red wash on the floor, and I see him again. I see him lying in a pool of blood. His eyelids flutter open, and he sees me, and he winks, like it’s a scene in one of his plays.

That’s all, Skye. 

Just a play. 

It’s not real. 

He reaches up, and I drop to my knees.

And then he’s gone.

Luka is gone.

My brother is gone, and he is never coming back, and I failed him. Somehow I failed him.

My fingers touch the faint streaks of blood, and I see the truth. I see him lying in a pool of blood, and there’s a gun by his side.

I touch the blood, and I hear him coming out of the bathroom again, like a tape on replay.

“… just trying to get the rest of this makeup off…” 

A sob doubles me over. I want to grab that memory, grab it as hard as I can and forget this, forget the blood on the floor and the truth – the truth that my brother was as far from a hero as anyone can get, and this is his memorial: these words on the wall.

Rot in hell. 

Sobs rip through me, and I cry harder than I have ever cried for my brother. Harder than I have ever been able to cry for him.

When I hear running footsteps, I look up sharply, and I almost expect to see Luka race around the corner.

What’s wrong, Skye? 

It’s okay, Skye. Mom’s getting better. I know she is. Dad’ll be home soon, and she’s always better when he’s here. Everything will be fine. We just need to hold on a bit longer. 

It isn’t Luka, of course. These are actual footsteps. From a flesh-and-blood person who has heard me crying and come running to see what’s wrong.

I text a quick I’m okay, and the steps halt.

A pause; then, from Jesse:

I pull up the GPS. I’m not sure if those coordinates will lead anywhere at all – I’m starting to think they really were just rough ones intended to get me to the school. Like Jesse says, there’s no sign of anyone here. Nothing I’ve seen so far has been planted or staged, and the message seems simple.

Face what your brother did.

Face how your brother died.

I suspect whoever brought me here isn’t even the same person who’s done the rest. That’s why the number was blocked instead of faked. This is just a student who knew about the fire, knew suspicions had fallen on me and knew about my GPS game with Jesse, which hadn’t been a secret back in middle school.

I follow the coordinates to an open door on the first floor. It’s a classroom. Nothing odd about the door being open – half of them are. I step through and brace myself for a more personal message, maybe written on the blackboard. I also keep my foot in the doorway. After what happened in the newspaper office, I am taking no chance that this door will mysteriously shut, locking me inside.

Maybe that’s the point here. Trap me inside North Hampton High and force me to call for help and explain what I was doing here.

I see nothing on the blackboard. Hear no footsteps creeping down the hall, which is dark and empty and still.

I move into the classroom, my foot blocking the door. When I hear a soft sob, I jump. It’s cut short. Stifled. I strain to listen. A whimper. Then a sharp “Shh!”

The sound comes from inside the room. The empty room. I peer around, shining my cell phone flashlight over posters on the walls. I pause on one for a theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I remember that Luka was the understudy for Puck in a local production —

And I must stop that. Focus and banish my brother. It’s not the same poster, anyway. This one is from Broadway. Beside it, another poster lists fifty of the most commonly misspelled words. Then one for Banned Books Week. Below that are shelves of books.

An English classroom.

Turn in your badge, Detective – that took way too long. 

English.

That sparks a connection. Something about Luka.

Yeah, it was his best subject. His favorite class. Move on.

No, there’s something —

That whimper comes again, and I tense. Other voices follow.

“Shh!”

“I can’t —”

“Shh!”

Silence.

“Where’s Luka?”

I spin. The last voice comes from across the room, a harsh whisper.

“Has anyone seen Luka?”

Now the connection hits. English class. This is where Luka was when the school went on lockdown, and then he snuck out and the next thing anyone knew, he was walking out of the boys’ bathroom with a gun.

I forget that I’m supposed to stay in the entranceway, making sure the door doesn’t close. I hear that whispering voice, and I’m bearing down on it.

The voice has stopped, but I know where it came from – an empty corner next to the blackboard. There’s nothing that anyone could hide behind. Meaning the “speaker” is exactly that: a speaker of the technological variety. I’ll find it and —

A light flashes. I wheel as the opposite wall lights up like a screen.

At a gunshot, I start to drop to the floor, but the sound reverberates from all corners of the room, and I realize it’s a recording.

The light flickers and brightens, and figures appear on the wall. A moment frozen in time. Frozen in this very classroom. The photo was taken seconds after that first gunshot. I see that in their faces. A couple of kids sit at their desks, their heads up, like startled deer. Someone else is diving for the floor, and beside him, a girl laughs and points. Look at the idiot, diving for cover when a car backfires.

Two more shots sound in quick succession. Then a siren. The school siren. A teacher shouts “Everyone down!”

The first wall goes dark and a second wall lights up with another photograph. It’s the teacher, her arms raised, her face taut with fear. Kids in the first row are scrambling to their feet. A desk is falling over. One girl stands with her eyes wide, and I recognize her. Even with the blurred shot and imperfect projection screen, I know her.

It’s Tiffany.

She’s standing at her desk, and she looks utterly terrified.

She was in Luka’s class.

I remember that – she and Luka were doing homework together once, and he said she’d skipped sophomore English and gone straight to junior.

She’s looking at something beside her. That wide-eyed look of terror fixed on an empty desk.

Where’s Luka? 

Has anyone seen Luka? 

The speakers come alive again. Blasting from all corners. A girl sobbing. A boy telling her to shut up, just shut the hell up. Then a scream. A high-pitched scream of pain from another part of the school, and a boy shouts, “What the hell is that?” and more screams. Gunfire and endless screams.