THE POLICE FOUND ANASTASIA TWO DAYS LATER.
When her wounds ceased to bleed and her body began to rot, whilst insects crawled through her corpse and splat throat and ripped torso.
The hunt for missing Anne had began early the next morning when she hadn't returned from the carnival, while she was lying lifeless behind the dollar store. The police had only discovered her when the owner called the authorities reporting a horrid stench had filled the air, the stench of something rotting, the stench of something dead—not knowing that there, in fact, was something dead and rotting.
It took no time for the news to spread like a wildfire over the small town, that Anastasia Wilson, only daughter of the known Realtor, Erik Wilson, was found dead.
No, not dead. Murdered.
And so their school mourned her loss while her friends weeped out streams of tear into their embroidered handkerchiefs, chanting ‘I can't believe this happened to her,’ under their breaths.
Despite the tragedy pushing them all off to grieve the loss of an angel, the inspectors are still here, because after all, it's still a case of murder.
The prime suspects were undoubtedly her close friends and those she interacted with, but Hector and Troye are in none of those lists.
Hector shared Calculus with the blonde girl and Troye was in choir with her. He knew her voice was the best among the lot, knew how the perfect pitch and tune would drift off from those very blood-soaked cherry lips of her whilst the youth danced over her azure eyes—enough to make others fall in love with the worthy girl, the melodious vibrato in her throat only adding to the softened emotion. Hence Troye often found himself crafting scenarios of slowly jabbing a knife through her beautiful neck, and get her blood all over his hands while instead of singing those sweet–sweet notes, she'd be screaming and crying so loud her lungs would burn.
Troye wasn't jealous. Troye was anything but jealous. He knew Anne had the ability to bewitch the souls of those whose eyes would fall upon her thick blonde hair and striking crystal irises, he knew with the flick of her manicured fingers the dead girl could make place for herself in the hearts of those who lived. But if she can make people dance to her moves, Troye can make her kneel with his. For Anne grasped countless qualities. But Troye grasped the knife.
And that day—after they stalked her and Hector slipped his palm to press against her mouth to stop her from screaming, after she struggled but stopped when Troye held the knife to her throat, after she whimpered when he began to graze the metal against her skin and started to trickle down blood, after he thrusted the knife into her throat and pulled back to thrust again, and again, and after he figured he wasn't yet satisfied; pierced her torso until the tip of the knife hit the flesh of her back—he wanted to plant a kiss on her forehead and whisper into her ear sing now dear sweat Anne, why don't you?
Hector leans against his locker with Troye beside him, while Murad, their friend—more so Hector's friend, since every time Torye sees Murad he feels an urge to stab him exactly thirteen times, for the thirteen months Murad has irked him with his presence—is on an endless monologue with exaggerated hand gestures to emphasize his each word.
Troye doesn't know why they haven't killed him yet.
Hector, on the other hand, listens to every word the brown skinned boy has to say, with his hands crossed over his chest and a concentrated crease on his forehead. Now and then he glances at Murad's lips, to decipher his words in the thick Russian accent he has, but finds himself caught in a trance seeing the shape of his lips, the curve of its valley, the natural faded copper shade of it, nearly passing out as the lips of a woman, but not enitrely.
