Keep me afraid

C H A P T E R - T E N

D E S P E R A T I O N 

When my parents finally could pick me up from the police station, after waiting multiple hours to get my alibi checked out, I didn't say a word on the drive home.

I was still too shocked about Mason's sudden death and about the message I received.

I had no other choice else than telling Jules the truth, since she kept bugging me with her questions.

Now there were already two who knew about my secret of what happened to Oliver last year. And how I was still blaming myself for it.

And even though I told this story many times, it still hurts to talk about it.

Of course they both believed me that I had nothing to do with Mason's nor Sarah's murder.

When we finally arrived at home, I directly went up to my room, just wanting to be alone.

I lay down in my bed, trying to sleep and hoping to wake up to realize that this was just an awful dream.

But no matter how much I tried to finally fall asleep, it didn't work.

I was stuck in this reality, stuck with the gruesome pictures of Mason hanging down from the tree.

And I knew, it will take a while or even an eternity to forget about it.

Somehow I still fell asleep, I must've been too exhausted.

The sleep didn't last for long though.

When I checked the alarm on my side table, it showed that it was 4:48 am. The time when I woke up from the nightmare I had, going through these events all over again.

I sat up in my bed, not wanting to sleep again. I was too afraid to have another nightmare.

But since it was this early in the morning, I didn't know what to do. I could've started to get ready for school, but even if I would've wanted to do that, my parents insisted that I stay at home, since they were too scared something just as horrible could happen to me.

That's why, I decided to continue my painting, right where I stopped the day before.

I sat down at the table, swaying the brushes over the canva once again, trying to shut my brain off.

The day moved on and it was already 5pm. I didn't do much other than painting and finishing some homework that was due until next week, just because I had nothing better to do to distract myself.

The rest of the time, I spend laying in bed and being on my phone. At some point I even texted Cooper, asking him how he was doing, but so far I didn't get a response from him.

Just when I scrolled for the next Tiktok my door opened and when I looked up, I saw my mom stepping in.

"Hey Gracie," she started and sat down on the side of my bed.

I haven't really talked about what happened last night, just the basics since I didn't want to go into the gory details. Both my parents were really worried about me. But they couldn't do anything to make it better, nothing could.

And just like the first time when I received that note from the killer, I didn't tell them about the message that got sent to me. I just didn't want to worry them more.

"Are you hungry? Should I make you something?" Mom asked gently. I haven't eaten since last night, I still had no appetite.

"Yeah, that would be nice," I said and tried to give her a smile.

But the truth was, that I was not hungry at all but I wanted it to look like I was alright so she didn't have to be concerned about me.

"Okay, I'll cook you something. I'll be back in a few minutes." She said and got up from my bed and walked back to the door.

Before she left my room she gave me one last smile.

A message appeared on my phone screen, this time it wasn't an anonymous number, instead it was Cara.

"Hey, how are you doing?"

I haven't talked to her or Jules and especially not Amber who I still was suspicious about. Because of that I didn't know if Amber was pronounced innocent too just like everyone else, or if the police saw her as suspicious as we did.

"I'm okay, I guess. What about you?"

I texted back, only waiting a few seconds until she replied.

"Yeah, me too. But I still can't believe it."

"Anyways, Amber's alibi checked out and apparently she was telling the truth..."

Cara added and even over the message, I could tell that she was skeptical about it.

It was late evening when I was watching a random show that was playing on the TV. I forced myself to eat the food that my mom brought up to my room, even though I still wasn't feeling hungry.

I checked my phone all the time, to see if Cooper finally texted me back, but he hadn't yet.

For the rest of the evening I spent my time laying in bed, still waiting for a response but eventually gave up my hopes and decided to go to bed.

I got out of my bed and stumbled into my bathroom, to do my usual night routine.

When I got back to my room there was another message waiting for me, I thought it was Cooper but to my surprise it was Amber.

I wondered what she wanted from me.

"Gracie, I know you probably think that I'm the killer but I promise you I'm not. I have an explanation for everything."

She was sure that she could convince me with that simple text.

"And why should I believe you?"

I typed back, expecting a really good and convincing explanation.

"I'll get proof and show everyone the truth because I know who the killer is."