The Night Tournaments

17 - Bree (Part 2)

~ A Few Days Later ~

When I arrived at the Student Council office on Monday morning, Flynn Armani was inspecting and reorganizing the numerous bookshelves surrounding the meeting hall.

"It feels like such a long time has passed since I last talked to you, Cheesebrain," I called out to him, and my heart soared when his face lit up like the sun as soon as he saw me.

"Maybe because the weekend just ended?" he pointed out, giving me a winning smirk.

I laughed, taking a seat at the conference table. "No - no, it's not that. It's just . . . a bunch of stuff has occurred over the last couple of days - which is why I requested this meeting, more or less."

"You know, you've been requesting a lot of meetings lately," Flynn remarked, continuing to return fallen books into their usual straight position. "Why does it always feel like you're the only one solving all of the mysteries?"

"Wow, thanks for giving me so much credit," I said dryly, rolling my eyes. "Anyhow, I can see that you're quite clearly enjoying your role as the vice-president of the Student Council. This isn't the first time that I've caught you being the earliest one to report to the office."

"That's just due to my exceptional punctuality habits," Flynn objected, snorting. "Just so that you aren't terribly mistaken, Sherlock, me being early is nothing new."

"Fine, I'll agree with you on that one," I gave in, sighing and closing my eyes.

Just then, the rest of the JDC and Student Council members showed up in the meeting hall, and as soon as the gathering commenced, I explained everything that I had learned from Tristan Robinson last Friday, along with all of my theories, speculations, and assumptions.

"What would we ever have done if Tristan hadn't agreed to the meeting with you?" Nadya said as soon as I finished talking, sitting very still and giving me a slow blink.

"I knew that that scumbag had nothing good going for him," Scythe spat, referring to Ryder. "He ruined Thea's brother's entire social life just because he couldn't deal with his own jealousy."

"I understand how Ryder might have felt at the time, but I agree with Scythe," Anna offered, tapping her pen on her notebook. "He never had an excuse to lash out at his best friend like that - and what's even stranger is the fact that he's making so much effort to be within close range of his sister right now."

"I think that the hypothesis that we came up with might be valid," Flynn chimed in, piercing through an imaginary speck on the conference table with his gaze. "If Ryder is Thea's stalker, that probably means that he's only pretending to be. It's like what Anna said: he has no reason to be doing everything in secret, when he already has access to everything that he wants. Let's think - what if he's only dating Thea to get revenge on Tristan? What if that's his one and only goal?"

"That's exactly what I'm guessing," I said, biting my nails. "Since Tristan no longer attends Seaside Heights and is securely guarded by his parents and the staff members in their house, Ryder has no way to get to him - except through his sister, who he knows exists, isn't aware of his past with her brother, and is still in his vicinity. It might not seem like it on the outside, but after meeting Tristan, I can tell that he cares a lot about Thea . . . and Ryder must know that. So . . . is there a chance that his ultimate plan is to scare and humiliate Thea by pretending to be her stalker?"

"Being in an open relationship with her while backhandedly stalking her at the same time," Ethan mused. "It sounds really twisted, doesn't it? And that's exactly what Ryder wants."