Silent Knife

8)Locked in

Chapter song: "Thriller" by Michael Jackson
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Lily swiped the small tears she hadn't known fallen out of her eyes, before suddenly standing to shove Reese away from her as he offered a large hand to pull her up.
"WHAT!? Scaring the new girl? Is that what it was about?!" Lily yelled, shoving him back once more.




Reese was a good actor. He said nothing. His aqua eyes widened as he took in Lily's frightened figure that was tinged with anger. He looked alarmed as she pushed him yet again. She wasn't strong enough to shove him far, but, the action alone from Lily of all people surprised him.  "What are you talking about??" Reese asked, his eyes still wide with what resembled confusion.



Lily waved the manila envelope she still held in the air. "How about shutting the lights off and leaving this for me??"



By now, Lily's sudden yelling has caught the attention of the others. JP, Davion, Evie, Nico, Cara, and Abby run into view with their flashlights waving everywhere, their eyes darting back and forth between Reese and Lily as they get closer. "What's going on?"




Lily paid no attention to whoever asked the question, her angry eyes watched Reese instead. "I'm not doing this." She shrugged, taking the flashlight from him before stomping her way to the first exit out of the school. She was met with protests as soon as she was headed towards the door. Nico rushed ahead of her, confusion on his handsome features as he slid his glasses back up his nose. "Lily, what happened??"



Lily shoved him the envelope, holding the flashlight up so he could read it. "Which one of you left it?? Which guy came into the bathroom, turned the lights off, whispered Beverly, and then left me this??" She hissed, her blue eyes darting to all the alarmed faces that were watching her curiously.




Nico's expression turned to disbelief in a matter of seconds; his lips moving as he silently read the poem. "JP, this seems like a dick move you would pull" he finally said after his face pulled into a disgusted grimace.





"Uh, Nikolai, he was with me this entire time..." Abby scoffed, giving a cross of arms. Lily noticed that when the flashlights were shined on her, Abby's pink lipstick was horribly smudged while residue of it seemed to be coating JP's lips.



JP gave a shrug. "We weren't even up here, we were in the basement."



Soon, the group turns to Davion, the other someone who would've found something like this incredibly funny. The guy threw his dark hands up, shaking his head adamantly. "Hell to the no -  besides, I was working on scaring Chewie with a mannequin I found in the basement."




Evie came forward, gripping Lily in a hug. She sighed as she released her. "I left because I heard what sounded like Chewie calling, and then Davion was at the end of the hall by the stairs showing me the mannequin he set up to scare him."




"Wait - where is Chewie?" Reese asked, glancing around to find the lovable Asian student was no longer among their group. A quick scan on everyone's part showed Chewie was in fact nowhere to be found. "Well, that answers who's the jackass who would leave that" Reese mused, glancing over Nico's shoulder before wincing. "Wait, wait...." He paused, glancing over the note. "-There's no way Chewie would  write this."



Davion came over to poke his head over Nico's other shoulder, a dark brow cocking as he read. "I know, man" he nodded seriously. "This spelling is way too good to be Chewie's work."





Rolling her eyes, Cara stomped over in heels to rip the paper away from the boys. She read through the strange poem carefully, her lips dropping in a frown before they tilt in a smirk. "This time I will take your heart, without tearing my own apart....."  she snickered. "Obviously, you wrote it for yourself after hearing the story about the teacher" she scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief at Lily as her eyes narrowed.



Lily could argue the ridiculousness of that theory, but, she had enough scares for one night. Lily already knew she wasn't alone in that dark and dreary bathroom - there was no point in arguing with someone like Cara who was going to dislike her no matter what she said.
 Pushing past the boys, Lily made her way over to the school's front  doors only to find they were locked. The lock wasn't just set - there are heavy chains wrapping around the door as a mighty large lock sits at the end of the tangled up chains. "I want the keys, Reese" Lily said, annoyed with how well this silly school needed to lock up at night.




Quickly coming over, Reese fiddled with the lock as he glanced at the set of keys he was given. He tried three keys that don't seem to fit in the lock, before moving on to the other two smaller keys. Not one of them was able to fit inside the lock. "Er...this is awkward..."




"What?" Nico demands, suddenly standing beside Lily.





"These keys aren't for this lock" Reese explained, unlocking the doors beneath the chains and the enormous lock. Even though he can unlock the locked doors, the large chains that are locked keep him from being able to push them open.
"All master keys are for the doors, but not the giant lock on these chains - it must be  a new lock that Jared hadn't anticipated."



"Eh no worries - we'll think about getting out on Sunday." JP enthused, pulling Abby in closer as she smiled happily at him. "Now, who's ready to party while ghost hunting - I snuck in enough beer to last us all weekend!"




As Davion and Cara started to give happy yells of approval, Lily knew this was just the kind of teenage idiocy she didn't need to be around. Someone scared her while sober - what kind of shenanigans would everyone get into while consuming alcohol?
Suddenly reaching for Reese's jacket, Lily pulled him in closer to her, her heart-shaped face not hiding her sudden anger. "You're going to find a way to get me out of here, and you're going to do it now" she barked, surprising herself that her usual sweet natured voice was suddenly saturated with a venomous snarl.



Reese seemed surprised too, for he quickly nodded his head. Even though there was a decent height different between he and Lily, he must gather from her glare and hard grasp she wasn't fooling around. "Okay, okay! We'll just go check out all back doors and the side doors. Worse case scenario, we break a window. Alright?"



Lily glared, but agreed. Nodding, she released her rough hold on the taller boy. "Sorry" she mumbled as an apology. 




"You okay?" Evie asked, concern written all over her expression.




Lily shook her head as she followed Reese. Everyone else seemed to follow the same direction as them. "Whoever it was in that bathroom, it was too weird. I don't care if it was some dumb initiation prank or anything like that, I'm done..." Lily said,  feeling content with the idea of going back home. She didn't even care if her parents discovered her true whereabouts for tonight - she wanted to be back in the safety of her family where they wouldn't scare her with the memories of murdered teachers and missing hearts.




"Er, you didn't drive here - how are you going to get home?" Evie asked with a frown.





"My car's parked in the abandoned outlet mall down the road. It was so the janitors didn't see a car in the school lot. I'll drive her home" Nico suddenly said, coming to walk beside Evie. Lily noticed that Reese looked annoyed at this offer, shaking his head while he made the rest of the trip across the school in silence. By the time they were a few feet away from another set of doors, there was strong disappointment for Lily.


"That's locked too" Abby frowned, coming over to jiggle the chained lock.  The other set of doors exiting the school had the same ridiculous chain set attached to  them. Even though they could unlock the doors beneath the chains, there was no exiting this area.
"Since when are the school doors locked with chains instead of the usual lock?"




"What, do you usually spend the night in the empty school that you would know?" JP asked with a playful snort.


Abby shook her head, still wearing her frown. "My little sister is on the freshmen cheer squad - sometimes they're here late. When I've picked her up before I've never seen locks like these covering the locked doors."




Everyone stood in silence as they let this news digest. Reese looked around the group, offering a shrug. "Ah c'mon. There's probably the side door to the auditorium, not to mention the back door that's attached to the pool area. We should get to work on scoping the place-"




"No no no..." Lily said, shaking her head adamantly. "I want out. I'm not staying here."




"What the hell has you so rattled?" JP snickers arrogantly.



"Maybe the jackass who left her a creepy letter." Evie countered with a glare and a  cross of arms.




"I already said I didn't leave it!" JP snaps impatiently.




"OH! So you admit you're a jackass?"



"Cool it!" Lily snapped, feeling irritated. It doesn't matter if JP didn't leave it - someone left it. "OKAY, let's talk this through. Reese, did you leave it?"



Reese shook his dark head. "I wouldn't do that to you"  he said, practical air quotations around the word you. 



"How bout' in general, Romeo? I think she means that" Evie sassed back, narrowing her blue eyes.





"I didn't do it" Reese shrugged indifferently. "I was downstairs with Collins as we set up the downstairs camera to catch anything."
Nico nodded. "I didn't do it because I'm not an asshole, and I really was with him."




One by one, each person somehow got crossed off the imaginary suspect list Lily drew. Everyone seemed to be paired up during the time it happened with the exception of one person.


"Cara...." Nico says dryly. "Why am I not surprised you're the one person without an alibi?"



"I didn't do it!" Care bit back, rolling her heavily shadowed eyes. "Obviously miss not-so-innocent left it for herself-"




"-She didn't do it." Lily agreed, stepping forward. "The person in the bathroom was a guy."




Reese shrugged. "Well if wasn't me, Nico, or Davion, the only other dude here is Chewie."

As if on cue, a loud song starts to blare through the empty hallways. Michael Jacksons Thriller begins playing through the loud speakers, the loud beat seeming to echo off the walls. The music starts loudly playing, obviously indicating someone's inside the principals office on the other side of the school.
The loud noise fills the otherwise dark and silent school with music, before an ear piercing scream echoes throughout the hallway, the voice sounding remarkably like Chewies.