DEAD INSIDE

(38)

The following day seemed to drag on.

As soon as the delivery boy had arrived, Gregory had left me with Vanessa to go to the pool house where some friends had been waiting for him.

Vanessa and I had watched two episodes of the 100 before calling it a night and I'd woken up at half past four shaking and covered in sweat from a nightmare in which the psycho reminded me that I only had six days left.

After padding my way to the bathroom, using my mobile as a lamp, I had taken a soothing shower and got ready for the day as quietly as I could before driving to Mel's where I had fallen back asleep next to her in her Queen sized bed until well after her alarm clock rang.

She'd called Mrs. Burlington on her way to school, but got no news other than the doctors hadn't woken Marla yet.

Milo, who was back at school, had been weirdly nice, smiling at me when I walked past him in the car park and even muttering a "How are you doing?" at the end of our English lesson.

Just like Marvin, the girls and I, he was wearing one of the stickers we'd printed the afternoon before and as I looked around at other students throughout the day I saw that more and more people were wearing one, too.

Coach had called me to his office and asked me what we should do about that night's practice. I answered what we'd convened with the girls: that Marla wouldn't have liked us to stop playing on her account.

In fact I was pretty sure that had she witnessed our conversation, she'd have started belting The Show Must Go On with her arms high above her head.

Thankfully, Scott had been M.I.A. all day. And honestly, good riddance to him.

Practice was very emotional as we'd all decided to give it our best in honor of our absent captain and all ended up shedding a few tears whenever we missed her charismatic presence to boost us, which was often, hence my relief when Coach called it a day.

The first thing I did when I got to the lockers was to check my mobile and I stiffened when I saw Mr. Tanner had left me a message.

He'd wanted to let me know of the developments before I heard about it on the news.

I made sure to sit down before he went on to tell me that they'd gone to Officer Jenkins' house and had found him gagged, blindfolded and tied up to a chair in his basement.

He had no idea of who had done it and the only thing he knew for sure was that his ravisher was a man.

The forensics hadn't found any trace of his presence, and it seemed that apart from the initial roughing up when he'd barged inside his room in the middle of the night two weeks before, he had been anything but gentle with him, feeding him and making sure he drank enough fluids.

I didn't know how to take the news.

On the one hand, I was relieved that he was unharmed since I didn't know how I would handle it if innocent people got hurt because of me, but on the other hand, I was suddenly filled with an indescribable anger that grew until I literally growled, attracting my teammates' attention.

"What's happened?" Deedee and Mel were by my side a second later so I told them what the Policeman had said.

"Now that we know it's him, it won't be long before they catch him. We just have to help the Police draw an accurate photofit..." Deedee said with the tip of one of her braids under her nose.

"I was thinking..." Mel muttered next. "Don't you think it could be related to what your Mom did?"

"That's what I've been thinking too..." I mumbled. "I guess Mr. Tanner is going to interview his parents first..."