Pattern

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

//Prudence//

I was at Avery's door at eight o'clock on Monday morning. His father answered with a less than polite "Who are you?"

"Um, I'm Prudence," I said, wondering if he remembered me. "Is Avery-"

Before I could finish, he appeared at the door, dressed but with a severe bed head. He looked worse than me when I woke up - and I was bad.

"What are you doing here?" He asked crossly.

"Maybe to make sure you go to school on time? And that everyone won't gang up on you because Lucy's funeral is tomorrow?" I held up the documents I'd managed to get my hands on, and Mr. Watts slinked away, obviously not caring.

Avery blinked. "Did you get the details on the murder?" 

"Yes!" I sighed, gesturing to the documents. "What do you think these are? I had to look everywhere for these, I mean everywhere.. It's a miracle that everyone knows me at the station." They wouldn't suspect a thing, even though Gary found me looking in a filing cabinet. He accepted my story of 'I left a worksheet for school here and I thought someone accidentally put it in a file,' which was a terrible lie. I even had to 'wander' into the morgue, ready to explain to some doctor or nurse that I was lost, and start crying. "Now, come on."

"I'll just grab my bag," He murmured, then left for a second and came back with a schoolbag on his back - but still with terrible hair. He walked out the door and slammed it, completely oblivious. Then he looked at me staring at him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Your hair, you idiot!" 

"My hair? I like my hair. You've never had a problem with it before."

I sighed, then went on my tiptoes to try and reach his head, which didn't really work out, so he leaned down awkwardly and I combed his hair quickly, making it look reasonably normal.

"Now, you have to say, 'Thanks, Prudence!' because apart from going to great lengths to figure out what happened to Lucy, I also stopped everyone from laughing at your hair."

He glared at me. "What did the file on her death say?" 

We walked along at a steady pace, and I grimly stared at the ground as it moved by, not wanting to look him in the eye. "It's similar to Hanna.. She was tortured, there was an 'E' written on her leg. With a knife. And minutes before her death there was a smile carved on her face, then her clothes were changed, like before." I looked up. Avery's expression hadn't changed much, but he looked more .. disturbed. I wasn't sure, he wasn't an open book like me. He eventually spoke.

"That's .. jeez. She was only fifteen, wasn't she? Just.. " He looked at me like I could give him an adjective to explain how terrible it was. I was only a year older than fifteen, and the thought of it happening to me gave me chills. But Lucy would never recover, because she was dead. 

I wasn't sure I wanted to go to school, because there would probably be a parade of crying girls which were Lucy's friends, and there would probably be more people asking Avery if he did it, and the people in my year would ask me too, because it had suddenly spread that I was the only friend of his. And I didn't want to deal with any of that, but I wasn't allowed to stay at home and I hadn't seen my friends in two days, due to my activities of the weekend, which involved me investigating the many similarities between Hanna's and Lucy's murder, which really hadn't been more fun than painting Madi's nails but had felt somewhat productive. 

"It gets worse," I said biting my lip. We were nearing the school. Avery stared at me. "How can it get any worse?"

"It said on the report that it looked like Lucy had recently had sex." I felt ridiculously awkward, and also like vomiting. 

He looked at me, like he was expecting something.

"She was raped, Avery," I replied with a sigh. "Lucy was cut several times, all over her body, then raped and murdered."

He looked shocked and it soon turned to disgust, and he quickly turned away, probably so I wouldn't see him. "She was a kid. Fucking hell." And then he kicked the pillar, acted like it didn't hurt and walked quickly away.

When I'd read the graphic report, I'd gone to the bathroom, because I could imagine it so well - too well, and I'd waited to vomit. Then later, I'd stalked Lucy's Facebook profile, and looked at all the pictures of her smiling, wondering why she had to die so horribly. For three whole days, she'd been like that, knowing she was going to die, and having to live through the torture.

And then I cried for a little while, even though I didn't know the girl, but I'd seen her face in the hallways and now I felt like I knew lots about her, even though we'd never spoken a word to each other. 

Now the world was without her, and everyone was going to think it was the boy that I'd managed to befriend again, even though I'd presumed he'd hated me for years, and I was blaming myself because I wasn't solving it quickly enough, and tomorrow, someone else could be taken and I probably wouldn't stop it.

When I arrived at the school gates, with Avery a good distance away, thinking to himself, I felt too overwhelmed to go inside, but I did anyway. I had to.

--

No one else knew as much detail about Lucy's death as I did, but there were still whispers and gasps of horror and fear around the classroom. Every girl in the school was suddenly scared, and I guess they had every reason to be. I wasn't, though. I was too determined to figure it out, suddenly a lot angrier. Both the girls had been good people. They hadn't deserved it, or anything like it. I hadn't found any link between them, but it had clearly been the same guy. Currently, all I had to work off is the clothes they were changed into and the letters carved into their skin - 'M' and 'E'.

Me? I doubted that was it, but I had to consider everything. It was completely possible that he was spelling a word, and needed more victims to continue it. 

"You're spacing out again," Madi hissed, beside me. "What is wrong with you today? We barely talked over the weekend."

"It's nothing, I'm fine." 

She hit my arm. "Fine my ass! Is it Avery?"

"No, it is not Avery!" I whispered back crossly, since we were in the middle of class. "It's actually Lucy."

"The dead girl?"

"That's not all she is, Mads." 

"Okay, okay. Lucy Edmonds, the sophomore who was brutally murdered much like Hanna Arkins was."

"Yeah. She was fifteen, and there are so many clues, like the guy who killed her has just left them there to tease everyone.. I've no idea what any of it means, or why it was them - there's no link, there's no motive.. It looks like two innocent girls were tortured and killed for no reason.. And that's just.."

She patted my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Prude. But remember.. It's not your fault, and it's not your responsibility. Don't get too deep into this, it could ruin you."

"How can I not? I've barely seen my dad 'cause he's so busy trying to find who did it, and everyone seems to be in danger now, and everyone's blaming Avery even though it's not him.."

"Prudence," She sighed. "Maybe it's Avery causing you all this stress, just cut him out if you want."

"Oh yes, it's not all the murder that's happening around me, it's definitely a boy."

"I'm just saying, you are a teenage girl."

I was beginning to realise why I wasn't the best in school. Madison clearly kept me from focusing on anything, at all, but even if we hadn't talked, I wouldn't have been listening. I was too mixed up in my own thoughts, and they weren't fun.

--

Later, I walked home with Madi, knowing that I had a ridiculous amount of homework to complete. I had seen Avery only once since, and I'd noticed his face was almost back to normal, something I hadn't thought of earlier. His bruises were yellowing, getting lighter, and the cuts were healing, though I thought it was possible there would always be a trace of them on his face. Somehow, it would suit him.