The Things We Do (Under Editing)

Behind Enemy Lines

"The Hangman."

The article I was reading had granted the crazy person in the hood a name, and something told me it would stick. They'd gotten what they wanted: attention. It wouldn't stop them, though. My guess was they'd get even worse from here. Now that they had the spotlight, they'd be making the most of it.

I, on the other hand, needed to get to work stealing that spotlight back. My copycat had helped as much as I don't want to admit it, having crossed lines that I wouldn't have gone anywhere near, but even that had been overtaken in people's minds while I was in the hospital.

The good news was that Wraith was borderline ecstatic. He didn't even mind that I still had to heal up. The man wanted fear, and while that had been present as long as he'd had a hold on the school and city, it skyrocketed the moment I first stepped into his office and had only been going up with the addition of Storm and now Hangman. The stress had sent some people to the others and others as far away as they could possibly get.

Probably the only people who weren't panicking about masked villains were the university students, but that's about normal. If we're going to have a full mental break it's going to be about our schoolwork, not a threat to our safety; if we die then we don't have to pay our debts or take finals. Also, after giving as much money as we had to the school, no one was leaving.

Besides, even though for most people it was just a campus rumor spawned by how little damage the school had received despite everything, it was the source. Stick close to campus and keep up with your work and you should be fine was the general belief.

My stupid self, however, was in an apartment halfway across the city because Mel had been living in the same place longer than we'd been living together, and obviously my grades were terrible and getting worse. With the time I had to spend on Wraith's assignments and now my time kidnapped and in the hospital, I hadn't exactly had a chance to do homework.

I'd taken the time Kacie and Mel confined me to my bed to try and catch up, but doing piles of work for the same three classes for hours on end was rotting my brain. They'd also banned me from going to the store, so I couldn't get supplies for other assignments. Maybe I'd stop on my way back from my meeting with Detective Corum.

My arms flopped down onto the bed on either side of me. They tingled from the lack of blood flow that came with holding them straight out above me with my phone while I read the article. I closed my eyes so I wasn't burning the image of my white ceiling into my vision and burrowed myself deeper into my pillows. With my eyes closed, though, a just kept rewatching the videos my copycat had released. I'd felt like I had to watch them given everything, but I'd barely been able to get through them without vomiting. It was one thing to deal with my own bloody wounds, but those videos showed four people taking bullets to the head, point blank, perfectly framed while someone with my face pulled the trigger.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling until my phone alarm went off telling me it was time to leave.

Somehow, amazingly, the police station was not somewhere I was familiar with. By the time I got there and managed to figure out how to find Corum, I was late. Even then, an officer refused to let me near his office. I argued with her for several minutes trying to convince her that, no, I wasn't interrupting his very important work, until the man himself opened the door and saw me.

"Speak of the Devil," I muttered as he waved me over and stuck my tongue out at the officer as I passed.

Corum stepped aside to let me through the door before closing it behind me. "I'm glad you could make it." Already waiting inside in a couple of uncomfortable looking chairs were a middle aged man and Anna Gray. The fact that this little kid was here, willing to talk about what happened to her, actually impressed me. She was tough. I mean, I'd already known she was tough, but still. She continued to surprise me.