Invictus

Chapter 13: Text Message

More tears filled my eyes as I turned away from the sight. The air was stifling, or it felt that way at least. I was heaving in as much of it as I could, but my lungs felt like they were filled with lead.

No. He wasn't dead, he couldn't be.

I closed my eyes, waiting for a few seconds to gather my strength. Swallowing hard, I went to pick up Donnie's severed hand while trying to avoid all the filth inside the dumpster.

My own hand trembled as I took Donnie's into it. It was definitely his. Our gaudy gold championship ring was attached to it, and it was ice cold to the touch.

I flung it down on the ground, initially repulsed and shocked by what I was holding. Once I regained my senses, and the shock began to fade, I went to grab his phone.

If there was any hope of finding out where the rest of Donnie was or who had done this, it was there. But when I went to pry it from his grasp it wouldn't release. I gave a few more "gentle" tugs, being careful not to break anything, but it was no use.

I spent a minute debating on what I was going to do next, shaking my head as my eyes filled with even more tears. If there was any chance of saving my friend, it was in that stupid device he was clinging to.

I shuddered at the thought; I would have to force it out.

I wiped the tears away before anymore could come spilling out, and got to work. The sickening cracks and crunching of my best friends bones was agony. The twisting of his fingers made my stomach toss and turn like I had swallowed a hurricane. I threw up after snapping the first one. Thankfully, there were plenty of dumpsters around.

The good news was that I only had to break two of them to release the frozen death grip around his phone.

Donnie knew the code to mine, so naturally I knew the code to his; I punched in the four numbers of his home address to unlock his phone, then I started looking through it.

Donnie's phone was the only clue I had to his whereabouts, but nothing stuck out to me as I scrolled through it. I started with his text messages, but I came up empty there. So I went to his social media page inboxes, his notepad, and even the music he was listening too just to make sure I wasn't missing something. Maybe it was naive of me to expect a red flag, a "hey, I'm the one who hurt your friend" clue, but none the less I kept looking.

After a few minutes of fruitless searching, I filed through my thoughts. All our past conversations between Donnie and I came rushing back to me, but trying to piece those together was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle half-blind.

Who would want Donnie dead?

I couldn't think of anyone. He was well liked around school, never got into any fights or bullied anybody. His parents had done a good job of making sure their son wasn't going to grow up and become a stereotypical jerk athlete.

Teachers loved him, because he was one of the few athletes who actually showed up for class. Girls loved him, because he was somewhat of a gentleman — emphasis on "somewhat". Donnie was the kind of guy who opened doors, paid for meals, and bought flowers before he tried to sweep a girl off her feet, and sleep with them. Needless to say, his reputation was stellar.

Then that sneaking paranoia I had before started to come back to me. What if all this craziness was my fault? What if Donnie was walking around — or dead — with a flesh popsicle for an arm because of what I had done? What if that crazy girl from the lunchroom was in on it too?

It all seemed stupid, especially the last part. I mean she knew me, but she didn't know Donnie. Did she?

Then I remembered a name. A name that Donnie had only mentioned once in passing. It was a long shot, I was grasping for straws, and I knew it. But it would cost me only time, time I wasn't sure Donnie had. There wasn't anywhere else to look though, so I pushed whatever doubts I had aside, and decided to give it a shot.

I went back again to Donnie's text messages, this time reading the thread between him and "The Girl," as it was so aptly titled in his phone contact list.

The texts between Donnie and her should have been the first place I looked, but my head wasn't exactly firing on all fours at the time.

"The Girl" would have been the last one to have seen him.

The most recent message only said, "see you soon." It was written from Donnie. I had only perused his text messaging inbox before, reading only his most recent texts. This time I decided that if I wanted a better idea of their relationship I would have to start from the beginning.

The time stamp from their original message to each other was the day after the championship game. She had reached out to him first. I filed that mental note away to use later.

Donnie had been confused initially by how she had gotten his number, but he softened up when she followed up his annoyed questions with a racy picture of herself. Brunette, ivory skin, and sky blue eyes that almost seemed to burn, they were so bright.

They were pals after that.

This girl wasn't the gray eyed chick from the lunch room though. It was unlikely then that she was the guilty party responsible here. I ruled stone eyes out for the time being.

There wasn't anything of substance in their conversations, mostly just dirty talk. I did notice though that my name came up on multiple occasions randomly, which I thought was odd.

"Hey, you should bring that cute friend of yours along with you tonight, I've got someone perfect for him to meet" or "Everyone here keeps asking about Zeek, tell him to stop by."

As the thread's time stamps drew closer to my present date, I noticed that Donnie was becoming increasingly annoyed with how much "The Girl" kept mentioning me.

"Do you want to date Zeek or me?" Donnie asked her. There was an angry emoji attached to the end of that message.

She stopped asking after that, but that was literally only six hours ago. "The Girl" apologized, and then told him that she would see him soon. That was the last of their messages.

I looked around the alley, and screamed his name again.

"Donnie," I yelled till my vocal chords felt like they were burning a hole in my throat.

Then the anger came, the frustration. Every punch I laid into a brick, every kick into the steel of the trash receptacles became a cry of self loathing. I destroyed whatever I could get my hands and feet on.

I went until I was out of breath.

I had never prayed before in my life, but I prayed two things that night: First, that I would find the person who did this to Donnie and second, that I would find a way to end all this. Whether that meant finding a way to take my own life, or some other means I had yet to discover. I needed a release from all this.

Along with everything else, I was now walking around with the weight of my friends suffering and possible death on my shoulders.

The ruckus I made was drowned out by the speeding of traffic and the people sprinting along the streets as it began to rain. I looked upward, cursing my poor timing. I was supposed to have found Donnie before the storm moved in.

I looked back, and heard a group of them screaming in the streets, cheering. There were sounds of a few honking cars and the riot like behavior that accompanied big sporting events. The Cub's must have won, again.

I had timed my fit of rage perfectly with the loud bustling of the crowd. None of them had noticed me turning the walls of the alley into gravel.

Not sure why, but I was disappointed. If I had to give a guess as to why, it was because a part of me wanted the outside world to know, to see how miserable I felt. Not only that, watching how happy those fans were as they left to avoid the oncoming showers only made it worse.

Donnie's phone buzzed inside my hand, knocking me back to attention. I looked down, cupping my other hand over the screen to shield it from the rain.

My adrenaline shot skyward as I saw who the message was from.

It was "The Girl".