The Hunt of Altswood High (The Altswood Saga #1)

Chapter 9 - Identity

Chapter 9 - Identity

Blood covered every spare inch of my hands. Crimson stained the inside of my pale arms, the colour mutating strangely in the cold lighting of the hospital. There were deep scrapes on my knees, though it beat me how they got there.

The events of the last hour were only just setting in as I sat on the plastic chairs of the hospital waiting room. I wanted to shove the memories into the deepest trenches of my brain, but I knew repressing it wasn't going to do me any good. There was enough buried in there. So I tried to sift through the blur my memories had processed.

The ambulance had arrived almost immediately, and though Birdy survived the shot in her head after immediate surgery, she was in a coma. When her parents arrived, they nearly lost it demanding to know where the police guarding her was, and I supposed I saved Dad a lawsuit when they learned I was his daughter.

The team that had driven to Greenfield had returned, after arriving at the address of the supposed armed robbery and finding an unoccupied house. The supposed attempted suicide in Obfil that had busied another team was also a dead end. Both were obviously called in by the killer, and now the police were working hard to trace the call.

Tony, the policeman from the station, was here at the hospital trying to console concerned townspeople coming in after hearing about the near brush of another death.

A few had managed to get in and seen my face. After I stared at them, unblinking, specks of blood cast across my skin, they left without a word.

Dad was in another room with Birdy's parents. Hushed whispers floated by every few seconds. I couldn't even be bothered attempting to eavesdrop. Now that I had welcomed it, the last hour's memories couldn't stop floating around my head like it was on replay.

Why hadn't the killer left a message after they shot Birdy? Wasn't that what serial killers did? Were they simply interrupted when I came along?

Were these people being killed off in the chain for the Hunt, or was there something deeper, something more personal?

I groaned aloud. Not knowing was killing me. The only people that had the answers now were beyond reach, taking their secrets to the grave.

The first thing I had to find out tomorrow was who Birdy had as a target. And then... then I had to get to the bottom of the thing that was bothering me the most. What I thought I saw.

The door creaked open, and Dad stepped out, running a hand over his tired face.

"We're going home, Luca," he said quietly.

I stood, still deep in thought.

Gabriel couldn't be the killer, could he?

***

"You destroyed the records?"

Manny raised an eyebrow, only half-glancing up from his phone. "Is that a problem?"

"Uh, yes, that's a problem," I practically shouted. I forced myself to calm down and take a deep breath.

"Why was it necessary?" I ask, keeping my voice steady.

"If the police find it, I'm automatically at fault," Manny said, barely holding back the duh in his voice. His eyes shifted to the right, as if waiting for someone to show up. "And besides, this way no one could steal the paper off me to see who had them."

I sighed. "Yes, but now we also won't know who Birdy had: who might be hit next."

"Well, then the killer won't know who Birdy has either. It's a win-win."