This chapter is dedicated to @CellyRamke_1 for voting on every single chapter of this book! Thank you, they mean a lot to me!! =)
**
|| Erin ||
When I enter my room, I see all the Jackets in there, waiting for me—or so I think. Alicia is absentmindedly flipping through one of my only magazines; Sara is busy printing something out with the small portable printer on my desk, Hana is staring intently at a photograph, and Nikki is loading and unloading her stun gun. I stop and rap my knuckles against the doorframe. “Um…?”
“Oh, you’re here,” Nikki says, looking up. She stashes her gun in its holster. “We have something important to show you.”
Sara hands me the article she printed out. It takes me a moment to make out the title. “ ‘Greeves Arrested for Attempted Theft’?”
“Yup,” Nikki says from behind me. “Read it.”
I only need a minute to scan through everything. “This doesn’t mean anything! This is his dad, not him!”
“We knew you’d say that,” Hana speaks up softly. “We even wanted to keep it a secret until we have more proof, but we just want you to know to be on guard around Theo, okay?”
“You’re saying that Theo is one of the killers?” I utter, dropping the article on the bed.
“We aren’t sure exactly, but think of it as a warning,” Nikki says, standing up. “With that aside, we have updates on the prime suspect, Shane Walker.”
“Fill me in,” I mutter. Hana gives me the same picture of the black-haired guy running away from the dark alley; only it’s zoomed in, sharpened and focused. I also notice that she encircled several areas with red ink, and it draws my attention.
First, there’s the slim bar of a rail towards the bottom of the image. Second, there’s a time on the lower right hand corner of the photo, which reads ’05:30’.
Then there’s an arrow pointing to the man’s school clothing. The words ‘should be black, according to news report’ are scribbled in passable writing beside it. And then another one beside his hands, reading: ‘why is it bloodied?’.
“What is this?” I finally say, looking at Nikki and the others. She sits back on my bed and pats the space beside her. “Sit. This might take some time.”
**
Forty-five minutes later, give or take, the Jackets manage to tell me all the new info they got from their meeting with the President, to the secret behind the news article, to finally the photos and clues. When they’ve finished, I lick my lips uncertainly. “So we are to investigate the crime scene tomorrow?”
“Yes, well, not all of us,” Sara informs me. “You, Nikki and Hana are investigating the crime scene on Vista Avenue. We aren’t totally sure about Shane’s innocence, so Alicia and I are going to stake out by his house.”
“Do you know how weird that sounds?” I ask her. “Two teenage girls hiding in the house of a teenage boy. Sounds bimbo to me.”
“It’s the only way we can verify his innocence,” Alicia informs me. “Nikki has the gun, Hana has the fists, and you have the tech. And we need you to double check the security cameras, if there are any, per say.”
“I guess you’re right,” I sigh. “Where’s our rendezvous spot after school?”
“Outside the main doors, by the vending machine; the one near the girls’ restroom. Got it?” Nikki clarifies, raising an eyebrow. I nod and Alicia tilts her head at me. “Okay, just what are you wearing?”
YOU ARE READING
The S.H.A.N.E. Game (editing)
Ação[ highest ranking: #43 Action ] Sara Williams, Hana Minami, Alicia Denver, Nikki Connor and Erin West – can you guess their acronym? – are not as girly and gentle as their names give away. They are the Maroon Jackets. They are the equivale...
