Beneath the Boardwalk (Alex Turner) COMPLETE

25 {devil in pink}

The devil was beside me in a pink band tee and worn out jeans. 

Art was the only class today because English had been cancelled--no surprise there. I was sitting in art, working on a painting, with Matt smiling right beside me. "Hey, any word on Turner? I heard your Shakespeare assignment. Sounds terrible."

That's the thing about the bad things in the world. You don't realize how bad they are. Matt acted no different than he had days earlier in art class; only now did I notice the little things that could have clued me on. No wonder the tattoo was the same with the superintendent. Matt was smiling as if he was still the first friend I'd made on campus, keeping up his facade. The bad things in the world sneak up on you and keep trying to manipulate you even after you realize they aren't good. 

"I finished the assignment," I lied. "It wasn't too bad."

I couldn't exactly confront Matt on what happened yesterday. He couldn't know I was under the desk! So I had to keep quiet, pretending everything was fine. But even being beside the scent of him hit me with guilt pangs. I was still talking to the man who had kidnapped Alex's best friend. I was no better than the enemy. 

"Too bad. Well, if you ever want to talk about him," Matt shrugged, dipping his brush into dirty red water to clean it off. 

I got an idea. 

"Actually," I said, mixing colours into the colour of Alex's eyes, "he did say something weird to me, yesterday."

"Oh, really?"

I was skirting in terribly dangerous territory. I knew Matt was lying to me, but Matt didn't know I knew. I could give him false information about Alex, and he wouldn't expect it to be a lie, because said I always told him the truth. There could be a way to make Matt think Alex said something when he never did. 

But I had to infuse some truth in it, in case Matt tried to check what I was saying. "So he cancelled class today, right?"

Matt nodded slowly. 

"He said something about leaving for a break. Mentioned something about having found a Miles? And needing to leave. But I don't know what he's talking about. He's quite a riddle, huh?"

Matt stilled and paused. "That's weird."

I knew exactly what I was doing. Giving the impression he no longer had the ability to make Alex comply with him. He was going to get paranoid and he was going to make sure that Miles had not in fact, been found. And I was going to follow Matt all the way to where he was keeping Miles. 

"You know, I actually remember I have an appointment I gotta run to," Matt said, tossing his stuff in his bag. He smiled and said somewhat of an inside and joke of ours and took off. 

I gave myself a good thirty seconds before exiting class myself. 

* * *

Just like I suspected, Matt was outside the building, furiously making phone calls. I hid behind a wall while he started kicking up weeds and I saw his face turn from friendly to freakish in a matter of seconds. There was a crazed look in his eyes. It could almost be mistaken as desperation, a tone I'd been coloured with myself before. Maybe good and bad weren't all too different. 

Matt roared in a whisper. "What d'ya mean he cancelled class? Find out where he's gone to!"

I brought out my phone, turning it to silent, just so what happened yesterday never happened again. Then I saw a text on my phone. It was from Jamie. 

Call me when you get this. You need to tell me everything you know about Turner--there's more on the line than you could ever imagine. Don't trust anybody. You need to get as far away as possible tonight, out of the city. 

How? How was everybody I met connected, and how did my new tattoo employee fit into any of this? This was insane. What had been so special about me? There was something I was missing.

"If you can't find him I'll do it myself," Matt was saying.

As much as I wanted to call Jamie and ask what the hell was going on, I had to follow through with my plan. There was no way I was leaving the city tonight. When I looked up, Matt hung up on his phone call and stormed off campus. 

Just as I was about to follow him, I saw a hand in my peripheral, but the figure quickly turned around a corner of the building before I could see. They put a slip of paper in my bag and I picked it out, running around the corner, but by the time I did so, whoever bumped into me was gone. 

Great. Why didn't I get a better look at who it was? I could have tried to follow them, but I decided it was more important to follow Matt instead. Of course I had to choose between them. While I jogged to keep up I read the note. 

I have to show you something. Be at the Boardwalk at midnight. No earlier, or I kill Turner. -N