Fate's Exchange (Twisted Fate, Book 1)

Chapter Fifty

My vision became tunneled. The sun faded, melting in the sky like wax dripping down the sides of a burning candle. Instead of hardening at the base, it misted to pool as a heavy fog that settled across the side of the school. It blanketed us with its warmth, feeling oppressive. The sobs I held tore through my body and the paramedic pushed me to the side as she called out orders to her partner, but I couldn't hear her words. David's sightless eyes stared up at me and I knew before they pronounced it.

He was dead.

I dropped to my knees and leaned forward, placing my palms down in front of me for balance. Feet bustled by the edges of my vision and all sound became muffled, like everyone was yelling and I was resting at the bottom of a twelve-foot-deep pool in the center of it all. The only thing I knew was that David was dead, and the one thing that remained without shadows were his open eyes; blank but blue, and clear even in death.

Another set of feet walked by in front of me, and then the paramedic's partner squatted down, blocking David from sight. I tried to look right, then left, but the woman who had made me move away came around to hunch down beside her partner as they prepared the gurney. A man in a suit joined them, and whatever he said made them stand, then step aside. I lowered my head, managing to see David's eyes between the bars of the folded-down gurney.

After a short conversation with the suit-clad man, the paramedics retrieved the gurney, and as it was rolling away, someone came up from behind and placed their hand on my shoulder. I jumped up, turning, and raised my hands. The uniformed officer took a step back, shook his head, and put his hands out in front of himself.

"I'm sorry," he said, and the tension in my body released. "Miss, did you see what happened?"

Without turning my body, I shifted so that I could glance back at David over my shoulder.

"Miss?"

Looking back, I followed his gaze as he nodded to another officer standing beside the man in the suit. The other man nodded in return and then walked over to David, bending at the waist to reach out and lower his eyelids. When he stood, he hooked his finger in the air and focused on the man in the suit jotting notes in a flipbook.

"We need this covered up, Jim," he said, lowering his arm to gesture circles in the air around David. "Students will be let out soon, and..." He looked back to the officer at my side and nodded. "We need to cover it up."

I opened my mouth, darting my eyes between them as they glanced at me, and then focused back on the officer who'd spoken to me. "What are they doing?"

"This is a crime scene now, Miss," he said. He reached out his arm and motioned for me to walk to the right where the four remaining Elixir students had been gathered. "Come on. How about we go talk and let them do their job?"

"But—why?"

"Miss—"

"What's the point of all this? Josh did it! He killed David, and where is he now? Are you looking for him?" I pointed to his friends. "Ask them what happened! They were all here!"

"Did you see what happened?" the officer asked, ignoring my outburst. His brown eyes narrowed, more with disbelief than concern, like for some reason, because I was covered in blood, I would be too traumatized to be trusted. "Can you give us a statement?"

I laughed, feeling like a ball of pressure exploded inside my chest. "A statement? Really? How about, 'The police arrested the person responsible for attacking people and let him go, and now someone else is dead?' How's that?"

"I'll tell you what happened," Sarah said with surprising bravado, breaking from the group to walk over as we approached. Christa—the girl who seemed as vicious as Josh—stood with her, nodding her own compliance. "She really wasn't here. She just arrived. I think he's her boyfriend."

The officer nodded to them and then turned back to me, folding his arms to stare down at me. "What's your name?"

Swallowing, I looked at Christa and Sarah, and back to the officer, feeling small as I had to tilt my head back to make eye contact. "Alyssa," I mumbled, and glanced down to study my feet. "I'm A-Alyssa Frank."

"Do you have somebody who can take you home?" he asked.

"I—my parents are at work." I shook my head, and looked back to David, where another group had arrived to set out markers and start taking photographs. Swallowing, I glanced to the ground and then to the officer. "I want to go to the hospital."

"The paramedics said you weren't hurt."

"I'm not." I crossed my arms. "I'm going to follow the ambulance."

"Honey, your boyfriend is—"

"Dead?" I finished, looking up to meet his worried gaze with my blank one, and then back to the ground, all the bravado I tried to erect collapsing as my voice cracked. "I kn-know."

The officer came to stand beside me, raising his hand to rest on my shoulder. "He won't be taken to the hospital. The coroner... Your friend will be brought directly to the morgue, Alyssa. I'm sorry, but if you talk to his parents, maybe—"

"H-he—I never met them."

Fresh tears began to fall. I backed up five steps and squatted. My head fell to my knees and my arms wrapped around my shins. I couldn't breathe, all the moments I'd shared with David running through my mind, and the pain spread outwards from my core until I felt like my stomach was being ripped from me through my mouth.

It's supposed to be me.

"Okay, Alyssa. What's your parents' number?"

"H-her friend," I said between shaking sobs, "wr-wrecked my phone."

"You can use mine," he said, already reaching for it.

"No," I said, and lifted my head, trying to blink away the tears and control the involuntary trembling my body seemed keen to continue. My parents couldn't see this. Nobody should have to see this. "I-I'll get a ride."

I pulled myself up off the ground, my hands shaking as I noticed the blood was still wet. I looked down at my clothes to see the red that stained them and could only imagine what my hands had left on my face and in my hair.

"Alyssa?"

"Huh?" I looked blankly at the officer. "I'm just going to go wash my hands. Is that okay? Can I do that?"

"Yes, though we'll need your clothes, and obviously, your phone. Do you have anything to change into?"

"My phone's dead now, somewhere in the field." I looked back down to my hands for a moment, and then balled them into fists at my side, and held the officer's gaze. "Can I go home? I'd rather change there and then give you the clothes?" I glanced at David and took a deep breath. "I want to go home now. Please."

I kept my eyes forward, no longer intimated by the fact that my head barely reached his shoulders, as the officer hesitated and then signaled to the man in the suit. He typed something into his phone and waited for it to beep with a response, and then looked at me and nodded.

"You can go," he said, and pulled a card from his front pocket, holding it out until I took it. Nodding to the man in the suit, he added, "Jim—that's the detective over there—will be by to speak with you and your parents. Change as soon as you get home and put your clothes in a plastic bag, okay? We'll need to gather it as evidence."

Nodding, I turned away, running back to the school before he could change his mind and tell me that they wouldn't let me leave unless I was released to a parent. Maybe he thought I was eighteen and in charge of myself? I wasn't hurting anyone by not correcting a question he hadn't asked.

I pulled open the doors where a crowd had gathered. Everyone parted to let me through, gaping at me in shock and blatant but thankfully silent, curiosity. Not one person spoke, not even a whisper, and they all allowed me to make my way to the bathroom without hassle.