Abnormalities

(Mason's POV) Chapter Eleven

As Halloween drew near, many of the students stopped gossiping about me and were exchanging plans for the holiday. Many students had already been invited and accepted to go to Cam's party the night of. Others wanted to stay home and hand out candy to little kids. I, for one, wanted nothing more but a night of peace and quiet with my parents. Since the city sees it as a national day to celebrate heritage, Mom gets the day off and Dad can come home earlier in the evening. We were planning on celebrating alone, but...

"Alright, students, Halloween may be in four days, but that's no excuse to get lazy with this next project!" Mr. Hollister states. He turns on the projector and, on the screen, our next partner project is written in bold letters.
"'The Dark Side of Halloween..?'" A girl in the front row reads off.
"Exactly. You and one other student will pair up and go into depth about a crime committed on Halloween in a slideshow and present it next week. I want you to analyze the victims, people accused and guilty of committing said crime, and what really went down. Simple project!" Mr. Hollister explains, moving his hands all over the place. "I've already paired you all up, so when I call your name, I'll state your partner's name as well. Feel free to move to their desk once I call your names out."
"Ooh, I hope I get paired with Anne," another girl student says; Anne, a faun sitting right next to her, agrees.
"Starting from the top of the roster... Maverick Barr?"
"Present, Sir!" A male voice shouts from the middle row, raising his hand.
"You'll be with Mason."
And like that, a human boy named Maverick was sitting to my right, getting all comfy in the seat I reserved for my backpack. He seemed too uptight and positive to learn... I had a bad feeling coming from him. He had already grabbed two laptops from the computer cart and brought them to our seats so we could start working right away. As he started making the slideshow, I had barely just signed in.
"Ready to get to work?" He asks, setting up the title page. He pulls back a little strand of his neatly styled hair and "tucks" it back in.
"No," I admit, sluggishly checking my email to see if he shared it or not.
"That's the sp- wait."
I shake my head at his eagerness, opening the slideshow and putting my name on the first slide. "Any ideas what you want to do?"
"I'm not sure, let me look up a list." He loudly types "crimes committed on Halloween" into the search bar and clicks on the first site, scanning the first few crimes.
Mr. Hollister yells out, "Oh, and students! Let me know what crime you're doing so that I can make sure no one does the same one," as he finishes partnering everyone up.
"We should probably hurry then..." I mutter. "What's one that looks interesting to you?"
"Hmm... look at this one, this murder's pretty gruesome." Maverick points at a picture of a guy being shot for going to the wrong house for a party.
"I'm not so sure about that one. Let me look something up," I say, using my own computer to search. I click on one site called "Psychic News" and scroll down to the first article.
"NEWS FLASH: Transfer Student kidnapped Halloween night, abductor(s) unknown. Last seen location: Old Ranch University." A picture sits below the bold title, showing a boy with blonde, wavy hair and blue eyes. The date is set for early November of next year.
"Odd, this article's year is off," I say, showing Maverick my computer. "See?"
"Probably some fake news site with a bunch of typos. Better look somewhere more reliable," Maverick states, clicking on another website.
"Hmm. Looks fake, too. Oh well."
After five more minutes of painstakingly boring searching, Maverick finds a crime to analyze and goes to Mr. Hollister, asking if anyone else had taken it. Mr. Hollister gives us the green light and Maverick comes back to our desk, ecstatic.
"It's all ours!"
"Aight... how we splitting the work load?" I ask, resting my cheek on my hand.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about anything. I'll do the whole project myself," Maverick states, getting back in his seat.
"You'll... what? Why would you do that?" I ask again, giving him a strange look.
"It'll be easy on you, since you don't seem like the type to enjoy group projects from what I've observed." Maverick shuts his laptop and faces me. "I want to ask you a few questions, if that's alright with you."
I lift my face from my palm. "What kind of questions?"
"I want to know why the rumors are going around and the real answers behind them."
"Dude, are you crazy? You want me to answer those things in a classroom??" I say.
"Mason, buddy, we both know that these rumors aren't all that great. I want to try and ease your burden, y'know, talk things out."
I glance at the rest of the classroom; all of the other students are busy, working on their projects. Lena's busy with her partner, researching their own crime.
"How do I know I can trust you..?" I ask, still looking at her. "I've never met you before."
"If it helps you in any way, Lena and I are good friends. Whatever you say that would hurt her would be safe with me, and same goes with you."
He seemed sincere enough. I wanted to trust him, but I was so afraid that he would be lying.
"We'll start off slow, okay?" I whisper, looking back at him. Maverick smiled a little.
"Sounds good."
He and I went back and forth for most of the period; he'd give me a rumor and I would debunk it in the safest way possible. The jock rumor? Got beat up in the back of McDonald's. The demon rumor? Not a demon; we had to look up the signs of a common demon and he tried to find anything on me related to them. Thankfully, I was seen as nothing more than normal. There were many more rumors, but the thing he was interested the most about was my heritage. I simply told him that if he could prove his loyalty to me, I'd tell him a little more to get him off of my case. I was personally a little annoyed with his constant need for my attention, but that's what I get for being partnered up with someone who looked and acted like a modern Sherlock Holmes.
Maverick ended up asking for my number so he could ask more questions over the weekend. I obliged, knowing the back of my mind that I probably wouldn't answer if given the chance.