Death Note: Blood Ties

Chapter 11: OVERKILL

Billy:

It had been three days since Hannah had reclaimed the death note from her thief. She had previously been in possession of the notebook, but yesterday she had transferred it to Jack. Based on how the cycle was, I should be the one with the notebook in seven days' time. Disappointment. It didn't look like that was going to happen. I remembered the words Jack had spoken to me.

As long as I'm alive, you won't have another turn at it.

If anything could be said about the death note, it was that it changed people. Ethan always seemed afraid by the influence it had. I was not ignorant to the changes the book was having on me, but I wasn't afraid of them either. For the first time in my life, I liked the person that I was now. I wasn't just some tag-along to the group. I was the most powerful piece in this game, I possess the Shinigami eyes! Powerful. Given that, I knew that they all would at some point need me to help them kill.

For that reason shouldn't I be the one calling the shots? I was not confident enough in myself to challenge Jack, but I was no longer the small timid boy on the inside. I was sure it didn't look that way on the outside either. I sat early in roll call and instead of hunching over the desk quietly with my long light-brown fringe obscuring my face, it had been brushed to the side. My eyes were now visible to everyone in the room, and I sat back in my chair confidently with my arms on the desk in front of me.

It seems Jack was right. The only way for me to become a regular turn-holder of the death note again, was if he were to die. He seemed adamant. Hannah still talked to me when I spoke to her, but she was distant and un-trusting. Ethan was the only one who was kind to me. Fluttering. I didn't want them to know how I used the death note. I was afraid they would judge me as a sicko. As for the raven-haired bespectacled boy, I don't know what I'd do if his friendly smile was replaced by a look of disgust.

It was pretty obvious that he liked Hannah. She either didn't notice or didn't care. It was how he would always defend her and care about her. He defended me too but that was because of his own goodness, not because he felt the same way about me that I felt about him. As winter had set in everyone had started wearing their maroon-coloured blazers and jumpers. Wasn't Global Warming supposed to be making everything hotter? It seemed that lately in Brisbane the weather had been acting erratic, unnatural.

Sure enough, it started to rain. There was a faint tapping noise against the glass as flecks of rain pattered against it gently. I watched them trickle down. Ethan would never feel the same way about me that he felt about Hannah. She didn't even care. If I could be liked by him, I would never let him be unhappy. Devotion. There was no way I would let Ethan know what I actually used the death note for. That was why I hadn't returned all of the pages I'd stolen.

Since I started using the death note to manipulate men, I had filled up a whole double-page and half of another one. I had thrown away the first page but I still had four more. I had given three of them back out of guilt.

There was no way I could show them the fourth page. Even if I tried to scribble out what I had written or tear it off, I just couldn't risk it. I was too ashamed, especially of what Ethan would think of me. I didn't notice Ethan until the start of this year, when we had been put into the same roll call class. He wasn't very tall, but I was still shorter than he was. He was slim but not quite as slim as I was either.

He always seemed so cold and quiet. I thought for sure he was having troubles at home or with family. I wasn't in any of his classes, but he seemed intelligent. Every roll call class I would stare at him when I thought he wasn't looking. Sometimes he would catch me and I would feel sick in the pit of my stomach, but at the same time I would feel terrifying excitement. I was sure he would have noticed my feelings by now.