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Chapter 6: Child's Slay
"No," Stavo answered, head low. "I only remember the body. I remember...I remember Sawyer. I-I was running and she stumbled into my arms, bleeding from the neck. There was an a-arrow in her throat."
"But Dave spoke of no arrow when he came here," Nicodemus thought aloud, confused.
"That's because I...I took it out," his voice wavered. He looked back up, tears in his eyes. "I didn't want her to die. I-I thought if I took out the arrow I'd be able to do something." Stavo closed his eyes and sighed. "I was wrong."
***
Kieran woke up, his head pounding from the sound of knocking at his skull, at the door. Jesus Christ. Who's left? Is Kellerman gonna hand me detention on top of the bruised ego and lost ear? He got up and listened at the door.
And Deanna was back after a prolonged absence. Just when things seemed to settle down...
"We talked about this, Dee," he spoke up morosely, his face a sickly green shade. "For your own good, I don't want to see you. I don't think I can handle it. Call me weak but that's what killers like us are. Try ringing up my therapist. Maybe he'll give you the time of day."
He turned to leave but then she persisted. "What did you see, huh? You find Jesus in the woods? Test me, Dee. I'm really fucking curious."
-Stavo, Nicodemus and Kieran
"Well...I know it wasn't us. And I know it wasn't Kieran," Audrey began, "And I know it wasn't Carl, because he's been in here the whole time."
"What about before then? Did you see anything else?" Teague was desperate. He didn't want this to be one of his students...
"Weird one to single out," Brooke followed Audrey's gaze to Carl, "Far as I can see, he's not the only one been parked in here for hours."
She folded her arms, "I don't know, maybe you're all smarter than I am."
***
"The arrow," Phyllis chimed in, looking at Teague out of the corner of her eye, "We...we didn't hear anything about an arrow."
At least, not that Dave had mentioned.
It was peculiar, this boy she'd had in front of her so often, in so many sessions, trying to parse him out, figure out how he ticked, how he operated... She'd never been fool enough to think she'd truly understood Stavo. Sometimes she thought Micah might have gotten closer than she ever could...
But now, here...he seemed a totally different person. Small and afraid...
And cornered.
-Brooke and Phyllis
"No, I...I didn't," Stavo replied, face in his hands. "It was just me. Me and Sawyer." He looked up at his old therapist, his eyes pleading. "I swear, the arrow was there. I found her dying. I'm not lying!"
"No one said you were, man," Nicodemus raised his arms, trying to calm the fella down.
"I-I can try to remember," Stavo persisted. "If I can just think for a second--w-why can't I think?!"
-Stavo and Nicodemus
Phyllis bit her lip, taking the liberty of moving past Teague to put her hands on Stavo's rain-slick shoulders, "Sometimes," she told him as placidly as she could manage, "When...when we've had a shock, or a...a scare, or something we'd rather forget, the...the mind tries to help by...by smoothing out the edges, making it so you don't have to remember. I'm...I'm sure it's there, somewhere, Stavo...what happened to...to the arrow, or..."
She stopped herself from saying anymore, just in case.
"We won't force it out of you," she turned hesitantly to Teague, "Won't we?"
"It's just...this looks bad," Stavo looked up at Dr. Hendricks, his face mere inches from hers. "But I promise you I didn't do it. None of it. I..." He bit his lip and lowered his voice considerably, saying something only meant for her ears. "I would never hurt him. I swear."
Phyllis felt her breath catch.
Seven months...seven months of knowing, and not knowing, and suspecting and fearing and, yes, a part of her dreading... Both confirmed and rendered entirely meaningless in an instant.
She met his eye, "I believe you," she told him, but she did not say what she thought...
That anyone can believe all manner of things about themselves while, at the same time, remaining totally unaware of what they might do...or what they had done. The same forces that compelled people to forget moments of great stress could banish memories of complete depravity.
"I do," she nodded, placing light pressure on his shoulder.
"Mr. Acosta...I won't force anything out of you," Teague said, arms still crossed, "I don't know if I believe you or not."
On the one hand, the eviden was stacked against him. Convient. Too convient...
"Wait here, while I speak with Dr. Hendricks for a moment." He nodded to the door.
***
"Brooke, you're probably one of the smartest people I know," Audrey declared.
Phyllis gave Stavo a tiny, sad smile, stepping out behind her colleague, "If you must know, and in the interest of full disclosure, Stavo was a patient of mine for a few months, after he came to Lakewood. If you're asking me to tell you anything he told me, well..."
She paused, "You understand, that's sticky, even with my...already sticky ethics."
"Oh, well..." Brooke sighed, "Thanks."
She held up one of the notepads, "You know what this is? Stavo's whole life, Volume I of II. Noah's been very diligent," she sighed, "Just yesterday, I'd have bitten his head off if I found out about these and now..." she shrugged, "I'm about to pull a cram session over my boyfriend's dirty laundry."
"Actually, we're here to talk about you," Teague said, closing the door behind him.
"I don't think I have to tell you I intend to fire you when this is over. What I do other than that depends entirely on what you tell me now, and how truthful you are."
***
"Well...would you like a friend while you dig through it?"
Phyllis winced. She supposed she should have expected to be fired, though to say she'd thought once about her job security since last night would be a gross exaggeration.
Never mind that her entire practice was in jeopardy now, with the fruits of her labors so crudely, grotesquely broadcast for them all to hear...
How Isaac will laugh, she thought bitterly, If he only knew how.
"Whatever else you may think of me, Principal, I do believe in the power of the truth. And I would never seek to mislead you about anybody, whether they were a patient of mine or not. I can't expect you to understand why I did what I did, but you have children...I had a son. I expect, if any of your girls came to harm, you'd be no less determined to come to the truth of all this than I."
***
"Huh..." Brooke sighed, "Yeah, sure. Why not?" she turned the notebook around, "It'd be...weird looking over it all with Noah, anyway."
She wasn't about to tell Audrey why. She feared she might already have a good idea.
-Phyllis and Brooke
"I consider all of these students my kids, Phyllis," Teague said, controlling his voice, "Here's the deal. You tell me just how many of those cassettes you have...and I won't report what you did."
"Alright, let's get started," Audrey started reading over the notes.
"You don't have to blackmail me," she said flatly, "There's about two dozen and, yes, before you ask, though at this point, I'm not sure if you even intended to interrupt the lashing to do so, I did make tapes of Stavo, when he was a patient of mine. To my knowledge, they're still in my bag at the cabin."
She paused, "...If you intend to search my bag, I might as well tell you about another," she paused, "Your daughter Sarah thinks very highly of you."
***
Brooke sat down, propping a notepad open on her knee.
"To be honest, I'm kinda, in some weird way, excited about this? It's kind of like reading his diary."
She paused, "God. This is what I am now..."
-Phyllis and Brooke
Everything around Teague seemed to stop at those words.
"My daughter... was a patient of yours?"
***
"Hey, no judgement here."
Stavo watched Dr. Hendricks and Teague leave the room, leaving him with the other one.
Nicodemus, the positive dude he was, gave Stavo a thumbs-up, assuring him things would be alright.
Stavo didn't put too much confidence in the gesture.
-Stavo and Nicodemus
"Is," clarified Phyllis, "Of course, as she has committed no crime and is not under investigation, I am under no obligation to tell you a word she told me, and...if you did listen to those tapes, you would be just as much of an exploitative voyeur as I most certainly am..."
She shrugged, "Best, then, to let sleeping dogs lie. Like I said, you'll find the tapes in my bag, if nobody else has gotten to them first. But a girl is dead, and I don't intend to let her body molder away in there any longer."
***
Brooke flipped idly through, "Birthplace...Phoenix. Great moves, Noah, that must've taken him months. His mom got terminal, some kind of painkiller cocktail... Noah cites a pharmacist he called, which I'm sure breaks several laws, so we'll just leave that out of the deposition, won't we..."
-Phyllis and Brooke
Teague took a deep breath and counted to 10. He needed to focus on the task at hand...
"Alright," He finally said, before he walked back inside.
"Mr. Acosta...I would be much obliged if you stayed with Phyllis and Nicodemus. I'll even say please."
***
"...Raised Catholic. The Sheriff got more religous after his mom passed...and what's this?" Audrey pointed to a particular part, "Is that...what I think it is?"
Phyllis returned inside, "I don't think you need worry about that...Principal."
That he would honestly try to blackmail her... Did he think she was so susceptible? Audrey Jensen certainly had seemed too, even suggested she'd only this as a show to her husband.
Perhaps...perhaps that had had some truth to it, but... Phyllis didn't like to think she could be bought.
Had she ever? There must be something left of her values. She supposed she must guard them, however zealously.
***
"Religious my ass," Brooke muttered, "Practically told me he was turning a blind eye on my Dad's drug business."
She paused, "But, bygones..."
Diverted by Audrey's exclamation, she cocked an eyebrow, "Camelback Mountain."
Noah had even included a little picture clipped to the page, as if for reference. The writing here became very cribbed, very close together, as if Noah were writing quickly, anxiously...
She felt her heart skip a beat, "Who the hell is Ignacio Cortez?"
-Phyllis and Brooke
Aleks looked up at him when he spoke about getting out of there, her eyes widening as she clutched onto his hand a bit tighter.
"Is there a way? Can we really...because lets do it...lets get out of here, Zach..."
She wanted to go home, put all of this behind her, just to get out of there and be away from more murder and death.
***
Tracy looked at him, and pulled the flash drive out of her top. "I'll drown the drive as soon as I have my pills, Mr. Smith."
She was going to get what she wanted, which meant that she would have no further use for the drive or the photos on it.
***
Deanna listened to her brother, pounding her hand on the door once more in anger this time.
"Test you? I'll test you alright..." She growled out, shaking her head as she leaned against the door and sighed.
She didn't want to tell him, but right now she was angry and vengeful and wanted to make Smoke pay for what he had done. "I saw Aunt Tina banging my recently ex-boyfriend Smoke in a damn net...how's that for juicy ass gossip big bro? Enough for you to open the damn door?!"
Her foot went sailing into the wall, not so much towards her brother, but her anger for what had recently gone down. She was losing everyone, every single person that she cared about she was losing, and the most important person was her brother, and she was losing him all too quickly.
"Help me, Kieran....please..." She whispered through the door, resting her head against it.
-Aleks, Tracy, Deanna
"I have no idea," replied Audrey.
***
"How's the arm?" asked Carl.
"Oh, you noticed?" Leslie looked at her wound. "Yeah, this is from the second time I was chased by a lunatic last night. Y'know. After they locked me up for something I didn't do. Stellar job of standing up for me, by the way. Really. Good job."
***
Stavo looked up to find the principal and psychiatrist enter. "Oh. Okay." He turned towards the prone and now covered corpse of Sawyer. "Are you going to..."
Nicodemus stood up. "I'll bring her to the hall. I...I know where you keep 'em." Not wanting to be a bother any longer, he patted Phyllis on the back considering how disconcerted she was looking and lifted the body. Nodding to each of them, he left the infirmary and started his way back to the hall.
Stavo sighed, trying his best not to stare.
***
Kieran perked up when Deanna spilled the beans. Smoke, that toilet water drinking thug, screwed kooky Aunt Tina. And killer Dee just watched. He felt bad. He really did. No one deserved to see Tina mid-coitus. Especially with someone who was supposed to care for her, even if that guy was a spineless douche-bag.
His curiosity piqued, he asked, "So your no-good boyfriend cheated on you with your no-good aunt? Tell me...how does that make you feel? What do you want to do about it?"
-Leslie, Stavo, Nicodemus and Kieran
"I would have been in the same boat. And I wouldn't have gotten these," Carl pulled the prints out of his pocket.
"I got Audrey Jensen's, and Ted's. And a few maybes."
"I want revenge...I want blood Kieran..." Deanna said through the door, leaning against it as she stood there. She had been betrayed not only by family, but by someone who had claimed to love her. She couldn't let that be the reputation she had from now on.
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breathe as she focused on the sounds of her brother behind the door.
"I want you to help me...help me show them that they messed with the wrong person...I need my big brother's help..." She said lowly, not sure what else she could say to convince him. But she knew that she wanted to get revenge on her aunt and Smoke. "Because right now...they messed with the wrong person..."
-Deanna
Brooke turned the page, nearly tearing it in her zeal.
There was a police report, an autopsy record... She read with flat eyes, increasingly feeling her blood heat up, her eyes burn...
No, no, it can't be, not like that, not...
"He killed himself," Brooke said at last, "Stavo was there. Stavo was..."
Noah had made a careful, colorful annotation of his own, with a little dramatic flourish...
"He was Stavo's phoenix."
She leaned back, pressing the notebook shut.
***
"That's..." Phyllis began, "Thank you, Nicodemus. I'm...I'm sorry you had to endure this..." she sighed, "Spectacle. And..."
She seized a length of linen from the dusty old shelves, hurrying to the doorway before he could go, "Cover her with this. They've seen enough as it is, but... If we can spare them just...just the one."
***
"Maybe we could think of one!" Zach told her, "It...it can't be that hard. It's not like we're on an island, or...or a mountain, or in the desert. The highway's right out there! Seriously."
He could feel a new purpose stirring around inside him. Maybe he was stupid, maybe he didn't stand a chance figuring out which of the people around him was a killer...maybe it didn't matter.
Because there were things he was good at. Doing things...he didn't always do them well, but...
He had a better track record with them than sitting around and thinking.
"We can find a way," he nodded, with new confidence, "I know it!"
-Brooke, Phyllis and Zach
Aleks smiled brightly, nodding her head as she looked up at him. "Alright...let's do it...let's get out of here, Zach."
She would go with him, hell she would try and get all of their friends to join them in leaving if possible. Because sitting around here and waiting to be picked off wasn't her idea of a fun time, especially with how many of them were already ending up dead.
Part of her wanted to run far and fast, but she would wait for the others, wait for Zach. "We need a car...or something that can drive fast."
-Aleks
"Ok, this is probably the coma talking, but what do you mean?"
"It's no problem," Nicodemus assured her. "If you want, we can talk about it after..." He looked about them, not sure what to call this, so he left it at that. "...dig?"
***
Leslie took a look at the prints. "Nice." She opened up her journal and began to sort them, gently labeling them by name. "Now if only we got the prints off that knife, we'd be able to see if they match." Closing the book, she sighed. "Though I have to be honest, I doubt it's gonna be goody-two-shoes baseball star but I guess we're all full of surprises."
***
Kieran let her words wash over them. Familiar now. He heard them just last night. And then he was ashamed of the apparent joy she took in killing those random people. But now, it seemed personal. Now, it reeked of vendetta. Now, it had purpose. Meaning. Significance.
He could understand that.
He got up and opened the door, staring down her sister for the first time since she openly confessed those murders. "You want blood?" Kieran signaled towards the doors of the hall and started his way to them. "Follow me."
-Nicodemus, Leslie and Kieran