Chapter 28: Chapter 28

Mia slots her fingers between the kitchen blinds to peer over into the road.

“Yep, they’re all camped out there like vultures.”

Irene comes up behind her and surveys the area. “The one day I decided to park outside.”

“I can go alone.”

She laughs sarcastically. “No way. I’m dropping you off at the door myself. Let’s go.”

Irene takes the lead and exits the house. Mia locks the front door while Irene watches her back.

The swarm of local reporters moves away from the news van, flocking to them like locusts with microphones in hands and expensive-looking cameras mounted on shoulders.

“Miss Trinket!”

“Mia Trinket!”

“Mia, would you like to give a statement about Mrs. Venus’s live testimony? Do you and your friends know what happened to Erin?”

“Do you know what happened to Keila?”

The pair try to make their way to the car parked on the driveway, overwhelmed by the tabloids. But one of the reporters makes the mistake of getting too close to Mia and Irene’s impulse takes over.

She impairs his balance with a belligerent shove and sweeps his leg from under him, sending him to the ground, and his camera crashes to the pavement, fragments flying everywhere.

“No comment,” Irene barks, her anger visceral, voice rough with restraint. “Now get off my property or his camera won’t be the only thing I break.”

The throng retreats to the curbside. Mia climbs inside and Irene follows suit.

The silver Volkswagen reverses out like a bulldozer, forcing the reporters back quickly before she straightens the car and swerves out into the road, glaring back at them from the rear-view mirror.

“Locals trying to get the scoop before any foreign talent gets in.”

Mia turns around with a frown.

“Any native of Braidwood should know better, that there is no scoop. What makes them think they’ll find out more or something different just because the news went global? It won’t change anything.”

Irene’s face knots into an intense frown. “Keila’s disappearance changed everything.”

When they arrive on campus, Irene slows the car to a standstill before the main entrance. Mia exits and makes her way inside the building.

This time, she is being recognized, and not in a good way. Before she was a common face with no name but now, everyone knows her name, and not for the right reasons.

Speculation and suspicion simmer in every eye she meets, clusters whispering a storm around her. Every gaze is like an added heft to her shoulders.

Mia makes a beeline for Doctor Jo’s office. She enters without notice and rests against the door but the doctor isn’t alone. The counselor looks up at her and another student jerks around to glare back at her.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused,” Mia says with duplicated derision. “You can go.”

“~Mia~,” Doctor Jo chides.

An inquiring look steeps into her face before a vague realization softens her features. “You’re Mia,” the girl says. “One of Erin’s and Keila’s friends. Are you here to confess your guilt or something?”

“No, but I might be confessing to a murder”—she gives the girl a pointed look—“and it won’t be theirs.”

The girl rises from her seat unsteadily, her eyes suddenly too big for her sockets.

“Doctor Jo, I have to get to class—and safety, apparently.”

She grabs her bag and scuttles out of the office like a spooked hare, weaving around Mia cautiously before she hurries out the door, slamming it shut.

Mia takes off her bag and drops it on the floor like she’s at home, reclaiming her seat. Doctor Jo observes her silently for a while, her expression punishing and staid.

“Did you watch the news?” Mia prompts.

“Everyone saw it, Mia. Is that what has you so unnerved?”

Mia scoffs. “I got over it the first time it happened, being followed, being watched and questioned. Everyone looked at me like a victim then, but now they’re looking at me like they’re seeing a villain.

“Mrs. Venus made it sound like we knew something, but we just kept quiet for all these years.”

“Have you?”

A shot of anger, fast and hot. “Are you serious right now?”

“You were young back then. Perhaps she was hoping that repressed memories might have resurfaced by now—”

“Your mind can’t repress something your eyes didn’t see.” Mia jumps to her feet. “But who’s going to believe us now, right? Now that Keila has gone missing and we apparently know something about that, too.”

“I’m not here to lay the blame at anyone’s feet. I’m just informing you that the mood is not favorable. People are scared and scared people can say or do rash things because of that fear.

“Mrs. Venus was desperate. Her only child is missing under the same ominous situation as Erin. And she’s still yet to be found. How do you think that makes her feel?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot or something? I more than anyone, ~more than her~, know more, feel deeper than she can ever know. I understand she’s freaked, but prodding at us isn’t going to help—it never did.”

***

Mia sits at the back of the class, suffering through a math lesson.

She is in unutterable turmoil, her thoughts at war and her mind the battlefield. And neither side of her side is willing to give ground.

She cannot find peace; she detests the silence. She wants to take action, but she fears the consequences.

Akin and Aries are right. If they do anything, the reprisal may be even greater than if they do nothing.

At first break, she meets with Akin in the hallway, but this time Opal joins them. She relocates them to her little sanctuary on campus, the music room where it’s secluded and private.

She allows them to enter first and closes the door behind her.

“Did anyone else feel the temperature drop the moment you entered the building?”

Mia nods sullenly.

Opal snorts bitterly. “It was the excessive staring for me. Some were even bold enough to approach.”

“What about you, star boy?”

He looks away, irritation still fresh on his face. “It was a lot more than some for me. I honestly feel like a criminal walking around here.”

“I say we have a chat with Mrs. Venus,” Opal says, crossing her arms like she means business. “She has to fix it, retract her statement or something.”

“Too late,” Mia says dismissively. “She said what she said on live television. Besides the video is circulating social media like crazy with the ‘find Keila’ hashtag trending like mad. It’s out there.

“But she can’t do more damage than that—there’s no indisputable evidence against us. No murder weapon, no body, no witnesses apart from us.”

Akin looks over at her uneasily. “You really making it sound like we killed her.”

Mia paces away from them thoughtfully. “What I am trying to say—for us all—we don’t have to worry. It doesn’t matter what Mrs. Venus says or anyone thinks, there’s nothing to tie us to their disappearance.”

“Other than the fact that we were there that night,” Opal points out. “We gave flimsy statements about losing Erin in the woods when none of us should have been out there in the first place.”

“Well, it’s not like the police laid out an indictment or issued arrest warrants,” Akin says to reassure her and himself. “We haven’t even been called back for official questioning.

“Mia is right, they have nothing on us. We were just obstructions to them, not suspects. No one understood why we were there that night.”

Mia quirks her brow. “Running theory was that Erin was being groomed or something.”

Akin shrugs. “Human comprehension is very limited. If we didn’t know what we know, we’d probably be thinking the same.”

Mia inhales a deep breath. “Okay, so for now, we keep our heads down and act normal.”

Opal and Akin give a unanimous nod.

“Speaking of keeping it moving,” Opal begins, glancing over to the piano, “my big performance is coming up and my ~perfect~ older sister is attending.

“I have no idea why she’s still here, so if she’s coming, I’ll have to be better than perfect. I already invited Aries, thought I’d extend the invitation to you both.”