(unedited)
Dancin' around,
The lies we tell.
Dancin' around,
Big eyes as well.
Even the comatose,
They don't dance and tell.
"Team" -Lorde
It was weird, listening to people talk about Olivia. About inside jokes they had with her, her lovable habits, cute quirks, everything.
I hadn't known Olivia wellâ at all, really. I had only known she had been a bubbly, popular kind of person who took a lot of selfies and had gotten involved with the wrong people. Though not in the way most people would assume.
I had been to funerals before, of course. But they had been funerals of those close to me, like Avril and Blake, where I had been the one on the podium, staring at a solemn crowd and struggling to find words to say. I had known them well. I knew next to nothing about Olivia.
It felt a little like I was intruding on a private moment.
Listening to her friends and family recount their favourite memories of her, and talk about the kind of person she had been and could've been, and not being able to share any of it.
After the ceremony, it was announced that you could go up to the coffin, say any last words you had for Olivia, and speak to her family. Most people did, even Devon. I stayed where I was.
There wasn't anything I could say.
I glanced around as people stood up, accidentally meeting the eyes of stranger across the room.
I froze.
No, not accidentally. He had already been staring at me. And not a stranger, either, I knew him.
Ashton.
Why was he here?
He tilted his head towards the door, raising an eyebrow. I glanced at Devon in line, then turned back to him and nodded.
There wasn't anyone in the lobby once we got there. I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped when the door creaked and the muffled sound of voices came from the other side. I sighed, grabbed Ashton's arm and pulled him into the washroom.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I hissed, turning around to face him.
He was staring at the light pink walls. "This is the girl's bathroom," he pointed out.
"I don't care. Why are you here?" I repeated.
He raised an eyebrow. "I could ask you the same thing."
"I asked you first," I said, being the oh-so mature person I was.
He rolled his eyes. "Mature, Elle."
I frowned. "Don't call me that."
"What am I in the doghouse for?"
I gave him a flat look. "You're not funny."
"I wasn't aware I was supposed to be," he said, with a slight smirk.
Jerk.
"Why are you here?" I asked again.
"I'm attending a funeral." Duh. He didn't say it, but his tone implied it.
"I thought you said you didn't love her," I pointed out.
He sobered instantly, losing the smile. "That doesn't mean I didn't care. I'm not heartless."
"I wasn't aware you were supposed to be," I said, throwing his words back at him.
He rolled his eyes.
"Is anyone else here with you?" I asked. If all of the Elite are here and Jenna finds out... Yeah that definitely wouldn't be pretty. She'd probably be mad enough about Ashton's presence, alone.
He paused. "Nate. Why are you here?"
"Because Devon's here," I replied. "And Kaden decided I need to be babysat... And because I wanted to see how Jenna is," I added after a moment.
"You're friends with Jenna?" he asked.
Well, I wasn't sure about that. We were more than acquaintances, I think, with what she has told me. But I wasn't sure if we were really friends. Yeah, we had talked a lot, but it had never really been about me or her. I cared enough, I guess, to make sure she was alright, and she did look out for me a little, if her warnings were something to go by.
"I talk to her more than most people at school," I said finally.
"Which, knowing you, isn't much," Ashton muttered.
"Hey," I protested, part offended, part surprised he had noticed.
He glanced at me. "You're not the only one who can be observant, you know."
"Noted." Then I did something I had been itching to do for the past couple days.
I slapped him.
"Ow!" He raised a hand to his cheek, staring at me. "What the fuck?"
"That's for being a coward," I told him. "Now I'm happy."
He rubbed his cheek slowly, wincing. "A little warning would've been nice."
"Where's the fun in that?"
He grumbled under his breath, but didn't say anything.
"Since you hid for three days," I said. "You said game started with you. Why the hell would you start a game where people got murdered if they couldn't seduce someone?"
He dropped his hand to his side, balling it into a fist. For a split second I thought he was going to punch something, but then he took in a deep breath and relaxed. "I never said I started the game."
"You said it started because of you," I reminded him.
"Because of something I did," he corrected.
"Which would be...?" I trailed off.
He shook his head. "Not important."
Is he serious right now? "I'd say it's pretty important if people are dying because of it."
"Okay, I'll put it under the 'not gonna tell you' category, then," he said.
"Have you told Kaden?" I asked.
He hesitated. "No," he admitted. So Devon was right. There were things Ashton hadn't told Kaden. Important things, considering this was about how the game had started.
"Why?"
He glanced up at the ceiling. "Because it's personal."
"And important to the case."
He didn't deny it.
"You should tell him. Keeping important information to yourself might make you seem suspicious," I said. It wasn't a lie. Kaden and Devon already suspected he was keeping information from them. Whether they suspected more, though, I wasn't sure. Devon probably did. I didn't know about Kaden.
His eyes snapped to me. "You think I'm the one killing people?"
I leaned back, tapping my fingers against the ceramic sinks. Only high quality for Hampton Hills, of course. "I haven't completely eliminated the possibility," I admitted. "I'm just being careful."
"Fair enough." But his tone said he definitely wasn't okay with it. "I should get going before you worry that I'll slaughter you in the bathroom." He stepped back and started to the door. Okay, so he was mad. Not exactly what I was expecting, but I definitely hadn't planned for the conversation to go this way either.
"Jenna said you were with Olivia the night she disappeared," I said.
He froze, turning back slightly. "I get it, Elena, you don't trust me."
I pushed off the sink, stepping towards him. "People I've known for years are lying to my face now. I don't think I trust anyone."
"At least you don't think they're a psychotic killer," he said, spinning around to face me. I shifted back a little, his action having brought us close enough that if I had been a little taller, or he had been a little shorter, are faces would've been an inch apart.
"All I know, is that the killer is in your group of friends," I told him. "That's not exactly a lot to go on."
"But you trust some of us more than others."
I blinked. "I never said that."
"I can tell," he said. "You've all but ruled out my brother. You don't think Vanessa or Skylar are really involved either."
How the hell...
"I told you, you're not the only observant one, Elle," he said, reading my stricken expression.
And here I thought I was hiding it well.
But if he wants to play it that way...
I pushed myself on my tiptoes, keeping my eyes locked on his. "Am I close?" I asked quietly. Even on tiptoes, I wasn't up to his height, but we were close, especially since he was looking down on me while I had my head tipped back.
His eyes flickered down, then back up to meet my gaze. "You're still barely scratching the surface," he told me.
I raised an eyebrow.
"But closer than I expected," he finished.
I bit the inside of my cheek. That was about the vaguest answer ever. "What does that mean?"
It could mean anything. That I was right about Keira, Jacen and him being the ones involved, or that I was right about some of them being innocent. It could've even been a lie, for all I knew.
"Does it matter?" he asked.
"Yeah. It does," I said, giving him an incredulous look. "A lot, considering it might be me in the coffin in two months."
His expression darkened.
I continued anyway. "Or maybe a year, considering you guys like to play hide the body for half a dozen months!"
"That's not going to happen," he told me.
I snorted. "Right. And you can guarantee that?"
I hadn't meant for it to imply that I seriously thought he was the killer, but Ashton seemed to take it that way, stiffening and stepping away from me. "You seem convinced that I can."
I sighed as he turned around. So a change in subject is needed, then. "Tell me about Olivia," I said, making him freeze.
"Why?" he asked, not turning back to face me.
"Because it doesn't make sense. We're nothing alike." I knew that from the speeches I had listened to from her friends and family. Olivia had been, for starters, a lot more outgoing than me. She had been relatively popular, I only talked to people if I had to go a project with them. I had been adopted into a rich family, she had been born into it. "So why did we get picked?"
"You should ask Jacen," he replied, finally turning to face me. "He picked you both."
Both of us?
Why? I had never talked to him in my life. Olivia might've, being as social as she was, but I had more or less gone out of my way to avoid the Elite.
"Did you know?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Why? No, Jacen and I don't braid each other's hair and spill our darkest secrets over Cosmo magazines."
I shook my head. "Jenna said you slept with her three times. Before the three months was over." I glanced at him. "Were you clueless or could you just not keep it in your pants?"
"You can drop the comments, Elena," he said, giving me hard glare.
I didn't back down. "Don't dish out what you can't take, Ashton."
"I'm the one with answers," he shot back.
"I could always go to Jacen." It was a bit of a bluff, since I still trusted what came out of Jacen's mouth less than I trusted Ashton, but it was the only care I had. "He said he knew more than you anyway."
He caught onto it. "And you trust him?"
"About as much as I trust you," I lied.
He scoffed. "Thanks, Elena."
"You don't get to be hurt," I said. "For all I know, you could've signed Olivia's death warrant."
"I didn't think anything would happen!" The sudden and harsh loudness of his voice almost made me jump.
"But you decided to play chance with someone's life anyway?" It wasn't like that was any better.
"All I was told was that I would regret it. We were sixteen," Ashton ground out. "I didn't know how serious it was until she disappeared."
"But why would you sleep with her knowing something could happen?" I demanded. I wasn't sure why I was so hung up on this. I didn't know if I was trying to find a reason not to trust him, or something that would prove he was innocent.
"Because it was going nowhere!" he exclaimed. "I thought she'd last longer if I could feel something, so I tried." He closed his eyes. "I didn't."
"But three times, really?"
His eyes snapped open. "I didn't sleep with her three times."
"Jenna said she was gone for three nights," I told him.
"She was with me for the first two. That's it," he said. "I swear."
He sounded and looked sincere, but I wasn't sure if I could really believe that. If he was telling the truth though, then that meant Jenna had lied, or Olivia had lied to her. If Ashton was telling the truth, and he hadn't been intending to do it three times with her, then she had to have known, right?
If Olivia hasn't been with Ashton the last night, then where had she been?
She had disappeared two days later, so it wasn't like she had been taken then.
Before I could say anything, the door opened and a women in her late thirties stepped in. "This is the women's room," she said, giving Ashton a pointed look.
If she was here, then other people were probably also coming out, which meant the bathrooms wouldn't be a good place to talk anymore. I sighed and followed Ashton out the bathroom.
I swear, we're always interrupted when he actually starts telling me things.
"Ash!" A familiar voice called. We both turned to see Nathan coming down the hall.
Right, Ashton said Nathan came with him.
"I've been looking for you everywh-" Nathan cut himself off mid-sentence when he looked up and realized where Ashton had been. "Did you just come out of the girl's washroom?"
Ashton pointed at me. "This crazy dragged me in there."
Nathan glanced between us. "So I take it you guys have made up."
"What?" I looked at Ashton. I thought he was keeping Nathan in the dark. Had he told him about our conversation in the library?
"He was avoiding something yesterday," Nathan said. "And I think he lost more brain cells banging his head against the wall than he ever has."
Ashton groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
Nathan leaned closer to me. "Between you and me, I think he needs them," he stage-whispered.
"Ha. Ha. You're so funny, Nate," Ashton said drily.
Nathan gave his brother an indignant look. "I think I'm hilarious."
"Elena?" A voice called, before they could continue bickering. I recognized it quickly. Jenna. She was gonna flip when she saw the Sinclairs, but it wasn't like they could go anywhere or hide, being in a dead end hallway.
Whoever decided to put bathrooms in a dead end hall should've considered scenarios like this. The person who had decided to put the guy's bathroom down a different hall than the girl's bathroom should put some thought into it too.
Jenna rounded the corner, then stopped staring at the guys beside me. "Why the fuck are the two of you here?" she demanded.
Ashton was first to recover. "Paying our respects to Olivia, of course." Except, he didn't say it nicely, he said it in an almost mocking way, like he was challenging her.
Fortunately, before Jenna could show Ashton exactly how much she hated him, Nathan stepped in. "We were just leaving. Come on, Ash." He grabbed his brother's arm and pulled him down the hall.
Jenna stepped back to let them pass, then turned look at me once they were gone. "What were you doing with them?"
I shook my head. "I was just asking why they were here." I walked up to stand next to her at the end of the hall. We were at the edge of the crowd in the lobby, but no one wandered over to interrupt.
"I don't know how they got in," Jenna muttered. "Or why they'd want to be here."
"Well, they knew Olivia," I said.
She glanced at me. "Yeah, and they killed her."
"You really think they did something." I wasn't sure whether it had been a statement or a question. I could tell by her tone that she was sure they had, but earlier she had been going with the Daniel thing.
"Oh my god," Jenna exclaimed.
"What?"
"You don't actually like them, do you?" she demanded. "Not when my sister hasn't even been buried in her grave."
"No. I just... I just don't know if all of them are involved," I admitted.
"You shouldn't trust them," she told me, giving me a sharp look before glancing away. "Ashton especially."
"I don't."
"Good."
"You really hate him," I said. "Ashton, I mean."
She glanced at me, then nodded.
"You think he did something?" There wasn't a reason for Jenna to hate Ashton so much. It wasn't like I trusted him completely, either, but I knew more than her and I didn't hate Ashton nearly as much as she did.
"Even if he didn't," she ground out. "He should've kept her safe."
"What if he didn't know?" I asked. "About Daniel?"
She gave me an incredulous look. "You don't really believe he did it, right?"
I bit my lip as I considered how to answer. I knew it was a set-up, for sure, but Jenna didn't know someone in the Elite murdered people, even if she did suspect it. "If I do?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Then you're just as gullible as she was."
Before I could explain myself, she pushed through the crowd, the acidic tone she had used telling me not to follow. I sighed and turned to scan the room for Devon, then stopped short when I spotted another familiar face I hadn't expected to see.
Jacen.
What was he doing at Olivia's funeral?
As if he feeling my eyes on him, he turned and met my gaze. I started towards him, but before I could take more than a couple steps, he shook his head.
Then he turned and walked out the door.
-- â¡ --
Olivia ---->
Teaser: "Cameron hired me to be Daniel's lawyer."
QotC: Who do you trust more? Jenna or Ashton?
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