Page 128 of Massacre Monday

Even still, his blue eyes like Ryan’s find me and smile at the corners, then vanish when he faces the troops again. There’s something clinical about it. Like he’s scanning me, measuring whether I’m worthy—or useful. It reminds me of the way Aiden looks me over.

My chest tightens. This man isn’t just Ryan’s father. He’s the reason people flinch when they hear the name Cardell.

In the parking lot, Ryan hobbles next to me as his father leans over to say, “It’s good to finally meet you, Miss Freidenberg. I’ve heard nothing but excellent things from my wife and son. If you needanythingat all…” He’s warm when he speaks to me, much less cold than I had first anticipated.

Dad approaches my other side and takes my hand. Not in a threatening way, but as if he’s making a boundary around me. “Thanks,” he replies gruffly to Ryan’s father.

“Thank you,” I say with a polite smile.

Ryan’s grip around me tightens, even when his dad gives him a hug and whispers, “Sunday dinner. See you there.”

It’searly morning by the time Ryan and I have been examined in the emergency room and leave with an all clear. Him with more bandages and me with one IV bag of fluids running through my body.

We collapse into bed and snuggle against each other, staring at the metal-beamed ceiling in the dark, the sun not yet arisen. Only the barest light trickles in from the floor-to-ceiling windows. But enough to see Ryan’s eyes are open.

“Do you think they’ll come after us?” I’m still unsettled. Worried I’ll be thrown in prison for what I did.

“Nope,” he says, turning to his side and brushing hair off my cheek. I place my hands together and roll over to face him.

“How can you be so confident?”

One corner of his lips raises. “We own the police. And it doesn’t even matter. It was truly self-defense.”

His confidence and his steady voice relax every muscle in my body. More than anyone else’s attempts tonight to calm my nerves. I trust Ryan over them all. He’s right. The senator’s dead. His wife too. And no one asked us a single question. It was just, “heart condition” and“accidental overdose.” A new senator will be appointed. Probably from the pool of obedient servants lined up, ready to step into the spotlight.

He said they are the law... I guess I never believed it until now.

However, at Northview, this is how things go: the board makes assignments. People die. The news makes up pretty stories. And the rest of us? We either believe it, or keep our mouths shut. All for the promise of privilege in the end.

“Besides, if they threw you in prison, I’d break you out. We’d live on the lam, and I’d take you to Canada. Or Mexico… Somewhere. Fuck, I’d buy an island, and we could live there.” Flipping to his back, he stares at the ceiling again. “Maybe I should do that anyway.”

I scoot closer and place my head on his shoulder, my hand sliding across his warm chest until his heart beats into my palm. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”

“Done. I’ll buy one this week.” His arm wraps around me, pulling me even higher and closer to him. With a tap, he kisses the top of my head. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, I killed someone. I think I’m more worried that I was dancing so long with a man who really hated me. Who was so disturbed that he’d rather me be dead than be with someone else. And I’m still shaken by their plans for me.”

Clearing my throat, my eyebrows tug together as I wonder… “Also, I was getting sort of threatening text messages this semester. I thought perhaps at one pointyouwere sending them. They came from an unknown number. But I deleted them all.”

He snorts. “There’s no way that would be me, pink cheeks. I’d definitely make myself known.”

I chuckle in agreement, and he continues. “But I’ll look into it and make sure it was Mitch. Wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Do you think he also did those things to Gwen?”

“Ripped off her face and put it on your door? Yes. You said he admitted to it, yeah?”

“What about him saying hefoundher that way… The symbol on the ground in the cellar is the same as the circle in the woods.”

My mind won’t stop circling. Mitch was capable of unspeakable acts, but something about Gwen’s death still feels too…orchestrated. Too symbolic. Like he was just another piece on the board. And that man I saw—his cloak, his knife—he didn’t look scared. He looked like he belonged there.

“Maybe the caped man with the knife had something to do with it,” I announce.

“Hmm…I think I’ve seen something like what happened to Gwen’s body in a puzzle. But it was missing pieces.” He reaches over and grabs his phone, then types in a search online. “Yeah, this. Right here.”

The image that he pulls up is called atangram. A series of shapes that form a square. “Yep. That’s kind of what it looked like, except…” Nausea rises up my esophagus until I swallow. “They had one piece of the puzzle. From Gwen’s skin.”

“It’s called adissectionpuzzle, and I remember where I saw one.”