Page 30

CHAPTER 30 VI?T

The forensics competition was two months away. Still, Lis wanted to be prepared, so she asked the FSC officers to prepare mock cases to mirror the real event. They staged a murder scene in the lab where meetings were held. The desks were all pushed against the wall, making the scene the center point.

Viet was sweating underneath his white Tyveks because the AC was off. According to the sheet in his hands, this case was a stab-and-run; the perp fatally stabbed the victim, who bled out instead of dying immediately. The perp left a trail of blood to a nearby trash can, where the weapon, gloves, and shoes were dumped. The individual changed clothing, then disappeared before officials could arrive. The group had to analyze the substances found at the scene to determine in which direction the perp had run and later the perp’s identity. The blood trail ended at the trash can, and the incident occurred at a four-way intersection. Unfortunately, no functioning CCTV cameras had captured the crime, and since it was nighttime, there were no witnesses.

The club officer who staged the scene took the job seriously. A dummy lay on his back, wearing a white tee and jeans. The stab wound was on their lower back, and instead of using white tape to mark X , which would leave room for the detectives to imagine the wound, the officer had provided a realistic rendition. Viet saw through the wound—a moulage using colored powder simulated the edges—and the blood pooling underneath.

Viet blanched as Kale poked through the wound and brought his bloodstained fingertip to his mouth—

“Corn syrup, but with another flavor I can’t clock. Interesting.”

“Don’t eat things from a murder scene,” Lis reprimanded. Their friend merely shrugged in response.

Viet glanced over his shoulder at Nathaniel, a second-year who’d recently joined their group. The blond-haired boy stared open-mouthed at the older members’ display. From the short time they had together, he appeared studious, preferred clear-cut instructions, and adamantly followed them.

He felt he had to defend his friends to the rule follower. “Don’t worry, at the real competition, they’ll be total professionals.”

Nathaniel meekly laughed. “That’s reassuring.” He glanced around. “So, how do we figure out where the perp had gone if there’s no blood trail?”

“There’s always some sort of trail,” Viet replied. He crouched back down next to the dummy on its back. The blood had pooled underneath, mostly from the lower back to the end of its legs. But the trail to the trash can started from above the head, suggesting the perp had come from the back. If the perp had stabbed from the front, the trail would start from the dummy’s feet.

With that hypothesis in mind, Viet stood back up. He slowly walked over to the trash can and confirmed that the trail had ended there.

“It looks like there’s glitter here,” said Nathaniel. Viet circled the trash can, followed where his cohort member’s finger was pointing.

Ah .

“It’s not glitter.”

Again, the officer went above and beyond to stage this scene. They used a glitter gel pen to mimic the pinprick size of a blood splatter… a trail of which became more apparent and suggested that the perp had turned right after dumping the weapon at the intersection. If anyone were looking quickly, they couldn’t see it, but the lab’s overhead lights were positioned perfectly.

“There’s always a trail,” Nathaniel echoed his words from before, sounding awed.

Viet shared the findings after everyone regrouped.

“That’s one half of the answer we’re looking for,” he said. “Next we have to figure out who this person might be.”

Lis held up the items from the trash can, which were arranged on an examining table. “Already on it.”

Evie: saw jake

Kale: ?

Lis: ??

Viet: !

Of course, upon seeing Evie’s text, Viet ran—literally, since he was in the middle of a run when the text landed—to his safe space, which was Kale and Tate’s kitchen bar, where the couple was ready to conference. He didn’t have the words yet; just imagining Jake back in Evie’s life was torturous.

“She said something about Jake—about what he said to her when they broke up. Has she said anything to you?”

“What was the context?”

“I’m not sure. I asked if she wanted someone to hit on her, and she said no,” Viet answered slowly, replaying the moment in his mind. “She mentioned Jake, then stopped because we were heading back to the table.”

“So whatever Jake said, it sounds like it’s affected her idea of romance in a bad way.”

“Yeah,” Viet agreed. “Like it made her insecure about herself.”

Evie was not immune to her nerves; he’d seen an insecure, nervous Evie before. How she fretted over the questions the clinic might ask, how she prepared her answers as much as possible. And since Jake dated her for two years, maybe he saw more of that side than anyone here. What if he used that against Evie?

Breakups seemed cruel.

“Maybe it’s time for you to step in,” Tate said to Viet.

“As a friend?” Viet asked, remembering their conversation after the party, which seemed like it happened ages ago.

Kale answered for his boyfriend with the shake of his head. “You still have feelings for her. What are you going to do if she starts dating someone else in the future?” Maybe someone like Jake, maybe someone better than Jake—it didn’t really matter. It just wouldn’t be him. And he’d have to watch, yet again, from the sidelines.

Kale had seen into his mind, into his nightmares.

“Based on your current expression, I know it doesn’t sit well with you.” Kale let out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re going to torture yourself over this, Viet.”

“And indirectly torture Kale,” interjected Tate, who had slipped in beside Kale. Just back from a shower after running practice, he was dressed in a white tee and gray sweats, and sipped leisurely at his coffee—looking the very opposite of Viet, who was nearing a breakdown, and his boyfriend, who was just at the precipice.

Kale held up a hand to his boyfriend, the universal sign for Shush, you . He turned to Viet. “If it means anything, I think you have a chance.”

“I do?”

The older boy pulled out his phone, swiped a couple of times, and showed him his camera roll. The pictures were from that silly night where they posed like awkward prom partners. Evie stood behind him, her arms encircling him naturally. They both looked calm and composed, but his heart had beaten fast at her touch.

“What does that picture prove?”

“I sent it to her. She hearted it.”

Viet laughed. “A heart? I should confess to her because she hearted some photos?” The other boy looked ready to argue, but Tate, the calmer of the two, interjected with his own thoughts.

“She looked really comfortable with you. I don’t think she even knew what she was doing, actually.”

“I don’t know….”

Kale sighed heavily. “You tell her you like her; she tells you she’s not interested. Or you tell her and she accepts. Aren’t those scenarios far better than one where you say nothing and she goes on to date someone else in the future?”

He remembered the envy of Jake resting his head in Evie’s lap, the ease with which he touched her. But more than that, his body remembered loneliness. He had always been someone on the outside looking in. It might happen again if Viet didn’t step up and be honest about his feelings.

“Send me the photo,” he finally mumbled to his friends.