by Maisy Morgan
Chapter Twenty-Two
Monday finally rolled around, and Tripp was not feeling any better than he had after his terrible day on Friday. Too afraid to wind up sitting alone in the lunch room all morning, he hid out in the library until the first bell rang. He made it to his locker around the same time as Hannah, and Draco was with her. They both bolted rather quickly when they saw him. He wanted to talk to them about the conversation with his mom—he especially wanted to talk with Hannah. He needed advice, and he felt his grandmother was incredibly biased and could therefore not offer him anything worth listening to. Whether or not that was true, he wasn’t sure, but that was how he felt on the matter.
The day dragged on. No one spoke to him in any of his classes. About halfway through the day, he realized he had left a book he needed for his science class and had to double back to his locker. “You better watch out,” a voice sang; it was Becky.
He glared at her. “What are you talking about?” he spat as she had started to follow him.
“Bradley’s back at school today,” Becky said. “And he’s looking for you.”
“What are you talking about?” Tripp asked again.
“I don’t know exactly,” she said somewhat honestly. “But he seems really mad.”
“Whatever, Becky,” Tripp snarled and continued on his way. He spotted Draco and Hannah by the lockers, and they looked quite unsatisfied. They had been planning Hannah’s visits to her locker around when Tripp usually wasn’t there to avoid bumping into him. “Just forgot a book,” he said bitterly to the two of them.
He reached out for his locker to start on the combination when he was suddenly pushed face first into it. His nose slammed against the locker, and he let out a shout of pain. For a moment, he thought Draco might have done it, but he knew Draco wasn’t that strong. He was spun around, and he gripped his pained nose as he came face to face with Bradley—behind him were two of his friends that usually liked to affectionally shout “Hollywood!” at him in the hallway.
“What are you doing?” Tripp snapped.
Bradley had a hold of his shirt collar, and Tripp had dropped all of his books when Bradley had shoved him. “Your stupid grandma and her boyfriend called child services on my mom!” Bradley snapped, the hand he wasn’t using to grip him was balled up in a fist at his side.
“Huh?” was all Tripp managed to say. Bradley swung up into Tripp’s stomach, and Tripp doubled over. He felt like he might throw up; his diaphragm was starting to spasm.
“We got people coming in and out of our house asking all kinds of questions,” Bradley hissed. “Mom’s worried they’re going to stick me in some home because of your stupid family!” Bradley reached down and grabbed Tripp by the hair, pulling him back to his feet. He shoved Tripp, and Tripp toppled into his two friends who grabbed him and spun him back around to face Bradley.
Tripp held up his arms, desperately trying to block another punch from coming his way, but it didn’t do much good. Tripp felt Bradley’s fist make contact with his cheekbone, and he let out a whimper and tried to flee, but one of his friends grabbed him by his shirt collar and pulled him right back for more. Then, out of nowhere, Draco seemed to appear. He threw himself onto Bradley’s back, his arm wrapped around Bradley’s head, and the two of them went down together.
“Hey! Get off him!” one of Bradley’s friends shouted. Draco had Bradley in a tight headlock and seemed prepared to hold on until Bradley was out cold.
The much larger kid threw a kick into the side of Draco’s side, and Draco jumped off Bradley, who started coughing and gagging. “I’m going to kill you, you freak!” Bradley wailed.
Hannah had rolled herself over. “Knock it off! All of you!” Hannah snapped, and when Bradley tried to use her armrest to stand, she took one of her textbooks and flung it into the side of his head, sending him fumbling all over himself back to the ground.
The boy who had held Tripp’s arms back when Bradley had been hitting him stepped over to Hannah, grabbed a hold of one of the large wheels of her chair, and flipped the chair over. She fell out of it and onto Bradley, and she let out a loud squeal of surprise and pain. Tripp saw red. He ran at the boy, tackling him to the ground, and he proceeded to throw punch after punch into the larger boy’s face without any intention of stopping. The boy flailed desperately to get out from under Tripp, but Tripp did not relent. He had dumped a girl out of her wheelchair—what kind of person does something like that? And it was Hannah. Hannah!
Tripp didn’t stop swinging until he felt a large man’s arms wrap around him and jerk him up off the ground. It was the school’s resource officer, and he was screaming bloody murder at every last one of them. It was only then, as teachers started blocking off the scene and gathering around, that Tripp realized there was blood on his knuckles.
It was the most uncomfortable waiting room Tripp had ever been in. On his left was Hannah, who was currently sitting in her chair, an icepack on her hip. Draco was on his other side, holding an ice pack to his side where he had been kicked. Tripp was holding a paper towel to his nose. It had likely stopped bleeding, he thought, but he wasn’t sure, so he kept sitting there, gripping his pained nose. It was his stomach that was really hurting him. Across from the three of them were Bradley and his two friends. The boy who had flipped Hannah’s chair looked the worst. His left eye was almost swollen shut, and Tripp had managed to possibly break his nose. He was the biggest guy of them all, so he looked quite humiliated as he sat there with his head down, holding an icepack to his face. Since being detained by the teachers, Tripp had learned his name was Buck.
“Um…” Bradley finally spoke, looking a bit sickly. “I’m… um… I’m sorry…”
Their parents had all been gathered; they could all hear shouts and accusations being passed around from inside the principal’s office. Officer Preston, much to Tripp’s horror, had arrived with Mary.
“Seriously? You’re apologizing?” Hannah questioned Bradley.
“Yeah,” he said and then looked at Tripp. “Man, I really am. This wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I’m mad at the situation—not you.”
Tripp nodded and then looked at the big goon in the corner. “Sorry I broke your face, but you shouldn’t have flipped over her chair,” Tripp said.
Buck just gave him a dirty look, and then muttered an unconvincing apology to Hannah.
The third boy’s name was Charlie, the one who had kicked Draco in the head and was currently stuffing tissues up his nose, and he nodded in Draco’s direction. “Sorry about the kick,” he said to Draco.
“Sorry I bit your nose,” Draco said, and Charlie laughed.
“This guy’s kind of cool—psycho, but cool,” he said.
Bradley smirked, showing off a bit of blood between his teeth. “Dang, Draco,” he said, rubbing his neck. “Got to say, I wasn’t really expecting that from you. Whole school is going to find out about us three getting our butts handed to us by a couple of freshmen guys and a chick in a wheelchair.”
Hannah smiled. “That’ll teach you, won’t it?”
“Pretty much,” Bradley said.
Buck grunted. “You guys should consider the wrestling team.”
Draco laughed at the thought. Tripp glanced at Draco, and he smiled at him. Draco smiled back slightly. It was quiet all of a sudden in the principal’s office, and this made all of the teens quite nervous. Tripp had been told that the school had a pretty serious zero-tolerance policy—that this sort of escapade could possibly result in a court hearing. The thought made him nervous.
Then, they heard crying. Bradley sat upright.
“Dude, is your mom crying?” Charlie asked, glancing towards the door.
“Yeah, I think so,” Bradley said, and he looked rather guilty about this. “Man, she doesn’t need this crap right now,” he said regretfully.
The door opened, and everyone sat upright. Jaden came and sat by Bradley immediately, practically pushing Buck off the bench they had been sharing. “I’m going t
o call a lawyer,” she told him.
Tripp looked over at his grandmother, who didn’t seem angry at all—she looked sad. Officer Preston came over, and Tripp expected the man to talk to him, but instead, he stood over Bradley. “Kid, stand up,” Preston said.
Bradley rose to his feet in front of Preston, looking anxious. “I’m sorry about the fight,” Bradley said. “It was my fault…”
“Bradley, you’re under arrest,” Preston said, spinning Bradley around.
“What? Seriously?” Bradley questioned as Preston slapped handcuffs onto him. “Over a stupid fight?”
“No,” Preston said solemnly. “For the murder of your father.”
“What!” Bradley shrieked.
Buck and Charlie were both wide-eyed. Anna exited the room, snatching up Draco by his shirt collar before he could ask anything, and he was immediately dragged off. Cindy, looking just as irate, wheeled Hannah off, scorning her the entire way. Buck and Charlie’s mothers dragged them off as well, warning them not to ask questions until they got in the car. Preston marched off with Bradley, Jaden following the whole way, crying her eyes out. Bradley was close to doing the same.
Tripp stood upright, staring at his grandmother, who was the last of the parental figures to have remained behind. “Arrested?” Tripp questioned. “For… for murder? That’s not… that’s not right at all! Why…”
“They searched all your lockers,” Mary said, grabbing Tripp’s arm and practically pulling him out of the school—marching him towards the car lot. “They found the murder weapon in Bradley’s locker.”
“Bradley didn’t kill his dad!” Tripp exclaimed. “You’ve got it wrong.”
“Maybe, but right now, I’d worry about you,” she hissed, and Tripp had never heard his grandmother sound so furious. “Fighting at school… honestly!” The bell rang, and students came flooding out onto the lawn.
Chapter Twenty-Three
With the exception of Buck and Charlie’s mothers, both of whom seemed eager to get their kids out of there as quickly as possible, the parents and troubled teens seemed to all converge in the same place out in front of the school—around Preston’s patrol car, where Bradley was sobbing in the back seat. Tripp had escaped from Mary’s grasp and was now standing in the door, preventing Preston from closing Bradley away in the back of the car.
“Tripp, you need to move out of the way—right now,” Officer Preston warned.
“You need to listen to him,” Tripp declared as Mary at last caught up, a little short of breath.
“Tripp!” she exclaimed. “Move away, right now.”
“Grandma, he didn’t do it,” Tripp said, and Jaden, who was standing a few feet back trying not to make the incident worse, nodded along between her tears.
“Maybe he didn’t,” Mary said. “But you cannot interfere with an officer’s arrest—you’re lucky Preston doesn’t throw a pair of cuffs on you too.”
Cindy and Anna stood near the front of the patrol car; their angsty young teens seemed just as bothered by the arrest as Tripp, and they didn’t even care that much for Bradley. “I don’t believe for one second that Bradley hurt his dad,” Draco said. “It doesn’t even make sense.”
Anna tried to pull her son back, but Draco jerked his arm away. “No, Mom,” he said. “I’m not just walking away right now. Officer Preston has it wrong, I’m telling you.”
“I agree,” Hannah said; she had put on her parking brake on her wheelchair and was gripping her fist around it so that her mother couldn’t push her wheelchair off.
Mary watched Bradley. He looked like he was going to throw up he was shaking so much. He kept trying to wipe his face on the shoulder of his shirt. Mary imagined that Bradley was probably wondering why the three younger kids he had started a fight with were sticking up for him while his two friends had bolted the second they got to the parking lot to put distance between themselves and him. He sat there, wide-eyed, staring up at Tripp, who was still standing to prevent the door from being closed. Mary knew that if it were any other kid, Preston would probably have jerked the rebellious teenager from the door and thrown him down and slapped cuffs on him by now. “Tripp, I’m warning you right now,” Officer Preston began.
“Officer Preston,” Tripp said, his voice calm. “Please. Just before you drive off—before you take him, would you just listen to him?”
Preston looked annoyed, and Mary couldn’t blame him. The evidence was all there. Bradley, especially after the fight he had started today, was obviously prone to violence. His father had beat him regularly, and that was a motive. The violent threats he had put online about his father were circumstantial, but that coupled with the fact that the nail gun—the murder weapon—had been found in his locker at school was rather damning. “Preston,” Mary said, clearing her throat.
Preston didn’t look at her; he was studying Tripp’s face. Instead of pushing the door shut, he opened it wider and looked down at Bradley, who was still shaking in the back seat. “Well, you got three of your classmates vouching for you. You got something you can tell me? You want to tell me why the murder weapon was in your locker at school?”
“I—I f-found it,” Bradley stammered.
“Oh?” Preston questioned, clearly not believing him. “And where exactly did you find it?”
“In the—the fireplace at my house,” Bradley said. “I kn-knew… I knew you told my mom someone had used a nail gun… I saw it stashed in the fireplace…” He turned slightly in his seat, looking at his mom with sad, watery eyes. “I thought Mom might have hidden it there… I panicked and took it to school because I didn’t think… didn’t think you’d look there!”
Jaden’s soft cries grew loud. “No, sweetie, I didn’t do it…” she said, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t kill your dad… I don’t know how the nail gun got in the fireplace.”
“So, your story is that you were afraid your mom might have killed your dad and you wanted to, what, keep her safe? So you’re admitting to tampering with evidence, then?” Preston asked, and Bradley started to cry yet again. Tripp’s shoulders slumped. Preston pointed a finger at Tripp. “Move. Now.”
Tripp looked down apologetically at Bradley and stepped away, and Preston slammed the car door, closing Bradley off from the rest of them. “My baby didn’t do this,” Jaden said to Preston. “He wouldn’t hurt his father. I’m sure of it!”
“Ma’am, I imagine this is very upsetting for you,” Preston said. “And when we get to the precinct, we can all sit down and talk without so many… oh, great, here we go…”
Mary turned to see what had caught Preston’s attention, and she saw Stacey, Kara, and Becky all running up looking quite alarmed—clearly, word had already gotten around about what had just taken place. “Sir! Sir!” Stacey was shrieking as she approached Officer Preston. “You can’t arrest Bradley! Bradley couldn’t have hurt his dad. He was with me when it happened!”
Preston crossed his arms, but his scowl faded. Mary imagined that this was rather frustrating for him, but the group of teenagers all seemed to be converging around his patrol car. “Stacey,” he said in a cool, soothing tone. “I know you want to protect Bradley, but I’m going to warn you to think before you speak.”
“I have proof!” Becky exclaimed, pulling out her phone. “Look, right here, please!”
Mary could tell this spiked Preston’s interest. It was obvious to her and the adults standing around that Preston did not want to have to arrest Bradley, though Mary was certain this didn’t seem so obvious to the panicky teenagers. Becky handed Preston her phone.
“Want to tell me what I’m looking at?” Preston asked.
“It’s a video I took of Bradley at the party—he was doing flips into the pool. I was live streaming the video—you can check and see what time it was. I—I think it lines up with when Mr. Ken was pushed off the roof,” Becky said frantically.
Preston watched the video, and he suddenly jolted. He played around on her phone for a minute. “Becky…” he said.
“You… do you realize you caught it on video?”
“Huh?” Becky questioned.
“Look!” Preston shoved the phone into Mary’s hand for confirmation.
Mary looked. It was fuzzy, but she could clearly make out in the background of the video two bodies, most certainly two grown men, up on the roof of the house. She watched carefully, and though she couldn’t tell who it was with Ken up on the roof, she knew it most certainly was not Bradley. Preston hurried to the car and opened up the back, helping Bradley up. “Okay, you’re going to need to start talking right now, Bradley,” Preston said as he removed Bradley’s handcuffs. Bradley exhaled deeply—as though the handcuffs had somehow been restricting his breathing. He brought his hands to his face, wiping his cheeks frantically in embarrassment—probably not pleased his girlfriend, her sister, and her friend got to see him lose it in the back of a cop car.
“What… what do you want me to…why are you letting me go?” Bradley asked, having missed the conversation regarding the video.
Jaden was wrapping her arms around Bradley’s neck and kissing his face immediately. Preston explained, “Turns out Becky has video evidence that proves you weren’t up on the roof when your dad was killed.”
Bradley exhaled again and he hugged his mother before scurrying to Stacey and wrapping an arm around both her and Becky, kissing Becky right in the middle of her forehead. Stacey and Becky were now sobbing violently. “Bradley,” Preston said firmly, and the boy turned around nervously to face the officer who had nearly arrested him. “Tell me about the murder weapon we found in your locker.”
Bradley wiped his face. “I told you—I found it in the fireplace. I thought… I thought maybe Mom did it, and I panicked. So I took it to school and hid it in my locker.”
Preston thought for a moment. “Whoever was up on the roof probably just threw it down the chimney.”
“Makes sense,” Mary said. “That would have been a quick way to dispose of it.”
