by Lucy Lambert
The carpeted stairs creaked a little, and the mahogany rail felt cool and smooth under my palm as we went up. When I was sure Joseph wasn’t looking, I unzipped my coat and stuck my cell in the inner pocket. I hit the “record” button on it.
Adam and I had checked the recording function on it yesterday. Even with it being buried in a pocket, it easily picked up what we’d said. I hoped it would do the same with Eric.
I followed Joseph down a hall lined with pictures going back decades and decades of all the various members of the frat. A long carpet lined the hall, leaving a bit of space on either side so that you could see the rich hardwood floor underneath.
We came to a door near the end. Joseph knocked on it.
“Yeah?”
My heart started racing as I recognized Eric’s voice. I swallowed against the bile rising up my throat. It took every last ounce of willpower I had, with a fair bit borrowed from Adam, to go through with this. It was the right thing to do, I knew. But the right thing so often turned out to also be the hardest..
“Come on,” Joseph said, looking at me over his shoulder as he opened the door.
As soon as he did, some awful heavy metal spilled out into the hall. The kind that was all some guy screaming unintelligibly. It made my throat ache in sympathy as I tried to block it out.
Eric had a king-sized bed (of course he did) with gold-trimmed sheets. An enormous computer monitor sat on his corner desk, and a sixty-inch flat screen was mounted over a fireplace.
This was much more like the frats I was used to from movies. He had posters of swimsuit models all over the place, with a few of the stereotypical ones that all college aged guys seemed to have. There was the obligatory Scarface one, a large one of a red Ferrari, another displaying what seemed like a hundred different guns.
The place reeked of expensive cologne. I wrinkled my nose at it.
The man himself lay on his bed, his arms crossed behind his head. He grinned when he saw me. I fought the urge to run out of there.
“Hey, Stephie,” Eric said. I could feel his eyes crawling over me, down past my open jacket, “What brings you here?”
“She says she wants to party!” Joseph added.
Eric shot him a look and he shut up, hunching his shoulders and looking bashful.
“It’s always you uptight chicks that secretly want it the most,” Eric said, standing up.
He had one of those white wife beaters on, showing a pair of decently muscled shoulders and the top of a hairless chest. His letterman jacket hung on the back of his desk chair. It was somewhat jarring not to see him in it.
He came up so close I could smell his breath. It seemed he’d eaten a whole bag of Doritos not long before. I almost gagged, but managed to keep my smile as he looked down at me with those hungry eyes.
“What kind of party did you have in mind, Stephie?” he said. His fingers flexed at his sides, and I knew he wanted to touch me so badly.
I flicked my hair back and pretended to have some interest in a poster on the other side of the room of two girls kissing.
Panic flashed through me. This was the point where I had to really put the plan in motion. What if I did it wrong? What if he didn’t say what I wanted him to?
I had to keep reminding myself that Adam was right outside the door. All I had to do was scream. Vick wasn’t far behind, either.
I licked my lips as I turned back to him, trying to make the gesture as sexy and distracting as possible. He seemed to buy it, his eyes again admiring my body. I wanted to pull my coat closed, but I also wanted to make the recording as clear as possible.
“I don’t know… How about the kind of party you and Joseph threw for Jenn?”
I could barely hear myself over the rush of blood past my ears.
Joseph looked like I’d just kicked him between the legs. I found myself enjoying his discomfort. Eric, on the other hand, just frowned.
“Jenn? Jenn who?” he said.
My body stiffened as a hot ball of anger burst in my chest. This couldn’t be happening. How could he not even remember her? Just what kind of monster was Eric Putnam?
“Jenn McClaughlin,” I said through clenched teeth, “The girl you and Joseph raped and murdered.”
I could barely spit out the words. I basked in the heat of my anger. It made me brave. Yes, I could do this. I could get through it. This asshole needed to go down.
Eric’s eyes widened for just a moment, a muscle twitching in his cheek before he got control of himself again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You gone crazy or something, Stephie?”
We’d all known he would deny it. Still, it was a bit disappointing. It would have been so much nicer if he’d just admitted to it right then and there.
But that was okay. We had planned for this, after all. I looked at Joseph.
“Really? Because Joseph told me all about it. Didn’t you, Joseph?”
It was simple, really. Obvious, even. I remembered how pissed Eric was that first day I’d overheard them. It was clear how little trust Eric put in Joseph. Roman history wasn’t really my area of expertise, but I still knew a little.
I knew stuff like “Divide and conquer” and what it really meant. However, it was even more impressive to see Julius Caesar’s strategy put into action.
“Joe… what the fuck did you say?” Eric said.
Eric’s arms, shoulders, neck, face and chest were all flushed a deep, angry red. His face was twisted, his teeth pulled back from his lips. A little wrinkle formed between his eyebrows.
I almost felt sorry for Joseph, and was definitely happy that look wasn’t directed at me.
Joseph recoiled from that look, almost tripped over Eric’s desk chair. Eric’s letterman jacket slipped to the floor, and Joseph stepped all over it in his effort to move farther away.
“I didn’t say anything, Eric. I didn’t!” Joseph said.
“Yeah, right. You stupid asshole. I told you when we did her that you couldn’t say a fucking thing to anyone. You don’t tell other people when you kill someone, you moron!”
Excitement thrilled through me, then. That was it! I had him admitting to killing her, recorded safe and sound on my phone.
“I swear, Eric. I didn’t say anything! It’s her! She found out, but I didn’t tell her!”
Joseph knocked that big computer monitor back, cracking its stand. Eric hit him, then. One punch, straight to Joseph’s exposed gut.
All the air rushed from Joseph’s lungs as he doubled over at Eric’s feet. He was still trying to apologize, even though he couldn’t breathe.
I’d been watching, stunned by the display, and enjoying it far more than I thought proper. It was only after Eric turned around and glared at me that I realized I should’ve run when I had the chance. I had the recording; there’d been no need for me to stay.
“You… bitch…” Eric breathed. A big vein throbbed in his forehead, looking ready to burst. Hate rolled off him in waves so powerful I took a step back before I could think about it.
“No, you’re staying right here!” he said, jabbing his finger at me like it was a spear.
My plan of just screaming if I got into trouble wasn’t good enough, I could tell now. He’d be on me before Adam or Vick could race up the stairs, and I knew what he was capable of.
So I ran, gripping my phone through my coat so that it wouldn’t jolt from my pocket.
I bounced off the walls in the hallway in my hurry. A big, black and white picture in a steel frame crashed down behind me, sending shards of glass at my heels.
I couldn’t look back. He was right there behind me, I knew.
“Stop!” he said.
A few guys poked their heads out of their bedroom doorways, confused about the noise. Most of them had their letterman jackets on.
When I got to the staircase, they started cheering, calling out to Eric to “Get that slut!” and other colorful phrases.
They thought I was just his latest conque
st or something, rather than a girl he wanted to chase down and beat.
My grip slipped on the rail. For a moment, I was airborne over the staircase. My stomach tried to stay behind as the panic and adrenaline fueling my muscles made me windmill like crazy.
All I thought about was keeping that phone safe.
Even as I crashed in a heap on the ground floor landing, my left hip and shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, I kept thinking about that. Even as I pushed myself up on my hands and knees and scrambled for the door, trying to ignore the sweet, sharp pain blossoming across an entire side of my body.
I reached up for the door handle. My fingers touched the cold, chromed metal latch. They slipped off when Eric grabbed the hood of my jacket and used it to haul me backwards.
“Adam!” I screamed, terror flashing through my body in hot and cold waves as he dragged me back.
“Yeah! That’s my boy!” some frat boy called from the top of the stairs. There were more behind him, still cheering Eric on, still not knowing what was really happening.
“Adam!” I screamed again.
I knew it must have only been moments, but it felt like forever as I got dragged backwards, watching that front door waiting for him to burst through.
The door slammed back so hard that the glass in the window cracked. Adam stood there, looking so big from where I was on the floor. He growled. It was a deep noise, from somewhere far inside his chest.
Another fear took me as I imagined what might happen if he transformed here, now, in anger.
“Let her go,” he said.
“He’s calling you out, boy!” the same guy who’d called out earlier said.
Eric stopped dragging me.
“Piss off, Arnold,” Eric said. His shoulders and chest heaved under that stupid wife beater, sweat running down the sides of his face. I could smell it from the ground. It melded with his cologne, making the scent waft from him rank and sickly sweet.
“You get your hands off her…”
“Or you’ll what? Look at this stupid emo punk!” Eric said.
“Take him!” another frat guy yelled out.
I was tired of all this macho shit. Balling my fist, I drove it up between Eric’s legs. It was a solid hit, hard enough to hurt my wrist.
And its effect on Eric was immediate.
The guys watching from the stairs yelled like it was a prize fight as Eric clutched himself and fell on his side, curling up in a ball and whining.
I scuttled away from him. Adam helped me up.
“I got it…” I said, patting my jacket.
He hugged me, holding me close. His heart slammed against his ribs.
He was about to say something when the room filled with cops. Lights started flashing through the windows and the open door, coming in with that cold breeze.
The frat boys reacted instinctively, running back to their rooms or trying to get out like this was the fuzz come to crash a kegger.
There had to be at least a dozen men and women coming in with their guns drawn. They all pointed their weapons at Eric, who whimpered even more when he saw what was happening.
“Are you okay?”
Both Adam and I turned. Vick stood in the doorway. He had his big winter coat on, one arm crossed over his chest cradling the bruised ribs he’d gotten trying to stab Adam that night.
A cop knelt beside Eric, pulling his arms out and cuffing them behind his back.
“You have the right to remain silent,” he began, giving the cuffs a few extra clicks.
I recognized that voice. It was Unit Four, who’d almost caught me in the bathroom in the student center. He was a big guy, his winter gear making him even more imposing. He manhandled Eric with ease, and there seemed to be genuine pleasure in his eyes at the task.
A female cop about my height, her brunette hair in a tight bun at the back of her head and a severe, sharp face came over to us.
“Mr. Lawson here says you have a recording for us. I’m Deputy Sheppard.”
“Oh! Yeah, right here,” I said, digging my phone out. It was still recording. I hit the stop button. “It’s all here… Is there a way I can keep my phone?” I said. I wanted to call my mom back.
Sheppard started the playback. Even Eric quieted down as we listened to him admit to killing Jenn.
“Go up and grab this Joseph,” Sheppard said to one cop who’d just holstered his pistol.
She turned back to me.
“Yeah, you’ll get it back. Come to the station tonight; we’ll have the file off your phone by then. Other than that… We’ll be in touch.”
Sheppard went over to help Eric up to his feet so that they could bring him out to one of the cars.
“Do you think they’ll go through with it?” I said to Vick, who’d come up beside us.
“Even the most expensive lawyer’s going to have a hard time trying to defend him. The cops have no choice to bring him in, even with his daddy paying them off… You never answered my question. Are you okay?”
I could still see that hint of possibility in Vick’s eyes as he looked at me. He still cared for me, and I knew I cared for him. But I’d found Adam, and Adam found me. It just felt so right being with him, like I was becoming the person I was supposed to be.
We were discovering ourselves together. I hugged him closer.
“Yeah, I’m fine. We both are.”
It was the truth this time, too.
Vick nodded and turned to go.
“Wait… What are you going to do now?” I said, reaching out to touch his arm and stop him.
Vick looked around to make sure none of the cops could hear. The place was getting pretty loud as the cops struggled to bring Joseph down the stairs.
“There are still other, real monsters waiting out there. They don’t all have people like you to make sure they remain human,” he said.
He and Adam nodded to each other. I don’t think they could ever be friends, but they understood each other.
“Good luck,” I said.
We watched Vick leave. Then we watched three cops drag Joseph out through the front door.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” he kept screaming. At the cops, at me.
We didn’t go until the cop cars cleared out, going in single file down the road and disappearing around the bend.
When we got back to my dorm room, I opened up my laptop and went to Facebook. We both looked at Jenn’s picture.
“It’s okay. She can really rest in peace, now,” Adam said.
“Yeah…”
I just wished she could still be here. I shut the laptop, catching one final glimpse of her smiling face.
“Come on, if we’re going to pass Hackett’s exam we’re going to have to stay up all night!” I said.
Adam pulled me into a hug and kissed me, our lips staying together until we both ran out of breath, then we collapsed on the bed.
“I’m up for staying up,” he said.
“You!” I said, slapping him on the arm.
It wasn’t really an end, I knew. We’d gone through one adventure. But it was really just the start of another. Life goes through stages, and it felt as though we were both about to start the next one. Together.
THE END
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Lucy Lambert
Published by Lucy Lambert
Copyright 2014 Lucy Lambert
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