The relish with which Ms. Larson makes this final proclamation turns my blood to ice.
“It was ruled accidental thanks to the drugs in his system,” she continues, “and I realized that there was no reason why I couldn’t do it again on a larger scale. The next day, I switched my major from psychology to education and later graduated with honors. At that point, Facebook was in its infancy, but a fake profile and some phony details were all it took to start keeping tabs on the Fucking Four. I taught for two years before—”
I freeze as Ms. Larson suddenly turns to me. The gun is still pointed at Ravi, but her eyes bore into mine.
“Stop. Wiggling. Pay. Attention.” She punctuates each word with a shake of the gun. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime scoop, and I’m giving it to you.”
I nod and let my arms relax.
“Sit,” Ms. Larson commands.
“I’m fi—”
“Sit.”
I do. Henry wanders over to me, circles once, and lies down with a sigh. The basement scene from The Silence of the Lambs flashes through my mind, but even if I could get him, I don’t think I could hurt Henry for leverage.
“I taught for two years before I enrolled in a graduate program for educational leadership, and I kept up with the news in Maplefield while I bided my time. I changed my hair and learned how to alter my face with makeup. I would be ready. I only allowed myself one kill at that first high school, just to see if I could still do it. He was a proper little shit—homophobic and racist, with Confederate flags flying from his pickup. I offered him a spiked soda after detention, and he was easy as pie after that. No one was upset when he stopped showing up to school, and his victims all walked a little taller in his absence.”
I rock side to side, trying to feel if my phone is still in my back pocket, but it’s not. Of course it’s not. I doubt there’s a signal down here anyway, but I wish I could at least be recording this monologue. If we don’t make it out alive, at least a recording could be a legacy, proof of the madness that had infected Maplefield.
If Ms. Larson notices the movement, she doesn’t let on. “It would’ve been too hard as a teacher,” she says. “While you have access to the building, it isn’t unfettered. I’d been right to get the principal’s license. I accepted a promotion to assistant principal at the first school and waited. I monitored the Four through Facebook. I couldn’t believe how easy they made it. Not a single one left Maplefield, except for Lisa’s little stint in Boston, but even she returned, with a husband and baby in tow.” She looks at Ravi the way a raptor eyes a field mouse.
Ravi glares back, defiance clouding his dark features.
Ms. Larson turns to me, a wistful smile on her face. “And then, finally, a principalship opened up, and I was able to come home.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
“Because people will want to know. You need to understand.”
“Does it really matter if I understand why you’re killing my classmates? My best friend?” I try not to choke on those last words.
Ms. Larson offers me a smug Cheshire cat grin that screams deceit. “It does to me.”
“Why?”
“So everyone will know the truth. The truth is important. Do you understand yet?”
I don’t want to play Ms. Larson’s games, but the desperation to keep her talking is real. As long as she’s talking, she’s not putting bullets in anyone. So I play, starting with the obvious, giving myself room to disassociate. “The Four—their proxies are Emma, Kylie, Liam, and Ravi.” I need to shut the feeling part of my brain off to do this. It’s not enough to acknowledge and set aside; I have to be the epitome of objectivity. “You don’t want to harm the actual people who wronged you, but their children.”
“And why might that be?” Ms. Larson sounds like she’s leading a Socratic seminar.
I direct the answer to Ravi, unable to keep from proving the point. “Because it hurts more when it’s someone you care about. It’s worse than dying yourself.”
There’s a tightening of his posture, barely noticeable, but I know him well enough to see it. Goose bumps erupt up my arms.
“Very good,” Ms. Larson says. “Keep going.”
“You want the original four to suffer like you did. Exactly like you did. So you make it look like suicide.”
Ms. Larson purses her lips and tilts her head, a You were so close, have an A for effort expression on her face. “Not look like.” She says it like a hint, a blank waiting to be filled in.
A cold sweat breaks out across my whole body, and the room tips on its axis. I close my eyes against a wave of vertigo.
It’s not possible. There’s no way to convince three vibrant, mentally stable teenagers to do something so monstrous.
Unless there is.
“Go on,” she prompts.
The words lodge in my throat, my larynx paralyzed by the horror. “You make them kill themselves. Somehow, you make them.”
“Not this time,” Ravi says. His fingers grip the edge of the stage like he wants to pry up a board with his bare hands.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Ms. Larson says, sounding almost sad.
I renew my struggle with the ropes, knowing that time is running out. Something gives, just a fraction of an inch, a result of either the loosening ropes or millimeters of skin scraping off. I don’t care which, so long as it leads to freedom.
“You both need to pay attention now,” Ms. Larson says. “Kennedy, you’re all caught up. I know it’s not going to be enough, but I hope the story can be something of a consolation. You were never meant to be part of this.”
“Ms. Larson, you don’t have to do this.” I try to sound reasonable, try to channel every hostage negotiation cliché I can think of. “What happened to you was awful, but that doesn’t mean you need to keep hurting people.”
Ms. Larson turns to Ravi as if I hadn’t spoken, turns so completely that if I could only free myself, I could ambush her, wrestle the gun free, turn the tables.
But the ropes hold.
“This is the part neither of you knows,” she says. “This is the how. This part isn’t easy, not for anyone. But it’s the price that has to be paid.”
She keeps the gun trained on Ravi, who is practically vibrating with pent-up rage.
“You’re like Liam,” she tells him. “Collateral damage. Kylie was so much like her mother that it was like traveling back in time. It was almost like getting two for one. And Emma, well, Emma was a lot like your mom, Ravi. Smart, but with a mean streak.
“Don’t talk about my mother.” His eyes are on the gun, but his muscles twitch with the desire to fight.
“The sins of the mother are the worst of all.” Ms. Larson prowls the front of the stage like a caged panther. “Your mother, she was the final nail in his coffin. The last stab of the needle.”
I know the story, but I doubt Ravi does, and I want to protect him from that version of his mother. “But that wasn’t Ravi,” I say before she can go on. “Ravi didn’t do anything. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Ms. Larson agrees, then addresses him directly. “You don’t. But neither did James. Neither did I. The universe doesn’t always give us what we deserve, but it always keeps its balance.”
“This isn’t balance,” I say.
She ignores me. Ravi is the only thing that matters to her now. “When you’re ready, you’re going to find a syringe behind you on your right. The first dose is already drawn. All you have to do is insert it into your leg and press. It’s not painful. I promise.”
Ravi looks over his shoulder, and the caged energy in him goes still. “You’re insane. I’m not poisoning myself.”
“You’re going to die no matter what. I believe that’s been made abundantly clear. How you go is up to you.”
I twist in my ropes, and something small and vital pops in my hand. A searing pain lights up my arm. The swelling is instant, and it fills any slack I earned in the ropes. The
room swims dangerously, and for the briefest of instants, I wonder if passing out wouldn’t be better.
But Ms. Larson’s voice cuts through the encroaching darkness. “Option one is to take the syringe and be done with it. I promise you, it will be quick. The other option is the gun.” Ravi looks like he’s about to speak, but Ms. Larson cuts him off. “Before you think you can make a play for it, let me remind you that everyone else was given the same second option, and no one took it.”
My stomach seizes with a visceral terror.
“If you choose the gun—and that choice will be indicated by any refusal to comply precisely with the first option—you will be shot, and your family will be as well.”
Ravi wears a mask of rage, but his skin has gone ashen. He meets my eyes, finally, and his are wide with fear and disbelief.
“Do not think for an instant that I am bluffing,” Ms. Larson says. “Remember that it is your mother I truly wish to punish, and I will not hesitate to kill her if you make me go that route.” She holds up a hand to forestall any protest. “Your father and your sister will just be more collateral damage.”
“You wouldn’t,” he says.
“I assure you, I would. It would be easy. I could bring them to this very room. I could use your phone to do it, or I could simply use my authority as principal of this school. If I asked your parents to come in for a meeting, and to bring your sister, of course they would. They would have no reason not to. Now, because it’s the anniversary, after all, I would like this settled before midnight. To help you decide, refusal of option one will also result in Kennedy’s death. Immediately. And you will watch it happen.”
The air rushes out of me like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. I scramble to my feet, adrenaline numbing the pain in my arm. I can’t run—I know that—but I can’t sit here and wait for death either. If nothing else, I’ll be standing when it comes.
“I don’t want to have to do that,” Ms. Larson says. “But I will.”
“You’re gonna kill her anyway.”
My head snaps to him, but he’s right. I know too much. I’m about to be an eyewitness to murder. There’s no way Ms. Larson can let me live.
“No,” she says. “Kennedy only dies if you make it so. If you choose option one, she will be free to go at the end of the night.”
“She can identify you.”
“She can tell my story. James’s story. That’s important. We’re in the final chapter now.”
I can’t explain it, but something in Ms. Larson’s tone sounds sincere. “You want to get caught?”
“It’s time to end this,” she says.
Silence settles over the room, louder than the rushing of blood in my ears.
“Ravi, it’s time to decide.”
He looks at me, eyes huge, and his life flashes before my eyes. I see him as he was on the first day of kindergarten, those same wide eyes searching for mine in the crowded classroom. Even then, it was the two of us against the world. I see the countless recesses tucked beneath the climbing fort, happy with just each other. I see him with a broken leg, earned in a tree-climbing contest I won, and how he’d worn the grubby red cast like a badge of honor. I see middle school, that first day in the cafeteria, when we both pretended not to be completely overwhelmed by the sea of unfamiliar faces that had shown up from East Maplefield Elementary. I see the birthdays and snow days and summer nights camping in each other’s backyards, and the thousands of regular days where he was my constant, as much a part of me as my lungs or my knees. I see the first time he had his heart broken and how those wide eyes had filled with tears, first from sorrow and then from laughing so hard as I described the ways I would make the girl pay. I see his elation and his anger and his passion. I see the best and the worst, and I love it all. I see him, and I see myself, because it doesn’t make sense any other way.
And he sees me see it all, and I know before he stands up that he’s going to do it. He’s going to save me, because that’s who he is. That’s who we are.
He smiles at me, and it’s a smile that rends my heart into a million pieces. I howl, or I try to, but the sound wraps around my heart like a fist, and I can’t get enough air to even whimper.
“Get the needle,” Ms. Larson says gently. “You’re making the right choice.”
I watch, paralyzed, as he stoops to pick up the syringe. He holds it like it’s a scorpion, something dangerous and alive. The roar in my ears is deafening. I’m speaking before I realize I’m going to. I can barely even hear the words, but they tumble over each other in a desperate need to be first. “I’ll do it instead. I’ll do it instead. Please. I’ll take his place. Please don’t make him do this.”
“He has to,” she says. “It’s balance.”
“It’s madness.” I moan. I can’t help it. There’s no such thing as objectivity now. A keening sound pierces my ears, and I realize it’s coming from my own throat. I bite my tongue to make it stop and taste blood. Henry whines behind me.
“Kennedy.” Ravi’s chin quivers for a horrible moment, then he clears his throat. “Ken. It’s okay.”
I shake my head, because there’s nothing okay about anything anymore. Nothing at all.
“Ken,” he says again, his voice thick. “Look, I’m gonna need you to do some things for me. If you can.” He squeezes his eyes shut and sucks hard, fast breaths through his nose. The tendons jump in his shaking hands.
When he opens his eyes, he doesn’t have to search for mine. “I need you to take care of my family. Tell them the truth. Don’t let them think I did this. You can’t let them think I would ever do this on purpose. Tell them I didn’t want to go. Tell them I loved them—even Priya, even though she’s a spoiled brat. Help Dad at the shop for me, yeah? He wouldn’t know what to do if we both disappeared. And Ma loves you like her own, so don’t be a stranger at the house either. She cooks better than your mom anyway, so can you at least show up for dinner sometimes? Don’t go away on them, Ken. Please, don’t go away. I need you to be there when I can’t.”
His face contorts, a thousand emotions vying for control, but he closes his eyes and swallows hard. He’s not done.
“And don’t forget me. We were supposed to make our mark on this world, but it’s gonna be up to you now. You have to do it for both of us. Go on all the adventures we talked about. Bring my camera and take the pictures of everything you think I’d want to see. You’re my very favorite human, and I need you to keep being that for the rest of your life. I need you to do that for me. You’re fucking incredible, Ken, and I will love you for eternity. Remember that. Just that. Don’t let the rest of this be our defining moment. I love you. Always have, always will.”
“I love you too,” I tell him. Although the words are woefully inadequate, he knows. Of course he knows.
Ms. Larson walks him through it.
She keeps the gun trained on him while explaining that the first dose will go in the meaty part of his right thigh like an EpiPen. A second dose for the second leg, and then it will be fast. The instructions are dispatched without emotion, the flat recitation of something she’s said too many times to care about anymore.
An abyss opens itself in my chest, right where my heart should be—or maybe my soul. I thrash against the ropes, the pain in my arm a distant memory. If this were a movie, I would’ve already freed myself and overpowered Ms. Larson. I would’ve saved the day.
As I struggle, my eyes never leave Ravi’s. I want to look at Ms. Larson, make her see the error of her ways, but I can’t. I want to search for Henry, to use him, somehow, for leverage, but I can’t. I can’t risk tearing my eyes from Ravi’s, lest we lose a single second of the time we have left.
Ravi stands at the edge of the abyss and holds the syringe, eyes boring into mine as if waiting for salvation. I slam myself against the column, not caring about the damage to my arms, wanting only to break every bone in my hands so they might slip their shackles and set me free. I’m shaking my head without meaning to, without even kno
wing what I mean. Some variation of no, don’t do it; no, don’t let this happen; no, I can’t save you.
No, don’t let this be real.
Ms. Larson appears at my side, but I refuse to take my eyes from Ravi to acknowledge her presence. And then he’s the one shaking his head—no, don’t do it; don’t let this happen. Cold metal bites into my temple. I shrink away instinctively, the way you would from a wall of fire or the swarm of bees, but still, my eyes never leave his.
Ravi raises the syringe, mouth moving with words I can’t hear, and jabs it into his leg. He depresses the plunger, and I convulse against my bindings, heedless of the gun at my head or the hands holding it.
I wail, and from far away, a siren does too.
“Again,” Ms. Larson says.
Objectivity comes then, as swift and sweeping as a guillotine blade, and I’m outside of myself, watching the tragedy being played out from balcony seats. It’s a relief, in a way, because there’s no way to survive inside the girl screaming against her bonds, no way to watch the boy she loves die, no way that this could be real.
My ghost watches as Ms. Larson holds the gun to my body’s head, watches Ravi draw the second dose, watches Henry disappear through the door that leads away from this hell, because apparently, even dogs can only take so much heartbreak.
And I watch, from so far away, as Ravi brings the needle to his other leg. I want to scream at him to look at me, to stop wasting our last moments, but how can I, when I’m floating near the ceiling, outside the madness?
But he finds me anyway, and I slam back into my body with the force of a thousand trains. It’s like being torn apart, but I don’t care. I have to be here. I can’t let him do this alone. We don’t do anything alone, at least not until whatever comes next.
So I still myself.
Bury the Lead Page 24
