Writer’s POV
After the investigation had proved Vanessa to be guilty, she had been locked up in her room. Being stripped of her freedom and not being able to interact with anyone was slowly bringing her apart.
The lines of her face were filled with anxiety, and she chewed on her fingernails till they bled to ease some of the tension.
She clenched and unclenched her fists as she paced up and down her room. ‘What was going on out there?’ She thought to herself. ‘Why hasn't anyone come for her yet?’
Vanessa decided to exercise some patience. She sat on her bed and tapped her foot anxiously, occasionally glancing at the door for any sign of movement.
Irish and I looked at Steve, waiting for him to give a further explanation of what had just happened with Ava.Steve shook his head, looking just as lost as we felt. “I’m sure as hell that Ava was beside me the whole night,” he said firmly. “She never left the bed. She was sleeping right next to me when we went to sleep.” The three of us tried to gather everything together, piecing through what Ava had said and what we knew to be true. I could feel the frustration building in my chest as I tried to make sense of the conflicting information. Ava was accusing us of abandoning her to go to a party, but Steve had been with her that night. It didn’t add up.Then suddenly something switched in my head, I stood up with realization. “Wait,” I said, looking at both my brothers. “Maybe the person who told Ava that we went to the party did not specify which day we went to the party.”Irish and Steve both looked at me with interest, waiting for me to continue.“Because it sure as hell wasn’t the
The house felt different now that Caleb was gone. We sat in the living room, Irish and Steve were playing games on the console while I pressed my phone, but none of us were really focused on what we were doing.Caleb had taken his own life. After everything we put him through in that forest, after all the questions and the pain we inflicted trying to get answers about Marcus, he had gone home and ended it all. The police said they found a letter in his room confessing to killing Marcus out of jealousy, then taking his own life because he couldn’t live with the guilt.I kept replaying that night in my mind. The way Caleb had looked at us with those frightened eyes when we cornered him in his house. How he’d trembled when we dragged him into the forest. The way he’d refused to speak, no matter how much we hurt him. Had he been planning it even then? Had we pushed him over the edge he was already standing on?Irish threw down his controller with more force than necessary. “I can’t concen
Zayne’s POV The next day, I woke up with my hands still sore from the night before. After all our attempts to make Caleb talk, he had refused to even lift his lips to say anything. We had punished him, tormented him, threatened him, but he just kept quiet like his life depended on staying silent.Eventually, we got to a stage where we were just fed up and decided to leave him in the forest and come back home. We were worried that Ava would be awake and looking for us, wondering where we had gone in the middle of the night. But when we got home, Ava was still fast asleep in her room, completely unaware that we had even left.I rubbed my knuckles, feeling the ache from hitting Caleb so many times. Part of me felt bad about what we had done, but another part of me was frustrated that we still didn’t have any answers. We were no closer to understanding what was happening to us or who was behind all the strange events.I stood up from my bed and went to take a bath, trying to wash away th
Irish’s POV Before any of us could give the boy an answer to his question about who we were, I moved forward and gave him a hard punch right in the mouth, telling him to shut up. The impact sent him stumbling backward, and I could see blood starting to form on his lip.Zayne quickly walked up to me and told me to calm down. He reminded me that if we kept questioning him and hitting him inside the house, it might make people come knocking to see what was happening.“You’re right,” I said, though I was still angry. “We need to take him somewhere private.”So we decided to take Caleb to the forest, just like we had done with Marcus. It seemed like the perfect place where no one would hear us or interrupt what we needed to do.Caleb tried to resist as we grabbed him, but he was much smaller and weaker than any of us. His fear made him even more helpless. We dragged him out of his apartment and through the back exit of the building, heading toward the forest area.“Please,” Caleb kept say
Steve’s POV I was able to get Caleb’s location through Rebecca, though it made me feel sick to my stomach. I had to promise her a date on Saturday morning, which was making me angry because I had no interest in Rebecca or anything about her. I just wanted us to be done with everything that was happening so I could have a peaceful mind again.The conversation with Rebecca had been painful. She kept batting her eyelashes at me and talking about how excited she was for our date. I had to smile and nod while inside I was screaming. But I got what we needed, Caleb’s address and some details about where he usually stayed.“He lives in the apartment complex near the library,” Rebecca had told me, leaning closer than I was comfortable with. “He’s been acting really weird since Marcus died, though. Like, super paranoid and jumpy.”That information was exactly what we needed. If Caleb was acting paranoid, it meant he definitely knew something about what happened to Marcus. Maybe he even knew a
Zayne’s POV I could see the suspicion in Ava’s eyes as she stood there waiting for an answer. My mind raced, trying to come up with something believable. We couldn’t tell her the truth, not about Marcus, not about the letter, not about any of it. She had been through enough already with Vanessa’s death, and involving her in this would only put her in more danger.“We were just talking about some pack business,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Nothing important.”But Ava shook her head, stepping further into the room. “Don’t try to brush me off like that. I heard you guys talking about giving someone intensive punishment. That doesn’t sound like casual pack business to me.”My heart sank. She had heard more than I hoped. Irish and Steve were looking at me, waiting to see how I would handle this. I could see the worry in their faces. We all knew how persistent Ava could be when she suspected something.“Are you hiding something from me?” she asked directly, her voice getting stronger.