Down to the Liar(21)

Students do trickle in to check their email and such in between periods, so there’s enough cover for Skyla’s attacker to risk exposure if the lure of the pictures is tempting enough. I’m not sure what I’ll do if this doesn’t work. And it’s not out of the realm of possibility for it to fail miserably. The wire game is a difficult con under the best of circumstances, and these circumstances are more like a sack of fireworks than circumstances.

Murphy strolls in and finds me in the back. He nods when he sits in the chair next to me, but he doesn’t say anything. We’re both strung as tight as piano wire.

The door opens whisper soft. I see Ms. Shirley look up and down again. A student, then. Someone she’s used to seeing. But I can’t tell who it is right away. The monitors are blocking my view.

Then I see her. And it’s like taking a wrecking ball between the eyes.

Skyla.

My first thought is she’s going to ruin everything. Her attacker’s not going to show up if she’s sitting right in the middle of the room.

My second thought is much worse.

Murphy starts to stand, but I clamp my hand on his arm, stopping him with a look. He sinks back into his chair without a sound.

Something about this isn’t right. Something about this job has been irking me from the beginning.

I’m not strong like you or Bryn.

We watch as she pulls up the Facebook account, as she navigates to the message I sent with the honeypot URL, as she clicks the link that leads to nowhere. We watch as she tries to destroy herself.

“What the hell?” Murphy murmurs.

I stand and walk slowly to Skyla. She’s facing away from me, so she doesn’t see me at first. When she does finally catch sight of me, she jumps up and makes a break for the door. Murphy blocks her exit, and she whirls to face me.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Ms. Shirley asks from her desk.

“She deserves it,” Skyla says. “She’s a conniving slut. She doesn’t deserve him.”

I keep my voice as calm and nonthreatening as possible. “Who deserves it?”

“You can’t make me say her name. I know your tricks.”

Her eyes are wild, and…different. It’s like she’s seeing me and not seeing me at the same time. She recognizes me, but she’s not acting like Skyla.

“Please, tell me. Who deserves it? Who are you talking about?”

Murphy’s face is ashen, and I’m sure mine is just as bloodless. Something is very, very wrong here.

“Skyla Wood-bitch. She’s just using him. She’s a bad, bad girl. She needs to be locked in the dark. She needs to die.”

She pulls a razor from her bag and slashes at us with it. Murphy and I jump back. She manages to snag Murphy’s forearm anyway. A trickle of blood drips down to his hand, but he ignores it. Instead he leaps forward, grabbing her wrist. But then Ms. Shirley hurtles into the mix and hijacks the razor from Skyla’s grip.

Skyla passes out in Ms. Shirley’s arms. Sort of. Her eyes are still open, but she doesn’t seem to be seeing any of us.

“You can let go, Murphy,” Ms. Shirley says. “Can you please get the dean?”

He leaves, and I stand there shaking like a leaf, trapped in visions of somebody else’s blood, somebody else’s vacant eyes staring up at me.

“Julep.” The emphasis in Ms. Shirley’s voice leads me to believe she’s said it more than once.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

“Please have a seat. And breathe for me, okay?”

I do as she says, though I have no conscious thought of locating a chair.

“What happened?” she asks.

I tell her the whole story from front to back. I don’t leave out anything. All the names, dates, and places. I’ll have to tell it again to the dean, and probably the police officers, and maybe some kind of social worker.

But I actually don’t mind. This is beyond my ability to help. I can’t fix this. I can’t fix this for her. I’m going to have to give her a refund.

The incongruous thought sparks a laugh. It’s small and hysterical, and nothing about this situation is funny, but it comes out anyway. And to be honest, I much prefer it to the tears I can feel hovering like an anvil in the back of my throat.

The rest of the day is a blur of interviews, debriefings, questions and answers that go around and around and nowhere at the same time. And all I can think is that she was right in front of me the whole time, begging for me to help her. And I didn’t hear it. I wasn’t listening.