Aftermath(49)

I nod.

“It’s not even from the shooting,” he continues. “Someone’s made a loop tape of random shots and screams. Probably from a movie.”

Performance art.

We turn a corner. The gym is ahead, and Jesse hesitates.

The gym. It reminds him of Jamil.

“We can go this —” I say.

“No, this way is faster.” His fingers lock in mine. “Ignore it. Just ignore it. It’s all fake. Some sick asshole —”

The sound of a door slapping open. Right beside us.

The gym doors.

We both wheel, but the doors are shut. Chained shut.

The sound comes again, the distinctive squeal of a metal door. The smack of it hitting the wall.

Light flashes. The wall across from the chained gym doors lights up with a still image of two boys.

I see their faces, and my hand clasps Jesse’s.

“Isaac and Harley,” Jesse says, and I nod, as if it was a question, but I know it’s not. I can’t remember if Jesse was ever at our place at the same time as Luka’s friends, but it doesn’t matter. These are the boys who murdered his brother. Jesse will no more be able to forget their faces than I can.

Isaac and Harley.

Isaac is in the lead. He was always in the lead. He has a gun. A handgun, and I see the news articles again. Isaac Wickham supplied two handguns, owned by his father. Harley Stewart brought his uncle’s hunting rifle.

Isaac holds the pistol like an action-movie villain. Harley has the rifle in both hands, carrying it more than wielding it. Harley looks… bewildered. Like he stepped onto a stage, and someone handed him this gun, and he has no idea what role he’s supposed to play.

And Isaac?

Isaac is grinning.

“It’s a distance shot,” Jesse says, and the sound of his voice startles me.

“Distance shot?” I say. “You mean the rifle?”

“No. The image.” He walks to the wall, and I follow, our hands still entwined. “See how crappy the resolution is? It was taken from a distance.” He turns and points. “Down there, I bet. Someone was filming – kids did, during the shooting. Isaac and Harley burst out of the gym, and a kid must have caught that on film. Probably wet himself when he realized it.”

Jesse looks at Isaac. He’s standing eye-to-eye with his brother’s killer. I’m about to speak when he turns sharply and he says, “There was stuff online. Photos. Videos. Kids were supposed to hand them in for evidence, but some emailed themselves copies and others just didn’t submit theirs. After the shooting, my parents were part of a group of victims’ families, and one thing they did was try to get this stuff off the Internet. It didn’t work. So that’s where this comes from. So that’s where we can start looking.”

He turns back to Isaac and he nods, as if in satisfaction.

I have reduced you to a clue. A useful clue. Nothing more.

He peers around the dark hallway. “And there,” he says. “That’s the source.” He points to what looks like a dot on the opposite wall, near the top. “The video feed. If I boost you up, can you get a better look?”

This is how Jesse will handle the ghoulish performance. Turn the fear and grief into something we can use against whoever is doing this.

I’m struggling to follow his lead. I can’t tear my gaze away from Isaac. I can’t stop seeing his expression. His joy. I can’t stop hearing the screams and shots echoing around us.

I want to run. Just get out.

Which is exactly what my tormenter hopes I’ll do. Run home sobbing and pull up my sheets and tumble into a world of endless nightmare, faced with the reality of what my brother did. The stark reality that I’ve been spared until now.

I will not give anyone that power.

I will take what has been given here, and I will use it.

I block the sounds of the shooting and turn my back on Isaac and his grin and his gun, and I let Jesse boost me. There in the wall…

It’s a bullet hole.

“Skye?”

“It’s…” I swallow. Then my light glints off something inside the depression. “Hold on.” I take a pen from my back pocket and poke inside. Bits of plaster crumble, and I see a lens.

I tell Jesse, and then say, “The projector must be on the other side of the wall.”

He nods. “It’ll be in a room off the next hall. We’ll get to that in a second. First, let’s see if we can find one of those speakers, too.”

“Just follow the screams?”

A wry smile. “Exactly.”

We pass the gym. Jesse has homed in on a source up ahead. We seem to be leaving one speaker behind, the sound growing softer as another increases in volume, and Jesse has his chin up, his gaze on the right wall, flashlight app lifted. He’s gotten two steps ahead of me in his eagerness, and when the wall to our left lights up, he’s already moved past it.

I’m going to do the same. Just keep walking. Jesse doesn’t see the projection, and so I’m not going to look…

I look.

And I see a picture of Jesse.

That’s what I think as I’m turning, my gaze in motion, catching a flash of a figure on the wall. I realize my mistake in a heartbeat. This boy has the same hair as Jesse. Similar features. Wider shoulders.