Page 430 of Knox Academy Omnibus
“I never said I trusted himmore. I just trust him to makeunbiaseddecisions when it comes to me, but clearly I was wrong.”
“We also need to decide how we proceed with Debbie,” Sawyer adds, conveniently trying to change the subject.
“We do nothing. She’s free to live her life.”
“She fucking kidnapped you!” Onyx yells.
“She kept me safe. It might not have been done in an orthodox way, but she did. She did what none of you could do, because by not telling me, you took on more than you could chew and it backfired in your face.”
“That’s complete crap,” Onyx fires back.
“We can deal with this later between us. It isn’t a board issue, it’s a personal one that’s between us. Right now we have more pressing issues to discuss. I want a report on what happened today, including details of anyone who was injured or killed. Also, I have to go and question Harold and...and I wanted to talk to you all. Something…” I look down at my hands.
“What’s wrong? You can tell us anything,” Sawyer presses, resting his hand on my legs. “Even if you’re mad at us and we have some things to work through, you can still confide in us.”
“I...I killed Laura. She’s dead.”
“We found her body,” Slate says and I look up at him, tears rolling down my face.
“I didn’t mean to. She kept saying things about why she came here and every memory from my childhood flashed before my eyes. I think I blacked out and when I came to she was on the ground. Debbie and Camilla saw me do it. They helped hide her body and clean me up. Frost too. I’m so sorry, Monty.”
“Don’t be sorry, she deserved everything she got. I’m just sorry that you had to do it,” Monty tells me kindly. Too kindly. His fiancée just died. Where’s the anger? The rage? The grief?
“So you don’t hate me?” I sniffle. He shakes his head.
“Are you going to be okay?” Sawyer asks in his concerned teacher’s voice.
“I don’t know. I killed someone. I took away someone's life. How do I live with that?”
“It’s not easy, but we have specialists you can talk to on staff, they help us all through things like this.”
“All I know right now is I’m glad graduation is over and I never have to do that again.” I sigh in relief.
“Actually,” Kalen chimes in. “That was a fake graduation and the real one is in November.”
“Nope, I’m not doing it. And what kind of bullshit is that? Why finish school and then wait months for graduation? This whole school system is confusing. Why not be like Australia? We start in January and if you graduate it’s in November, and the only thing that can maybe not be around that time is formal, but that comes down to the individual school.”
“There is a logical reason…” Sawyer starts and everyone groans. “Which none of you care about.”
He smiles and shakes his head at his brothers.
“What do we do about Laura? I don’t know how we deal with that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I have everything sorted out: she tragically got hurt in the unfortunate events today. We have one newspaper on staff who are working on the story. She will have a funeral for all of her friends to attend.”
“She had friends?” Kalen questions in an incredulous tone. I mean, I’m pretty sure we were all thinking it, but I probably wouldn’t have said it quite so insensitively. Then again, I killed her, so who am I to talk about being insensitive?
“She did, but I will take care of it all.”
“I can’t go to her funeral. I’m sorry but with how she treated me my whole life, she doesn’t deserve for me to be there. I’d be a hypocrite if I acted remorseful. Iamsorry I killed her. I didn’t mean to. But I amnotsorry she’s dead and I don’t have any respects to pay.”
“And we all back you up on that, one hundred percent. Let’s not worry about her ever again. Let’s go and deal with Harold. I’m sure we can take some of our frustrations out on him,” Onyx suggests.
“I’m going to step away from this one,” Monty tells me. “He’s my father and I know he brought this on himself, but I don’t think I could watch it. Unless you need me to, Amelie? If you’re happy to pardon me, I’ll check on your family and your mother, and make sure they all get home safely.”
I nod and Monty stands giving me a small smile before he leaves.
Chapter Forty-Eight
