Lifeline

Audrey rushed back to her phone and scooped it up off the floor, holding it back to her ear.

"Em? You still there?" she spoke, glancing back at her window. The masked person wasn't there any more, but to be safe, she dragged her desk chair over next to the window and sat down.

"I'm still here," Emma answered, her voice full of concern, "what happened?"

"They showed up again, Emma. At my house. While my dad is here. They said-- they said that Noah has something. They said it again. If he really doesn't know, then why are they so insistent that he does?" she leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees.

“Audrey, you know how this works—how it worked last time. They’re trying to get you ntostop trusting him.”

Maybe Emma was right. Maybe they were just trying their hardest to force them apart. But then, why would they keep trying like this? Why wouldn’t they just drop it after the first time? There must be something, Audrey thought, something we wouldn’t think of as significant. But what could it be? Something that easily went unnoticed—they had to already know whatever it was. Still perched in front of the window, Audrey scanned the lawn below her. There was no one there. They must have jumped off and made a run for it. Audrey glanced down at her forearm, which was still sore. There were marks shaped like fingers, red and already beginning to darken and bruise. Long sleeves were going to be needed tomorrow.

“You’re right,” Audrey replied, lining her own fingers up with the red marks. “You’re right,” she exhaled. “I need to calm down—I need to think for a minute.”

“Never mind all of that—are you okay? The killer—you’re sure they left?” Emma asked.

“I’m alright—I think. I haven’t—they’re definitely gone.” Audrey answered. This wasn’t going to happen, she decided. Whoever this was, they weren’t going to win. They couldn’t separate them this time. She was going to fix what she had done to Noah—she was going to regain his trust. Otherwise, whoever this was . . . they would win.

Gaining Noah’s trust back proved much more difficult than Audrey had expected. Granted, she didn’t expect it to be easy at all, but she did think it would be easier than this. Noah would hardly look at her now, let alone talk to her. He and Gustavo were still as close as ever, though, and the way that they glared at her gave her flashbacks to earlier in school. Of course, then Noah was sitting with her instead of against her, assuring her that the people glaring at her had no reason to do so. Now, he was the one giving her angry side glances, and this time, she knew that he had a reason—a god reason.

It wasn’t just the fact that Noah wasn’t speaking to her, though. That was hard enough. No, now she was dealing with Gina insisting that she had to spend more time with her, simply because she had been hanging out with Emma more often. Apparently, this made Gina even more jealous. So, naturally, if Audrey was spending time with Emma, she had to spend more time with Gina. Now, this wasn’t a terrible thing at all. Of course, she had school and work (Which sometimes counted for being with Gina, if they had the same shift). By the time she got home every night, she was rather tired. And the worst part? She couldn’t even talk to Noah about it. In short, there was too much stress going on, and that wasn’t even considering the fact that another maniacal killer was on the loose tormenting them.

Audrey was extremely worried about the fact that she couldn’t get ahold of Noah even if she tried—she couldn’t check on him, couldn’t reach him if something happened. That was probably what bothered her most of all—the fact that, in an emergency, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to reach him. All because of a stupid suspicion she had based on things that were told to her by a murderer.

An opportunity to regain Noah’s trust came two weeks after the incident at the window. Nothing had happened concerning the killer since then, and Audrey kept expecting them to kill someone every day. But after a complete two weeks of nothing from the killer, they called Audrey again. This time, it was in broad daylight, right after Audrey got out of her math class. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and when she saw the word ‘unknown’ displayed on the screen, her heart stopped. She didn’t know where exactly she could go to answer it where nobody would overhear, so she went into the bathroom and held the phone to her ear.

“Hello?” she blurted into the speaker, looking around and then deciding to move the trash can in front of the door. It was a large metal one, so it would have blocked the door pretty well, at least.

“Hello, Audrey,” the voice came out right next to her ear drum. She nearly flinchd when she heard it, rushing to the nearest stall and locking it behind her. Better to be safe than sorry, right?

“What do you want now?” she lowered her voice to a whisper, not wanting anyone to hear her talking in the bathroom that no one could get into.

“I want to discuss something with you, Audrey. Something that’s very important. Something you really need to understand.” The fact that they were dancing around what they were going to say sent a chill down Audrey’s spine. Something bad was about to happen.

“Just get to the point, creep,” she spat, clenching her fist at her side. She was trying her hardest to maintain a calm tone, but couldn’t. Her voice shook with her hands. Her mind was racing—what could she do besides listen to this murderer taunt her?

“You need to know not to test me, Audrey, and I was trying my hardest to figure out how to send that message. I was actually about to decide, when I remembered, this is a game. And even I have to play by the rules.” The killer’s voice trembled, like they were getting over excited to announce what was coming next in their horrific game. “So we’re just going to move on. Let’s see how else I can make my monkey dance . . .

“Someone in the school has that information you need from Noah. Who that person is, you get to figure out. If you don’t find it in two hours, someone else is going to get it. Otherwise, everything will be fine. You’ll get the information you need to continue, and the one who I’ve got in mind gets to live. I would have just given you the information easily, but for one, you seemed to not quite understand how important the information is, and for two, you obviously needed more motivation to cooperate. So, you have two hours. Tick tock, Audrey . . . time’s running out already.” The line went silent, and Audrey noticed that her breathing was heavy. She clenched and unclenched her jaw, trying to think. Who would have that information? Who would the killer have in mind to kill? There was hardly anyone left.

Think, Audrey, you idiot. Who would have that information? She thought. Who would have it? She burst out of the bathroom door and rushed down the hallway, her mind racing frantically. She had to get that information, or someone else would die. And she would be responsible again. No, that wasn’t going to happen. She looked at every single person as she passed them. Nobody seemed to be hiding anything, and Audrey couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. Either whoever had it was completely unaware that they did, or nobody had it. But they had to—someone had to have it.

Eyes scanning every single person in the hall, Audrey continued her path towards her next class. She couldn’t be caught doing anything suspicious, and if she was given two hours, the killer didn’t exactly expect her to find it immediately. Luckily, Brooke was in her next class. As soon as Audrey sat down, Brooke knew something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” she asked, a look of worry on her face.

“I’ll tell you after class,” Audrey muttered, glancing around at everyone else in the classroom. “Hey, where’s Stavo? And Noah? I haven’t seen them.” Brooke shrugged.

“Stavo said they were gonna work on book stuff this afternoon, so probably at Noah’s,” she said. Audrey took a breath. At least they were out of the way. They couldn’t get hurt. She glanced around the room again—still, no one seemed to have anything suspicious. No one was looking at her, no one looked as though they had information from the killer.

The class period went by agonizingly slowly. Listening to the teacher drone on and on about the fact that in contrast to most beliefs, the Romans did not just kill those who had . . . Blah, blah, blah. This wasn't even what they were learning about—the teacher was simply fired up over a comment made by Daniel Penton, and now Audrey was staring out the window. How could she be just waiting in a classroom while another person was in danger? And of her own fault, too.

Emma was supposed to be in chemistry right now, but that didn’t mean anything. What if she was the one the killer had in mind? Audrey looked quickly at the clock—it read 11:42. Eight more minutes, then she could find Emma and tell her and Brooke what was happening. Then, the three of them could look together for the person holding the information. But wait. Would that be a good idea? Involving the two of them could potentially put them in danger, and Audrey didn’t want to do that. No, she would have to find this on her own.

After the bell finally rang, Audrey leapt up, told Brooke that she would meet her and Emma later, and exited the classroom. Whoever it was that mad this information would be there for lunch—otherwise, the killer wouldn’t have said two hours instead of less than that, right? So, she headed to the cafeteria to look. What exactly she was looking for, she wasn’t sure, but she had to start somewhere.

Though she didn’t outright notice anything, she did sit and watch everyone in the large room for a time. She ended up eventually standing up and walking out, because there seemed to be nothing there. Looking at the time, it was now 12:13, and there was no sign of this person who had what she needed. There was less than an hour left, and she had nothing. Just as she looked up, though, she noticed someone staring at her from the other end of the hallway—Connor Wilkes, a greasy boy the same age as herself. He was quiet, and rather annoying when he did happen to speak. As Audrey stared back at him, he looked away quickly, down at his feet. The small possibility of Connor having something was enough for Audrey, so she quickly made her way down the hall towards him.

The closer Audrey got, the more discomfort showed on his face, and he turned left down the hall as she reached the end. This made her even more suspicious of him than she already was, so she followed him on his way down the second hallway, and he turned into an empty classroom. Audrey stopped as he did this, taking a breath. Whatever was happening right now, if Connor tried to attack her, she had to be ready. She took a second to compose herself, and then followed Connor into the classroom.

The lights were all off, and Connor was standing behind the teacher’s desk in the front of the room. His backpack had been placed on top of it, and he was shuffling through the contents inside. Audrey slowly approached the opposite side of the desk.

“Connor,” she spoke, and he didn’t show any signs of hearing her, just kept ruffling papers in his bag. “Connor, what are you doing?” Audrey asked. She willed herself to keep calm, not to get angry at his lack of response. Conner simply gathered a few papers inside a folder, set them down on the desk, and zipping up his backpack, walked out of the room in silence. Cautiously, Audrey picked up the folder, which had a sticky note on it that read, in messy handwriting:

“He told me to give this to you—sorry.”

Audrey gulped. This was exactly what she was looking for, wasn’t it? She flipped open the folder, and saw a page of logs of some sort. She walked to the other side of the desk and sat down, placing the folder down and taking out the pages one by one. There was a picture of two blurred people standing in the lobby of a motel, and several separate logs from what she assumed was that same motel. The one that got her attention, though, was one that had only two names on it, and underneath, "GOTCHA!!!" scrawled in red pen. The names were ones that she didn’t expect to see again . . . at least not purposely. The first signature read “Kevin Duval”. Audrey clenched her jaw at this, What the hell would he be doing back here? There wasn't any reason that Audrey could think of. Especially after the last time he was here. She breathed deeply, and her eyes trailed down to the second signature on the paper.

Her blood ran cold at the sight of it, written in large, loopy handwriting. The name of a dead man—the name that haunted her every day of her life. The name that she never, ever wanted to see again. Written underneath Kevin Duval’s name, neatly inside the provided space, was the name Brandon James.