- STEVEN -

"I can't believe you're making me do this," Grace muttered as we pulled up to EdgeWay, my Chevy's headlights flickering off under the glimmer of moonlight.

Once I'd parked, I climbed from the truck and sauntered to the passenger side to open the door for Grace—what a gentleman I was.

She scowled at me as I helped her out.

"After you," I mused.

"Whatever," she spat, drudging forward and stomping up the steps of the back entrance to EdgeWay.

I chuckled, slid a single hand inside my pocket as I plodded up behind her, forcing open the double doors to the school and easing my way inside.

"You got the paint?"

She sighed, handing me a cylindrical silvery bucket of red paint. "This is awful. Just imagine how upset he's going to be tomorrow."

I continued walking.

"Are you even listening to me!?"

"Oh, shove it, Grace!" I bit back. "After this morning, you owe me."

"We were talking about biology," Grace tried again. "I swear that's all we were doing."

"Are you seriously chickening out on me right now?"

"Chickening out? I was just explaining—"

"Explaining what? How you're 'just friends' with the kid who's casually trying to steal everything I love about this school?"

"Steven, everything you love about this school is playing ball and playing hookie. I doubt you could pay Ahmed to try and steal your underachiever status."

I looked down. "Basketball isn't the only thing I love about this school," I mused. "I love you too, and I thought you loved me."

Her eyes fell. "Steven..." she began slowly.

"Do you really think I'm just some dumb jock, Grace?"

"No," she sighed. "I'm just saying I wish you'd trust me the way you want me to trust you."

"But how can I when I find you flirting around with guys like Ahmed?"

She frowned up at me.

"I'm sorry." I wasn't. "I know that's not fair." I moved over and covered her hand in mine, stroking the tender insides of her palms. "Just help me with this, and I promise things can go back to normal between us. I love you, Grace."

"If you really love me, then why all this? Why are we vandalizing that poor kid's locker?"

I sighed. "Because you're my girl. And I don't want anybody thinking they can come between us." I bent down and kissed her on the lips. "Please?"

She shoved the paint bucket into my arms. "Fine, Steven. I'll help you. But I'm not painting the locker."

"Okay," I relented. "Be lookout then."

"Lookout? Lookout for what?"

"Sometimes my dad and a few of the church staff come to pray in the Chapel at night," I explained. "Stand over there by the door next to the stairs. If you hear footsteps, tell me—the last thing we want is to get caught."

Grace rolled her eyes and skulked over to the stairwell.

Once I was sure the coast was clear, I retrieved a paintbrush from my backpack and pulled off the top of the paint bucket, ready to slather a masterpiece of acrylic malevolence upon the locker before me.

I dipped the brush in the paint, then dashed a long and deliberate T on Ahmed's locker, followed by E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T. The locker was tall and thin, so I painted vertically, chuckling as I finished the final, crooked letter. Dots of paint dripped on the floor beneath, each splash popping satisfyingly as I stared ahead with pride, the dark-red liquid oozing like pus in an open wound.

"Okay, Grace," I called cheerily. "All done!"

She walked over to me shivering. "Good, now let's get out of here. I'm starting to get really freaked—"

Out of nowhere, loud and thunderous clapping began echoing through the hallway.

"Bravo," came a hatefully familiar voice.

Grace and I spun around in unison. "Irina?"

Shrouded in the darkness, Irina stepped forward, Ahmed at her heels.

"Wow," Irina mocked. "Terrorist. Real original."

"Irina, what are you doing here?"

She laughed and held up her smartphone. "Recording. Recording everything you just did."

Grace shrieked.

"No way," I breathed. "How did you—"

"You underestimate me, Steven. I am not a girl without connections. And finding out just where you and Grace were—well, that was a piece of cake."

"Grace," I whispered to her. "Go wait in the car. I'll be right behind you."

She turned swiftly to go, tucking her head down with a shiver before racing off.

"You know," Irina added, "you're really, really pathetic. First, tampering with Ahmed's shoes before last night's game, and now this. I wonder how people would react if they found out about—"

"Oh, cry me a river," I shot back. "My dad owns Principal Turner and this entire school. Your threats don't scare me one bit."

She laughed. "Who said anything about Principal Turner? Active demonstrations of racial hate crimes are a legal offense. Even Daddy Dearest can't pull your fat out of that fire."

"Yeah," Ahmed spoke up. "Face it, Steven. You're done."

I clenched my fist. "Why you little—"

Screams.

Sudden. Without Warning. High-pitched, blood-curdling screams. Ripping through the air, reverberating off the walls so loudly I could hardly think.

"STEVEN!"

Covering my ears, I looked up and saw Grace barreling towards me, her eyes wide and filled with terror.

"What the—"

"You guys, we have to get out of here!" she cried.

I grabbed her by the arms. "Grace, slow down. What's the matter..."

"There's a body! I just saw a dead body!"

My eyes popped wide as terror exploded inside my skull. "Wh—what? A body? Whose?"

"I don't know. He was face down, and I..." she trailed off, tears choking back her words.

My heart thumped as she spoke. "W-where is it?" I finally managed. "Where's the body?"

"The usher's room," she quivered. "D-down the hall."

I offered my hand for support. She took it, and we walked together slowly forward, Ahmed and Irina following close behind.

When we arrived at the usher's room, I slid open the door. Grace continued to hold my hand tightly as the four of us moved inside and I closed the door behind us. The moment I turned on the light, I felt every inch of my body go numb.

In the middle of the room, splayed out radially on the floor, was a burly man's built and stocky corpse. The shirt he wore was ripped in half and drooped like swollen eyelids on either side of his body. His skull had been bisected and lay split in-two atop a furrow of blood-soaked carpet. Along his back, a knife had been used to etch brutal carvings upon the dull pink flesh. The carvings were filled with crusty, reddish-brown scabs edged with blistering skin—skin that spelled out a single name with horrifying clarity:

RUBY DENSETT.

I could feel myself starting to gag. This isn't real.

"Guys," Irina spoke up, her voice shaking, "Look."

Above the corpse, dark-red letters stained the wall, spelling out a message in the blood of the deceased:

"Thou shalt not raise a false report," I read aloud, trembling, "Put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness."

"Wh—What does that even mean?" Grace shuddered.

"It's from the Bible," Irina spoke up. "That passage is from Exodus, back when the Lord was telling Moses—"

"Who cares!?" I screamed. "Guys, we have to get out of here! Now!" I turned to face the same door we'd used to enter the usher's room and twisted the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge. I shook the handle harder, tried forcing the door open.

"It's locked," I breathed, fear in my voice.

"WHAT!?" Grace panicked, her eyes darting around the room in terror. "No, no, no—there has to be a way out! We can't just die like this!"

"Grace, will you pull it together!? We're not going to die."

Just as I spoke, the shadow of a slim figure moved deftly past the small glass window situated in the door's top-right corner.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Hey, we're locked in! Let us out!"

No response.

"LET US OUT!" I screamed louder.

Laughter.

What?

Suddenly, as if on cue, police sirens began to sound in the distance, their whirring pitch growing louder and louder with each passing second.

"Oh, crap," Ahmed breathed. "It's the cops."

"No duh, Sherlock," I spat.

"This can't be happening." Grace's whole body started trembling. "They're going to find us in here and think we killed this guy!"

"That's not gonna happen," I tried to reassure her. "I'm going to get us out of this."

"Oh, will you drop the macho act?" Irina bit back. "Grace is right. We can't run from the police. Unless you've got a skeleton key that unlocks some secret tunnel, we might as well start getting our stories straight."

I froze. "Skeleton key. That's it!"

"What?" Irina puzzled.

I rushed over to the wooden drawers behind the usher chairs and opened the third from the top. Inside was a black box, which I opened to retrieve a silver key.

"My dad keeps the church's master key in this box," I explained. "And there's a secret door behind this chest of drawers."

With moderate effort, I managed to push back the chest of drawers to reveal a crawl-sized door a few inches off the ground.

"Come on," I whispered as I turned the key in the lock, the door creaking wide open.

Grace was the first to crawl inside, followed by me and then Irina. Ahmed crept in last, shuddering as he pulled the door shut behind him.

The tunnel ended in my dad's office, and the four of us scrambled out quickly. I unhitched the locks on the window behind the main desk, and we moved swiftly outside into the dark and foggy air.

The blue lights of police cars strobed the night as we ducked behind trees on the trek back to my and Irina's cars. Grace got in with me, shivering and afraid. I waited, motionless in my Chevy, overhung by smokey fog, watching as the remaining policemen in vehicles stepped out and headed inside the school—then I sped off into the darkness.