Chapter 28: Metamorphosis

I held my phone to my ear. I would have thought Chrissie was still mad at me about the whole Levi- Shawn incident, but it turned out I was wrong. School had ended an hour ago and Chrissie was already phoning me. If it was anyone else I would have assumed they needn't help with homework, but Chrissie never needed help with school stuff.

"He was murdered," Chrissie wept.

Not the way I would start a conversation. "What? Who?"

"Levi," she gulped.

"Levi?" I repeated, before the line went dead. Either I had heard wrong or Chrissie was mistaken. I mean Levi just got here. He hadn't had enough time to make any enemies, well except for Caspian. Let me rephrase: he hadn't had enough time to make any enemies that would want to kill him.

I called Caspian.

"Maddie?" His voice was shaky.

"Everything ok?" I asked.

"The mayor's been killed," he replied. "Don't tell anyone I told you," he quickly added. The worry in his voice was contagious.

"What happened?" I enquired.

"Shot."

"Levi as well?"

"How did you know?" I wasn't sure if he was genuinely curious or angry that I had mentioned Levi's name.

"Chrissie," I clarified. I could hear a lot of noise coming from his side of the phone. "Where are you?" I asked.

"Stinger HQ. The cops are here. They think the Stingers are the culprits," he explained. "I've got to go," he finished, before I could ask him anything else.

The whole town attended the funeral. It seemed most people attended out of obligation, as nobody seemed sad or the slightest bit sympathetic. The town was way overdue for a new mayor, Mayor Steel had been in charge for longer than what was expected, and nobody had really known Levi, since he had just moved here. There was nobody here I didn't recognise, which meant none of Levi's friends from Canada had attended.

Shawn was huddled in a corner. His ivory skin was even paler than they were the last time I saw him, and the dark hollows under his eyes were more prominent. I couldn't imagine how he was feeling; I knew what it was like to lose a brother, but not what it was like to lose a father or a mother. Most teens move out once they reach eighteen, he must've been close to his mother. Either that or it was his lack of independence. I liked to think it was the former, because that meant Shawn could at least look after himself.

The coffin was in the middle of the Church. Unlike Asher's, this funeral wasn't held at the house of the deceased. The laminated wooden floor had just been oiled and it squeaked when the slightest bit of pressure was exerted upon it. White fabric was draped over the church walls. A large, wooden cross hung over the podium from where the pastor was speaking. Most people held an offering in their hands: petals or whole flowers.

"Hey." Caspian came up behind me and pulled me into an embrace. I sneaked a look at my parents, but they didn't seem to be looking our way.

"Hi," I greeted. "What happened, you know with the Stingers being accused?" It looked like they had been let off the hook pretty quickly.

"Lewis got arrested." His voice has no feeling, like he had said it so many times the words were meaningless.

I put a hand over my mouth, to stifle a gasp.

"The cops found a gun in his room, one that matched the bullets from the Mayor's autopsy." He left Levi out of the explanation. I assumed he did so because he felt bad for breaking Levi's arm.

"Do you think he did it?" I asked. Lewis hadn't seemed like the murderer type, but yet again I wasn't the best judge of these things; Asher was a killer and I only realised it when he was six feet under.

"No," Caspian stated. "Lewis wouldn't kill; and if he did, he wouldn't be stupid enough to keep the gun."

I remained mute. The only thing that bothered me was that the one person I could ask about Asher was now behind bars. No, there were much more important things than the case of my dead brother. I hated to admit it, but I couldn't help a dead man. I could help a wrongfully accused man.

"We need to help him," I decided.

Caspian shook his head. "Victoria's doing what she can."

There was something off about Victoria Herim, almost as if she didn't care about the Stingers. It seemed to me like she cared only about herself. She got other people to do her dirty work, the car lifting being one thing. What about Newton's disappearance? I thought about what Caspian had said 'A Stinger can't attack another Stinger.' But would Victoria harm one of her own to protect herself? Would she kill someone and dispose of the body? In such a way that a couple of weeks later that person was still declared missing. Would she plant a gun in someone's room, to keep the blood off her hands? She didn't look like someone who would do those things, but looks were deceiving. For example, Chrissie didn't look like a drinker, but the way she gulped that poison down was a whole other story.

"I almost forgot." Caspian handed me my butterfly necklace.

"Thank you," I hadn't even remembered that he had it. I hadn't even remembered it existed.

Asher handed me a small cardboard box. "Happy birthday, Mads."

Asher had always been the first one to wish me happy birthday. I didn't even think he slept on the night before my birthday. When the clock struck midnight, he was always ready with a present in his hand.

I opened the box and glanced at the most beautiful necklace I had ever seen. Faux silver with a mystical aqua-coloured butterfly hanging on to it.

"It's beautiful," I breathed.

"When the time comes we'll spread our wings together, and do things we never thought we would do. Just like caterpillars that never thought they would fly," he explained, the reason why he felt a special connection to butterflies.

The day Asher turned into a butterfly was the day he did something he never thought he would: he killed his principal. At least I thought that was unplanned, it would have been a lot more disturbing if he knew he was going to do it. Now it was my turn to do something that I never thought I would do: help someone get out of jail. My metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly began now.

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