Fear Games

10. Bury Your Heart

"SO DOES ANYONE want to explain to Melinda and Daryl that their son is a crazy sociopath who's trying murder us all, or am I going to have to do it?" Elijah asked.

We were still in their house, trying to make sense of everything. Since we discovered Ivy was actually Noah's old middle school girlfriend, things were starting to make a little bit more sense. According to Ryan, he saw Ivy and Noah together a lot in middle school, but since that wasn't his group, he almost never knew what was going on.

"Honestly, if this is all true, they probably already know," Esme said. "Did you see their reaction when we mentioned the murders? They looked ready to blow up."

"The first thing we need to do is get out of this house," Isaiah said. "Someone could have easily seen us sneak in. We can figure this out somewhere else."

I picked up the file that we placed on the table and said, "Isaiah is right. Let's go."

"You're taking that with us?" Ryan asked.

"Of course I am. We probably didn't catch everything in it. This thing is monstrous. We only looked at a few of the basics. There's probably a lot more in here."

The five of us exited through the back and I made sure to lock the door behind me, wiping the door handle with the sleeves of my sweater, as well as the key. Then I placed the key back on top of the doorway as we went back around to the front to our cars. Esme and I climbed into mine, and then we drove off.

Neither of us knew what to say. Learning that Noah had such strong emotional disabilities pained me. If only I had known. If only I could have done something.

Finally, I asked, "Should we go back to my house? I'm pretty sure my parents are still at work."

Esme nodded. "I'll text the guys and let them know."

***

We met up at my house a few minutes later. The five of us went inside and sat in the living room together. It was getting kind of windy outside and it looked like a storm was picking up.

Isaiah continued shuffling through the paperwork while I rested my head between my hands. There was so much I still didn't understand, but so much more that I did. With Noah out there after us, it was only a matter of time before one of us was next to die.

"If Noah really did kill Ivy, what the heck do we do now?" Elijah said. "It's not like we can go to the police."

"Regardless of whether he killed her, we're still stuck on what to do next," Esme said. "Noah hasn't given us any sign of anything."

"I'm still not entirely convinced this is even Noah," Isaiah said. When we all glanced at him, he said, "Some of these say that before he killed himself, he was contemplating it. And there's a whole section of this file just on closing out his IEP after he died. I really do think that he's dead."

"If he's dead, who the hell would be trying to kill us?" I asked.

"Maybe his parents."

The suggestion from Ryan struck me as odd. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, aside from the fact they acted like lunatics when you confronted them about the murders...what else?" Ryan said. "I still think it's possible this Noah kid is still alive, but if he's not, we should have some more suspects."

Melinda and Daryl being the killers would make sense. If they knew we had a part in Noah's death, it would explain why they were after us. All except for Ryan, and possibly the others. "Ryan, how do you even know Noah? Did you ever used to pick on him?"