Fear Games

4. From Puzzles to Pieces

Josh 

"She killed Haven?" I asked. It was the following morning, and Brandon came over to my house my himself. Matt would have come over, but he was too busy with something. I needed all the details after I had Leslie calling me in tears.

"I know, dude, it's crazy," Brandon said. "But what she did was for a reason. Haven was the killer. It's not like we could just let her kill us."

I completely understood that. But Eden, my sweet, caring, used-to-be-goth best friend, actually killed someone. The thought took a few minutes to digest, and even when it did, I felt sick to my stomach. Not with her, per se. I totally got why she did it. Just at the situation as a whole.

"What'd you guys do with the body?" I asked.

"We did what we had to," Brandon said. "We got rid of it."

"Why didn't you go to the police?" I asked. "I mean, she did it in self defense. They'd have to understand that, right?"

"There were a lot of things wrong there," Brandon said. "For starters, we were at St. Paul's, which is marked off with tape. We're not legally allowed in there. So we'd be in trouble for that. Secondly, Eden may have shot Haven once, but then she shot her three more times. She was so angry. Do you think the cops would really believe it was self defense? It was purely murder, regardless of how you look at it. And the law would look at it that way, too."

I ran my fingers through my hair. I should have gone with them. I should have been there to help them, and instead I was wasting my time with a guy who clearly didn't give a crap about me.

"Well," I said, "on a brighter note--not really, but--Damien clearly isn't doing anything to help us. He's backing out, it seems."

"Why do you think that is?" Brandon asked. "Wouldn't he desperately be trying to get Daisy's helper after what happened?"

"You'd think," I said. "And speaking of helpers, what does this mean? Is it all really over?"

"Actually," Brandon said, "there's more. Apparently Haven slipped up last night--or maybe it wasn't a slip-up, who knows--but she said that there were Masquerades."

"Masquerades?" I said. "As in plural?"

Brandon nodded. "So the theory that Layla was in on it still holds up."

That was just great. Multiple killers, Eden being one of them, regardless of whether it was self-defense. And that on top of the stuff with Damien and Matt, I was seriously ready to pull my hair out.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this," I said.

"I know," Brandon said. "Neither do I."

***

Rachel

When Matt texted me saying that we needed to talk, my concern immediately rose from my stomach and into my chest. I had a really bad feeling about it all, but I met with him anyway, in the spot under the school.

I texted Haven, telling her that Matt wanted us to meet in the school basement. When I didn't hear back, I figured she was still busy doing whatever she said for me to trust her with. 

It was about fifteen minutes later when Matt came down the basement stairs. The second his eyes met mine, tears welling up, I knew something was wrong.

"Matt," I said. "What is it?"

He put his head down, shoving his hands in his pockets. I didn't expect to hear the sob escape his throat. "I tried to stop her. I swear, I tried, but I didn't know what to do without blowing everything--"