Page 92 of Cisco

Hilly shook him a little. “Focus Carter. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I… I put the peanut oil in Bailey’s snack bag. And…I lured Cisco out here by telling him I had what he was looking for.”

“Where’s Cisco now?” Hilly wasn’t sure she wanted to hear more. Carter had almost killed Bailey, which didn’t bode well for what he might have done to Cisco.

“In a shack. I hit him on the head and tied him up. Just to scare him.” Carter’s voice got stronger, and he pushed his shoulders back. “He bullied you when you were in school. I heard him admit it to Miss Adeline. He needs to feel bad, but…”

“But what, Carter?” Hilly feared she’d be sick to her stomach.

He studied his feet. “I need you to understand,” he simpered. “It wasn’t like I started out to do this… I was spying on Lance and Bailey one day, watching how badly she treated him, when a guy snuck up behind me and asked what I was doing.”

“Go on.”

“I was so mad, I told him everything; how I wanted to get back at all the jerks who made other people feel bad.”

Hilly’s gut flopped. “Who was the man, Carter?” she asked shakily.

“Mr. Cottins,” he supplied uneasily.

Shit, no.

“And what did Mr. Cottins tell you to do?”

“He said he’d help me make the bullies pay.”

Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears as she kept probing. “He gave you the peanut oil.”

“Uh, huh.” Carter’s face grew pained. “A couple days after I told him she was allergic. But he said it would only make her sick. He never said it could kill her.”

Hilly would deal with the Bailey situation later. Right now, she needed to know Cisco’s condition.

“What did you do to Cisco?” Her throat felt tight as she swallowed dryly around her question.

“Mr. Cottins showed me a shack…”

Hilly immediately knew which one.

“…and told me to bring the next bully there; to hit him on the head and tie him up.”

Hilly shook. “And you followed his orders.”

Carter refused to look at her as he shuffled his sneakers and answered. “I did.”

Hilly slowly walked backwards in the direction of the shack, not wanting to wait around another minute. If Cisco was unconscious; perhaps bleeding…

Carter put a hand on her arm, halting her progress.

“You can’t go there,” he wailed; actual worry apparent.

Hilly brought her irate face close to his. “Why not?” she snarled.

“Because Cottins is there, and he’s… I’m afraid he’s going to do something awful to Cisco.”

Hilly saw red. “I’m helping my friend, regardless,” she snapped. “If you want to do the right thing and redeem yourself at all, run back to camp, Carter. SWAT will be there. Tell them how to find me. I’ll deal with you, later.”

He nodded, turned, and ran

As she watched him disappear, Hilly drew her phone out of her pocket, and somehow managed to hit Mason’s number.

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