Page 107 of The Invite
Capri’s mutilated body flashes behind my eyes and I shudder uncontrollably. Pointing behind my back, I stammer, “Ca-apri… she’s… Some-one kill… killed her.”
He goes rigid and curses. “Fuck!”
The last of my strength drains out as I whisper it out loud. Burying my face against the middle of his chest, I hiccup and cry. “She’s g-gone. Oh god! I can’t… believe.”
I feel like I’m in the middle of the ocean while a storm destroys everything around me. Everywhere I go, something horrendous is waiting. A shitstorm of epic proportions.
Why am I always surrounded by death?
“Shh, Nessa. I’m here. It’s okay,” consolingly murmurs Ace against the top of my head. He’s calm and collected while I fall apart. Wrapping me in a hug, he rubs my back. “You have to stay strong for me. I’m going to go see and call 911.”
I clutch his shirt near his waist, unable to let go.
“Just for a sec, Nessa. Stay strong for me.”
I manage to drop my hands. He jogs to the room and goes inside. I don’t get how he doesn’t scream at the scene. The phone is pressed against his ear as he emerges a second later and returns to my side.
They ask him questions for a good long minute before hanging up.
“They’re on the way,” he informs me. “We need to call security as well as inform Mr. Crane. Can you walk?”
I nod and he kisses my forehead. “Come on.”
We briskly walk to the administrative building. As soon as we enter the lobby, several eyes snap at us. One look at my ashen skin and curiosity burns in their gazes. At Ace’s grim face, Greta rises from her chair.
“What happened?” she demands, rounding the desk. Regarding me, she asks, “Is she okay?”
“You need to cancel all classes and tell security not to allow kids in the seniors’ wing, Greta,” tells Ace. “I need to see Mr. Crane, right now.”
She senses the urgency in his tone and ushers us to the principal’s office. “He’s in there.”
Ace takes my sweaty hand and enters the room while I trail behind him.
Mr. Crane glances up with a furrow in his brow and stands up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nessa found a student’s dead body in the classroom,” answers Ace, making Mr. Crane’s face pale and jaw drop. “I’ve already called the cops and told Greta to order security around the building. Although I think you should cancel the entire day.”
“Jesus Christ! A goddamn murder,” grits out Mr. Crane. “Who’s the kid, Miss Davenport?”
I swallow back the tears, and reply, “Capri McVey.”
“Is she one of the scholarship kids?”
“Yes.”
Placing his hands on the desk, he shakes his head. “This isn’t good. Everyone will think she was bullied and assaulted. This cannot get out.”
That’s what he’s concerned about? Whether or not the school’s reputation is clean when a teenage girl just died?
Whoever killed her so inhumanly isn’t the result of petty bullying.
It’s far more sinister.
Mr. Crane goes on to make a phone call and Ace helps me to the couch in the corner. “I’ll be back.”
I sit with my head between my hands. If I close my eyes, the scene I walked into pops up. My heart breaks for Capri as I recall all the times I chatted with her. She was the sweetest and mostambitious of her classmates. Because of some stranger, her future is torn.
My head snaps up when a weight sinks the cushion on my right.
