Page 280

--donation bonus (day #11, post 1/5)--
“Hmm.” Ms. Trent eyed him again. “I started seeing the reports a couple weeks ago, and I had my suspicions about you, y’know. I remembered that helmet you made. And you’d been missing a lot of club meetings. But still. I didn’t really think it could be you. You’re just. So...”

“Y-yeah, I know... I’m still surprised, myself...”

“Never can tell with the quiet ones, I suppose.”

For both their sakes, Hector avoided hallways that he knew would have dead bodies, but they still had to pass his group of four metal statues from earlier. Ms. Trent looked directly at them, and then at him, but she did not ask the obvious question. Perhaps she already knew all she wanted to.

He escorted Ms. Trent out to the side parking lot, where he’d left his motorcycle, and found a large crowd of students and police officers. He was quietly relieved to see that so many people had made it out safely.

A sudden shriek drew his attention, and he saw a group of students pointing at him from behind the line of police officers.

“That’s him!” one girl shouted. “I saw him kill someone!”

“Just look at him! He’s covered in blood!”

“He killed that boy in the bathroom!”

The police pulled out tasers and started toward him, all seven of them at once.

“No!” yelled Ms. Trent. “He’s not the murderer! He protected us!”

The officers exchanged uncertain glances but still persisted. “Please come with us,” said the closest one. “We just need to sort all this out.”

Hector looked over the crowd another time, across a myriad of angry and terrified faces. He could also see the motorcycle laying on the sidewalk, no more than five meters away from him. Suddenly, he had a decision to make.

Now more than ever, he wished Garovel were here.