JACQUARIOUS

The door behind the alley wasn't marked, shielding plainly a corridor that led underground. If it hadn't been for all the times Mrs. Cabot'd sneaked me into U.S. & The World, I wouldn't have even known it was there.

It was a faded, opaque window of gurgling color, faint and blackening red—recessed, congealed, like heat pressed beneath a scab.

I pushed it open. A gasp of cool air spilled out, touched the insides of my wrists like fingers searching for a pulse.

The stairwell spiraled down into a stony slab of cement. Beneath my sneakers, the floor clicked like an old typewriter, overwritten by ghoulish fingers with some phantom syntax grinding through the walls, slicing fear through my chest.

I passed through another door, stumbled into the archives.

Cabinets lined the walls like coffins with handles. Machines stood idle in corners, their names dusted in chrome: Microfiche. Reel-to-Reel. Memory Magic. Their hum was constant and bloodless, the long-dead breath of a creature clawing at its own tombstone.

"Certainly took your time, didn't you?"

I whirled on the balls of my feet, eyes squinting at a beam of light too white to be natural, cutting down from the ceiling like a scalpel, outlining the coat, the jaw, the hands of a singular figure—a man.

"I...I know you," I whispered.

"I should hope so, kid." He turned, eyes stony and sinking deeper with every syllable. "Hasn't been that long since Regina dragged you all bushy tailed up those porcelain steps."

"August!" I gasped as he stepped closer, twisted flames of ginger hair seething atop his head.

"I suppose this takes the guesswork out of it." His eyes scanned the walls before returning to me. "You're Whiteface."

My spine stiffened.

Pale and scarlet lights, threads of cotton and blood, bent across cabinet handles sharpened like teeth.

"I...I don't know what you're—"

"Save it," he bleared, the words a gentle and bladed breeze.

I gulped as two more steps shortened the gap between us yet again.

"I didn't get it at first," he said. "Thought I was just being paranoid. Not like you fit the image—fifteen, sophomore, black kid in a white-collar school. But then you're always around when the heads start to roll." His eyes narrowed in accordion precision. "Bloody corpse in a gym shower? There you were. The scene at Boardport? There again. And Regina—for crying out loud, she never even tried to hide it, did she? Budding novelist, intern extraordinaire, her little prodigy."

I watched his jaw clench, his breath hitch.

"Pretty clever little game she played, how she dropped that bit about the original essay coming from a Goldengate student. Not exactly the most...diverse place in the world, I'd say."

"Well, it wasn't a lie," I mused.

August laughed, short and sharp. "That's the thing. It wasn't a lie. And that's why nobody thought it was you—no one ever would've guessed. But the way she's always fawning over you...it all just clicked." His breath slowed. "Still, I needed more."

I shivered. "The one who trashed her office...it was you, wasn't it? The killer wasn't looking for her—you were looking for me."

"No footage," August said. "No break-in. And no trace."

"Why? Why would you—"

"Why do you think, Jacqarious? Because I needed proof!" He slung a black satchel from around his shoulder and unzipped the top. "All it took was a little pulling at the threads. Found that ragsheet in Browning Heights. Cross-referenced some old issues, checked timestamps on your articles. But the smoking gun?" A crooked grin crinkled the edge of his face. "Your very first essay—'An Untold Story,' wasn't it?" He rifled through his satchel and fished up a stapled copy, white pages glared in hues of glowing red.

My throat closed. The walls leaned in. Stacks of untouched filing cabinets flickered under the light, rows in the ribcage of a dissected beast.

"You were the witness—one of them, anyway. And that's where this all started."

"...And what if I was? Why are you so obsessed with—"

"Obsessed?" He snorted. "Typical."

A scowl twitched across my trembling lips. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That people are dying, you stupid brat! Some psycho is circling all of us like a vulture. Sending threats to the paper, demanding frontpage coverage, hacking innocent guys to death and dumping their bodies in shopping malls!"

I winced, August pressing closer and grabbing my shoulder. I shut my eyes, but he shook me back into focus.

"Look at me, kid...and listen good." He reached inside his satchel again, ripping a manilla folder from between the zippered jaws. CONFIDENTIAL, it read: PROPERTY OF U.S. & THE WORLD. "I'm not Regina, and I'm not some wannabe cop. You don't get to be coddled just because you've seen a few dead bodies." His eyes darkened as he glared into mine, holding up a glossy photo marked CRIME SCENE. "Welcome to the real world."

Every inch of the picture was smooth and defined, diegetic daylight capturing forever the corpse of Tyler Berkin—the ragged gash that had split the skin behind his neck, clean through the muscle and caving the spine. Eyes peeled open. Mouth like a frozen scream. Fingers clenched like claws at his own throat.

"He's dead, Jacquarious. Dead. So is Devon Cartrell. And so is his son." His grip tightened on my shoulder. "Now you're gonna tell me everything you know. Why you left Browning Heights, why their cops are so scared of your mom, where that spooky little poem came from—all of it. Or your little editorial won't be so anonymous anymore."

I gasped. "You can't! My parents, TaKylar—they'd all be in danger!"

"They already are," he hissed. "Or haven't you been reading the news at the paper you literally work for?"

I gulped, staggering backward. I couldn't respond, couldn't blink. My body felt like it had been replaced—the nerves drawn too tight, the marrow freezing inside my bones. Oily flesh pressed against the back of my eyes.

August grabbed my arm. "Don't even think about it! Don't you dare pass out on me—"

THWUMP!

My head jerked upward, the sound muffling through the ceiling above as the lights flickered overhead.

August clenched tighter. "What the—"

THWUMP! THWUMP!

"Th-that sounded like—"

"Gunshots," August mused.

THWUMP!

The stuttering lights flickered to silence, pure blackness overwritten by the fading pulse of red exit signs.

"Run, kid," August breathed against my ear. "Now."

My knees wobbled; August shook me again, yanking me forward. Together, we bolted, haphazardly grasping for the edges of desks and paintings sheening past in the darkness—up one floor, down a perpendicular set of corridors, pushing into the main building through double doors that whinged out a cadaverous creak.

Machines whispered in the dark. Keypads clicked in our wake, shivering as we rushed past. Somewhere nearby, the elevator groaned, shuddering in protest, in metallic whimper.

August jammed a key into the door of frosted glass that sealed the multimedia lab, the shadowed hallway's final frontier.

A shimmering carmine that crept to the ceiling in pixelated waves, the lights here hadn't failed—but they'd shifted. Screens on every wall glowed in crimson refrain, looping muted clips of interviews, B-roll, artificial tears.

The room pulsed, digital lifeblood surging with every pumping reload, every revitalizing replay.

EEEEK—the whine of a wooden chair split the air...

And that's when we saw her.

"...Kyla," August and I breathed in unison.

She lay beneath a desk, her blonde hair splashed across the tile like frosting over rusted confection. Her face stared up, lips parted, cheeks rouged, lashes splayed—forehead bubbling blood in triplicate from three gaping holes.

On the wall behind her, lines of blood streamed the smooth paint, thick as brushstrokes and lyrical as the terror that rose all around, surging in crescendo:

Water runs and bloody stings

Quit lying like you're free

August staggered back, left hand brushing against his belt, against the outline of a metallic barrel beneath his jacket.

The static screens flared brighter, then burst to black. Something shifted behind us.

Leather scraped the tiles—a shadow, not shaped by the lights, emerged with a single step.

I tilted my head, neck craning in horror as August stiffened his shoulders...as the tiles behind us screeched at being scraped again.

Then the only glow that remained flitted out.

Into nothing.