Did he try to hurthimselfbadly?
A group of us heads over in the night, and I feel like I’m walking on thin glass that might shatter. Wes, Roman, Hunter, and Rayne all come with us, despite Niko telling people over and over again that they don’t need to help.
His hand clutches mine for the whole walk, his warm grip holding me like he’s afraid I’ll be pulled away into the air.
When we walk into Sevan’s room, we find itlitteredwith notes.
It’s as if someone came into the room and sprayed pieces of black confetti, but each little piece of black paper has a note on it written in silver ink.
I pick one up off of Sevan’s bed and read it.
You will come back to me.
Another one reads:want me to hurt someone for you?
From anyone else, it might seem like a meaningless gesture. But there’s more behind these notes.
Like he wants to leave us a little breadcrumb trail of tiny reminders of his presence, each one a pricking thorn in our side.
But the thorns aren’t the real weapon.
It’s what he’s capable of doing when all of this doesn’t work.
“Where were you when this happened?” Niko asks his cousin.
He’s still clutching my hand.
“Everyone else was at the formal. I went down the hall to the lounge room and watched a Christmas movie.”
Niko frowns. “You were just down the hall when all of this happened? Did you hear anything?”
“Nothing at all,” Sevan says.
“Why the fuck is he leaving notes in your cousin’s room? He could have left them in your room,” Rayne says.
“He knows it’ll get my attention,” Niko says. “Scare memore than it would if it was only directed at me. I’ve been trying to pretend I don’t see his manipulation tactics for over a month, but when he does shit to other people, I can’t ignore it.”
Weston walks in from downstairs. “Just talked to a couple of the Daggers guys. They’re going to check the security cam footage from out front. See when Callum did it.”
“Good. Let’s clean this shit up.”
We’re there for over an hour, picking up every little note and putting them into a cardboard box. Weston and Sevan trade a few barbs but then seem to get along, at least for this moment, because both of them know there are bigger problems right now than their issues with each other.
Roman says we should keep each note in case we need evidence, but Niko points out that Callum likely specificallydidn’tleave anything dangerous so that the police would be less likely to care.
“We found him,” one of the Daggers guys says, walking into Sevan’s room with a laptop in his hands.
He sets it down on Sevan’s desk and pushes play on a video.
It’s easy to make out.
The video is a little grainy since it was dark out at the time, but it clearly depicts a man in a black mask coming to the front door of Daggers house, using a code to get in the front door lock, and heading inside.
“Wait. Rewind it,” Niko says, frowning at the screen.
I move closer, putting my hand on his back, rubbing a circle there with my palm.
We watch the video again.
