I wasn’t amused by the idiotic report for long. I knew that almost everyone in town was tuning in, believing every lie that was said about me. I couldn’t blame them. If I’d been in their position, I probably would have believed the television too. The news never lied. The news was never biased, or tainted, or controlled by anyone. And certainly not some ridiculous, supernatural secret society. That would have been silly.
I heard a clang from down the hall and pushed myself up to sit. Heavy footsteps pounded against the concrete, the handle on the holding room’s door bobbing. I gripped the edge of the bed, expecting Wyck.
Instead, I was greeted with someone entirely the opposite.
“Spud!” I gasped. He appeared around the corner of the door, turning to the sound of my voice, eyes widening when he saw me behind the bars. His arms hung loosely beside his wide middle, hair still a wild black mess on the top of his head, moustache even more pronounced than the last time I’d seen him. He looked exhausted, but when he saw me his face went cheery.
“Man, how’d you get stuck behind bars before I did?” he burst, spreading his hands out with disbelief. I couldn’t help grinning, jumping from the bed to stand.
Another person appeared behind Spud: a female officer I could never have forgotten. Officer Delaney. I stopped in my tracks. She crossed her arms, keeping the door open with her foot, narrowing her eyes at me. Weaker people might’ve melted beneath the fury of her glare.
“Yeah, I figured I’d see you here soon,” she said grouchily. She glanced at Spud then back to me again.
“I’m staying with you,” she said. “You’re not supposed to be here. I’ll give you five—”
“What am I gonna do?” Spud exploded, whirling to face her. “Give him a file to saw his way out? And then what, run? Ha. Me. Run.” He beat his own belly as proof. “I’ll come get you in a minute.”
She didn’t look pleased with this proposal but Spud must have had some influence. With a huff, she turned and left, closing the door behind her. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I think I just got my Christmas present downgraded,” Spud complained, throwing me a fake glare. I wanted to run up and pound him on the back heartily but the closest I could get was to stand near the bars. He looked to where they met the ceiling and the floor, then over to the cameras and the locks.
“I could hack this place’s lock system,” he said with a shrug. Oh boy.
“Don’t start that,” I told him, shaking my head in surrender. He hadn’t changed.
“You wouldn’t welcome my presence back there?” he said, still studying the room for weaknesses. I huffed.
“I probably would,” I said. “But I don’t think that bed would fit the both of us.”
“I call dibs,” he said, grabbing the bars between his hands to test their strength. And like that, Spud—without any effort at all—had taken me back in time. Despite the bars that now stood between us, it was like we were out on another crazy escapade, kicking rocks out of our way on the road, complaining about all the seemingly important woes in our life. He completely ignored the news behind us that continued on about my various misdeeds, showing interviews of more and more so-called “friends” eager for five seconds of airtime to bash me.
The reporters clearly needed to do better research. My only school friend was with me.
When he was finally certain that the bars wouldn’t fall off, he met my eyes.
“So,” he said. “Did you do it?”
Leave it to Spud to never dance around a question. I shook my head.
“Of course not,” I said, voice lowering to a whisper.
“Then why are you in there?” he asked, matching my tone but trying not to lean in too close, already wary of the ceiling camera. I hesitated. There wasn’t much that I was willing to tell him but I knew he’d see right through me if I avoided the truth.
“Is this because of that guy with the car?” he said. “The guy who tried to kill you?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. He shrugged.
“Figures,” he said. “Someone tries to kill you, you end up in jail. Judicial system logic.”
“It’s not their fault,” I told him. “There’s just…bigger stuff going on.”
He lifted an eyebrow, now wary of the way I was talking and the bits that I was leaving out. Secrets never flew with him; I’d always told him all of mine. I sighed.
“It’s just… stuff,” I told him. “They’re pinning a lot of things on me that I didn’t do, but I can’t tell them that. I need to be here. There’s…bigger stuff going on.”
“Bigger stuff?” he echoed. “You mean… like a conspiracy?”
The last word was spoken with an air of fake mystery, twirling his fingers like a cheap magician. He said this while trying to hold himself back from laughing, so I took a swing at him with my hand through the bars.
“You’ve become one of them!” he chuckled. “You’re a conspiracy theorist now!”
I would have hit his shoulder if the bars hadn’t held me back. He leaned just out of reach to make this fact all the more obvious, taunting me playfully.
“Come on,” he told me. “I’ve known you’re clear since I saw the first news thing on you. So why’re you letting this happen? It’s ridiculous. We gotta get you a lawyer and get you out.”
He looked at me hopefully, suddenly going serious. It caught me off guard.
“I can’t, not yet,” I told him.
“Why?”
“I just can’t.”
He crinkled his brow with frustration, but he knew when to shut up, so he finally—and unwillingly—dropped the subject. He leaned against the bars.
“Do you at least want anything?” he said. “I could try to get you some candy in here. Or air freshener.”
He sniffed. “Wait, that’s you. Maybe you just need a bath.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned against the barred wall beside us. “Yeah, a bath would be nice.”
His offer had made me think of something, though. I considered it a few seconds, wondering if it was worth asking. I glanced to the TV and saw that the report had finally changed, and realized how much time we’d already spent together. At any moment, his aunt would return.
“Actually, there is something,” I said. He straightened up.
“Yes, master,” he said in his greatest evil henchman impression. I glanced up to the camera on the ceiling, trying to lean closer to him without seeming overly conspicuous.
“Remember the blog?” I whispered close to him. He nodded.
“Do me a favor and download it,” I said. “If you can find a way, hack it and save all the files. But at least get everything you can from the pages.”
His gaze met mine, looking confused. He already knew he wasn’t going to get an explanation, though he still looked hopeful for one.
I heard a door open far down the hall, and footsteps approaching us. Was that all the time we were going to get? It seems like it’d passed so quickly.
“Keep it somewhere,” I told him, speaking quicker now. “Just keep all that stuff, and whatever happens to me, don’t get rid of it. Don’t tell anyone you have it.”
“What are you talking about?” he said in alarm, having caught my disturbing choice of words. Whatever happens to me. I knew my situation. If things went wrong, I might need that website again in seventeen years.