Hi!

Yes, I know it's been a while, don't kill me. Here's chapter ten!

10. Questionable
_______________

The medic used a cotton swab to wipe at the bruise on my face. I winced at her and she made a sympathetic look at me.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's okay," I assured her.

She smiled sweetly and continued to wipe away. After a few moments she stopped and examined my face.

"Looks like we're all good here," she finally said, throwing the swab into a bag nearby. "You should be fine. Doesn't look too serious. Though you should probably get checked for a minor concussion."

"Okay," I nodded.

She turned and saw one of the deputies making his way over to the back of the ambulance truck, where I was sitting.

The medic collected her kit and and stood up, smiling at the man before going her way.

"Hi," the deputy greeted me. "Ricardo, right?"

"Yes."

"You okay, buddy?"

"As okay as I can be at the moment, I suppose."

He nodded. The man looked basic enough. Brown hair and eyes, olive skin and a look of compassion on his face, as expected.

"I'm deputy Downing," he continued. "I just want to make sure I get the story right here."

I shrugged. "What I said is how it went. It's pretty simple. I was here with Travis and some guy broke in and tried to rob us."

"Was there a particular reason you were here?"

I gave the man a peculiar look. "He's my friend. We were hanging out. That's not a crime, is it?"

"Of course not," said Downing. "But we also noticed and confirmed with Travis that nothing was stolen."

"Okay?"

"So, if it were a robber and not just an attack, they would've taken something."

"And?"

"And according to you and Travis, you locked yourselves in the room. Logically the robber would use that time to grab something, right?"

"You forgetting the part where he attacked us 'cause he didn't know anyone was home? I'm sure stealing anything was out of his mind as soon as he saw a couple teenagers would interfere with that."

I was getting defensive, and I knew it. And by the look on Downing's face, he knew it too. I sighed and prepared for whatever other questions he was going to ask.

"You say this guy was wearing a mask?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"Strange," Downing said. "If his identity were safe he should've just left. Wouldn't be a need to attack the witness especially if he didn't end up stealing anything anyway."

"Look, I don't know what you want from me," I said. "I told you what happened and it's the truth. Sorry I can't speak on behalf of an asshole who would've likely murdered my friend and I had he got ahold of us."

"I know you can't," the officer said. "I'm just doing my job."

Even if it were true, he was making it extremely uncomfortable for me. I had just lied to the police. I'm not an expert on the law, but that was definitely a crime of some sort. I was torn between protecting Kevin and protecting myself and I feared gambling with this wouldn't end well for me.

In my peripheral I noticed someone walking towards us. Looking past the officer, I saw that it was Travis.

The man followed my gaze and looked behind him, spotting Travis as well.

"How ya doin' Travis?" He asked when Travis joined us.

Travis shrugged. "Honestly? Could be better.

Downing lightly chuckled and pat Travis on the shoulder. "I'll leave you two alone for a bit."

"Thanks," Travis said.

Downing nodded and walked away to join some other cops.

"He knows something is up," I said.

"What?" Travis eyed me curiously.

"The questions he was asking," I said. "He knows things don't add up."

"How could he know that?"

"It's kinda his job to know," I said. "He's a cop. Deduction is his specialty."

"Well, our job is figuring out who the hell it was that attacked us."

"Yeah, not sure how we're going to figure out what the police couldn't in two years," I said glibly.

"This really is about Kevin, huh?"

"Obviously," I replied, "and Kevin's attempted murderer was there the night I met with him. He knows Kevin is alive. He knows me, and he knows you. That's why you were a target. You saw Kevin. He pulled you into this because of that."

"Shit," Travis muttered.

"The police are gonna escort me home," I said. "You wanna stay at my place for a while? I know you don't want to stay here."

"Nah, I'm gonna stay at a motel until my parents get back."

"You sure? My parents wouldn't mind."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Plus, the police are already hooking it up. I'll see you around."

"Bye," I said as I watched him walk away. I sighed and waited for an officer to hurry up and tell me I could leave as well. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there.

___

Monday had come.

The weekend, aside from getting attacked by a mad man, had been relatively quiet. News about the break-in had made rounds in Hillbury. My parents had been so worked up about me getting attacked that they didn't even want me to leave the house, not like I really wanted to anyway.

They had questions for me, of course, asking what I was doing at a random guys' house anyway instead of going straight home after my date with Sayora. Luckily for me, the date hadn't come up between them and the police officers that had escorted me home, 'cause I completely omitted the fact that I'd actually been on a date that I didn't get to finish to the police.

If they ever found out, they'd ask me why I lied, and eventually they'd get to Sayora and ask her about my abrupt and panicked leave.

Yeah, that would put me in a bad position.

It was starting to become a chore, keeping up with the lies. I was never a liar. And I hated that I was constantly lying these days.

My friends checked in on me as well, and they too were curious as to why I was at Travis' house. They'd heard the news that an attacker had invaded the home. To them, Travis and I didn't even really know each other, which they weren't wrong about so it was weird. I never gave them an answer and simply deflected the matter.

They also told me that Sayora was upset.

"She's pissed," Jory had said. "Wouldn't want to be in your position."

So adding that on top of everything else and I now had one huge, steaming pile of fuck-up. I had tried calling Sayora several times, but she wasn't picking up and I didn't blame her. I'd ignore me too.

I pulled into the school parking lot. Turning off my engine, I sat for a moment, contemplating.

How was I going to get Sayora to forgive me? I was pretty sure I'd blown it.

Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

I got out of my car and headed into the school, feeling extremely down.

___

"So, you gonna tell us what's up?" Danielle asked.

"What do you mean?" I said, not looking at her as I pulled a textbook from my locker.

"Dude," she started, "you just up and left Say at a restaurant. That deserves an explanation."

"And I will explain it," I replied, "to Sayora."

"Since when do you not tell us things?" Danielle questioned.

I closed my locker and looked at her.

"Danielle, you're very nosy. You don't have to know everything," I was mainly refusing to tell her anything because I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say to her, or Sayora or anyone.

"I'm not just being nosy, I'm concerned. You said it was a family thing, but-"

"And that's all it was!" I said. "No need to be so concerned."

The hallway was clearing out and soon the bell rang. Teachers urged students to get to class and I planned on following that order. I turned to walk away from Danielle, but ran into Luke.

"Hey, Ricky," he said.

"Hey, man."

"You okay?"

"Great," I said.

"He's still not saying much," Danielle said, going over to Luke. He wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Seriously?" Luke gave me a look with an arched eyebrow.

"He insists it was family related," Danielle said to Luke.

"So?" I rolled my eyes.

"So," Luke started, "since when was that guy your family?" He gestured past me with a nod of his head.

I turned to see Travis looking our way about ten lockers down with his open. I hadn't noticed him before.

I turned back to Luke. "Distant relative," I lied. "My cousin. That's why I went to talk to him at lunch last week."

"Whatever," Danielle said. "I'm gonna go to class." She gave Luke a kiss on the cheek before departing, leaving the two of us to our conversation.

"So you went to his house for a 'family thing' and then got your ass kicked by a robber the same night?" Luke asked.

"See? You get it," I responded.

"You're a bad liar, Rick," Luke said.

"Come again?"

"You have a tell," Luke continued. "I always know when you're lying. You're not telling us something."

The accusation in his voice was intimidating me, but I tried my best not to show it.

"Luke-"

"Stop," he interjected. "You've been acting weird. Starting from the night you got your tires slashed at the cemetery. Are you seriously not going to tell us the truth... tell me the truth?

I didn't say anything. I was afraid to say something. What use would it be if I had a tell? That was frustrating, because now Luke was confident that I was lying to them. But it was only to protect my brother and to keep them out of danger. Which, I found, that I wasn't very good at.

Luke stared at me, obviously awaiting a response.

I cleared my throat. "I need to get to class."

Luke scoffed and shook his head, not saying another word as he left finally left me.

I turned back to see Travis still there, giving me apologetic eyes as he closed his locker. I sighed before turning back and rounding the corner to get to class.

_______________