15

Chapter 15: Disillusion 2-6

Disillusion 2.6

The ride to PRTHQ was carried out in almost complete silence. Detective Neville made a grand total of one attempt at engaging me in conversation, but he seemed to sense my mood and how distracted I was and decided after that to not bother me.

It might have been better if I had let him distract me. All I could think about was that image of Shadow Stalker's body on my front lawn, shorn in half, and no matter how hard I tried to think of a way to explain that, to tell the PRT what had happened without making myself out as some villain, my mind kept going back to that image and the question to which I still didn't have an answer: why?

Why was she on my front lawn? Why had she tried to attack me or my dad? Why hadn't she turned back when she had the chance? And why, why, had I thought that her hair seemed familiar to me?

I couldn't answer it. I couldn't answer any of it. It was like trying to solve a puzzle with all of the most important pieces missing.

Those thoughts, spiraling in, on, and back around to each other, followed me the whole way. When we arrived at PRTHQ and Detective Neville led me inside and through the winding corridors, they distracted me, and I didn't have enough focus, enough presence of mind, to pay any attention to our surroundings. If I'd been there for any other reason, my head probably would've been on a swivel as I tried to look at everything at once, but as it was, the only thing I paid any mind to was Detective Neville's back and my own whirling thoughts.

He took me to a conference room, was even polite enough to pull a chair out for me to take a seat in, then he left and came back a few minutes later with a notepad, a pen, and a steaming mug of hot chocolate. "In case you want to order your thoughts," he told me. "Some people find it helps keep everything straight and fresh."

After that, I was left alone again to think about what had happened. A part of me had thought they might send a hero, like Miss Militia or Armsmaster (and wouldn't that have been a thing, to see him again, only outside the costume?), to keep me company, maybe try to help me calm down or something. But minutes passed, and no hero knocked at the door to say hello and offer me sympathy for a traumatic experience.

Instead, I sat there, head propped up with one hand and idly playing with the pen with the other, lost in thought as the clock on the far wall ticked noisily away. All I could do was frown; no matter how much I tried to think of how to explain this whole situation to the PRT, I kept running into that wall of "why." I couldn't focus on anything else, because everything eventually led back in that direction. "Why." If I tried to tell them what I knew, that conclusion I'd inescapably come to, they'd eventually ask that, too.

"Why." I still wasn't any closer to figuring it out myself, and it wasn't like I could raise her from the dead and ask Shadow Stalker herself why she'd tried to break into my house and hurt me or Dad.

For a second, I stopped.

Or maybe there wasn't a "why."

That thought chilled me.

I'd been so sure of myself when I'd set up those bounded fields. Medea's knowledge was mine when I Installed her, the same as it was with any of my other casters. With that knowledge, I'd set up my defenses so that Dad and I were protected from anyone who tried to come after my civilian identity for anything I'd done as a cape. I'd been so absolutely certain that everything was done and ready and perfect that I hadn't bothered to check and recheck them after I was finished setting them up. Intent-based defenses that activated whenever anyone tried to attack my house and the people inside it — no dogs would be killed for leaving a present in the grass, no strays zapped for digging through the trash, no mailmen splattered for delivering a bill.

And when none of that had happened, when, two weeks after they were done, I hadn't gone out in the morning to find a mangy old cat drawn and quartered on the front lawn, I'd been satisfied. They were done and working as intended.

But…what if they weren't?

Shadow Stalker was notoriously edgy and violent. No amount of shine and polish after joining the Wards could erase the stories on PHO about the days before she'd become one, of the criminals she'd beat up and the bones she'd broke.

So, what if Shadow Stalker had just been in the neighborhood, I didn't know, following a lead or something? What if she'd just been one, big ball of violent intent? I knew there were days when I felt that way, coming off of one of the Trio's nastier pranks. So, what if Shadow Stalker, angry and violent and wanting to hurt somebody, had simply passed through my bounded field that way, and when she encountered my Dragon Teeth, she decided to work off some steam and beat up a Master she thought had just attacked her?

Hell, what if she didn't even have a chance to think about what was happening before one of my Dragon Teeth had cut her down?

If something like that had happened, there wouldn't be a why, would there? Shadow Stalker would've just been a victim of circumstance, a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time dealing with the wrong problems. It could be that easy, that tragically simple. I'd killed someone who'd had nothing to do with me.

Could it…really happen that way, though? I didn't think so, but then I couldn't really be sure, could I? Without one of my casters, I was just as ignorant of my bounded fields' functionalities as anyone else; the only advantages I had were that I knew what they were supposed to do and I knew they existed in the first place.

If I could just Install Medea or Solomon or Circe and reexamine them to make sure…but that would only have worked if I'd done it before anyone else found the body; if I wanted to be sure after this, I'd have to wait until night to check them out.

But the possibility was nauseating. A hero had lost her life to my defenses, and she might have been killed only because she'd been angry and confrontational as she was passing by my house. It was enough to make my stomach churn and my head spin, and if I hadn't already thrown up before, I might have had to rush to the nearest bathroom or wastebin to heave up whatever was in my stomach, but as it was, I had only the hot chocolate, which tasted now like ash in my mouth.

If that was it, then I might have convinced myself then and there that I was a murderer who had accidentally killed a hero…but it wasn't. There was still a nagging thought that sputtered weakly among the nausea and the guilt: why did I recognize her hair? Why was I so convinced that I'd seen it before, in person and not in a picture?

Was I just delusional? Grasping at straws, at the smallest of coincidences, just so I could tell myself that I wasn't guilty, that there was still something here that I didn't see? Was it just paranoia honed through months of torment at my own personal torturers? Was it nothing more than my imagination?

Or…was there something —

The door suddenly swung open.

"— here, Mister Hebert."

Dad stepped into the room, head swiveling around to take it in, and then his eyes met mine and something like relief washed over his face. "Taylor!"

"Dad!"

I was standing as I spoke, but Dad was quicker, and he'd already crossed the room and swept me into a hug before I could even think about doing anything. It took me a couple of seconds to bring my own arms up and wrap them around him. I barely noticed as the door clicked shut, again.

A long moment passed, then Dad pulled back and held me at arms' length.

"How are you feeling?" He asked. He shook his head and kept going before I could even open my mouth. "No, that's still a dumb question. That…that isn't the sort of thing you just shake off, after all. I know I'm going to be having nightmares for a while; won't be able to get any sleep tonight, that's for sure —"

"Dad!" I cut him off. "Dad! I'm…"

The image of Shadow Stalker's body rose up in my mind again and the word choked in my throat — no matter how I sliced it, I was responsible for that, my defenses were the ones that had killed her.

"I'm fine," I managed at last. "Really, I am."

Dad gave me a weak smile. "We both know what 'fine' means," he said.

I rolled my eyes almost on reflex. Dad's favorite movie import from Aleph was The Italian Job; before…Mom, he'd loved quoting it at me and her, and I hadn't heard him use it since we'd lost her.

"Freaked-out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional," I recited.

For a moment, Dad's weak smile gained just a little bit of strength, but it was gone again almost immediately. He gave my arms a comforting squeeze.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I…" I stopped and took a moment to order my thoughts. "This whole thing is seriously messed up, but I'm fi… I'm okay. Just…shaken, I guess."

I needed to know, though. I needed to know whether it was just an accident, a mistake in the way I'd programmed the bounded fields, and if that accident had killed a hero, a girl my age, or if…if there was something else going on, whatever that might be. I needed to know whether I was actually guilty, or if this nagging feeling that bothered me more and more every minute actually meant something.

Dad held my gaze for another minute or two, looking for the lie, if I had to guess, and it took all of my self-control not to turn away guiltily.

"Taylor," he began.

At that moment, though, the door swung back open, and another man came in, a detective, by the badge hanging from his belt, maybe a decade older and somewhat flabbier than Detective Neville. I noticed, in his arms, he carried a bunch of folders and a notepad, and in one hand, there was a steaming mug of coffee — Starchild brand, from the logo; I'd never been, because it was way too expensive.

"Good morning," he said perfunctorily. I felt Dad let me go.

The detective closed the door with his foot, tossed the notepad and folders to land on the table in front of the chair across from where I'd been sitting, then switched his coffee to his other hand and held it out to Dad.

"Detective Chase," he introduced himself. Dad took his hand and shook it.

Then, Detective Chase offered it to me, and after a moment, I took it and shook it, too.

"Mister Daniel and Miss Taylor Hebert, right?"

"Uh, yeah," said Dad. "That's us."

"Right, right, good," said the detective. "And you're here to give witness statements about the…the Shadow Stalker murder case, right?"

"Yes," Dad said slowly, like he wasn't quite sure why it was even a question. I wasn't, either.

"Right, yes, of course you are, of course you are," said Detective Chase.

"Shouldn't…Detective Neville be the one doing this?" Dad asked. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but, um, you, uh, don't seem to know what you're doing here?"

Thank you, Dad, for voicing what we were both thinking. Compared to Detective Neville, Detective Chase seemed scatterbrained and a bit clueless, like someone had just handed him a folder and told him, 'Go here and take their witness statements.' No other instructions or preparations.

"It's fine." Detective Chase waved it off casually. "Detective Neville lacks certain, eh, credentials to be taking your official statement, so they had to find somebody on short notice who did have them and give him a quick, short debrief about the situation — in this case, me. I probably come off a bit ditzy, but I did just find out about all of this, what, maybe ten minutes ago? I only had time to skim over the on-scene report, so I've got the general gist, but not the fine details."

"Oh," Dad said lamely.

What Dad said. Oh.

That…kind of made me curious, though. Detective Neville had struck me as prompt, professional, compassionate, and with a strong head on his shoulders, whereas Detective Chase kind of…didn't, like this was a job he had to do rather than a career he was passionate about.

So, in a choice between the two, what was so important that they'd picked one over the other for this?

"What credentials?" I asked.

"Beg your pardon?"

"You said Detective Neville lacks the credentials to be here doing this," I clarified. "What did you mean by that?"

Detective Chase's lips pursed, and for a moment, he didn't answer. "It's PRT policy that only a minimum number of people know a given hero's secret identity at any given time," he said. "You've seen a movie or a tv show where the police arrest a guy in the mob, only to find out he's an undercover agent for the FBI?"

"I guess."

"It's kind of like that," said Detective Chase. "A secret is easier to keep if only those who need to know about it actually know it. Same applies for secret identities: aside the Director and Deputy Director, only a handful of guys in the PRT know who the heroes are under the mask. Better infosec — that's information security — that way."

"And you know Shadow Stalker's identity, but Detective Neville doesn't," I concluded.

Detective Chase nodded.

"That'd be about the size of it, yeah. Since it's easier to brief me on the situation than it would be to get Detective Neville up to speed about Shadow Stalker, I got handed the job."

He gestured to the table and the chairs arrayed around it. "Now, if you'd please take a seat, we can get started. This shouldn't take more than an hour or two; we should be done in time for lunch."

"What about…" Dad asked. "Can we go back home?"

"As soon as CSU finishes up," Detective Chase confirmed. "In fact, they'll probably be done before we are, and if they aren't and they need to work through the night, then the PRT will gladly put you and your daughter up in a nearby hotel for as long as it takes."

"Oh. Thank you."

After that, Dad sat down without another word, and so did I. Detective Chase had to go around the long way, around the other end of the long conference table, to take his seat across from us.

"Before we begin," said Detective Chase, "I'm obligated to inform you that this conversation will be recorded for our official records." He tapped the center of the table, where there was a raised piece of black plastic, complete with what looked like a pair of built-in speakers. "In light of that, while we encourage you to be honest and complete in your answers, unless we suspect that whatever you're withholding is vital to our investigation, you don't actually have to tell us everything. Do you understand?"

Dad's lips thinned and I could see he wasn't exactly happy about that, but he still agreed. "Yes."

They both turned to look at me and I gave a nod.

"I'm afraid I'll need a verbal response, Miss Hebert."

"Yes," I said.

"Good," said Detective Chase. "One other thing, then, before we begin. Depending on how this whole thing goes, we might need to ask you both to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement."

"An NDA?" Dad demanded suddenly. "Why?"

"Some of the questions I might have to ask you may deal with Shadow Stalker's civilian identity," Detective Chase answered reasonably. "That's a very thorny subject, and the PRT and Protectorate tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to heroes and their lives outside the mask, especially for the Wards. With that in mind, if I have to let you in on the secret, then I may need to secure…let's call it a legally binding promise."

"Is it really that big a deal?" asked Dad. "We couldn't just agree to keep it a secret?"

"I'm afraid not," said Detective Chase. "Like I said, the PRT and Protectorate take this issue very seriously. Not only are the Wards and the heroes at stake, but so are their families, and even though Shadow Stalker is…no longer with us, her family is still entitled to protection from retaliation for any enemies she might have made. An NDA is par for the course, with this issue."

"Oh," said Dad.

I didn't say anything. Lisa had just explained the Unwritten Rules to me yesterday, so I'd kind of already understood why it was a big deal. I just hadn't realized that the PRT and the Protectorate took it this seriously, too — maybe it just hadn't quite sunk in all the way? It still felt kind of like something out of a comic book or a movie.

"Right, then." Detective Chase reached over to the black box and flipped a switch, and immediately, a little red light turned on underneath it between the two speakers — the two microphones. "It is Tuesday, April twelfth, and it is…" He looked at his watch. "Nine-oh-five AM. I am Detective Harvey Chase, conducting the interview of Mister Daniel Hebert and Miss Taylor Hebert regarding the Shadow Stalker homicide."

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen.

"Now." He flipped through the notepad as he talked. "I'm gonna have to ask you to bear with me, for a minute here, as we go through what Detective Neville has written down. Miss Hebert, it says here that you were the first one on the scene?"

"Yeah," I answered, nodding. "I was."

"Going for…a morning run, is that correct?"

"Yeah. I've been going out every morning since January."

"For about three months, then."

I nodded again. "Yeah."

He scribbled something down on the notepad.

"And after you came upon the scene, you…screamed? Rather loudly, apparently."

"I did." I grimaced as the image of Shadow Stalker's grizzly corpse rose up, again. Dad reached over and gave my hand a comforting squeeze. "It was, um…"

"Very horrific, yes. I've seen the pictures."

Detective Chase flipped back through the notepad and jotted something else down. I was tempted to crane my neck and see what he was writing.

"And that was when…you, Mister Hebert," Detective Chase turned to Dad, gesturing with his pen, "came upon the scene, right?"

"Oh, um, yeah." Dad nodded. "I heard her scream and I thought…I don't know, she was being attacked? So I rushed out of the house, and that was when I saw, well…"

"The body, yes. I understand you didn't call the PRT immediately?"

"Well, of course, the first thing I was worried about was Taylor," said Dad a little defensively.

"Which is fine," Detective Chase told him calmly. "I'm not blaming you, Mister Hebert, I'm just establishing the timeline."

"Oh, uh, right." Dad's ears turned a little red at the tips. "Well, um, I was, uh, more worried about Taylor than calling the police, and she had a, uh, physical reaction to everything."

Bless Dad for trying to put it delicately, but I wasn't going to be embarrassed if he just said I puked.

"She threw up?"

"In the nearby bushes," I replied for Dad. "Dad, uh, held my hair out of my face."

Detective Chase scribbled some more. "And afterwards, you decided to call the police, but Miss Hebert told you to call the PRT instead?"

"She said that the…body belonged to Shadow Stalker," Dad said, "and that I should call the PRT, not the police, yes."

Detective Chase turned back to me. "And it says here that you recognized her by her black cloak and the crossbow she held in one hand, right?"

I nodded.

"Yeah. I…thought it was weird, because it wasn't her official costume from all the photos on PHO, but…"

"We'll be investigating that, too," said Detective Chase. "At first, we thought it might be a copycat, but fingerprint and facial recognition did confirm her as Shadow Stalker. We're still waiting on DNA and dental."

A copycat? I hadn't even considered that possibility — although apparently I would've been wrong even if I had.

"Alright, that's the timeline established." Detective Chase scribbled one last thing in the notepad, then flipped to what I assumed was a clean page. "Now, preliminary estimates put the time of death between midnight and three AM last night. Did either of you hear anything strange or unusual, something you might not have thought anything of when you first heard it?"

Dad and I both shook our heads.

"I'm usually in bed…pretty early, most nights," Dad said. "Around ten o'clock. I didn't hear anything unusual after that, nothing that woke me up, at least."

"Me, too," I agreed. "I'm up around six-thirty, most mornings, so I'm usually in bed by eleven."

Detective Chase frowned and pursed his lips. "No weird sounds, no strange noises?"

"Nothing."

"Not a one."

He jotted something down in the notepad.

"How about this morning? Any…markings you couldn't explain, anything that looked out of place? An overturned trashcan, bloody footprints on the sidewalk?"

"No," Dad said. "Aside from the body, everything was exactly the way it was when I came home, last night."

"No signs that maybe someone had sabotaged something or set up a trap?"

My heart skipped a beat, and it took everything I had to keep my face from betraying me. Every bit of control I had spent the last two years perfecting at Winslow went into keeping my expression the same as it had been a moment ago.

Could my defenses be counted as a trap? Maybe, but I didn't think so. Even if you stretched it and said they did, no one should have seen them until they triggered, because if everyone who rode by the house could notice they existed, it would have outed me in a heartbeat.

"No, nothing like that," said Dad.

Detective Chase turned to me. "Miss Hebert?"

"I didn't see anything like that, no," I replied.

So no, I hadn't seen any signs of a trap, because that would have defeated the point of keeping my defenses secret in the first place.

"That's consistent with the other statements from the neighbors," muttered Detective Chase. He scribbled down some more notes.

For another few minutes, Dad and I sat in silence as he went back and forth through the notepad, occasionally writing something here and there and checking a few times in whatever was in the folders he'd brought. At length, he looked back up and turned his attention towards me, again.

"Miss Hebert, you go to Winslow, right?"

"Um, yes?" I answered, bewildered. What did Winslow have to do with anything?

"You're in your sophomore year?"

"Yeah, I am."

"What does Taylor's school have to do with anything?" Dad asked, jumping in.

Detective Chase grimaced. "Well, the PRT will never confirm or deny it, of course, but it's a bit of an open secret that Shadow Stalker goes — sorry, used to go — to Winslow, rather than Arcadia like the rest of the Wards."

"I…haven't heard about that, before," I said slowly.

It sounded like the sort of thing that would have been all over the rumor mill, so everyone in Winslow would know about it.

Except me, apparently.

"Really?" Detective Chase seemed surprised. "Well. I guess it's not quite as open a secret as we thought it was, here."

Sure, let's go with that.

"Anyway, yes, Shadow Stalker did go to Winslow," Detective Chase told me. "That's why I have to ask you if you've noticed anything strange, lately, at school."

"Strange?"

"Anything different from the norm," he clarified. "It's not exactly a secret that Winslow isn't the best of schools, but has there been anything that was…worse or more blatant than usual, especially amongst the gang kids?"

I…couldn't think of anything, but then, I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Shadow Stalker went to my school and I might have met her outside of her costume. Was that why I'd thought her hair was familiar?

"Nothing that I remember, no."

"Any fighting in the hallways, maybe," Detective Chase asked, "or any particularly harsh cases of bullying, perhaps, that maybe one of the female Track members got involved in stopping?"

For a moment, I was sure I'd misheard him.

"…You're kidding," I said incredulously.

"Miss Hebert," he began.

"This has to be some kind of joke," I spoke over him. "You're asking me if there have been any particularly harsh cases of bullying. Me, the favorite victim of a vicious, two-year-long campaign by Track star Sophia Hess and her two —"

I cut myself off. Something percolated in my brain, a sudden nasty feeling that froze my insides as all of the pieces slotted into place around this new idea. The picture they painted would have sounded ludicrous, before. It would've seemed like something out of a conspiracy, like the fevered daydream of some tinfoil hat on PHO.

Except that it made too much sense.

Why Sophia and Emma and Madison got away with everything.

Why the teachers tended to ignore it, even when it was happening right in front of them.

Why the Locker had been swept under the rug, hastily paid off so that Dad and I couldn't sue.

Why everyone at Winslow seemed perfectly happy to leave me on the altar as some sacrificial lamb.

Why Shadow Stalker, who I had never even glimpsed except in Wards photos online, had been found dead on my front lawn, bisected by what could only have been one of my Dragon Teeth's swords.

"Sophia Hess," I said quietly, as though testing out the name.

Except I had met Shadow Stalker, hadn't I? Not in costume, but in her civilian identity. I'd seen her every day, looked into her eyes, watched her smug little grin, been envious of how much prettier she was than me, hated her in ways that made me scared, sometimes.

I'd told her off in front of all of her friends. I'd challenged her to hit me, to beat me up, to prove my point about how she was nothing more than a thug.

And she'd come to punish me for it. To…kill me? The Dragon Teeth I'd sown into the yard were designed to activate and defend me and Dad only if someone came to our house with the intent to harm us, so I doubt she'd come for a nice, friendly chat.

I remembered that scene again, the two spots where her body had lain. I remembered the large, reddish stain on the grass, the tight grip on her crossbow, even in death, the way her cloak was tangled up with her torso, the way the hood had slipped just slightly off to give me a glimpse at the head with its familiar hair attached to the body.

I imagined, now, that I had gone up to her and taken her mask off, and so very easily, the picture of Sophia's smug face pulled into a sneer fit with frightening perfection.

"Sophia Hess," I said again. Something black and ugly coiled like molten lava in my chest.

"Miss Hebert," Detective Chase started.

My eyes, which had turned towards the empty wall, swung back over to him, and I could tell, just from the way he held himself, just from his posture and the expression on his face, that he knew I knew, and that was all the confirmation I needed. The black something in my chest coiled tighter around my heart, until my head started to swim. Blood pounded in my ears, and something like an inhuman screech echoed inside my mind.

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

"Wait a minute," Dad said, sounding as though he, too, was beginning to get angry. "Taylor, that's still going on?"

"It never stopped," my lips said, but it felt like someone else was speaking for me.

Dad floundered for a moment. "But the school said…"

My head swung around to look at him, and something of what I was thinking must have shown on my face, because he went very pale and glanced back and forth between me and the grim, resigned expression on Detective Chase, then his face started to turn red.

"Wait a minute," he said, his voice rising. "Wait a minute. Wait just one goddamn minute. Are you telling me… Are you telling me that one of the girls behind the bullying… Are you telling me she's a —"

"A Ward," I finished for him.

Dad rounded on Detective Chase. "And you let her get away with it?!"

"Mister Hebert, I assure you, if we knew —"

"You didn't know?!" Dad thundered. "Are you trying to tell me that that…that bitch put Taylor in the hospital in January, and you didn't fucking know about it?! One of your Wards, and you're telling me that you didn't know that she was tormenting my daughter out of her costume!? You expect me to believe that bunch of horseshit!?"

"Mister Hebert, please," said Detective Chase. "I need you to take a minute and calm down. This isn't about —"

"You — !"

"That's why she got away with everything, isn't it?"

My words cut through the situation like a knife, and even Dad stopped short. I felt like I wanted to explode, like there was too much anger in me to be contained by my frail, human body, but somehow, my voice was mostly calm and quiet.

"I thought it was because Emma's dad was a lawyer, at first."

Dad choked, startled. "Emma?"

"But that wasn't it, was it?" I asked, my pulse quickening. "It was Sophia. The Ward. The junior hero. Winslow's precious, little, crime deterrent, or whatever the hell she was. What was the happiness of one person, if it meant keeping that bitch comfortable and content —"

"Miss Hebert, please!" Detective Chase interrupted, raising his voice. "Mister Hebert, Miss Hebert, I'm sure you're upset, and you have every right to be, but we did not know about this."

I wanted to believe him. After Armsmaster and Miss Militia, I wanted to put some trust in what he was saying, because the alternative was horrendous. But I couldn't. Even if I didn't start yelling again, I couldn't bring myself to trust that he was telling me the truth, because —

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

"Now, Miss Hebert, I hate to have to ask you this," said Detective Chase, "but in light of what you know now, can you think of any reason Shadow Stalker was killed in front of your house or who might have done it?"

The erupting anger condensed and distilled into crystal clarity, like everything had been sharpened and stood now in harsh relief in a way that it never had before. The blazing fury turned frigid and burned inside my chest like ice, and for the second time in two days, my blood was like acid in my veins.

This time, though, it was all me.

"No, I don't know who," I said coldly. "But I might thank them if I did. There's only so many ways to escalate from attempted murder, after all, and somehow, I don't think Sophia Hess was coming to bring me flowers."

Detective Chase startled. "Attempted murder?"

"You didn't know?" Maybe I'd been spending far too much time using Medea, lately, because the words came out smooth and silky, dangerous. "In January, just after winter break ended, Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements conspired to shove me into my locker, which they'd filled with a bunch of rotted tampons and…other used hygiene products. They left me in there for hours; the doctors said I was lucky I didn't get a major infection or go into toxic shock and die."

Detective Chase had paled, and there was a vague look of disgusted disbelief on his face.

"What was Sophia Hess doing on my front lawn, last night?" I asked rhetorically. "I don't know. Last time I saw her was yesterday, when I called her a thug in front of all of her sycophants at school."

"A thug?" Detective Chase repeated faintly, although he didn't sound very surprised. "Why would you…"

"I called her a thug because she, Madison, and my ex-best friend, Emma Barnes, have spent the better part of the last two years making my life miserable. If you'd asked me before New Year's, I might have said she was going to egg our house, but my guess right now? She was coming to finish what she started in January."

I looked him right in the eye. At the time, I wasn't thinking about it, but later on, I had to wonder what he'd seen, there.

"I don't know what killed her, and at this point, I'm beyond caring. She's gone, and I won't have to worry about being shoved down a flight of stairs or shouldered into a door ever again." I stood up, and with a calm I didn't feel, I told him, "There. That's my witness statement, Detective Chase."

I shoved my chair roughly out of the way and left. Behind me, I heard Detective Chase call, "Miss Hebert!" but I ignored him and slammed the door shut as I went.

The minute it closed behind me, I stopped, let out a shuddering breath, and ran a hand through my hair. Hot, wet tears carved paths down the side of my cheeks, which didn't even make sense because I wasn't sad or hurt, just angry, and with them, it felt like they were taking everything I'd been feeling in the last few hours. All of my rage and disappointment and guilt, all of it was vanishing, and what it left behind was a bone-deep emptiness, like someone had reached inside me and scooped it all away.

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

The thought brought no comfort or joy, no anger or hate, only a weariness, resignation, and understanding. The knowledge that she was dead, now, and that my home defenses had killed her gave me no happiness or satisfaction, only a kind of relief that I never had to see her face again.

I wiped away my tears with my sleeve; behind me, I could hear Dad's voice through the door, shouting something, although I couldn't quite make out what.

A few minutes later, Dad came storming out of the conference room, expression livid. As soon as he saw me again, I watched him visibly smooth his face over with what appeared to be a great deal of effort. I didn't know what I looked like, then, if he could see the tear tracks down my cheeks, if he could see in my face the twisting hollowness I felt in my chest, but whatever it was, it pulled his brow together, narrowed his eyes, and drew his mouth into a thin line.

"Come on, Taylor," he said in a strong, unbroken voice. "We're going home."

He started off down the hall, back what I assumed was the way we came, and I didn't bother arguing, because all I wanted to do, now, was go home anyway and curl up on my bed until everything made sense again. I fell into step beside him and looked up into the tense, determined set of his shoulders.

In that moment, he looked more like the Dad he used to be, more alive and full of vigor, than he had since Mom died.

"What about…"

I didn't know where exactly I was going with that question. What about Detective Chase? What about Winslow? What about the PRT? Any of them were perfectly valid questions, and all of them had at least some place in my thoughts, just then, but none of them seemed important enough in that moment for me to really be concerned about them.

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker. I had to get over that, before anything else could be dealt with.

Dad seemed to pick up on at least some part of it, though.

"If they want us to sign their goddamn NDA," he said fiercely, "then they can come to our house and hand deliver the paperwork themselves."

A huge swell of affection and gratitude surged through me, and I reached down for his hand just long enough to give him a grateful squeeze. If Dad's face twitched into a smile for a brief moment, then I wasn't going to tell anyone.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —