Unanswered by Liza Mynx (books under 200 pages txt) 📕

1. Whisper

“Oh, my God,” I said walking into school.
“What?” my best friend, Sammy, asked. Her voice was full of alarm.
“Are you serious?! Look around! Doesn’t anything seem different to you?!”
She looked at the scene, and finally got it. I watched as her face went from confused, to alarmed, to completely terrified as she saw what was happening.
How could she not have seen it? It was right at the front of the school!
Inside the school was complete and utter chaos! There was yellow tape saying, “DO NOT CROSS” surrounding the place, cops asking people questions. Outside police cars were blocking the school buses from coming in. Everyone was moving so fast, I couldn’t even see what they were all here for!
Even with all this excitement, the feeling in the atmosphere was . . . melancholy.
I walked forward to see what was up, and I felt my stomach jump and my heart stop.
It was the worst thing that could have ever happened to me. I fell down and wanted to scream, but I couldn’t find my voice. The whole world went blurry, and all I could see was him on the ground.
“Chris,” I whispered, and kept whispering, hoping that he would say something, anything, back to me. I knew he wouldn’t, and I felt tears trickle down my cheeks, but didn’t bother to wipe them away.
“Claire,” I heard Sammy say in a shaky voice. She was right behind me, starring at him, a watery film covering her eyes. “No! No, no, no, no! NO! NO! NNNOOO! It’s not . . . it can’t be . . . it’s not Chris!”
She sank down beside me and started bawling.
Chris was on the floor in front of the stairs, his body twisted in ways it shouldn’t be. There was a pool of blood around his head, and it matted his dirty blond hair. His usual dark blue eyes were now white, all signs of his lively attitude vanished. He was paler then I, and his mouth was screaming though no sound came out.
“Ladies,” a cop who was standing right above us said.
He had little muscle and was very short with black hair, tan skin, and green eyes. He looked to be in his late twenties, early thirties. Not someone you would see as a cop, though his voice was hard and low, so he could fit the description a little bit.
“Yes, sir,” I said between sobs, as my friend and I looked at him.

“I’m going to have to ask you to stand up and walk outside the yellow tape, please,” he said, his voice was a little softer. Probably from seeing our tear stained cheeks, messed up hair, and sinister red eyes. I don’t blame him, we probably look like we had gone through Hell and back.
“Why?”
“This is a crime scene. You can’t be here,” he said, his voice still soft but his eyes were stone hard.
“Leave us alone,” Sammy said, her voice grave.
“Can someone please remove these girls?” the cop asked loudly.
A teacher came over and tried to get us up, and when we refused she threatened to expel us. We unwillingly got up and walked away at that point.
We walked into the bathroom and I called my mom.
“Mom,” I said, my voice was husky and cracking from all the crying.
“Claire, what’s wrong?” she asked, concern with a shade of confusion in her voice.
“Can you come pick me and Sammy up? Now?”
“Why?”
“Just please, Mom?”
“Why? Claire Sylvia Jason, you tell me what’s going on right now!” She wasn’t mad, but scared.
“The police . . . Chris . . . the yellow tape!” I cried.
“Honey, meet me in front of the school in five minutes.”
“Yes,” I couldn’t finish my sentence, because there was a sob caught in my throat. “Yes, ma’am.”
I put my phone away, and look at Sammy. I wanted to say something to her, but I didn’t know what to say.
I’m sorry, I thought.
My face must have given me away, because then she said, “There’s nothing you can say. It’s not like it was your fault. It’s just-” she started tearing up- “It’s just one of those things where saying ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t help. You don’t even need to apologize. There’s nothing you could have done to stop it.”
The way she said that last sentence made my spine tingle like a thousand bugs crawling all over on me. It was like there was a double meaning, a secret that she knew and by saying that it was her giving a hint.
We went back into the crime scene area, and that cop came up to us with a young, blond haired woman.
“Girls, this is inspector Cade, and I didn’t get to introduce myself before. I’m detective Lanther.”
Inspector Cade stepped up and said, “May I ask you two a few questions?”
When we nodded our heads, she continued. “You obviously knew the boy over there. Would you mind telling me the relationship you shared with him?”

I looked at Sammy, and she was completely in her own world, her eyes still watery and blood shot.
I guess I’ll talk to the inspector.
“Chris was my best friend, and her boyfriend,” I answered, my voice shaky and wary.
Cade took out a little notepad and wrote down my answer.
“When was the last time you saw him?
“The last time I saw him was,” I thought back, “Was yesterday. Yesterday when I left school. Sammy and I went to his house to study. I left at about six, because they had a date.”
She wrote that down, then looked at Sammy. “What time did your date end?”
Sammy looked startled. She opened her mouth, and her tone was somewhere between angry and depressed. “I got home at ten thirty.”
“What did you do on your date?”
“He took me to a restaurant, then to the park, then he took me home,” she said harshly.
“Sammy,” I whispered, shocked that she would use that tone with an inspector. Especially the inspector that was trying to solve Chris’ case.
“What, Claire? My boyfriend and your best friend just died, and they’re asking us questions about him! I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to talk about him!”
“Sammy, may I call you Sammy,” Inspector Cade asked softly.
“Samantha,” Sammy answered with poison.
“Alright, Samantha,” Cade said in the same tone. “If you would rather, we could ask you some other time.”
“Thanks,” she said, though her icy tone showed that she was not grateful at all.
“Claire, would you mind if we talked to you?”
“Uh, um, sure,” I said cautiously, looking at Sammy. “Could you tell me when my mom gets here?”
“Whatever.”
As Sammy stalked away, Inspector Cade asked me a few more questions like who were Chris’s friends, who were his enemies. She was surprised when I told her that he didn’t have enemies, and everyone loved him.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am. He was the most liked guy in our entire school.”
She nodded her head and continued asking questions. She stopped talking when Sammy came back and told me my mom was there.
“Thank you for your time, Claire, and I’m sorry for your loss.”

“You’re welcome, and thank you.”
Sammy and I walked outside in silence. I saw my mom immediately when I walked out because she was running up the stairs to the school.
“Girls! What’s going on here?!”
Sammy and I looked at each other and burst into tears again.
“What is wrong?”
“Mom, it’s Chris! He’s . . . he’s . . . ”
“He’s what?”
I couldn’t answer.
“He’s what Claire?!”
“HE’S DEAD!” I wailed as I ran into her arms.
“WHAT?!”
“We got to school this morning and he was right there on the ground at the front of the school!”
My mom told me and Sammy to get in the car while she went inside to talk to the police about what happened. When she came out, she was crying and talking on the phone.
“I don’t know, they haven’t said anything yet,” my mom said as she got into the car. “I’m so, so, so sorry. I wish there was something I could do. We all cared about him like he was family. I’m taking the girls home, then I’ll come to see you. I,” she said, then was quiet. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. Call Rob.”
She hung the phone up and put her hands on the steering wheel, but did not drive.
“Mom?”
“I can’t believe it. He was only sixteen,” she said as new tears rolled down her cheeks and mine.
“Take me home, please,” Sammy said in the backseat.
“Only sixteen . . . ”
“Take me home,” Sammy demanded again.
“Can you give my mother a minute?!”
“No! I want to go home! Now!”
Without a word, my mother drove out of the busy parking lot, and down the road to Sammy’s house. When I asked Sammy if she wanted me to go inside with her, she turned to me, said no, and ran inside.
My mom took me home.
“Please don’t go, mom. I don’t want to be alone.”
“I was talking to Kim, Chris’s mom, and I have to go to her house. Would you like to come with?”
I nodded.

We drove to Chris’s house quietly. When we got there, Kim had unlocked the door already and was on the couch with her husband, Rob. She was balled up in his arms, face hidden in his chest, and she was shaking rapidly. His face was buried in her hair, and his shoulders were quivering.
My mom and I sat down at the end of the couch and watched them.
Why can’t I say anything?
“I’m . . . sorry,” Kim said as she lifted her head to show us her face. Her makeup was running down her cheeks, forced by the rivers of her tears.
“Why are you sorry, Kim?” my mom asked softly.
“I’m . . . being . . . rude!”
My mom rushed over to their end of the couch and knelt down next to Kim.
“No, you’re not. Shh. Take as long as you need,” my mother said, soothingly.
I walked away, unable to bear all the emotions in the room. I felt bad. I should be over there on the couch, too, crying my eyes out, or at least trying to soothe Mrs. Kim like my mom was. I never was able to stay emotional for long. It was sometimes a flaw, then sometimes it was a perk. This was a time where it was a flaw in my design. My best friend just died and I only cried for a minute. I felt like I was showing people that he didn’t mean much to me, but he did.
I walked into Chris’s-what was Chris’s-room. I looked around and wanted to cry, but the tears didn’t come.
“I hope you’re happy . . . wherever you are,” I said for some reason. I guess . . . well, I don’t know why I said it. Maybe just to make me feel better, knowing that, wishing that, he could hear me wherever he may be.
All the sudden, my body went cold, not just my body, but the whole room. I could see my breath, and I felt a presence with me. I don’t know how I knew there was a presence,