Sympathy For The Devil

4. Only Human

Kevin almost fell off his bike, which would have been unfortunate. Not because he was speeding down the road rapidly enough for it to be dangerous, but because he had already stopped in the school parking lot and was in the process of getting off. Faceplanting on the asphalt when the bike was parked, the kickstand was down, and he was halfway through dismounting would have been a pretty poor start to a Saturday. No one would have witnessed it, no one would have known, but he would have known.

He was distracted, and it was frustrating to be distracted when he had no idea why. Thank God for the weekend Quiz Bowl meeting, because it gave him something else to think about and -

It would have been difficult enough to miss the car parked in the middle of the lot simply because it was one of the few that was actually present. When it just so happened to be the car that Kevin saw almost every time he stepped out of the house and his line of vision passed over the driveway on the other side of the street... well. It certainly caught his attention, enough that he spent almost a full minute simply staring at it, as if it would sit up and take questions if he waited long enough.

What was Eddward's car doing in the school parking lot on the Saturday after a swim meet, on the side of the campus farthest from the pool, no less?

Despite his attempts to set the question aside, he still burned with persistent curiosity as he made his way to the day's Quiz Bowl practice. As he approached the front entrance to the main building, the events of the previous evening returned to him. The only reason why he ended up ignoring the urge to smack his own forward was that his hand was already occupied with opening the door.

Eddward didn't have his dogtags. Of course he would know about the Quiz Bowl meeting (and the fact that it meant unlocked doors and open hallways) because Mr. Genius Swim Captain knew everything. From what Kevin had seen, it was no surprise whatsoever that he would treasure the things enough to take time out of his weekend to look for them.

The doors shut noisily behind him, and he paused warily. He dreaded running into Eddward on the best of days, but now, when he was probably Nancy-Drewing his way around the hallways looking for those tags? Kevin had seen him slam a guy into the locker once for calling them gay; if he had any inkling that they were stolen and not just misplaced, then he was probably on a warpath by now. And he probably did know that, because Eddward was sufficiently obsessive about them for it to be impossible to lose them any other way, and because Mr. Genius Swim Captain knew everything.

And he might just figure out that Kevin knew something about them, too.

Well, crap. Kevin checked his watch; he had arrived with fifteen minutes to spare. Switching his bag to his other shoulder, he started off down the hallway. The Quiz Bowl team would be meeting in the computer lab classroom not far from where he was, and he could probably make it early enough to beat most of the others, but late enough to avoid having to wait for other people to arrive. In other words, he wouldn't have to hang around in the hallway by himself.

Sure enough, footsteps up ahead alerted him to the presence of another student. There was someone around the corner, either a fellow Quiz Bowl member or someone attending the Saturday morning tutoring session, or-

Wasn't that the hallway where Eddward's locker was?

He paused at the corner, and cautiously peeked out to see.

His heart sank. Eddward was indeed there, rummaging through his open locker. At least, he was as close to rummaging as he would ever come, Kevin thought. Everything Eddward did was freakishly neat and methodical, even when he was searching for something he valued. It was like watching a real-life Vulcan.