Framed

Five.

A/N: An Update! Hell yeaaaa
But in all seriousness, I'm so sorry I couldn't update. College is beating me up right now, so I had no time to type it up until now. ):

Sunday Night. One Day After Ari's Funeral.

"So I hope you all know why I brought you here," Ally said from her bed, laptop resting on her blanketed lap.

"Let me guess, you want to talk to us about the Avengers Initiative?" Zayn responded playfully, the wide smile on his face indicating that he was joking.

Ally chuckled quietly before quickly returning to business mode. "No, but I've developed a quick plan for all of you for tomorrow, so hopefully we can get as much information as we can so we can catch these suspects as soon as possible. We can't let them, whoever they are, commit any more murders. Especially not after what happened to Ari. She didn't deserve to die like that - nobody deserves to die like that. We need to put a stop to them, to whoever did this."

"But how could you suspect that it's Shawn behind all this? Wasn't he shot as well?" Selena asked.

"Yes, he was shot as well. However, based on where he was shot compared to Ally and the others, his wound doesn't look like it was intended to kill," Ellie replied. Surprisingly, since Austin's death, the blonde cheerleader had greatly increased her involvement in the case. She had developed from a bystander in Austin's death into the person who had helped Ally the most so far in both developing a tentative suspects list and following leads, as well as just plan making in general. Lauren and Camila both considered themselves lucky to have found an unexpected but steadfast ally in Ellie.

"What do you mean, not intended to kill?" Liam asked.

"I mean, Ally was shot in the chest, less than half an inch away from her heart. Brad was shot fatally in the stomach - he died due to a combination of the severity of his wound and of blood loss. And Ari - shot in the neck. It was awful. They couldn't even have an open casket because of it," Ellie stated. "Meanwhile, Shawn is only shot in the back, in an area where although he was injured, the risk of fatality was, in comparison to the three other victims, substantially lower. It was as if the shooter wasn't aiming to kill him."

"Wow," Harry said.

"Wow indeed. Considering that the killer lethally shot two of the victims and almost succeeded in killing the third, the stark comparison between Shawn's wounds and those of the rest are definitely enough to raise suspicion. Obviously, if this is all related to Shawn, he obviously had an accomplice or two. We think these accomplices of his may be on the football team, since the police saw cleat tracks around the area. However, they couldn't distinguish what type of cleat it was, because the prints were muddy in the grass. However, Ally was told that the authorities made a jab at guessing the exact cleat prints. The brand was Adidas Adizero cleats, and it was about a guys' size 10 and a half to 11, depending on whether or not the mud slipped and made the print larger or not." Ellie answered once again.

"So what are we gonna do, then? All we have is the cleat print! That isn't enough to confirm that it's a football jock! And not just that, but there's possibly another person behind this now?" Louis asked aloud, voice taking on an edge due to sheer exasperation.

"Not just one person, boo," Harry calmly rubbed Louis on the back. "It could actually be two people, plus the main killer. We've got a lot on our hands, don't we?"

"No shit, Styles," Dinah deadpanned further before continuing. "But so what? I don't give a rat's flying fuck about how many people we have to catch. Whoever the fuck they are, they're gonna get their asses caught, because this is Lauren and Camila they're trying to get jailed for all this shit. I wouldn't care if it was someone out of our squad being framed, but now? Now this shit is personal."