Crazed Minds | ✔️

twenty five

"My God, it hurts, I can't be calm."
-Alone Part 3, XXXTENTACION
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Death.

It's a weird thing.

When it happens to somebody, nobody else can quite believe it. Like they think death only happens to people you've never met.

But when it hits you. When it really reaches you clearly, like a hand emerging from the mist surrounding your life, it feels like your insides have been emptied.

Your lungs. Your brain. Your heart. All gone. And there is not one emotion that can fully compensate for how broken and incomplete you feel.

Death does that.

It makes you feel incomplete.

But of course, the girl that sits before me now, shoulders shaking and lip quivering, she has seen the body of her boyfriend. At least the flames stopped me from seeing my best friend's lifeless body. And as Alec lifts Lydia up and urges her to tell us where Jacob's body is, his hand still locked with mine, even the feel of his warm hand can't keep away the cold chills filling my heart.

Lydia doesn't move, only stares lifelessly at the ground.

"Come on!" Alec says, gently shaking her shoulder. She doesn't even flinch.

"What's all the racket for?" someone approaching asks. We all turn to see Rosa, advancing at a nervously quick pace.

"We heard a scream and found her here," Alec explains. "She says her boyfriend is dead."

Rosa's eyes seem to lose their crystal blue colour for a moment, but the blue returns when the initial shock passes, and she nods sternly. "Okay, Lydia, take me to him."

Lydia nods quickly, brushing the back of her hand past her nose. They hurry out the door outside, and after a quick shared look to each other, Alec and I follow close behind.

They round the side of the school to the alleyway between a thick hedge and the wall of the building. Slowing abruptly, we come to a fractured lump in the middle of the pathway.

Jacob's body.

His legs are twisted in horrible angles, and his head is completely split open. His face is mutilated, dried blood coating his aggressive features. He still looks angry, even in death.

It's disturbing, but I can't look away.

"Lydia, when did you find him?"

She replies through heavy breathing, "Just now. He wasn't in classes today. I figured he was ill or just ditching, but when he didn't show for dinner or social time, I got worried. He wasn't in his room, and so I came out here and..." She hesitates, before blurting out, "Why did no one find him sooner?"

"The storm from last night has kept everyone inside all day," Rosa explains calmly, placing her hand onto Lydia's shoulder.

She shakes her hand off, crossing her arms. "What about Mr Jefferson? Surely he would have seen him."

Rosa shoots me and Alec an uncertain look. "Mr Jefferson has been MIA for a couple days now."

Lydia looks down at her feet, biting her lip to stop tears from falling.

"What happened to him?" Alec asks quietly, staying close to my side.

"He fell from the roof," Rosa mumbles, crouching down and examining the body closer as Lydia turns the other way, shoulders shaking again.

"He was pushed," Lydia grunts through sobs in return. "He had no reason to jump, he was happy here. And he's got good coordination. He's been using the roof to get to my room for months."

"But who would push him?" Alec questions thoughtfully.

She spins around abruptly, and jabs her finger right at me. "Her."

Alec frowns and takes a step forward, pushing Lydia's hand away. "If you're going to accuse the first person you see then forget I asked."

"You hated Jacob from the start, because he didn't like you with Jasper. It was only a matter of time before you snapped," she hisses.

"I didn't hate him at all. Sure, I didn't necessarily get on with him. But it wasn't bad enough that I'd push him off the roof, Lydia," I snap, frowning and moving closer to Alec as her toxic gaze burns into me.

Rosa stands and interrupts, "I know you're upset, Lydia, but Alec is right. Stop accusing Olivia when you don't have the facts."

Lydia looks like she is about to say something in return, but at the last moment, she thinks against it and keeps her mouth closed. Crossing her arms, she scowls at the floor.

But her anger soon melts into sorrow, and tears fill her cheeks while she sobs loudly. Rosa swaps a look with Alec and me, before instructing, "Go to your rooms. Now."

Alec clutches my hand tighter and gently tows me back inside the building.

"This is horrible," I mutter as Alec leads me up the stairs. "First Whiskers, then Mr Jefferson, and now Jacob?"

"Someone at school is murdering the people here. It's only a matter of time before it happens again," he muses quietly.

"Everyone is probably in the library right now, nobody would've been outside because of the storm, or on the roof, so why was Jacob? It doesn't make any sense," I mumble when we make it to the dorm corridor.

I turn to face Alec and cross my arms, his expression as thoughtful as mine.

After a brief moment of silence, he says, "The blood on his body was dry. Which means it didn't happen recently. Whoever wanted to kill Jacob could've done it as early as this morning."

Alec is biting his lip in thought, both of us thinking the same thing: who did it? And did they kill Mr Jefferson too? Are they the one who is framing me?

Alec looks up finally, and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "You wanna come back to my dorm?"

I smile and shake my head, folding my arms tighter across my chest. "No. I think I need some sleep. This whole thing is wearing me out."

He nods, and puts his hand on the back of my head gently, before softly kissing my forehead. I close my eyes, the tense knot in my stomach unravelling a little.

When he leans back, I ask quietly, "See you tomorrow?"

He nods, and smiles kindly. "Yeah."

And his kindness is what frightens me the most. What if Alec is next?