Walking the Wire | PETER PARKER [1]

| 17 |

Eloise has to take the bus to school now. It isn't just because of Ned and Peter's concerns since all of this sudden robbery business, but because Eloise was almost late to school again and she can't receive any more tardies. She'll never hear the end of it from her parents if she gets another detention.

Since Eloise takes the bus, she arrives to Park East ten minutes earlier than usual. She uses this spare time to actually walk down the halls to her locker instead of sprinting the whole way.

Eloise organizes her things and puts away some under folders before shutting her locker. As soon as she turns around, she almost runs right into Lucy.

Eloise takes a step back and smiles at her, but it falters as soon as she sees the expression on Lucy's face.

"What the hell, Eloise!" She exclaims. "I texted you last night, and when you didn't answer I got worried, but now I see that you're perfectly fine."

"I'm sorry," Eloise apologizes. "I was seeing a movie with Ned and we ended up grabbing McDonald's afterwards."

She crosses her arms. "So seeing a movie with Ned is more important than helping me, your actual friend, study for finals?" She asks, hurt.

Eloise's heart sinks. "I-I thought that you'd be fine without me and study by yourself-"

"I don't know how to study by myself," Lucy says, cutting Eloise off. "I don't even have my own text book or a computer to look stuff up on or anything."

Eloise deflates. If Lucy fails her next final, it's going to be all her fault.

She knew she shouldn't have stayed for the movie. She should've told Ned that she had to go help her friend, but no, Eloise just had to be selfish and watch the stupid movie and treat herself to McDonald's while Lucy needed her help.

What kind of friend is she?

"I am so sorry," Eloise says, close to tears. She hasn't let down any of her friends like this before. "We can study tonight if you're free."

Lucy's frown deepens. "I have work tonight. You know that."

And she does; Eloise has Lucy's work schedule memorized.  She just forgot, which makes her an even worse friend.

Eloise goes to talk again, but Lucy turns on her heel. "Don't bother." She storms away, leaving Eloise to stand alone in the hall, stunned and guilty.

🕸

"And in this video from the security cameras, you can see that he's left handed because of how he opens the door with his left hand, but the fingerprints that the detectives extracted from the crime scene that were on the vaults are from a right hand."

Peter flips—literally—to the other side of his room and types rapidly on his laptop. His eyes move from left to right across the screen.

"And if we cut to the clips from the other crime scenes, we see that the same guy is also typing on his phone with his left hand while he's holding his bag in his right hand. But why are there right-handed finger prints on the vault and door?" He bites his lip, then starts talking again. "I looked into some of the police reports and watched a few interviews with the police commissioner, and they said that they can't trace the prints to any citizens of New York or anyone with a criminal background in surrounding areas, which means the criminal could've been using something to trick them into following false prints."