Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 20

~The Beast~ 

Teigan was distressfully close to getting spotted and caught by the police when he went after Ryan Daniels. Ever since then, he figured he wouldn’t be pursuing any criminals until Bethany was safely returned home. However, there he was reading some concerning posts from Josh, the high school boy who followed Columbine shooting accounts. 

The post that had set off alarms in his head was the picture of a rifle captioned “My dad finally showed me his gun.” Teigan prayed that the kids' dad kept it locked up. The post that followed that one was put up only a few hours later at 5 am. It was a picture of the high school captioned “The madness ends today.” 

Perhaps the two weren’t related. Perhaps the spike in school shootings were making him extra sensitive to these things. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to risk it. He flagged all of the kids social media accounts and pulled up the file where he kept all the information he accumulated on him. He knew what high school he went to. It only took a few taps of his keyboard to get it’s address and the time the first bell went off. Josh’s school wasn’t in the city but an hour upstate. If he drove fast enough, he could make it right at the start of homeroom. 

Teigan snatched up his signature black mask and raced out of the house. He caught a snippet of Carina’s exasperated sigh at the sight of him. “He can’t sit still for long, can he?” 

He wanted to. He really did. He blocked his mind from thinking about what Bethany would think about it. She had advised him to keep an eye on the account and report it if he grew suspicious, not find him and add a new rose to his sadistic garden. She didn’t hate the rose phenomenon as much as she would if he actually murdered people but it still disturbed her. 

She had brought up questions he never considered before. The criminals were technically alive but how alive? They couldn’t walk around, talk - could they think? Feel? It was a weird limbo they’d stay in for eternity. Was that worse than death? 

 He gripped the steering wheel of his car harder and accelerated. He had more important things to worry about. 

The school had a small parking lot that was full of cars but not many students. Teigan had left his car some ways a way from the school. He was used to working in the nighttime where the darkness acted as a cloak and the city where there was too much going on to notice the shadows. He was out of his element and feared he’d be spotted. A hooded figure hiding behind some trees spying at students at a high school would definitely be further investigated if noticed. He thought of what Bethany would have told him to do. She’d probably tell him to call the police if he was that concerned, to let them take care of it. 

He removed his mask and took out his phone. He’d taken the cap he kept in his car and placed it on under his hood. The new goal was to blend in, hope that he could pass as a student and no one would survey him too closely. Was it stupid for him to think his mask was more remarkable than his face?

He kept a photo of Josh on his phone as he inspected the remainder of students in the parking lot. His chances of finding him there were low yet there he was. Josh was tall and skinny in person. He wore a tight jacket and ripped jeans, shoes covered in dirt. He was leaning against his car’s trunk daydreaming at the building. 

Josh turned his head towards Teigan. He ducked and walked past him in a haste. He heard the gravel shift and footsteps follow him. He quickened his pace and headed towards the back of the school. When the footsteps failed to cease, he glanced back. Josh was a step behind him. 

“Hey!” 

Teigan kept moving. 

“Hey! Who are you?”