The next morning dawned with a sickly yellow haze, mirroring the knot of dread twisting in Liam's gut. He'd barely slept, tossing and turning through fragmented nightmares where Noah's dead eyes stared from the murky depths of the pond. Every creak of the house, every distant siren, sent a jolt of ice through his veins.
Breakfast was a torturous affair. His mom, oblivious to his internal turmoil, chatted cheerfully about school and his dad grumbled about work. Liam picked at his toast, each bite feeling like sandpaper. He could almost taste the lie coating his tongue.
The first hint of the nightmare seeping into Oakhaven's perfect façade came during his bus ride to school. A cluster of police cruisers, their blue and red lights flashing silently, lined the edge of Whispering Pines, just off the main road. Crime scene tape, stark yellow against the fading greenery, sectioned off a wide swath of the woods. A shiver ran down Liam's spine. They had found him.
Hushed whispers rippled through the bus. "Did you see that?" "What do you think happened?" "Probably just some hikers lost." Liam kept his gaze fixed out the window, his expression carefully neutral, trying to blend into the background.
School was a pressure cooker. The usual morning chatter was replaced by a low hum of speculation. Teachers looked grim, their smiles forced. Mr. Henderson, the principal, made a brief, somber announcement over the PA system during first period, confirming that a body had been discovered in Whispering Pines and that the police were investigating. He urged everyone to respect the privacy of the family involved and to cooperate fully if approached by authorities. He didn't say Noah Vance's name, but everyone knew. Noah's absence in English class, usually marked by his loud, swaggering entrance, was a gaping hole.
Liam felt a phantom weight on his shoulders, the phantom eyes of the killer on his back. He tried to focus on Ms. Davison's lecture on quadratic equations, but the numbers swam before his eyes, replaced by the image of Noah's crumpled form. Every time a door opened, he tensed, half-expecting a detective to stride in, his gaze fixed on Liam.
During lunch, he saw him. Detective Harding, a stocky man with a perpetual frown and eyes that seemed to miss nothing, was already at the school, talking to Mr. Henderson in the hallway. Harding had a reputation for being relentless, for digging until he found something. Liam quickly ducked his head, pretending to tie his shoelace, then veered off towards the far end of the cafeteria, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the detective.
The paranoia was a living thing, squirming in his chest. Had anyone seen him near the mill? Had Noah mentioned their meeting to anyone? He kept replaying the events, dissecting every second, searching for a flaw in his desperate escape. His only comfort was the thought of the flash drive, now at the bottom of the millpond. It was gone, hidden. But the secret it contained, and the secret of his presence, still clung to him like the scent of pine and death.