(unedited)

Now I'm on my own side,
It's better than being on your side.
It's my fault when you're blamed,
It's better that I see it through your eyes.
All these thoughts locked inside,
Now you're the first to know.

"It Ends Tonight" -All American Rejects

I found out about Daniel's arrest before his brother did.

Lunch felt like a strained affair, at least to me. I could feel and sometimes see Jacen's heavy stare from across the table and Ashton's slight moodiness. Skylar, Vanessa and Nathan all seemed pretty oblivious. If they noticed the bit of tension, they chalked it up to a normal argument or didn't mention it if they believed it was something else. I wasn't sure if Keira knew, she didn't show it, but I could t see Keira being clueless about anything, really.

It wasn't until the cafeteria fell unnaturally silent that I noticed someone walked towards us. More specifically, a teacher coming towards us. Even more specifically, Skylar's secret boyfriend.

"Miss. Blaire, may I have a word with you, please?" He didn't show it, but there was a tightness in his voice that made me guess that Cameron had just found out about his brother's arrest.

I met Ashton's eyes from across the table for a brief second, but he didn't say anything or show any emotion so I did the same.

"Of course, Mr. Sullivan," Skylar said. She grabbed her bag and stood up, following him out of the now silent cafeteria.

Jacen broke the silence first by clearing his throat, which I guess to the rest of the students was a signal to turn around and mind their own business again. The cafeteria filled with incessant chatter that was a bit faker than it had been before.

"I'm not sure if I can eat knowing Skylar's making out with our English teacher right now," Jacen remarked.

Keira rolled her eyes. "It's not like it's new."

"I don't know," Nathan said. "He looked kind of worried."

I caught Ashton's eye again and this time he gave me the smallest shake of his head. I wasn't sure if it meant he hadn't told Nathan or if he was telling me not to say anything.

Jacen snorted. "He was probably worried about whether people that he has a word with Miss. Blaire at least once a week."

Vanessa giggled, and opened her mouth to respond, but she was cut off by bell.

Thank god.

I wanted to talk to Ashton, but he was gone as soon as the bell rang, so I headed to my locker to grab my stuff. Except I remembered I had left all of my things in the Elite's lounge when Vanessa dragged me there this morning. I retraced my steps to the cafeteria and walked past it until I got to the unmarked door.

I reached out to turn the knob, but froze at the sound of voices.

"-want to," Skylar was saying. "But..." I couldn't hear much after that since she lowered her voice. There were a couple murmurs before I heard Cameron's raised voice.

"Please," he said. "Your families have kept people out of jail before, I know you have."

What? The Elite had kept someone out of jail before? Who? And for what? Was it the same person who Ashton and Kaden were trying to expose?

"You know it wasn't the same!" Skylar exclaimed. Then she lowered her voice again and not matter how hard I tried, I couldn't catch anything else.

"Eavesdropping?" Asked a familiar voice.

I jumped and turned to see Nathan. "Not intentionally," I lied. "I left my stuff in there, but I don't know if I should interrupt."

It's not a complete lie.

"Are Skylar and Cameron in there?" he asked.

I nodded. "It sounds like they're arguing." More like Cameron's asked Skylar to somehow keep his brother out of jail because apparently she and her friends and family have done that before.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," Nathan said. "They've been together for a while."

I nodded and looked away. Nathan sometimes reminded me of a little kid, clueless and innocent, sort of like the male version of Vanessa. But at the same time, he didn't. There was something about him, I wasn't sure exactly what, maybe the glint in his eye or the tone of his voice, but something told me he wasn't actually as naïve as he appeared to be. Like he was aware, but chose not to get involved at all.

Nathan never seemed surprised, so I wasn't sure how much he knew.

"So," he started.

I glanced at him.

"What's going on with you and my brother?"

Of all things he could've wanted to talk about. "Nothing."

He raised an eyebrow. "Apparently he spent the night and you guys had wild sex."

I choked. "Who told you that?"

"Keira. Vanessa told Skylar who told her," Nathan said.

"I'm starting to think you guys are just a big gossip circle who messes up telephone a lot." Oh, except one of you have homicidal tendencies and I'm not sure which one. It could be your girlfriend. Or your brother. Or your girlfriend's brother. Or you.

He shrugged. "So it didn't happen?"

"No," I replied.

"But you want it to?"

I choked again. "Who told you that one?"

He shrugged. "No one. It's my guess."

"You're bad at guessing," I told him.

"It's weird," he said with another shrug. "I think Ash might actually like you."

"Am I that unlikable?" There was a surprised part to his voice. It didn't offend me, even thought it provably should've. But I was more curious than mad.

"No. Ash just doesn't like people," he replied.

"You make him sound like a hermit."

"Do you like him?" Nathan asked suddenly.

"Ashton?"

He nodded.

"I don't know."

He paused. "I hope you stick around," he said after a couple moments of silence.

I turned to look at him. "What?"

"You know Olivia Tunclet?" he asked quietly.

I froze, then nodded.

"Just when Ash started liking her, she disappeared."

♡ the trouble with love ♡

I knew Kaden was home as soon as I saw his car in the garage.

I hadn't expected him to be, since Daniel was in jail, but I wasn't disappointed by the fact. After putting my school stuff upstairs, I barged into his office without knocking.

He glanced up from the papers he was flipping through. "You're actually home from school on time," he commented, looking back down.

I rolled my eyes, but otherwise ignored him. "So Daniel got arrested?"

He stiffened. "Ashton told you?"

"I overheard," I said, sitting down in the armchair in the corner.

He shot me an incredulous look. "I called him. How do you eavesdrop if he was on his cell phone?"

"I was with him when you called, okay?" I told him. "So what-"

"Why were you with Ashton?" Kaden interrupted before I could finish my question.

Wait, what? "I thought you trusted Ashton."

"That would depend on the situation."

It took me a moment to understand what he was saying. "We're not doing anything like that!" I exclaimed, jumping up. "I barely even know hi- Stop changing the subject!"

You really shouldn't have let yourself get distracted, Lena, I scolded myself. Normally, I caught it when Kaden did something like this, but it had slipped by this time.

"I wasn't trying to distract you," Kaden said, unconvincingly. "You were the one who brought it up."

"Because you implied it!" I protested.

Kaden blinked. "No, I didn't."

"Yes you- You're doing it again!" I wanted to slap myself. I had no idea why, but I kept getting distracted today.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Distracting me!" Might as well finish the previous conversation before changing subjects, though. "If you don't trust Ashton, why did you ask him to pick me up and spend the night?"

He sighed. "I told you, Lena, it all happened too quickly."

What?

My confusion must have shown, because he let out another sigh. "I'll assume Ashton already told you about Olivia?"

I nodded.

Kaden shook his head, muttering something I didn't catch under his breath. "Olivia was killed yesterday night," he said, looking back up at me.

I blinked, and stared. Last night? That meant, that less than twenty-four hours ago, Olivia had been alive and breathing. "Last night, when?"

"Almost right before I was going to pick you up." He paused. "It could've been a coincidence, but I didn't want to take any chances."

"What would anyone have to gain from you not being able to pick me up?" If whoever had killed Olivia had planned it so Kaden would be incapable to pick me up... What had they planned to do? Kidnap me from a crowded airport?

"You alone," he said. "I was going to be at the hospital all night. You would've been home alone. That's why I asked Ashton to stay. He was the only person I could get on short notice that wouldn't ask questions."

"What about Devon and Shawn? Were they really busy?"

He shook his head. "I'll admit I lied about that. Shawn got called in. Devon and I went with him, pretending we had been out together and he was our ride home."

I blinked. "And they bought that?" It was the weakest cover story I had heard Kaden and Devon come up with. Especially together.

He shrugged.

"So what happened with Daniel?"

He hesitated.

"You promised you would explain," I reminded.

"I meant Olivia, not this," he replied, but relented anyway. "Someone framed him."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I wasn't expecting you to hire a killer for help."

He opened his laptop, and beckoned me over. "Methanonel is kept in small syringes." He typed into Google and showed me a picture. The container was a cylinder, the tube a bit bigger than a penny, and the length of my pinkie finger.

"A small amount can paralyze someone, or knock them out. Any more than that is fatal," he explained. "This was the syringe used to kill Olivia."

He pulled out a paper from the stack he had been looking at. On it was a black and white picture of your standard, fifteen milliliter syringe. Almost two times as big as the one Methanonel was kept in.

"Someone either dumped two things of Methanonel in this and used it to kill Olivia, or the put some of the drug in it to look like it had been used." He pointed to the small bit of liquid at the top. "Either way, this ended up in Daniel's bag."

"How?" If we were going with the idea that someone in the Elite had done this, then how had Daniel not noticed? If he knew about everything, why hasn't he kept a closer look out?

"Around eight, this morning. He was at the hospital, to see if he could find out anything else. He told me he left his bag in the waiting room with his coat," Kaden said.

So if someone in the Elite had done it, then that meant they had been at the hospital this morning. I didn't know if any of them could be counted in innocent, not even Ashton, since I had no way of knowing if he and been at school the whole time I had been talking to Vanessa and Jace-

Jacen.

I knew Jacen had to have been in the hospital sometime between last night and this morning because he had Olivia's medical file. Olivia's confidential, under lock and key at the hospital, medical file.

"How'd they find it?" I asked, instead of telling Kaden my theory.

"Someone called at nine with an anonymous tip that they saw someone with a weapon, so all the bags were searched."

That didn't add up. I had been talking to Jacen at the time and I knew for sure he hadn't pulled out a phone to anonymously tip off the hospital.

"What are you going to do?" I asked Kaden.

"What do you mean?"

"To get Daniel out of jail." Of course.

Kaden looked down, letting out a sigh. "I'm not sure there's anything I can do."

"What?"

"Lena, to everyone else, I don't know him. It'd be suspicious if I suddenly defended him," he explained.

"So you're just gonna let him be framed?" I demanded.

"My hands are tied," he said. "If I do anything, there's a chance it'll make things worse."

"But-"

"They don't evidence to convict him fully," Kaden cut in. "Right now he's just a suspect."

"You'll get him out, though, right? Eventually?" I didn't know Daniel that well, but it didn't seem fair, that he might go to jail for something he didn't do.

Kaden nodded quickly. "I don't know how, but I will."

"How bad is it?" I asked hesitantly.

"He had some stuff in his bag for the case, that he shouldn't have had," he admitted.

"But he's keeping quiet about it?"

Another nod. "He said he'd still take the fall," he said sounding a little exasperated, but mostly sad. "The best thing I can do is wrap this up as fast as possible so we can prove he's innocent."

I looked up. "You already know who it is?"

He nodded. "Ashton's always had an idea."

"Then why haven't you just..." I trailed off. Accused them? Gotten it over with?

"Evidence," he replied quietly. "We barely have anything to prove it. We need witnesses they can't bribe, facts they can't justify and videos they can't say are fake."

"Why can't you guys just tell me who it is? I could help."

He was already shaking his head before I finished. "I don't want you caught in this if things go wrong."

"I'm already in pretty deep, you know that," I reminded him.

He shook his head again. "Someone already knows and took out Daniel. If I get caught, I don't want any reason for them to go after you."

"You've never gotten caught," I pointed out.

"There's a first time for everything."

-- ♡ --

Teaser: She cried out in pain and yanked her arm out, but red was already running down her skin and pooling on the ground.

QotC: Who in the Elite do you trust the least?

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