Chapter 7

GQ

"Did you consider Henry a friend?" - Yes

"Were GQ and Sire around when Henry died?" - Yes

"Did GQ and Sire have anything to do with the death of Henry?" Yes.

My heart is racing. I'm piling on him. I can't believe he did this. I can't believe he sold me out like this. My heart is pacing. I don't know who is madder at that moment. Sire or me. I don't know who is more pissed.

All I know is at this moment history is repeating itself. We considered Imani a friend. We considered him a true friend and he just threw us under the bus the same exact way that he threw

I punch Imani pulling him to the ground and wanting to choke the whole life out of him. It isn't until Joker and the other Tops run over that I realize I may have gone too far.
"Why?" Sire keeps asking him.

Sire is crying. He's always been the emotional one out of all of us. Truth is though I want to cry. I want to fucking tear up and cry. Why would he do this?

I see Imani pleading from the ground.

"I had no idea they would release that," he explains, "The questioning is misleading. They are trying to make it seem like I'm selling you out. That's not the case."
The questioning didn't try to make him seem like he was selling us out. The answers that Imani gave was what made me think he was selling us out.
"Leave him alone...goddam murderer," Joker says pushing me as hard as possible.

Joker pushes me onto the ground. It's at that moment I look around and I see the faces of everyone. Everyone is looking at me. Everyone is looking at Sire. Everyone has this look that is telling me that they are judging me. They are thinking that I really had something to do with Henry. They are thinking that I killed him. My heart is beating fast in my chest. I don't understand it. I don't understand why Imani would record that video. I don't understand why Imani would implicate us in the death of Henry.

Those faces were just looking at me. The music stops. Everyone gets quiet. I feel so alone. The only one who knows how I feel right now is Sire and for some reason, I can't even be there for him. These people once worshiped me but now they were looking at me with pure hate.

All these faces.

All these judgments.
"It's not how you think it is," I explain to everyone and no one at that moment.

I feel like I have to defend myself. I don't know how though. Imani was the one who was good at words. Imani had been the one to betray me. I look over at him. Not too long ago he was telling me that we were real friends. Not too long ago he was telling me that nothing should come between my friendship.

I was considering cutting off someone I cared about for him.

I was considering letting Karma go.

"Oh god..." I whisper to myself.
I turn at that moment and see Karma. He's standing up away from the others. He looks over at me. All of a sudden no one else's judgment matters but his. Karma is looking at me and he just looks so fucking disgusted.

"Karma, let me explain," I tell him.

I reach over. I want to grab him. I want to let him know that I didn't mean to fuck with Henry that night. Was I jealous of Henry? Maybe. Did I mean to kill him? No. That is the truth. It just happened and the cover-up had nothing to do with me.
"Don't fucking touch me," Karma responds.

He has this glazed over disgusted look on his face. He takes a step back as though I'm contagious. Karma hasn't looked at me like that before. I can feel this sick feeling in my stomach. I've never really been so concerned about hurting someone's feelings but right now it feels like my heart is breaking slowly watching Karma's pain. I feel like I want to grab him. I want to explain to him the entire situation but there's nothing that I can really do in regards to this. He won't let me close to him. He won't even fucking talking to me.

"Karma listen...it isn't what it sounds like."
"Did you have something to do with Henry's death?" Karma asks me.

Everyone is looking at me. Sire is all emotional from what Imani did. Imani is trying to call him down. For some reason, the attention is all on me and Karma right now.

"Can we talk in private?"
"No fuck that. I asked you a question. Did you have something to do with Henry's death?"
"It's not what you think."
"JUST TELL THE TRUTH!"

He barks at me. The scream is louder than I've ever heard Karma sound. He is more emotional than I like to believe right now. Right now he is so pissed. He's so angry.
I can't lie to Karma. For some reason, I just can't lie to him.
"Yes."

A loud chorus of boos fills the entire party. People are jeering at me. Karma starts walking away. The crowd surrounds me. They are screaming things at me. They are taunting me. They are angry as though they fucking liked Henry. No one fucking liked Henry. Everyone was jealous of Henry just as much as I was. But now all of these people were judging me. All of these people were pointing their fingers and now all of a sudden I was the bad guy. I'm pissed. I'm angry. I don't want to go down like this but there's nothing that I can do.

At that moment I can't believe what happens. I cry. I haven't cried before. Never. Not as long as I can remember.

I'm chasing after Karma. Me. GQ. Gary Quincy. The don. I was chasing after him like he was some sort of prize and I was the biggest loser in the world and for the first time in my life I feel true emotion. For the first time in my life, I realize there is someone that I don't want to leave me. There is someone I want to keep around.

"Get away from me," he tells me.

"Please let me explain? Don't shut me out man," I tell Karma, "Please don't shut me out. I don't want to be shut out. Ever since I met you I've been feeling like I wanted to be a better person Karma. I don't know what it is about you but I feel like I want to be good for you."
"And you wasn't going to tell me you caused my brother's death?"
He looks at me, really wondering.
"I didn't know he would kill himself. We got him fucked up and he did it. It was an accident. It was a prank. We didn't know he was going to die."
"You caused it," he tells me.
The look on his face says it all. He's beyond mad. He's pissed. This is hate.

A group of guys go up to me. They are trying to separate me from Karma and it's working. I see that glazed over look in Karma's eyes. You can tell that he is completely taken back by what just occurred. I want to be there for him. I want to find a way to fix this but I don't think I can. I don't think I know this time. This time GQ wasn't going to come out on top.

"You can't stay here," Zaire tells me, "You have to leave my party."
I've never been kicked out of a party before. I had never been looked at the way that these people were looking at me.

In a matter of moments, it becomes painfully clear that I am losing everything.
~

Karma shows up at the office. It hasn't even been 24 hours since he found out that Sire and GQ had something to do with the death of his brother Henry. When he walks into the office he can see the two ladies at the front desk. The secretaries stare up and him with this analytic look. It's almost as though they were expecting him to come into the office. But that would be weird right. Why would they want him to be in the office?
"Can I help you?" the first secretary asks.

"I need to talk to the Headmaster."
"Mr. Pine is eating lunch. Can I take a message?"
"It's important."
"What's more important than a healthy meal?" the secretary asks.

Karma looks at her. She isn't joking. She's serious. It's weird how her head jerks. It's even weirder how she forces this pleasant smile on her face as though someone literally was stretching out her face to create it. Karma has always felt uncomfortable talking to the faculty since he got here but this was even weirder than usual.

"Ma'am. I have information about the death of a student."
She smiles, "Well that is important now isn't it?"
It's as though she is really asking a question. She waits for him to answer. Her smile stays carved on her face. Karma feels more and more freaked out especially when he looks at the other assistant who is furiously taking notes while looking up at Karma every few seconds. He looks from one to the other. A chill goes up his spine feeling how weird this interaction truly is.

"Yes, it is important."
"Well, then you can go in and see Mr. Pine."

She points to the office door.
"Just walk in? You aren't going to go let him know I'm here to see him?"
"He's expecting you..."
Weird. All weird. The smiles that follow up even get weirder. Karma nods back at the ladies and starts towards Mr. Pine's office door. He knocks and when there is no reply he decides maybe it's best to just walk in.

As the secretary stated, Mr. Pine is sitting at his desk. He's all skin and bones. His thin fingers curl up over one another. He is staring right at the door not doing anything but waiting. As the secretary stated it seems as though Mr. Pine was definitely waiting for Karma. How long had he been waiting though? How did he know that Karma would be coming to see him?
"Have a seat," Mr. Pine states.

"I rather stand."
"That's absolutely fine. How can I help you?"
Karma takes a deep breath.
"Yesterday I saw a recording where you asked a student if he had anything to do with the death of another student.'
"I recall. Henry. The student who tragically committed suicide."

Mr. Pine smiles. It's a weird time to smile and Karma is just pacing around. The sooner he could get out of here the better. The Dread Fort definitely wasn't what he thought it was going to be. It definitely wasn't what he wanted it to be.
"Did you go to the police with that information?"

"No."

There is a pause. There is an awkward pause where Karma expects the strange headmaster to say something else. Anything else. That never happens though. Karma just continues to look over at him. The headmaster continues to pause, clearly not wanting to finish his thought about why he wouldn't hand that information to the police.

"Why not?"
"It would interrupt the experiment," the headmaster explains, "We wouldn't want to do that."

"Experiment?" Karma is stating, "I don't give a fuck about an experiment. My brother is dead."
"He killed himself."
"Because of other people."
"He still killed himself. Where is the crime?"
Karma can't believe what he's hearing. He feels this anger. The nonchalant attitude of the Headmaster is getting underneath his skin. He might as well be talking to a brick wall at this point. The headmaster isn't listening to a word that Karma is saying. It's as though nothing means anything to him. Karma is breathing harder and harder.

"Are you fucking joking? Who the fuck are you to say where the crime is or not? Henry had a family. Do they deserve to know that information? The cops should at least interview Sire and GQ to see if they had anything to do with it."

He's getting more and angrier. That anger seems to cause a reaction. The headmaster takes out a pad and a piece of paper.

He starts writing.

"How does it make you feel?"
"How does what make me feel?" Karma asks.

"The fact that someone you were going to let be intimate with you is responsible for the death of your brother? Does betrayal turn you off?"

The Headmaster is looking at him wondering. Karma feels like he's losing it. There is no way in hell this is happening right now. There is no way in hell the Headmaster is just avoiding this question.
"Fuck this place," Karma states.
He storms out of the office. Maybe the Headmaster had something to do with this. Maybe that's why he didn't want to go to the police. It didn't matter to Karma. He was going to fix this. He was going to make this right.

He finds himself taking out his cellphone when he gets into the courtyard. He's desperate when he realizes that there is no signal on his phone. No fucking signal. The Dread Fort was in the middle of nowhere!
He walks around for what seems like hours until he gets a bar.
Finally.

Finally, he'd be able to get the cops here. Finally, he'd be able to have Sire and GQ pay for what they did to Henry.
He starts dialing the cops.

Someone picks up.

"911, how can I help you?"

"Hello," Karma is stating, "I need help. I was wondering if you can send an officer. I can send you the address..."
The person interrupts Karma midsentence.

"Actually...this is campus police. So if you need any assistance please make your way to the front office and file a report with Mr. Pine."
Karma drops his phone.

Was his phone forwarding to the Dread Fort?
How was that possible? He looks down at his phone and there is a terror in his eyes. What was going on at this school? What the hell had he gotten himself into?

~

"Karma hey...Karma."
Karma walks out of his room. He looks like he is going somewhere. It's a little late but there are still classes going on so I wonder if that's where he's going. He walks past me as though he doesn't even see me. I attempt to grab him, but he quickly pulls away.

"Leave me alone... I swear to god."
"You can be angry. That's fine, just let me talk to you."
Karma gives me a harsh look. It's this strong, bitter stare that looks like he is ready to rip my head off, "Why don't you talk to the cops?"

With that, he turns and walks away. I'm pathetic. I know it. I've been doing this for quite some time now. I hear the sound of someone watching me embarrass myself from behind.

"He's not going to talk to you," Sire tells me.

I've missed two days of class. It wasn't that I was hiding. I literally couldn't go to class. When I tried to the entire class started chanting "Murderer" as loud as they could. The teacher didn't even try to calm them down. The chants were turning into some sort of riot or something like that. Truth is I think these people weren't mad about Henry. I think these people already hated me for the person I was before this. Half of them I fucked and the other half I turned down because they weren't cute enough. So they hated me. They despised me.

Now that they had a reason to torture me they were going to make sure they did it.
None of them mattered. The only thing that mattered to me was Karma. I've been sitting outside of Karma's room forever. He only comes out rarely and it's only to try to use his phone. I can see the look on Karma's face. It's clear that he's trying to give me away but I have the feeling the Dread Fort wasn't going to allow that to happen. They monitored everything...including emails and phone calls. It was part of the school. It was part of the experiment. There was no way he was going to get a message out of this school even if he tried.

The crazy part is I don't mind that he's trying to rat me out. Hell, I would even help Karma if that meant that he would talk to me for a few minutes, but he keeps walking past me as though I don't even exist. I've never felt like this before.

"You look like shit," I notice from Sire.

Sire usually is well groomed but he hasn't shaved and he hasn't left the dorm room. I can see the look in his eyes and just know that he's down in the dumps.
"You should be talking," he tells me, "You look like you're on the sequel of Castaway.'
I would laugh if I was in the laughing mood. I'm not. He's exaggerating. So am I. We don't look bad but deep inside we feel like shit.

"Karma's not giving me the time of day."
"He won't talk to me either," Sire explains, "No one will. Everyone thinks that I literally walked up to Henry and slit his fucking throat or something. I swear Imani threw us under the bus man."
"We should tell someone...tell someone he was involved too. Ruin his fucking life too."
"No one's going to believe us. They are going to think we are just trying to drag him into our shit."
Sire has a point. Imani was smart. He beat us to the punch. He did the same thing to us that he did to Jamal Comey. He betrayed our friendship using the fucking school. He used them against us and we were none the wiser. There was nothing we could do now.

"Have you seen Imani?"

Sire shakes his head.

"He's avoiding me too," I state.

Knowing Imani he was probably out in hiding. He could never deal with being caught up in his shit. I remember after the thing happened with Henry, he locked himself in his room for a while as though making sure that no one would get suspicious of how he was acting. Imani was smart like that. He always thought 4 moves ahead.

"You know who else I haven't seen?" Sire states, shaking his head, "I haven't seen Jamal Comey."

How convenient. Jamal was gone. Karma wanted nothing to do with me. Sire and I had taken the fall for everything that happened with Henry and now everyone hated us.

Only one person was getting out of this with no blood on his hands. Imani. As always he had managed to survive without a fucking scratch.

"Jamal Comey has the right idea."
"You think he left?"
"Either way he's far away from this place."
One day you're the king of the Dread Fort and the next day you are nothing. It happened to Jamal Comey. It happened to me and Sire. I still remember the chanting. I still remembered the harassment. Maybe something else was going to happen to take people's minds off of this, but that wasn't going to be anytime soon.

Right now everything everyone was talking about was how disgusting Sire and I were. How sad they feel for poor Imani that his friends were such bad people. How Imani did the right thing by going to the staff and letting them know.

"Maybe he has the right idea..." Sire states.

I look over at Sire. We have never gotten a long but I knew him more than I knew anyone else in my life. I knew what he was thinking.

"You want to leave?"
"Why not?" Sire asks.

Karma. I had to make things right with him. I had to. I just keep staring at his door at that moment. My heart drops in my chest.

"Let's do it..."

~
We don't pack much of anything. We just start driving in the car that Patrick Murphy let me have. The asshole wasn't going to miss it. It would be nice to leave the Dread Fort for good. It would be nice to return home. It was also nice that I wasn't the only having a mental breakdown. I look over at the passenger seat and I see Sire.

He's sitting there. He's just watching the road.
He clearly has something on his mind.
"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" I ask.
"Who?"
Like I said I knew Sire more than I knew anyone else. Sire was in love with Karma. It was clear as day. Sire thought he was in love all the time but this was different for him. It was different for me too.

Sire just shakes his head.

"I know he isn't talking to us," Sire explains shaking his head, "I just have the feeling that we are making a mistake not making things right with him."

"It's killing me too."
We weren't supposed to leave the Dread Fort for too long. They were real strict when it came to that. I guess it was interrupting the experiment. We got breaks like every other school but during the breaks, we had to keep writing in our journal, scan the pages and send them back to the Dread Fort so we didn't interrupt the experiment.
Every part of me wants to say fuck the experiment.
"He's special," I state shaking my head.
"You are so full of shit," Sire responds.
He's getting defensive. I look over.

"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Do you even like him or are you just trying to get with someone because I got with them again?"
Sire is paranoid. In the past, I did fuck with people he's dated but it was just about sex. With Karma it was different.

"I guess we can cut the shit now that Imani isn't around to play peacemaker," I say, "I never really liked you..."
"That was clear, the question is why?"
"You remind me of my mother. When I was younger my mom would always joke about it. She would say that I had no feelings. Mr. Give-No-Fucks. That's what my mother called me. She would curse like that too. She was so hypersensitive about everything. She used to bring these men home. She'd swear each one was her soulmate. She'd make me call them my dad. And then they'd leave her. Over and over. She never learned. She fell in love so quick. I promised myself never to be like her. I promised myself never to be like you."
"I believe in love. Nothing wrong with that," he tells me.

"No, I get it now. After I met Karma. I get it. Sometimes it doesn't take long. Sometimes it just takes a stare. Sometimes it just takes a kiss..."
It's weird. We shouldn't be finding solace based on the fact that we both were falling for the same guy but it didn't matter. Right now I was looking at my old "Frenemy" and realizing that we both had probably fucked it up with him.

"Funny. All the drama we had over guys in the years and we both lose the one guy that matters," he explains shaking his head.

"And guess who is back at the school with him? Ready to console him?"
My heart flutters. I think about turning this car around.

I would be giving Imani everything he wanted if I left.

All of a sudden when I think about bringing it up I hear a shout from Sire.

"STOP!"
I pull over. My heart is racing. Sire is being dramatic as always.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
He points, "Look."

That's when we see it. There is a body on the side of the road. It's just laying there cold. It's Sire who gets out of the car first. I'm not sure why at first. I'm not sure why he is so curious but when I follow him out of the car I realize why this means so much.

The dead person on the side of the road is Jamal Comey.

 

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