First day back at school for a new semester. Nik couldn’t say he was excited, because that meant dealing with stuff…like the possible murderous ghost, his feelings for Svea and the likelihood of his secret coming to light. He was glad for any chance of escapism, like blasting out at maximum volume noise music from his headphones while walking towards his first class of the day. Turns out, not even that was enough to keep him distracted.

#^$^&^HI&^%&^%*NICE TO FINALLY MEET YOU*^%%&*

He instantly took off his headphones. Someone had interfered with the sound frequencies and he had a pretty good guess who that might be. He’d been discovered before the first bell even rang. Definitely not a good start to his day.

The disruption did, however, make him aware of the fact that somebody was more or less stalking his friends. The guy, who, if memory served him right, was called Enrique, was looking through the glass panel of the classroom door and listening in on a conversation between Iv and Shiro.

“Sorry, but I don’t think you have any business being here.”

He tried to come off as intimidating even though the guy was a year above him and clearly a little bit mad. Still, it worked out, if only because he was too mortified being caught to utter a word, and just left with his tail between his legs. Nik was going to go in since that was his classroom anyway, but he couldn’t help but pause once he caught a word of the conversation.

“You just did it to get rid of the competition.”

“Competition?! Her and her one-sided crush?! Please! If that had been my intention, I would have gotten rid of you. Plus, are you really going to get so stressed out about this? It’s not like I killed somebody! Sure, it wasn’t entirely necessary, but don’t act as if you care about morals.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying, I’m a good fox! Anyway, I have to go.”

Shiro got his books and walked towards the door, probably missing Iv’s eye roll. It was too late for Nik to hide, so when Shiro opened the door, he tried to make it seem as if he just got there.

“Shiro, man, nice to see you again!”

“Hi, Nik, let’s catch up later!” Considering he gave him a pat on the back, Nik thought that maybe he got away with it.

He took a seat next to Iv. While they were catching up, students started to flock in, including Dianne, who rushed to give them the news.

“Guys, did you hear? Gwen, the secretary, dropped out! Nobody has any idea why. That’s so crazy!”

Dianne went to spread the word to others in the class, and that was when something clicked. The prior conversation, Gwen dropping out…he looked at Iv and raised his eyebrow in a silent question. The girl smiled in response, but before he could actually ask, the teacher walked in.

“I’ll explain later.”

***

 By ‘later’ Iv meant lunchtime. They all gathered at their usual table, not the big one they used for the first or so week, but one separate from Kyle and company. After lunch, there were usually 30 minutes to spare, during which most would go out, them included. Yet this time, they had important things to talk about.

“First on today’s order,” Hendrick started them off, “anyone knows what happened to Gwen?”

Nik turned his head towards Iv. So did Jabari and Shiro.

“You had something to do with it, didn’t you?” asked Jacy.

“I just had a talk with Monsieur Belorgey and suggested that his daughter’s education might be seriously jeopardized in an environment surrounded by corruption.” She was clearly referring to Kyle using his influence to get his step-brother in.

“Why?” asked Svea.

“I don’t see how that relates to our main issue, aka Kyle and his ghost mate.”

“Think harder, Hendrick.”

“You were trying to figure out just how much influence Kyle and his family have over this school,” revealed Jabari, who had been quiet up until that moment. “Gwen’s family are Elysium’s biggest investors, have been for years; according to my research, every Belorgey generation has studied here since the school’s inception. In theory, they should be the ones in charge. Yet Kyle seems to be the one pulling the strings. Not just getting Tyler in, but the punishment, the competition…it’s all him. Obviously, Mr. Belorgey would be upset to find out that the people he basically buys off every year listen to the son of his political opponent – Mr. Hannagam and Mr. Belorgey have been butting heads in almost every NATO meeting. Therefore, the principal was given an ultimatum.”

Everybody looked at her for confirmation.

“Bingo!”

“So what he’s saying is that you took out the one other person who could hold the reins…to give Kyle more freedom to do as he pleases?” asked Jacy.

“It was a test,” responded Jabari again. “As I said, she wanted to see just how much influence Kyle has. If Gwen’s father would have taken action, this would have been over for him. But that’s not the case, alas the ultimatum: Kyle or Gwen and her funds. Now we know the choice, so Kyle might have to pay up to keep his position as the one in charge. No matter how rich the Hannagams are, however, they don’t compete with the Belorgey’s. Either the teachers will stop listening to a kid once his parents don’t provide, or…it’s not about money at all, and Kyle has something else over them.”

“I knew you’d figure it out,” said Iv looking proud. “Which neatly brings us to the second point of our meeting: the ghost.”

“Could it be that he’s using the ghost to make the teachers listen to him?” asked Svea.

“It’s possible, which is why we’ll have to find him and interrogate him.”

“What?” This was the one thing Nik wanted to avoid. If the ghost met him, they’d know. It’s not that he didn’t trust his friends enough to reveal what he was, but it was the ulterior questions that he wanted to avoid.

“Oh, that could be fun! We can pretend that we’re the Mystery Inc.; you know, from Scooby-doo?” said Svea.

“Well, there were five people – or four and a dog, but we can use Shiro since foxes are close enough relatives –, but my point is,” Nik looked around trying to convince the group, “5 can do the field searches, while 2 distract Kyle, because what if he decides to look for his friend right when we find him?”

“He has a point.”

“Thank you, Jabari! You and I can do that.”

“Alright, I suppose the rest of us will split up, since you’re too scared to join us.”

There was some bite to what Svea said, and it clearly was directed at him, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he did wrong. That was something to figure out later, anyway. For now, escaping the ghost was his priority.

***

After the five had split into two teams and decided what ground they’d each cover, they waited until after dusk, so that there would be less people roaming about. Nik and Jabari had their own plan to distract Kyle. It wasn’t too hard of a task anyway, since most nights Kyle and Tyler hung out, usually in the elder’s room, since he had no one to share it with. Still, Tyler had begged Nik to play a video game with him and Nik figured he could use that to lure them both.

As expected, Tyler was not in the room when he and Jabari came in after waiting around in the library with the others. He called him and invited both brothers for a round of games, and set up the game with Jabari in the meantime. Technically, no room was allowed to have a TV, but after Tyler managed to pass the re-evaluation, his parents thought a huge gaming screen would be an appropriate gift and source of motivation. The game Tyler was dying to play and the reason for the gift itself was a horror RPG, something with undead creatures. Nik thought it was tacky, but he had to make Tyler agree so that Kyle would agree, too.

A few minutes later, the door opened.

“Hey Nik…and Jabari. Didn’t know you’d be here,” said Tyler. That omission was on purpose, since Tyler wasn’t too fond of Nik’s other friend group, for obvious reasons. He didn’t know where Jabari was at in terms of who Tyler would tolerate, but Nik guessed it couldn’t have been as bad as if he had brought Iv.

“Sorry, I just didn’t have anything else to do and since Nik offered…”

“No worries, it’s cool. Kyle?”

“The more the merrier,” was all Kyle said before they got into the game.

Till about halfway through, they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, Nik included, to the point he almost forgot the purpose of the game night. But a notification from the group chat announcing that the two teams were on the go reminded him that they were there on business. The business being finding a ghost. And as was his luck, the ghost found them first.

^%^&*%^COMEFINDMEYOURSELFIFYOUDARE^$&$^%&^%^&^*

In the middle of one of the game’s scares, the screen started glitching, and the sound got so pitched that Nik doubted any human would have been able to catch what the ghost said. Also, he was pretty sure the message was directed at him. The only other option was that it was meant for Kyle, but that was unlikely.

“No idea what just happened, but that was scarier than the game itself,” said Tyler.

“Let’s see if we can fix whatever happened here.”

While Jabari was helping Tyler get the game back on track, Nik was trying to decipher whether Kyle understood what was going on. He didn’t seem particularly scared, but would he have got the message? His poker face gave nothing away, but Nik had to do something anyway.

“I’ll go check if the TV in the common room is free just in case.”

“But I think we can get it running again,” said Jabari. He seemed really confused, but Nik couldn’t explain the situation to him, so he tried to convey the urgency with his eyes.

“What if it happens again? I’ll just go check.” Jabari nodded in response.

He had to find the others first.