(I'm back, everyone! I took a little break as you may tell, and now I'm back and my requests are passing 100, like how? I haven't a clue. But I'll try to get through them as days go on, thank you for waiting and supporting me! Glad to be back <3)

You never thought Hampden would drain you like this. But it wasn’t Hampden—it was Julian’s class, the five students who had drawn you in, the murder.

You had thought—naively—that killing him would be the end of it. That the weight pressing against your ribs would lift. He was the last thread tying you to the crime. Cutting it should have set you free.

It didn’t.

The sleepless nights stretched on. Hunger came and went, unnoticed until your stomach ached. Every whisper in the hallway felt like it was about you. Everyone was unraveling—Charles fastest of all.

The phone rang, sharp in the dark. You pulled yourself from another nightmare, feet cold against the floor.

"Hello?" Barely a breath.

"Charles is in jail." Henry’s voice, steady as ever, but something in it jarred you awake.

An argument, a bottle, a car. You didn’t ask why Henry had called you instead of anyone else. Perhaps you already knew. There was something about him that made people want to be useful, to please him. And you weren’t immune to it.

You weren’t close to Charles, not really. He was easier to be around when he wasn’t drinking, which was rare these days. But still, you went.

Now, walking beside him in the brittle morning air, you felt it—the weight of something unspoken. This was more than a favor. More than annoyance at losing sleep.

The frost-covered grass crunched underfoot. The cold had worsened since Bunny died, as if the weather itself mourned him. Or perhaps it was just the weight of what you all had done.

Charles’s voice cut through the silence.

“Henry told you to do this, didn’t he?”

Pride, anger—something sharper. Whatever softness he once had was gone.

You swallowed hard, eyes shutting briefly against the wind. Not trusting yourself to answer.