The ID card stayed with me, tucked deep in the inner pocket of my backpack like a secret I wasn't ready to speak aloud. In the days following our discovery in the storage room, I couldn't bring myself to mention it again—not to Henry, not even to Ethan. Especially not to Ethan.
But it changed the way I walked through the school. Every hallway seemed to hum with a quiet, hidden energy. Every shadowed corner became a place where something might be waiting. I wasn't paranoid, not exactly—but I was aware, and maybe for the first time, I wanted to be.
Henry carried on like nothing had happened. He didn't suspect anything beyond my usual introversion, and I let him believe that. In his world, life was still an adventure, and the storage room incident had already blurred into the past, like a minor thrill. But for me, the ID wasn't a memento—it was a fuse.
And I couldn't stop thinking: Why was that ID card still here? Why hadn't it been shredded, deleted, erased like so many other files from years ago? Unless someone had kept it—on purpose.
I started staying after school more often, lingering around the administration wing. I never went inside the offices, but I watched who did. Teachers, staff, older students working as assistants. Nothing unusual, not yet. But my instincts were shifting, sharpening.
One afternoon, as I sat at a table in the library, flipping through some unrelated textbooks, Ethan slid into the seat across from me.
"You've been quiet," he said without preamble.
I looked up, met his gaze. Calm, clear, probing.
"I'm always quiet," I replied.
He tilted his head slightly. "Not like this."
For a moment, neither of us said anything. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a thin black notebook. He slid it across the table toward me.
"What's this?"
"Notes. Some of them might interest you."
I opened it slowly. The pages were filled with Ethan's familiar handwriting—neat, precise, organized like he thought in grids. At first, it looked like scattered observations: dates, locations, names. But the pattern emerged quickly.
They were all connected to James Bennett.
Not just him, but events and decisions that led to his quiet disappearance from the school. Old rumors. Conversations overheard. A strange gap in school records. Even accounts from teachers who had once praised him but now never mentioned his name.
I looked back up at Ethan, who was watching me with unreadable eyes.
"How long have you been tracking this?"
"Since before you came back," he said. "But I didn't know it mattered to you. Not until the storage room."
"You saw my reaction."
"I saw more than that," he said calmly. "I saw someone who wasn't ready to forget."
I leaned back in my chair, notebook still open. "Why didn't you say anything earlier?"
"Because people like James Bennett don't leave clean trails. And because you had to decide for yourself whether you were going to follow it."
I stared at the page in front of me, heart slowly tightening. Everything I'd been trying to push aside—grief, rage, betrayal—was being sharpened again, focused like a blade.
"This could ruin him," I said, almost to myself.
"Only if you're willing to finish what you start."
His voice was low, but there was no judgment in it. Just truth.
"Are you helping me?" I asked.
"I'm giving you a map," Ethan replied. "Where you go with it is your choice."
He stood, quietly slipping his bag over one shoulder. "But don't take too long. People like him don't stay visible for long."
After he left, I stayed there for a long time, notebook open, fingers tracing the ink on the page like it was some sacred script. My mind was no longer clouded with questions. Only purpose.
I had walked back into this school just hoping to survive it. But now?
Now, I wanted to tear the mask off the past.
And this notebook—this quiet gift—was the first real weapon I'd ever held.