Jaime pulled up a chair by More’s bedside and sat down. His wiry frame and dark, loose T-shirt starked against the white sheets and rotten-yellow mustard walls of the infirmary. The pale aggressive sunlight shone through the sash window.

Jaime leaned forward, elbows on his knees, observing More. He was still mulling over the camera and the footage.

After exited the Headmaster’s Office, he took the long way to the Infirmary just so he would cross the spot he and Passmore were at yesterday. He ceased right in front of the camera that he had mentally marked down as Camera F1-2, tilting his head back and squinting at the four black clover-shape lenses. The camera was at the split before the Stair branched out. Based on the recording screen he saw earlier, the blind spot would be directly underneath. But how large was the blind spot, Jaime couldn’t be sure. Which, although he knew wouldn’t be a big area, he thought it would be good to utilize later in case anything actually came up.

Nurse Pedigree was bustling on the other side of the room, behind the slightly-agape glass door, lecturing a couple of freshmen and sophomores who had came to ask for something to subdue the hangover. Although her voice was high and shrill with disapproval, there was a hint of affection and care as she offered to brew some coffee for the kids. On the way out to refill her kettle, Nurse Pedigree popped her head in to check on Jaime, giggled teasingly at Jaime’s half-hearted explanation, that he wanted the first one More would see when he woke up was Jaime’s murderous face.

More’s breath was slow and deep, but Jaime could sense a few hints of hitches. He set to stare intensely at More, determined to drill actual holes into More’s forehead with his gaze only.

“Where the fuck were you when I texted you?” Jaime murmured through his teeth, small enough so that people would mistaken that he was talking to himself, but loud that More would know Jaime was talking to him.

More’s unconscious rapid eyeroll movement deliberately seized, and More pursed his lips before rasped out, “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got the job done.”

Nurse Pedigree had bandaged up More’s face and sealed up his split-lips, but the ice had did little to treat the purple swell around his nose and eyes. In fact, the cold of the melted water had actually deepened the shade overnight. More kept his eyes shut as he retorted, but Jaime suspected he couldn’t open his eyes even if he wanted. Passmore had hit him hard.

“What time is it?” More whispered.

Jaime flipped his wrist. “A little over one o’clock,” Jaime was about to ask Are you feeling better?, but promptly dismissed it. Instead, he said, “Cops are trawling this place. Ahmed and his smoking buddies get arrested, but Reggie somehow manage to not get cuff and detain to fucking juvenile.” He paused. “Headmaster called an emergency day and cancelled the whole school. We’re going to have an Assembly later.” Jaime continued in an even tone, quietly, but More said nothing.

The silence stretched between them.

Out of the window, Jaime watched a bird-like shape fleeted across a corner of the sky, circling in lazy loop-de-loop before dropping like a heavy stone out of sight.

“I’ve seen the footage.” Jaime said. More’s chin trembled, and he turned his head away from Jaime. He took a shaky breath, and the exhale came out almost like a sarcastic sob. Jaime said nothing of his true mind, only rubbing his palms in slow circles against one another before eventually said, “You’ve studied the school camera before,”

“Yes,” More laughed/coughed. “I’ve figured it out myself because you ‘would never do anything reckless’, Kenneth,”

Jaime let More’s breathy words sank into the air, touched and inhaled and felt the prickled, bitter texture of betrayal with his senses.

He did not wince, nor feel shame and guilt, stabbed his chest.

No. He was envious.

Because it wasn’t him who came up with that way.

In his mind, he didn’t think about using the limitation of camera to his advantage. He was simply thinking of blatant, blunt way to provoke Passmore. And he couldn’t blame it on the alcohol in his bloodstream at the time—because, frankly, he had never consider it once in his previous planning.

It wasn’t a sign that he was getting rusty at these mind games. No, a voice snipped, It means you can be easily outsmart because you’re uncreative and not up-to-date.

Jaime swallowed down that acidic comment, but the papery starch taste loitered at the back of his mouth.

“So is this where you will call the end?” Jaime asked.

More waited for a long time to answer. “I’m just so tired,”

Jaime felt his shoulders sagged. He nodded without a word and stood up. More twisted and yanked the cover up and disappeared, the thin sheet outlined his honed, curled body underneath.

Jaime’s fingertips feathered against the keen edge of More’s bony shoulder caps, squeezing slightly.

“I’ll see you. Recover quick.” His voice was kind, velvety and almost borderline caring.

More replied with a soft, mocking “Goodbye.”

He stalked out to the Main Hallway, his strides long and eloquent. Jaime’s head was buzzing one thought only, but he decided not to disclose his mind just yet. Jaime continued his way up the Main Staircase, turning to the Junior wing. He had expected a few people slumbering around, moaning and spewing profanities while holding their heads. However, when he arrived, more than quarter of the residents were out, prowling and clustering like a pack of wolf before the hunt—their arms crossed, brows drawn, mouth set.

All alerted and angry.

Jaime’s footsteps slowed, and he shuffled over to where Keir Herring was hunching against the wall, continuously running his knuckles across his stubble.

“Barney,” One of the rugby flanker with spiky hair that Jaime forgot his name—who had wisely chose to bail out with his girlfriend before the night crashed—gritted out, explaining the situation before Jaime could ask. “Lead by a Rat.”

“What a surprise,” Jaime commented in an even, bored tone.

“Should have pour the whole raticide can down his throat when we had our chance. That Rat has been scuttling to the damned Barney for a safe ticket,” Another kid said sharply. Jaime shifted his gaze to a kid with huge pucker lips that looked like he had just got punched instead of kissed. “I overheard something when they were searching my room, but apparently, Tamar fessed up last night.” A round of repressed grunts surged up, and the boy clarified. “So now they’re being ‘cooperative’ and helping the busybodies find all evidences to jail us.” Hisses and curses coloured the air.

Jaime dropped down to a squat like Herring, cocking his head. Herring gave him a weak, watery-eye smile, but both exchanged neither greeting or an chummy-pat. Amidst the finger-pointing argument, Jaime could pick out some muffled assaultive inquiries further down the corridor. He immediately kicked the paranoia that sprung up when he realized the voices drifted from somewhere awfully close to his room.

Jaime was about to ask what exactly did the Barney ask, but the voices snapped into silence with a whiplash speed. He spotted a shock of platinum blond from the edge of his peripheral vision, then Reggie’s lanky body stumbled out, shoving a shorter boy in front of him. Herring scrambled up, a yelp lost in his flutter of clothes and feet trying to cushion the poor boy before he ran into the wall.

“I’m fine,” Ezekiel Conrad snapped, shaking Keir’s off. The two chubby boys quickly stepped aside when a stocky man swaggered out with a K9, the same man who had arrived at the party wreck first and ordered the arrest of Ahmed and his friends even before Fishburne could step up to report anything.

“Have I got everybody?” The man bit out.

Jaime also stood upright. He could physically feel every single boy straightened up, puffing out all of their manliness as the officer swept his steely gaze across the sea of punks, snorting at the foul, intense smell of puke, pus and piss and sweat.

It was the Officer that left a major impression on the students when the patron officers introducing themselves at the first day of school. The man’s name surfaced with great clarity, along with the tagline the student body had dubbed him: Officer Fitz the dick.

Reggie smirked at the fuming crowd and his eyes landed on Jaime.

Jaime, admittedly, flinched.

“Sir, there’s this kid,” Reggie pointed straight at Jaime, his index and middle finger looked too much like a gun barrel, and Jaime ignored the irk to shift out of the invisible bullet’s path.

“Jaime Kenneth?” The Officer drawled, butchering the name into five separate syllables, like it was something filthy and foreign his tongue needed time to adjust. The man reaching into his breast pocket for a pocket-size notebook and a pen, bones audibly cracked, further charged the egoistic, hormones-atmosphere. “I’m Officer Fitz.”

Jaime’s chin unconsciously jutted out in a disdainful look.

“Do you have a few minutes?” Officer Fitz leveled Jaime a scathing look. “Some quick questions regarding the case, that’s all.”

Jaime stared at Officer Fitz and sneered. “Sure thing, Sir.”

The dog barked.