I fell to my knees, the words echoing through my brain.
"Viktor Hale is dead."
These are words I never thought I'd hear. He… lost? To him? No matter what the truth is, one thing was clear in my mind.
Jeffrey Thompson had a price to pay.
I would make sure he pays it.
The phone had already hung up by the time I collected myself off the floor, then something occurred to me. Why was I reacting like this?
Sure, Viktor is the only person I would really consider myself close to, but even then it's not been anything crazy. Maybe there was more to myself that I hadn't realized… Which means…
I am not perfect.
Maybe Rebecca was right, maybe there is some truth in realizing my emotions, and taking a more "human" approach to things.
But then again, last time we tried something like that…
Something bad happened.
I will figure this out, my way. Right now, I need to sleep. It's nearly 11 at night, and I have to go back to Jefferson High tomorrow. When I wake up, I will begin the search for Jeffrey Thompson.
…
I woke up rested and full of energy that I plan to put to good use today. On the walk to school, I was reminded that Rebecca will also be attending with me. She ran up behind me, screaming:
"FREDRICK!!!"
I paused and turned just in time for her to crash into me, sending us both tumbling to the ground.
I sat up, groaning.
"There was no need for that."
She sat up as well, rubbing her forehead.
"I guess I didn't think that one through, did I?"
"Clearly not."
I picked myself up off the ground and held out a hand to her. She took it and hoisted herself up. Apparently, she considered her first day to a high school full of below average intelligence students a major occasion, since she had her hair up in a ponytail, makeup done, and wearing a red dress that went down to her ankles. She had a jacket on too, likely trying to not get dressed coded.
"Are you sure this outfit is appropriate for the occasion?" I asked, allowing my skepticism to appear in my voice.
She smiled slyly and turned to face me.
"Why? Is it too distracting?" She said, and she did a quick twirl, clearly trying to get me to blush, to no avail.
"No, you're just going over the top, I think. Everyone dresses rather casually here."
She frowned.
"You're no fun."
After some more back and forth, we made it to the front gate of the school. I quickly glanced around to see if I could catch a glimpse of Jeffrey around, but I didn't spy him.
"Rebecca, you and Vik swapped schedules, right?"
She stopped to dig her phone out of her pocket. After scrolling for a few seconds, she found the schedule.
"Did Viktor have a… uh… Ms. Smith? For his homeroom?"
I nodded.
"Yup."
"Then, yes."
"Alright, do you know what Jeffrey Thompson looks like?"
She shook her head.
"Never met him, is he hot?"
I froze.
"Not particularly. But he's about yay high," I said, holding my hand up to around 67 inches off the ground, since that's how tall I guessed he was. "Has black hair, and is fairly skinny, probably needs to eat more."
She nodded.
"Alright, and what do you want me to do if I see him, seduce him?"
Is she sober right now? Where are these comments coming from?
"Absolutely not, well, if you want, I guess, but just let me know if he's there, then keep him there after class until I get there."
She nodded.
"Alright, I can do that. Don't worry, no seducing will be occurring," She then got her mouth really close to my ear and whispered, "I'm saving myself for you."
Then she turned away and walked to the school building, waving goodbye.
"I'll text you if I see him!"
This is starting to get irritating.
I followed her into the school building. As I made my way to Mrs. Johnson's class, several students welcomed me back, patting me on the back, shaking my hand and whatnot. It was rather strange, I wonder what the boss said to the principal?
After a bit of walking, I made it to the classroom, where I was greeted by Mrs. Johnson herself.
"Welcome back, Mr. Stevenson, how was your break?" She said with a really large smile, shuddering with what I can only assume is excitement. I'm starting to really wonder what the boss had said.
"Thanks, thanks, it was alright. Sorry for the sudden absence, I can only assume the principal told you about my situation." This wouldn't do much, but the response will likely give me some insight.
Mrs. Johnson gave me a blank stare before recomposing herself.
"Mr. Stevenson, do you not remember? Since Viktor has left the school, Emma took over as student council president. As president, she needs a vice president…"
She continued saying words, but already knew what was coming. Emma made me her vice president, but why?
This doesn't make any sense, I mean sure we're close, but I didn't think that close. Nonetheless, this was both a good thing and a bad thing.
This was good in the sense that now my popularity would skyrocket, and I also have insane influence over the school, with my only real opposition now being the principal, but he's been rather silent during all this. I knew the principal was close with Jeffrey Thompson, I might have to go ask him a few questions in the future.
This was bad news in the sense that now this would get in the way of trying to hunt Jeffrey down. Luckily, I had an idea.
First, I have important things to do.
"…so that's why I think the Vice President role is just as essential as the actual Council President. Catch all that?"
I zoned out while Mrs. Johnson was yapping about her views on the presidency and stuff, I had more critical things to worry about. I nodded.
"Yup."
I did not catch all that.
She gave a relieved smile.
"I'm so glad someone else agrees. Anyway, since you're the vice president, your homeroom isn't with me anymore. You should go to the council meeting room, I'm sure Emma would be happy to show you the way."
You know, speaking of Emma, I actually hadn't seen her yet today. Which is rather odd, she seemed so exci-
"FREDRIIIIIIIIIIICK!"
Was the last thing I heard before someone threw themselves at me and we both crash-landed on the ground.
It was Emma.
What is with these women and screaming my name as they tackle me to the ground. Seriously, they should consider professional women's football at this point.
I picked up myself off the floor and helped Emma up as well. She was dressed nicely as usual, blue jeans that were probably a few sizes too short and a long sleeved red t-shirt covered by a black leather jacket.
"Good to see you too, Emma."
"Did you hear?"
I gave a weak smile.
"About being vice president? Yes, I did."
Mrs. Johnson decided to join the conversation after narrowly avoiding being caught in the crossfire earlier.
"Yes, I told him about it!" She said this like it was something important. "I was just telling him that you should show him to the student council room."
Emma's eyes lit up at the thought of this.
"O-M-G you are SO RIGHT!" She then grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the council meeting room. "Let's get going, bell's about to ring!"
I nervously waved goodbye to Mrs. Johnson.
"Have a good day!" She grinned an evil smile back, she knew what she was doing.
After a couple of twists and turns, we made it to the student council meeting room. I did actually remember this room from when I first came to the school and put the entire first floor into my long-term memory. The room was enormous. All the walls were painted pure white and had several photos of different school achievements covering the walls. Although, these photos seemed to be quite old, with the latest year I could find being 1998, quite a fall off it seems. There were three big windows on the left and right walls and one on the back wall. In the middle of the room, a giant table that stretched down the middle that looked like it could seat probably 20 people at least.
It seems that Emma and I were the first people to arrive, since the room was completely empty. She motioned towards the head of the table and the empty chair next to it, which I could only assume were the president and vice president's seats.
The rest of the students made their way into the room and assumed their seats, it really was impressive the work Emma was able to put in, and in such short notice as well. After some short introductions, things were finally on their way.
Emma clasped her hands together.
"Alright, everyone! It's time our vice president introduces himself." She turned towards me and beamed.
I smiled and stood up.
"Hey, guys." I said with all the charisma I could gather. "My name's Fredrick Stevenson, Fredrick's fine. I came here due to my parents moving for a job opportunity. There are a lot of ideas I have to help improve the school. I'm very excited to work with you all."
Damn, that shit was weak. To be fair, I had a rough sleep last night, my mental cognition wasn't up to its normal standard.
I received a little round of applause before one guy raised his hand for a question.
"Yes, you sir?" I asked, pointing to the guy. He stood up and was wearing a yellow suit with a black tie, a very interesting style choice. Purple glasses and a face decorated with pimples. This guy seemed interesting, like he knew more than everything else in the room. His posture gave off overconfidence. I believe his name was Bob Joel, if I remembered correctly.
"Hello, Fredrick. Glad you could join the student council team! I happen to be the event coordinator here. I was wondering, since you said you had a lot of ideas to help improve the school, let's kick off the meeting with some of those ideas, shall we?"
Very interesting response from this guy. I got the feeling there was a hidden agenda behind his words, but for now I decided to focus on the meeting.
What if he's an ally of Jeffrey Thompson?
I shrugged the thought off, it was nothing important. I was being irrational.
"Yeah, I could totally do that."
I sat back down and so did Bob.
Emma perked up to add something.
"I'm so excited for this year, guys! We're going to do great things for the school."
Everyone erupted in applause and cheers, which confirmed my theory of most people being here just for Emma, not to help the school. Bob Joel did seem to be one of those people, however.
"Alright, first order of business. I've done my research, and clearly this school needs an upgrade in both the physical fronts and academic fronts. However, we should tackle these issues one at a time. I was thinking to start with the academic side first, any objections?"
A hand raised from Bob.
"What if we try to do both at the same time, what issues would stop that?"
If this guy was trying to get on my nerves, it was working. I decided to pay closer attention to him. His demeanor was very calm, he felt like he was in control. He wants me to feel this way. What if he really was with Jeffrey? Trying to stall me while he attempts an escape. No worries, I already suspected as much. I seemed to have underestimated Jeffrey up until this point and I will not make that mistake again, but Jeffrey has also made a mistake.
He underestimated me.
I will admit, Bob was hard to read at first, but his appearance confirms something for me.
Jeffrey Thompson will no longer be at school.
This conclusion may seem illogical at first, but allow me to explain it. I have never seen this guy before, but everyone else has. Jeffrey is a lot smarter than I initially gave him credit for, which it would make sense he anticipated a situation like this from the beginning. It would sense to keep a hidden ally, with no communication between the two at all.
Bob Joel was Jeffrey's trick up his sleeve.
But I had mine too.
"Even though we have 21 members on this council, Emma and I included, it would be difficult to focus on revamping essentially the entirety of the school in one fell swoop. It'd be best to focus on revamping the academic portion first, then tackling the athletic side. Does that make sense?"
He nodded, realizing the further arguing with me wouldn't end well for him.
"I do, thanks for the clarification."
The rest of the meeting was the same old back and forth, but I couldn't learn more from Bob Joel.
He's such a mystery to me.
The bell rang, ending the first period of the day, and we went back to our normal classes. In the third period, I learned that Rebecca took the place of what would've been Viktor. We had a small conversation but nothing super important.
During lunch, I sat with Emma and Rebecca joined in later. They had a lovely chat about women's things, but I was too busy focusing on my game plan to pay attention.
I really wanted to be the one to hunt down Jeffrey Thompson myself and kill him myself, but with my new position, that would be impossible. Meaning that I'd have to wait until the next school break, which was a month away.
Assuming he lasted that long.
The final bell rang after hours of school, which was incredibly boring. I hated normal school, I learned all this stuff when I was 12 years old.
On the walk back, I decided to do some probing of my own, since Emma took a different route to go back to her house today.
"So, Rebecca, what was with all that talk about seducing this morning."
She giggled, then returned to a stoic look.
"I was only joking, seriously you have to stop taking everything so seriously. You're so smart and for what? Imagine what you could do with normal feelings, someone like Jeffrey!"
I stopped.
"Do NOT compare to that guy. He is nothing more than vermin to me. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm now student council president, I'd already be hunting him down. Anyway, please do not make jokes like that, I'd have to report you to the boss. I thought you wanted me with Emma anyway."
She sighed.
"Women are so much more complicated than you think, Freddy. Yeah, I'll stop."
The rest of the walk was in silence.
Once back in my hotel room, I had an important phone call to make.
"Who is it?" A deep voice grumbled across the phone.
"Hello, Mark." I said casually. "I need you to do something for me."
"Ah, Fredrick. What can I do for you?"
"I need you to do everything in your power to hunt down and kill Jeffrey Thompson. He is the reason why Viktor is now dead."
"Understood."