This is a very long chapter.
Enjoy reading!
Notices, club recruitment posters, and colorful slips of paper counting down to Homecoming densely covered the hallway walls.
Ariel had just stepped out of the classroom.
“Ariel!”
“Ms.
Patterson.”
“Dear, do you still have that recommendation letter template you helped Dennis with last week?
I need three copies before five o’clock this afternoon,” Ms.
Patterson from the Administration Office said, holding a stack of forms.
“Also, regarding the transfer students’ credit recognition forms—you know the Kansas credit transfer rules better than I do.
Could you take a look for me?”
“Hand them over.”
Ariel took the forms, glanced through them, and couldn’t help but frown.
“Ms.
Patterson, this system of yours is out of date.
Did you forget?
The state government updated the coefficient table just this spring.”
“Oh goodness, Ariel.
Look at my memory!”
“You’re welcome, dear lady.
Though I still think you ought to learn how to operate a smart computer.
As far as I know, you trick enthusiastic students like me into running computers for you every single day.”
“Well, aren’t you right here, my dear Ariel?”
“I’m graduating in two years,” Ariel said helplessly.
“Then you can just come right back and take over as principal.”
“?”
Politely declining Ms.
Patterson’s well-meaning ‘Three Years to Department Head, Five Years to Principal’ plan, Ariel turned and left.
But as he passed the corner on the second floor…
“Ariel!”
“That formula you mentioned last time—you know, that thing…
Coach said if I fail my midterms again, he’s benching me.
Could you…”
“Wednesday afternoon, go find Clark,” Ariel answered without turning back.
“He’ll teach you.”
“Got it!”
Ariel shook his head and kept walking.
Next up was the half-open door of the AV room, from which came intermittent static and a girl’s desperate wailing.
“Broken again?!
Quick, go get Ariel Kent!”
What a coincidence.
Are you serious?
Still, it was equipment breaking down; something like this couldn’t possibly be intentional, right?
Scratching his cheek as these thoughts crossed his mind, Ariel instinctively pushed open the door and stepped inside, only to see Emily, the head of the AV club, crouching beside the equipment rack with a thoroughly depressed look on her face.
“No need to get him, I happen to be here.”
Under Emily’s glowing gaze, he casually inspected the setup.
“Loose connection.
Go to the equipment room, grab a new 6.35mm cable, and swap it out.”
“Ariel, how do you know how to do everything?” Emily pressed in close, eyes practically floating with heart shapes.
“I don’t know how to cook,” Ariel said, standing up and dusting off his hands.
“Then why don’t you come home with me?
How about I treat you to some seafood?”
“Kansas…
has seafood?”
Ariel was flabbergasted.
Snap—!
Pete Ross lowered the Polaroid camera from his eyes, watching the newly ejected photo slowly develop.
In the frame, Ariel Kent stood at the door of the AV room, dealing with the flock of admirers crowding around him.
“As expected of Ariel,” Pete clicked his tongue, handing the photo to Chloe beside him.
“If Ariel were a rich kid, he’d definitely be a playboy.”
Chloe took the photo.
“Twenty minutes,” she marveled.
“In these twenty minutes, he passed through four different places, got flagged down by twelve girls, and handled fifteen tasks—not a single one having anything to do with himself.
All of them were helping others.”
“And?” Pete asked.
“So he’s the kind of guy where, if you so much as harbor a passing suspicion about him, the entire school will stand up to speak on his behalf.” Chloe clipped the photo into her notebook and turned to look at the quiet girl standing behind her.
“Lana, are you sure…
do you really think Ariel would take your stuff?”
Lana Lang stood beside the water cooler, her hands mindlessly wringing her sleeves.
“I didn’t say he stole it,” she lowered her eyes.
“But that day, Ariel was the only person who entered the dance studio…”
“Maybe Ariel took it, or maybe Ariel knows something…”
“That bracelet is very important to me…”
“But you don’t have evidence,” Chloe said bluntly.
“That’s why I wanted to observe first…”
“And what have we observed so far?
A Mr.
Nice Guy who gets stopped by everyone in the hallway for help?” Chloe huffed.
“Nobody’s going to believe Ariel’s character would let him do something like that.
Even if you’re the cheerleader captain, I don’t think your popularity is higher than Smallville High’s designated King.”
Lana bit her lip, not offering a reply.
Silence stretched between them.
Until Clark, who had been leaning against the wall, shoved the football he had been holding into Pete’s arms and let out a soft sigh.
“Let’s drop it,” he said, his tone turning firm.
He had been dragged along by Chloe to investigate Ariel right after football practice ended.
Though he had been extremely reluctant to participate, he felt an obligation to supervise them to prevent this group from crossing the line behind his and his brother’s backs.
“Clark,” Chloe turned her head to look at him.
“We’re investigating right now.”
“You are helping Lana stalk my brother,” Clark looked at her, emphasizing every single word.
“And he hasn’t done anything.”
“Chloe, stop.
If you guys keep this up, I’m going to tell Principal Waddington that someone is photographing students without permission.”
Seeing Clark—who was rarely fierce—get like this, Chloe pursed her lips and packed her notebook away into her bag.
“Alright, alright.” Seeing his usually mild-tempered childhood friend speak such harsh words, Pete scratched his head and tried to play peacemaker.
“Chloe’s just a bit too interested in Ariel.
You know how it is, Clark.
She’s been at odds with Ariel since they were kids.”
“Lana.”
Clark looked at Lana.
The girl’s brownish-red hair slid off her shoulder, her pretty dark eyes filled with apology and unwillingness.
“I just wanted to…”
“If you find evidence,” Clark said, “you can come find me anytime.
But until then, please don’t do something like this again.”
“I…”
Without waiting for Lana to respond, the young man turned and walked away, his back quickly disappearing around the corner of the hallway.
“Yo.”
Ariel was leaning against the corner wall in a relaxed posture, a half-smile on his face that made Clark’s skin crawl.
“How long have you been standing there?” Clark felt a chill at the back of his neck.
Had Ariel’s senses gotten stronger again?
Dammit, just how far ahead of him was he?!
“Long enough,” Ariel hummed.
“And as for you, Clark—to curry favor with your cheerleader captain, you actually sold out your own brother?”
“Clark Kent, I despise you.”
“I didn’t sell you out!” Clark instinctively raised his volume, then realized there were other people in the hallway and quickly hushed his voice.
“I only went along to keep an eye on them so they wouldn’t do anything out of line…”
“Lana said she lost a bracelet with a green stone.
Then she said you were the last person to enter and leave the dance studio before it went missing…”
“She thinks I took it?” Ariel raised an eyebrow.
Clark nodded.
“Is that so?”
Ariel straightened up, tilting his head as he looked toward the end of the hallway, seemingly deep in thought.
“Got it,” he said.
Clark’s brow furrowed.
He was far too familiar with this tone.
“Ariel.”
“Hm?”
“It…
wasn’t actually you who took it, was it?”
“You think I’d steal a cheap bracelet belonging to a cheerleader captain?”
“Then what did you mean by ‘got it’ just now?” Clark stared dead into his eyes, refusing to let go.
“You’ve had this exact attitude since we were kids whenever you were hiding something from me.
When you were five, you finished eating Mom’s blueberry pie and told me, ‘I know where the pie went, it’s definitely in your belly, Clark.’ When you were eight, you took Dad’s radio apart and said, ‘I know how to fix it,’ and after you fixed it, there were three leftover screws.
When you were twelve, you took my notebook to prop up Joanna’s table leg and said, ‘I know where it is’…”
“Every time you say ‘got it,’ it means you know something I don’t know, and you absolutely don’t plan on telling me.”
The corner of Ariel’s mouth twitched.
“When did your memory get this good?”
“My super-memory tells me my brother is a guy carrying around more secrets than a squirrel hiding acorns,” Clark said earnestly.
“Get lost,” Ariel swung his foot and kicked him in the shin.
Clark dodged a step and grinned.
The flow of people in the hallway gradually thinned out.
Someone ran past them in a hurry, textbooks rattling inside their bag.
Everything was thoroughly ordinary—so ordinary that one could almost forget that among the two people standing in this hallway, one could flip a truck with his bare hands, and the other could shoot energy beams from his eyes.
Clark stepped forward, opening his arms to give Ariel a solid, firm hug.
“…?” Ariel was flabbergasted.
“You do a lot of things in secret—like the green stones, like the football team.
Even though you never tell us, I know you’re doing it for our own good.” Clark tightened his arms.
“Thanks, Ariel.
I love you, bro.”
“Clark, are you possessed by some alien parasite?”
“No.”
“Are you dying?
“Don’t tell me Red King is landing on Earth in three minutes?”
What on earth is this guy talking about?
“Ariel,” Clark unclasped his arms, speaking with complete sincerity.
“Sometimes, a sentence just means what it literally says.”
Evening.
Smallville High School.
In front of the artificial lake.
The drooping willow branches along the shore were occasionally stirred by the evening breeze, tracing fine ripples across the water’s surface.
“Derrick…”
“Hm?”
“Do you think we shouldn’t be here…
isn’t the school off-limits at night…”
“Don’t worry, babe.
The security guard left at nine.”
Two figures were pressed tightly together on the bench.
“Babe.”
“You know, under the moonlight, you really look like…”
“Look like what?”
“Like…”
Gurgle-gurgle-gurgle…
A string of bubbles bubbled up from the lake’s surface.
“…A water monster?” The girl clutched her boyfriend’s arm tightly.
“Probably a fish?
There should be fish in this lake, right…” Derrick swallowed hard.
A moment later.
The lake surface restored its quiet calm.
The two exchanged a look, and Derrick let out a breath of relief, reaching a hand toward his waist drawstring.
“Babe, hold on for a second, my very b—”
GURGLE-GURGLE-GURGLE-GURGLE-GURGLE—!!
This time the bubbles were bigger and far more numerous, churning up from the center of the lake.
The water’s surface began to vibrate, ripples expanding outward circle by circle, continuously lapping against the pebbles along the shore.
“W-Water monster…?!” The girl stood up in sheer terror.
“Stay calm!
Stay calm!” Derrick stood up, frantically trying to tie his waistband.
“Maybe it’s a gas pipe…
the school’s drainage system…”
The water in the center of the lake bulged upward.
“ROAR—!”
A muffled roar echoed from beneath the water.
“AHHHHH—!!!”
The girl screamed, shoved Derrick aside, and bolted.
“Wait for me, babe!!
Wait for me!!”
Derrick scrambled on hands and knees to give chase.
Silence returned once more to the lake.
The bubbles beneath the water ceased.
“Hahahahaha…”
A golden head broke through the water from the center of the lake.
“That idiot Derrick…” Ariel floated on the surface of the water with his face tilted back, laughing so hard tears almost came out.
“Giving back my big…”
He tossed his soaking-wet hair back, swimming toward the shore while laughing.
The water parted around his movements, and the moonlight shattered into silver scales along both sides of his body.
“Secured.”
Lifting the stone up to turn it under the moonlight, Ariel scrutinized the flowing fluorescence inside it.
Kryptonite.
The very stone he had casually tossed into the lake at noon today.
Over the years, every single piece of Kryptonite that could be found within thirty kilometers of Smallville had ended up in the palm of his hand on some unnoticeable late night through this exact method.
He just didn’t know where Whitney Fordman had managed to score this thing from.
However, that question wasn’t important right now.
What mattered was that it couldn’t remain within their family’s living radius.
Crunch…
The Kryptonite crumbled into a small pinch of glowing green dust in Ariel’s hand.
He tilted his head back and raised his palm below his nose; the dust rose from his palm, turning into thin wisps of smoke that rushed up his nasal cavity and into his lungs.
Hum—!
Bones vibrated, muscles expanded, and golden light danced within his pupils.
An Eternal.
Apart from solar radiation, Ariel could absorb and convert any form of radiant energy—be it cosmic rays, gamma rays, or these radioactive minerals originating from Krypton buried beneath the soil of Kansas…
Things that were lethal poison to Clark were nothing more to him than hard liquor with a slightly higher alcohol proof.
This stuff had quite a kick.
Ariel closed his eyes, feeling the process of the Kryptonite radiation being broken down and stored level by level inside his body.
The energy density within his cells was steadily climbing.
[King Hyperion — Template Mastery: 38% → 38.1%]
One tenth of a percentage point.
Better than nothing.
Bits and pieces added up.
Over eight years, it wasn’t just by soaking in the sun; there were also these Kryptonite fragments providing an extra bite of nourishment every so often.
Adding it all up, they had contributed less than two percentage points in total.
The primary source was still the sun.
Always the sun.
Yet that didn’t stop the absorption experience of Kryptonite from being a hundred times better than sunbathing.
Sunbathing was like drinking plain boiled water to slowly nourish health, whereas absorbing Kryptonite was like knocking back a whole glass of vodka in one gulp.
It was all about that raw kick.
Moonlight washed over his face.
Ariel kept his mouth slightly open in the water, every inch of muscle across his body numbing in supreme satisfaction.
Deep within his pupils, points of light rotated slowly, like two stars ignited inside his eyes.
Without a doubt, if anyone saw his expression at this exact moment, he would most likely be taken for…
Flash—!
A burst of white light suddenly flickered.
A camera flash?!
Golden eyes ignited.
Ariel turned on his super vision in the darkness, and the grass under the moonlight shone as bright as daylight in his field of view.
When he clearly saw who had arrived, however, his eyes couldn’t help but narrow.
Someone was curled up in the shadow of the bushes, holding a camera up with both hands aimed at him.
Brownish-red hair fell across her shoulders, and she was shivering violently.
“Come here.”
Ariel remained half-submerged in the lake, his pupils glowing bright in the dark.
The girl’s knees buckled, and she slumped onto the grass.
“It’s me.”
Looking at the cheerleader who was trembling into a ball, Ariel sighed helplessly.
Why is she everywhere?
Lana used her hands for support on the ground to slowly stand up.
“Secretly taking photos of people in the middle of the night isn’t very polite,” Ariel rested his arms on the stone ledge along the shore, his tone lazy—as if the monster whose entire body had been glowing with golden light and whose pupils had been burning just now didn’t exist at all.
“Captain Lana.”
“Ariel…
what were you…
just doing…” Lana spoke cautiously.
“Were you inhaling…
eating that…”
“I’m cleaning up radioactive material residue for the school,” Ariel said without batting an eye, looking entirely solemn.
“Long-term exposure to this stone poses a potential pollution risk to the water supply.
The school’s environmental budget doesn’t cover the harmless disposal of radioactive souvenirs, so I volunteered to work overtime.”
“But…” Lana’s expression was written full of confusion.
“Why use that kind of…”
“That’s a long story.”
As Ariel spoke, he swam toward the rescue ladder on the shore.
Just as his hands gripped the rust-mottled handrail, however—
Snap.
The wooden rung snapped right down the middle, and Ariel’s center of gravity lurched backward violently.
Lana instinctively reached out to grab his wrist.
It was a well-meaning but foolish decision.
When a cheerleader captain weighing barely over fifty kilograms attempted to pull a King Hyperion who was floating in the water, there could only be one outcome…
“Ah—!”
Plop.
The two of them tumbled into the lake, one after the other.
The corner of Ariel’s mouth twitched.
He could easily have used his feet to tread water and stand completely unfazed, but if he did that…
So he could only choose to go with the momentum and sink down, pinching the girl’s soft, slender waist in one grip and lifting her entire body high above his head.
“…?!”
Lana’s scream caught in her throat.
She found herself held high by a pair of arms; the moon was right within reach, and the wind whipped past her ears.
“Put…
put me down!”
The girl began to struggle, her legs kicking wildly in the air.
“Down?”
Looking at the thrashing girl above his head, Ariel let out a cold chuckle and slightly loosened his grip.
Gurgle-gurgle-gurgle—
Lana sank into the water.
Lake water flooded her nasal cavity, but immediately after, a surge of force fished her back up from the bottom of the lake, hoisting her high above his head once more.
“Still want to get down?”
A muffled, suppressed laugh came from below her.
Lana’s hair was plastered wetly against her cheeks, dripping water as she shook her head pitifully.
“Then be quiet.”
Ariel adjusted his angle, his legs slowly moving through the water toward the shore.
Gathering momentum, he launched upward, casually setting Lana down onto the grass.
Overwhelmed by panic, however, the moment the girl found her footing, she instinctively took a massive step backward.
One step forward, one step back.
It wasn’t until Lana backed right into a tree trunk that she had nowhere left to retreat.
“W-What are you going to do…” she stammered.
“Relax, I don’t have any improper thoughts toward a drowned rat.
Besides, the color is bleeding out of your clothes; you look like melted strawberry ice cream.” Ariel sighed, scanning the girl in front of him from top to bottom.
The lake water caused her pink sweater to cling tightly to her body, and her jeans outlined the tight contours of her thighs.
It had to be said—Lana Lang was practically a textbook archetype of the blonde cheerleader trope from every American teen movie, both open-minded and generous in stature.
Ariel smacked his lips, rummaged around in his pocket, pulled out a pack of tissues, and tossed it into her arms.
Staring blankly at the tissues printed with a small bear pattern, Lana was about to say something, but Ariel had already hooked his finger around the camera hanging from her chest. Find the original chapter at g.com.
With a gentle tug and a soft clack, a memory card appeared in his hand.
Splash—!
The tiny black chip fell into the moonlight-dappled lake water.
“Camera’s back to you,” he stuffed the camera body back into her arms.
“Don’t secretly take pictures of me in the future.”
Leaning against the tree trunk, Lana listened to the footsteps gradually receding across the grass.
Her knees felt weak as she slowly slid down to sit, pulling out a tissue to wipe the water off her face.
She looked at her soaked upper body.
Just two minutes ago, they had crashed into the bottom of the lake together, even her underwear soaked through in the icy water.
So where on earth had Ariel pulled out dry tissues from?
An eerie chill inexplicably welled up inside her.
Lana looked toward the distance at the golden-haired youth walking unhurriedly toward the school building.
In the dead of night, what was he going to do inside there again?
Standing in front of the Administration Office, Ariel pulled a ring of keys from his pocket.
The first key had a small label attached reading ‘AV Room.’ When was that given to him again?
It seemed Emily had shoved it into his hands last week.
Ariel silently flipped it to the side.
The next key was a relatively new silver one, with a line of rounded handwriting on its label: Feel free to come find me anytime you want to practice dancing—Jenny.
When had he accepted the key to the dance studio?
Who was this Jenny?
And what was this?
Ariel glanced suspiciously at the label on the third key, his hands shaking so hard he almost dropped the entire keychain.
Principal’s Office.
Who on earth hung this on his keychain?!
A moment later.
Having gathered a complete set of all-access passes for every area of Smallville High, Ariel finally fished out Ms.
Patterson’s key.
Click.
Slipping into the Administration Office, Ariel casually pulled the door shut behind him.
Familiar with the layout even in the dark, he navigated around the file cabinets in the moonlight and sat down in front of the computer.
The blue glow of the screen lit up his face.
On an afternoon two weeks ago, he had picked up Kryptonite fluctuations while passing by the dance studio door.
So he pushed the door open to check the locker, but inside there was only a pair of dance shoes; the Kryptonite itself was long gone, leaving only residual radiation floating inside the locker, which he regretfully absorbed to completion.
Before he could even step out of his blissful state, however, Lana Lang was standing at the door of the dance studio, holding her cheerleading uniform, her eyes wide as she stared at the boy swooning in front of her locker.
It was an extremely awkward scene back then.
Fortunately, he had run fast.
Lana clearly hadn’t intended to let it go, though.
From that day on, she had been like a persistent little hound, biting onto his pant leg and refusing to let go—first looking for Clark, then Chloe, and tonight secretly taking photos by the lake.
Ariel sighed, his fingers tapping across the keyboard.
The computer in the Administration Office was connected to the storage server for all campus surveillance video.
He pulled up the surveillance footage, dragging the timeline back to that afternoon two weeks ago.
Blank.
A full forty minutes of recording had been wiped completely clean, leaving only a black screen in the middle.
The footage before he entered the dance studio had been deleted.
Who deleted it?
Ariel’s fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment as he accessed the system administrator’s operation log.
Fortunately, the deletion time had left a paper trail.
Two weeks ago, that afternoon at 17:34.
Operating Terminal: Principal’s Office, Administrator Account.
That old bastard Waddington?
Ariel frowned, continuing to scroll down.
Immediately, his pupils shrank slightly.
On the same day, from the same terminal, at 17:41…
Someone had accessed the student file database.
And opened Joanna Kent’s medical record file.
“I heard some unfamiliar faces have shown up in town lately.”
The old security guard’s words echoed in his ears.
Ariel leaned back against the chair.
Indeed, over these past few days, he had intermittently felt a sense of incongruity…
A few unfamiliar faces had appeared in the supermarket, and men in black occasionally flashed past on the way home from school…
Could it be that while searching, they had simply taken the Kryptonite bracelet from Lana’s locker on the side?
Their real target hadn’t been any bracelet from the start?
Someone had their eyes on Joanna.
Ariel slowly closed his eyes, his ears twitching slightly.
Tap, tap, tap.
Footsteps came from the hallway, their rhythm light and hesitant.
He turned his head toward the door, a look of helplessness surfacing on his face.
The door was gently pushed open.
A girl poked half her head in.
She had likely followed him the entire way, her face presently filled with terror and persistence.
“…Is haunting people an elective course that counts toward GPA?” Ariel said, speechless.
“Didn’t I say that what happened in the dance studio that day was a misunderstanding?”
Lana bit her lip and walked in, her hands wringing in front of her as she looked at him pitifully.
“Can you give it back to me, Ariel…” she said softly.
“That bracelet is really important to me.
Even if the stone was…
was eaten by you, can’t you at least give the chain back to me?”
Ariel was utterly speechless.
There was only residual radiation in your locker, not even a chain!
The entire bracelet was long gone!
Where am I supposed to pull one out from to give back to you?!
Evidently, the Creator had given this silly girl the most smoking hot curves, but forgot to install a shred of common sense into her brain.
“Lana…”
“I’ll keep your secret!
I can swear on the Bible or whatever…” The girl took a step forward, her water-blue eyes exceptionally serious.
“As long as you give it back to me, I’ll do whatever—”
Before her words could finish.
Ariel’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He pressed the power button with his finger while his other hand reached out, grabbing Lana’s wrist.
He yanked her whole body in from the doorway, using his toe to hook the door leaf and pull it shut softly, making not a single sound.
Lana opened her mouth to say something, but Ariel covered her mouth directly with his hand, dragging her along as he stuffed her into the metal cabinet in the corner of the Administration Office.
The space was cramped.
The girl’s warm, wet chest bumped right against Ariel’s chest.
“Mmh-mmh—!” Lana struggled, wanting to push him away.
“Be quiet.”
Pressed right against the shell of the girl’s ear, Ariel’s words carried the chill of the un-dried lake water.
Lana froze; she heard the sound too.
Two people, one after the other, were heading right this way.
Click—!
The door opened.
Through the crack, Lana could see that the person walking in front was a woman, followed behind by a young man.
The Torch office.
Pete Ross pinched the last photo out of the chemical bath, hanging it onto the string used for drying photos.
“Seriously, Chloe,” he said, looking at the rows of black-and-white photos still dripping on the line, his tone carrying a touch of emotion.
“What do you think Ariel is made of?”
“What do you mean?”
Chloe was using a magnifying glass to inspect the negatives shot today.
“Look…” Pete pointed his wet finger at a few of the photos.
“This one is him tutoring Derrick in physics, this one is him fixing equipment for the AV station, this one is him drawing generator wiring diagrams for Michael, and this one is him checking transfer student forms with Ms.
Patterson…”
“And?”
“At noon today, he casually ground Whitney Fordman’s dignity into the dirt and back, and after school this afternoon, he was seen helping first-graders at the town elementary school carry books…”
Pete spread both hands.
“I want to become a guy like Ariel too,” he said seriously.
“The kind where…
you know?
Wherever he goes, good things naturally happen.”
“Dammit, the guy’s practically blessed by God.
Where on earth did this modern-day savior come from?!”
Chloe raised her head from behind the magnifying glass, glancing at Pete.
“Pete.”
“Yeah?”
“You haven’t even handed in your own homework, and you’re here daydreaming about becoming Ariel?”
Pete’s shoulders slumped.
“Your words are so hurtful.”
Chloe ignored him, lowering her head again to study the negatives.
Pete, thoroughly bored, took down a few photos from the string that had already dried, laying them out on the darkroom workbench.
There was a long shot of the lakeside at noon today, candid shots in the hallway, and a few casual snaps taken in front of the records room door.
He picked out one photo each featuring Ariel, Clark, and Joanna, placing them together and tilting his head to examine them for a moment.
How should he put it?
Since he, Pete, was friends with Clark, and Clark and Ariel were brothers, then rounding it up, he was practically part of the Kent family too!
Pete chuckled and was about to pack the photos away when his movements suddenly froze, his peripheral vision catching something.
“Ch…
Chloe?”
“Spit it out.”
“Come over and take a look at this.”
Chloe set down the negative in her hand and walked over, following Pete’s finger to look at that photo.
The focus of the photo was Ariel.
He was standing under the willow tree cracking sunflower seeds, surrounded by a few guys from the football team.
On the right edge of the frame, however, behind the bench on the shore, there was a figure.
The white-haired, one-eyed security guard was bending over, packing away the warning signs by the lake.
Pete picked up another photo.
Ariel was standing at the door of the AV room talking to Emily, while in the background of the frame, at the door of the equipment room at the end of the hallway, someone was standing on a ladder changing a lightbulb on the ceiling.
Pete quickly pulled out a third photo.
In front of the records room door, the main subject was Ms.
Patterson going to retrieve files, but in the shadows at the corner of the background hallway, a cleaning cart was being slowly pushed past.
The old man from the security booth.
Smith Wilson.
Any time, any place, he seemed to be there.
In the background of every single photo, this white-haired, one-eyed old man appeared quietly right there, doing some trivial piece of work.
Chloe whipped her head up sharply.
“Pete, hurry up and find every single photo taken of Ariel this year,” her voice was fast and quiet.
“All of them.”