Roland woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, his eyes squinting against the sunrise peeking in through his window and his mind replaying the events of the night before. Specifically, the words of the other seniors warning him against going to the police.

"We don't go to the cops until we have tangible proof of what we know."

But the events of the previous night were ingrained in Roland's mind, just waiting for him to let them out. To tell someone. He didn't want to go against the group—but at the same time, he didn't want to end up with worse injuries than Lindsey and Michael had suffered.

He didn't want to end up dead.

He rolled over to see a text from Jordan waiting, probably one that she had sent to the entire group. Roland wasn't going to get his hopes up about the secret love of his life texting him personally.

Roland turned off his phone and sat up, wondering what had made Jordan so sick when she had appeared to be fine just an hour before she sent that text.

He shook his head and got up, preparing for the day ahead of him. It may have been a weekend, but he was about to do more work than he had ever done before in his entire life.

Or, at least, he was going to do something far braver than anything he had ever done before in his entire life.

He was going to go to the police. Screw what everyone else thought; they were kids. The cops were professionals who could help.

At least, they were supposed to be professionals who could help.

***

"Hi. I'm looking for an Officer Hayden Barlow."

Officer Barlow was the only name that Roland could remember, and he felt nervous and sweaty with the precinct receptionist peering at him over her wire-rimmed glasses as if he were a bug stuck on the bottom of her loafers. He figured that asking for a specific officer would be more impressive and lead to him being taken more seriously than if he just asked to speak with anyone.

"One moment, sir." The receptionist stood and teetered away in the direction of at least thirty uniformed officers milling around, sipping coffee and chatting animatedly about their plans for the night after they got off of work.

Roland wasn't even sure if Barlow would be working on a weekend.

"Mr. Green!" Roland spun around to see the receptionist returning to her desk with Hayden Barlow right behind her. "What can I do for you this morning?"

"Officer Barlow, thank you for seeing me." Roland nodded politely, "I—"

"It's Detective Barlow now, but no problem." Barlow nodded, "Why don't we go into my office?"

Roland nodded and followed the detective through the precinct until they reached a small office in the back of the building. Barlow closed the door behind Roland and took a seat behind a large wooden desk, inviting the high schooler to sit across from him.

"What's on your mind, son? Trouble in the community? Trouble at school?"

Roland shook his head quickly.

"No, sir. I actually came to you with an odd request."

Barlow raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his seat.

"I see. Well, go ahead."

Roland nodded, taking a few deep breaths as he realized he was truly going behind the backs of the first new friends he had received since grade school...if you could call them friends. Circumstantial friends, maybe.

Whatever their definition, Roland was going behind their backs and doing what he wanted. Not what they wanted. And for that, he felt a twinge of guilt.

But he continued anyways.

"I wanted to formally request that you, or whoever is in charge of things like this, reopen the hit and run case that my sister was killed in." He sputtered out the words quickly, hoping that he would make a solid case. "Some of the kids who lost siblings in that accident—myself included—feel like it wasn't so much of an accident."

Detective Barlow raised his eyebrows, looking down at the Green boy with a mixture of concern and disbelief.

"And why wouldn't it have been an accident? I filled out the case report for the unfortunate crash, I'm very familiar with all of the events."

"I know that, and I'm not trying to undermine your work at all, sir." Roland shook his head. "I'm just saying that...well, you see, a few of us went down to the site of the crash. We were feeling like we wanted to see if there was anything there, anything that could have been left there by someone with ill will towards our siblings—"

"I scoured that ravine myself for hours, Mr. Green." Barlow interrupted, "Are you saying that you and your friends doubted my ability to correctly conduct an investigation?"

"Not at all." Roland shook his head, "But we did find something. We found Eddie Hadden's class ring, which Michael identified."

"And do you have that class ring with you?"

Roland shook his head, unwilling to tell the detective about their stalker and Michael being knocked unconscious.

"No, sir. We lost the ring in the ravine."

"Well then I'm not quite sure why you would be coming to me with zero evidence or proof concerning your claim. This is highly unprofessional of you, Roland, and I wouldn't want to have to speak with your parents about ensuring their son behaves in the correct way in our city."

Roland's eyes widened as he looked at the detective; he was a concerned citizen, worried that his sister might have been murdered instead of killed in an accident, and he was being treated like a five-year-old who had stolen a candy bar from the grocery store.

"Officer Barlow—"

"Detective Barlow."

"Detective Barlow, I don't mean to be rude or anything of that sort, but I am worried that my sister and her friends were murdered. I believe that that should be taken seriously."

"You came into a police precinct with no evidence in support of your absurd claim and expect us to bend over backwards to reopen a case that was closed over three months ago. We did a thorough investigation into the car crash that your sister was killed in, and there is nothing more that we can do in that department." Barlow looked Roland up and down, "I'm not sure why you care so much. I was under the impression that you and Erin didn't get along in the first place."

Roland's eyes widened as he stared at the detective, unsure of whether or not he was going to be able to keep himself from punching Barlow in the jaw for saying something so horrible.

He restrained himself and stood, his demeanor immediately changing from polite schoolboy to complete ice.

"I'll see myself out. I'd say thank you for your time, but I can tell that this was a complete waste of mine." Roland snapped, turning around and slamming the office door behind him.

As he left the precinct and walked out to his car, he felt a buzz in his pocket and almost screamed bloody murder. He knew who it was. He knew who would love to revel in the fact that the police were refusing to help him.

Roland resisted the urge to throw his phone at the pavement below his feet and instead opened a new message, typing in four names before writing his text.

But at least they had a suspect to put on their list of who could possibly be harassing them. Who became a detective overnight like that?

A/N: Guys I am SO sorry for the super late update. I wrote about half of the chapter on Thursday, and then every time I tried to get on my computer to write after that it wouldn't work, I had to restart it eighteen times, and I got sick of trying so I just didn't write all weekend.

But I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, even though it was late! Is Barlow involved in the murder? Let me know what you thought! I also have entered Killer Instinct in the #Wattys2018, so whatever votes or love you could give the story as the Wattys approach would be so appreciated and super helpful!

Also, be sure to check out my new author's blog for sneak peeks at chapters (There was a sneak peek up for this chapter on Thursday of last week on there!) and for other stuff like deleted chapters from other books (Dear Sydney, anyone?) and other fun character info and stuff like that! It's katherinepowellbooks.wordpress.com and the link is also the external link for this chapter! Check it out!

-Katherine