His Dark Reign

9. The second stone 2

Adam moved as if by habit, casual and unhurried. A hand on Ethan’s shoulder, a push that seemed playful. Ethan stumbled into the foot of the spotlight—an old rig hung over the stage, a web of catwalks and cables. The metal groaned when Ethan grabbed it.

“Watch it,” Ethan muttered. He laughed it off and shoved Adam away with a staged show of bravado. “You trying to make me viral by accident?”

Adam’s face was blank. He stepped back, eyes tracking the rig. He’d watched the maintenance logs before approaching Ethan; he'd seen the hairline stress fractures hidden in the brackets. He knew which bolt was stripped. He’d read the schedules, the times the custodian left the building unlocked. For someone who had always lived inside textbooks and message boards, it had been trivial to learn a dozen harmless facts that together could be lethal.

“Dude, we should get this from the catwalk,” Ethan said suddenly, eyes bright with mischief. “You cool climbing? It’ll look sick from above.”

Adam nodded. “Sure.”

The two of them climbed the narrow ladder together as a TV crew would if they’d had one. Ethan’s phone set to record, his narration as loose as breath. He crouched near the bracket, angling for the best frame. Adam stood behind him, close enough that the warmth of Ethan’s body prickled Adam’s skin.

“You ready?” Ethan asked.

Adam breathed in. The auditorium felt like the belly of a great animal. He could hear the hum of the city beyond the walls, the distant whine of tires, the occasional bark of a dog. It all seemed very far away.

“Ready,” Adam said.

The rig gave a small, weary creak.

“Hey, Adam—” Ethan began, then his sentence dissolved into a surprised noise as the bolt beneath his kneecap let go. The bracket—old, weakened—shifted. Ethan’s weight sent it pivoting; a cascade of metal shrugged. For one long, impossible second, the world hung on balance and the small, ridiculous sound of Ethan’s phone still recording kept playing.

Ethan’s scream was narrower than it should be. He grabbed for anything—cable, catwalk—hands slipping on the cold metal. The spotlight swung, struck a speaker, which toppled with a ragged crash. The sound filled the theater like a gunshot.

From the stage below, the auditorium swallowed him. Sounds multiplied—metal clattering, a thud that was not the worst sound, then silence. Then the floor echoed with the last thin, frightened sound Ethan made as the rig snagged him by the ankle and jerked. He hit the platform, rolled, and at the edge, the dark seemed to take him.

Adam watched without flinching as Ethan’s phone skittered and hit the edge of the stage, still recording: a trembling lens, muffled voices, something like a cliff of blackness at the end of the frame.

When the first custodian’s heavy footfalls answered the alarm, Adam had already climbed down and stood at the back of the auditorium, palms clean. He approached the group of students who had sprinted in—faces white, mouths open.

“Is he—” one of them asked, voice small and useless.

A teacher pushed through, terror and authority combined. “Call 911! Call 911 now!”

Adam’s face carefully softened, the right amount of shock, the right tilt of concern. He folded himself into the new role he had been shaping for days: the boy who had been hurt and had come back charismatic, the one who now acted as the calm center when chaos erupted.

He knelt by the fallen phone, picked it up, and saw the last shaky shot Ethan had made. It showed, grainy and bright, the catwalk and then a thud and then Ethan’s empty hands clawing at air. The recording ended with the sound of the rig complaining and a final, cut-off yelp.

People wailed or whispered. Someone said, “He’s gone.” Someone else said, “He’s alive—somebody get a blanket.” The ambulance sirens were inhale and exhale at the edge of hearing.

Malick’s voice was a silk knife in Adam’s head—soft, satisfied. Perfect. They will see you in the middle of this. You can be the center of rescue, the boy who was abandoned and came back to save them. They will think you brave. They will also be afraid.

Adam’s hands went cold. For a flicker, the old Adam—ashamed, small—thought about the life beneath that twisted metal. Ethan’s laugh, his posts, his cruelty. Now a body lay somewhere below. The difference between revenge and murder was a line Adam had promised himself he would never cross. He had crossed it before he’d realized the weight of it.

He pushed the thought away like a splinter.

When the paramedics came, Adam was calm, composed—director of grief, consoling students, steady hands where others had none. He answered questions clearly, his nails neat, his jacket free of dust. Teachers leaned on him. The principal asked him to recount what had happened. Adam gave the version that made him useful and spared suspicion: he’d been in the wings. He’d heard the crash and ran in. He’d tried to help. He’d seen Ethan slip. He had no idea the bracket had been unsafe for months. He didn’t mention that he’d seen the logs, or that he’d nudged the one bolt the custodian had been too tired to replace.

Sanchez watched from the doorway, face pale and hard. He’d arrived with a bunch of other kids, eyes burning like a man trying to recall a name. He kept looking at Adam the way a hunter watches an animal that has killed one of his own—confused, angry, and suddenly cautious.

When the ambulance lights bled blue into the parking lot, Adam stood outside with the cluster of students, feeling the mesh between admiration and fear tighten. Lila squeezed his hand, voice small. “You did good, Adam.”

Adam let her squeeze, let the compliment anchor him. He stepped away as the paramedics loaded a gurney and took Ethan into the ambulance. The door closed with a dull finality.

Later, news would ripple: Ethan Calder seriously hurt after falling in auditorium accident. A heroic classmate tried to save him. The highlight account would repost the shaky video, now framed as a tragedy. Comments would argue responsibility. Some would say it was an accident; others would whisper about sabotage. In comments threads and whispers, Adam would be gently re-cast as both victim and savior: the boy who was left behind, the boy who returned.

On the walk home, Adam felt Malick in the quiet like a satisfied animal. They will fear you now, the spirit said. They will need you. And when they need you, they are pliant. When they are pliant, they are easy.

Adam told himself he’d never planned for someone to die. He told himself he had only removed a threat. He told himself the ends justified the means.

He clutched those thoughts like a shield against the cold that had begun, faintly, to live behind his ribs.

But the world, once shifted, did not easily settle back.