Page 32 of Fight or Flight
Silvercrest is different from most colleges because we don’t do any sort of collegiate competitions, but we have clubs and other organizations that people can join. But as far as his records show, the only thing Shane is affiliated with on campus is the frat.
He’s still popular and has a decent GPA, but doesn’t really do much outside of partying, hooking up, and hiding in his room when he isn’t partying or hooking up.
Leaning back in my chair, I swing it in a slow arc with my feet and switch my search parameters to look up his parents. One thing I’ve learned after living in this world is that a lot of parents will have unsavory info about their kids scrubbed from the internet, but forget to do the same for anything about themselves that might give insight into their kids’ activities.
The first dozen pages of results are all connected to his father’s work and family empire, and there are tons of articles and snapshots of his parents and him at charity events and other places where rich people tend to get photographed, but the strange part is that all of the results are from the last six years.
There are lots of historical articles about his parents from before they got married, and just after, but there’s a gap of almost eighteen years between then and when they seem to reappear in the public eye.
I narrow my search parameters again, and an article with an Italian headline near the end of the hits catches my eye.
Curiously, I click on it. I can’t read or speak Italian, but I’m able to make out that it’s from a small town in the Italian countryside and was published seven years ago.
I run the article through a translator, and sit up straighter in my chair when the newly translated headline appears on my screen.
Five dead after fire
I quickly read the article, then read it again just to be sure I didn’t miss anything.
According to the article, Shane’s family was renting a villa in a nearby town that’s known for luxury tourism when a fire broke out. His parents were in Milan at the time, but Shane, his two siblings, a couple of security guards, and their housekeeper were home and sleeping when it happened.
There aren’t many details about the actual fire, but it does say that Shane was the only survivor and he was found unconscious on the front lawn while the bodies of his siblings, their housekeeper and the guards were recovered from the ruins of the villa.
“Well, fuck me sideways,” I mutter and save the article.
Now that I know what to look for, I change my search parameters again and look for articles that have been deleted through the Wayback Machine and other tricks I’ve learned for finding info that people have tried to erase.
Page after page of hits pop up on my screen, and I filter through them. Most are about his parents’ work, philanthropy and social lives, but these articles mention that there are three kids in the family, and there are hundreds of photos of all five of them together at charity things and other social events that all fall within that eighteen-year window of missing information.
Leaning back in my chair, I resume spinning my butterfly knife around my fingers and go over everything I just learned.
Is that what Shane was rambling about? Did he accidentally set the fire that killed his siblings and their staff? The few articles I did find about it said that the fire was determined to be accidental, and I can’t find any follow up information that says otherwise.
Shane might be a dumbass with anger issues and no sense of humor, but he’s not a murderer. Even if hewasresponsible for the fire, there’s no way in hell he set it deliberately, especially as a kid.
It takes a very specific type of person to be able to take a life, and as the saying goes, it takes one to know one.
Do the Kings know about the fire? Did they keep the audio because they think it’s a real confession that he offed his siblings? There’s nothing else in his file that would indicate that they know about his past, but that doesn’t mean they’re unaware it happened.
But considering everything I know about the Kings and how they operate, it seems more likely they got the soundbite by accident and held on to it because it’s incriminating enough that you don’t really need context to know that whatever Shane is talking about is a big deal. And even their dumb asses would see that his entire existence between birth and when he started boarding school at fifteen is missing from the internet.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out to check my notifications, my mind still on everything I just learned.
Xave: are you free?
Jace: why?
Xave: I may or may not have found myself in a bit of a situation
Jace: where are you?
Xave: in the woods near Belmont
Jace: and what’s the situation?
Xave: I kinda need some clothes
Jace: are you naked in the woods right now?
