School Girls' Stories: New Generation - Finale

Chapter 16 – The Death of Waza

Waza began to fall, his whole body falling over the edge. Shu and Ashe were both there, gripping Waza’s flailing arms, holding him before he fell further, hanging there. Shu and Ashe looked at one another, unhappy with the outcome of this night already, but still they could not just let Waza fall. Sora would be blamed for the death and it was about to be his wedding day.

Shu and Ashe, with little struggle, pulled Waza to safety, but, in typical Waza fashion, the man was less than grateful. “You tried to kill me!” he screamed at Sora. “All of you are conspiring against me.”

“Right,” Sora smirked. “We are the ones conspiring against you.” The audience around the scene was growing, nearly everyone from the bachelor party stood either on the balcony or in the doorway, trying to catch a tidbit of the conversation they were missing.

“You meant to kill me!” Waza screamed, shaking like a leaf. None of the men truly believed he was frightened, at least not the men that knew him best. Somewhere in the background Darrke was watching the entire thing, semi-hoping that Waza would have fallen to his death and given everyone peace of mind.

“Come on Waza,” Darrke offered his hand to pull Waza from the balcony. “I’ll escort you downstairs so you can calm down.”

“Like you are not as anxious as they are to take care of me,” Waza spat, pushing through the crowd and back into the penthouse itself. “You would kill me to keep your secret. Everyone in this room would kill me to keep a secret. I know about Shu and Rhapsody and why Mercedes stays with him. I know about you and Lilis and why you two are together now. I know why Frost fled. I know Sora’s darkest secret as well, which is something you would not reveal to them, is it? I know everything and all of you would have me killed for that.”

“Waza, it was an accident,” one of Ashe’s business partners butted in, stepping and closing in on the man he used to work for. “You are the only one who makes problems around here.”

“Fine, I’m just a trouble maker,” Waza shrugged off the accusation. “Is it my fault that everyone in this world is so easily manipulated by sex and drugs.”

“Waza, stop,” Sora said flatly, “before you incriminate yourself further.”

Tiera’s boyfriend, Taryn, looking positively horrified at the familial anger that seemed to be growing in strength in the penthouse, but also noting that the family would not be the ones to calm him down Taryn reached out and gently grabbed Waza’s arm. “Why don’t you walk out with me,” he said. “This party blows anyway, and you can tell me all the good stuff you need.”

“Oh don’t placate me you annoying little prig,” Waza snapped yanking his arm from Taryn’s hand. “You and Tiera act all high and mighty, did you know she had an abortion when she was only fourteen.”

Waza had gone crazy, and worse, Taryn looked like he was going to follow suit. He looked at Waza with wide angry eyes, ready to throw his fist in his gullet and drive him back over the balcony, but worse was the truth he saw in Waza’s eyes. Worse was knowing what truly lay behind those eyes.

“What?” Taryn asked quietly.

“Taryn, don’t listen to him when he’s like this,” Darrke warned. “He’s just using you as a shield. He wants to make everyone around him angry at someone or something so he will be on top again. It is why he could not run his business.”

“What do you know, Mama’s Boy?” Waza snapped.

“Waza, get the fuck out of here!” Link appeared out of nowhere like an avenging math nerd, his glasses skewered from his rush across the room. He grabbed Waza by the back of his shirt and began dragging him towards the door. “I’ll even help you down.”

“You’d probably just kill me too,” Waza snapped, but he was quieter. There was nothing about Link that Waza knew that the world did not already know, like the fact that Link had slept with his cousin and remained in love with her until today. Everyone knew he was using Lisa as a reason to have someone at night when he grew lonely, which was not much of a secret.

“Come on!” Link hauled Waza into the elevator and suddenly they disappeared behind closed doors. Darrke could not wait, he found the stairs.

“Darrke!” Sora followed his friend out into the hallway, his fellow Marine out down the stairs, huffing from being out of practice while Darrke, the ever active Marine, hurried down the stairs.

“I don’t trust Waza around Link,” Darrke called up, knowing why Sora was following him. Darrke had a temper, one that flared easily and without warning. Sora was there to calm him, right?

The elevator had beat them down and Link was practically dragging a yelling Waza through a lobby that luckily was not full of people, though it had enough staff and one or two patrons, enough to cause a scene. Link and Waza ran out into the night air where just a few miles away several girls were being arrested for assaulting a pregnant woman. The men remained blissfully unaware of the danger those women were in, and the danger they were starting themselves.

“You know Link, I always figured it would be you to act all high and mighty,” Waza snarled. “You, the one who avoided me in school, out of school. When all your friends were falling into my spiral you stayed out of it.”

“Let me call you a cab,” Link said calmly. “You are in no mind to be here. What did you take before you got here? What kind of drugs have you so hyped Waza?”

“The same kind my mother took to deal with my bitch of a sister,” Waza sneered. “You, why did you bother inviting me, anyway?” Waza’s eyes glared at Sora as he exited the hotel. He stepped in front of Darrke, who finally looked slightly out of breath, and Darrke’s eyes widened staring at Sora’s back. No one saw what Darrke saw, no one wanted to. Darrke only knew he had to get Waza and Sora separated.

“Waza, Rhapsody is your cousin; I was trying to extend a courtesy to you.” Sora’s words may have been calm but his actions were anything but. His whole body was tense, his form too rigid. He was losing control and Sora usually remained very much in control. It was the first glimpse that Darrke ever received at Sora’s true passion for the young girl he had tried to protect for so long. Was he truly in love or had he made it an obsession to be perfect for her after he had allowed her brother to rape her? Darrke shivered and was surprised at his reaction to the older man. Sora, the calm confident friend, was losing control.

“You were trying to rub in my face your status of higher elevation and my downfall from the corporate world.”

“You were never fit for the corporate world,” this from Darrke, who needed to find a way to break through the conversation. “You were raised by your mother to be corporate, but you had ruined all of it by your dealings in drugs. You have destroyed everything your mother worked so very hard to protect.”

“Fuck you, Darrke.”

“Very eloquently put,” Link snapped in. “Waza, your cab is here.”

Waza turned his back, ready to leave, the sneer on his face, the plans formulating. All three men knew this would not be the end. What else would he try to ruin? The wedding itself, the one he said he would not be attending? Would he try to ruin the marriage of two happy people? Would he try again to bring Yuna and Harmony under his spell, two women he had manipulated with drugs and promises from the very beginning, who had fallen for his lies because they wanted something more? No, from the outside Waza had always been pulling the strings. Enough was enough.

Sora, with no remorse, had pulled the gun from the back of his pants and began pointing it. It was Darrke who stopped him, pulling at his hand and aiming it upward. Waza looked with wide eyed fear, real fear knowing that his death, for the second time that night, had only been moments away.

Waza did not even have time to go into the cab. Link was screaming and pulling him out, for Link knew what the lesser of men would do, and that would be go straight to the police. The cab driver drove off so fast and in such a hurry that none of them even noticed, the cab door still open and banging into a pole. They were sure he was calling the police and they were lucky that it was an off night and no one had come or gone from the hotel, but they now had another matter on their hands… Waza was running toward the forest.

Link darted after him, unsure of why he was stopping the man from running when it could mean Waza’s life. Sora knocked his elbow into Darrke’s side, using his free hand to free himself. Darrke released the gun as pain shot through him. There was a large problem about to military trained men, they could hurt each other with such swift precision that it left them breathless, and while Darrke struggled for his breath Waza was pursued by two other men.

“Confess!” Sora was screaming down at Waza, who had managed to tumble to the ground and was lying on his back facing upwards, Link and Sora looking like two men come for divine retribution upon Waza. “Confess all of your sins and I may spare you.”

“You don’t have enough time for that,” Waza spat, his mouth dripping with blood. Darrke knew one of the men had put Waza down on the ground with a good blow and he had a high suspicion it was Sora. Link may look muscular under his sweater sets but he was a book worm, he was lucky he could have kept up with Waza, though Waza was a drugged out ex-businessman at the tender young age of twenty-four. It was an awful young age to be burnt out.

“It’s your fault,” Sora cried and tears shone in his eyes. Darrke wondered to the depths of his toes what type of pain Sora could be reliving. Was he angry his future bride chose him to stay away from her own sins? Was he angry for Rhapsody who had been dragged along by Waza, unsuspecting and unknowing?

“You should be happy,” Waza laughed. “If it wasn’t for me Rhapsody would still be somewhere hoping to fuck her brother. Instead, you win! You get the girl!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Sora yelled and his gun was now dangerously close, the trigger shaking. Darrke went and gently pulled the gun from Sora’s fingers.

“Don’t… don’t kill him,” Darrke said quietly. “I know it is hard, but he’s not worth it.”

“Darrke!” Link’s yell was the only warning. Darrke spun around, the world coming too fast. He believed in his training, and his training was perhaps a little too well done. The knife was aimed at his heart. It was kill or be killed, and Darrke had a wife and daughter to take care of. The shot rang through the woods, birds scattering, and Waza was falling forward, dropping the knife to the ground, his life bubbling out of the wound Darrke had left in his chest.

“They will never believe self-defense,” Link said diplomatically.

From there the decisions were dark, and someone had gone to find a shovel… the rest… well… you are there.