I'd locked myself in my room, blankets pulled up high above me to stop my trembling muscles, when the door knocked. It wasn't just one knock, it was at least two fists tapping, and they didn't stop.

   I whimpered, still not quite free from sleep. I hadn't even realised I'd fallen into a slumber when I'd come home from studying - or trying to study - with Isaac. The words had become fuzzy on the page, my attention never quite holding on the tedious routine of revision. My mind was far away, somewhere dangerous.

   My hand skittered out under the blankets to find my smashed phone - a security blanket. Not that I could call the police if he was here to kill me. Something told me he'd have prepared for that. A mobile phone didn't feel like something that could take Conrad Blackwood down.

   But maybe he'd sent someone else to kill me.

   The door spilled open without warning, and I bit hard on my tongue to stop a scream when I realised it was just my two best friends.

   "We have champagne," was the first thing Gia said.

   The two girls perched on the end of my bed before I could say anything. My mouth was too dry to easily form words.

   "How are you feeling?" Isobel asked, putting a hand to my forehead in a motherly fashion.

   "Um," I croaked, her touch enough to ignite a new wave of tears. I couldn't make them afraid though, I had to keep strong for their safety. To save them. "I'm feeling a little better."

   Gia had already popped the top off of the champagne bottle, distributing the liquid into three mugs looped over her fingers. "I realised we didn't actually have nice glasses, so these will do."

   "You can talk to us if there's anything wrong, Aspen," Bel said, placing a mug in my hands. I didn't feel like drinking, or talking to them at all. I felt guilty for keeping quiet, so guilty it knotted my stomach. But the idea of telling them was even worse.

   "Was it Saturday night? Isaac?" Gia pressed.

   "You really have no idea," I whispered, my lips cracked and stinging as I spoke. She was oblivious to whatever had happened to her that night, the event that had left me filled with trauma.

   "What?" Gia said, clearly offended by my words. "We're trying to understand, Aspen, we've been bugging you since the party and you've locked yourself away."

   "Gia," Isobel said, putting a hand on her arm in my defence. "There really is something wrong here."

   The pair looked to me expectantly.

   "I'm just not... well."

   "What is it? Your head? Your stomach? Period cramps? We can take you to the doctor on campus, before it gets too late," Bel said.

   "It's my head," I said quickly. "Probably a migraine, I just need some pain killers and a good sleep."

   "Here I was thinking it was boy problems," Gia said with a sigh, taking a long gulp of her champagne. 

   "You bought that for nothing," Bel noted, before turning her attention back to me. "Look, I'll go grab some stuff from the kitchen."

   When she'd left the room, and it was just Gia and I left nestled in the covers, my stomach plummeted. Just how much did she remember? Was it really nothing? And just what exactly had happened to her?

   How much power did he have over her?

   "I'm sorry for snapping," Gia said with a sad smile. "I'm just worried about you. We both are. You skipped classes and haven't even come out to say hi - have you even eaten today?"

   My stomach rumbled in response, but I doubted I could eat much. Not with images of her caked in blood were still fresh in my mind. The sound of the boy's arms breaking beneath him. The vacant stares of the audience.

   "Bel! Order pizza!" Gia yelled, making me wince. She looked to me and lowered her voice. "Oh, sorry. Headache."

   Bel returned to the room with a pitcher of water and a box of paracetamol. "Are you seriously that lazy? We have stuff out to make dinner, you know."

   Gia rolled her eyes at me, a look of disbelief on her face. 

   "I don't feel like eating," I said quietly. "I just want to sleep."

   Not that I could fall asleep again, with the thought of nine a.m. tomorrow already haunting me. It took hours of me tossing and turning, long after Gia and Bel had called it a night, before I found some semblance of peace. And that was only after I'd sabotaged their chances of making it to the 8 a.m. psychology class.

   Forty minutes after Gia and fallen asleep, just before it struck midnight, I found myself pacing the hallway. Paranoia was lacing my veins and making my skin crawl. I couldn't leave a shadowed corner unturned, I needed to make sure nobody was eavesdropping on our apartment.

   I couldn't let them go to the lecture in the morning, there was no way I could even think of them being there. I knew I couldn't keep everyone safe, and the fact that Isaac wasn't attending was already one big feat. But I couldn't leave my best friends in danger.

   Isobel woke up first, and me second. Gia usually woke up ten minutes before class, and relied on one of us to knock on her door. If Bel didn't get up, then the three of us would sleep in, hopefully late enough to miss class all together.

    I pushed open the door to Isobel's room. As always, it was neat and tidy, and in the pale light of the moon shining through the ajar window I could make out her sleeping figure, curled amongst a collection of cushions. 

   I went for her alarm clock first, kneeling down silently and switching it off at the wall. The digital numbers darkened, and the small humming of the appliance ceased. My breath was cold in the air, and I wondered when I'd finally get some rest. My body couldn't handle the heightened senses of sleeplessness any longer.

   She stirred slightly, and I was reminded of my task. I took her phone from the bedside table, knowing that she probably had a morning alarm set on that too. I pocketed it, gave her an apologetic look, and left the room, closing the door behind me.

   Next, I went into Gia's. Though her curtains were drawn, I could still sense how messy her room was by the clothes that bundled at my bare feet as I stepped slowly across to her bed. A tangle of black hair lay above her pillow, and I was reminded of the terrifying night that her hair had been tinged with blood.

   I took her phone too, disconnecting it from its charging point and shoving it away.

   When I returned to my bedroom, I switched off their phones, as well as my smashed one. I tucked the three of them beneath my mattress. They'd be furious that someone had come into our apartment - not for money, or valuables - just to steal our phones. It wouldn't make sense to them. But it was the only thing I could think of.

   I woke before the sun did, surprised that I'd managed any sleep at all. My lips were dry, my eyes swollen, and my head pounding with a pain almost as bad as the one that had struck me when I first entered his office the day before.

   After pulling on boots and a coat, I exited the apartment. I didn't want to risk waking Bel or Gia by hanging around, and I was already too restless to try and sleep again. Adrenaline had spiked my blood. The realisation that this could be the very last morning I ever woke up struck me. He could have changed his mind. I was too dangerous to him to live.

   I walked around the edge of campus, hidden by the trees of the forest. It was so chilly that as soon as I left the building I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers, or my nose. Streetlights still lined campus, and the pathways which were usually bustling with people were empty. Faraway birds cooed in the distance, braving the cold to pierce the silence with their calls, beckoning the sun which was just starting to crest over the horizon.

   I shivered, my bones rattling in their joints, but I didn't want to return indoors. Something was driving me to walk along the dirt paths carving the national park, my boots sinking in the moist ground.

   By the time I returned, campus was slowly awakening, becoming alive with early risers. The smell of coffee mixed with pine needles filled the icy air. I sat on a bench on the edge of the courtyard, my chin buried in my jacket and my hands fidgeting with my sleeves. Tears pricked at my eyes, and I didn't quite know why. Maybe it was just because I had no idea what to expect.

   I could only hope my plan had worked, and Gia and Bel were still fast asleep. Right now, the theatre would be filling. I didn't know what horrors the students would face.

   At nine, after the class had finished, I stepped through the threshold of the Harriet building. My shoes were damp from the morning dew coating the soil, and they squelched as I walked towards the staircase. His words echoed through my mind, which had grown brittle. That doesn't mean you can't be an alliance, with some... control.

   I couldn't let him control me.

   I didn't attempt to knock on the wood this time, instead I opened it without hesitation, the headache already building in my mind.

   He wasn't alone.

   In his desk, Conrad Blackwood leaned forward in his chair, his hand holding a pen which he was using to scrawl messily upon a piece of paper. Opposite him was Evan, the red-head, Bel and Gia's friend. My friend now too.

"W-what are you doing here?" I asked him, my heart plummeting in terror.

   Evan looked at me, but he didn't seem to see me. Beneath his eyes were terrible bags, his face so hollow it was as if he hadn't eaten since I'd last seen him. His expression was completely blank.

   "Ah, Aspen," Blackwood said, a pleasant smile upon his face, as if he was welcoming me warmly to a gathering. "Come and sit."

   I tightened my fists to stop them shaking, and I regarded Evan with caution as I circled around him and perched on the edge of the wooden chair next to the desk. The walls were high with bookshelves, housing text books varying on topics from psychology to philosophy. I tried to focus on the titles to stop from screaming. Maybe I should have screamed.

   "How are you going?" Blackwood asked, his voice smooth and intoxicating. He folded his hands before him and bored his eyes into mine.

   "How am I going?" I asked, my voice feeble. Was he seriously asking that? He looked amused, and it only enraged me. "Terrible."

   "So I see," he noted, the amusement still present on his face. Any frantic worry that had struck him yesterday had long dispersed - or at least been cloaked. It made me fume beneath my neutral expression. He thought this - whatever it was - was a joke. The fact he had Evan sitting blankly, a boy who was supposed to have feelings and will of his own.

   Blackwood sighed, his smile still not dropping, his black eyes searching me for something. I looked to Evan, who was still sitting blankly. Why didn't he see me? Why didn't he run?

   "What do you want, Aspen?" Conrad asked, pulling my attention back towards him. "You look... concerned."

   I swallowed hard. "I want you to let him go."

   My statement, though bold, didn't seem to surprise him.

   "Then I want you to make him go."

   I frowned, looking to Evan again, and then back to Blackwood. Was it that easy? To just make him leave? Could I make him run? Make him warn the others?

   "Tell him to get up, Aspen," he repeated, an intensity about his tone, as if he were desperately curious. "Make him stand up."

   It felt like a trick. Like a prank that I was falling for.

   "He is free to leave, you just need to tell him," he said.

   Hesitantly, I rose to my feet. I paced over before Evan, still struggling to meet his vacant eyes. I knelt down so I could speak quietly, almost frightened for Blackwood to hear.

   "Evan?" I whispered, desperation filling my tone. His eyes, which were fixed on the wall behind me, focused intensely on mine. "Evan?"

   He didn't respond. His face didn't even twitch with recognition.

   "Evan, I need you to get up." My tone was frantic, and my fatigue was growing.

   No response again.

   "You need to try harder than that," Conrad said from behind me.

"   What is wrong with him?" I asked. "What are you doing to him?"

   "Persuasion, Aspen," he replied. "Try again."

   The pace of my breathing was picking up, the terror of him controlling Evan, leaving him empty, unseeing in the chair made my heart lurch, and a new frantic energy filled me.

   "Get up, Evan," I said, my voice hoarse. I reached out a hand, shaking his shoulders. Please run. "Evan, get up!"

   "Stop," Blackwood said, and my hands dropped to my side. I stood back, blinking back the tears of frustration that had begun pooling my vision. Why didn't he listen to me? "Maybe you need more motivation."

   Blackwood circled Evan, and I found myself protective of him. I decided that I would not leave until he was with me. If Gia and Isobel had gone to psychology class it could have been them sitting lifeless in the chair before me. The thought of either of them in his position made my chest constrict tightly.

   "Evan," Conrad said, eyeing him, his head tilting to the side, as if he were toying with the boy. His puppet. "Get up."

   Evan rose, standing at full form, his head level with Blackwood's. 

   "Evan, I want you to take out what is in your pocket."

   I watched in horror as his hand disappeared, withdrawing with it a shiny metal object. A knife. 

   I was frozen in terror, unable to utter a word as Evan held it before him. It was the length of a pencil, and thin. It was probably meant to be a weapon, maybe for defence. He looked expectantly to Blackwood for instruction.

   "Evan," Conrad said again, his voice smooth and enticing. "Can you please cut off your left arm?"

Thank you for (almost) 15k reads and #17 in mystery/thriller! yeah, so, sorry for leaving it there... what are you thinking? - ann