For a moment I couldn't breathe.

Not because I was paralyzed. I had so many emotions it me at once that exposed to the daylight only grew in strength. I felt like an exploding bomb that, in spite of everything, only harmed itself. Crushing me.

Instead of approaching him and taking the paper out of his hand, I was looking at him in all shades of madness.

"Since when do you go through someone's trash?"

But Kendrick was no better than me. He kept piercing me with the gaze I didn't know. It was on a completely different level than before. I didn't even know what was it similar to. All I saw were the dark pupils anchored in mine. Incomprehensibly focused.

"It was on the ground. Not in the trash."

All I could hear in my head was what I wanted to hear. I acted on instinct. In situations like this, it was the only thing that mattered. My racing heart was drowning out my sanity. Hitherto kept stoicism. It was painfully beating in my chest.

I made my way to face him, avoiding the black puddle. He, unlike any normal person, ignored my visible emotions. He ignored the fire escaping the ice sheet. He ignored that I could have done anything at that very second. Something he couldn't have foreseen.

His mind was apparently fully occupied with the mystery. And he wasn't going to leave it in a void.

"Who wrote this, Georgia?" When he took a step forward, I didn't hesitate for a second.

I reached for the paper, but he was faster. He lifted it higher without changing his expression. As if his body was functioning outside of his consciousness.

But I've had enough. I wanted to set the paper piece on fire with the power of my stare itself. I wanted it to cease to exist. To threat. I wished it had never been written. For its content to evaporate from my memory.

"Get out of here."

No matter how cold my voice was. Kendrick, who had been silent for a good while, didn't seem motivated to leave in any way. He brazenly kept standing there. He only put his hand down, and then my eyes locked on the wall behind him.

"I have a right to know if-"

"Nobody's in danger!" I couldn't stand it. Shaking from emotions, I collided with the gold glare again. Anger began to leave my mouth itself. "You and your friends are safe! It will do you good to leave me alone and stay out of my business."

I passed him, letting out the air from my lungs with effort, feeling more than just madness. More than the fury. And I didn't want those feelings. I didn't want that instability. I didn't want to feel like I was on a crumbling raft, surrounded by a cold, black, uncertain ocean with no bottom.

I opened the door, moved away from the exit, and held the handle in suffocating anticipation. I heard my heart inside my head. I stared into nothingness across the room. I wanted to be alone. I wanted peace.

After a few seconds, Kendrick slowly followed in my footsteps and crossed the door sill of the apartment, while I ignored him completely. I was standing in the same position. I fought for the last semblance I had left.

Kendrick stopped, which I couldn't help but notice from the corner of my eye.

"What about you?"

Even though I wanted to turn around and frown in incomprehension, I didn't. I continued to stare into the void.

"What about me?"

"Are you safe?"

I looked at him without turning my head. He was looking at me over his shoulder. He had a raised eyebrow and the same strange look. Different from the others. The golden color of his eyes was now a completely different shade.

And even though we were back in this other, deafening reality, the silence took us away from place and time, and the events of a few moments ago blurred at the bottom of my memory, it was suddenly pierced by a pain in my chest. And when I felt it, consciousness snapped its fingers violently in front of my face. I looked away.

"It shouldn't be your concern anymore."

And I meant it.

Literally a moment later, I saw him turn his head, shake it for a moment, then run down the stairs to the exit. I could see he was angry. I could see it in the way he raised his eyebrows and tensed his shoulders. How his eyes seemed absent and distrustful of the reality around him.

Same kind of behavior I saw at the club when he got into a fight with Chucks. It was the same state. Same attitude.

And when I closed the door behind him, feeling like a few minutes was an eternity, my blood pressure started to drop, bringing me back to my senses.

However, it was not a good sign.

Because that's when I realized what happened. I looked down at my hands, surrounded by darkness, my thoughts wandering after a sudden thought that terrified me. I lied.

I lied when I told him they were safe.

The sunset-covered street was flashed by car headlights. Another car was driving down the street right next to the sidewalk, but instead of passing me by after a while like all the others, this one kept the exact pace of my steps.

And looking to my left, I recognized the driver simply by the black as night car.

"Georgia Peirce-Blythe using public transport! Aren't you exhausted?"

I closed my eyes, hearing that voice, and then, without much hesitation, I turned around and started walking in the direction I'd come from. I didn't care about insanity of what I was doing. One person was enough for me to use every means necessary to avoid confrontation.

Especially after all the recent events.

And then, faster than I could realize, the car's headlights hit the street again, coming from the right and heading my way. And then the black car suddenly drove onto the sidewalk. It stopped maybe two steps away from me. I jumped startled, putting my hand on my chest. I took a deeper breath when, after a few seconds, my fear shape-shifted into nervousness.

I moved further away when the red hair peaked out of the car. After a moment, the girl stood in front of me, rattling from the metal hanging on her. It hung from her ears, neck and wrists. She even had some of it on her fingers. She looked at me intensely from under her eyeliner-accented eyelids.

"Cute gloves." She lowered her gaze for a moment, watching my hands. "I know what happened."

"Leave me alone, Estera." Once again, I turned in the opposite direction.

"And only now I found out what a snake in the grass you are."

She stopped me mid-step.

"Rita's friend willingly told me everything you do at your school. How empty, apathetic and power-hungry you are!" She came up to me, blocking my way for the second time, this time just by herself. She approached me dangerously close, and even though I didn't want to, I walked away to get back the previous distance. "I hate people like you. You think you can be like that?"

I didn't answer, just burning her with my gaze.

"Rita did the right thing by telling them. Maybe that taught you something." She walked away, got into a car, still leaving one window down to insert more needles in me.
"And if it didn't, I still have a lifetime of experience that I can use to your detriment."

And as I watched her over my shoulder how she pulls back with the car, landing back on the street, I felt with all my heart that it wasn't over.

"Remember, Gigi," she added, shifting the gear. "It doesn't matter what you do. The consequences of who you are will always come and get you."

I truly couldn't believe what I was doing. And if someone had checked the contents of my backpack that very moment, the night wouldn't have ended so well for me.

It was maybe 3:00 a.m. when I was walking through the woods instead of the usual path, and the party was at its peak. I've known that moment when people were most out of touch with reality, letting it carry them away. Then the songs were sung the loudest, and the dances were the craziest.

Therefore, walking quite far from the open, I could hear music and singing, and the people inside were throwing dynamically moving shadows on the grass, which were blurred by the transparent material covering the event. And I myself was the quite opposite of this spectacle.

Walking in the darkness through the forest with a cautious and monotonous pace, I was approaching the second street, to which I once ran with blooded hands. The difference was that at the moment, nothing was wrong with me and there was no one around. Not a soul.

This time I was on my own.

Despite the external peace, my heart was racing at the breakneck speed. I was afraid of accidentally meeting someone I knew. Afraid of some kind of a mistake in the carefully planned event. When I got off the bus earlier, I'd already seen cars with plates I knew so well, which only caused an unpleasant pressure in my stomach.

But I couldn't go back in time. And even if I would be able to, I didn't want to.

With a hood over my head and glasses on my nose, I arrived at the destination. Fortunately, without seeing anyone, I quickly took off my bag and opened it, looking inside. I was really doing it, and the motives I was led by were even more astonishing.

Looking around the cars, I searched for the only car plates that mattered to me. And when I found one or two of them, and I was heading for the first one, my eyes caught one, black car.

And I knew where to go first.

I couldn't be sure if the car belonged to the person I thought it belonged to, but the brand, the color, and the car plate were more than enough for me. So, I grabbed the object by the handle, which I had been holding in my bag with my heart in my mouth, and made a small hole in the front tire.

Small enough not to set off an alarm, but large enough to make the tire useless on the way back. I had an uncertain hope in videos from the internet and articles about punctured tires I read on my way here, acquired through the few free internet networks in the town.

I exhaled with trembling lips, as I achieved one of my goals. I felt a shadow of peace. Although I could not fully relax. Not yet. On unsteady legs I did the same with the second tire in a row, only then going to the car located a little further.

But as soon as I put a hole in that tire, I heard voices growing louder second by second.

In a hurry, hiding the kitchen knife, I crouched behind the back of the car, invisible to those coming from the forest. My heart was drowning out their conversation. A couple of girls were laughing, barely able to stand on their feet. Unlucky for me, they were heading my way.

And the tire of the car gave a quiet whistle. And I had no idea if any of them would catch it.

I started cursing in my head, moving from the back of the car to its left side to stay completely out of their sight. At least while they were busy talking. Because it could also turn out that I just punctured a tire in one of their cars.

And when I heard a car key buzz dangerously close to me, the worst-case scenario turned into reality.

"Ladies... You want to go behind the wheel in a state of inebriation?"

A familiar male voice broke through the buzz of the key, sending me into a near-heart attack. As much as I wanted to keep an eye on what was going on, I couldn't keep my head up. All I could do was wait. Soundlessly.

"We? N e v e r... That would be..." Hiccups. "Irresponsible..."

Still unable to match the owner's strangely familiar voice, I listened.

"I think so, too." I think he took a few steps toward the car. I saw a piece of hair on the side of the car, above its back. A hair piece disappeared with the sound of keys. "Hide it here, beautiful, and get a cab, how about that?"

Grunts of disapproval and agreement at once filled me with more impatience than stress. I was waiting for a miracle from above when something else happened.

The owner of the voice took a step aside, but not the one that would cover him, but the one that gave a perfect view of my person. He saw me when I saw him. And I didn't know whether to be happy or worried about some stupid reflex.

Tristan.

"Oh shit," he said, which seemed to draw attention to himself, but he suddenly looked in shock at the girls in front of him. "I forgot we had a special guest at the club tonight! They said it would be either..."

However, they did not let him finish, flooding him with questions and walking at the same time through the forest back to the club. Tripping over, of course, and using the Braid to help them out. And as they moved away, I could feel my heart slowing, and another, this time a peaceful breath leaving my lungs.

Sure that I was alone, I slowly rose from the ground, intending to go to the next car. I rubbed my face, feeling incredibly emotionally tired.

However, one female voice behind me instantly woke me up.

"You having fun?"