My heart squeezed, painfully tight. First Kaylan, now Emrys. Father was right, they would come after them. They would come after all that I loved.

They would come after my friends.

"What do you want?" My voice was harsh and hoarse in the night air.

Storeroom Stalker said nothing but turned away, walking into the gloom and disappearing around the bend. The plastic bags I had been holding crashed to the ground and I sprinted after him.

He led me on a fair bit of chase, twisting around the backs of the shops, always keeping just out of my sight. My head went wild imagining what he could have done to Emrys, and the frenzied breaths that fell from my lips had little to do with the running.

He finally stopped near a line of abandoned shoplots. Slowing to a light jog he approached one of the shops, its metal shutters down. With minimal effort he placed both hands under the shutters and lifted. For a moment he paused, shooting me a sideways glance. Then he stepped inside.

I hesitated. Alarm bells were pinging everywhere, just everywhere; we were alone, he obviously knew his turf, while I was half-panicked and in foreign territory. But this was Emrys we were talking about. He was annoying and immature and completely childish at times, but he was my friend. He did nothing wrong.

But he did, a voice slithered in my head. He made the mistake of being your friend.

I told that voice to shut up and went inside the shop.

The second I entered something somewhere clicked, and the metal shutters banged down behind me. Lights flashed on overhead.

Emrys was nowhere in sight.

There was the sound of a gun being cocked. Storeroom Stalker stood a few feet away, weapon leveled at my forehead, stance ready. And this time, the arm that held it did not shake like how it had shake as it held the knife in the alley, such a long time ago. 

This time, he was sure.

Well chocolatey fudge.

Damn right, it was. After all, Emrys had been holding a standard Faber Castell blue pen, it was hardly anything rare, and could be bought for one dollar at any stationery store. There was no guarantee the pen Storeroom Stalker threw at me had belonged to Emrys. But it was too late now.

The shop rang with emptiness. There was no furniture, no wallpaper on the walls, no leftover items abandoned by previous owners. In short, there was nothing for me to defend myself with and no places to hide. There was just me, him, and a well-aimed gun.

My heart relaxed in a little hiccup of relief. At least Emrys was fine. He was probably back at the store now, moaning and wailing over how I had unceremoniously dumped all the chips on the floor. Such sacrilege! And then Storeroom Stalker walked a little closer and my heart went back to pumping its way out of my chest.

I swallowed. My fingers knotted themselves, the gem of Jasper's engagement ring biting painfully into skin. Jasper. He would never have allowed himself to be tricked like this. Never. He knew where his priorities lay; he made friends but colleagues, signed deals and not partnerships. That was how he had survived. That was the only way to live.

A cold dread immersed my senses as I stared down the barrel of the Browning. This bastard had used Emrys on me to bait me here, and the pathetic thing was that it had worked. Back at Blackcroft Manor I had been so tough and sure of myself, certain that out here I would be able to complete the mission, finish the task. And now look at me. I had gone soft.

I should have been like Jasper. I should have been more like him.

My voice struggled to keep itself together. "At least . . . at least tell me who you are. Are you from Black and Tan? Where is the will? Where's Eric? You guys have him, don't you? Tell me! What do you want?"

Silence. The gun loomed nearer. And then -

"I haven't the slightest bloody clue what you're talking about. But then again I don't give a damn."

He spoke - at last - and the world swam round and round in my ears. In one fluid motion he tore his mask off.

My heart clenched, once, and then stopped.

I should have been like Jasper.

I should have. I should bloody well have, I should have, I should have been like Jasper, should be Jasper -

Emrys smiled, chilling and humorless. "An unexpected twist in the fairytale, princess?"

But it can't be him. It couldn't be, because Emrys didn't look like that. Emrys had eyes that sparkled with mischief, not eyes that glinted with cruel laughter. Emrys carried a carefree air of glee, not this dark cloak that draped about his shoulders, a weight that seemed to affect the very way he stood. This wasn't Emrys. This couldn't be Emrys.

"I must say, I do find myself rather touched. After all, you did chase after me . . . to save me." He did a mocking little bow. "I thank thee, your highness."

I couldn't even form a proper sentence. "How . . ."

He watched me, and little things began to form in my mind like how jigsaw pieces formed into a puzzle.

In detention, when he'd asked me to carry the box to the back shelf, claiming he was afraid of ripping his jeans. Leading me to discover the locker and coming back in the middle of the night . . . which was when I'd bumped into Storeroom Stalker the first time. And then there was Storeroom Stalker's aversion to me calling him pretty boy, which was what I used to call Emrys. And of course the varsity jacket and the way Storeroom Stalker had waited at my block after my study date with William, which was something Emrys knew since I told him. There was also the way Storeroom Stalker had led me on earlier - he'd navigated the alleys like a pro, these streets that were all Emrys' neighborhood. And when I had slashed Storeroom Stalker's arm with a knife, in that week . . . didn't Emrys went everywhere in school with that Phantom of Opera get-up, in a cloak, that covered every part of his body, including his arm?

My eyes flickered, almost helplessly, to his arm, which was in a black long-sleeved sweater. Emrys caught it, and his lips twitched upward even further. Almost lovingly he rolled up his sleeve, and there it was, illuminated by the fluorescent lights. A bandage wrapped around his bicep, tight.

Emrys is Storeroom Stalker.

My brain locked onto that sentence, jammed and refused to respond.

Gun still in hand, Emrys brushed imaginary dust off the bandage.

"You know," he mused out loud, "I'd just like to express my gratitude for your advice. You told me, you know. That if I wanted to kill you, I had to do it properly. That the next time, I had better bring a better weapon . . . than a pair of measly sewing scissors."

My heart sank and my knees went with it. The shutters rattled in protest as I staggered, back slamming against metal.

"You're from Black and Tan?" I whispered.

His lip curled inward in vitriolic disgust. "I am not one of your kind. I'm no criminal and certainly do not take pleasure in the harm and suffering of others. Please. You guys repel me."

"Then why . . . ?"

Emrys tilted his chin. "I'm merely claiming what's mine." His eyes narrowed, and the next words came out in a hiss.

"A blood debt."

A blood debt? "I don't - I don't understand. . ."

His voice bounced unforgivingly off the four walls. "Then let me enlighten you. March 25th, 2005. Downtown Manhattan. I was eight, and my sister six. My parents had brought us both out for a movie, Robots. We'd just finished, and was walking back to the car, when my sister said she wanted ice-cream. So we stopped at Ben & Jerry's."

My mind whirled. March 2005. What was I doing? Emrys was one year older than me, so that meant I had been seven. Certainly nowhere near an ice-cream parlour.

His voice went a little faint, wistful. "I still remembered. She took the Dublin Mudslide and I went for the Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. They don't make either of them anymore. A pity, isn't it? Mum and Dad didn't eat, but they sure had a lot of fun stealing ours."

He let out a little laugh, and for a moment there looked like the Emrys I knew again. Then his face closed up, and I realized then why he was such an asset to the drama club.

"We were having so much fun. We were laughing so much; Dad had a cream mustache on and he was making funny faces. And mum . . . mum was smiling so wide. So, so wide. I could count all of her teeth if I had tried." 

He looked at me, and it send a shiver straight down my spine. His chestnut eyes seemed almost black now, vacuous and dull.

"And then you guys had to show up."

Something hard and lumpy lodged itself in my chest.

"Real classy, you guys were. Came in, then immediately aimed and fired at the roof. Stationed two guards at the door, so no one could go in and go out." His voice was dead, a monotonous narrator on a boring history channel, recanting someone else's biography. "This big man with a tattoo looking like a jack-in-the-box - sound familiar? - walked up to the cashier and demanded to see the manager. The manager came out, they got into a fight and then the big man shot him, point-blank. People screamed, and he told them to shut the eff up."

No.

"We were huddled under the table, my sister and me. My parents had pushed us down there the moment the gun went off. My mum had her cell phone in the pocket and she took it out. My dad covered for her while she dialed the police. Call never got through, though. One of the guards saw it and shot her in the head."

No.

"Dad raised his arms in surrender, to protect us, but I don't know what the guard saw, because he shot him too. Got him in the leg. Me and my sister watched him rolling around in pain; other people were screaming and the dude who fired the gun was laughing. Then he shot my dad again, in the chest. He stopped moving after that. And the men, your men . . . they just left. Just like that."

There was an odd prickling in my eyes. My fingers shook as they gripped the ridges of the metal shutters, and I felt more than hear the rattling.

"I was only eight." His voice croaked, the smile that had always been in his eyes broken. "I was only eight. "

"But it wasn't me," I whispered, almost pleading. "I was seven! I had nothing to do with that - "

"I don't care! " he snarled, the words ferocious. "You're all the same! You're all the same! I hear the rumors, I hear the stories. You Blackcrofts marry within yourselves, don't you? Do you know what that means? Do you know what that means, Hayley? Because if you don't, I'll be more than happy to enlighten you."

I was trembling like a seedling in a torrential storm. An emotion I could not identify slammed again and again in my chest, and the gun seemed to dissolve in blurry tears that threatened to fall from my eyes. Because I did know what it meant. It meant that - 

"Your family killed my family. " And in the single sentence alone it carried the tumult of all that Emrys had experienced and was experiencing; the trauma, the scars, the nightmare.

"My sister could never recover," he whispered. "They placed her in a mental asylum and dumped me in an orphanage. Nobody wanted me, this boy with the dark past, the boy who never smiled, the boy who screamed and couldn't sleep in the night. When I was fifteen I ran away, and broke my sister out."

He advanced closer, the look on his face haunting.

"We live in a dingy apartment with the lowest possible rent, she goes into seizures at the oddest moments, and I hold three part-time jobs. I sleep in class because I finish work at 4 in the morning, I flunked my sophomore year on purpose so I got held back, because I know there's no way I can afford university."

I stammered. "But . . . your maids and butlers a-and gourmet chef . . . "

"Lies!" he screamed, and the gun waved a wild arc. "They were all lies! I have no maids, no butlers, no parents! I don't invite you to my home because I don't have one! The Samsung Galaxy was a gift I won from a radio contest; I don't earn enough to afford one! And the food I brought to the sleepover, the gourmet feast, I cooked every last one of it." Another one of those humorless smiles. "Lucky for you guys I work in a restaurant too, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry." My hands were clasped over my mouth in tearful horror. "I'm sorry, Emrys, I'm so sorry - "

"It doesn't matter," he cut in, cold. "It doesn't matter anymore. What's done's done. And what will be done, will be done too."

He came even closer, until the gun was but mere inches from my forehead. I moved, back scraping against the shutter, trying to keep as much distance as I could between the both of us. But in doing so I was retreating to the walls, to the middle of the room, and away from the only exit.

"Emrys, please," I tried. "You don't want to do this. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for what happened to your parents, and I'm sorry I lied to you, and that I'm one of them. I'm sorry I'm not a saint, I'm sorry my parents are criminals, I'm sorry for everything . . . but this is what I do. I was born to this, this is the only thing I know how to do."

I trailed off, and remembered what Kaylan had asked me. By force, or by choice? I squeezed my eyes shut, even as my answer echoed in my head.

There was no way around it. I was guilty. I was guilty as every last one of them.

I swallowed. "If I'm ever allowed one excuse for what I do, then all I can say is that I - I've never killed anyone before."

If I had thought that would shake his conviction I was horribly wrong. He let out an ugly laugh devoid of mirth, and tapped his bandage.

"Well you can't blame yourself for not trying."

Sweat flecked my scalp and palms. He meant it. Emrys meant it, he was going to do it.

"So is this it?" My voice sounded on the verge of cracking. I was scared of dying, good Lord was I scared of dying. "All this while, being my friend, was just to get close to me so you could exact revenge?"

His voice was steady as he answered. "No."

A pause.

"It was to do the world a favour."

And he pressed the trigger.

|*|*|*|*|*|

Like I said, I have absolutely no control over my characters whatsoever. XD

Did you like the twist? What other characters do you think have surprising stories about them?

This one's for LittyLyssaWorks! Because of you I received a motivational kick to write this down in words :) thanks yo!