Going to school the next morning was strange. Everything that had happened the day before seemed almost like a dream, so I was surprised when I didn’t see the stalker or Lena at school. I wondered what exactly happened to both of them.

Just the thought of what had happened made my head hurt. I didn’t want to think about it. I needed to act like it never even happened.

But Dex could tell it was still bothering me. Aiden ignored it, Kristie couldn’t tell, and Anthony knew, but wasn’t going to say anything. Dex, however, didn’t have much of a conscience like Anthony.

“You can’t let this bother you,” Dex informed me as we walked into school. I stopped dead in my tracks and he ran right into me.

My grip on my backpack strap tightened. It annoyed me that he could tell that I was upset, but it also made me happy that he cared enough to notice. But I still didn’t want to think about it.

Aiden and Kristie made their way by us and into the school, leaving Dex, Anthony, and me. One of them just didn’t care while the other one just didn’t notice. But that didn’t bother me.

“I’m the one that did the most damage, Violet,” Anthony assured, but I couldn’t help but disagree. “If it wasn’t for me, he’d just have a bashed up face. I made it so he had the mentality of a five-year-old.”

“What you did was bad, but you can’t say what I did wasn’t any worse,” I whispered, looking around to make sure no one in the hallway was listening to us. “But what’s freaking me out isn’t that I beat him up. He deserved that. What freaks me out is that I wouldn’t have stopped if Dex didn’t stop me.”

Anthony frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted to keep going,” I explained. “I wanted to keep hitting him. I didn’t want to stop. If Dex hadn’t grabbed me, I think I would have kept hitting him until he was dead.”

Dex looked away from me, a look I couldn’t read on his face. I frowned at him. He refused to make eye contact, and I knew something was up. Why did he suddenly look like this when I mentioned him stopping me?

“That guy hurt your friend.” Now that Dex seemed preoccupied with not looking at me, Anthony was the one trying to make me feel better. “We all wanted to hurt him. I’m sure you would have stopped eventually without Dex’s help.”

I didn’t say, but I wasn’t so sure about that. Anthony didn’t understand the feeling I was feeling when I was punching the stalker. I liked hurting him. I liked the feeling of my flesh hitting his. I liked the feel of his blood.

But then I snapped out of that trance, I was disgusted. I hated all of it. It made me sick to my stomach and I couldn’t believe what I’d done. And that just scared me even more.

“You did nothing wrong,” Anthony assured again before making his way around us. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. So don’t beat yourself up about this.”

I made a face.

Anthony turned white. “I probably shouldn’t have put it that way. But whatever.”

And then he walked down the hall, leaving Dex and I by ourselves. My strongest teammate still wouldn’t look me in the eye as he now looked at the floor, still looking anywhere but at me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I questioned Dex now that we were by ourselves.

Finally, he looked up at me, surprised. “What are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t look at me,” I told him, as if he somehow didn’t know. “Why weren’t you looking at me?”

He continued to act like he had no idea what I was talking about as he asked, “What?”

He looked past my shoulder and away from me again. But this time, I followed his gaze, my jaw clenching when I saw what he was looking at.

Vanessa smiled when she saw us looking at her. She flirtatiously winked and waved at Dex before turning back toward the friends she had been speaking with.

“I see.” I couldn’t help but feel a sort of stabbing pain in my stomach. “Well, if you want to go talk to Vanessa, don’t let me stop you.”

I turned away, but Dex grabbed onto my hand to stop me from going anywhere. I glared at him, but this only made his grip on my hand tighten. I gave him a look and he let go.

“Go on,” was all I said, cocking my head toward Vanessa.

Dex reached out and took a piece of my hair in his fingers. “Why would I want to talk to Vanessa when I’m talking to you?”

I swallowed, unable to think of a response to this. It hadn’t been what I was expecting.

“Hey, Violet,” a new voice suddenly greeted, and I turned in surprise to see Tom as he smiled and walked by us. He didn’t stop, even after I choked out a hello back to him.

Dex frowned and dropped my hair. “I’ll see you later,” was all he said, and then he was gone too.

There wasn’t anything else I could do but go to class, so that’s what I did. But as soon as I entered my first period, I could tell that everyone was talking about the same thing, even if they weren’t all talking to each other.

I took my seat and decided to eavesdrop on what the people around me were saying. I assumed since everyone seemed to be talking about it, listening in wouldn’t be that bad.

“Did you hear about Colton?” I heard a boy ask the girl beside me.

“No,” she answered back.

The boy leaned in closer so he only had to whisper. “He was at his parent’s cabin yesterday and it got robbed,” he explained, and I felt myself tensing up. “He was so brutally beaten that he has brain damage. His parents took him out of school.”

The girl looked horrified. “That’s so sad. Do they have any idea who did it?”

I bit down on my tongue as the boy said, “No, they have no leads.”

I began to breathe again. They had no idea what my friends and I had done. Or, more specifically, what I had done… But now I knew that this boy’s name was Colton. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with this information.

The rest of the day went by in a blur. I barely talked to anyone, even my teammates. All I could think about was Colton and what had happened with him. I couldn’t stop thinking about Lena and what she might have been going through.

I didn’t meet up with my teammates after school. I felt like a walk would help me, so I decided to walk home. Anthony had to stay after for track while Dex and Kristie stayed after to work on a project for a class they had together, so it would have only been Aiden and me in the car. And I definitely didn’t want to be anywhere alone with him.

As I walked through the parking lot, I was suddenly stopped by someone grabbing onto my arm. I jumped in surprised, but let out a sigh of relief when I turned and saw that it was only Tom.

“Hey,” he greeted with a smile, just like he always did. “Are you okay?”

“Uh…” was all I was able to say to him. We hadn’t spoken all day, and he’d seen me with Dex that morning, even though what had happened between us was completely innocent. I smiled at him. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.”

“We didn’t talk much today,” he informed me, and I really wished he hadn’t. I wished he hadn’t even realized that we hadn’t spoken all day, but of course he did.

“Sorry I didn’t respond yesterday,” I apologized, pulling on my backpack strap nervously. I might have as well said sorry for not talking to him yesterday, either. “Lena, uh… Lena got sick, and I wanted to take care of her.”

Tom nodded. “It’s fine,” he smiled. “Is Lena okay?”

Considering I hadn’t seen her, I had no idea. I hoped she was, but there was no way I could have known. I didn’t want to ask Nay about it because I didn’t know how she was reacting to this whole situation. I was still a little shaken up from what I had done.

“She’s… fine,” I answered, since there really wasn’t anything else I could have said to him. “She’s doing a lot better than she was yesterday.”

At least, I hoped so.

Tom nodded, glad to hear that Lena was okay. He then shuffled his feet, shoving his hands into his pocket. He seemed to want to say something but didn’t know how to say it.

“You okay?” I asked him now instead of him asking me. He nodded.

“I was just thinking, you know…” He stared down at his feet, suddenly growing embarrassed. “I was just wondering if maybe, some time, if you weren’t busy…”

Before he could finish, however, we suddenly heard a screech of tires, and a few people shout and gasp. Tom and I spun toward the source of the sound to see a group of people beginning to form around something.

We started toward the crowd immediately, though it was too difficult to get close enough to really know what was going on because there were too many people around. I eventually focused in between the moving bodies of the crowd and was shocked at what I saw.

I gasped when I saw someone on the ground, clutching their face as they bled. I took a step forward, but Tom immediately grabbed onto my arm to keep me away. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to feel flattered or insulted.

“What happened?” I questioned as Tom took a step in front of me.

“Someone got hit,” he said, trying to look over the crowd that was forming. “Someone got hit by a car.”

I tried my hardest to focus on the scene, but it was much too hard with everyone around. I knew I could have easily flown up off the ground, but that was the last thing I could do when there were so many of my classmates surrounding us.

Tom suddenly gasped. “It’s Mr. Grand!”

Mr. Grand… Malicius?

I pushed my way through the group, ignoring Tom’s protests as I got closer. I’d seen a lot worse than Malicius’s injuries, that was for sure.

He was on the ground, everyone around us whispering and quietly freaking out as multiple people called for help. I just stood there in shock, wondering how this could have happened. Malicius was one of the most skilled fighters I’d ever seen, and yet he’d somehow let himself get hit by a car?

My jaw dropped when I saw who stepped out of the car that had obviously hit him. It was Aiden!

“Oh, my goodness,” I gasped, my hand slapping over my mouth. Tom’s jaw dropped.

I now heard sirens, and I looked out into the street to see an ambulance hurrying its way into the parking lot. Kids quickly scattered out of the way and the ambulance stopped right beside Aiden’s car.

People then began to rush from the school. I saw Kristie and Dex, but there was no sign of Anthony, most likely because he was down on the track. He probably had no idea what was going on and wouldn’t know for a little while.

I saw the familiar mane of wild orange hair out of the corner of my eye, and I looked over to see Lynx was only a few feet away from me. She didn’t look concerned, however, which surprised me greatly. Her teammate was bleeding on the ground and she looked completely neutral!

A new hand suddenly landed on my shoulder as Malicius was being carried into the ambulance, and I turned to see Dex, Kristie right beside him. For the first time ever, Dex seemed to not even notice how close Tom was to me.

“We should go home,” was all he said, and I looked over at Kristie, who nodded.

I glanced over at the frantic Aiden as he tried to explain to the paramedic what happened. I then looked back at my friends and nodded as well. “One of you go get Anthony.”

Kristie set off to do that, and I turned back toward Tom. The human boy was giving me a look I couldn’t read, looking from me and then to Dex a few times. I bit the inside of my lip.

Dex wrapped his arm around my shoulders, tangling his rough fingers in my hair. He pulled me in closer to him and scowled at Tom.

Tom lifted his hands in surrender. “Look, if there’s something going on between the two of you…”

“There is,” Dex interrupted, his grip on me tightening.

I elbowed him in the side. “Dex!”

“What?” He didn’t stop glaring at Tom even though he was talking to me. “I’m just telling him the truth.”

“If you’re telling him the truth, tell him we’re just friends.”

“Yeah, just friends that kissed.”

“I already told him that!”

Dex looked surprised by this, and I now bit down on the inside of my cheek. This was a really, really awkward situation and I really wanted to leave.

When Anthony and Kristie finally showed up, I let out a sigh of relief. Took them long enough…

“Um, I’ll see you tomorrow, Tom,” I nearly choked, unsure of my own words as I quickly turned away and started off toward the car Dex, Kristie, and Anthony had planned on driving home that day. My friends and I didn’t say anything to each other on the drive home.

It seemed like hours before Aiden finally got back to the DAU, and Hank and Nay immediately called him into the meeting room to discuss what happened with him. The rest of my teammates and I weren’t allowed inside with him, but that didn’t stop us from standing right outside the door in the hallway.

“I can’t believe he did this,” Dex said as he leaned up against the wall. “I give him props for doing it, but it just doesn’t seem like something he’d do.”

“It does to me,” I couldn’t help but shrug. “I mean, come on. It’s Aiden.”

Dex sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just don’t think he’d have the guts to do it.”

I guess he was right, but I never really knew what was going through Aiden’s mind, except for Kristie. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he saw Malicius walking through the parking lot and decided to hit him, but he would have been really stupid to do it in front of a ton of people.

Malicius could have easily picked up a bolder and threw it at Aiden’s car, but since they were in front of so many humans, he wasn’t about to do that. He’d rather die than let our secret be revealed.

When the door to the meeting room slid open, the four of us perked up. Nay stepped out and gave us all a stern look.

“You don’t have to wait out here any longer,” she said before taking a step back into the meeting room. “You can come inside now.”

My teammates and I did as we were told, all of us wanting to know what exactly happened. Aiden was sitting quietly, Hank standing above him with his arms crossed as we all entered the room.

“Aiden, are you okay?” was the first thing Kristie asked.

His lips twitched slightly at her question. I could tell he was happy she asked him this, but he was in no mood to smile. “Yeah,” he answered.

For some reason, all I felt was anger and annoyance. What he’d done was really stupid. Why would he do something like this?

“You hit Malicius with your car?” I demanded, my hands on my hips as I glared down at our team leader. “You know there are more effective ways to deal with him!”

“I didn’t hit him with my car,” Aiden snapped, glaring right back at me. “He jumped in front of it. He wanted me to hit him.”

“And why would he want that?” Nay questioned, also a little snippy just like I was. “Malicius has other ways of trying to attack you, Aiden. He’s not going to jump in front of your car.”

Aiden seemed to be very angry with the fact that none of us believed him. “I’m telling you the truth,” he informed us. “He jumped in front of my car. He wanted me to hit him.”

“I just don’t understand why he’d want you to hit him.” Nay sighed, taking a seat and running her hand over her face. “It’s just… It doesn’t make sense.”

“You do seem like the kind of guy that would just run him over,” I couldn’t help but mumble, and this caused Aiden to glare right at me once again. I shrugged. “What? You do.”

“I think Dex would be the one most likely to ram him with a car,” Aiden told us honestly, and I guess he had a point. “But he’d go back to make sure the job was done.”

The stronger boy shrugged. “I mean, he’s right.”

Nay let out a long sigh. “This is just… bad.”

I agreed with her, but I didn’t say anything. It seemed like hitting Malicius would be something Aiden would do, but then Malicius was the type to do something that’d screw with us. I didn’t know what to think.

“Your job is not to kill the members of Redrum,” Nay informed us with that same serious look she always adorned. “Your job is to apprehend them and bring them here so that the higher-ups can deal with them.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” Dex drawled.

Nay’s eyes narrowed at him. “Dex.”

The room grew quiet. Hank said nothing, but this was how it usually went during a serious situation. Nay would speak because she was the more serious of the two of them. She was also scarier.

When the meeting room door suddenly opened, we turned in surprise to see who was entering. We were all here, and no one else ever entered our small part of the DAU. But when I saw who it was, my eyes went wide.

“Lena!” I gasped, jumping back in surprise. I was really shocked to see her. “You’re here!”

The girl standing before us was Lena, but at the same time, it wasn’t. Almost every time I saw her, Lena wore bright colors. She’d wear a tank top and shorts, or since the weather was starting to get cold, she’d wear some sort of tight pants. But now, she was wearing a sweater and jeans. She also wasn’t wearing any makeup.

Her hair was braided off to the side, something I’d never seen before. Her wild blonde hair was always free to flow down her back, but now it was contained in a messy braid that kept it all in one place. It almost didn’t seem like Lena.

“What are you doing here?” Nay demanded, but she was responding this way out of concern rather than anger. “You should be at home right now, Lena!”

She stepped inside the meeting room, her arms wrapped around herself. The door slid shut behind her, but she stayed away from everyone. I could tell she didn’t want any close physical contact with anyone.

“I wanted to thank you all for saving me,” she rasped, staring down at the floor.

She seemed so different. What had happened to her the day before had traumatized her. I was surprised she was even well enough to come all the way over here to talk to us.

“And I wanted to thank you, Violet,” she continued quietly, “for what you did.”

“No, Lena, don’t thank me.” I shook my head, my words catching in my throat as I remembered what I’d done. “What I did was awful.”

“You saved my life.” It didn’t seem like anything I said would make Lena change her mind. “If it wasn’t for you, I might not even be here right now.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “Well, if it wasn’t for Violet and Anthony, that stalker guy wouldn’t have the mindset of a five-year-old.”

Nay hit him upside the head without a second thought. “Just because you’re in a bad mood doesn’t mean you need to take it out on others,” she snapped at him. “So shut up.”

Aiden crossed his arms over his chest, turning away and pouting. I rolled my eyes at him. He always did this. If he wasn’t in a good mood, he was going to say whatever he had to just to make people feel the same way as him.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Dex spoke up, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He really wasn’t the kind of guy that cared if Lena minded, so he was going to ask either way. “Why were you so freaked out by this guy? He was human and you’re one of the scariest people I’ve ever met.”

Lena almost smiled at this, but it still wasn’t enough to bring light to her eyes. She let out a shaky sigh and rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

“He… he reminded me of Malicius,” she whispered.

No one said anything to this at first. We just looked at each other as Lena stared at the ground. This hadn’t been something any of us had expected she’d say.

“You’re… scared of Malicius?” Kristie finally asked, so quiet that it was barely audible.

Lena let out another sigh, seeming to be very cold even though the heater was on in the meeting room. I could tell her chills had nothing to do with the temperature as she said, “Yes.”

This wasn’t something I’d ever known about Lena, and it seemed like it was the same for everyone else in the room with me, even her aunt, who had had the most history with her niece’s fear than anyone else.

I looked over at my female mentor’s face to see it was white. She was the most shocked out of all of us. I didn’t know if it was because Lena was her niece or because of her past with Malicius.

There were things I didn’t know about Malicius and Lynx. I’d known that from the start. But since Lynx was so young, I assumed there wasn’t much we couldn’t know about her. But Malicius… He was thirty-five, and had history with people we were close to. There must have been a lot we didn’t know.

“Your stalker’s name is Colton,” I informed Lena. “Did you even know him at all?”

She shook her head. “I knew who he was, but not that well. I’ve never spoken to him before.”

“So he really was just a crazy person.” Anthony sighed as he took a seat beside Nay, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know if I feel better or worse about that.”

Lena said nothing, and neither did any of us. There wasn’t really anything else we could say. I could tell Nay wanted Lena to go home, since she was definitely in not ready to be out and about the day after the attack. So our two mentors then led her out of the meeting room to take her back to her house.

I wondered when I'd see her again. I hoped it'd be soon. I wouldn't have been surprised if it wasn't, though, considering she was going to need a long time to heal. But Lena was tough, and I knew she hated having people pity her.

Aiden was glad that Hank and Nay had left so that they could no longer question him. He immediately went to his room without a word to any of us. The rest of my teammates and I decided that now would be the best time to do homework and try to forget how normal we all were not.

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I start school in two days... My senior year. >_<

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