"Pencils down, please." Ms. Hana says while she watches the room from her seat behind her desk. She glances at Rachel before quickly looking away to the next student. Rachel's pencil sits untouched next to the paper where she refused to fill in the answers to today's quiz.

Just as she's done since Ms. Hana returned from taking Cassie to the nurse's office, Rachel stares at the history teacher. Her arms are crossed, and her closed fists are held loosely enough so the nails don't dig into Rachel's palms. Ms. Hana, for her part, couldn't resist glancing at her or Jonathon for the entirety of the class. In Jonathon's case, that glance would sometimes stick to him. His shoulders had tensed the first time that happened, and they haven't loosened up since then.

Now that the quiz is done, the boy looks back at Rachel. Uncertainty furrows his brow before he glances back to their teacher. Instead of looking towards the students like she had been doing, Ms. Hana surveys the clock while she brushes the tips of her fingers to the side of her face and skims her fingers down until she forms a half-closed hand against her collarbone.

The bell rings, and Ms. Hana flinches even though the time on the clock should have been enough of a warning for her to know that was coming.

Rachel clenches her jaw as she rises with the rest of the students. Something happened after she left with Cassie, something that has that woman nervous. Something that she will tell Rachel about.

Before Rachel can push through the crowd of students, the hairs on her left arm tingle.

Melissa stands inches away from her. Her large grey eyes flicker from Tobias, who moves back towards them instead of following the flow of kids through the door, and then back up to Rachel.

"We should go, while they're distracted." Melissa sends a meaningful glance towards Jonathon's back as he stands by Ms. Hana's desk. The two girls who were flanking him before now linger at his sides. Ms. Hana's lips are moving as she stares at Jonathon, but her voice slinks too low beneath the clamor of the leaving students for Rachel to hear her.

She's not a coward. Rachel's not going to leave now without making Ms. Hana tell them what happened with Cassie...

"Yeah, okay." Grits out of Rachel's mouth. That teacher's not going to tell them anything. She might even make her minions follow them to their next class to make sure that Rachel can't check on Cassie herself.

Tobias is by her other side when Rachel moves forward. His shoulders are habitually hunched, making him smaller than he actually is. But he glances at Ms. Hana's gang with sharp eyes as Melissa, Rachel, and him meld into the tail end of the students leaving the room.

Once they're in the halls, he meets Rachel's look that she's been giving him out of her peripheral. Readiness electrifies the blue of his eyes, showing the steel under his soft exterior.

There's a wisp of the urge to smile at Tobias. Any other time she'd smile at him, but not with Cassie missing right now.

"That was weird." Melissa cuts into Rachel's attention and that brings Rachel's gaze around to her friend. "I know that Jonathon's always been a teacher's pet. But he's never been that...weird about it."

The three of them walk towards the nurse's office, the door to Mr. Tidwell's class where Rachel is supposed to be rests to the side of them and then recedes away as they move past.

"That wasn't weird; that was wrong." Tobias responds with a grimace. "I mean, are those other students, the two girls. Do they act like teacher's pets too, or was that new?"

Oh yeah, Tobias has only been here for a month or so.

"They hand out papers and stuff." Rachel supplies. "They're usually pretty peppy about it too."

"Not creepy and quiet." Melissa cuts in. Her granite hard eyes peer at Tobias. "I've never seen them just stand there like that before."

Now that the anger has, not vanished, but simmered down, the details of the aftermath from the confrontation resurface. The three of them watching the near silent classroom with impassive faces. None of the other students had mustered more than a weirded-out whisper as Jonathon and the girls had just stood there like they were Ms. Hana's personal guard dogs.

"Do you think," Tobias's gaze flickers to Melissa before settling on Rachel. "Do you think that they had anything to do with Cassie's dream?"

The one where everyone died? No, that's—that's entirely possible.

Walking's too slow. The nurse's office might be only a few paces around the corner, but Rachel needs to get there right now.

Melissa's shoes squeak as she rushes to catch up. "Hey, what dream?"

"Hey Rachel," Jonathon's voice calls out. "wait up."

Rachel stops and pivots on her heel. The brat jogs past the diminishing flow of students that disappear into the various classrooms. The pleasant smile on his face needs to be smacked off, but Rachel restrains herself to only glaring as he stops in front of them. The absence of the two girls grows apparent as the corridor quickly empties further.

So, he's alone, has soft muscles on those arms, and is five inches shorter than Rachel. If he wants to start something, fine. She's still going to be checking on Cassie in only a few minutes.

Melissa's silent, but Tobias speaks before Rachel can.

"Why'd you follow us?" Tobias's hard tone earns him a glance from Rachel. The bluntness is good. A brat who wants to play the teacher's guard dog deserves nothing resembling social niceties.

With that pleasant smile still attached to his face, Jonathon surveys the three of them as they stare right back. Sure, he might have seemed a little freaky with his other goons, but that atmosphere of weirdness has blown away now that he's all by himself.

"Well, I wanted to apologize for offending you before. I know that you were really worried about your friend, so I felt bad for stopping you guys."

"What?" Rachel steps forward; Jonathon doesn't step back.

"We can't have students just marching out of class whenever they feel like it, so I couldn't let you leave like that. Especially since Ms. Hana ordered you to stay. But, I didn't really like doing that."

"Why the hell did you do that then? You're just a kid, not Ms. Hana's private school enforcer or whatever." Melissa crosses her arms.

"Because Ms. Hana told you to stay. Besides, you would have just been in the nurse's way, so what good would hovering had done?"

"We weren't going to hover." Rachel growls. "Keeping a friend safe isn't hovering."

"Safe?" The pleasant tone dips into a toneless question. "What would that girl need to be kept safe from?"

The chill crawls down her back as Rachel takes in the flatness of his eyes. Cassie had a weird dream, Tobias had a weird dream. And these people, Ms. Hana and Jonathon. Those two girl. They're all acting too bizarre, too interested in what's happening.

"You know, you're asking a lot of questions, who do you think you are again?" Melissa cuts in.

The boy turns his head slightly to look at her. "Jonathon." He states with that same pleasant smile.

"Well, I'm Melissa Chapman." The short girl steps forward, her hand raised for a handshake. "Nice to meet you, Jonathon." Her tone swarms with politeness.

Jonathon twitches. The flatness of his eyes vanishes with the smile that fades.

"Rachel and I really appreciate your concern, but it's really none of your business, Mr. Jonathon." The boy leans and then steps back as Melissa moves closer. He stares at her like she's threatened to bite him.

"Ms. Chapman? As in Mr. Chapman's daughter?" He frowns at the sight of her expression.

"Yep, the one and only." Her light tone is undoubtedly mismatched with hard grey eyes that Rachel can't see.

"I see..." Jonathon aims an assessing look to Rachel and then Tobias before refocusing on Melissa. "And I suppose this is a private matter?"

"Yeah, that's what 'none of your business' is supposed to imply, right?" Disdain crushes out the fake light tone.

Jonathon tilts his head very slightly. "Sorry, Ms. Chapman, you're right, it isn't my business." The boy moves further back before turning around completely and walking briskly down the corridor. Rachel eyes him, waiting for him to turn right back around and harass them again, but he slips into one of the classrooms instead.

Silence lasts for a second before Melissa turns to face Rachel.

"And the vice principal's daughter scares them away again." The bitterness of her friend's voice brings out a sympathetic grimace from Rachel.

"Thanks—"

"Let's go. We're supposed to be checking on Cassie." Melissa sweeps past, her shoulder brushes Rachel's upper arm.

Melissa...The social crap she gets from being the vice principal's daughter always grates on her nerves. Melissa had to have hated using her status like that; but, Rachel can't make her stop right now and talk about it. After they make sure Cassie's fine or drag her out of the school if she isn't, she will talk with Melissa then.

Despite having a good excuse, the guilt at having to ignore one friend's problems for another friend's more dangerous situation still nauseates Rachel as she follows Melissa through the nurse's office door.