"What do you mean, 'she won't let us'? Who's 'she'?" Fred demanded.

Suzanne shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. There were too many jumbled emotions choking her, drowning her. She couldn't focus.

A young girl stepped into the room from the hall. Pretty. Jewish. Mr. Hougan frowned. "Are you a new student? Why haven't I heard about you?"

She smiled, wisps of pitch black smoke leaking from her eyes and escaping from her lightly curled fingers. The smoke seemed to wrap around her steadily darkening skin, like a caress that just continued on and on, enveloping the girl in darkness.

She laughed, coals glowing to bright, burning life in her eyes. "Let the fun begin."

Suzanne shook her head again, harder. All she could feel was panic and fear and the need for self-preservation.

Almost. There was one emotion among the chaos that she could sense that she latched onto, for once intentionally trying to feed on someone else's feelings.

A someone who was mostly calm, someone who was right in front of her.

She just couldn't figure out who. Well, that wasn't true. She could... If she really wanted to. But she didn't.

She centered her mind on that calmness, willing herself to be that calmness.

How the fuck does she know these things? And why the fucking hell am I so goddamn calm about all this? Shouldn't I be freaking out? Didi's over there fucking hyperventilating, Eddie's muttering to himself, Cliff looks white as a sheet, and everyone else looks ready to fucking bolt or pass out. Fuck, Tom even looks ready to fucking puke. And how the motherfuck does Suze know!?

These weren't her thoughts. The voice she heard thinking she didn't recognize, but obviously a person's thoughts are going to sound like the voice they heard when they spoke. Not what everyone else hears. It was some kind of scientific thing, something to do with the vibration of vocal chords or something like that.

But though she didn't recognize the "sound" of the voice, she recognized the cadence. The manner in which he spoke — or thought, as the case may be.

Still feeding off that focused calm, Suzanne fixed all her attention on Fred. Her suspicions were confirmed.

He was the one whose emotions she was centered on, the one whose thoughts she'd been listening to. Which was highly unusual. She normally could only read a person's mind when she touched them, and that was only if physical contact lasted longer than the time it took her to steal a secret. And that, of course, happened at the speed of thought. She'd never focused all her attention on one person before though, had never intentionally fed on another's emotions. Not that "feeding" was exactly the right word, as Fred didn't seem to be suffering any side effects.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she finally said.

He glared at her. I've heard that before. She knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"Try me," they said in unison. And then his eyes widened, startled. "How the fuck—?" Of course, I said the exact same thing up on the roof... But still...

"I can't—" She said, shaking her head. "We don't have time for this."

A flash of anger, sparked in her gut, and it took her a second to realize that it wasn't hers. Fred scoffed. "No time? For what? For honesty? For trust? How the fuck do you expect me — us — to trust you when it's so fucking obvious you know something, but you won't tell us how or what you know!? If this makes sense, then explain it to me, cuz I'm not getting it."

Suzanne was about to snap at him that it wasn't that simple when she was struck by a sudden palpable terror. Just like on the roof, but twofold.

Because this time there were two people who were about to die, instead of one.

Suzanne lifted panicked eyes to those still in the hallway. There should've been ten of them altogether. There were eight.

Cliff grabbed her hand. "Let's quit wasting our time and get out of here."

May nodded her nervous agreement. "Don't have to tell me twice."

Suzanne's eyes widened, and the world fell into darkness.

{ { o } }

Tom panicked when the lights went out, and he froze. He couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, as Didi did right in his ear. Someone knocked into him, and he stumbled back into the wall. He heard other screams, some right next to him, but some seemed to be farther away... In fact, they seemed to come from the Southern side of the school, the front doors.

Things went too fast for his mind to fully process. The lights going out, the screams, the sounds of panicked running feet...

Within seconds the hall was silent, save for the sounds of ragged breathing.

He felt something on his shoulder, and he flinched, a decidedly unmanly sound tearing from his throat.

"Woah! Hey, relax! It's just me, Eddie!"

Tom let out a long shuddering breath, his heart beating so fast and hard from the fright and sudden relief that he actually felt dizzy. "Jesus fuck, Eddie. You fucking brainless prick, don't do that!"

Eddie's only response was to squeeze his shoulder in apology. "If you're still alive, say 'aye!'" He called.

"'Aye' am going to fucking castrate you." That sounded like Syd, and her voice seemed to come from directly in front of Tom.

"Okay," Tom said, trying to control his breathing, and by doing so also calm his racing heart. "Let's do roll call: Eddie, we know you're alive. Syd?"

"Breathing," she said, again from right in front of him, confirming what he'd already suspected/hoped.

"Awesome. Cliff?"

Silence. Tom swallowed and continued.

"Uh, Dan?"

No response. He shivered anxiously.

"Suzanne?"

"She's right here, and she's alive, but I think she fainted." Ah, now that sounded like Fred.

"Fred?"

"You just heard me say something, you know I'm fine," Fred snapped, his voice strained.

Tom nodded, and — remembering that no one could see him — said, "Right. Yeah. Good. Um. May?"

Nothing.

"Didi?"

Again, only silence. He opened his mouth to call out Tru's name, but stopped himself. He knew he wouldn't receive an answer. In the dark, there was nothing for him to focus his eyes on to stop the carnage that flashed on repeat through his head. And the thick silence certainly didn't help.

It was Eddie who broke it. "So there's only five of us left. What are the chances the others are still alive?"

"They're still alive. For now."

{ { o } }

Fred didn't realize Suzanne had woken up until she said that, and he twitched, startled. Seconds before the lights had gone out, her expression had suddenly changed from anger to fear. But not just fear... It was... something that went beyond his ability to describe. Something he'd seen on her face only one other time, and only about twenty minutes earlier at that.

He'd started towards her on instinct, reaching out with both hands to... Well, he didn't know what he'd intended to do. Try shaking some sense into her, maybe. Perhaps to emphasize the fact that he was pissed with her whole 'you wouldn't believe me' bull shit. But the look on her face...

He'd said her name, but she wasn't looking at him, hadn't even seemed to hear him.

His hands latched onto her arms, the lights went out, and she'd gone completely limp. He'd been so surprised that he almost dropped her, but he'd managed to lower her gently to the ground as he heard others panic around them.

He'd checked her pulse, it was strong. Her breathing was fine. She'd fainted. Again.

Question was: why? What had caused it? Did she have some kind of medical condition or something? But the timing... For both times, it was too perfect.

Suzanne knew something about what was going on.

And that was just getting more and more obvious with every passing minute.

"What are you hiding?" He demanded.

"None of your business," she snapped, and he heard rustling as she sat up. "I don't suppose anyone has a flashlight or a glow stick or something?"

"Fuck whose business it is!" Fred fired back, ignoring the last thing she'd said. He stood, reaching blindly into the darkness towards where he imagined her shoulder might be. Instead his hand latched onto warm, soft skin, her hair soft on the backs of his knuckles. "There's a fucking homicidal maniac running around ripping people limb from bloody, gorey limb. I think we all deserve a little honesty from you. Especially given the weird shit you've been spouting."

But she didn't respond. He could feel her trembling against his palm, her pulse beating erratically, her shuddering breaths coming too fast to be healthy. Something wet splashed his wrist, and the shock hit him like a train wreck.

What the hell...? Is she... crying!?

{ { o } }

He didn't understand what they were saying. Why were his parents yelling? What had happened? Weren't they afraid of scaring his little sister? If he was afraid — and he was six! — imagine how his baby sister must feel, having not yet been born and having to be there in the room as his parents yelled.

He wished she were here, so he could hug her and tell her it would be alright. That he would protect her from the bad things.

Especially the bad things that mom liked to do.

There was a crash, and he jumped, his eyes widening.

What was that?

There was screaming, and more crashes. The sounds reminded him of when he'd accidentally broken one of Gramma's plates. Were his parents breaking plates? Why? Weren't adults s'posed to be good at not breaking things?

The screaming continued, and so did the plate-breaking sounds. He wanted to run, but he wanted to protect his little sister even more, so he crept carefully from his hiding place in the hallway into the kitchen.

Where he saw his mom standing over something large on the floor. She raised the big glass leftovers bowl over her head with both hands, then threw it down at the figure on the ground with all her might. Like the big kids at school did when they were playing four square and they wanted to throw a cherry bomb. Sometimes kids did it outside four square, just to see how high the ball would go.

He flinched as the bowl shattered, broken glass and red water flying everywhere. His mom was still screaming.

He was determined to protect his little sister, at whatever cost. He took a step further into the kitchen, crying out when his foot came down on a small piece of glass.

He stumbled back, his foot leaving red prints behind.

And then it hit him.

The large thing on the kitchen floor that mom had thrown the bowl at — and was now getting ready to throw a knife at, still screaming — was not a thing. It was dad. And that was not red water on the walls and floor and ceiling.

It was blood.

His dad had told him, time and time again, if there was a lot of blood, to call 911.

His mom hadn't noticed him, and he dashed back out of the kitchen into the living room, ignoring the pain in his foot. He grabbed the phone off the inn table, then ran to the front door, then outside.

He dialed 911.

And when help finally arrived, it was too late to save his sister.

No matter what mom said, he knew what had happened.

She'd stabbed herself with a piece of broken glass, and then blamed dad. She said it was all dad's fault.

That was a lie.

Everything she said was a lie.

But no one listened to him.

He was only six, after all.