mmm whatcha say

This phone had no contacts, no messages, no pictures, no wallpaper. Just a history log listing one aborted outgoing call; she let it ring twice before she backed out. She thumbed over the number again, rehearsing in her head, staring until the screen timed out and blinked to black. Perhaps it was best to leave it that way.

Beata Academy stood like a fortress, looming over the tiny town at its foot. Her stomach tied itself into knots as she approached the gates, wearing a high-collared coat and a black hat to conceal her face. She had not called the Headmaster to notify him of her return, or texted Jason. It had been radio silence between them ever since she stormed out of the apartment that day, but ever since she left she'd been waking with cold sweats and pulsing headaches, hearing his voice and seeing his face in unlikely places. Every bone in her body screamed 'danger' as she slipped through the unlocked gate, hand on the holster hidden inside her coat. Danger for him, and for her.

And on this night...

Nathaniel Wright. When she closed her eyes, she could relive the dream all over again, except it hadn't been a dream. When she first glimpsed it, she had not known who they were, or where they were, or why these things were happening, but now she could put a name to each face. The Headmaster, his wife, his son, Ethan Riley, Kimberly Huffman. Barrett Spion. Nathan's pleas, red blood on the white floor, a bright light restoring a corpse to life.

Elodie pushed through the school doors, also unlocked, into the empty school halls, toward the Headmaster's office. Logic told her he should be safe at home and in bed by this hour, but something deeper pulled her toward the office at the top of the stairs, a calling voice that had never failed here before. The marble heads of Roman gods leered at her from along the walls, the empty gazes of Venus and Apollo following in cold disdain.

The door to the Headmaster's office creaked open under the lightest touch. Heart tightening in her chest, she forced herself inside, approaching the shadow in the Headmaster's seat.

Elodie was some sort of spy. That's what Evelyn had alluded to. That's what his father had confessed to thinking when Jace stormed into his office. And now, it was as if the lies were folding out in front of him as he read through records, guardian reports, strange sightings - each small token adding onto their crazy theory. It'd left a deep, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he'd thought he'd might be sick.

He had to talk to her. There had to be a mistake. These were all just misunderstandings.

If by some sick timing or a miracle, Jason had seen her shape in the doorway from the corner of his eye. At first, he'd thought it only wishful thinking, like he'd been imagining things. He'd thought he'd heard the echo of footsteps after her, but it easily could have been the sound of his blood roaring in his ears.

A weary smile cracked on his lips as he sprang to his feet, letting papers scatter across the floor.

"Mon bel ange!"

He saw the glint of the knife too late. A man appeared behind Elodie and sheathed it into the small curve of her spine.

Jason froze then, unaware of the sharp red dot poised delicately through the window and resting on the back his head.

---

"Our Mistress would like it to be made clear how utterly devastated she is upon losing her precious children's lives to the Headmaster."

"See to it that he understands her misery."

If it was what Agrona demanded of her, Alicia knew well enough by now what little choice she had in the matter.

She'd waited until the cover of darkness, until most of the populace had retired to their rooms, before she made her move. It'd been years since she'd set foot in the school, but she still knew her way around well enough, settling on a small hill in the brush - with the Headmaster's office. It'd taken less than a minute to piece her equipment together, aiming her prized rifle slickly through the natural cover around her.

"Esto es tan triste..." The former Summer murmured under her breath. She knew her target. He'd helped her once or twice long ago. Back then, the world had seemed overwhelming, but things were so much simpler then. Happier. She leaned in closer to her scope, flicking the laser on and pointing her finger to the trigger. "Alicia, juega despacito..."

Alicia held her breath.

"Monsieur Wright?" she whispered into the darkness as the chair swiveled around. Her instincts hadn't failed her, but she had been wrong all the same. Despite herself, she let the mask slip, her shock melting into a warm relief as she looked on him again. "Jason—..." Red spittle sprayed from her lip on the last syllable as something cold slid between her spine. Sensation drained from her legs as she staggered toward Jace, leaning, lurching, slumping to the floor like a sack of baguettes. The gun slipped between her fingers as she fell. Elodie sucked in deep gulps of air, clawing uselessly at the carpet as a dark stain spread up the back of her coat.

---

---

She hit her new wall. Two weeks. When Jace ran off to "get some air" or whatever, that's when her fragile resistance broke down. He had been acting this way ever since they came back from Yellowstone, and she told him about the strange messages she'd read, what she thought they might mean... And it always. Seriously, it was weird, wasn't it? If she had a boyfriend, not that she had a boyfriend, but if she had one, and a friend went through his stuff and found a duffel bag full of broken phones, she'd want to know. Not that she had a friend either, and it wasn't exactly like Evelyn had went through the girl's stuff...

...and even though she had followed him here...

Ugh. Even when she argued with herself, she couldn't win. Evelyn tipped back a bottle of Jack, peering at the far off window. he wasn't the only one in the bushes that night, or the only one stalking Jace. A girl she hadn't seen since... what was it, two New Years ago, or three? The deja vu was so bad it made her stomach churn and head swim remembering it. At first, she had to question if she'd already drank too much, and she almost said something, but the whiskey seemed to close her throat. Alicia was dressed in all black, taking every precaution as she crept over the hill, eyes sweeping straight over Evelyn as if she were a part of the leaves.

You're joking me. This was really happening. Evelyn winced from the metallic clicks, the glint of the sleek black metal in the moonlight. She couldn't find the courage to look at Alicia, so she forced her stare up toward the dark window instead, Jace's broad-shouldered shadow rising in front of the glass, the quiet red dot appearing at the back of his head. Time stopped. Her eyes snapped back toward Alicia, and with no thoughts except that this had to be some kind of nightmare, swung the bottle over the girl's head. Whiskey and glass pieces splashed up her arm, soaking her side, as she pitched toward Alicia and pulled her into a roll down the hill.

Now why couldn't everything be as simple as this?

Barret Spion wavered in the doorway with a content smile. He'd waited quite some time for an opportunity like this. Between keeping Alicia's eyes trained closely on the future and trying to lure Argona's little la chatte away from her, he'd thought that it might never happen, and yet - it seemed as if fate favored him that evening. The Headmaster's boy screamed and cursed and cried out, oblivious to his end. Spion could make out the dim shape of his own little harbinger out in the distance outside the window. He'd almost felt bad for her. She worked so fervently, but she wouldn't last the night either.

"—I'll fucking kill you!"

Something. Something. How could you!? Something. Please stop this. Something. Something. They always said the same kind of shit.

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tapped out a new roll, pulling it up to his lips.

A gunshot echo'd in the distance.

Stained glass panes shattered.

Books fell from their shelves and then

nothing.

His face twitched in annoyance as the boy still stood there, frozen. Of all the rotten luck. Alicia had never missed her marks. In that moment, he was beginning to wonder whether or not fate favored him after all. With a resigned sigh, he moved himself inside, stepping over Elodie's sunken body and reaching for her gun. There'd be a mess behind, but he saw no reason he couldn't simply finish a few things himself. It'd only take a couple more minutes and there was no other students nearby to pull any deus ex machina life-saving bullshit the moment he'd turned around and left.

Or perhaps he was too full of himself. He'd been told that a lot over the years.

The gun flew from his reach, kicked aside.

Spion was only three steps into the room before he tasted blood. His vision went white and his shoulder hit the end of the door frame. In that moment, he almost lost all sense of what was happening. Scattered papers. Broken lamps on the ground. Half the desk cleared off. Why did she have to miss?

His back sank into the floor and the world was spinning. A shape swept over him and he felt the weight of the world pinning him there. He'd felt the rope around his neck, his collar yanked upward. Spion could hear the delicate tear of the fabric ripping.

The flash of white disappeared, replaced by deep red. The pain rippled. His face was burning and wet. With every burst of pain to his eye, his cheek, he found it harder to breath and sank further and further into darkness until there was—

---

---

What just happened?

One moment, her finger was poised and on the trigger and the next thing she knew, a pain like nothing else before — the sharp stench of alcohol flooded her nose and a disgusting, metallic tasted flooded her mouth. In her daze, she could make out slow, warm streams slipping down her cheek and the back of her neck as gravity drew her down from her perch. No, not just that. There was someone else... Someone tearing at her clothes and pulling at her hair.

Alicia screamed and seized and, once they'd hit the bottom of the hill, she began to claw at her attacker's skin. Swinging her fists at the girl - at the air - at anything that was near her. The world was blurred, doubled, red - and all she wanted to do was be left alone, to grab at her head and curl up into a ball.

She'd never been in a fight before, not a real one. The brunette cried through her teeth, slipping a sleek knife out from a clip on her ankle and holding it as a broke would, the handle cupped tight in the palm of her hand. Like a cleave, she swung it down towards the shape before her, praying in the back of her mind.

"Go away!!" Alicia screamed.

Evelyn was swept up in the frenzy, clumps of grass and hair finding themselves between her fingers, hard fists thumping against her chest, her stomach, white flashing across her vision as a wild swing caught her across the face. Red clawmarks scratched down her arms and neck. How did her night turn out like this? Numb from the alcohol, she clawed at the girl's collar, her face, until a sharp pain slid into her shoulder, searing hot pain flashing across her body, vision blurring... The broken bottle slipped out of Evelyn's fingers as she slumped to the side, gasping, hands clutched around her injured arm.

She stabbed me...

Her mind was racing, eyes flickering up to catch a glimpse of the shattered window, and her mind shifted into auto-pilot, fingers slickly moving over her shoulder, and with a cry of pain, yanked it out. She turned dizzy, wobbling, but she still felt herself pressing forward, the knife sinking cleanly through clothes and skin and muscle and tissue. It happened so fast that she barely registered it happened, until she felt the scrape of bone against the knife. Evelyn snatched her red-stained fingers back, eyes wide, panting heavily as she stared at the girl in front of her. "A-Alicia, Alicia, you—..."

---

---

How?

The room darkened, sounds dimming and warping, like she was hearing them from underwater. Crash of a lamp, a smash of wood, the wet smack of flesh. All she could smell was the sharp, iron taste of blood, sucking in air with short, shallow, quick breaths, a sort of whirring noise leaving her lips with each exhale. Each word was like swallowing knives, but she forced them through her lips. "Désolé, c’est ma faute... Désolé, désolé..." Could he hear her? Elodie scrunched her eyes shut, cheek resting against the floor. "Jason..."

With horror she watched the other shape yank the small blade from her own flesh. That was it. It was all she'd had. All they had given here to defend herself. Alicia blinked through stained tears, shrill sounds escaping her as she tries to crawl back. She was never a particularly brave girl. She always tried to hide from her problems or avoid being in the forefront of anything. Why didn't she see this coming?

The blade pierced into her, slow, agonizing. All she could do was scream. Blood brought her dark clothes to a damp shimmer. She couldn't move. The world was already spinning around her. Alicia could only brush a trembling hand over the sheathed blade. Every small breath felt like fire scorching through her.

"W-Wha-?" The girl whimpered. Who was this shadow? Where did they come from? She closed her eyes, fleeing from cruel reality, fighting away the pain.

A small sob escaped her. "I couldn't find him -" Alicia rasped for breath. "I couldn'- I..."

Her eyes glazed over.

---

---

Jason couldn't tell where the bastards' blood stopped and his began. His knuckles stung something fierce, but he wasn't satisfied. Not even close. Every muscle in his body burned, yearned to choke out every inch of life out of Spion's smug fucking face.

A small murmur barely snapped him out of it. He dropped Spion, falling back and catching his breath. He made a swift crawl to Elodie. "Don't talk." He wheezed, shaking his head and running his hands over her, just barely - as if he pushed her she might turned to dust. "We- We can fix this."

She felt like she was sinking through the floorboards. Elodie leaned back, staring up at Jace with sightless eyes, letting him cradle her head in her arms, just like they used to on the sofa, when he would run his fingers through her hair. His hushed pleas didn't reach her ears, she just relished in the sound of his voice, and she liked to think they were sweet words, that he loved her still, and forgave her, and that no one would come between them.

"Jason... Jason..." The word hung on her lips as all movement stopped, and she hung limply in his arms.

---

---

Evelyn stared, panting, hands frozen in shock. First aid... She didn't know first aid, she was just protecting herself. The girl scrambled backward, breathing heavily, putting pressure on her shoulder. A nurse, or a Guardian, or someone. But Alicia was already growing quieter, and quieter, until she was still and silent. Evelyn sat there in the dark for awhile, before he touched her, brushing the back of her hand against her cheek, with no response.

The sobs came a little bit before she lost her lunch in the bushes nearby. She staggered to her feet, not sure whether to run, or hide, or scream for help, but just pinned down by the new lead weight in the pit of her stomach.