"Veronica, honey, I don't think you should walk to school today."

Veronica paused in the doorway, one foot inside the house and the other out. She looked back, and found her mother staring at her with a reassuring smile that was overshadowed by the worry in her eyes.

"What?" Veronica asked. "Why not?"

"W-Well, you see," her mother stuttered. "There's been... something bad happened on a street near here, and, well, it's really dangerous. You shouldn't walk outsider alone."

Veronica's eyes opened wide. "Oh?" she said. "What was it?"

"It's... well, uh..." her mother gulped, seeming to grow more nervous by the second. Veronica sighed.

"Well, considering you see too scared to say it, I'm going to assume someone got shot?" she asked. Her mother winced, but, seeming as Veronica showed no signs of a panic, nodded.

"Yes, well, a murder," she said. "Sorry, I just didn't want you-."

"I get it," Veronica told her. She was fine, really. Alright, maybe the images of Ram and Kurt's death were creeping up on her, and she was having a hard time focusing, but this was America, where she heard about school shootings and murder almost every single day and triggers were nothing but a joke. She learned to deal with it.

But that didn't stop the affects. Veronica was already starting to grow cold and the fear and guilt were creeping up her spine. But she grit her teeth, clenched her fist, and tried to forget about it.

Just then, she realized something. Veronica's head snapped up, suddenly alarmed.

"Wait, a murder?" she gasped. "Who was it?! Where?! What happened?!"

Her mother blinked, then shook her head. "I don't know," she said. She held up a newspaper. "I just read the headline and-."

Veronica didn't listen to the rest of the sentence, instead grabbing the newspaper out of her mother's hand.

"Veronica!" her mother scolded, all the gentleness and softness from before just gone. Veronica grimaced.

"Sorry," she told her mom quickly, before looking down at the headline:

Macabre Murder of Mathis Familyon Meehan Drive

"The writers must have had a field day on that one," Veronica snorted before reading on.

          Last night on September 26 at around midnight, the entirety of the Mathis family was murdered. This includes Manfred and Angelica Mathis and their three children: Madeleine (17), Max (14) and Emily (11). They were found when a family friend, Richard Goranski, went to their house to walk with his friend to school. He immediately called the police, and he is being questioned now. The bodies were found strewn throughout the house, in their bedrooms, supposedly murdered in their sleep. There were a multitude of stab wounds on each body, and there were strangulation wounds on Manfred Mathis' neck, but the cause of death is still presumed to be bleeding out. As of now, the police say they have a couple leads, which they are following closely.

"Oh my god..." Veronica muttered. "Richard... I think he's in my class..."

"...Veronica?" her mother spoke up gently. Veronica looked up, and found her mother watching her intently. "Are you alright?"

Veronica frowned, and then nodded. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'm alright."

Her mother hesitated for a second, and then nodded. "Just wait a moment, alright?" she asked. "I'll ask your father to give you a ride to school today."

"Alright," Veronica muttered, stepping back into the house and closing the door behind her. She paused for a moment, and then went back up the stairs into her room. She needed to call Martha. Martha lived on Meehan Drive.

She'd ask Martha if she was alright, and then ask what was going on.

'I'll try out all the camera's to see what they do. Let's check the animatronics-... did one of them just move?'

Jared walk down the hall, his chest puffed out, his head held high and his headphones playing Five Nights at Freddy's: The Musical at a low enough volume so that he could hear everything around him. With all his safety measures in place he could walk down the hall with confident swagger, all his anxieties in the back of his mind like they're supposed to be.

However, his arrogance all came tumbling down with the man in the police uniform standing at the end of the hallway.

Now, Jared had never done anything too illegal in his life, other than the Murphy mess and maybe pirating a few things, but still, his stomach dropped when he saw the policeman over there.

Nervously, Jared edged forward, trying to keep up his usual nonchalantness. When he turned the corner, he found another policeman. The two of them were talking to the principal, whatever his name was. There was also a plethora of students crowded around the three of them. The students were watching them intently, and simultaneously trying to act as if they weren't.

Among them was Evan. Stealthily, Jared sneaked around behind him.

Evan wasn't the first person Jared would have wanted to ask, but Jared was absolutely not about to work up the courage to ask another student. Jared quickly took off his headphones.

"Psst, Acorn," Jared hissed. Evan jumped. "What's going on?!"

Evan looked at him with wide eyes. "Didn't you hear?" Evan gasped, like he couldn't believe Jared hadn't heard... whatever he was referencing. "Maddy Mathis got murder!"

Jared raised his eyebrows. "Oh, is that it?" he asked. "Huh?"

"'Oh, is that it?!'" Evan repeated, looking at Jared with that look that Jared hated. It was like Evan just couldn't believe Jared sometimes. "What do you mean: 'Oh, is that it?!'"

"Well, I mean... yeah, it's horrible and all," Jared said. "But you know what? It doesn't involve me. I was almost worried it would."

Evan shook his head, another thing Jared hated.

"Jared, it does involve you," Evan told him. Jared gave him a confused look.

"What in the world are you talking about, acorn?"

"Jared, this is a school for people who broke the law!" Evan explained. "We're all going to be treated with suspicion."

"What?" Jared huffed. "That doesn't make any sense."

"...I guess that it makes sense to them," Evan said. "They're going to interview a large majority of the students. Apparently, Maddie was well known."

"Well, I didn't know her," Jared scoffed. "Did you?"

Evan shook his head. "No, we never really spoke. I don't speak to anyone, really."

"Well, that's sad," Jared replied, shrugging. "See ya, acorn."

Evan looked disappointed, and Jared knew that he probably wanted Jared to stay and talk to him. And maybe Jared kind of wanted to stay as well and talk.

But Jared was still a little angry over that time he got screwed over by Evan last year. So if Evan wanted to go play victim, that was fine with Jared. Jared had better things to do anyway, like... continue walking alone to his locker in silent anger.

Yeah... if Jared was being honest, he wasn't much better off then Evan was. Maybe he should have stayed to chat.

"Excuse me, Jared Kleinman?"

Jared paused, and the completely froze up when he saw a cop standing in front of him. She tried to smile down reassuringly at him, but Jared was way too nervous and hiding far too many secrets to be calm.

Suddenly, he realized the cop was waiting for a reply. "Er, yes?" he asked. "Uh, I mean, yeah, that's me."

"Perfect," she said. "Do you mind following me for a second? I just have a couple questions to ask about the recent incident."

"Er... well, class is about to start soon, so..."

"It'll only take a moment," she assured him. "Please, Mr Kleinman?"

Well, that was ironic. Jared knew he didn't have a choice. Slowly, he nodded.

The woman grinned, and led him to one of the quieter parts of the school.