I made it down to the first floor, where Hanzo was recovering from the bomb that killed Reyna's mom. "You're sure it killed her mom? There was no chance of survival?" I clarify. 

 "Positive. I'm sorry, who are you?" Hanzo croaks, looking at me through eyes puffy with emotion. 

 "Oscar, but everyone calls me Ozzy. I'm helping Enzo and Reyna and Della at the café."

 "Nice to meet you." Hanzo tries to smile, but it turns into a grimace. "I just wish it weren't under these circumstances." 

 "I agree. Want me to help get you upstairs with us?" I offer, standing up.

Hanzo waves me off like there's a fly buzzing around his head. "No, I've got to stay here...can you do me a favour?" he asks. Finally, my first "in" with these people: a favour asked by one of the main friends of this murder story. 

 "Absolutely," I answer, trying to repress my eagerness. I've been reading the blog about these people since before the murders. It was an unknown, unheard of a domain at first. But after the murders, that blog took off. It started off as a documentary of the "perfect high school clique," and turned into a murder scene report. I was fascinated. It's like watching a slasher film happen right in from of you.

"Tell Reyna, please. I can't...I can't face her yet."

"Of course, buddy. Rest up. I'll handle things."

Hanzo grabs my shoulder. "Thanks, man. I appreciate it."

I leave Hanzo and jog upstairs, trying to contain my excitement and fear. Excitement for getting involved with the cast of the Solaris deaths. Fear because anyone can be the next kill for this hour. I reach the fourth floor and prepare to blame my upped breathing rate on the stairs. I reach through the glass-shattered window spot of the door and grasp onto the handle to unlock it. 

 As I walk into the hallway, I bump into Makai. "Any luck on finding Reyna? I searched downstairs. That's why I took so long." Hmmm...awfully quick to explain himself.

"We found her," I assure. "She's got a broken finger and she's passed out. Other than that, she's fine. Everyone else, too. Well...besides Reyna's mom."

"Mrs Copulas?" Makai questions, stopping in the hallway. "How?"

"There was a contained bomb in the elevator shaft, dude. She's gone..."

Makai Keanu, founder of the supposed "Ke-aren't-you Stupid" jokes, sighs and closes his eyes. "She's going to be devastated." 

 Frowning, I agree with him. Together, we walk the halls and see Aero King, half-brother to Enzo King. Makai calls him over. "Aero! Can you get a splint for a finger? We'll be in the café."

"Coming right up," he assures, ducking to the bottom of a nurse cart. 

 Makai and I continue down the hall. "So, you said earlier you'd be coming to our school?"

"You bet."

"Well, hopefully, things go a bit better than they've been," he darkly utters.

I make a tsk tsk noise and shake my curly-haired head. "I can't imagine what you're going through."

"I can hardly imagine it myself, Ozzy."

We circle down the hall and stop short of what we see. A gutted Della lays on the floor, blooding pooling the area around her. Enzo sits by her, sobbing, clothes soaked in her blood. A loose computer mouse is on the ground – the only thing about the café that is out of place beside the people in it. 

"Della?" Makai asks, trembling. He turns pale and runs down the hall, sliding on the tile and cradling Adelina's head. Enzo stays where he is until Makai pushes him away. 

"Get away from us you monster! Stay the hell away, too."

Slowly, I enter. I've never been up close with death. I've never met anyone who has been slashed open, either. "Hey guys, I got the splint for..." Aero comes in and stops beside me, dropping his medical supplies and checking Adelina for a pulse before shaking his head, confirming that she's dead. 

 Enzo drags his feet behind him as he walks to stand by me. His eyes are bloodshot and everything about him looks heavy and down. In fact, he looks so depressed that he might just be off himself. 

"Why didn't you save her?" Makai screeches, voice raw and hoarse with emotion. 

 Enzo sniffles and wipes his nose with the back of his hand, which has Della's dried blood caked all over them. "I couldn't. I tried. One of the cloaked guys came in while I was using the restroom. I come back and he's finishing her off, and-" Enzo breaks for the first time ever and cries. "And I couldn't do anything. I reached for my gun, but I was jumped beforehand. The guy tried to strangle me with that mouse cord..." Enzo runs his fingers over the raw skin on his neck, mind elsewhere. "The cord snapped and he ran. I tried to save her, Makee. I –"

 "I don't want to hear your excuses, dick wad!" Makai ferociously growls. "You can sit there and torture me all day and stage a car accident, but you can't help Adelina? How the hell does someone like you function?" 

 "BARELY!" Enzo roars, suddenly infuriated. "Barely, Makai..." he calms down as tears rim his eyelids. "Adelina...the last thing she said was that she loves you." 

 "Loved," Makai corrects, undoubtedly thinking of a million ways to slaughter EnzoKing. "She's dead now."

"This is death number two in the second hour," Aero distantly calls to us, stumbling into a chair and running a hand through his dark blond hair. "They aren't sparing any of us...any one of us can be next."

 "Can we just take a minute to mourn or something, Aero?" Makai snaps, broken and unsettled. I can almost hear his heartbreaking. I know I can definitely see it. "We can just push this aside and move on to the next challenge." 

 Softly, Aero speaks to him. "Makai, we have to. The killer wants us to stay here and mourn. We can't give that to them, okay? Mourn later, live now." 

"It's not fair," Makai sighs, shaking. He glances at Aero, as if for an answer. He looks at the younger King, but he doesn't see him. The only thing he really sees right now is Della.  No, Della's body. Quivering, he caresses Adelina's face as a tear falls from his cheek and plops onto hers. Makai shudders as he stands. After a moment, he still wavers, and it'sEnzo steadies him. "Back away from me."

Slowly, Enzo lets him go; too upset for words. Makai finds his balance. "Where to now?" 

No one has an answer. From what I've read, it would have been one of the girls –usually Della or Reyna – giving directions or offering suggestions. Instead, I find the room filled with my own voice. "We can go up. To the roof, maybe."

"The roof?" Enzo and Aero both inquire in unison. The difference is that Enzo looks at me like I've said the alphabet starts with the number five and ends with a circle; while Aero looks at me like I'm on to something. 

 "Those cloaked guys won't climb all those stairs to get to us," I explain. "And there are hardly any entrances to go to the roof, so we can be prepared. With Enzo's knife," I pull it out, the blade shining clean in the light. "And Enzo's gun," I nod at the boy with black hair. "We can hold off whatever track athletes manage their way all the way up there. And maybe, if there's a helicopter or something reporting, they can come down and save us." 

"I don't want to leave," Makai sighs, quickly spiralling into emotional shock. "But the kid has a point."

 "Makee...Makai," Enzo corrects himself, becoming sensitive to Makai's situation. 

"Makai is right. Along with Ozzy. We can come back for Adelina after the madness."

 Aero nods. "That settles it, then. Good work, Oz." 

 We say our goodbyes to Adelina and depart. Aero leads us like he's probably done his entire life. Enzo brings up the caboose, also like he's probably done his entire life. I walk in front of him, and I glance over my shoulder as Enzo puts his phone in his pocket. "Your phone working?"

"I wish," he grumbles, raspy voice echoing in the stairwell. "Yours?"

"Uhh..." I pull it out. "Nope."

We climb another flight and I glance behind me again to see him typing on his smartphone.

"Are you fake texting?" I call out.

"It's better to fake text than it is to fake re-breaking an arm," he growls at me, giving me a hard stare.

My cheeks flush bright with mortification. I re-broke an arm to get the inside scoop –to maybe get a special front webpage slot on the blog. Enzo will hold that against me, as long as I hold his rage outburst in the morgue hall against him. My arm still throbs from him slamming it into the empty hallway.

Up ahead, Aero side shuffles to enter the next flight of stairs, holding Reyna.

"Why aren't you carrying your own girlfriend?" I ask, internally smirking at my dig at the psychopath.

"Because Aero has the protective gene. I have the psycho gene. When a bad guy bursts in here, raising a gun, I'm going to have to act fast and shoot before he does. I can't do that when I'm holding anyone."

I shrug. "Fair enough."

We round the top floor of Solaris Hospital. Aero steps aside. "Enzo, go in and clear us." 

 "Only because you asked so politely," he grumbles, roughly shouldering Aero. He pulls a gun from his blood-soaked clothes and opens the door, leading gun-first. We wait for a minute or two. "Guys you might wanna see this." 

Aero nods at Makai, who goes to the roof. I follow, when Aero stops me. "Ozzy...the three of us are already involved in all of this bloody mess. You don't have to go with us. If I were you, I wouldn't." 

 I laugh, which feels good. I haven't been relaxed for the past two hours. And hour three is just about here, which means another death. "Aero, I'm in it for the long haul. I saw what they did to Della...I want that guy jailed or dead." 

Aero grants me a gratifying smile. "Thanks, Ozzy."

"Don't even worry about it," I dismiss.

When I walk outside, I'm overjoyed. Policemen cluster on the roof, talking to Enzo, who furiously talks with Sheriff Desario and shows the other cops his badge. "What'sgoing on?" I inquired about one of the officers, who prepares an assault rifle for firing. 

 "We've been up here for a while. We couldn't find a way in without being seen by the cloaked men downstairs. If they saw us, they could've just killed everyone. We don't know how these guys function. We were zip lined over here from that building..." he points to a pizzeria. "We didn't know how to enter without using detonators. Thankfully, you kids showed up." 

In the distance, Aero hands Reyna to the medic, and I hear him ask the sheriff if there is anything he can do to help. 

 "From what Enzo has told me," Sheriff D begins, solemn. "You kids have been through enough. You've been there at every murder sight. I want you to sit this one out." Desariomarches towards the door, a towering Enzo in his wake. "You too, King," he notifies."You've been through hell, too. Have you ever recovered from shooting that kid at the carnival?"

"That kid at the carnival was a potential killer. He had a gun to that girl's head..." he nods to Reyna; whose hair is in a messy braid. "It's easy to clear a conscience when there isn't much to clear, sir." 

 The sheriff places a hand on Enzo's broad shoulder. "You're a good kid, Enzo. You always want to help us out...but take a break before you hurt yourself."

Enzo doesn't contain his disgust with the sheriff. His palms ball up into fists, his brows furrow with contempt, and his jaw feathers. Nevertheless, he manages a "yes, sir," and sits on the edge of SH, feet dangling over the edge.

In a way, we're all feet dangling over the edge. It just takes one miss-action – one mistake to completely plummet to our death. But what mistake did Della make to deserve such a heinous, atrocious death? Or was her mistake never making a mistake? 

 Now there's a thought......