That was the sad truth. Skylar realised that she could never truly be friends with people who she had to hide secrets from and vice versa. She could not regret her choice of words or shaming Karla for cheating on her boyfriend, which was what she assumed. It was sick; Karla was happy after doing it and as far Skylar knew, Karla never mentioned she had a boyfriend. Skylar couldn't help but be disappointed with her. Everyone around her seemed to be more wrong than her, it didn't matter what she had done in the past or if she was ten times worse than them- at this moment, they were horrible.

Skylar had about half an hour till ten o'clock, she sat down at the bottom of the stairs, her mind racing with thoughts. It wasn't her fault- she kept telling herself- they would've been in more danger if they knew her secret. But was that true? Doubt curled her mind like a snake coiling for security, after seeing something as a major threat. Jade was that threat. She hadn't spoken to her since their last encounter like she promised, but her madness, her demeanour stuck to Skylar like a deep scar. She was there, inside her, carving her mind like the devil. A demon that would never go away.

Skylar had realised what everyone was so afraid of. It was that power she left behind in each person she interacted with. Rhyder had started to fake his whole life since Jade threatened him in being her boyfriend. He began lying about Jade to Skylar, telling her that she was sweet and kind. He had probably been through a lot, dealing with her every day.

Skylar felt her phone vibrate in her jean pocket, she picked it up and gasped, all her distressing thoughts flew away as she read the caller's name: Lennon.

"Hey." She said after answering the call immediately.

"Hi, Skylar. It's been a while, I'm sorry, I've just been busy with school and stuff." The familiarity of his voice brought Skylar to joyful tears.

"No, no. It's fine. I get it. How are you?"

"I'm good. What about you? How's your new school?" He said.

"It's great…" Skylar sighed, "I don't really know though. My studies are going well but it's the people here who are kinda messed up."

"What do you mean? Are you getting bullied?"

"No, not really. There's nothing about me to bully. But, it's just some people are on the wrong side of the tracks, do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, you have to stay away from people like that. They're a bad influence."

"Yeah," Skylar said and there was a short pause. "So, are you still dating Anna? I haven't heard much from her since, you know…"

"Oh, uh, no. We split up about a week ago."

"Oh." Skylar couldn't admit it to herself that she was disappointed. Anna used to have been her friend since the beginning of high school, but it drastically fell apart because of what happened to Skylar's parents…

To avoid ever speaking or thinking about what happened that night, Skylar began to tell Lennon everything about Jade and her efforts to ruin her. She also mentioned Blaze Archer Drake, about how she first met and how she would love to kick him in the balls. It was a good conversation, Lennon told her how to avoid them and as hard it was for Skylar to hear, "You don't have to open your mouth after everything they say to you, OK?" He said. "I know how much you like to spit fire at people who piss you off, but try to avoid that, if you have nothing to say neither will they."

"OK." She said.

"OK, I better get back to studying. And you need to sleep."

"OK, Mom."

Skylar was able to hear a small chuckle from him before she cut the line. It had been so long since they had been parted and after just one phone call, all of the feelings came rushing back. She loved listening to his voice and longed to see his face again. Soft blond curls, a definite jawline and his sweet smile was all she could remember, hopefully, she would never forget.

"Mission accepted!"

"AAAH!!" Skylar jumped and dropped her phone, before gaping at who had given her the fright of her life, he grabbed her arm and ushered her downstairs.

"Mission compromised. I repeat, mission compromised." Timothy was spinning his head at every corner, avoiding being caught.

"What are you doing?-"

"Shh!"

His ears were blocked with earphones, in which he was listening to the very distinct music of Mission Impossible theme. He had begun dancing along with the song as he flew downstairs and made hand gestures to Skylar, which she could not understand. He directed her to the second floor and followed a group of people who were waiting outside a door by the vending machine.

"What's going on?" Skylar asked no one in particular since Timothy was so engrossed with his imaginary spy movie in his head.

But her answer dawned on her immediately, a head poked out from the midst of the crowd and she saw the tall athletic boy; Jimmy, Karla's ex-boyfriend. He said something about BAD and his gang playing some kind of dangerous game but to Timothy, it didn't seem like that, he probably had no idea what he signed up for. Skylar grabbed Timothy's arm, yanked him forward and pulled the earphones out.

"We have to get out of here. Now." She said.

"Why? It's just a cool party-" He said innocently.

"No, it's dangerous."

She spun on her heel but her head touched something before making the first step out of there. That stench of smoke mixed with vanilla made her realise that there was no way to escape. She glared at him, his stupid cocky face, the way he smiled as he looked down at her like she was weak or vulnerable. It was obvious, he was gloried for overpowering her.

"Well, well. Seems like we've got a new player. Wanna play Sliceman, Sky?" Blaze said, amusingly.

A girl walking gracefully beside him had an alluring aura, she wore a red mini tight dress and her glossy red hair flowed over her shoulder. She was approaching Skylar and circled them like a vulture in the sky, she made Skylar feel so little.

"No thanks, this was a mistake. I wasn't invited to your little party." Skylar said, avoiding his previous question, which she thought it best not to be curious about at all.

"But I was invited," Timothy interjected.

What a worse time to mention it? He definitely could not read the signs here nor did he have any clue of what they were going to play.

"I never did but, good. The more, the merrier. Beth. Bring them in." Blaze said and as soon as he did, Skylar felt a sharpening squeeze in both her arms, they were restrained behind her back and Beth's nails dug into her skin. "Come along now, let's have some fun."

Skylar, against her will, followed Blaze through the crowd, Blaze commanded everyone to shut up and he pushed the vending machine forward to reveal a hidden door behind. He opened the door and the edges of the doorway, all the way around, was splintered and wrecked. The room must have been covered by a board previously and someone had managed to break it down to occupy the secret room.

The room was quite large, not as large as the lounge but roughly half its size. There were tables and chairs scattered everywhere. At the end of the room, there was a blackboard. The room was an old classroom but now it looked like a club. Alcoholic beverages were set upon the tables, thousands of casino tokens were piled up neatly beside them and decks of cards were scattered around. The men of the crowd roared with energy as they fought for drinks and began setting out cards to their players.

Skylar was forced on to a chair by Beth but she still felt restrained to do anything.

"What the hell?" Skylar exclaimed when Beth took out a rope to tie her wrists on to the arms of the chair. "If you try to do anything to me, I'll scream my fucking head off."

"Go ahead and try. These walls are soundproof." Blaze said as he rapped his knuckles softly on the wall if he had rapped harder the wall would probably fall apart.

Beth sauntered to Blaze, she began to dance like a falling petal around him, caressing her hands on his chest. Her eyes said it all-they were hungry. Blaze and Beth fell into a very erotic state, arousing each other by the lips.

Skylar couldn't see any further, but noticed someone sitting casually on a chair next to her, also bound.

"What. is. wrong. with. you?" Skylar said furiously.

"I didn't know what this was," Timothy replied.

"Oh, what the hell? Who told you, you were invited? Since it wasn't the ringleader then who?" She asked exasperatedly.

"Well, a guy who I expected would be here by now told me. He was cool, you know. And a nerd like me thought that I deserved to be part of the cool kids, so I agreed to come."

Skylar made the same face she made when Timothy casually and immaturely said he was invited, her mouth was half-open and she couldn't believe him.

"Seriously," She sighed, "aren't you happy with the way that you are? You're a nice and unique guy, you don't need to be one of the so-called 'cool kids'." She said calmly.

"I'm sorry. I realised that the cool kids are pretty stupid. Like, they make bad decisions."

"Yeah, like you did tonight. Now, answer my damn question! Who the fuck told you to come?" Skylar said impatiently.

"I don't know!"

"Alright! Let's play Sliceman." Announced Blaze. He stood in front of the board with chalk in his hand. "Since Skylar and her friend are new, I'm going to explain the rules a little bit."

"Oh shit," Skylar muttered. 

"The game is simple, very much like the kid game 'Hangman', where it teaches children how saying the wrong things could end someone's life. But we don't want to kill people. Instead, we hurt them. Someone will be chosen as Sliceman, they will be given a series of dashes on the board which represents the word. The Sliceman will have to guess letters to fill out the word. If they get it wrong… you guessed it, they get sliced." Blaze held up a pocket knife, which by the press of a button, a blade zoomed out.
   "Now, depending on the number of letters you are given, you only have that amount of chances to guess the word. However, as long as you get one letter in, you are allowed to continue guessing as long as you don't make another mistake. Understand? You newbies especially, cos' you're gonna play first." Blaze glanced at Skylar.

Suddenly, Skylar felt lighter but a large THUD made her understand that she was moved from near the wall to the centre of the room. She looked ahead and Blaze was drawing short line after line indicating a six-letter word.

"Skylar will be Sliceman." He announced after stepping away from the board.

"What?" Skylar exclaimed.

"But isn't Sliceman a man?" Timothy had chosen, probably the worst ever a time to speak, "or do you not know how penis' work?"

The whole room gasped, some raised themselves aggressively from their seats.

"If it isn't clear enough, Skylar is a woman. You can't hurt her just for a stupid game!" He shouted.

Blaze had a nasty look on his face, his hand gripped around his knife tightly and he was so focused on Timothy he didn't blink. "Fine." His voice weakened and he aimed his knife at him.

"You can be Sliceman. And she will guess the letters. If she gets them wrong, you'll pay for the consequences."