When they got back to Simcoe, Jason lay on Bella's couch. He had minor injuries this time due to Greyson's wrath, but Scarlett allowed him to get away without much physical harm. It was good that they at least got away before anyone was seriously hurt.

Bella sat on the end of the couch, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, with a bandage wrapped around her thigh. Cindy ended up dressing it once they came back since she got shot with a nail gun.

Zane had gone back to the fire station, resulting in him knowing they had to act soon. Due to his actions, Jason didn't even have any words to say to Mark. He still couldn't believe Mark had chosen to help Greyson by leading him right into their hands.

Esme has sped off somewhere in town, saying she wanted the freedom to run around. It surprised him that Luke hadn't gone after her.

"Are you okay?" Bella asked, bending in front of him.

Jason removed the ice from the back of his head, and he was quite certain he had suffered a concussion from the blow. He remembered learning from volleyball after one of his teammates got a ball hard to the head. He groaned slightly, moving his head, making Bella automatically place a hand on the back of his head.

"Well, I'm okay," he sighed.

Jason thought back to Ashley. Zane told him about her disintegrating most of the wall at Uden. From what he remembered, Scarlett had ranked her low. Did the supernatural abilities change over time? Maybe that's what happened in some twisted part of this bubble.

First, people aged fifteen and over seem to vanish. Next came being trapped, plus that leakage that may or may not have changed Ashley. If that purple substance wasn't blood, had this injection been some kind of monster?

Jason felt his heart race as Bella slowly tried to calm him down. She held his hand and slowly rubbed his forearm. Looking up at her, she smiled at him. He leaned up slightly, used his opposite hand, and pulled her down to kiss her.

If this had actually been reality, Jason wouldn't have had a chance with Bella since she was always hanging with the older students. Even kissing her seemed like a fantasy from another universe.

He released the arm from around her neck, pulling back as her face clouded with a blush. "Thank you," he said.

It didn't feel right going back to his house. Knowing the exposed secret and that even Ashley, being his stepsister, didn't feel right. He was supposed to grow up in a house with a twin brother, who is the exact opposite of him.

"I think you should prioritize your Simcoe role over going to Uden," Bella said, her cheeks flushed.

Slowly, he sat up but felt an intense rush of pain through his body. Bella wiped the side of his temple, where dried blood was visible.

"I need to figure out Ashley's incident," Jason mumbled. He spotted the unsettled expression resting on her face, looking toward the wall.

Bella took a breath and looked back at him. "Zane said there was another hole on Park Street that caused the deaths of some children," she said.

Jason widened his eyes, gripping the side of the couch. He should probably check in and see if anyone got injured, or close the road off so people don't try jumping in it for fun. In the worst case, people might actually die by trying to avoid the hole.

Bella automatically pushed his shoulders down, making him wince in pain. "No," she said, her eyebrows narrowing. "Zane and some others were helping gather those that did survive. I know you two will vanish soon, which means we need to find a way to prevent it."

Without figuring out a way, he would vanish wherever they all were. Maybe all of them had actually just died? The bubble might be placed inside an enclosed space, cut off from the actual outside world. If that had happened, had humanity been extinguished from the start?

Esme came zooming into Bella's house, breathless. Her knees were bloody as she held up a finger before planting herself on the hardwood floor.

"I got some more out of that hole. Some kids saw Ashley do it," she said, panting. "Xander is working on burying them, but Emma has healed some others."

Bella rushed over to grab some bottled water from the fridge. Esme slowly stood, grabbing a napkin from the kitchen table. Cleaning away all the blood revealed large gashes with some flesh torn off.

"Nothing I can't handle," she beamed, giving a thumbs up. Holding the napkin back on, she staggered to sit on the coffee table. Lying across it, Bella wore a flat expression.

Esme spread out like a starfish, as if she were floating. She pushed all the medicine and clothes that were once there toward the ground, a dazed smile on her face.

"Sorry if you get a bloody table," Esme murmured.

Jason watched Bella try to pull Esme off the table. During the process, she kicked Bella in the stomach, keeping her eyes shut. Bella groaned, standing up and seeing Esme face-down on the table. There was no sense moving the girl, who seemed to be passed out asleep. Some scrapes covered her elbows, which made him wonder if she had just fallen or had been hurt.

"I wonder how many were okay?" Jason muttered.

"I feel like I'm a nurse," Bella sighed.

Eventually, they'd have to contact Melany about everything that was happening here. Maybe just resting would be the best solution to everything.

"I'll go ask someone to get Melany or Cindy. Emma probably has a lot of stress on her," Bella said.

Injury after injury on repeat—not just himself but others around town have tried doing reckless ideals. It was either doing tricks on bikes inside the school or driving cars. Everyone had their own idea of negligent actions; they enjoyed them in their own circumstances, where scrapes and burns were visible. He wondered if it wasn't just from fights but something else.

"Okay," he mumbled, shutting his eyes.

Once he was healed, burying the dead had to become his first priority. Furthermore, Zane and Xander couldn't do everything by themselves. Even with Esme pulling up kids, people could still be trapped or even dead. More deaths among people meant more graves to dig.

Slowly, graves have been planted in Clifton Park. Small lines with small wooden crosses made from art supplies that Ilya and the children would help make, but mostly Xander, Mark, and Yara helped.

Thinking about Mark, he wondered if he had started helping at all with that. Despite what he did, Mark may have had no other choice. With how they handled things, Scarlett could have told him Luke or Greyson might torture him.

The front door opened to Nevaeh, who was looking around with her eyebrows knitted at first. Seeing the injuries, she seemed to nod her head toward herself.

"Correct, as I suspected," she said, waving a hand, then automatically slamming the door.

The two stared blankly at the door before he looked toward Bella. Having someone he never knew enter randomly seemed out of place, especially the Uden Academy people, whom nobody knew before all of this started.

Scarlett leaned back on the wooden bleachers, glancing over at James. Greyson had gone off to figure out what Luke had done to Stick. She guessed he was probably beating on him with some tool he found at Home Hardware.

In the real world, it's considered a crime if you confess, not if you keep it secret. Intentionally or not, no one wanted to go through Luke's torture. Sometimes at school, they gave him the longest suspension they could, which was a week. Standing from her seat, she gracefully walked toward James.

"Are the cameras set?" Scarlett asked.

"It's done, so we just need to get Collin," James implied.

Scarlett puckered her lips, setting a finger on them. She patted his head, making her way toward the old locker room. The place often looked like a prison room, with cement flooring, small lockers, and narrow showers with a narrow curtain.

She heard screams before pushing open the door as she walked down the hideous stairs of teal and black stone. When she pushed it open, Greyson sat on a bench while Luke had a knife out. Blood oozed onto the floor from both Stick's head and arms.

"Get Collin!" Scarlett called, her face scrunched up at the sight.

Luke giving punishment to people always happened out of his pure enjoyment, despite the headmistress always getting mad at him. He couldn't do much since he was watched like a hawk at school, but he would still punch or slap people for fun.

"Continue," Greyson ordered as the two of them rushed up the stairs. "Collin is on patrol outside. You get David."

"Be careful he doesn't kiss you," she mocked.

She turned down the hallway where David sat inside a classroom. Inside, some Uden students hung around, sorting through the food system. It was between who got what to make sure some just got all the candy.

"Hey, Scarlett!" Will called, waving a hand.

"David, can you come with me? I heard someone wanted to talk to you," Scarlett said.

David stood up silently, his neck turning red and his eyes wide. He had blond hair that was nearly shaved down to the scalp, which made him look bald. He had a drawing of a large music note on his left cheek that was in black marker. When the boy faced her, he just waited for a response.

"Collin wanted to talk to you," Scarlett whispered, waving a hand for him to follow, walking down the hallway toward the gym.

The fair-skinned boy rubbed the back of his neck with his lips together, which showed off his dimples. They headed to where James had positioned the camera he had set up. Looking around, Greyson had not gotten to Collin yet. David seemed perplexed, looking around the gym.

"He'll be here soon," she said, smiling and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Let me down!" Scarlett heard Collin's deep voice while Greyson held him in the air with nothing but his mind.

Collin was a bigger guy, which was the reason Greyson had been the one to get him. He was wearing a black baseball cap backward with baggy clothes, and his dark eyes were staring with intense emotions at David. They were both quiet when they stared at each other, seeming unaware of what was really going to be happening.

"Since you may vanish, we wanted David to be a crowd member," Greyson explained, dropping him onto the chair. "We need to do a test."

"Two minutes," James implied.

David rushed close toward him, but Greyson stopped him with the opposite hand. His eyes narrowed at both of them as the ticking of the timer went down.

"Even if you disappear, Collin, I still like you!" David exclaimed.

"Thirty seconds!" James panicked.

"I like—" Collin's words were interrupted, causing him to automatically disappear.

Greyson rushed toward one camera while James replayed the vanishing moment. Collin had looked over and seen something in the video. Scarlett narrowed her eyes, spotting some figments on Greyson's camera.

"What's that purple blob?" Greyson questioned.

"Collin is handing it something. It's almost like he was given something," James explained, slowing the recording.

By slowing down the speed of the recording, Collin's hand was slowly holding something and giving it to something, but nobody else was visible on the recording.

"Ashley?" Scarlett asked while looking toward the two.

At this point, Ashley seemed to be the only thing that could be causing this problem. She was the only one who had that purple substance in her body and created those big holes in the school building.

"There had to be more than that thing," James said. "Someone convinced him."

Luke came marching back into the gym, a bloody ruler in hand. "Stick's not dead," he spat, rolling his eyes.

"We may have figured out how to prevent it," Greyson said.

James replayed the moment of Collin vanishing again, but Luke just stared with furrowed eyebrows. "Some purple blob?" he laughed while his ruler got thrown from his grasp.

"Shut it, Luke," Greyson snapped.

Scarlett looked over at David, who was staring frozen at the four of them. He should have known this would have been the situation that would eventually happen. People know that they seem to disappear when they turn fifteen or older, which is exactly why Collin had.

"You bitch," David spat, his body trembling. Automatically, he pulled a shotgun from underneath his thick sweater and fired directly at her.

Scarlett sat frozen, ducking with her hands over her head and closing her eyes. She knew she should run out of the room, but that would make the chances of her death even higher.

At that moment, she heard someone gasp. Slowly opening her eyes, she spotted the bullet in David's head. There was blood dripping down the side of his head, with his body falling limp on the floor. The gun had fallen beside him.

Scarlett stared with widened eyes, glanced back, and saw Greyson standing with a palm out. He had used his powers to send the bullet that David shot in the opposite direction, which killed him instead of her.

"It looks like someone got their wish," Luke snarled, walking over to David's dead body. He grabbed David's leg, dragging him out of the emergency fire exit door in the gym.

Scarlett could still feel her heart racing as she wiped sweat from her palms onto her black jeans. If Greyson hadn't seen or heard the bullet, she'd be dead.

Scarlett spotted James taking the USB out of his laptop slowly. "That video will be transmitted on this document. I'll try and get it clear and see if I spot anything," he informed.

She looked back where David's body would have been, where a puddle of blood was still on the floor. She automatically left the gym toward the girls' bathroom, grabbing a brown paper towel and wetting it in the sink. She looked up in the mirror, seeing that her mascara was smudged under her eyes.

David had just been another boy at the school. There was no reason to be dramatic about his death. Luke would dispose of him in the outside garbage bins. She doubted they'd bring his body to town, telling them that David killed himself. Staring into the large mirror, she took another breath and used her pinkie to try and wipe away part of the smudged mascara. Seeing someone shot that she barely knew shouldn't get her worked up at all.

When she got back to the gym, she cleaned up the bloodstain until the paper towel ripped. When the blood was no longer there, she walked toward one of the garbage cans to throw it out. The blood and the body were gone, so that should be able to help her calm down now.

"If Collin agreed because of something or someone, I have to refuse it," Greyson said.

James nodded, starting to take the cords out of the extensions. Scarlett just glanced at Greyson. He could have refused to ricochet the bullet, which could have ended up either injuring or killing her. Despite making him furious last night, he still saved her.

Sitting on a chair inside the infirmary, Emma stared at the wall. She knew that what she had in mind would be a change for her. Breaking it off with Greyson resulted in her confidence growing toward herself. They have been dating for about five months, but she has been waiting for two months, and she knew it was time.

Abruptly, she stood, with Melany glancing at her. "Can I do something quickly?" Emma asked.

Melany looked around the infirmary, which was bare of people. Since she started helping out in the infirmary, people's wounds were easy to heal, like a scrape or a large cut. The one thing about healing injuries was that she often got nauseous at the sight of large wounds or broken bones.

Emma rushed out and grabbed her pink bike that Uden trained them with and pedalled her way there. It wasn't exactly the easiest on the roads, because cars were still crashed into the ditches or stopped in the middle of the highway.

When she made it to the front gates of the school, she dropped the bike and went inside. She was allowed a free pass anywhere because she was the healer who could go to both sides. Sometimes people couldn't always come to the infirmary when they had injuries, so she'd go back up to Uden to help.

Emma knew Greyson would be in the headmistress's office, since he was still detecting those who had vanished. With his birthday coming up, that could result in him disappearing. Maybe it just takes you through a plastic tube into a different universe.

The door had been shut, prompting her to knock. It opened automatically, with Greyson looking at her with knitted eyebrows. Opening the door wider, she stepped inside the bare office. It had been surprising that neither Luke nor Scarlett had been inside. Even James, who had been spending a lot of time figuring out the work.

Emma gripped her hands together, shutting her eyes. "Um," she started, opening her eyes. "I want to break up." It came out as a chunk of words.

"You what?" Greyson asked.

Saying it once was stressful, but twice now? It made her knees shake as she released her gripped hands, chewing her lip.

"I want to break up," Emma said. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Dropping to her knees, he stood up to lean over the desk.

"Okay," Greyson agreed.

He had been fine with it all. Is that considered good or bad? Even though she has always been sensitive, it didn't hurt for some reason. Maybe it's because she focused on something else for a change.

"Don't go switching sides, though," Greyson remarked.

She stopped at his words in the doorway, glancing back. She nodded, slowly shutting the office door. She knew helping people was her new job, but if Jason and Greyson got hurt, Greyson would come first.

"Focus!" she murmured, slapping her cheeks.

Staying by Greyson's side has always been a choice. Esme had gone off automatically to help people in Simcoe, but she still stayed at Uden until she got the opportunity to help in the infirmary.

Walking down the stairs, she travelled back toward her dorm. Some people have started stealing food from the fridges, especially in the evening. There were some people raiding the ice cream in the cafeteria, along with the brownies they hid.

According to Uden, eating junk food results in increased bad behaviour. Emma never truly understood the morals behind it.

Opening the door, she spotted a mix of guys and girls in the dorms. She went toward the two couches, where Jade and Finn sat. Wearing a concerned expression, Finn seemed to be telling Jade about an event. Emma sat in an uncomfortable chair opposite Jade. Shock rested in her eyes as she just stared at him.

"What's wrong?" Emma asked.

"Stick hit Vickie," Finn said as he gripped the black and white pillow he held in his chest.

Emma could only widen her eyes at the news. Gripping her hands on the sides of the chair, she stared at him in horror. She could never imagine being a witness to someone getting hit. People should know that you're supposed to stop when someone is crossing the road.

"And where is he?" Jade questioned.

"Torture with Luke."

Nobody wanted to go through Luke's torture. As any Uden person knew, torture could kill you. Greyson ordered for him mostly, but Luke did it willingly. Someone hit him with a ball once, and he got a broken arm.

Nevaeh came bouncing over with a sly smile on her face. Any time you thought about a secret, she would know. If you kept it buried away without thinking about it, she would never find out about it. A lot of people have been trying to avoid talking to her lately.

"Murder? That's interesting," Nevaeh said. "Weren't you there too?"

Finn's breath hitched, and he stared wide-eyed at the girl, shaking his head multiple times.

Nevaeh could probably hear every detail that happened during the event, which could result in more harm for them.

The Asian girl twisted her dark hair, looking toward Jade. A slight smirk appeared on her lips while she stared at the floor. What secret had Jade been keeping quiet? Maybe she is someone who developed those powers.

Nevaeh had just been the overall gossiper. It wasn't as horrible as Scarlett's actions, but she knew almost everyone's secrets. For a small amount of time, she could hear the secrets. Apparently, it's only an hour every five secrets. It still gave her an overall understanding of everything going on. If any life-changing event were to happen, everyone would know about it.

"Emma isn't letting me hear anything," Nevaeh sighed.

Emma tried to focus on something else. Someone suffered a concussion as a result of the massive hole, and one person broke his leg.

The fire crew was looking into the leading cause, but most suspect someone used it with power. Someone who could make huge holes would be Ashley. Nobody exactly knows what her actual powers are in the first place. If Ashley's powers were greater than Greyson's, they could all be facing death.

Checking the inside of the large, outside garbage bin, David was inside it dead. Luke stood beside Greyson, using his hand to cover it up with old garbage bags. People can't end up retrieving information about David's suicide. Jason may send a search party, along with taking Greyson's role as mayor away. Shutting the lid, both of them walked away as if nothing had happened.

David had just been like any other student. Greyson didn't actually know his name until Scarlett told him. It wasn't exactly like he searched campus, finding sixth graders to pick on. That was something Luke would do for his own enjoyment purposes of torture.

"What are we going to do with Stick?" Luke asked eagerly.

"Leave him," Greyson said. "Let him out tomorrow. We can't have people suspect we're responsible for David's death."

Luke smirked at his words, carrying a bat in his hands. If there wasn't a weapon in Luke's hand, it wasn't a normal action.

They got to the dorms, but Luke went off to the side of the building. Upon entering the dorms, most had disappeared to dorm rooms or some random area. Greyson knew he needed to shower and wash away the smell from messing around with the garbage. It had just been some kid who sorted food, whom he blames for suicide. Unless people find the decomposed body, they are in the clear.

Opening his dorm room, Scarlett sat on his bed, staring at the wall. His entry made her stand from where she sat. She wore her straight hair down in comfy shorts and a long sleeve, and she placed her arms at her hips.

"What are you doing here?" Greyson blurted, staring at her from the doorway.

"I'm surprised you didn't throw me out yet," Scarlett implied, walking toward him with a wry smile.

"I wouldn't do that," Greyson said.

Scarlett raised her eyebrows, pressing her lips into a thin line. She seemed uncertain about something for once. She always seemed to know what she would say, regardless of whether it was blunt or not.

She walked over, wrapped her arms around his back, and hugged him. For once, a genuine hug with no accompanying seductive actions. He wrapped his arms around her back before she pushed him back slightly.

"For reflecting the bullet," Scarlett stated.

"For the bullet?" Greyson asked.

"Well, it's not often that happens," Scarlett said, arching an eyebrow and ambling toward the bed. Sitting, she crossed her legs with her arms behind her, hands planted on the sheets.

"Well, he fired at you," Greyson stated.

"Why, though?" she urged.

Greyson didn't exactly know what to say. Had he done it to save them all, or just her? It made his palms sweat as she let out a sigh.

"Emma ended it," Greyson said.

"Swimming around the question?" Scarlett laughed mockingly.

"I'm not swimming," he spat.

"Keep telling yourself that," she snarked, standing close to him.

Some emotions rested inside, toward something that he couldn't understand. Even when he dated Emma, it wasn't about having feelings toward her.

Greyson lunged to kiss her, both her hands resting on his chest. Even if he wrapped an arm around her waist, she let him kiss her. Then she pushed him back onto his chest, setting a hand on her hip.

"Enough," Scarlett said. "Is this my confirmation that I'm allowed to sleep here?"

"Yes," he sighed.

"You'd allow me at one point, wouldn't you?" she mocked.

Which character are you most like in the series so far?
-Lexi