Alright. I have nothing to say for myself anymore. While I was gone this fic surpassed 100k reads, which is insane- but seriously thank you so much, I really appreciate it!!! I'm just sorry that this chapter took so long to come out, I actually had it nearly done almost three months ago, but while I was finishing things up I accidentally pressed a keyboard shortcut that deleted all of my progress and I had to start over. Wattpad is seriously wonky with saving work, I should probably start keeping my writing in other places too. Anyways, have this chapter that is basically just Peril trying her best to act normal- aka babysit a child and suppress thoughts about maybe murdering a guy. Just the usual. More important notes at the end.

The vice principal had instructed Peril to stay put. Thankfully, she was not known for listening to instructions.

She'd only run about halfway to the crafts pavilion when she realized that she had no plan for rescuing her friend in the first place- really, all she'd done was wait until she was out of Morrowseer's sight and bolt right for the place where Moon was last seen. But it had been hours, what if she wasn't there anymore? It only made sense for Peril to check the room they shared at the lodge first.

So many crazy things had happened over the last few hours that it felt like she'd last been in the room ages ago- but she could still remember the number, right? Peril went to the lodge and climbed the stairs to the second floor.

She could only really recall Kinkajou's enthusiastic squealing from this morning when she'd led her and Moon through the space, making commentary like: It's going to be like a super fun sleepover, except in a motel, and: oh jeez was that a cockroach in the sink? Anyways-

Peril was starting to become increasingly frustrated as she wandered up and down the halls looking for the right door. Issue is, they all looked exactly the same. And that was when she heard it- the awful rumbling of the Vice Principal's voice, coming from below her. She hesitantly peeked over the railing to get a grasp of the situation and saw that he was mere meters away, outside the Nurse's office, reprimanding someone. She could barely hear their conversation but the fact that it existed alone was enough to make Peril panic. She slowly backed away from the railing and whipped her head around frantically in the hopes that she would finally recognize one of the doors.

Just then, Morrowseer turned around and Peril could pinpoint the exact moment that she knew he was about to spot her. So, she took one final gamble, turning the doorknob of the room directly behind her and dashing in without a second thought.

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It took a couple of moments for her eyes to adjust to the dimmed lights inside the room, and a couple more for her brain to adjust to the fact that the door had actually been open and she was now inside some stranger's bedroom. She felt something sharp under the sole of her croc and lifted it to find a lego brick, for some reason. Who brings legos on a 10th grade field trip, she thought judgmentally.

And then it hit her. There was a child in this room.

Peril was, to put it frankly, horrendous with kids. Most of the time, they were just as scared of interacting with her as she was with them, and it only ended up being a bigger mess. Peril wasn't even good with kids back when she was one. She could distinctly remember the looks of horror on her kindergarten classmate's faces when she'd used "what's your favorite method of homicide" as her ice breaker on the first day of class. That was the first and last time that she'd used one of Scarlet's social tips. In fact, if there was a child in this room right now, she'd much rather go back out and risk being caught by Morrowseer.

However, she was not given that chance- just as Peril was starting to reach for the doorknob, she heard a voice coming from behind her say, "If you leave, I'll scream."

She turned around to see the little goblin itself- a boy of about 7 or 8 years, with auburn red hair. He was tightly clutching one of those obnoxious lego friends dolls in his tiny fist and staring deeply into Peril's eyes when he said "Will you play with me?"

Peril gave a nervous chuckle. "Uh...sorry, but I really have to go. Maybe another time, kid."

The boy clearly did not like that answer. "If you don't play with me, I'll scream."

What is it with this kid and the screaming?  "Well," she tried, "don't you have anyone else who can play with you?"

The terrible boy looked down sadly for a moment, and Peril was just about to take the chance to leave when he said, "My mom went to go help the big kids with something, and she hasn't come back yet. I can't play legos by myself."

Peril suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the child. Or maybe it was a stomach ache from the fact that all she'd eaten that day was one musty granola bar. Still, she decided that she could spare the bite sized blackmailer just a moment- she'd felt that way a lot when she was younger, and who knows- maybe being nice to this one child could make up for all the other ones she'd accidentally traumatized.

"Fine," she said, and the dreadful boy's face lit up as he grabbed her by her wrist and led her to a spot on the floor that was occupied by a large dollhouse. The boy pulled out a ziplock bag and dumped out an astonishing amount of lego friends dolls, showing them off one by one.

"This is Jeff," he said proudly, picking up one of the dolls. "Jeff's parents don't love him. And this is Charlotte. She's Jeff's step sister and she ate one of his scented candles." The boy continued, enthusiastically introducing all of his characters until he was done. "Okay, you will be Jeff, and I will be Charlotte."

Peril took the small figurine and stared at its dumb plastic face, wondering what to do.

"Helloo?" the boy said. "Weird ponytail girl? I said you're Jeff and I ate your favorite candle. It's a story, can't you act it out?"

As a matter of fact, Peril could not act it out. But the boy was staring at her with those big, wistful little kid eyes that made it feel like a crime to leave- and not even the fun kind of crime- the kind of crime that caused something inside Peril's chest to feel like it was going to twist and snap. As monstrous as it felt to abandon the boy, Peril's mind kept straying to Moon and to the amount of time she was losing by being here.

"Look. This seems really fun but I seriously have to get out of here. My friend is in trouble and I need to help her- do you know when your mom will be back?"

The boy actually seemed to look more puzzled than disappointed. "She said she was going to do something called 'tetherball," he said at last. Suddenly, it all clicked in Peril's head. Despite her general air of disconnectedness, there were some things that she payed attention to- among them, the schedule for activities. Ruby, the basketball coach who absolutely hated her guts, was the one who would be hosting tetherball for the students- which therefore meant that this was her room, her kid, and her way out.

"Okay. Listen. I'm just going to leave now and go get your mom. Wait here. Bye." She didn't give the boy a second to speak before darting out of the door and down the stairs. All she had to do was run over to the tetherball area and tell his mom that her son wanted to talk and boom! No more unsupervised children, she could get to Moon. The issue arose when Peril happened to glance back over her shoulder and saw a suspicious little figure shadowing her- the child.

"What are you doing here? I told you to stay in the room." She groaned in exasperation.

The boy, whom Peril was just now realizing she should have asked the name of, cocked his head at her. "I didn't want to. Also, tetherball is in the exact opposite direction." She scowled at him for just a second before realizing that he was right. "Fine, you can come too. But when we find your mom, you leave me alone. Okay?"

"Okay," the boy said, like a liar.

It only took a couple of minutes to spot his mother- coach Ruby was standing in the tetherball area, talking with a two girls, one of which was in the process of untangling the tetherball rope from the pole it was wrapped around. Surprisingly, Peril recognized her- it was Sora, Clay's sister. But as she approached them even more, she realized the she knew the other girl too- it was Moon! Peril was so relieved she nearly forgot about the kid behind her- still, it was all over now! she could just march over, return the kid, warn Moon about her psycho dad, and then they could get out of there.

"Moonwatcher!" She called out as her friend turned her head away from Ruby. "I need to talk to you!" Moon seemed pleasantly surprised to see her as she came over. "Oh, hey Peril," she said. "I was just getting ready to play tetherball with Sora, do you want to join?"

"Sorry. No. Okay. So. Basically- you know Morrowseer?"

Moon's brows furrowed. "Uh, yeah?"

Peril had started talking so quickly she now needed to take gasping breaths in between. "Well. He knows about you. And he's probably going to come find you soon."

"What?" Moon said, genuine fear in her voice. "Peril...he used to hurt my mom."

Now it was her turn to be shaken. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah. That's why we left- she always told me he was dangerous...I don't know what to do." Her voice dropped off a little at the end of the sentence as she took a sudden, vital breath. Peril hesitantly wrapped one of her arms around the other girl's back, hoping that it might come off as a comforting gesture. They were okay. They would figure something out, and there was plenty of time.

That would have been the way it was, if life wasn't an absolute bitch.

In the next 10 or so seconds followed a chain of events that somewhat resembled a metaphorical jenga tower falling, as time seemed to have just...unfrozen.

"Cliff, is that you?" Called out Coach Ruby suddenly, rushing forward. She shoved Peril aside so hard that she nearly toppled to the ground, only barely stopping herself with her hands. At the same time, Moon's head shot up and her gaze seemed to fix on something uncomfortably close by that to Peril looked like a blob the color of mayonnaise with a little dot of black on top.

After a second of letting her eyes adjust, she realized it wasn't a blob, but a man. The vice principal, stomping towards them.

I only realized after finishing this chapter that Peril's eyes apparently need to 'adjust' a lot- maybe she needs glasses? anyways, by the time this is published I will have already started on the next part so that hopefully I can release the few chapters that are left more naturally from now on. The story is almost over, (thankfully) but I still want to try my best.

P.S. Expect a new cover very soon, as I'm trying to get back into the groove of writing this, I'm working on new cover art.

See ya!