Chapter Two - Julie and The Phantoms

The Strongest

It was 3:25am and Julie was lying in bed, yawning loudly. The flowers were in a vase next to her, ready for the attack.

"Don't fall asleep yet," Reggie whispered from somewhere in the darkness.

"Be quiet," she said. "You keep scaring me."

"Sorry," he whispered back.

Julie tried to open her eyes wide and stare at the ceiling. She tried to think of things to keep her awake. She thought about her kiss with Luke and smiled, her eyes glancing over into the darkness where he stood, waiting.

It was then that a figure appeared in the room. The guys noticed it before Julie and jumped, quickly running over to stop him from getting closer.

"Caleb, stop!" Luke hissed at him.

"So you've figured it out," Caleb laughed, eyeing all three guys. "And you're here to what... stop me?"

"Something like that," Alex answered.

While they were talking, Julie hopped out of bed and reached for the flowers, shoving them behind her back.

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Caleb scoffed. "With a 16-year-old?" He pointed at Julie, who was approaching him.

"Leave her out of this," Luke said firmly.

"Oh, I forgot you had feelings for her," Caleb said, his smile growing. "How tragic to be a dead and in love with a person...not so dead."

Julie quickly shoved through and pulled the flowers out from behind her back, stuffing them into Caleb's face so he had no choice but to breathe in their toxins.

Caleb coughed. "How did you..." he started, his knees starting to wobble. Alex and Reggie each took a shoulder, holding him up.

"Yeah, we're not as dumb as you think we are," Luke said, watching Caleb's eyes slowly close.

"I'll get rid of these," Julie said, running into the bathroom with the flowers.

"And we'll get rid of this," Alex said, nodding his head toward Caleb. Him and Reggie popped out of the room with Caleb in their arms to put him god only knows where and Luke looked over at Julie, who was walking back out of the bathroom.

"Thank you," she smiled at him.

Luke let out a small chuckle. "You know we would do anything for you."

He leaned forward and gave her a small kiss on the cheek. "Get some sleep," he whispered.

"Goodnight," she whispered back, feeling her face heat up at the spot his lips had touched.

Down in the studio, Alex was laying Caleb down onto the couch when Luke appeared.

"So, I just realized that we didn't think this through," Luke said, pointing at Caleb's body.

Alex scratched the back of his head. "Yeah," he said slowly.

"He's stronger than us... than me!" Luke said, his voice getting louder. "He'll fight off the poison for sure."

"Well, he doesn't have Julie to help him fight it off, so it might be a while," Reggie shrugged.

"It won't be that long," Willie's voice floated in from the door.

"Way to bring the mood down," Alex threw his hands out in frustration.

"What are we supposed to do then?" Luke asked.