01.| Welcome to Lakewood
Alyssa Lane never thought Nina Patterson would go this far. She knew Nina was a bad human being, but to post a video of her best friend, one that she didn't want online. That was crossing the line. When she first found out of this video, she was furious. Noah had tried to calm her down, but that ended up in her punching his arm, really hard.
Alyssa had been friends with Noah since grade school. They met when Noah was getting beat up and Alyssa came in and yelled the boys to scram. He always reminded her of that moment when they met as if she'd ever forget it. She met Audrey through Noah once they'd reached high school. Once they were together it just clicked. The group was inseparable, always together no matter what happened. They stood by each other at the worst times in one of their lives.
Audrey and Noah were at the video game store when they heard of the video upload. A video of their very friend, Audrey Jensen, making out with catholic school girl, Rachel Murray. They were both shocked, not by the fact of their best friend kissing a girl, but the fact that they were not informed ahead of time. They then focused on the part where it was uploaded onto the internet and it certainly wasn't uploaded by Audrey. Both Alyssa and Noah tried finding who and where the video was uploaded from, but they were lead to a dead end.
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The next morning, Alyssa was standing at her closet, deciding on what to wear for that day. She then heard her phone start ringing, a loud ding sound on repeat, signalling that she had an incoming phone call. She looked at the screen for the caller ID, noticing that it was Noah. Alyssa picked up the phone, not wanting Noah to wait any longer.
"Hey, what's up?" She said, still unsure of what to wear. "Just wondering if you still want me to pick you up?" Noah asked, Alyssa hearing the sound of him quickly getting into his car.
"Um well that might be a problem, unless your willing to wait?" She said picking out a light grey t-shit and some high-waisted jeans. She put the phone on speaker and settled it on her bed while she struggled to put on her jeans.
"Still not ready yet huh?" He said, with a chuckle that made Alyssa roll her eyes, even though she knew it was true. Noah always made fun of how long she took every morning standing at her closet door deciding of what to wear. He knew everything about her, as did she of him.
"Just come and pick me up." She said, rolling her eyes once again and ending the call, as she rushing to the bathroom to do some quick touch ups.
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Noah and Alyssa walked into school, well Noah walked while Alyssa struggled to get out of the car. Her book-bag heavy with last night calculus homework, requiring to take huge textbooks home. Noah then noticed that Alyssa wasn't next to him and turned around to see her about to fall to the floor. he ran towards her and quickly caught her as he began to laugh.
"You know you could've asked me to carry it for you." He said, taking the book-bag off her shoulders and holding it for her.
"I didn't want to be a bother." said Alyssa, truthfully feeling as if Noah does too much for her and feeling bad towards it. "You're never a bother" He said, putting an arm around her shoulders and continued walking into school together.
Most people wonder if Noah and Alyssa were together, always being asked this question, even by Audrey when they first became friends. They weren't together though, they're just joined to the hip and love protecting one another no matter what. Alyssa and Noah had made a promise to each other in grade school to always protect the other no mater what the cost and it always comes to mind.
Noah spotted Audrey walking as classmates looked at weirdly mumbling harsh things, as if no one would hear. Alyssa noticed this as they jogged closer to this, Noah's arm no longer on her shoulders.
"Hey, there's nothing for you to be staring at other than my lovely outfit, so scram." She yelled to those who were being rude, afterwards hearing a mumbled thanks from Audrey.
"Ah! The lady of the hour!" said Noah, rather loudly as the three of us walked. Audrey with her usual video camera in hand and Noah with two book-bags, one being mine.
"Today is going to suck exceptionally hard." Audrey spoke, clearly referring to the video posted the day before. Alyssa felt bad for what her friend had to go through, wondering why Nina decided to videotape and post it in the first place. She would've done something about it by now, but she was being controlled not to by both Noah and Audrey.
"Preach Audrey! Don't worry it'll get better, Nina better watch out for me when I see her in the halls. Some fists are going to be thrown." Alyssa said, cracking her knuckles and biting her bottom lip.
"What? You love taco Tuesday. Alyssa no fist fights." Noah said, slowly putting down Alyssa's fists. Audrey scoffed at Noah's response, then telling both Alyssa and Noah to let out their hidden comments on the topic.
"But seriously Rachel who would've thought." said Alyssa, with her wide eyes and hand movements.
"I know right. The socially-awkward catholic-school film geek is your lesbian lover, and we have to find out on YouTube?"
"I mean, I call that a best-friend foul" said Alyssa, as Noah and her high-fived.
"I didn't make the video." said Audrey, causing both Alyssa and Noah to laugh. "Oh yeah. Lack of production value made that pretty clear. But if we could just move right on back to the whole lesbian thing..." Not letting Noah finish, Audrey cuts him off, standing in front of both Alyssa and Noah causing them to stop walking.
"Okay, not a lesbian. Not discussing it." This caused Alyssa to roll her eyes, frustrated that she didn't give a definite answer. Noah chuckled an okay, as a group of three girls walked past giggling and looking towards Audrey.
"I swear if I see another group of girls looking over here I'm going to lose it. What do they find so interesting?" Alyssa said, angry at what just happened. Noah ruffled her hair as she grabbed onto his arm, resting her head on his shoulder, trying to calm herself down.
"Tell me what I can do to help." Noah said, trying to find a way to help Audrey through this hard time. Audrey ended up asking if he could take the video down, hoping it would be possible for it to go away.
"Well it's already been yanked. Probably flagged for content. Uh, Alyssa and I tried to tracing who sent it, but the email from the link is just a dummy account." He said, feeling guilty for there was no more he could've done to help.
"Thanks for trying."
"Oh come on, screw'em! They've all done worse and it just disgusts me what goes on in their minds. Lets just go." said Alyssa, locking her arm into both Noah's and Audrey's, walking to their lockers.
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"Cavemen made fires. Those fires cast shadows and those shadows created fear. Men have been obsessed with scaring each other ever since." Mr.Branson said, while he wrote some nonsense, Alyssa didn't understand one bit, on the board.
Alyssa crumbled up a piece of paper with "Hi nerd! Bored." written on it, and threw it towards Noah, landing on his desk. He turned towards her and gave her a 'seriously' look as she mouthed 'open it'. She watched as he opened the paper and rolled his eyes, making her smile.
Mr.Branson then turned around from writing on the board and looked towards Brooke Maddox. Everyone thought Mr.Branson had that hot 20-something vibe going on, especially Brooke. Brooke is known as a gorgeous, sassy and the popular girl, aside from Nina Patterson of course.
"Brooke. Would you like to tell us which genre originated with The Castle of Otranto?" said Mr.Branson, expecting an answer from. Alyssa just rolled her eyes, knowing Brooke probably didn't understand a single word that came out of his mouth.
Alyssa and Brooke were once best friends. Of course Noah will always be her best friend, but sometimes a girl needs girl talk and Audrey wasn't the one to talk about boy drama. Brooke and Alyssa told everything to each other from crushes to sneaking out to a party. But one day that all stopped, the day Brooke became friends with Nina. Brooke knew Alyssa hated Nina, the way she treated people was just unacceptable. She tried being friends with Brooke, but every time she wanted to make plans, Brooke was already hanging out with Nina and the group. Then they just drifted apart, all those sleepover and late night phone calls gone to waste.
Brooke cleared her throat to give her answer. "The castle genre?" she answered, Alyssa trying to hide her laughter.
"The Gothic genre." answered a boy who was unrecognizable to Alyssa. His dirty blonde hair to the side in a wave-like motion. Wearing a black long sleeved t-shirt, Alyssa thought he was hot. Weirdly hot to be living in a town like Lakewood. When he answered, everything went silent for some reason.
"Thank you. Guys, look, I get it. Nobody wants to sit around reading 500 dusty pages about monks and curses. But nobody's forcing you to watch The Walking Dead." Branson said, gently sitting on his desk with his hands in his pockets.
"Ooh! Is The Walking Dead on the midterm?" spoke Jake Fitzgerald, causing Alyssa to look at him weirdly.
Jake was one of Nina's minions, as Alyssa liked to call it. She found him as a creep, always making jokes about girls that made Alyssa disgusted. Though Alyssa isn't one to judge, most of the time, she knew for a fact that Jake Fitzgerald could not be trusted. Hearing things in the girls bathroom about him made her avoid him at all costs.
"Zombies are not literature, Jake." said Emma Duval, laughing at Jake's response.
Emma Duval was the one of the sweet girls from Nina's group. She never did anything personal to Alyssa, at least nothing that she knew of. Alyssa knew that Emma could do better than being friends with Nina. Along with Emma's boyfriend, Will Belmont, Alyssa believed she could do better. She saw the way he treated her, knowing she would forgive him through any lie he told.
"Why not? George Romero, Horace Walpole, its all the same bones." said the still unknown boy.
"Or the same rotting flesh. Kieran's right. Gothic genre is all over TV right now. You have American Horror Story. You have Bates Motel, Hannibal." added Mr.Branson, making Alyssa mumble how hot Evan Peters is.
"What about Texas Chainsaw or Halloween?" asked Jake, Alyssa scoffed and looked at Noah, knowing he would have something to say.
Noah raised his hand and responded, "Uh, those are slasher movies. So, you can't do a slasher movie as a TV series. Well, think about it. You know, girl and her friends arrive at the dance, the camp, the deserted town, whatever. Killer takes them out one by one. Ninety minutes later, the sun comes up as survivor girl's sitting in the back of the ambulance watching her friends' bodies being wheeled past."
"Slasher movies burn bright and fast. TV needs to stretch things out. You know, by the time the first body is found, it's only a matter of time before the bloodbath commences."
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The bell rings as a woman spoke onto the PA, "Nina Patterson's death is a great shock. Once you've seen the grief counselor, you're free to return home. Classes will resume tomorrow."
Riley, Emma, Jake, Kieran, Noah, and Alyssa sat in a circle, waiting to be called in to see the grief counselor. Alyssa didn't understand the need for her to talk to a grief counselor about someone who she despised her with a passion. She didn't even know Nina personally.
"This Wi-Fi sucks. The cops aren't saying much. 'her mom found her body' 'victim of foul play'. I need gory details." spoke Jake, having Emma roll her eyes and remove her head which was resting in her hand.
"Um, hello? Miss, why am I here?" Noah asked, clearly confused as to why he had to be there with the others.
"That's the 'mandatory' part of mandatory grief counseling." added Emma, Alyssa pushing back her giggle. This resulted in Noah messing her hair up once again, causing her to grumble and try putting it back in its place.
"No, but seriously, I feel shock, mild interest, but not grief."
"Guys, Nina was murdered in cold blood. Do you not even care?" spoke Riley, noticeably affected by the news of Nina Patterson being murdered.
"Well I kinda don't really care. Sorry, not sorry" shrugged Alyssa, earning a punch on the shoulder by Noah.
"Here we go. One of Nina's neighbors tweeted that her throat was sliced ear to ear. The press is all over this. They're playing the whole 'maybe Brandon James is back' angle." says Jake, after searching the whole twitter base on news of Nina's murder.
"Brandon James is dead." said by Emma, before storming off saddened by the mention of Brandon James.
"Who's Brandon James?" asked Kieran, not knowing the famous story of Lakewood.
"Oh please don't get him started." mumbled Alyssa, referring towards Noah. Noah has been obsessed with serial killers ever since he first heard of Brandon James. Once he gets started on a killer, he never stops talking about it. Alyssa has made the mistake of bringing one up several of times and had ended up getting tortured with many unnecessary facts.
"Uh, he killed a bunch of students twenty years ago. He, um... he cut some others up. This is him." spoke Noah, moving over to be able to quickly show them the picture. "Emma's dad got stabbed. He almost died. Brandon had Proteus syndrome, like the Elephant Man. People say he was born a monster, but I think he was bullied and beaten into one."
"And you know all this why?" asked Kieran, kind of suspicious of Noah knowing all of this information.
"I don't know. Some guys like sports. I like serial killers. And Brandon James is my Dallas Cowboys." said Noah, oddly smirking and Alyssa being used to this story as she had heard this one multiple times. "He was a classic case of the deformed kid who lived in the shed. Mom home-schooled him. Dad was ashamed of him. His older brother, Troy, was the only one who cared about him. Whenever he went out, he wore this post-op surgical mask. They tried to fix his face a few times. Never really worked."
"What made him start killing people?" asked Riley, this question Alyssa had asked him before and she personally found it to be the most interesting part.
"Rumor is he fell in love. His brother said that Brandon was obsessed. Wrote her anonymous love letters. Made her little carvings. Brandon found her at the Halloween dance. He got up the nerve to talk to her. It went okay at first, but then a bunch of drunk jocks jumped him. They thought they were saving her from a monster. After a lifetime of taking it, something in Brandon just snapped. He killed five students by the time he was done. The manhunt ended at Wren Lake. The girl agreed to meet him. Nobody ever knew who she was."
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A.N
This is the very first chapter of Shattered and I'm pretty proud of how much I've put into this. I started writing as soon as I posted the epigraph last night. I'm thing of posting a criminal minds story. Spencer Reid is just so adorable. I've literally watch Criminal Minds three times all over again, I just can't get enough. I'll be working on the rest of the first episode of Scream. I got halfway through and I'm so proud. I hope you guys are enjoying it the story and the chemistry between Alyssa and Noah so far. There is more to come so stay tuned.