"So, who's up for Elise's prom? It would've been Betsey's and Wade's too." Unwillingly, Lela let the last few words slip out of her mouth, scratching at her lips as if she had sinned by speaking their names. Seven had gone down to four, but the four barely spoke about the three they lost. Elise, Betsey and Wade were all are year older than the others, but they had been kept back a year due to low grades. So at final school they only took a two year course, meaning their prom had come around a lot quicker than they were expecting it.
Betsey had been planning for so long before it, making sure her and Wade's outfits coordinated, but also that Elise followed their royal blue theme too with her initially going with the two of them.
Now she was going with Vykter, who still had another year left at final school, along with Nathly. Lela was the only one left taking a four year course, the realization hitting her that after Nathly and Vykter leave, Avry won't be there with her.
"But who would you go with Lela?" Twisting her body round to face a stood Lela, Elise flashed a grin that was filled with intent, every word she said being spoke for a reason.
"I don't need to-"
"The rules are take someone or don't go at all." Elise's statement earned a confused look from Vykter and Nathly, the boy quickly catching on to what his best friend was doing.
She had spoken to him about Cody's little thing for Lela, a surprising turn of events to him, as he had predicted Matt and Lela to end up together. Vykter was never wrong, but once he knew about Cody's crush it all became obvious. The way he paid attention to her when they were all together, his confident exterior oddly crumbling away every time he talked to her. But not in the way that made him a fumbling mess, but in the way that made him a tolerable, polite human being.
"That's not the actual 'rules' of the prom surely-" Meanwhile Nathly had the other end of the stick, believing Elise was trying to set her and Lela up again. Since Nathly had started seeing someone else, their friendship had become so uneasy, so unnatural. It just wasn't like them, but it was the reality.
But Elise quickly snapped her hand up in an effort to shut Nathly up, talking over her and she focused her attention on Lela only. "Take someone or don't go at all. One of the boys must be free, well you'll be left with Cody or Charlie because Matt and Dan will go together."
"I'll take Charlie." And as Nathly spoke, Elise's plan fell into place, signaled by yet another unsettling obvious smirk.
Lela fell silent, hearing Nathly so quickly dismiss the idea of the two of them going together. But with the silence came tension, and tension led to questions.
"What's going on between you two, come on, spill." Elise tossed her gaze between Nathly and Lela, swirling her finger around in the area between them.
With a short, awkward glance between the two of them, Lela began to talk."Nothing, everything's great isn't it Nat?"
Nathly nodded, suddenly not feeling like speaking, while jumping up out of her seats. She listened to them all day 'where are you going' and 'what are you doing', but she knew her reply would only spark a further ruckus between Elise and Vykter. "Braidn's."
And with those words, the front door slammed and Nathly was gone.
"Braidn? Why would she be going to see him?" Vykter shot up from his daze, flickering his looks between Elise and Lela, wondering if he was the only one who didn't know what was going on.
And it turned out he was, Elise explaining the situation. "He's her new, what Cody called, 'fuck buddy'. I believe fuck is a term for sex- oh wow Lela is that why you're not talking?"
"Look it's not that big of a deal, just means I'm not getting as much as I used to." In the beginning, that was all their relationship had been about to Lela. Sex. She didn't want to date Nathly, she didn't really want to date anyone. But creating the sex only relationship between her and Nathly, meant she was getting exactly what she needed.
Vykter and Elise simply sat puzzled, confused at to how something that apparently wasn't a 'big deal', could affect a friendship so much. "So why aren't you talking?" But Vykter's tone was filled with genuine curiosity, and a soft rasp that reverted him into a childlike state, missing the group of friends they once were, without all the drama.
Elise's, however, was the polar opposite, her words intent on getting a specific reaction. Her goal here today was to get Lela with Cody, but somehow her romantic loving heart had sided with true emotions. "Because she's jealous."
"I'm not jealous, it's nice to see Nathly moving on. She's been hung up over me for so many years now, seeing her with someone else is refreshing."
"So what you're saying is you've been leading Nathly on all these years?" Vykter coined in on what Elise was doing, their brains fitting together like a puzzle that perfectly worked.
"No-"
"Well it's either that or she actually likes Nathly." The two of them had now reverted to talking to each other singularly, pretending as if Lela wasn't there. And it continued on and on, until Lela couldn't listen to it anymore.
As the words began to fumble out of her mouth, her body sent waves of nerves all across, numbing her lips with anxiety as she said the one thing she'd never been able to say. 'I love her.'
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Aurelia's figure lay still, sprawled along the sofa in the Yung's front room. Her and Yousef had spent their morning looking for Kecia, running round together in the hope that she'd just appear, yet she appeared in the form of Braidn, telling them that their friend was at his.
Kecia just sat outside, arms tightly crossed against her chest as she protested against Britni's reluctancy to let her in.
Now all three of them were inside, Kecia still being ignored by Britni. Aurelia meanwhile had made herself at home, twirling her already curled hair round her fingers on the sofa.
The open plan kitchen to living room left Yousef watching Aurelia just lie their, somehow mesmerized by her in her simplest state.
"I remember the first time you and Aurelia met, it was a magical encounter." Kecia creeped up behind him, after hopelessly trying to get Britni to talk to her, only to be sent away by Damiron with words of reassurance.
"It was?" Trying to rack his brain, Yousef flashed his brain back to the time him and Aurelia first met. Year 10, just 15 years old. She was the last one he met out of the group, her not choosing to hang out with them after school until that year.
"It was. You were so captured by her, you didn't even pay attention in science anymore. She'd always tell me about how she'd catch you staring at her, and if me and Malerie didn't already know you we would've thought you were so weird."
"Thanks?"
"But we did know you, we knew how funny, how sweet, how different you were to Matt, Dan, Cody and Charlie. So I told Aurelia it'd pass over, it was just boys being disgusting again." Kecia laughed ironically at the expression Yousef made in reply to her last words. Her, Malerie and Aurelia hadn't had a boyfriend for years now. Sure they'd played around, but the three of them had developed this small hatred for the majority of the male species and their disgusting level of sexism.
"But it didn't pass over, did it? I do this thing where I-"
"No Yousef it did, you stopped looking, you stopped paying attention. But the poor girl had fallen for you somehow just from the weird glances, and the listening of your pure words. It's sad really, imagine having to spend every day stuck with the person you have a crush on, and listen to all his mates talk about how they like someone else who isn't you. I personally would've let the guy go already, no dick is good enough to get hung up over." Kecia lifted herself up from the stool she had placed herself on and span round into the main section of the kitchen, leaving Yousef staring at Aurelia once again. Aurelia, the one who would always make the effort to talk to him during school, the one who supported him during his darkest times. The times where everyday he'd get ridiculed for his beliefs, that his religion should be banned, that he was worthless. She was there for him.
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The living room of Elise's house had been masked in an aroma of guilt, death and pity since the day Avry was announced dead. It was the last place anyone had seen her, the last place they'd ever see her. And yet all she wanted to do was celebrate her already late friends.
Now sat Cody, Matt and Dan, on the exact sofa she would've sat on not long before her death. It was littered in empty alcohol bottles, food hidden away in the cracks of the material, stained with the tears of Elise and Vykter after they had spent the night mourning Avry, and not cleaned up since.
"Nathly just messaged me saying there's a prom tomorrow night, seems like a perfect time to get Freya out." Charlie jogged down the stairs, phone gripped tightly in his left hand. The previous day they had spoken about releasing Freya, devising a plan to help her escape the hell hole she wasn't even meant to be in. But suddenly being inside Elise's house had taken all of the will out of them, all the spontaneous power they had before.
None of them wanted to be inside Elise's house, but it was the only one available. Lela's was taken up by her, Vykter and Elise, Nathly's preoccupied by her and Braidn, which earned a giddy response from Charlie, and Vykter's parents had arrived back from the holiday they had gone on. Of course, the Yung's house was out of the question. There was no way Braidn, or any of them, could know about their plan.
"One of us is gonna have to stay back to make sure none of them suspect anything."
With a couple of awkward glances between Dan, Matt and Charlie, Matt finally spoke up."Siddo mate it's obviously going to be you, we're not risking you having another breakdown again."
"Oh fuck off Matt, I can handle my emotions a lot better than I used to. I'm coming." It was one thing he couldn't stand. Call him stupid or useless, he'd accept it because it was mainly true. But calling him weak, incapable of handling his own mental illness, that's what he couldn't sit by and listen to.
"I'll stay at the prom, it's fine. I'm the only one that likes them anyway." Seeping through Dan's smile to Cody was the genuine feeling of trust and love, he knew Cody could do it, and he'd always support him.
The next half hour was spent quarreling, arguing, mainly just Matt nit picking at every part of Charlie's plan, somehow finding a flaw in everything, flaws that weren't even there half the time. Until they reached a final, Matthew approved plan. All the ins and outs of the rescue had clearly been mapped out, security, unhooking her from the machine, everything.
But Charlie soon realized that day, the day of prom, posed a problem. A pattern of the killings could not be pinned down, even with a phone call from Charlie to Braidn, but a day of the 'ending' had been pin pointed.
Prom.
According to Charlie, it was the only logical day. All killing sprees come to end, but a killer like this would want to go out with a bang, an big event they'd all be at.
Dan frantically spoke up, realizing he'd be the only one staying at the prom. "Well if any of us die out there-"
"Oh shut up you big twat, none of us are gonna die." Forcibly, Matt tried to sound reassuring. He knew it was what Dan wanted to hear, but not what he needed to hear.
"Maybe we will do with Charlie spending so much time with Braidn." And with Dan's words, the room fell silent. The four of them weren't ones to keep secrets, especially from each other, but this was one they just couldn't break to Charlie.
They knew how close he had become to Braidn, how much of a friend he had become in such a short space of time. Charlie hadn't made a friend like that in years, none of them had. So they couldn't break his heart.
But the truth was, all of them thought Braidn was the killer, they didn't trust him. Always there, always knowing, appearing after every kill, then leading them away from any suspect. Every time Charlie spoke to him, he revealed all their plans, all their ideas, yet Braidn would never be there with them. Not until after the killing had happened.
Of course, Charlie denied and denied it, continued to block the thought out of his head. But Matt could not deal with his denial any longer. "It's him Charlie and we all know it, just because your Braidn's new found dick sucker, doesn't mean he's innocent." Matt wasn't sure if that was a crude attempt at lightening the mood, or if he was just trying to make himself feel better. Feel like they were at home again.
"I'm not his dick sucker."
Dan caught on to what Matt was trying to do, mockingly acting out their words.
"Nah Dan you keep doing that at me, but you're the one sucking it off everyone all the time. Spending ten hours revising for a levels everyday, parents giving out money you for a tutor like it's a fucking roast dinner." With those words, everything seemed to disappear. All their problems and worries, now just the four of them, jokingly messing around like usual.
"Oh fuck off, you and Matt used to suck up to the teachers all the time because you were both smart bastards." Dan sent Cody a wink, in an attempt to call for backup, but Cody was already on it.
"Yeah if me and Dan did exams together we would fuck them up."
"Our ideas would just bounce off each other, we'd be bending that exam over-"
"Dan mate I think we've reached the point where you just need to stop talking-" Matt's words were brought to a grinding halt, when a short brunette slammed the door open, after listening to their whole conversation.
"I want in." Were the only words the girl spoke, her normally perfectly curled hair now tousled into knots and pieces of stray hair. None of them dared to ask what happened to her, more confused as to how she knew where they were.
"Shitting hell Mal, what are you doing here?" Always the first to speak, Cody jumped out of his seat to check she was okay. She willingly let him, her once loud voice now mellowing down to her usual, soft tone
"I followed you guys here, you looked like you were being shady and Aurelia wanted me to leave her and Yousef alone, which I respect, so I thought I'd pass the time by seeing what you guys were doing and I-"
The five of them found themselves wound up in yet another argument, Charlie and Matt strongly advising against her coming, while Dan did not see the problem.
But Malerie would not give up, not on her childhood best friend. She had nothing to say to Matt, no one would ever bother to argue with him, but her words for Charlie ripped into his heart more than he expected.
Charlie was the only one who had never met Freya, only seen her in the state she was in now. He had no right to be dictating who could be coming, and he knew that. So the final word was given to the only person it could be given to, Cody.
"She's coming."
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AUTHORS NOTE
This took me forever to write thanks to exams. It's hella sloppy but there's only like two chapters left now so, get hyped.
Fancast:
Matthew Chann - Harry Lewis
Daniel Keyas - Tom Maden
Cody Siddos - Laurence Coke
Charlie Matteson - Reece King
Lela West - Bridget Satterlee
Nathly Banks - Paulina Singer
Elise Sangus - Eiza González
Vykter Sankey - Jordan Fisher
Braidn Yung - Steven Yeun
Kecia Matteson - Imaan Hammam
Malerie Salazar - Cindy Kimberly
Aurelia Tauber - Freya Mavor
Yousef Saini - Youssef Sawmah