Chapter IX (Part I)

The smell of gym and leather felt oddly nostalgic despite never having really spent much time around either. I had decided a workout would keep my mind distracted from the day's events and needed something to do while the boys slept. Jet had joked that Mania wouldn't come out till night and suggested that we all relax till then. I enjoyed surprising him by demanding he let me use one of his gyms. Jess, never to be shown up athletically by me, was happy to keep me company for a workout.

The smell of leather was the old heavy bag in front of me, my hands stinging the bag with weak thuds, more effective at straining my wrists than moving the 70kg bag noticeably. I didn't care. I continued striking the bag dully, Jess watching with an amused smirk as if I had totally lost my mind. Catching the reflection of my reddened face in the mirror, I had to agree. After my hands transitioned from simply throbbing to utterly numb, I stopped, again catching my reflection, this time of the possessed scowl I wore, and couldn't help but laugh with her.

"Okay Jess, your turn."

What she lacked in scowling and crazy, she made up for in athleticism and skill, her punches driving the bag visibly with each impact. I need less athletic people in my life. Still, despite her skill, and my total lack of it, I think the bagwork gave us both the same cathartic release.

I had watched Jet train down here many times before mustering the courage to ask him to show me how to use the heavy bags. Jet explained that they taught you how to strike with follow through, that they demonstrated the feeling of striking a real opponent. He preferred a heavier bag than this one, but the bag he liked scratched up my bare hands too much. I liked this smooth, scarred leather one.

Jet showed me how to make a fist by folding first at the fingers, how to halfway lock one's wrists, how to keep my eyes forward, and how to strike the middle of the bag, always just below shoulder height. I laughed at this last instruction, "But don't you sometimes want to strike at other heights?"

He had laughed, "Not if it has this much resistance, you're strongest at that height. And you won't get injured."

Not that I was terribly interested in striking real live targets. Being able to defend myself would be nice, but no amount of training was ever going to save me from the Mania's and Crow's of the world. Or probably any of those other names from today...

Donovan Cross. Of Cross Industry. Alex's father had worked for that boy's father. Donovan had also lost his father. That night in October, while Mania slaughtered a houseful of police officers, terrorists had attacked the Cross headquarters across town. Part of me assumed Mania was involved in that, but --

Jess, huffing and out of breath, "You're back up."

I began again with renewed focus, only pausing to blow a stray lock of hair from my eyes, continuing until totally exhausted.

Why not ask Donovan what he knows?

Because he's creepy. Because even Mania seems afraid of him. Because he is one of the mentioned names.

My eyes flashed to the doorway catching a hint of movement. Jet framed the entrance in dark jeans and layers of gauze thin knits, his physique hidden but subtly still present beneath the layered folds. His hands absently fingered a large pair of headphones. He spoke, solemn in tone, but his grinning eyes betrayed him, and revealed his excitement, "Gonna head out soon."

"Jet"

"Hmn?"

"What do you think about maybe contacting that Donovan guy?"

Jet shrugged, "Whatever. The brother, right?"

Jess chimed in, "You trust that guy?"

"Not really, but he was mentioned too." That wasn't really all that I meant. "I don't know. I get the feeling he'd know something."

Jet, now struggling to untangle a cord he had fished from his pocket, distractedly replied, "Maybe we should split up. Alex can talk to this Cross guy."

"I thought Alex was going with you."

"Nah, Mania hates Lex."

So? "Yeah, doesn't she hate you too?"

Jet grinned. "Probably, but, she might listen to me. At least for a little while."

Mania had rammed a knife through Jet's hands last they met. Jet replied by sticking that knife between her ribs. I couldn't really picture the two having much of a conversation.

My tone accusatory, "You are going to try talking to her about today, right? Not just fight?"

Jet's sheepish grin and hand in his hair gave him up instantly.

"Jet!"

"Fine!" he sulked.

Jess rolled her eyes thoroughly unimpressed by my idiot boyfriend's, well, idiocy. She turned to ask me something but I was fixated on watching Jet use the long cord to tie knot after knot, securing the gigantic earphones to his head. His voice, now inapproriately loud drowned out Jess, "Allie, come with, make sure I don't fight."

"What about Alex and Jess?"

"WHAT?"

Jess scowled, I inwardly smiled, and nodded. It would be amazing if we survived this night.

Chapter VIII (Part II END)

A few minutes after the news, the professor dismissed us, though not long before the whole school had canceled all classes for the day, and the four of us made our way to Jet's in lack of a better option. My mind was a mess of nerves to the point where the thirty foot trek out the classroom may as well have been a trip to another planet.

We had scarcely made out of the door of the classroom before Jess was firing questions at the boys. I was alone in my spaced reaction to the events. Jess and the boys were angry.

"How did you know of the attacks first?" she demanded, her tone accusatory.

Jet shrugged indifference. Alex ignored her.

She steamed, "You can't go off being all mysterious about this anymore. This is affecting everyone now." We continued down the hall, her continuing to rant, Jet flickering between bored, confused, and aggravated, Alex cold and distracted. I stuck initially to being simply shaken, but curiosity took hold of me as well. She was certainly right that whatever the boys were caught up in was spreading into the wide world at a quickening pace.

I had told Jess almost everything, but not everything I knew. To be fair, most of what I knew of Jet and Alex's history was fairly recent knowledge from a single conversation with Alex.

Alex had explained to me that Jet, Mania, and he had all known each other as children. More than knew either, they were friends, close friends. Alex's father, was a researcher at Cross. Not just any research scientist, he was generally credited with discovering Stutter, and was accorded, initially, a lot of power and responsibility in hopes that Stutter could be put into application.

Of course, Stutter ended up being a catastrophic failure; a drug that had fantastic, almost supernatural effects on the body and mind, but when metabolized, broke down into toxins quickly killing any and every test subject. This I knew without Alex's aid.

Despite nearly two decades of failed efforts to transform Stutter into something applicable, Cross forged onwards with research, until Alex's father suddenly not only refused to continue the research but destroyed all of the accumulated data on Stutter. Apparently, he alone knew the trick to combining the precursors of Stutter, and his refusal to cooperate along with his destruction of most of the data on the project were potentially a multi-decade setback.

It was a week after his father's refusal that a wide-eyed ten year old Alex found himself frozen in the doorway of his parent's bedroom. Before him, and above his recently decapitated mother and father, crouched his friend, an eleven year old Mania, kitchen knife in hand, smeared in blood, fingers to toes.

Alex screamed and fled with Mania in pursuit, gaining distance as she slipped with blood-slick bare feet on the downstairs kitchen tiles, running till he could feel his heart ready to explode in his chest, eventually making it to Jet's. Mania was seconds, not minutes, behind and before he could explain much of anything to Jet, she arrived, panting and furious.

Alex didn't give me much to work with concerning what happened next. I'll do my best to recall it as he did to me.

Jet and Mania trained together religiously, both fascinated by combat. Jet's excuse was being the prodigy in a long line of competitive fighters and martial artists. For Mania, it was apparently different. She was naturally gifted without much training. Strong. Quick. For her, it was more about expressing that which lay otherwise dormant and unused. As children, compared to Jet, she was always stronger, faster, but she lacked his stamina and technique, and was typically the loser whenever the two sparred.

Not on that day.

The two fought with Jet becoming horrifically cut and slashed almost immediately. Alex had managed to break off and alert the police with his phone only to return as one of his best friends was in the motion of slitting the throat of his other. He screamed her name, her real name, Charisma, and she spun to look at the boy with whom she used to laugh and play, and now wanted to kill.

Her once cute face now bore a sick grin, porcelain white teeth in full display between thin ruby lips drawn languidly back. She claimed that she was not Charisma and that her name was Bia. She didn't respond when asked why she was hurting them, why she killed his parents, but she did let Jet out from trapped underneath her. She sat frozen, covered in fresh blood, some hers, most of it Jet's, for only a few moments before three police officers tore through the front door, shouts flooding Jet's demolished living room.

Their threats and shouts to disarm unfortunately did the officers little good. Mania, Bia, stood facing the men, slick with red, knife gripped firm in hand. Tires screeched outside in the driveway. The first shot tore through Mania's left shoulder sending the young girl to the floor screaming. The officers inched closer, encircling the wounded girl. A mistake.

She was up in a flicker, the knife claiming the weapon arm of the officer who fired, before finding the throats of the other two. Three bodies hit the carpet floor with a soft thud, two coughing garbled wheezes, one screeching in agony.

Despite his injuries, Jet was quick to spring into action as well, prying the gun from the amputated arm and spinning to fire at young Mania as she turned away from the three men. Four shots rang out, all four missing their mark. Behind Mania, framed in the doorway, and now silently slumping towards the same carpeted floor were Jet's panic-stricken mother and father.

Mania kicked the weapon away from the horrified Jet, and bent down to restrain him from rushing to the side of his wounded, dying parents. Sirens blazed in the distance, each second drawing nearer. She spoke tranquilly, her fury gone, transformed back into the girl they knew, "I'll be leaving for a long time. I'll miss you."

"And what exactly is the point of that," Jess harped. I had absolutely no idea what they were arguing about. I could have sworn Jet mentioned something about a nap.

Jet yawned as he spoke, "Need rest if we're going looking for Mania."

"Why? Even if she didn't do it, why would she help? This sort of thing sounds like something she'd probably enjoy."

Jet grinned at Jess, "Because she's being called out."

Chapter VIII (Part I)

The blackboard flickered.

"There will also be a review session next Thursday to go over the practice midterm. I strongly recommend you go through it by then."

The professor went on, but my interest was long gone. My heavy eyes glared at the mechanical wall clock, a clunky last-century piece obviously out of place in the white, modern lecture hall.

Two minutes.

After this, I was off to International Relations, which thankfully would reunite me with my friends. And Jet.

Calculus was the one class where I was totally alone. Despite it being a core course for most freshman, Jess, Lex, and even Jet had tested out of it. Those of us stuck taking the class were rewarded with the world's most soporific professor, and although many others have probably made the same claim, I was, at this moment, positive of my correctness.

90 seconds.

My resentment at being stuck in the class engendered a fierce determination to excel despite my abhorring all aspects of Calculus. Right now, however, my A in the course proved to be little consolation. I could stand to trade a little achievement for a bit of enjoyment. My friends would definitely blow off a class like this. I don't think Jess cracked fifty percent attendance in any of her classes. Alex and Jet were much the same. Skipping a class with them was one thing, but I wasn't yet to the point where I was blowing off classes without their bad influence.

45 seconds. Please hell, open up, and swallow me.

I thumbed the exam study notes, perusing them absentmindedly, not really taking in anything on the pages. Attached at the end was the practice mid term. Polar coordinates problems. My eyes flickered across the pages without comprehension.

What was the point of all this?

I had recently watched a crazy girl butcher a roomful of people and the only people with either the interest or capability of doing a thing about it were my boyfriend and his best friend, and also, the girl's brother, a boy who gave me the same creepy sadist vibes as his sister. And somehow still worse was that this was all connected potentially to the nightmare of a man that was Vincent Crow, who despite being dead, and me having watched his death, continued to haunt me with increasing frequency these days.

Oh, and I've been singing a pretty annoying Clash song to my roommate every night, constantly disappointed that my singing doesn't trigger in her some sort of supernatural temporary blindness.

"... and we'll pick up on Monday. Enjoy your weekends, but not too much, and don't forget the TA session on Saturday."

My peers and I groggily stumbled out of our seats transforming from Lethargians back into boys and girls. I shook my head as if to shake out the sleepiness. It seemed to work and I found myself quickly across campus and seated in IR, excited to reunite with my friends.

Jess waved as she entered, her face fixed in a bored scowl as she plopped down first her books and bag, and then herself next to me.

Pointing to the thick pile of textbooks between us now busy scattering the empty floor into tiny pockets of exposed carpet, she whined, "Remind me why we still use these?"

I chirped, "Tradition," and she surrendered her bitterness without much of a fight. She offered me a small smile, before giving the distant doorway a not-so furtive longing glance.

"You're kind of flush, Jess."

She turned two shades redder. Her hair was still damp from a recent shower. She must had gone running without me.

She sighed, "Yeah, you missed another run." Damn.

"I had class." Did I care? No. Would I still guilt Jess? Yes.

"I know, sorry. I wanted to do a fast run today."

I mocked indignation, "Woah, are you insinuating that I slow you down?"

She grinned. "Minus the insinuating and pretty much just flat-out without any subtlety whatsoever telling. To your face."

The professor dove right into his lecture. "We left off discussing the European Union's recently passed Prosperity Act. In last night's reading, the Clover piece argued such legislation would inevitably proliferate relatively more lower income births. Just as --"

Where were Jet and Alex? It was like them to be late, but not this late. The seats the pair typically occupied had been claimed by two overachiever girls whispering heatedly to one another, arguing about the day's lecture. After four years of bickering, the Prosperity Act, a redefinition of the age of adulthood in Europe to sixteen, along with a ton of educational reforms to leave graduating high school seniors two years younger, finally passed. Despite the population drought being less severe relatively in Europe than Africa or Asia, the anxiety seemed highest in Europe. Anyways, the general idea was to get women out of school at an earlier age and thus have more "adult" years for potential childbearing. Politics really aren't my thing.

Finally!

Alex first, with Jet lagging a few steps behind, stumbled sleepily into class, the heavy classroom door slamming like a thunderclap behind them. Heads turned and the professor paused, I winced in embarrassment on Jet's behalf, but the status quo quickly resumed as the two groggily found seats. Sadly, seats not close to me. They looked dead exhausted.

Jess also noticed, "Your idiot boyfriend has finally sleptwalk his way here."

"Yeah, I wonder what's up." I paused, shrugged, and continued with, "Well, Alex also looks about as dead tired as my idiot boyfriend."

Jess laughed. "After another half hour on this Prosperity Act nonsense, I'll look the same. Just you wait."

"Getting political on me?"

"Just ready for a new topic."

Jess was right. I used to love this class, but we'd spent the whole week debating the potential downstream economic effects of the Act. Truthfully, it didn't seem like any of the "experts" had a clue what the long term effects would be. Not that I was terribly cynical about it, but ever since the night where I first was introduced to Mania, it felt like there was a lot to the world that we didn't cover in our university classes.

It was more than that though. I had said to Alex that it felt like the world was changing. Sterility around the globe, the hype and disappointment surrounding Stutter, patterns that could sicken you, songs that could blind you, monsters like Crow and Mania -- why did we go along with --

"Allie," Jess nudged me impatiently. "You're spacing."

I growled back stupidly, "Shut up, you're spacing."

Ignoring my reply completely, "When did you get back in yesterday? I thought it was early."

"Yeah, like midnight."

I assumed she was trying to puzzle out the boys' exhaustion, but I was certainly not the culprit. I looked over at the two. Alex stared at the professor vacantly, head propped up on his arm, eyes glazed. Jet slept upon folded arms across his desk. I couldn't see actual drool from across the room.

"Allie, you look furious."

Much more loudly than appropriate for a quiet lecture hall and mustering more repressed ire than I intended, "Why even come if he's going to sleep?!"

Jess giggled before giving me a quick, the professor is watching us be idiots, glance that transformed me back into studious good girl.

After a few minutes of pretending to listen to the lecture, my gaze flickered back to Alex just in time to witness his exhaustion replaced with shock and panic. He spun around in his seat to shake Jet, completely oblivious, or indifferent, to the scene he was starting to create.

Alex's phone lay open on his desk. Something he saw. Some news? The displays built into the desks were generally much better for web surfing -- I saw no news scrolling by.

Alex yanked on the arms supporting Jet's head sending skull to desk with a hollow thud. Jet barked curses at Alex but before he could get more than few choice words out, he was silenced by whatever he saw on Alex's screen. Something was very wrong.

The boys' faces were gray. Jess spun to me, but I shrugged cluelessness before she could ask.

Alex stood up and the gravity of his face silenced first the room and then the professor, "I'm sorry to interrupt sir. Something terrible has happened."

Our professor, along with all 140 students in the room, turned to Alex with rapt attention. Seconds passed with Alex's expression keeping the room in absolute silence. Jet stood and fidgeted. He was anxious to get out. To do something. What had happened?

Alex opened his mouth to explain, but it proved unnecessary. Alert messages flooded our tabletops. The blackboard faded, the scribblings of our professor replaced by a television news feed. The professor backed away from the board, stunned, equally as in shock as us by what he saw.

A cute, female anchor spoke, voice uneven as she narrated, her words, sadly imparting no additional understanding of the scene behind her.

Times Square, Broadway and Seventh.

Beneath the cobweb of billboards and monitors and beneath the towering retail sanctuaries, bodies littered the intersection, mangled and dismantled, recognizable as human more by what was once their clothing than what remained of their human flesh, their bodies splattered like bugs ground into the pavement. Young and old, ground to a thick uneven paste, smeared against the black asphalt.

I tried to listen to the anchor's words, "Our associates are confirming that this same carnage has been witnessed in seven other cities around the world. Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Rome, Edinburgh, Aix en Provence, Lima, and Victoria have all reported similar incidents. At this juncture, it's too early to say with authority that this list is exhaustive, but --"

I tuned out sensing the change in the air, the subdued heat and scent of Jet's proximity. I looked up at him, but couldn't really read his expression. Did the anchor really use the word 'carnage'?

I looked down to avoid the scene on the blackboard only to realize the same video flooded my desk's display. I started to feel sick. I was vaguely aware of gasps and exclamations around the room, but before worrying about them or my own stupid weak stomach, my hand stretched out to find Jess's as she turned to me.

Jess and I stared, transfixed, as the anchor continued, "... estimates are on the order of a few hundred at each site. At this time, it's believed --"

I felt Jet's hot breath on my ear, but it was Alex who spoke first, "We should get out of here."

Jess looked at me, shaking her head no. I had to agree with her. Where would we even go?

"-- all recording devices and remote imaging of the sites seems to have been somehow disabled. No group has, as of yet, claimed responsibility for the attacks, nor do we have--"

Jess, her face suddenly exasperated, frustrated by something in the report, tabbed over to a broadcast covering the massacre at Tel Aviv. The area looked like an upscale shopping district, maybe a park, a place called Kikar Hamedina. She panned out the display as much as she could and suddenly I saw what she saw.

The bodies were not littered about the park randomly -- they were arranged to spell a word. CROSS.

Alex and Jet's fascination mirrored our own own. They didn't need to ask. Jess was already tabbed to Tokyo, the incident at Shibuya Crossing, looking to see if she could get an aerial view.

SATSUMA.

The word, the name, meant nothing to any of us. We sat silently as Jess repeated looking for overhead shots of the other cities. After Tel Aviv's CROSS and Tokyo's SATSUMA, there was a large double question mark, ??, etched in blood and bodies in Edinburgh's Princes Square. In Rome, CIRCE. In Victoria, DEAD. Aix en Provence, FELL.

My body stiffened automatically as the shape in Victoria grew clear. CROW.

In Lima's Plaza de Armas, carved with bodies into the stone and earth, MANIA.

Jess' eyes and my own lit up on the mention of Mania, I turned to Jet, "Did she?"

Alex and Jet answered with a simultaneous no. Jet continued, "She's here in Chicago. We saw her last night."

Chapter VII (Part 4) (End)

I was in the midst of conjuring a clever reply when Jess came knocking gently on the door.

In a tone musical but uncertain, "Are you two decent? " If she hadn't asked so sarcastically, I probably could have glowered a bit less.

Beating me to reply, Jet chirped, "Sadly, yes."

Jess slowly poked open the doorway, as if half-expecting to need to slam it back shut, and cooed, "I hear only talking."

Why did she find it necessarily to humiliate me? Acidly, I quipped, "Come in Jess."

I didn't really mind the interruption. Jess was always good at giving us space. Whatever it was, it was probably semi-important. Semi. I guess I was somewhat anxious to find out what she wanted, but really more anxious to get back to door-closed time with Jet.

She stepped in delicately, with a huge, innocent smile. "Hi again, Jet."

Patience wasn't exactly a virtue I had yet cultivated in my eighteen years.

Thankfully, she obliged. "Anyways, some guy came by looking for you."

Who? I instead asked, "When?"

"Like two minutes ago. Told him you weren't here." She waited.

Jet grinned and teased, "Uh oh."

I now noticed the envelope in Jess' hand. For me? Well, yeah, probably. Obviously. But, I wasn't expecting anyone. I didn't really have any other friends here at school. Certainly, nobody who would just show up.

I started, "Um", but Jess cut me off.

"Allie, you are SO red right now, " she managed between laughs. Jet kissed my cheek as Jess continued, noticing my noticing of the letter, "Yeah, he left this."

I thumbed the letter absentmindedly while Jet purred, "A rival's love letter?" I gave him a look, of either love or anger, I'm not really sure, but didn't dignify that to respond.

"God, Allie, just open it."

I retrieved a single folded sheet and as I unwrapped it, I spacedly asked her, "Did he say anything else?"

"Just that last night was the best night of his life and that he can't wait to see you again."

If you thought I was red before...

Jet smiled ear to ear, turning to Jess, "Really? Was he attractive?"

Jess continued on deadpan, "Oh very. A little short and young for my taste, but for Allie, just perfect."

My gaze flickered between their two very amused faces before settling back upon the note in my hands. I could listen to their teasing, or I could read this stupid letter.

Forgive my intrusion into your personal life, but I'm quite curious as to the cause of my sister's interest in you. I'm confident you will understand to whom I'm referring. Regardless of how you think she feels, she's extremely dangerous, and if you see her, please contact the number listed below. Donovan Cross.

Chapter VII (Part 3)

Experimenting with Jess left us both burnt out. Not like that, God --the song. After every line, I stopped and checked if she was alright, terrified each time anew that something horrible was going to happen. It didn't help that she started dropping to the ground and screaming in fake agony to irk me. We made it through the song twice piece by piece until we both decided we had, perhaps not better, but other things to do.

Currently, I was staring at my monitor, more precisely at an unfinished paper for that International Relations class. Jess had finished hers days ago--her being the more studious of us certainly an outlier.

I didn't hear the door.

The paper focused on the ever diminishing personal freedoms of modern societies. I wasn't particularly obsessed, ideologically, with privacy or anonymity. I had grown up with neither, but I suppose it was different for those who had. In another generation, will it matter? Will 'privacy' be as outdated concept as 'lost'?

"Allie."

The interruption left my thoughts like dust scattered in the wind. I knew this voice. Jet!

I lept out of my seat with enough force to send it tumbling, flinging myself at Jet with enough energy to send us both likewise. Whatever questions or objections I had, they didn't matter now. At least not right now.

He grinned, his face inches from my own, and spoke loudly, with an odd pride, "You have no idea how I've missed you."

I shook my head delicately, "Yeah I do."

We kissed. It had been the longest we'd been apart. If love is felt most noticeably in its absence, then so is longing. I hadn't really missed him until he was back. The energy between us was frantic, hungry. My nervous passion left me breathing in short rasps. In the back of my mind, a voice reminded me I had questions. A strange little war in my mind between love and curiosity.

Love continued to prevail. He pulled back for a second. His soft face, beautiful in the evening's half light, left me paralyzed, my time frozen still, curiosity be damned. From Jess's room, the music swelled noticably, a gift of privacy. Somewhere inside me chuckled and was grateful. I felt his fingers intertwine with my own, and quite literally, next thing I knew, we were pressed together on my mattress, kissing, radiating, laughing.

Laughter was the part of love that came as a surprise to me. Movies got it wrong. I loved his low, exhaled snicker when our teeth clicked or how he'd growl in mock pain when I softly bit his ear. I remember the first time I sneezed while we were kissing and how we both laughed till we cried.

He rolled gently to the side, our arms still locked, his free hand's fingers gently tracing circles on my shoulder. His voice was loud, Jet was always loud, "Okay, you can be mad now."

I grinned, "So easily satisfied?"

He propped himself up to sit with legs crossed, smiling, "No, definitely not." He smirked softly, "But I know the little devil Allie on that shoulder is demanding answers."

"She might be." I really wanted him to lie back down. Well, part of me did. The other part knew my best bet for any information was getting it from Jet solo, before Alex could convince him to keep quiet. Alex was far more intent on keeping me "safe" and clueless. At the moment, Jet was seemingly more concerned with keeping my heart rate elevated, and so, and I know I'm horrible, I let curiosity finally triumph.

I exhaled, disappointed in myself, "So what happened? Where did you go?"

"Belize. And really it was a total waste of time."

"Belize? Like the country?" Yeah, I'm an idiot, so what?

"Yeah. Alex's idea. Apparently, a few people there knew Mania, but we didn't find any."

This wasn't exactly making any sense. Jet had told me that Mania had spent time in South America, but that fact always had seemed tangential, totally irrelevant to her current actions. "Why didn't you say anything about it?"

Jet paused, as if considering evading the question, "I thought you'd want to come."

"You think?! Why is that a bad thing? You don't want me there?" Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.

"There's another one like her down there, " he murmured.

"Like her?"

"Yeah. Strong, fast, a guy though, and older. Maybe crazier."

"And you went, what, to fight this guy? Capture him, what?"

His expression changed, his eyes grew serious, "No. We thought he'd know something about whoever is behind Mania. But we couldn't find him, and honestly, the guy's a killer, and I'm not sure what good he'd be even if we had."

I waited a bit to respond, "That sounds more like Alex's interest than yours."

He smiled finally, "Yeah it is. Well it was. I'm coming around to his way of thinking."

I shoved him softly, "You sound like him." I sighed audibly.

He took my other hand in his. "Alex and I don't agree concerning your involvement."

I wasn't sure where he was going. "How so?"

"He thinks getting involved with our lives is dangerous and that I can't protect you from the dangers to come."

I swallowed hard, "And you?"

He beamed, "I'm not sure I can either, but I think you and danger are like a moth to a flame, love. Trouble finds you."

Chapter VII (Part 2)

I hate running with Jess with a center-of-the-sun fiery passion of a million each hotter than the next hells. I really do. Our walk back to our place was me wincing with each step, flushed bright red, ears and head ringing, and naturally, she didn't show, nor feel, the slightest ounce of discomfort.

"You okay, Allie?" Jess beamed.

Still out of breath, though we had quit running minutes ago, I wheezed, "Yeah, I'm great." I'm so sure that we ran yesterday.

"No offense, but you don't look so great."

Thanks, Jess. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. "At least you said 'no offense.'"

"Yup. Can't get mad!"

I didn't dignify that with a response. She was far too chirpy and I was far too exhausted. I resumed my obsessive brainstorming concerning Mania's advice to find the Card Cheat. Jess said something about grabbing a late lunch. I gave her a non committal shrug and she took the hint that I needed some alone time.

I had intended on a lukewarm shower, but a poster in the elevator indicated repairs were underway on the hot water in our building. The ice cold shower awoke every cell in my body, which was a relief to the numbness, and although I successfully tensed and gritted my teeth to avoid flinching weakly in front of the torrent of cold, practicing my usual shower-time renditions of the song was made impossible.

I hopped out, teeth chattering, and toweled dry furiously, counting on the friction between rough towel and smooth skin for warmth. A bust. I avoided tripping on the lower lip of the doorframe narrowly and managed a safe crash onto the oversize elephant leather sofa in our common room.

No expense was spared in the decoration of this place. Both Jess and I had pretty wealthy, extremely overindulgent, families. I swallowed a lump of guilt for failing to call my aunt and uncle yet this week and made a quick pact with myself to not let the weekly call slide much longer. College, Jet, and homicidal freaks drained me of the energy I needed to lie convincingly to my family about how happy I was here. Not that I wasn't happy. Jet guaranteed that. But things weren't exactly perfect.

The sound of Jess' shower fizzled and a moment later Jess sashayed in wearing no more than a poorly tied-off towel. After struggling absently with her wet hair, raven against her pale skin, she plopped down beside me, seemingly exhausted, without saying a word. Ignoring me completely, she stared absently, dazed for a moment, concentrating on a thought, a feeling, far away.

I couldn't help but tease, "Too exhausted for clothes, lover?"

"In a moment, don't get too excited, " she quipped, her focus diverted.

I started to say more, but her expression shifted back to introspective, and I let it go. I had my own brooding to do.

There was no way I would try the song out on Jess. I had been more seriously contemplating just the opposite; I debated telling her everything. I knew she'd freak out and worry obsessively for a few days, but Jess was a sister to me, annoying in the way that any super talented, too-beautiful older sister would be, and I hated having secrets from her. She told me everything about her life. Too much usually. Scratch the usually.

"Hey, Jess."

"Mm?"

"Um." I really had no idea how to start here. "About that night. There's a little more I didn't tell you."

And I told her everything.

"So that's why you've been practicing that song?" Her gentle curiosity assured me immediately I had been right to tell her. Jess was amazing. Or we were amazing. It's strange to say, but if our roles were reversed, and she told me the same crazy, ridiculous story, I knew I would equally trust her with no reservation. I think that's the real beauty to trust -- the realization of its mutuality. Knowing someone believes in you is empty without knowing that in them you have the same faith.

"Yeah. It's pretty stupid. But maybe it isn't so crazy." Jess waited for me to continue. "I mean, well first of all, I haven't told a lot of that to Jet or Alex yet. I was just, well, they have some history with her, with Mania. I didn't want them to think she had some, I don't know, influence on me or something.

"But they knew about the blindness thing. They think it works like those pukers. You remember those?"

Jess nodded and murmured, smiling, "Yeah, I remember throwing up on your aunt's carpet."

I chuckled with her, "Yeah. I mean it makes sense."

"So, if I hear you puking in the bathroom, it's only because you were singing?"

"Hey!"

"Honestly, Allie, your voice isn't that bad."

"My voice is lovely thank you very much." Sadly, our stupid trendy sofa severely lacked pillows to hit her with.

I shuddered briefly at the thought of the boys in the tower across from us witnessing that sad fantasy. I need clothes.

"Besides, my singing so far has yet to exhibit any nausea or blindness. I guess I'm normal after all, crazy killer girl's opinions be damned."

Jess smirked.

I hopped up, grinning, and feeling a million times better than I'd felt in days, "Lunch and then class?"

She got up lazily, shoved me gently towards my room, "Yes to the first. No on the second. I think your singing demands an audience from now on."

Chapter VII (Part 1)

I've never been one for melodrama. Other girls would go on about how their crush set their skin ablaze, turned their blood to hot lava, set their heart to a hummingbird's pace, but for me, love was more noticeable in its absence, it was the relief from that sick, hollow, depraved hunger that was separation. The dependency of love didn't much suit me. I had grown up a loner. I was always self sufficient. My family had assured me I'd make friends and find my spot in society, and that my acceptance into one of the most elite of elite schools, reinforced by my "stellar" grades thus far, my amazing boyfriend, and a group of people I could truly call friends, were all proof that I had a place in this world. I remained unconvinced.

Jet and Alex were off somewhere being mysterious. I hadn't heard from either in nearly a week. They had prepared me for this, but it didn't do a whole lot of good. Despite promises to keep me more in the loop, it had been weeks since the concert hall massacre, and I'd learned nothing new about Mania nor Donovan, well, nothing new from Jet or Lex. My own efforts to piece together information hadn't been terribly successful either. The killings last October, the terrorist attack on the Cross building, and the more recent events -- I had come no closer to seeing how these were connected to Mania's wild quest for an old Clash recording.

"Allie!"

It's not that I hadn't done my share of withholding facts. I had downloaded The Card Cheat the night after watching Mania's home video. Every moment that wasn't occupied by Jet or the first two weeks of Spring classes was me reciting rendition after rendition of the song, continually disappointed to see not the slightest effect on myself. Why had Mania told me to find the song? I knew it was stupid to think something would happen. It made no sense. None. But she said that we were alike, and really, after what I'd seen lately, were things really supposed to make any sense?

"Allie, Allie, Allie!"

Jess chanted my name loud enough to warrant glances and shushes from neighboring classmates more interested in the lecture than whatever message she had for me. I scowled impatiently, audibly sighed, and surrendered, "What?"

"Do you think you could maybe do me a very small, microscopically small actually, favor?"

"That depends very much on the nature of said favor."

She paused, clearly deliberating on how to frame her request, and as usual, her shy blush gave away the fact that the request embarrassed her slightly, "Well, you seem like you're pretty good friends with Alex now." I grinned without meaning to, giving away my amusement. Her eyes exploded wider, 'What?!"

"It's just hilarious that you have a million guys always after you, and that you pick Alex of all people to have a thing for."

"That is so not true. And super tangential. But, um, I haven't seen Alex around since last week. Did something happen?"

I pushed my hair back and looked at my friend with more sincerity than the situation probably warranted, "Him and Jet have been gone all week. They didn't really tell me anything." I wasn't sure if I sounded angry. I wasn't sure if I was angry.

"Jet too? Oh, sorry." She resumed scribbling absently on her notebook. I guess she was taking notes, if you consider copying down totally random words from the blackboard into her notebook, notetaking. Actually, I suppose that is notetaking. Weird that she was so apologetic about just mentioning Jet. Did I sound that pissed? Why must I wear my emotions way so transparently?

"Nah, don't worry about it. I'm not that upset about it. You just caught me daydreaming."

She grinned and quickly abandoned her faux-studiousness. "Oh yeah? Daydreaming about Jet, huh?" She poked me playfully, and then in her best Captain Renault impersonation, "I'm shocked, shocked."

"Not in the way you're probably thinking." She gave me a look of genuine disbelief. "Well, maybe a little in the way you're thinking. Mostly, I miss him and am slightly pissed at the pair for ditching me for the week." This was true enough, although certainly not everything on my mind.

Jess looked like she was going to say something more, but our professor gave us a bit of a glare, and we went back to the diligent student act. The course was Contemporary Theory in International Relations. Neither Jess nor I had a clue what to study, but International Policy seemed as good as anything else, and it was one of the "better", whatever that meant, programs at school.

Today's lecture focused on the infertility epidemic of a generation ago. My aunt told me that, when she was a kid, there were nearly seven billion people. Seven billion. Two decades of near total infertility in some regions had halved that number, and even now, only half the women born are able to someday have children. It's hard to imagine that there was ever space for three and a half billion more people.

Instead of wallowing in my own thoughts, I tuned in to the professor for a while. "There's significant pressure in the Western European nations to allow for termination of sterile births. Obviously, many of these births are terminated for other reasons, but in the near future, it's likely that sterility alone will be enough justification for abortion." He continued on, and while I felt the slight sting of guilt to know that the topic only didn't interest me because I knew I could someday have children if I wanted, I still felt I had more immediate problems to obsess over.

Jess obviously felt the same way, "Um, Allie, you want to run when we're out of here?"

We ran three times a week. That's not true. We ran together three times a week. Jess ran every day. She wanted to do her second marathon in the fall, and while I had absolutely zero interest in putting myself through that, she had guilted me into helping her train with less suicidal eight milers.

I really didn't feel like running, "Didn't we run yesterday?"

"No. I ran yesterday. You sat around singing by yourself in front of the mirror like a freak."

"Really?" I'm sure we ran yesterday. Positive.

"I don't know what you were doing in front of the mirror yesterday, but usually, I only catch you singing."

"Jess!" And yeah, she had said it loud enough for the boys nearby to hear.

She ignored my outrage. "Since when are you a Clash fan anyways?"

Okay. I had sort of told Jess what had happened. I just left out the crazy blindness inducing singing, the part where I puked all over myself, and the part where the crazy girl comforted me like a lost kid sister.

"I'm not really. Just that one song." Had she heard me singing it? I better be more careful. What if, and this is a big crazy I-should-be-locked-up what if, the song could do something, and I ended up doing something horrible to Jess?

"The Card Cheat? No offense Allie...but that has to be one of the worst songs on that album."

I wasn't really listening to her. I'm sure she threw in a few more jabs. My mind had ventured into a place I really really didn't want it to go. Maybe the song does work. Just not on the singer.

Chapter VI (Part III)

The man's voice was soft, gentle, cloyingly sweet, but with a dirty vinyl rasp that betrayed its kindness.

"Truthfully, I had lost interest, but this one, she's special."

I recognized Mania instantly. She was much younger, her hair shorter, the tattoos missing, her frame somehow even gaunter, more fragile. She was chained to a wall, each wrist locked in iron clasps, and more than that, what looked like a rail road tie was driven through her left wrist, through bone and brick pinning her quite messily to the cold stone. My own wrist ached in sympathy. She stared at the floor, her hair obscuring her face such that I couldn't tell if she was conscious.

"I'll wake her up," spoke the soft voice as Vincent entered our view. I had never seen more than a distant still, but now with his face filling nearly the entire frame, I could see he was soft and symmetrical, his eyes large and seemingly innocent, his mouth pulled in a gentle smile, all lies.

He approached the chained girl, a long razor in hand. "Wake up, little fly."

Mania's head lifted and she appeared drugged, poisoned. Her face showed no emotion. Her Cheshire grin was nowhere to be found, replaced with a sickly exhaustion. She didn't speak but her eyes acknowledged Vincent's approach.

Vincent purred, "You're an assassin. I can smell it all over you." He gestured off camera. "You can see what's left of your predecessors."

Mania blinked.

"Oh? You don't care?" Vincent traced a small circle into Mania's shoulder with the razor. His motions were like hers from what I'd seen at the symphony hall. Less exaggerated, but uneven, jerky, wrong.

Mania watched him carve the blade into her shoulder with a distant fascination.

Vincent impressed with her resolve, "Aren't you brave? Well, now I know I'll have a good time with you."

Mania found her grin. Ear to ear.

Vincent stepped back, blocking the camera's view of the girl.

I heard her sing, "I'm bored now."

Alex muted the television. I saw Vincent lift the blade to deliver a more savage slash, but instead suddenly stagger backwards nearly tripping over himself. I understood.

Unmuted. I heard Mania's sing-song voice taunting, "You are sillllly Vincent."

He said nothing but continued to creep backwards, finally moving to no longer obstruct our view.

The chains securing her right arm were already hanging ineffective and her free hand formed a small loop with the chain locking her left and snapped the metal with ease. I had to look away as she freed her left hand, pressing the rail road spike all the way through her arm, freeing herself while leaving the tie still pinned into the wall. Blood flowed copiously from the gaping hole, long red snakes, down her fingers, drizzling the floor. She looked at the wound, as if regretting her actions, and for a moment, I saw pain stain her composed face, but it was replaced a second later with a familiar grin and giggle.

Still, despite her escape, Vincent's vision has returned and my intuition that his movement was better than average was quickly vindicated. He came in swinging and despite Mania dodging the first few attacks with ease, she was caught with an elbow followed by a kick to the face and she was scattered to the floor. Before she could stand, Vincent was on top of her, stamping the heel of his boot onto her wounded arm. Mania didn't cry out. Her eyes narrowed, but she made no move to escape the pin.

"That's pretty neat." He said no more for a while and the two remained frozen for seconds.

When Mania didn't respond, he continued, "You people are obsessed with turning people into little automata with your tricks. I wonder how long it will be till you find a way to just turn us off."

Mania looked up, her face transformed into earnest and understanding, "You're afraid."

Vincent swung his free leg and brought it down hard, crushing the fingers of Mania's trapped hand. He smiled as she winced.

"You act like you feel nothing. It's a lie." He crushed her fingers a second time. "I'm the antidote to lies, girl."

Mania looked totally different from the monster I knew; this girl was not invincible. Seeing the difference, Vincent brought his foot down on her face. The crack of skull into stone was sickening. He repeated until tears peppered Mania's face, all the while never relaxing the pressure on her pinned, wounded arm.

Spitting on her before he spoke, "You're a miserable little lie. I thought you were special."

She tried to sing, but the kicks came in too rapid succession for her to get more than "Belmont" out. Crying out wildly and delusionally as another kick ricocheted her face off the floor, "Dad. Please. Dad."

Despite the poor camera angle on Vincent's face, the sickening smile it wore was nonetheless visible. "Cry for me. I'm going to have so much fun taking you apart."

Mania struggled futilely, finally half spitting, half growling, aware that no father was coming to her rescue, "I really don't like you."

Vincent, clearly enjoying himself, while continuing to kick her, "You know most girls after a little time here don't want to escape. They know they are already ruined. A little clean water won't wash away some things. Do you know what you get when you mix clean with dirty water?"

Mania looked up vacantly. She looked ready to pass out from the pain.

"Dirty water, " Vincent laughed. "What's ruined is ruined."

Mania also chuckled.

"Oh you think that's funny?"

She continued to laugh, a sick convulsive laugh that shook her beneath his leg like a fish flopping about a ship's deck.

Shaking his head, "You're very strange."

Mania didn't stop and the laughter seemed to come from everywhere, not just from the small frame of a dying girl. The room itself was laughing. I turned to Jet hoping for his reaction to be an indication of what was going on, but he wasn't even paying attention.

The next kick was incoming, but foot never met head this time. As the one boot came down, Mania rolled her body towards the trapped limb and smashed her fist into Vincent's support leg. Vincent stumbled backwards, the leg buckling awkwardly, but remained upright. Mania was on her feet more quickly than my eyes could follow.

Vincent was quickly on the offensive again, but Mania, despite her left arm limply hanging uselessly, evaded with only her right and managed to eventually land a brutal strike to Vincent's throat with her fist, sending him tumbling backwards, gasping. Her eyes searched the room frantically in these moments, catching site of whatever held her interest off camera, she darted towards her goal, but Vincent was quickly chasing and with a kick sent her tumbling into the camera stand.

The camera spun and crashed to the floor and sounds of the struggle continued but invisible to us as the camera stared uselessly into empty space.

Alex interrupted, "This goes on for a bit, let me skip ahead."

Mania and Vincent were finally both back in frame. Mania had found her daggers, but Vincent, despite looking wounded and haggard, seemed again to have the upper hand. Mania looked barely able to stand, while Vincent looked confident, and had two significant advantages. A gun. And distance.

Mania and Vincent remained frozen long enough for me to think Alex hadn't pressed play. Looking closer, I saw the miniature movements. Blood snaking down Mania's arm. Vincent's blinks. Neither spoke. Talking was apparently over.

The two knives formed a V in Mania right hand, but Vincent had the gun trained on her, and he was too far, and from the change in expression on his face, I knew it would be all over in a second. I saw his finger caress the trigger, and despite knowing she would not die here, I was sure she would. But as the sound of the shot rang out, Mania was instantly in his face, and the arm that once held the gun, now severed above and below the elbow, fell away in two pieces, the sick thud of flesh on stone masked by the clatter of the gun.

Vincent didn't scream, his other arm already swinging to deliver a crushing blow to her head, but moments later, it lay next to his gun arm, geysers of blood erupting as he slumped to his knees awaiting death.

He spoke, eyes wide, his voice barely more than a garbled wheeze, "You are a monster. I was --"

A third fountain sprung from his neck, silencing him. Mania turned to the camera, her grin in full effect, and drenched in blood, she strolled towards the toppled camera.

Chapter VI (Part II)

Locating the pair was less difficult than I had worried, I found the two sprawled out across two couches, fixated on a shockingly too-high-volume wall of televisions. News reports on the night's massacre peppered all but the lowest right screen, where I noticed a Real Madrid uniform, briefly amused before the cacophony of a half dozen reporters talking over one another overwhelmed me to such a degree that I couldn't fathom how Jet or Alex could follow the conversations.

Alex noticed me first, noticed the embarrassed blush I must have been wearing and nodded, meaningfully, to Jet.

Whatever meaning the nod was meant to carry was entirely lost on Jet. His face lit up and he gestured for me to come sit.

"Come. You feeling better?"

I paused waiting for recognition. It didn't come. Alex shook his head, gave me an apologetic smile and got up, to presumably search for something for me to wear. Jet gave him a confused look and resumed grinning at me.

Jet softly mocked, "You look like you might have scrubbed a bit hard though."

"You've got me in just a towel and that's the best you have for me." I refused to sit.

Jet furrowed his brow deciding on the appropriate complement, "You do look clean."

"Clean?" My eyes smoldered, not a sexy smolder, a steady, angry burn.

His hand ran through his own hair sheepishly, while ducking my gaze, "Clean, and soft, and like a vision?"

"Good enough I guess, " I smiled and let him wrap himself gently around me. I don't know how long we sat tangled, but aware that we had a lot to talk about, and he would do his absolute best to postpone it, I disentangled all but our fingers.

I squared off on the couch next to him, "Before you say anything, just listen, okay?" He nodded and offered his other hand.

I left it there and continued, "I want to know everything about her. And I want to be involved from now on. I know I can't fight and, well, I'm not brilliant like Alex, but I can still help." The words came clumsily, but his eyes remained soft yet serious, and I knew he took my resolve seriously, well, semi-seriously.

Alex returned with a slightly too large pair of pajamas, lay them next to me, and dropped a folded blanket onto Jet, which he in turn, taking the hint, wrapped around my naked shoulders. Alex teased, "Not that I minded the look, Allie."

I shot him a harsh look jokingly and he cowered appropriately. Jet chimed in, "And you smell like donuts."

"No, vanilla. The crap by your tub was vanilla and lavender scented." Jet shrugged and I continued, "Why do you have bath soap anyways? Take a lot of bubble baths?" I grinned ear to ear.

"Nah, I'm not sure how that got there. Probably, Alex." Jet ducked the thrown pillow, but in an instant grew serious, "Allie, we can talk about this stuff in the morning."

Alex shot me a look and I reflected it upon Jet. "No." And realizing that it would be easier to just start talking than fight about it, I began.

I told them how I found the hall empty and how I was caught and taken upstairs, ignoring the details of my capture, how I snuck out and saw Mania kill the conductor, and "After she killed him, well, she, " I hesitated for only a split second but Alex cut me off.

Softly, he interjected, "Belmont chair playing violin."

"So you know?"

Of course they knew. The TV screamed details of the massacre, but more than the killings, somehow I also knew that, despite no mention of it on the televisions, the singing and the blindness wouldn't be a shock. I continued on, telling them of the sounds, of how she killed the audience, and of her interactions with the young man, and finally of her interactions with myself. They listened without much reaction, eyes showing little emotion or surprise until I talked about the conversation between me and Mania.

Alex broke the silence, "Um, that --"

Jet cut him off "made no sense."

I was immediately angry and pushed myself out of Jet's renewed embrace. "What?"

Alex, realizing, assuaged me, "No, I believe you. Entirely. It just doesn't fit with how we normally think of Mania."

"Why's that?"

Alex stood up, "Mania doesn't work with others. Yet, you say she had a group of heavies working for her. I didn't think she was, human, enough for that. And this kid, this boy, you say she was interested in him, just him?"

"She seemed to be. Donovan. Donovan, that was the name." Their blank stares indicated no knowledge of the name.

Jet remained silent and Alex continued, "And this boy was unafraid of her? You say that he escaped, and if anything, she feared him?"

My mind replayed the look on her face when she warned me that the boy would be coming back, "I don't know about fear, but, he definitely wasn't afraid of her, or wasn't afraid to die at least, and she went out of her way to not kill him."

We talked for a while longer, I filled in some details I forgot on my first pass, and after recounting detail after detail with surgical precision, I grew sick of answering questions and wanted some answers for myself. Alex was mid-sentence when I cut him off, "Stop." He stopped. "Look, this needs to go both ways. Who is she?"

Alex looked at Jet, expecting him to answer the question, but he remained silent. After a while, he spoke, picking his words very carefully, "I knew her a long time ago. She wasn't normal then, but more normal. It's a long story, and I promise to tell it to you, but she's the reason both mine and Alex's families are dead."

"I'm sorry."

Jet smiled, "No, it's bigger than that. Not to me, really, but she's caught up in something bigger. I don't really understand it. Alex knows better than me."

I asked the wrong question next, "Why doesn't anyone stop her? I mean she did something like this only a few months ago, right?"

Alex paced, not answering immediately, maybe unsure how to answer, but the breath he took before he began braced me for a long response, "If you're asking why we haven't, we've tried, but we're also interested in understanding who's responsible for Mania. I don't think, " he glanced at Jet and I could tell this was a point of contention between the two, he resumed a bit differently, "Well, she comes from somewhere. Someone made her the way she is and we'd like to find out who and why.

Jet chimed in, "I don't really care about all that."

Alex, ignoring him, "As for why law enforcement has taken such a laiz en fair approach, that is something we know pretty well. Do you remember, about five years back, pukers?"

I did remember. "Yeah, those green pics that made you sick." They were pictures, just a bunch of shades of green and yellow in some sort of pattern, but when you saw the image, you felt nauseous, extremely nauseous. I was pretty young when the epidemic hit the web, but it caused a huge panic. Monitors were even hard-coded to avoid displaying that particular arrangement of pixels.

"Yeah, just one picture really. It was just embedded in others." Alex hesitated. "Well, you probably recall what happened in the aftermath of that."

Everyone knew what happened. "Crow?"

"Yeah," he sat back down.

Vincent Crow was truly a monstrous sicko. I was just starting high school when the abductions began. He would kidnap young girls, high schoolers usually and he'd release videos, terrible videos. Short videos of dismembering the kidnapped girls horrifically. At my all girls' high, security was particularly elevated. Armed guards rode our buses, accompanied us to sports meets, and roamed our halls.

I had never seen a Crow video, though my imagination had poisoned me with many nightmares of what they might include. His message was common knowledge. He wanted to prove he could sicken and outrage us without any tricks. His murders escalated in grotesqueness until finally he progressed suddenly from high school girls to the president's wife.

I shuddered in Jet's arms. He stroked my hair gently, which might normally provide some relaxation, but not this night. Alex was filling me in with more backstory on Crow, but it was information I already knew. Most of it was common knowledge. Rumors abounded back then that he was freakishly strong, fast, that he was somehow abusing Stutter and surviving it, but while I didn't believe much of it, there was no doubt that he transcended what a normal human should be able to do.

The video of the president's wife was only shown once to my knowledge and there were no copies. Alex was getting to this part of the story.

"-- in Times Square. I don't know if you know what was shown, but, "he turned to Jet for approval to continue.

I swallowed, remembering the acidic taste from earlier in the night, "I know. Just skip it." The video was horrific. The clip was short, but supposedly depicted the first lady being violated, tortured, and involved a meat grinder.

Alex's tone changed, "Officially, Vincent Crow was killed in a shootout with federal agents three and a half years ago." Pausing to mute the televisions, "Vincent Crow was killed by Mania four years ago."

"Why? What did she care?"

Jet shrugged, "We don't know. Figure she probably cut a deal with the feds."

"How do you know all this?"

Jet let go of my hands, his face hard, distant, his tone flat as a flatlined EKG, "She told me. And gave me proof."

"What?"

In Alex's hand was a disc, "A video. We're the only two people who've seen this."

I was terrified by what might be on it. I didn't have the stomach for gory movies, let alone this kind of stuff. Still, "I need to see it."

Alex stood up and inserted the disc into a player on the wall. I was very right to fear its contents.

Chapter VI (Part I)

The water was far too hot, forcing me to wince each time I submerged any air-cooled skin into the nearly scalding water. The bath was cavernous in a bathroom that bordered on ludicrous in size and opulence. Sitting in the foamy water, I looked around, taking note of every detail, doing my absolute best to avoid thinking about the events of earlier, and despite my efforts to distract myself, failing.

I hadn't spoken a word to Alex on our long ride back to Jet's. nor had he. It's possible he thought I was asleep, I did close my eyes, or perhaps it was his attempt at courtesy.

His face was full of curiosity but he probably wanted to give me time to collect my thoughts. Is that what I was doing in here? Collecting my thoughts?

Mania was real. In every sense. I had believed Jet, but being there, seeing her...I focused on the bathroom's limestone tile looking for patterns in their arrangement that almost certainly weren't there.

Jet had been waiting out front when we got back to his place. Alex had called him on the way and very briefly filled him in, saying that something had happened at the Symphony hall and that I was okay, but shaken. Truthfully, I was a little more than shaken. He thankfully said no more, and despite definitely not being okay, I was glad to postpone Jet's flipping out.

I had never really seen Jet worried. His face wore worry strangely -- fear mixed with longing, like a lost child. I didn't cry or have the slightest desire to on the long car ride back, but seeing him brought on the waterworks and before I could stop myself, or him, I was pressed tight against him, enjoying the intensity of his clasp, and embarrassed to be ruining his clean clothes with Mania's handiwork. I demanded to clean up before saying a word about what happened.

I sighed and stirred the water. My ruined clothes lay piled on the floor next to a stack of towels. Removing them was a disgusting challenge. I tried not to think whose blood sat caked in that pile across the floor without much success. Visions of what Mania had done, even though I hadn't seen it, couldn't see it, came at me each time I closed my eyes, flickered at me with every blink.

Feeling a bit suffocated by the heat, I pushed open the windows above the tub. The winter air and the hot bath were a good combination, reminding me fondly of riding in a car with the heater blasting into cold night air. Voices spilled in from down below. I figured I had earned the right to a bit of eavesdropping.

Jet's voice came first and was undoubtedly furious, an emotion of his I'd yet to see firsthand, "Are you hearing this?" I had no idea what the this was, I imagined a television report.

Alec responded quickly and severely, "You have to ask her about it, now." I assumed he meant me. Yeah, duh, obviously me. In truth, I was fine to talk about it. I wanted to know what was going on. "We don't know at all what she's doing here."

Jet was being unusually overprotective, "Not going to happen tonight." He paused for a bit and there was silence between the two of them. I can't imagine they fought like this much. I felt guilty to be wedged in the middle of their friendship.

"I know you're freaked out," Alex began. "But Allie's fine. I'm sure she wants to know what's going on as well." Yes. Thank you. Yes.

"So now that she has information you want, you take the moral highground on filling her in? You're the one who won't ever let me say anything."

"Everything's changed with her back." Alex paused, "Hey, if you were there, we wouldn't be having this talk."

I expected more anger from Jet but the reply didn't come or it was too soft to hear. Being stood up by him tonight was so far down my list of concerns right now. And Jet having been there would have indeed curbed the need for Jet and Alex's argument -- we'd both be dead.

If the conversation continued, it was now out of earshot, which was a mixed blessing in that I didn't enjoy listening to the two fight, but gone with it was the chance to gain more understanding of the what and why behind Mania's actions. They definitely knew about her. Alex seemed willing to trade his information for my account --a trade I was more than willing to make, but I didn't want to hurt Jet by seeming ungrateful for his concern. I knew he was probably hating himself right now and I really didn't want to make him feel any worse.

I felt a tear accelerate down my cheek and glide past my chin. I hadn't realized I'd been crying. I had stopped a long while ago. I must have started up again. I don't know why I was crying. I shouldn't be crying. I turned to catch my reflection in the oversize, polished silver faucet for confirmation, hoping to be wrong. My eyes burned red and my cheeks were slick. Stupid girl emotions betraying my resolve.

I sunk down into the hot water to wash away the salty tears and immediately regretted it, cursing the heat. I checked my reflection again -- my eyes still throbbed, outlined in crimson, but I seemed to be done with the tears, and I couldn't sit in here forever. I had scrubbed my pale skin with enough ferocity to exfoliate down to a sore pink, but even if I hadn't, the heat alone would have baked my skin a blushing red. I caught my naked reflection in the faucet, and quickly embarrassed to see the few remaining bubbles fail to provide much cover, reached for a towel and stepped out carefully onto the hard stone floor.

Leave it to a boy to have a gigantic soaking tub and no towel or bathmat to step out onto. My feet felt slimy as skin and soap battled the heated limestone tiles. Terrified that I'd fall and humiliate myself, I stretched one of the towels in the stack onto the floor for some traction, and content that I wouldn't fall, dried myself off before studying my reflection in the halfway fogged mirror. The thought that I had nothing to change into had been a nagging concern while soaking in the tub, but had seemed a far off problem; now that it was immediate, I was a bit clueless on how to proceed.

I loved Jet, truly and completely, but this is about the time in a movie where the man knocks on the door and offers a change of clothes -- I smiled to realize that this was probably something that Jet would never do. I glowered at my reflection and debated whether I had the confidence to march out wearing only a towel. I wasn't ready yet for Jet to see me without clothes. Well, maybe I was. I checked my pink reflection in the mirror. No, definitely not. Maybe, I wanted to see him without clothes, but not me, not yet.

My choices were either to yell and sheepishly ask him for something to wear, go downstairs in just my towel, or change back into my old clothes. Okay, so number three definitely wasn't an option. Embarrassed, I crept over to the door and called out, not exactly gently, but trying not to sound urgent, "Hey Jet."

I waited a few seconds and tried again even mixing in an "Alex" now and then. And then once more. Still no response or footsteps. That's the problem with this place -- it's just way too big. I wasn't even sure where to look for the two of them. They said they'd be downstairs, but that wasn't terribly specific. I sighed and leaned my back against the door, and after a few seconds of clenching and unclenching my fists with resolve, I exhaled, "Screw it," secured my towel as best I could, and headed downstairs.

Allie's Tale Chapter V (Part III - Final)

I could hardly hear the conversation over the blood rushing in my ears, but it was clear that the girl's interrogation of her captive was not revealing much. The other two men, one of which I had known too well already, maintained their vigilance although I couldn't fathom the boy doing anything to antagonize Mania further.

Sirens wailed in the distance and sparked hope within me once again. They sounded far off, but it seemed impossible they wouldn't be heading here. Maybe some soul managed to get a 911 dial off during the massacre. Maybe a few hundred people can't go missing for very long.

Mania glanced about the room almost frightened by the new sound. She leaned in closely to the boy and her grin spread out around the sides of her face, "One last chance to talk," she purred.

The boy smirked and suppressed a laugh, unafraid.

Mania slid one of her two daggers up and down the boy's neck, shredding ribbons of skin with each pass, "Whatever whatever are you thinking."

"I'm thinking about the future, where our roles are swapped, where I have the knife pressed to you, and where I get to savor the pleasure of cutting that grin off your face."

I closed my eyes in anticipation of one more lost life, but no sound came, and upon reopening them, I found Mania a half dozen paces back from the boy, dejected and frustrated.

In that single beat of dead silence, as I sat, still crouching by the railing, I leaned in to see better what was happening below, and with that hint of motion, my attacker's eyes found me. I felt that hope the sirens carried with them slowly slipping away.

I thought for a moment as I nervously chewed my lip that none of tonight had anything to do with me. I was supposed to be here on a date. Yeah, I had wanted to know about Mania and, yes, I had begged Alex and Jet for information, but I didn't deserve to die for that curiosity. Dying here, right now, was totally senseless.

I was tired of being sick and more tired of being scared. The floor was warm and slick about me with proof of both. Thoughts of what that man would have done to me surged anger and revenge hot through me, and when his eyes locked with mine, fear was certainly not the first emotion on my face. I stood up, defiant and bitter, and really what else was I going to do.

He called out, half alarmingly and half jeeringly, and the others' attentions snapped to me. That isn't quite right. The girl's, her attention, turned indifferently, unsurprised, already well aware of my presence. I swallowed hard, tasting acid on my spit. She saw my face, anger and shame, and she cocked her head towards her man, read his smirk, and her neck rolled as her eyes narrowed with understanding.

Her face was childlike, angelic, slender but wide eyed, even as her eyes narrowed and her smile turned cruel, there was something of an innocent grace about her.

She smiled at me, and turned back to her man, speaking to him, though loud enough for me to hear, "Die."

It wasn't a threat or a request. My hands shook as they clawed the wooden railing tightly enough to give me illusions of snapping it.

The man's smirk vanished and he moved quickly, almost too fast for me follow, but only almost, and swung the pistol aimed at the boy to instead point into the girl's face, six inches from her unwrinkled, unconcerned brow. The same gun was pressed into my face not an hour ago, but her reaction did not in the faintest resemble my humiliating trembling. Her eyebrows flared with incredulity.

Facing the barrel, she titled her head to the side, and giggled. The laughter was awkward, but not forced -- it just seemed to last longer than it should. And it wasn't mocking -- she actually thinks all of this is funny.

I never had my moment to get away, to save my life, but I was sure that if there was a moment for this man, it would have been the first second of her giggling. It slipped right on by him, and I was happy it did.

I shouldn't be this angry, I reasoned. I should be scared. I should be anything but wanting her to rip this man's head off. Still, my breath came in hisses through gritted teeth and, shifting my hands off the railing, my nails dug fiercely into my balled fists.

The second man and the boy turned their faces away, afraid to watch. I leaned forward over the railing to see better, I wanted it, and I saw the man's death long before it physically unfolded.

My attacker's face flickered from anger to terror to misery to defeat. The girl nodded. His motion was quick, much quicker than before, but my eyes again didn't fail to capture it. The man dropped his arm to his side and then swung the handgun up to his face and then into his mouth, pulling the trigger, twice. His body hung suspended, briefly defying gravity, until a slight nudge from the girl sent him buckling and twitching to the puddled floor.

The boy shook his head in what could have been disgust and the man shivered as he kept his weapon trained on the boy. The girl looked up at me, her face innocent and proud, a child awaiting praise from her school teacher. I don't know why I nodded, but this man's death after what I'd seen, was something like catharsis.

She spoke to the boy, loudly, "Wait here." She grabbed the boy's wounded left arm by the wrist, pressed it up against the wooden side of one of the seats, and with deliberate motion skewered both flesh and wood, pinning his hand to the chair. My own hand burned with sympathy pain, but I wasn't sick. My stomach remained firm. I was done with all that. He didn't cry out as I nearly did but tensed his face, furious. I staggered falling backwards as her eyes swung back to find me.

She was on me in an instant. I can't begin to understand my emotions at that moment. Scared, yes. But stupid as it is, I was mostly ashamed. My dress torn by the now dead man, my hair and the carpet around me covered in my disgust, a total mess -- not just shame, I was angry and jealous. She was covered in blood, her once marvelous outfit somehow still gorgeous stained red. Her lips hung open, parted and curious, and her large white teeth glimmered even if stained a faint pink. She was somehow still beautiful, still marvelous if intimidating, and I was just disgusting.

She saw the shame on my face and her Cheshire grin became a mother's sympathetic smile.

And then she was hugging me. And then I was no longer scared.

She spoke soothingly, melodically, and she could have said anything with that voice, "I saw you, you're like me."

I nodded without listening before pressing my head into her neck, the smell of her skin gentle and surprisingly familiar, safe. The tears and crying I had fought all night came out explosively. I cried, pathetic as it was, because I had nothing else left. I had no energy to plead or beg. I sobbed into her shoulder not caring anymore if I lived or died here.

Part of me knew it made no sense, that this girl was a monster, that she would push me away in a few seconds, the grin would come back and my last sight would be watching my blood wash her pale face.

I'm sorry, Jet. I couldn't run. My moment never came.

I don't know how long I'd been crying. It could have been a minute or five. She stroked by hair and back, softly and reassuringly, whispering something to me, but I couldn't hear it over my own sobs. I choked them back as best I could, afraid to make her repeat herself.

Her face was soft but serious, "Don't worry. I'll never hurt you. Never. Never. Never."

There was a scream and a shot down below, but it felt far away and broke neither of our attentions.

She repeated the "never" over and over and looking up into her gentle eyes, I believed it. Tears ran down her red-stained face carving pale white streaks before vanishing over her chin. As I looked into her eyes and she into mine, I thought, well it was impossible, nevermind---

"Are you okay, now?"

I pushed back away from her, steadied my breathing, my throat screamed in pain from the sobbing, and spoke delicately through the pain, "Yes, sorry, I'm fine now."

She didn't reply beyond a gentle nod, but motioned for me to stand. I obliged and once up, tried to spot the boy. He was nowhere to be seen. The man with the gun lay dead, throat slashed, my monster's second dagger jutting out. She understood my glance and she made the same visual check, clearly failing to notice the boy's escape due to my sobbing. I felt an immediate surge of guilt. She paused, as if listening very carefully, and her face wore a new expression, worry. She turned to me, "More are coming."

"Who?"

"Donovan's angry." She hopped up on to the balcony with feral grace.

"The boy? How did he even get out of here? And what's between the two of you?" I couldn't stop. The questions came in rapid succession into my mind, and I lacked the ability to restrain myself in asking them as they did. "Why? Why all these people?"

She was facing away from me, staring intently at the three locked double doors down below, the same doors I had seen chained from the outside earlier. My questions hung empty and answered in the air, she acknowledged not a single one of them, but instead rolled her neck, and spoke without turning to me, "Go. Run. To the street."

I was anxious to get out of there. I wanted nothing more than to get out, to find Jet, to see my family, to crawl under my blankets and wake up in the morning and laugh about how this must all have been a strange nightmare. But, I was curious, and I wanted what happened tonight to make sense, somehow. Why did all these people have to die? They did nothing to anyone. Why did I live?

"You'll die if you stay." It was matter of fact and I quickly noted the protective tone from her voice was all but gone.

I agreed to live. "Okay."

She turned around and her face was serious. "Find the card cheat."

I stared at her, confused. After the pause revealed no more information from her, "What?" What was she talking about?

Through pursed lips, "And," grin returning as she handed me her remaining dagger, "stick this in the neck of anyone you see on the way out."

Upon closer inspection, the dagger was less of a blade and more of a long spike. It was cool and slippery in my hand. I shuddered thinking of where it had been.

I shook my head refusing, forcing the knife back onto her, and without thinking a moment longer, fled out the doorway barefoot, down the stairs, past my unbroken and discarded cell phone, out onto the street, aware and uncaring of the icy slush and don't know when I would have stopped if I hadn't ran full force into a young man two blocks out. The collision left both me and the boy on the concrete and ice.

Recognizing the victim, I hugged him ferociously.

Alex hugged me back and in an instant his jacket was wrapped tight around me.

We spoke at the same time,

"Where the fuck is Jet?"

"What happened?"

He ran his hand through his hair with an embarrassed, sheepish grin, "Sleeping. He hates classical music."

Allie's Tale (Chapter V) Part II (of 3)

I was nine years old, white pillowcase pulled over my head despite my aunt's scolding, only this time without the accompanying lightheadedness that comes with too much recycled air. Just as then, colors and shapes crept unintelligible about me, but it wasn't fear of what was out there that bothered me. The pillowcase only got scary when there was that brief moment of terror when you felt unable to take it off, stuck, trapped.

I didn't know how long it had been. Seconds. Just seconds probably. What was happening to me? It was the girl. The girl somehow did this. She took my eyes. No, impossible. That didn't make any sense. A trick. Were my eyes open or closed? Open. Definitely open.

I slammed my lids shut, hoping for the tranquil black behind the lids, but it was gone. The blinding white raged on. I tried to picture something, anything. I couldn't think of anything. I tried to recreate my room back in Chicago and couldn't. Still just white.

Come on, think of something, fucking anything. Again, nothing. I thought in moments like these it would have been easy to pick the really important memories, the places I'd seen, the people I loved, but none of it came to me. My fear of being unable to craft the images was gradually transforming into this new panic where I couldn't remember the things I thought I treasured most.

Then without meaning to, my mind found Jet. I slowly and arduously found myself able to recreate his features, but it was like I was teaching my brain all over how to do this, how to see. The other memories followed. Winter mornings at my family's old house on the Hudson, racing my uncle around the gravel track at the park down the road, the giant goldfish in our neighbor's pond. The stupidity of remembering those damn goldfish somehow left me much more relaxed.

My heart which had been racing a thousand beats per minute calmed after I could begin recreating sights behind my lids. I was steadily able to recreate even more images, drawn out of my memories. Feeling less hysteric, I tried opening my eyes again. Just white still, but I felt less panicked. Shouldn't my other sense me picking up about now? I steadied my breathing, and over my still pounding heart, I listened.

The Chopin continued, somewhat less elegantly than before, and I was briefly amazed the musicians could continue their performance without the ability to see. It wasn't strange at all to me to know that the blindness affecting me was pandemic to everybody in the room. I don't know how, but just as I knew I needed air to breathe, I knew that the girl on stage was Mania, and I knew that she somehow did this.

Then, after my heart had just calmed, there were new sounds.

Tearing, gasping, ripping, screaming, splashing.

And the pillowcase, no matter how I struggled, would not come off.

I don't know if it was the sounds or the smell that had me sick again. Off balance and unable to see, I was sure I'd vomited on my hair, but at least momentarily, fear trumped embarassment.

The sounds continued and intensified. It was too much to process. Cries for help, shredding, whimpering, begging, and a faint humming, no, laughing, all blended into a twisted cacophony and yet the Chopin continued. A faint metallic smell. And as I understood what was happening, free of that sort of denial that should protect the mind from such atrocities, my vision returned.

And no sooner that it had, I slammed my eyes shut. I tried to get up, to run out into the hall and take my chances with the man by the stairwell, but I couldn't will my body to move. It shook and shivered but wouldn't respond to my very basic commands. Run. Stand. Run. I felt the need to be sick, to vomit again, but unable to manage even that motion, I swallowed hard, sickened further by the acidic flavor, and inhaled true horror through my eyes.

The walls glistened cardinal red. The stage curtains, once golden, were stained crimson. Puddles of red paint slick at their base. The orchestra lay distorted and folded over their instruments, many with their heads cleanly removed, limbs scattered. Their blood puddled and ran through the cracks in the wooden floorboards down off the sides of the stage. And yet none of this was even the slightest preparation for what remained of the crowd on the main floor. I flickered my eyes open once more and again slammed them shut.

Dead. All of them dead. Some disfigured as if they had exploded. And as I opened my eyes a third time, I found myself unable to shut them again. They took in every detail of every atrocity. Families dead, parents covered in the blood of their children, children drowned once again in the blood of their mothers. Necks slashed so completely that the heads remained attached with only the slightest sinew. The floors and walls slick and running, alive, with human blood. And yet somehow, it wasn't the sight that broke me. The smell. The idea that this smell was the blood of all these people and that little molecules of all their blood were being sampled and analyzed through my nose and with my brain and how each and every person in this room was somehow inside me infecting me with their death--

And as I sat paralyzed, awestruck and terrified, she spoke, "Do~novan, so silly."

The sound broke my paralysis. I had to shift my viewing angle to locate her. It required tremendous effort even for this tiniest movement. She was face to face with the standing boy I saw earlier, her two knives pressed threateningly against his throat. His arm hung limp, severely injured, from his side, gun in hand. He must have fired the shots. There had been five ushers surrounding the boy before my vision left me. Three lay dead on the floor, the other two clearly wounded, although still standing. Mania was so entirely stained with blood that her skin and dress were stained scarlet, and it was impossible to tell if she was somehow wounded. She seemed unscathed.

The boy, I guess, Donovan, did not waver in his fury and, through clenched teeth, growled, "You fucking disgrace this family, freak."

She leaned in to the boy and spoke too quietly for me to hear. His expression remained unphased. As she spoke, she gestured around the room, "-- all of this?" She pointed and danced about, clearly proud of her massacre. I was too terrified, too sure that these were my last moments alive, to care much about what she was saying. Thoughts of finding my moment had all left me. I sat and shivered and shuddered and waited for my life to end.

Allie's Tale (Chapter V) Part I

The January cold bit and stung at me as I waited, careful to take shallow breaths, protecting my lungs, if nothing else, from the cold, my body and face turned as best they could from the wind. The inside of the symphony hall only fifteen feet away glowed and pulsed with heat invitingly, but I liked the idea of waiting for him in the cold and going inside together. I could bear the cold. I also didn't want to potentially be the lone girl standing by herself in the spotlight while everybody pitied me for being stood up. I knew that it was stupid to be so self conscious, but knowing it and feeling it just aren't the same. He's not coming. It's been over twenty minutes and he's not coming.

It looked as if all the color and emotion of the outside world had drained away, replaced by shades of melancholic gray, sapped of their life by the Chicago cold. The night sky was black, but the reflected city lights off the blanket of snow and dark cloudy sky in conjunction with the gray pavement merged everything into a murky haze. I fumbled with the two tickets in my bare hands, glowing a Rudolph red from the cold, my fingers clumsy and uncoordinated at maneuvering the slabs of paper. The warmth of inside continued to beckon and seduce me. No. I shook my head abruptly and forcefully, trying to force the image of me standing in the warm indoors from my mind. Fragments of my conversation with Jet and Alex replaced my discomfort and anxiety over the cold with longing for Jet and curiosity concerning our last conversation.

At lunch, Jet had said that just one girl had been responsible for the October killings and that he had not only ran into her earlier that same night, but fought with her, nearly dying. The little moon shaped scars on his hands were proof enough for my stomach and as much as I empathized with Jet over the injury, the visual of a knife skewering his hands like a kabob made my stomach turn. Mania was the name. Jet had laughed as if the killings, his injuries, this Mania girl were all no big deal, but that look Alex had given him. Venomous.

Trying to deny my feelings at this point for Jet was impossible, but love him or not, Alex was Jet's caution, his reason. And Alex never lost his cool like that. Ever. I liked him too. I hadn't at all at first, but I felt now that I understood Alex better. He needed to be so serious, so contained, so calm because with someone like Jet never taking anything in life too seriously, he needs someone to ground him. Would I end up like that? Would years of being in love with Jet always protecting him from his own recklessness leave me sarcastic, practical, and cold? I wondered again how someone like Jet could even really feel the same way about me. Everything about him was extraordinary, while everything with me, was just, extra ordinary.

Before my mind could continue replaying and picking apart the conversation further, a gust of wind reminded me that the demands of the physical world were more pressing than those of my mind. Where the hell is he? I couldn't fathom why he'd want to go to a symphony. Worse still to be late. Even somehow more worse to not answer your phone when you're running this late. I gripped the tickets tightly and surrendered to the allure of escaping the cold. We really don't get to pick who we love.

The warmth was soothing but less so than I expected. My pale skin continued to glow pink, okay red, to my frustration. After about a minute of thawing, I looked for a place to check my coat, and found the coat closet, but no coat checker. I put the jacket back on and figured I'd suffer in the heat to balance out the waiting in the cold. It's okay body -- on average, we're fine.

Making my way back towards the main hall and concession area, I found one thing, disturbingly missing, people. Food was generally prohibited inside the actual hall, but from my few memories of being dragged to this place as a child, there were typically people schmoozing about having drinks, here for the atmosphere instead of the music. I was equally desperate to get away from the music as a kid and it was one of the rare occasions where my aunt and uncle would indulge any candy or soda request I might have, so these booths were about all I could remember of my trips here.

Not ten minutes ago I saw dozens of people walking about in here while I stood outside freezing. The concern that I was going crazy briefly crossed my mind, but I let my sanity off the hook when I recognized the sound of Chopin in the distance. Maybe they don't let people out during performances now. I decided to find my seat and if Jet comes, he comes, if not, I'm here and I might as well make the best of it.

I approached the closed center doors to the main floor seating without giving any consideration to where my seats were supposed to be, figuring I'd take an empty seat near the rear and leave if I got too terribly bored. I wondered if normal girls would do this, or if they would just give up and go home. I've always been clueless with the little rules like that on how to live.

My hand touched the handle of the door before I noticed the chains. The large wooden doors were chained and locked from the outside. Strange. I get not letting people out if it disturbs the musicians, but chaining the doors can't be safe. Some sort of fire hazard at least. I paused and tried to ease the growing anxiety building up within me. Maybe it was just this one door.

The adjacent doors were also chained. Something was wrong here. Really wrong.

I pressed my ear up against the door. Chopin. A few coughs and whispers. It sounded like a symphony. Still my heart raced and that anxiety I'd been fighting was turning into something much more like hysteria.

There are no people out here -- no ushers, no coat checker, no servers, nothing. I felt the panic in my stomach and throat.

Without my mind really processing what could possibly be going on, I found myself dialing.

The voice was reassuring, motherly, "Chicago 911, do you have an emergency?"

I stuttered, "Yes, I think so, I'm -- "

I had never felt a gun pressed up against my head before, but I didn't need to turn to know what it was. The voice was male but higher pitched and more nervous than the movie cliches had prepared me for, "Stop."

Without hesitation, I whimpered, "I'm fine actually. Sorry false alarm."

The emergency responder said something. I wasn't listening. She told me it was okay to hang up, and the call disconnected, but I held the phone up to my ear pretending to listen for as long as I could. I didn't get long. A sweaty hand grabbed mine and ripped the phone out of it before grabbing my arm and spinning me around fast enough for me to lose balance. I buckled on my heels but the man was bigger than I had thought and he easily held me up, if painfully, by my arm. He flung the phone into the wall hard enough for me to expect it to explode into a thousand pieces, but instead it hit with just a large thud, and bounced and skidded across the floor.

It's strange now, but at that moment, I made up my mind that I wasn't going to die there that night to a man unable to even break a cell phone. I thought about Jet as the man dragged me off, me stumbling and tripping the whole way. I wished he were here to help me, but this guy had a gun and while I wouldn't ever bet against Jet in a fight, still, a gun was a gun, right? Thinking that he might get hurt again, might get shot, made me instantly glad he didn't come here tonight. And I wasn't going to die here. There will be a moment I knew. I'll have my moment and I'll escape. The doors to the outside weren't chained. We had gone up a few flights of stairs and he was dragging me to a room at the end of a long hallway at the top -- I could run from here to the door in thirty seconds. I replayed the run again and again trying to avoid thinking about the present, but my escape plans were dashed when I saw a second man take up a post guarding the main hallway to the exit.

I felt the gun pressed into my forehead. My mind snapped to the present. I saw my attacker clearly for the first time. He was dressed as an usher but was too big and too tattooed to be plausible. His face wore a nervous grin as if he were enjoying himself but afraid to indulge his desires. I had always thought that the guy holding the gun would have a lot more confidence. I wanted to cry and panic and beg, but I kept my mind on the cell phone skidding across the floor. Throw me around and I won't break either.

He drilled the gun into my forehead so hard I felt he was trying to bore it into my skull. "I said fucking strip." He threw me to the wall as I shook my head furiously and he again pressed the gun to me, sandwiching my head between the barrel and the wall with enough force for me to feel my head was going to pop like a grape.

And I saw the menace and intent on his face replace the previous nervousness and I wanted to cry. I wanted to collapse and cry and for it to all be over, but I knew if I did that, I'd still die. Whoever this guy was and whoever the other people here were, they were doing something big, and it didn't end with me. I thought of Jet and my family and my friends and if I could trade anything for a chance to be with them again, I would've with no hesitation. I never thought I would feel this way. I had thought I would've rather died.

I removed my jacket and the pressure on my forehead eased.

A knock on the door.

A new man, also dressed as an usher, also unconvincingly. "We found him, he's here. We need to get in there now. "

He was clearly in charge, or at least, in charge of my assailant. My attacker took one last longing glance at me and spun around on his heels, slamming the door behind me.

I waited thirty seconds and then tried the door -- it wasn't locked. I peeked into the corridor. A man I hadn't seen before stood with his back to me at the end of the long hallway. Before I could move, he turned, still facing away from me, and walked down towards the stairway I needed for my escape. Shit.

There were a few other doorways in the corridor. I figured it was better to hide in one of the other rooms than wait for my death where I currently was. One of the rooms clearly led to a balcony overlooking the performance. I thought maybe I could warn the audience and escape in the confusion. I ditched my heels and slid down the hallway silently, shutting the door behind me, and slipped into the room that overlooked the stage. The seats were amazing despite being unused. They must have been exorbitantly expensive, probably for some special VIP -- I spotted my attacker moving about the main floor below me. Silently, I dropped to the floor and peered through a hole in the carved wooden railing. He didn't see me. From where I lay, I could see the stage and the main floor perfectly without being very visible. I watched.

As the second movement of the piece drew to a close, a young woman, a girl my age, although dressed much more marvelously, walked out onto the stage. The musicians continued their playing, but the audience and conductor's reactions were telling me this was something unexpected.

The way the girl moved -- it was just, wrong. She tilted and leaned precariously with cartoonish exaggeration with each step. She stopped face to face with the conductor, seemed to have a few words with him, and then spun around to the musicians, motioning with her hands that they should continue to play. She leaned over a young violinist and whispered for a good twenty or thirty seconds; I could hear none of it, but the reaction on the violinist's face was clear. Terror.

The audience remained seated and relatively motionless despite the subtle confusion on stage but the silent symphony of their whispers began to drawn out the Chopin. The girl spun around and, putting a finger to her lips, shushed the crowd with a gentle smile. The whispers stopped.

One man stood up, something about his movement, lazy and powerful, the same way Jet moved, and immediately the ushers grouped up around the lone standing audience member. From where I lay, I couldn't get a good look at the standing man. He looked young though. Not older than his early twenties. I couldn't see much of his face at the distance, but he looked furious.

The young man spoke, and even without shouting, the sound carried well enough throughout the hall, "A little much, don't you think?"

The girl seemed to have removed the lapel microphone from the conductor because her voice boomed throughout the hall. It was a child's voice, sugary sweet. "I want my recording."

The Chopin continued but a few audience members began to get out of their seats and crept towards the exits as she spoke. The conductor, red as beet, seemed to be cursing at the girl on stage.

And time slowed down. The girl turned to face the conductor, tilted her head to the side as if terribly confused by what she saw, and in a motion terrifying fast, somehow now with a knife in each hand, cut out the throat of the man, erupting a spray of red onto the orchestra. The girl's white dress was splattered red, her face and hair, drowned in the man's blood.

I felt my stomach press up against my lungs and spine and found myself vomiting before the man's body even had time to crumple to the floor. For the tiniest fraction of a second, the girl on stage's gaze found me, hearing my reaction, but then her eyes were on the crowd, erupting out of their chairs, and then on the orchestra.

The chains held and, despite the crowd's pushing and shoving, nobody was getting out.

The young man remained standing, inert, staring at the stage. He spoke again, "I don't have it."

The childish tone was gone in her response, she growled, "I don't believe you."

The next few seconds were a blur. The ushers pulled their weapons on the boy, five gunshots were followed by screams and cries from the crowd, and then the voice of the girl, "Belmont chair playing violin."

Everything went white.