Drake sat on his bed, studying his gun with admiration. He finally hit that bitch, Diana, today. It had felt good. But there was something that perplexed him. She could have gone running to Caine, but she didn't. She just took it. That was good. It meant he could finally take all his built-up hate and anger out on her, with no Caine to get in the way.

He grinned at the thought.

A knock on the door. 'Who could it be?' he thought. It was much too late for anyone to be roaming the school. Then again, there were no rules on what time to go to bed, not since the adults disappeared.

The knock was repeated. Wearily, Drake got to his feet and trudged to the door. He studied it for a moment, unsure of whether to answer it or not. He decided it didn't matter; everyone was scared of him.

He opened the door slowly, studying the person on the other side carefully. As soon as he saw long, brown hair and deep, brown eyes, he knew it was trouble.

"Hi," Diana said.

"What do you want, Diana?" he asked, then stopped himself, realising he'd called her Diana. He normally called her Ladris, or slag, bitch... all the derogatory names.

She frowned, obviously noticing this. "Caine told me to tell you that he's going off to Perdido Beach for a while."

"Why couldn't he tell me himself?"

Diana shrugged. "Maybe because he's already gone."

Drake growled. That was one of the things he hated about her.

She smirked and flicked her long hair behind her shoulders smoothly.

"You shouldn't act like that towards me, Drake. Caine's only a short walk away."

That was another thing he hated. The way she loved herself. She always thought the world revolved around her, that Caine would drop everything for her. Then again, he probably would.

Drake's hands balled slowly into fists. He grinned a shark-like grin. She smirked at him. Exactly the same, but completely different, he thought, then pushed it out of his mind. He and Diana were nothing alike, nothing. Never would be.

She winked at him, then pivoted on the spot smoothly and stalked down the long hallway. He watched her with disdain, then turned sharply back to his room after he realised he was staring.

The next few days had been hell for him. It had been just him and Diana. Everyone else had, for want of a better word, ditched them. Caine had buggered off, obviously unable to handle the pair.

At first, he'd enjoyed torturing her. Watching her squirm when he hit her. It had satisfied him. But after the first couple of days, he grew increasingly annoyed. Annoyed at Caine for leaving him with her, but also annoyed at Diana. For no reason in particular, just because she was... Diana, really. She'd always bounce back with a fresh line of insults, not in the slightest bit frightened of him.

On this particular day, she was perched on the side of a chair, staring off into space. Drake was admiring his gun again; it never left his side. Diana turned her head to look at him.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" Drake spat. Diana looked away sharply, un-Diana-like. She must have realised this, because she then turned back to look at him.

"I was wondering how a psycho like you can be even more crazy," she muttered somewhat unconvincingly. She rolled her eyes. He frowned, not catching her drift.

"What do you think I'm staring at, Drake?"

He shrugged, the answer somewhere in the back of his mind, but not wanting to come to the fore. She shook her head in disbelief, before sliding off her perch on the side of the arm chair and walking out the room. His eyes followed her, his mind still ticking over what she had said.

Caine's the one who has feelings for her, he told himself. But a new feeling had stirred inside him. A feeling which he knew of but didn't understand. And certainly didn't accept.

He chased after her. Pushed her up against a wall, the switchblade he'd pulled out of his pocket up against her throat. "You're fucking crazy," he snarled.

"Not as crazy as you," she replied coolly.

He removed the knife from her throat, and swiped it across her hair. A small, single lock fell to the floor. She stared at it for a moment, before responding drily with, "wow, tough guy. You can cut my hair."

He growled before roughly shoving the blade back up against her slender neck. A thin trickle of blood slid down her throat. "I could kill you now."

"But you won't."

He growled again, opened his mouth to yell at her to prepare to die... then stopped. She's right, he thought. He couldn't kill her. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't.

"Shut up, alright? Just shut it."

She opened her mouth to say something, but Drake pushed the knife harder against her tonsils. "Don't try and be my fucking psychologist, okay? Just don't. I don't like it when people try and root around inside me for anything other than hate."

"Aww, did I upset poor Drake?" Diana said in a mocking voice.

"Shut the fuck up!" He yelled at her, yanking her hard by her hair and pulling her by the hair across the tiled floor. She skidded against his grip, giving him the satisfaction of a fight. But Drake wasn't in the mood for a good fight.

"Let go!" she cried, still struggling. "Don't pretend like I don't know."

This caused Drake to throw her against the opposite wall in fury. "Stop it!"

She wiped her hand on her mouth which now had a light coating of blood. "Drake, I know how you're feeling."

Drake leapt across the room to her, and pressed the blade against her throat again. "I said shut the fuck up." Then, puzzled, he hesitated. "Wait, what did you say?"

Diana scowled at him. "I know how you're feeling. I understand."

Drake growled then like a wild animal. "Oh, really? What am I feeling, then, Doctor Bitch?"

"Love."

Drake couldn't take any more. He punched her, hard. She slumped to the floor, unconscious. Was that really what it was? He refused to believe that it was. But, now she'd said it, he began to think. Is that why I hate her so much? Is it because I'm in denial? The thought buzzed around him like the bees in that book he'd had to do a report on, The Hunger Games. What were they called again? Oh, yeah, tracker-jackers. He only remembered the book because the tracker-jackers were lethal yet nimble. A little like him.

He stared at the girl's slim body for a moment, before disappearing outside. He needed some air. As if that'll help, some more sane part of his brain told him. He chose to ignore it.

He made his way up to the roof. Once there, he stood on the ledge hesitantly. I wonder what it'd be like, he thought, if I ended my life, right here and now. Then a grin spread across his face as another one came to him: I wonder what it'd be like if I ended Diana's life up here. Pushed her off. But the grin left as quickly as it came as he grimly realised if he couldn't kill her back there, he wouldn't be able to do it up here. I have to get over it, he realised. But how?

The boy turned and stalked down the cold, stone steps suddenly, making a snap decision. He was in the corridor before he knew it.

He went into the common room; she was where he'd left her, stone cold out. He picked Diana's body up and gently dragged her onto the sofa, noting subconsciously how thin and fragile she seemed. Diana's brown eyes opened slowly. Alarm creeped into them as she realised what he was doing.

He did it in one swift movement. Blood spurted on the leather of the sofa. He put his switchblade back in his pocket, and stood up morosely.

He'd killed her.