Hey everyone! Before you ask anything, I'm still doing my other story, Words Unspoken, but I just wanted to publish this other one I'm working on too. On Words Unspoken, I'm probably going to have one or two more chapters, then an epilogue, and I don't plan on this story being too incredibly long.

Anywho, I hope you all like it, so enjoy :)

Chapter 1

"Come on James, are you ready yet?" Kendall asked outside of his room. There was too much impatience in his voice for his liking, but he couldn't help it; it was already evening, and the pool wouldn't be open much longer.

"If I were ready, I'd be out there." James answered, and Kendall could hear him give a small laugh at the blonde's low tolerance for slowness. Finally, James opened his door and came out of his room.

"Are you sure we should go swimming right now? I mean, it's already kind of dark…"

"What? Are you scared of the dark?" And just like that, it worked.

"No! Let's go."

Kendall knew, as well as everyone else, that if you wanted to make James do something, all you had to do was make it sound like he didn't want to. Then boom. Just like that, he was on board.

"Loganator, you ready?" Kendall called into the kitchen as he strode across the living room.

"Yes, but I still think we should just wait til' morning to go swimming. This is pointless and reckless."

"Come on Logie! Everyone knows the evening crowd leaves around eight, and its eight-forty! We'll have the pool all to ourselves." Carlos grinned, appearing in yellow Hawaiian swim-shorts.

"Yeah, for twenty minutes." Logan retorted, shutting the fridge. The sun had already set, and the boys knew Mr. Bitters wouldn't be pleased about the late swimming on a week night.

"He's right you guys, maybe we should just stay in. We have to get up early tomorrow for harmonies, and Gustavo won't be too happy if we're only half awake." James pointed out, eying the darkness outside with a great distaste.

"Come on you guys. We'll swim for a little bit, then we can come back and go straight to bed. I promise. Please?" Kendall looked around at his friends.

"I'm in." Carlos said at once, ready for fun.

Logan sighed. "Fine, I'm in. But we won't stay past nine."

Kendall looked at his last friend. "James?"

James sighed, putting his hand in the middle with the other three. "Yeah, I'm in."

Kendall grinned. "Excellent. Everything will be fine guys. I promise."

That was the second promise Kendall Knight broke that evening.

"See guys? The pool lights are on, and this is way more fun than going to bed early." Carlos chirped, hopping over to the pool. Kendall noted all of his friends' ware bouts, doing a brief head-check. Carlos was by the edge, Logan… okay, Logan was hanging in the back, looking around uneasily. Where was James?

Kendall spotted the brunette boy by the cabanas. He was sitting in the chair, eyes dilated, watching Carlos splash into the pool.

"Hey," Kendall said, approaching him. Logan joined Carlos in the pool. James looked up as Kendall took a seat next to him. "What's up?"

"Nothing. I'm just going to sit here and watch." James said in a plain voice.

"Come on Jay, you can tell me." Kendall pushed.

James shrugged. "I'm just not crazy about the idea of being out here in the dark. Especially swimming."

Kendall nodded in understanding. "Alright. But if you want to join us, remember that me and Carlos are in the pool too."

James's brow furrowed together. "What about Logan?"

Kendall waved his hand, smiling, before lifting his voice so it carried over to his other two friends. "Logan's a scaredy-cat, everyone knows that."

"Hey!" Logan called back defensively. "Am not!"

"Are so!" Kendall called back. He gave James's shoulder a pat before running over and diving into the pool head-first. He surfaced, splashing Carlos in the face.

Carlos sputtered, wiping the chlorine from his eyes. "So, what do we want to do during this late night swim?"

Kendall shrugged. "I don't know. It's a beautiful night. We could…" Kendall began to float on his back, fingertips skimming below the water. "stargaze." He made his voice dreamlike.

"That is the girliest thing I've heard all day. And we live with your eleven year old sister." Said Logan, grinning at Kendall. Kendall made a face, followed by Logan sticking out his tongue. From across the pool and by the lobby, James sat under his cabana watching. He grinned at his friends' small fights, but he knew it was all in good fun. In fact, this whole thing was meant to be fun. James stood up and walked over to the pool, slipping his legs over the edge so he was wet to his ankles.

"Nice of you to join us." Carlos said from the other side of the pool, pink noodle under his arms. "Kendall wants to stargaze."

"I was joking and you know it!" Kendall said, reddening a bit. James shook his head, laughing with his friends. It really was a nice night…

But no. He was much more comfortable watching. For some reason, swimming when it was dark out freaked him out. Probably that movie the guys made him watch with them when he was fourteen. He couldn't even remember what it was called, but he remembered that swimming at night time was not smart.

"Hey, we should play Marco-polo!" Carlos suggested excitedly. Marco-polo turned into Logan and Kendall stealthily exiting the pool, running around the edges so that Carlos, when he finally gave up, opened his eyes to see that he had been chasing nothing.

"That wasn't fair!" Carlos whined.

"You never laid down any rules!" Kendall said through his chuckles.

"You'll pay for that Kendall!"

Kendall laughed. "How?"

James smiled, watching his friends start a tsunami war while Logan went to the other side of the pool to do flips in the bottom. James stood up and watched.

But as their fight got more aggressive, nobody was quite sure how it happened. It was one of those things the boys weren't sure they'd ever get the answer to.

All that was clear was that when Logan surfaced to watch Kendall and Carlos continue their childish fight, he saw the pool-lights shimmering eerily over the water, and they reflected something red. He swam the length of the pool and gasped. James was lying near the steps, half-submerged, half-not, and his head was next to the rail, surrounded by…

"Knock it off!" Logan yelled, making Carlos and Kendall immediately stop. Logan pulled himself out of the pool, hurriedly dashing around the pool to the steps where he pulled James out of the water, lying him flat. Logan looked over at Kendall and Carlos. "Go get help. Now."

Okay, so I knew this was pretty short. By the third chapter, probably, the plot will become more clear and there will be a specific goal in mind. I just need some room to get things rolling! So, I hope you all liked it or at least tolerated it XD Also, thanks to all of you that read my other stories! See you all next time.