A/N: Hey guys! I'm giving a shot at a continuation of the series. Probably nothing near as good as the movie will be, but I'm going to try. Feel free to review, follow, etc. Thanks!

Chapter One

Damn it!

Never once in her life had Veronica Mars felt claustrophobic. The most she'd ever felt like that was during her senior year of high school when she was trapped in an elevator with a bunch of her classmates on their way to prom.

Oh memories, she thought to herself. Veronica, you nostalgic girl, you.

She pulled out her cell phone and started looking for any new text messages, and was disheartened a little when she found out there were none. "Come on," she muttered to herself, trying to turn herself over into a more comfortable position.

She was feeling especially nostalgic today. You've been locked in the trunk of a car before, Veronica, she thought. It isn't so bad. Remember? Wallace even did you a favor and came by to let you out.

The smile wiped off her face as she remembered Wallace wasn't here, and that she'd been sitting alone in the trunk of her car for about an hour now. She was getting to a point where it was almost necessary to feel claustrophobic. The darkness was starting to really get to her, but she didn't want to keep her cell phone on for an extended period of time for fear of wasting the battery.

She started swearing under her breath before turning over to face the other side of the trunk. This was getting awfully uncomfortable. But as she did so, she saw something sitting across from her, crammed next to the back seat of the car. She quickly dug her cell phone out of her pocket and turned on the flash before screaming at the sight of a dead man lying there.

He was elderly and reeked of not only death, but what smelled like alcohol. And upon closer inspection, Veronica started to realize she knew him. Is that…? Is that Dean O'Dell? It was. She hadn't seen the man in years. What the…? What the hell?

She could hear herself breathing more heavily by now. I can't. I just can't, she thought to herself before turning over to her other side. As she did so, she felt her hand hit something hard. Veronica slid her cell phone to the other side of her and felt her heart start beating faster as she realized her hand had actually made contact with a deceased Cassidy Casablancas' face.

What the hell?! she started screaming over and over to herself in her head. Just looking at him made her want to get her stun gun out, even if the pale young boy appeared to be nothing more than dead. His eyes, wide open, were pale and lifeless.

She moved her feet to try to edge farther away from the dead boy, making contact with what she soon found out to be the corpse of her old friend Meg Manning wearing her cheerleading uniform from Neptune High School.

"Who? What…?" Veronica heard herself muttering, her heartbeat going off the charts.

As she turned away from her dead friend's face she found Kendall Casablancas (AKA Priscilla Banks) laying beside her former stepson, the two of them staring back at her almost sadly. They didn't move, but their eyes almost asked for some kind of mercy from Veronica, as if she were the one to kill them.

She could feel her stomach grow heavier now, like she'd been stabbed in the gut. It isn't real. It isn't real. It isn't real.

She suddenly felt something sticking into her backside and only turned her head ever so slightly to see Woody Goodman's dead eyes meeting hers before she started full out screaming. She started desperately pounding at the top of the car with her fists and searching for her cell phone, now trapped underneath the pile of corpses. And before she knew it, Aaron Echolls had appeared to her left, giving the same charming smile he'd given whenever accepting an award.

I'm trapped in here with murderers and rapists.

And just when she thought things couldn't get much worse, she could now feel dead weight directly on top of her. She slowly moved her eyes away from Aaron, her heart now beating faster than ever as she gasped for air. She couldn't catch much of the face, but she recognized Lilly Kane's eyes anywhere. And she wasn't sure if she'd ever screamed so loud in her life. Not when she found herself trying to escape rapist Mercer Hayes back at Hearst College years ago. Not that night on the roof of the Neptune Grand when Cassidy Casablancas tried to get her to jump to her death. Not when Aaron Echolls hid in the backseat of her car and locked her in a freezer in an attempt to get back the tapes Lilly had his from him. Not even the night terrors she found herself having in the months following Lilly's death.

She struggled to get Lilly off of her, but it was useless. There was no room in the trunk anymore. It was now filled with dead people. She couldn't even breathe anymore. Veronica tried desperately to grasp some air in her lungs, but there was no use. Her arms were now weighed down by the corpses, all of them staring back at her with their lifeless eyes.

I'm going to die here, she thought to herself, desperately attempting to scream as much as she could before her lungs gave out. Tears now dripped down her face, but she didn't really notice.

But before she knew it, the trunk of the car flung open. Stosh Piznarski found Veronica curled up in a ball, sobbing so much he could hear her gasping for air. Her hair was a tangled mess, her face beet red, and her cheeks soaked in tears and sweat.

"Veronica?" he asked. She didn't respond. "Veronica?"

She just lay there, still sobbing furiously. He could catch a hint of the sound of Veronica starting to choke on her own tears.

"Veronica!" Piz yelled as loud as he possibly could. He placed his hands on her shoulders and dragged her to the edge of the trunk before starting to pick her up and slowly place her on her feet.

Veronica opened her eyes. The light of day was harsh compared to the darkness she had just endured. She took one look at Piz before turning her attention back to the still open trunk. Nothing. There was nothing there besides an emergency kit and a folded blanket her father had given her for her Labaron years ago.

"None of it was there," she muttered. "It's all gone. They're all gone."

"Veronica," said Piz, "what are you talking about? What's gone?"

Veronica hardly felt like telling Piz that she had just spent the past five minutes being smothered to death by her dead friends and enemies.

"Nothing," she replied. "Nothing's gone. I just… I just… I don't know. I don't know what happened."

She peered down at the ground, wiping the tears away from her own eyes before looking up to Piz's. There was always something calming about them. They were sweet and innocent like a puppy's, but she didn't dare ever tell him that because she knew he would be offended, even if he didn't say it.

"Where were you?!" she found herself yelling. She went from calm to angry in less than a second, grounding herself back to reality. "I called you over an hour ago."

"Gee, how about a thank you?" Piz asked. "I got caught up at work."

"Because work is more important than rescuing your girlfriend from being locked in the trunk of a car," Veronica said.

"Might I add it was the trunk of your own car?" he retorted. "What kind of person gets themselves locked in the trunk of their own car anyway? I mean, I know you're an odd individual, but there comes a line."

I'm the type of person who gets themselves locked in the trunk of their own car, Veronica thought. This was the second time it happened. The first time she'd been left unconscious by the Neptune High tritons and had to call Wallace to come to the high school at night to let her out. She'd probably even waited longer for Wallace Fennel to come rescue her that time, but she wasn't about to tell Piz that. Besides, that experience wasn't so traumatic.

"What happened anyway?"

"Nothing," she blurted.

Veronica, I'm assuming you didn't just accidentally lock yourself into the trunk of your car. Wallace's response to her getting locked in her car the first time would usually make her laugh, but she wasn't feeling it now.

"Okay, so you're just going to lie to me and expect it to be okay?" Piz asked. "If you expect me not to lie to you, Veronica, I'd expect the same from you. It's the least you can do."

Veronica studied Piz before saying much else. He now wore a dress shirt and tie she'd picked out for him a few months ago. He'd only cut his hair shorter about six months ago. At the time it was a drastic change, but she'd gotten used to seeing it. Yet she still saw him as the sweet, cute boy she met on her first day at Hearst several years ago. It's in the eyes.

"You don't have anything important to lie about, Piz."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Piz, I'm used to lying about breaking and entering into peoples' houses. I'm used to lying about staying out late to stake out people's homes. About getting involved in murder investigations. Getting my dad to take a paternity test. Taking a flight to see my deadbeat mom to get her to go to rehab. You? You're used to lying about whether or not you find our neighbor attractive."

Piz didn't exactly know what to say. "Well, maybe she is a little bit," he uttered, "but that's not the point here. I thought you were done doing this. What, did you manage to piss off a coworker at your law firm or something?"

She shook her head. "The truth? I don't know what happened. I didn't see anything. I was walking to my car and someone grabbed me from behind. I couldn't get a good look at them. The must have taken my keys and pushed me into the trunk before driving off."

"Veronica," he said, "this is serious. We have to go to the police."

"No," she told him.

"Are you serious right now?"

"Yes, I'm serious. Piz, I don't want to have to follow up with this. Who knows what happened? And how the hell am I going to be any help to the police anyway? What happens in New York stays in New York."

Piz looked upset. He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly shut it.

"Fine," he said. "There's no stopping Veronica Mars from getting what she wants I guess. I'm going to stop by the office before heading home. Please don't get yourself locked in your trunk again. And if you need anything, call."

Veronica nodded. "Thank you, Piz."

He got back in his own car, parked directly next to hers, and drove away. She stood there for a few moments longer, not quite sure what she was doing. She was glad Piz hadn't asked her why she was parked in a parking garage a few blocks away from their apartment. But part of her knew Piz had learned not to dig too deep by now, and something about that worried her a little, as if he wasn't even trying anymore.

Well, it's what you wanted, wasn't it, Veronica?

Her mind brought her back to the many times she'd argued with Logan for trying to dig too deep into her own life. But Piz, Piz was different. He seemed to be accepting things how he wanted them to be. The boy was an optimist and she liked that about him, but there was definitely something a little disturbing about it.

She still didn't exactly feel like telling him the truth. That someone had been following her for the past week or maybe even longer. She could see them parked outside of her work every time she had to leave. She noticed them sometimes when she would leave the apartment, and they would occasionally follow her around town as she ran errands. Always in a blue sedan.

She'd finally started to take matters into her own hands today. She took her car to work on a day she wasn't scheduled, only to go inside and sneak back out to hide in her car for hours. When they got tired of waiting for her to leave, she followed the sedan closely to this parking garage. And that's when she was dragged out of her car by a man wearing a suit and aviator sunglasses before being thrown into the trunk of hr own car.

She didn't exactly know what to do now. She'd given up investigating years ago, but she couldn't exactly let this go. Something was obviously going on and something needed to be done about it. She didn't trust the police to handle it and she didn't trust Piz to be able to wrap his head around the idea of someone stalking her. She sighed. For the first time, returning home to Neptune almost seemed a little relieving.

But then again, it meant visiting all the skeletons, or in this case, ghosts, in her closet. And that was never a pleasant thing, as displayed by what down in the trunk of her car. She took one last glimpse at the trunk before shutting it. Chills ran down her spine as she grabbed the spare keys Piz had left for her on the top of the car. She got in and jammed the keys in the ignition before turning them.

Veronica Mars had never once in her life felt claustrophobic until now.

Twenty-one.

Veronica could hardly fathom the word, the combination of twenty and one. One year past twenty. Five years since she sat at the DMV, waiting in like to take her driver's test in Neptune, California. Almost five years since the murder of her best friend, Lilly. Four since she met her new best friend, Wallace. Three since her classmates were murdered during a bus explosion. Two since she graduated from Neptune High and met Piz. One since she took an internship at the FBI in Virginia.

She'd like to say the birthday cards were piling up on her table, but in truth, Veronica Mars wasn't one to have very many friends. But she supposed she was lucky to have the few that she did.

She smiled, looking at the birthday card with the unicorn drawn on it that she'd received from her father. She opened it to read it one more time.

It's not every day that a girl turns 21. Hope you have a magical day!

She laughed. Her dad had scratched out "9" and written "22" in its place. Her father knew her all too well. She called him up that day and asked him when the real thing would be coming in the mail.

Lying next to them were two cards from her friends Wallace and Mac. Neither was overly personalized, but had messages scribbled inside of them.

How's it going Mars? Can't wait for you to come back to Neptune! Hearst it practically calling your name. Senior year! Have a great birthday!

Wallace

PS, I baked you some snicker doodles, but they didn't turn out as great as the ones you made me. Long story short, they ended up in the trash and my mom no longer trusts me to use our oven. Sorry!

She picked up Mac's card and started to read it.

Neptune has been especially lame this summer without you. I hope you know that. By the way, Butters called me about a week ago incase you were wondering if he still has my phone number. I considered not sending you a birthday card because of that, but I guess I can't really stay mad at you. Happy birthday.

Mac

Veronica smiled. It would have been nice to get at least a few more cards. Hell, even a card from her mother would have been nice, but she knew she should just be happy with what she received.

"All the things I did for people back in high school and this is what I get," she said. "Oh well."

You should be lucky you even made it to twenty-two with your history.

She turned away from the kitchen table to see pictures of her and Piz on her birthday. She looked excited posing next to her birthday cake, a cheap store bought one picked up by Piz on the same day.

Veronica jumped a little as Piz opened the door. He laughed when he saw this. "What? You scared of big old me?"

Veronica didn't necessarily blame herself for being scared. She had a pretty traumatic experience earlier in the day. Hell, she's had some pretty traumatic experiences throughout high school and college. But she wasn't going to bring down Piz's mood by bringing that up, or her own for that matter.

"So I was thinking drinks tonight?" Piz asked. "On account of we made it through the summer."

"Summer's not over yet."

"Well it's coming to a close," said Piz.

"Besides, you don't have to take me out for drinks. We're not nineteen and awkwardly starting to date anymore."

"As I recall, the only times I ever got to go out drinking when I was nineteen were because of the fake ID you made for me."

"Dinner?" Piz asked. "Look, I don't even care if we just grab burgers. I'm starving."

"Fine," said Veronica. "That works. Just let me go change first."

She'd been covered in sweat while locked in the trunk of her car and she was starting to realize how bad she smelled. It reminded her of being in her high school locker room. Except, of course, she wasn't receiving dirty looks from other girls and having her clothes taken and thrown in the toilet.

Piz waited silently as Veronica moved from the kitchen over to their bedroom. She winced a little, reminding herself that her dad knew the two were living together, which probably meant he knew the two were having sex. He had to have known about Duncan and Logan.

Veronica, why are you thinking about this? she asked herself. Maybe because she missed her dad a lot these days.

She took off her shirt and went to the bathroom to grab some deodorant before her cell phone started buzzing.

"Hello?" she uttered after answering the call. It was an unknown number. There was nothing but silence and a bit of breathing on the other end. "Mom, I swear to God, if this is you again, I don't want to talk to you."

She heard a click before she could say anything else. "Well screw you too," she whispered under her breath. She didn't have time to play these little games anymore. She had absolutely no interest in talking to whoever was on the other end of the phone if they were going to act like that.

As she pulled a new top over herself, she heard the phone buzzing again. She quickly picked it up and put it up to her ear without checking to see who it was. "I suggest you stop calling me and doing your little breathing act before I call the cops on your ass."

"Veronica?"

It was a female voice on the other end. The color in Veronica's cheeks immediately flushed away.

"Veronica? What's wrong? I was calling to make sure you were still coming. I've only been waiting ten minutes, but it's not a big deal. I mean, I don't have much else to do anyway. If you can't, it's cool."

"I'm so sorry," Veronica said. "No, you know what? I'm gonna be there. Give me fifteen minutes. I'll see you then, okay?"

She didn't even give the girl on the other end time to respond before hanging up the phone. Veronica grabbed her bag and returned to the kitchen, where Piz still stood quietly waiting. Like a dog waiting to be let out, she thought.

"Change of plans," she told him. "I can't go. Rain check?"

"Veronica, what could you possibly have to do? You're not exactly best friends with your coworkers, and you can't use work as an excuse. It's a Friday night."

"Remember my friend from high school I told you about?" she said. "I made plans with her last week and I totally forgot. I can't blow her off though. She was really looking forward to this."

Piz sighed. "It's cool. You do what you gotta do. If you need me, I'll be on the couch, sulking while watching bad TV."

Veronica grinned. "Sounds like my man." She knew he was joking, but she also knew he was being partly serious. She'd been letting him down like this a lot lately and she was actually starting to feel guilty about it. But if she went with Piz, she would feel guilty about ditching her friend. She sighed before leaving the apartment.

"So make that more like twenty-five minutes," said Veronica, "but in my defense, traffic was bad. And you've been sitting here for more than half an hour waiting for me, so I know you're probably pissed."

"It's okay," the young woman said. "What am I going to do about it? Tease you about the boob cream you ordered your freshman year of high school?"

Veronica gave Jackie Cook a disapproving look as she sat down across from her. She was still wearing her waitress uniform with her son sitting beside her at the booth. They were in the very corner of the diner. Jackie's mother stood behind the counter eyeing the three of them sitting together. Veronica had only met her a few times, but the woman had already seemed to dislike her.

"You haven't changed one bit," said Veronica, picking up the menu placed before her. This was a joke on Veronica's end, as Jackie had changed a lot in the years since leaving Neptune behind, or rather in the time since the two of them met at Veronica's place of employment.

"How's NYU?" Veronica asked.

"So-so," Jackie replied. "I should be done in December. I'm thinking about taking a trip to visit my dad before fall semester starts. Maybe my mom will let the little one come with me this time, but we'll see. Still no word from Fennel?"

"Wallace is a-wall," said Veronica. "For right now. I think he's still basking in the sun while he still can before school starts back up again. Probably shooting some hoops with the basketball team. I know he misses me though. He's gotta be bored out of his mind without me there."

Veronica found it funny that Jackie had always asked about Wallace during their meetings when the girl had never picked up her phone to even call her ex for the past two years. She supposed it was for the best though. There was no point in giving him hope or pulling him back into the past when the two obviously couldn't be together. She just hadn't moved on. And neither had he. She recalled him going on a few dates over the past few years, but there hadn't been anyone too important since Jackie.

"I'm sure of it. And Piz, right?"

"Yeah," said Veronica. She'd brought up Piz a few times, mentioning that he and Wallace were roommates their freshman year. "He's back at home right now."

"Funny, I always thought you'd end up with Logan. You always had eyes for him, you know? But Piz sounds like a great guy."

The mention of Logan's name sent more shivers up Veronica's spine. She wanted to tell Jackie to not say his name again, but she knew that was rude and it would just tell her that she still had beef with him.

"Jackie," her son started, "can I go back over to Mommy now?"

"No, honey," she told him. "Mommy's still working. She'll be off soon and then we can go home."

She smiled weakly at Veronica. Veronica knew that Jackie was still disappointed in herself for leaving him in her mother's care to live with her father. She hadn't tried explaining to him that she was the boy's real mother because it would just be too confusing. She cared for him, but she was more like a much older sister.

"So anything interesting happening in the life of Veronica Mars lately?"

"Nothing too interesting." She thought of telling her about getting locked in her trunk earlier in the day, but she knew that's not what Jackie wanted to hear. "One more week in the city and then it's back to Neptune."

"That'll be nice."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Veronica, staring at the table. Jackie's mother stood behind the counter, flipping through the channels on a small flat screen television hung above the bar. She finally stopped on a news station.

"In other news, Miss Southern California 2008 Madison Sinclair was found brutally murdered today in her home in Neptune, California this morning. Police are still investigating, but they say it appears the twenty-one-year-old was stabbed to death last night."

Veronica froze. She was surprised at the announcement that Madison was crowned winner of a beauty pageant, but even more surprised to hear that the girl was murdered. Who would want to kill Madison?

"Hey, didn't we go to high school with her?" Jackie asked, looking up at the TV screen, which was now showing pictures of Madison. "Yeah, she was that bitch who accused me of stealing money from that winter carnival our senior year."

"She was that bitch who did a lot of mean things," said Veronica, recalling the time Madison has given her the drugged drink at Shelly Pomroy's party right before she was raped, and the time Madison slept with Logan when the two were briefly broken up.

In a second, her phone started to buzz again. Veronica opened up her bag and dug around for it before finding it. This better not be that creep again.

When she looked at the caller ID, she was almost stunned. She wasn't sure the guy had called her in nearly a year. Why now? Especially right after Madison had been stabbed to death? Veronica wanted to believe it was a coincidence, but there didn't seem to be a lot of coincidences in her life. She just stared down at the screen, trying to decide if she should pick up or not.

"Veronica, are you okay?" she heard Jackie ask.

Veronica wasn't paying attention though. She just kept reading the caller ID over and over again in her mind.

Logan Echolls.

A/N: Okay, so I published this chapter earlier this month. I decided to make a few minor changes. I'm kind of just flying by the seat of my pants here. Originally I had this take place right before Veronica's senior year at Hearst, but I decided to take it back a year.

Also, I'd like to say a few more things. This is technically continuation of the series, but it doesn't really fit with the movie. Also, please please please don't be turned off by Veronica/Piz. I'd like to start off by saying Piz is a really cool guy and kind of reminds me of myself. That being said, there's no guarantee Veronica is going to stay with Piz throughout my story. There's also no guarantee she'll be with Logan. The central focus isn't necessarily romance here. But who knows? Something might happen.

Adding onto that, this story was originally titled Neptune Rising. Seeing as I accidentally named it after a popular Veronica Mars fansite (I knew about it, but kind of forgot it existed - but check it out if you haven't heard of them, they're on twitter and facebook too), I feel like I should change the name.

Thanks for reading!