So i'm sure you probably reread chapter one to try and rememeber what the story was about before you read this. confession: i did the same thing when i wrote it.

------------------------

Sixteen hours prior:

As eight o'clock rolled around, Kirsten Cohen's Jimmy Choo stilettos marched into the foyer of her McMansion home on a hill. Armed with several plastic bags filled with cartons of food, she bellowed through the echoing pillars and up the stairs, "Take out! Thai tonight!" Sandy Cohen emerged through the arched doorway to help his wife, his crazy eyebrows dancing at the thought of trying to lose the kids after dinner for a little quality time with Kirsten. He kissed her in greeting upon an elegantly rouged cheekbone, and relieved her of the plastic bags full of bricks that were their dinner. Kirsten wiped her hands against each other, and after depositing her keys and purse on the granite table underneath the mirror by the door, she followed Sandy to the kitchen.

"How is my little slavedriver today?" Sandy began, knowing his banter would start a fake argument. He needed to test her limits this evening before he could get any hopes up.

"Mmmhh…funny. You're just jealous that I have an entire staff to do my paperwork for me so all I have to do is sign on the dotted line while your sitting in an overly air conditioned office reading nothing but paperwork." she retorted with her devil's eye.

"Yeah, and I find it entirely ironic that in our office quest to save paper, we have paper signs up everywhere telling us to reduce our use of paper!" Sandy half-laughed, frustrated. Kirsten rolled her eyes at the stupidity that comes with Newport Beach's false awareness toward the environment.

"Well, at least they think they are trying…" Kirsten giggled, reaching for four plates out of the upper cabinet.

"And right out from underneath them, something is going to just collapse into nothingness, and it is going to be traced back to my office. I just know it."

"Well, not everything can be your fault, so just stop trying to take credit for it." Kirsten laughed at her goofy husband. "Grab some silverware, sweetie. No, forks on the left." she corrected as Sandy began to set the table.

"Is Ryan in the poolhouse? I'll go get him. Call Seth please." Kirsten instructed after she had set the four plates on both sides of the six-seating table.

"Wait a sec," Sandy began, causing his wife to turn on her heel with eyebrows raised, welcoming the continuance of his sentence. "come here. I haven't seen you all day long." He put down the rest of the forks and opened his arms to her. Kirsten rolled her eyes, smiling at the simple gesture that was just plain-old-Sandy, and embraced him. Finally relaxing into his shoulder, the tip of her button nose grazed his collar, and she inhaled the traces of his Armani cologne.

"How about… after dinner, you and I lose the kids for awhile, and log a little quality time?" Kirsten looked at him with the glint in her eye that he only knew to mean one thing.

"Go get Seth. Thai's getting cold." she kissed him on the cheek and headed toward the glass bungalow that Ryan inhabited on the opposing corner of the infinity pool, but not before Seth entered through the family room, rolling his eyes and looking disgusted at his parents' state of affection.

"So, Seth, Ryan, how is Schindler's List going?" Sandy asked, his eyes darting across the table from one boy to the other after the family was sat down at the dinner table.

"Oh, you know, just fantastic. I'm loving the light humor." Seth replied sarcastically. Kirsten neglected to lift her fork to her mouth as she warned her son with a stern look.

"I didn't think it was going to be this depressing." Ryan stated flatly.

"What, the movie, or the fact that nobody in our class has enough decency to watch it quietly?" Seth stated, trying to keep it under his breath, but to no avail.

"It's not my fault. Just ignore them, Seth. If they're going to be like that, there's nothing we can do to stop it that is going to make a difference." Ryan replied.

"And you wonder why your teacher has selected that movie in the first place." Kirsten noted.

"Sorry…" Ryan muttered sheepishly.

"It's okay, son, all she's saying is be aware. Mr. Bendice is watching more than just the film. He's watching your faces, your words, the notes you pass and the spit wads that are spat. He gets that some kids just don't get it… he wants to know that the ones who do, are doing something about it." Sandy explained.

"Yeah, Ryan. Don't be a N.I.M.B.Y. Mom's already a W.A.S.P. We don't need any more acronym-people in this house." Seth joked. Kirsten rolled her eyes.

"I am not a W.A.S.P."

"Oh, mother, you sting me." Seth feigned offense.

---------

Lunch the following day:

"God, these tuna melts are pathetic. I can't believe I paid--or, well, my parents paid-- for this grotesqueness. Ryan, Marissa's on student council. Please tell her that the tuna melts suck and I expect her to do something about it."

"Seth, quit being an ass." Anna rolled her eyes in a playful manner, pummeling his arm. Seth pretended to have a flesh wound of the triceps, which, in his case, really did not exist. Ryan's eyes tried to tell Seth, for the eighty-seventh time that day that Anna liked him. Seth rolled his eyes right back. His cell phone began to vibrate as the script 'Mom' read across the exterior screen.

"Hello?" Seth answered in a less-than-pleasant voice.

"Hi, sweetie, I was just calling to let you know that Jimmy and I are at Harbor all afternoon for a board meeting with investors about that new water-polo complex--"

"Why am I not surprised…I'm sure those chest-shaving assholes and their razor-purchasing parents would have a new water polo complex." Seth interrupted sarcastically.

"Seth, language." His eyes widened, and he mouthed the word "mom" to Ryan across the table.

"Anyway, I was just leaving the office right now for lunch with your father and then I am heading over, was there anything you needed from home this afternoon? Ask Ryan please."

"Dude, do you need anything from home?" Seth asked, covering the speaker of the phone with the palm of his right hand.

"I'm good, thanks."

"We're good, mom, Ryan says thanks. And you really could have left out the part that you and dad were going home for lunch. Gross. Hopefully I won't see you here." Seth flipped the phone shut before his mother could chastise him for assuming such things, even though they both knew them to be true.

"What was that all about?" Ryan asked, confused.

"Oh, you know, my parents are going home to strengthen their sex life before my mom spends the afternoon here negotiating with the Board for a deal to build a new Coliseum for the water-pod people." Ryan just nodded. The digital bell rang again, signaling five minutes before fifth period. Anna, Ryan and Seth left for their classrooms, Seth with a two-hour block of chemistry test to take.

Almost two hours later, Seth was amid his final stoichiometry equation when he heard his mother's voice wafting down the hallway, next to Jimmy Cooper's nervous an-and shaky voice. Seth was not sure if the voice came from nerves of the underway meeting or the fact that he was standing next to Kirsten. Several pairs footsteps followed the two, as Kirsten and Jimmy toured the science wing which lead out to the south end of the school, with a picturesque view of the ocean, of course, only to be contaminated with Luke's water polo complex.

The digital bell rang again, and Seth filled in the "B" bubble on his Scantron form to complete the Christmas tree on his paper. After turning his test in, he hoped to avoid his mother and the band of gaping male Newpsies that followed her when she walked around in those god-awful pencil skirts that drove his dad nuts. He knew no real businessman could resist any contract she offered when wearing those skirts. It made him rather sickened.

Jimmy looked around confused when something echoed.

Marissa was halfway through her locker combination of 39-13-3 when it happened. Her fingers lost track of their simple task.

Summer was blotting her Juicy lip venom in the second story girls' washroom. Somehow, it stung more than usual.

Ryan had stepped in some green bubblegum when he saw a freshman run down the hallway against the normal flow of traffic.

Anna dropped her calculator on her toe when she heard the noise.

Luke was mid-highfive and then found himself on the ground.

Kirsten flinched at the loud bang and dropped the spreasheet she was passing out to an oversized investor.

Seth turned the corner just in time to see it. Glass was everywhere.

Oliver turned around to face Seth, a gun pointed in his direction. Seth felt the urgency and finality of the moment, though Oliver was still a good two-thirds of the hallway away from him.

"Dude, what's all this?" Seth asked, automatically putting his hands up in the air demonstrating no weapons.

"You better than anyone know what this is." Oliver sneered at him riling Seth's heartbeat into a vicious palpitation.

"I do?" His voice cracked a little. Amidst the mixture of open and closed lockers, strewn books and backpacks, and garbage through the deserted hallway, all was still until something moved in the corner. Luke cradled his knee a mess of bloody pain. Seth had no idea what was going on. He heard pleasant noise that was associated with passing periods, presumably from the other corners of campus. One shot of panic was not enough to send the entire school into panic mode within seconds.

"Attention!" The dean's voice proclaimed gravely over the public address. "This is a code red. Lockdown protocol is in effect. This is not a drill." Seth did not even try to move, knowing that somehow, the lockdown protocol did not apply to him at the moment.

"Oliver, please. Put the gun down, man. Let's talk." Seth tried again, knowing that Luke needed help; unable to reach him at the moment, Seth would try again to persuade the gunsman.

---------------

Marissa dropped her bag when she heard the bang and shuffled into the nearest classroom, Room F212. Her cell phone, luckily, was still in her pocket. Anna sat down beside her a moment later, taking one of Marissa's shaking hands.

A young freshman flew into the bathroom and told Summer to hide in a stall with her. Based on the poor girl's tears, Summer readily complied.

Kirsten and Jimmy shuffled the investors into a classroom. Kirsten mentally kicked herself for prohibiting the investors, Jimmy, and herself a phone when they left the conference room. She had not seen Seth or Ryan.

Ryan could not run without leaving a trail or squeaking due to the gum. He tried several locked janitor's closets before finally going into the girls' restroom on the second floor. He searched his pockets for his phone, and was relieved when he saw a new text from Marissa: I'm safe. Tell me you're ok... Don't say where you are. I love you. Who has the gun? Someone had a gun? What the hell? Ryan remembered Jimmy and Kirsten were here for the afternoon. If anything had happened to her or Seth, Ryan would make sure there would be hell to pay for whoever was behind this.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, so i know its shortish, but hopefully climactic enough for you to keep reading... and reviewing! i might even update this time.