Disclaimer: I do not own 'High School Musical' or any related characters.

A/N: I'm glad you guys enjoyed the first chapter, and as I said, this story is basically written, so I figured I'd better post the next chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Locked In

Chapter Two: Dead

"Sharpay, I am going to kill you! When I get out of here, I am going to kill you!"

"Chad? You are a dead man walking. You hear me? Dead. Man. Walking."

Sharpay bit her lip at the promise of violence in both their friends voices.

Maybe this hadn't been the really good idea she'd thought it was.

Then again, she reasoned, they were locked in Chad's basement with absolutely no way of escape until she or Chad decided to take the chair away and unlock the door.

Which was so not going to happen while they were both spewing out death threats. Seriously, how stupid did they think they were?

Leaning back against the wall both she and Chad were standing by, Sharpay stared at the door thoughtfully, ignoring the death threats and wondering how long it would take before Troy and Gabriella turned on each other.

And blamed her locking the door on each other.

Oh, how she wished she could hear that argument.

The interesting thing about listening to Troy and Gabriella argue was that both were quick-witted and intelligent. Neither let a comment pass them by and both thought through every counter they made to the others argument. It certainly made for some explosions at the most inconvenient of times, Sharpay thought, remembering vaguely the many times she'd had to drag Gabriella away from Troy at parties, restaurants and - the most entertaining by far - the middle of a darkened cinema.

That little blow-up had been the one that had tipped her off about the layer of attraction hidden beneath the snipes and sarcasm.

Nose to nose, she remembered with a smirk, breathing heavily, too focused on each other to see the film - or anyone and anything else. They'd looked two seconds away from murdering each other...or Troy dragging her to the floor to have his way with her best friend.

She'd really been quite shocked when she realized what she was seeing. Then she'd found it very interesting. Before settling on the fact that it was one of the funniest things she'd ever seen in her life.

She still thought it was.

It just didn't mean that locking them in the basement was one of the smartest things she'd ever done.

"Sharpay? You know those shoes you love? The Gucci's? They are going to die a slow, painful death when I get out of here."

Sharpay winced.

Then she heard something crack.

"Fucking hell Chad. Do you really want me to commit double homicide? 'Cause I will. Get me the fuck out of here!"

Feeling someone watching her, Sharpay turned her head and offered an apologetic smile to her boyfriend, who had his arms folded tightly across his chest and was glaring at her while wincing every time the door in front of them cracked.

"And you thought this was a fucking good idea." He hissed. "Troy's going to break the fucking door down if we don't let them out!"

Sharpay glared back. "Oh, so we let them out and they can commit murder? No, thank you. I prefer my Gucci's were I can see them in my closet!"

"Fuck your shoes, Shar. You're not going to be able to wear them when they get out of there! Can you not hear Troy whacking the door in an attempt to get away from your friend?"

"Of course I can hear it. I'm just not going to let them out when they're quite clearly going to kill us. Slowly. Painfully. And without mercy."

Chad snorted. "So you're going to leave them in there were they can plan our murders so we won't ever see them coming? Christ, Sharpay, you're ideas are getting smarter and smarter!"

Sharpay opened her mouth to snap back at her boyfriend when she was cut off by their two friends.

"Get us the hell out of here!"

Crap. Now they were speaking in unison and Sharpay had a funny feeling Troy was going to beat the door down just get out of there as it cracked again.

"What do you me to do?" She whispered to her boyfriend who shrugged.

"I'm going to vote with letting them out now and salvaging this evening. Fuck them getting along." He replied, his tone clearly implying he wasn't going to let her argue with him.

It was the one he used when he was going to win an argument no matter what and Sharpay hated it.

"Yeah, well, I vote we leave them in there, wait until they tire themselves out and then open the door when they're asleep!" She snapped out at him and he raised an eyebrow.

"What are they? Three?"

Sharpay bristled and then Troy hit the door so hard the door groaned under the pressure.

"Chad? You know those shorts you love? Your lucky ones? I'm going to burn them. Along with your baseball card collection. And you're going to watch."

"Sharpay? You know your closet? The huge thing that is the size of my room? I'm going to tie you to a chair right in the middle of it and then force you to watch as I decimate every single piece of clothing and accessories you own. Including everything Gucci, Vuitton and Valentino. The vintage collection."

Sharpay went dead white at her friends threat and swayed slightly.

Hell, this had seriously not been a good idea.

Chad slid an arm around her waist to steady her and looked at the door shakily.

"Maybe we shouldn't let them out just yet." He said.

"I fucking heard that!" Troy hit the door so hard this time, Chad's eyes widened as he saw a crack appear.

Sharpay burrowed against his side. "I think a movie sounds really good right now."

"Pizza afterwards sound pretty awesome, too, actually." Chad added, rubbing her back absently.

"Sharpay Marie Evans, don't you dare leave me locked in this basement!"

"Shall we go out then?" Sharpay raised her eyes to her boyfriend's and Chad grinned.

"Sounds great. Let's go."

"Sharpay, don't you dare fucking leave me locked in here!"

Sharpay winced again. Crap. Gabriella never swore. Ever. Unless she was provoked into such fury that she couldn't help herself.

And the only times she couldn't help herself was when Troy was having a go at her.

Leaving sounded like such a good idea.

"Chad, I swear to God, if you leave me in here with her I'll kill you so slowly you'll wish that you'd let me out now!"

Sharpay glanced up at her boyfriend who - to his credit - didn't even flinch at Troy's threat.

Instead, he began to lead her out of the house and away from the door and their two friends locked behind it.

"Sharpay!"

"Chad!"

Troy heard the door shut and knew that Chad and Sharpay had left.

"Fuck. Me." He breathed, lowering his throbbing hand and wondering what the hell they were meant to do now.

"No, thank you." Gabriella snapped back obnoxiously. "What are we going to do now?"

Troy glared at her.

"I'll let you know." Then he added. "And if I were to fuck you, you'd still be saying thank you, just not as obnoxiously."

Gabriella growled.

Troy blinked. Holy shit. He hadn't known she could make that sound.

If he hadn't been so pissed off, he would have made some sexist comment that was sure to have her going through the fucking ceiling.

As it was, what he was going to say next was going to send her through the fucking ceiling.

"I can't believe you let her do lock us in!"

Gabriella blinked.

Then her face went black.

"I let her lock us in? I did? I'm the one that was stupid enough to stay down here when we were meant to be watching a movie upstairs?" She spat out indignantly.

"What was I meant to do? Sit there and enjoy the tension?"

"How about not come?"

"Oh, yeah, bright idea. Would've put that into action if I'd known you were coming!"

"If I'd known you were there, then I would've kept my bright idea to myself."

"No. You wouldn't have. You would have had to tell someone about your genius answer to the problem of me. You can't keep your mouth shut about things like that!"

She bristled. Troy actually saw her start shaking with anger and really wanted to hit the door again, just to relieve some of the anger that he really wanted to take out on his best friend.

"Oh, that's just typical isn't? You start attacking my intelligence to make up for the lack of yours."

"Oh, yeah, brilliant theory there. Who'd you work with on that? Freud? I have to lack something in order to take a shot at you about something your so fundamentally insecure about." He snapped, ignoring the way she flinched and feeling a sort of dark pleasure at the way she'd reacted.

Fuck. He was so getting worse when it came to her.

He'd taken low blows at her before, but never something that mean.

Though, he thought, it was true. She really was insecure about her intelligence. Any idiot could see it.

And if he used it against her? Well, that was his problem for letting her work him up so much.

Still, did she have to provoke him so much?

"Ugh. You. Are. Impossible." Gabriella threw her hands in the air and then shoved past him to climb back down the stairs.

Troy followed her.

At a distance.

He was still fuming and knew better than to take it out on Gabriella.

Even if she was the most infuriating person he'd ever met in his life and had a best friend who had shit for brains, she wasn't to blame for what their friends had done. She was - much as it pained him to admit - a victim in this.

So taking it out on her, no matter how badly he wanted too, was not an option.

Which left only one option.

Flop down on the couch, close his eyes and ignore her until they were let out so they could kill their friends.

Because it sounded like such an appealing idea, Troy stalked past Gabriella - who had stopped on the last step and was looking around, her nose wrinkled in distaste - and let out a breath as he fell onto the couch and closed his eyes.

The silence that followed was, in his opinion, the best thing that had happened since the night began.

Silence was nice. Silence was easy. Silence was calming.

Silence was seriously making him uncomfortable.

With a grunt and a very real desire to completely ignore why the silence had started to be uncomfortable when it was one of the things - besides argue - that he and Gabriella did well, Troy shifted down slightly and folded his arms across his chest.

"Fuck." He yelped as the hand he'd been banging against the door throbbed painfully and he realized he'd shredded it to pieces.

"What? What's wrong?"

He didn't really register Gabriella's question as he sat up and glared at the hand that he really only just realized was bleeding and, he swallowed harshly, had little bits of wood stuck in it.

Fucking hell. He so did not need this right now.

From the tip of his little finger to his wrist had been torn open as he'd pounded against the door and Troy really wished that he'd been paying more attention to his physical well-being rather than his mental.

Because he could block things out when they didn't agree with him but he needed his fucking hand to play basketball and his dad was not going to be happy when he saw what Troy had done to it.

Though, Troy thought with a pained smirk, his dad also wasn't going to be happy because the reason he'd shredded his hand was because Chad had locked them in a basement.

That might make up for a few things, Troy thought with a wicked grin.

"Troy? Hello? You didn't answer my question." Gabriella sounded annoyed and Troy glanced at her dismissively.

"Can you get me the first aid kit? There should be one in the cupboard besides the fridge."

She folded her arms and he really, really wanted to hit her when a stubborn look settled on her face. He really hated that look. It meant she was going to argue, he'd seen it enough times to know exactly what it meant.

"Why should I get it when you haven't even told me what you've done to your idiot self?" She snapped at him and he groaned.

"Jesus Christ, woman. Just get me the damn first aid kit. I'm bleeding here."

Her eyes flared and Troy really wished he hadn't called her woman. An argument was really not what he needed right now.

"For God's sake Gabriella, I've torn open the side of my fucking hand. Its bleeding and I really need you to get me the damn first aid kit!"

She opened her mouth, her eyes blazing and he shot her an icy look that had her gaze narrowing and her hands clenching into fists. Then she gave in.

With a huff that reminded him of a child, she stomped over to the cupboard and yanked open the door.

Troy waited patiently as she rummaged through the cupboard before finally slamming the door shut and walking over to him, her eyes hard.

"Christ, I didn't realize that asking you to do something would result in a tantrum." He commented sarcastically as she handed him the kit.

"Fuck you, Bolton. Fuck. You."

"We've already established that you wouldn't, but if you've changed your mind, I'm happy to oblige." Troy smirked at her and waited for the quicksilver anger, the flaring in her eyes that let him know he was in for a fight.

When it didn't happen, he raised an eyebrow. "Surprising, Montez. No comeback. Do you really want me to oblige?"

She didn't blush and he would have been disappointed if she had.

What he didn't expect was the way her eyes went flat and the tone of her voice when she spoke.

"I don't want to argue with you right now Troy, I want you to fix your hand so you can get us the hell out of here." She said and his eyes widened as she moved away from him to curl up in an armchair and wait for him to fix himself up.

As he opened the kit, he had a feeling he really wasn't going to like why her eyes had gone flat or why her tone had gone so hard. There was something going on in that head of hers and Troy knew that he was the last person on earth that would have the ability to deal with whatever she was thinking. Provoking her into an argument? No problem. Dealing with thoughts of being trapped in the stupid basement forever? He'd much rather have hell open up and fire envelop him before he tried to help.

Not because he was a jerk or anything, but because really? He wasn't exactly the guy people turned to him when there was a problem.

He caused problems. Not fixed them.

With his brow furrowed in concentration, Troy turned his attention to his hand and - with a inward wince at how painful this was going to be - picked up an antiseptic wipe and began to clean up the dried blood on his hand while stemming the trickle. It stung like a bitch and he gritted his teeth and kept going, wondering how Gabriella was staying quiet through this.

Because this would be the time to torment him, really. When he was in pain and dealing with it all himself.

Except she didn't say anything and a knot began to form in his stomach because he wasn't too sure when she'd flipped the switch and gone from tearing into him to sitting silent as a stone.

Grabbing some padding, Troy gingerly placed it over his wound and then began to wind a bandage around his hand to hold it in place. It was a terrible job on a hand he knew needed some other treatment but it was the best he could do. He'd only ever dealt with sprains and twisted ankles and torn skin wasn't something he was used too.

So he figured knowing how to wrap a bandage around a sprained wrist was better than nothing.

As he pulled to tighten it, he glanced over at the girl he'd been locked in with and furrowed his brow.

She was unnaturally still.

Like she was holding herself so stiffly, she wasn't even breathing.

It was creepy.

Having never been in a situation like this before - unwillingly of course - Troy really wasn't sure what to make of Gabriella sitting completely still in the armchair. Because he'd never been in one of these situations, for the very first time in a very long time, he let his imagination run completely wild. So many scenarios ran though his mind as he stared at the girl sitting in the armchair.

She was dead. She was sitting so still so that when he went to sleep - that was inevitable, there was nothing to do down here since Haley had cut the power supply - she would creep over to him and kill him. She - Troy's eyes widened at another possibility so ludicrous it could be true.

"Crap. They haven't locked me down here with a vampire have they?"

Shit.

He'd said that out loud.

Gabriella's head jerked around at his question and she stared at him like he'd gone mad.

Which he probably had, he admitted silently.

Seeing her sitting there so still had tightened that knot in his stomach and he was pretty sure that letting his imagination run wild hadn't been the best plan to counteract that knot - even though he had no idea what the knot meant let alone why it had formed in the first place.

It wasn't worry.

Because, quite seriously, why would he worry about a girl who drove him to the edge of insanity and had legs that went on forever?

"I am not a vampire, you idiot." Her tone was spiteful as she spoke and Troy raised an eyebrow.

Ah, there she was. There's the girl that drove him insane.

"So why the sullen expression and lack of communication?"

"Maybe because I don't want to waste my breath talking to you." She snapped, her eyes darting to him and then around the room.

Troy raised an eyebrow. "If you didn't want to waste your time talking to me, why argue with me every time we're in the same room?"

"Because someone has to dent your ego, I believe we already established that." Gabriella shifted uncomfortably in the armchair and Troy looked at her curiously.

If he wasn't mistaken - and he rarely was - Gabriella was becoming seriously uncomfortable and he wondered why that was.

"Ah yes, my ego. What is it, apparently? The size of Australia?" He asked.

"I would've gone with Russia, but you already beat me to that." Her tone was spiteful but lacked any serious bite and Troy stared at her.

She was seriously uncomfortable.

"Gabriella - "

"Troy, can you just get us out of here? I'm sure you know a secret door somewhere." She cut him off, an edge to her voice he didn't recognize and shifted again. Curling tighter into herself, Troy realized.

"Uh. Sure. See, that's going to be a problem." He said with a half smile.

"Why?"

"Well, because the only way to get out of this basement is to go through the door our dear friends locked. So, we're stuck down here until they or Chad's parents return."

Troy wasn't sure he'd ever seen someone go dead white in so little time.

Crap. All he'd had to say was there was one door and she looked like she was going to faint.

Moving faster than he thought possible, he shifted over to her side and then stood there, unsure whether or not he should touch her.

Because he really wouldn't put it past her to slap him away even when she looked like she was about to hyperventilate.

"Gabriella? What's wrong?"

She didn't answer for a moment. Apparently trying to control her breathing and, with her eyes squeezed shut, she let out a shallow breath before speaking.

"I'm scared of basements."

Troy froze.

What. The. Fuck?

Chad was dead.

Dead.