A/N: Well, I hope this chapter's creepy enough. If it's not, it'll get better soon, I promise.

000

"Jake? Alli?"

Clare knew that she shouldn't be freaking out.

After all, she wasn't dating Jake anymore. She didn't even like Jake very much anymore.

But watching him making out with the girl who used to be her best friend was just… bizarre. Hell, she lived with this guy, and they'd only broken up a month or so before. How long had this little fling been going on between them? They certainly seemed too cozy together for this to be the first time they'd tried to eat each others' faces.

Jake and Alli sprang apart, both turning to look at Clare with mortified expressions. "Hey, Clare," Jake mumbled, avoiding her eyes.

Alli's mouth was hanging open, her lips positioned in what seemed to be a permanent O of surprise. "C-Clare," she stuttered. "Um, we… we were just…"

There's no reason to be angry. There's no reason to be angry.

There was, however, a reason to feel betrayed.

"Save it," Clare snarled. She didn't want to hear what Alli had to say.

There's no reason to be angry…

She turned and stalked away, her fists clenching. She didn't want to stay by that campfire for a single second longer; she felt like her skin was crawling, and she didn't want to do something stupid like punch Alli in the face.

She was over Jake. She was way over Jake. She'd probably never loved him in the first place.

So why was she so damned pissed off?

Maybe because the situation was familiar to her. Clare didn't know if KC had actually cheated on her or if he'd waited until after Clare dumped his sorry ass to knock up his perfect little Barbie cheerleader, but either way, she'd felt so betrayed by how a friend had taken her boyfriend.

Maybe Alli was the reason why Jake had broken up with her, or maybe it really was because of their parents.

Maybe Jake had cheated on her. Maybe he hadn't.

It didn't really matter anymore.

Clare glanced around, realizing that she was lost. Lost in the middle of that deep, dark forest.

And she still felt like she was being watched.

Clare thought she heard a noise and turned quickly, her eyes flying open and a gasp escaping her lips.

There was nothing there.

Another small sound, and she whipped around in circles, her heart pounding. It sounded almost like quiet footsteps, like something had followed her…

"Clare?"

Clare shrieked at the sound, leaping about ten feet in the air and stumbling backwards. Someone caught her before she could fall flat on her face, and she gripped that person's arms, closing her eyes tightly and taking deep breaths to try to calm her breathing and her heart.

"Um, are you okay?"

Clare opened her eyes and glared at him, letting go of his arm with one hand and smacking his shoulder. "Damn it, Eli, you really scared me!"

Eli smirked, glancing around. "Well, I admit that it's pretty creepy out here, but I'm hardly some scary monster."

"I… I felt like something was watching me. And… I heard something…"

"Which was probably me. I'm surprised you didn't see my flashlight, though." He waved the beam of light around a little, shining a spotlight on random trees. "But, see, there's nothing- holy shit!"

"What? What?" Clare turned quickly to see what the light had hit, but it was just an empty space between two trees.

"Nothing. I… I must be seeing things."

Clare narrowed her eyes at her ex-boyfriend; was he just trying to scare her? He looked freaked, and though he was a good actor, he wasn't that good.

"What did you see?" she demanded.

"Nothing," he repeated. "I'm just kind of paranoid right now. Adam said that he saw this girl on the way here, and I thought that I saw her just now, but…"

Clare frowned. "There can't be another girl here, unless she was invited to the party. There isn't another house for almost ten miles… well, except for one, but no one's lived there for years."

Oh, God, this was exactly like some cheesy horror movie.

Calm down. It's not real.

Clare suddenly realized that she was very close to Eli, her body pressed against his and her hand still gripping his arms so tightly she knew that it must hurt, but she was too freaked out to move away. She was still shaking, her heart pounding from her little scare.

Eli laughed. "Well, come on. We should probably get back to the cabin."

"Yeah," Clare agreed, untangling herself from him and stepping away a little. "Do you, uh, know which way it is?"

"Nope. I was just following you."

Clare raised her eyebrows. "You stalking me or something, Goldsworthy?"

He shook his head. "You looked upset. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

It was the first casual conversation that they'd had in what felt like years, and she was enjoying every second of it. She'd missed this, this lighthearted bantering between them.

Of course, it could be called flirting, too.

Clare shoved the thought out of her mind. "I think that… um, this way, maybe?" She pointed in a random direction, and Eli rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, let's just wander off into the deep, dark, scary woods with no weapon other than a flashlight."

"You're assuming that we'll need a weapon?"

Eli smirked again. "Well, it doesn't hurt to be prepared, Blue Eyes. And I'd rather not get lost in this godforsaken forest."

"Well, then, what are we supposed to do?" Clare snapped, her patience thinning. They were lost alone in a strange forest, and she still felt like someone was watching her, someone other than Eli. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and she shivered, rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm herself.

"Honestly, I don't know."

000

Adam glanced out the window again, narrowing his eyes and searching the darkness for any sign of Eli or Clare. This damned place seemed to have no respect for the fact that it was supposed to be summer and therefore warm, and the cold had driven everyone who decided to stay inside the cabin.

And Eli and Clare were still somewhere out there, lost in the forest.

Jake and Alli were practically sucking each others' faces off in the corner of the room; it was like they didn't even realize that they'd hurt Clare. Or maybe they knew that they had, and they just didn't care, too wrapped up in each other to notice the outside world.

Drew and Katie had "stepped out for a moment" as well, and Adam didn't want to think about exactly what they were planning to do. Bianca was sitting on the couch beside him, her head titled back slightly and her eyes half-closed. She looked pretty zoned out, and six months before, Adam would have thought that she was on something. But that was the Bianca of the past; she was actually a nice, funny girl, not to mention unbelievably gorgeous. She had apologized several times for her actions at the beginning of the year, as well as her small role in the shooting at prom, and Adam didn't see a reason why he shouldn't forgive her. He didn't blame her for most of it; most people freaked out at first when they discovered his secret, and she couldn't have known that Vince would bring a gun to prom.

And, yeah, he might like her a little more than he should. Not that a girl like Bianca DeSousa would ever go for a guy like Adam Torres. Especially because he honestly couldn't do anything physical and, let's face it, Bianca was a very physical girl.

The conversations of the others in the room created a sort of white noise, a mumbling background to Adam's thoughts.

"Where do you think they are?"

Adam turned to face Bianca, frowning. "Who?"

"Eli, Clare, Drew, Katie," Bianca listed, still staring up at the ceiling. "Where do you think they are?"

Adam glanced out the window again. There was still no sign of any of them. "I don't know," he admitted.

"It's getting cold out there."

"Yeah."

Bianca turned her head slightly to look at him. "You know, it's kind of creepy out there. When I was walking by the edge of the woods, I felt like someone was watching me or something. And a couple of times I thought I saw someone, but I wasn't sure."

Adam remembered the girl he thought he'd seen in the driveway on the way to the cabin, the blond one with the torn-up clothes. She'd looked like she'd been in the forest for a while, but it was probably just his mind playing tricks on him, right?

"Me too," he admitted.

"This girl," Bianca continued. "I thought I saw this girl, out of the corner of my eye. But I didn't recognize her, and I didn't get a good look at her. I think she was blond." She laughed lightly. "Freaky, huh?"

Adam's blood ran cold. I think she was blond.

It was just a coincidence, nothing more.

There's nothing out there.

No blond girl with dirty clothes. Nothing.

Nothing at all.

"Yeah," he agreed, keeping his voice steady. "Freaky."

000

"Eli, you're going the wrong way."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm never wrong, Blue Eyes."

"You are this time. We're going the wrong way."

"Just shut up and follow me, okay?"

"You did not just tell me to shut up."

"Yeah, I did."

"So I should just follow you and starve to death out here?"

"Actually, I think we'd die of dehydration first- ow!"

"That's not funny!"

"So you felt the need to slap me?"

Clare narrowed her eyes, trying to ignore how cold she was. "Yeah, pretty much," she snapped, and them mumbled to herself, "Or maybe we'll freeze to death instead."

"You cold?" Eli asked.

She shrugged, struggling to stop her teeth from chattering. What was your first clue? "A little," she admitted, shivering.

Eli sighed and took off his jacket, handing it to her. Clare stared at it for a few seconds, and then lifted her eyebrows at Eli.

"Well, I guess chivalry really isn't dead." Normally, she would have objected, but she was freezing.

"You're welcome."

"Thanks, Eli. For… for everything."

He smirked again. Damn it, all he did was smirk. She'd forgotten how annoying that was, but in a way, she missed his stupid smirk. She missed when they'd just joke around all day long, back before everything, before Vegas Night and then the hoarding and Fitz's return… she missed the old days with Eli.

"Don't mention it, Clare. It's just a jacket."

That's not what I meant.

"I- oh! I know where we are!"

Eli raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.

Clare pointed at the dead tree that his flashlight had illuminated. It looked like it had been struck by lightning or something, and there was a blackened, hollowed-out space inside. "Jake and I used to come here when we were kids. To the cabin, I mean. We'd walk out into the woods and use that tree as some sort of fort or something. He used to try to scare me with these really gross bugs." She reached out to take Eli's free hand without really thinking about what she was doing. "Come on, we're only about ten minutes away now."

She still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else in the forest, but she told herself that she was just being paranoid.

000

The girl remembers Clare.

Oh, yes. She remembers Clare.

The blue-eyed girl used to be her best friend. She didn't know that, but seeing Clare walking through the woods, she remembers.

Not everything. She just remembers Clare.

She remembers how Clare left her, abandoned her, just like everyone else.

The girl's clothes, which she's been wearing for a few weeks- she stole them around a month ago- offer little protection against the cold, but she doesn't care. She's seeing red, she's so angry. This Clare, she left her. She abandoned her.

And now she's back.

The girl smiles, tracing the handle of the knife again.

Not for long.