2. Dead friends

The ally was dark, no lights could reach in there and from the street outside, you could only see a meter or two inside it.

This was the reason to why the two men had chosen this as their meeting point. They did not want to be seen nor heard and meeting in dark allies was therefore a very good plan.

"Anything new to report, Dan?" The tallest of the two lit a cigarette and took a deep drag of it as he looked at his companion.

"She hasn't been seen there since the night of the incident, Mr Gregs." The shorter had a deep accent of northern origin, making him sound more confident than he was. "Are you sure she will return? I mean, she doesn't really have any connections to 'em and she might be too frightened to return." He frowned slightly, remembering when he had last seen the young woman, being escorted with all her belongings from the house by an officer.

"Oh, believe me. She will return." Mr Gregs grinned widely, his eyes glimmering unpleasantly in the dark. "She will return and our plan will soon go into lock. She'll give us the revenge we seek. Just you wait and see." He blew out a cloud of smoke into the cold air and chuckled softly to himself, causing his companion to join in.

"This revenge has been long wanted and soon it is go." Dan grinned widely, rubbing his hands together. "I can't wait for the actual thing to start."

"Me neither, Dan, me neither." With that, Mr Gregs released another cold laugh and started to head back towards the street, followed by his friend. There was still a lot to be done.

"Right, so who wants to go on a field trip to the museum next week?" Katie sat on top of her desk, looking out over the class of exited 7-year-olds before her. "I thought it could be fun to see some real dinosaur skeletons." She beamed towards the children, ignoring the pain in her chest. It was her second day back since the death of her friends and she had to fight with every cell of her body against the urge of falling into a pile on the floor. The children had no idea about why she had been gone for almost two weeks and she was not prepared to tell them. They were too young to hear about the sight that had met her as she had returned to the house to see if the terrible thing was true.

"Are there actually real skeletons there?" A blonde boy in the front row stared at her with wide eyes, a smile growing on his lips. "Of dinosaurs? Can we touch them?" He was now showing of a big grin, making everyone see the missing teeth in the upper row.

"There are actually real skeletons, yes. However, we can't touch them." Katie pouted her lips and pretended to dry a tear from her eye, making the children giggle instead of being disappointed. "But I am going to call the professor working there today and see if he can get an actual bone from a skeleton to look at more closely. I think that then we might be allowed to touch it." She smiled widely, earning big smiles in return from the children.

"That's so cool!" Another boy clapped his hands and nudged his friend in the side to make him agree with him.

As a happy chatter started in the classroom, the bell went off out in the corridor, telling Katie that the day was finally over.

"All right then, you all." She rose from her place as they all started to pack up their stuff. "Bring these papers home for your parents to sign and bring them back on Friday, okay?" She waved with a bunch of papers. "I will see you all tomorrow." She quickly handed a copy out to every student and watched them file out, talking happily of what the afternoon would bring them.

Not until the room was empty and the door once more closed, she made herself relax. She had made it through yet another day, but it had left her drained. All she wanted now was to curl up in bed and get some sleep.

Heading back to her desk, she gathered up her things and pulled on her coat. Luckily, she did not have any assignments to go through or plan, so she would have the entire evening off. It was not often that happened, but she was always happy when it did. She needed a night to relax once in a while.

Strolling through the classroom, she adjusted the benches and chairs before turning the lights off and locking the door behind her. There was no need in staying behind when there was nothing do to there anyway. She knew her colleagues would understand why she did not hang around in the teachers' lounge as she used to. She had other things that needed to be done. Like finding an apartment.

Since her friends' deaths, she had been staying in a small hostel down the road from Jenny's house. She had not had the strength to do any effort in searching for a place to stay and she knew the woman owning the place where she lived, understood that very well. Everyone seemed to know of her loss and was not afraid to bring it up when they met her. Everywhere she went, someone recognised her from the story in the newspapers and wanted to give her their condolences. No matter if it was a businessman she had never met or an old friend from her parents' neighbourhood. Everyone did it and she hated it.

The sight in the house as she had arrived there, escorted by police and paramedics, had been the worst in her life.
The beautiful, green door had been hanging on only one hinge, opening up to a crushed house. Pretty much everything made by glass or porcelain had been broken, and the shards had covered the floors.

The only room that had seemed untouched had been the room where she had been staying, and to the police she had quickly been suspected for the murder. To them, it seemed strange that only this room had been left untouched and that the one who had been staying there was the only one left alive.

But it did not take long for them to realise she could not have done it. After endless interviews, it was however obvious she did not had any motives for it, and her alibi had been waterproof due to the huge amount of witnesses to her being at the club. The police was therefore back on square one.

Nothing had been found in the house that could have shown upon anyone else than the four in it had been there, and this was a huge problem. No strange DNA, no fingerprints, no marks. Only blood. Blood and broken bodies.

Just the thought of her friends' scared, unseeing faces and the blood that had started to dry on their bodies and clothes made Katie want to vomit, and she knew it was something she would never be able to get out of her head. It would always be there, haunting her with the fact that she could have been one of them. She could have died with them if she had stayed behind like she had first intended. Her body would have been laying on one of the white carpets, her dark eyes unseeing staring out into space while her blood coloured everything around her red. Crimson red.

She had watched as the paramedics covered the bodies and carried them out to the awaiting cars. The entire street had been looking on, silent sobs echoing in the night as the cars with flickering lights had been standing outside the house that had been perfectly ordinary only hours earlier. Now, and forever forward, it would be the death place of Jenny, Alex and Charlie Smith, and Danielle Jones. It would be cursed and never inhabited again. Not until the case was forgotten and no one could find any new evidence inside it.

And to Katie, it would always be a place she could never again visit. She had to see it but never step inside again. The guilt was too big for her to handle.

The thoughts spun around her head like a tornado, and she had to shake her heads a number of times to make it clear.
She was walking down that cursed street to get home, and knew it was a bad move. She had been doing every day just to remind herself and she knew that it was an unnecessary punishment to herself. She could easily have taken other roads, but every day she chose this one. The one that always made her spirit crumble and her body to shake.

Today was not exception, and she walked with her head hanging low and her eyes turned to the ground. She barely even looked up when someone called her name. Not until it was heard again, closer, did she actually look up and not even then was her eyes showing any interest.

"Hi Katie!" The beaming face of Annie was the first thing she saw, and she squeezed out a forced smile in reply.

"Hi", she murmured, her hands pushed deeply into her pockets.

"How are you holding up?" The other woman frowned and stepped forward, her dark eyes scanning her face.

"Not very well", came the reply, and Annie nodded slowly. It was the least she expected.

"I know you have heard this enough, but it will get better. I promise." She took another step closer and met Katie's gaze. She could easily see that the other did not believe her at all.

"Well, then I hope this 'get better'- part would hurry up. I'm tired of feeling like crap and having to spend every day ignoring that part of myself." Katie's voice was bitter and tired and Annie was quick at making a plan.

"Come here." She pulled her friend into a hug, which to Katie was as strange and cold as always, and murmured in her ear. "Let's get you some tea and we can see if we can figure something out. I think I know something that can help." Pulling back and gripping the other's hand, she started to lead her up to her shared house. Tea always helped broken hearts. Annie had known that for years. Even before her life turned messed up.

Katie realised as soon as she stepped through the door, that she had never had been inside Annie's house before. They had spoken a lot during the last couple of weeks and become quite good friends, but still she had never been invited in before. Annie had always spoken to her outside or they had met up somewhere else So this was the first time she got to see the house from the inside.

She had expected from the worn outside, to find the inside to be the same, but it obviously was not.

The walls was freshly painted and the floors recently cleaned. The windows was easy to look through and the stairs leading up was not crowded with a thing.

"Just feel yourself like home." Annie smiled as she headed of to the little kitchen on the right, leaving Katie alone in the hall to take off her coat and hang it up.

Pushing her hands into the pockets of her long cardigan, she turned to the left and strolled into the sparsely decorated living room. In anyone else's eyes, it might have looked empty and cold, but to Katie it was perfect. She did not like when people made their rooms crowded and she therefore found this precisely her style.

Strolling around the room, she examined the old-style TV, the little couch, the bookshelf and the different cupboards and chairs. The room clearly had a history that had made it look the way it did, but to her it did not matter much. She liked the current history of it, which she could read from the way it looked. It gave her something else to think of and she enjoyed it. For the first time in two weeks, her mind was occupied by something new and she loved it.

From the kitchen, Annie watched as Katie strolled into the living room, her body already getting more relaxed. Annie did not regret it for a moment that she had invited her friend inside. It was clear that it had helped.

Putting two tea bags into the two cups before her, and pouring the hot water over them, she smiled to herself. She had hated to see Katie so low in spirit and she was glad to be able to help. No matter what it was, she felt good about being able to do something.

Gripping the mugs and placing them on a tray together with sugar, spoons and milk, she headed out into the living room and placing it all onto the table.

"You look better already", she commented as she gave Katie her cup and watched as the other woman poured in some milk and stirred down two spoonfuls of sugar.

"I feel better, weirdly enough." For the first time, Katie felt an honest smile rise to her lips and she met Annie's gaze, a new spark in her eyes. "This place is wonderful. So homely." She sipped her tea and headed back towards the bookshelf, running her hand over the books and movies standing there.

"I'm glad you're liking it, cause I have something to offer you." Annie sipped her own tea and sat down upon the couch. "We have an extra room upstairs that we're not using and I thought that, if you want, you could have it." She shrugged her shoulders and watched as Katie turned to look at her with wide eyes. "We just have to clean it out a little and get some furniture for it, but other than that I think it would suit you very nicely."

Katie stared at her friend, the tea forgotten in her hands. What was Annie actually saying?

"I-I would love to!", she stuttered, her smile growing a little wider. "I mean, if it's not a problem, that is."

"Of course not!" Annie beamed back, ignoring the fact that Mitchell and George would probably kill her for it. Or, well, maybe not kill her. That was not much of an option, after all.

"I could pay you for it. You know, like a lodger or something. I mean, it doesn't even have to be permanent. Just until I've found something else." Katie spun her cup in her hands, trying to ignore the fact that she was rambling like a lunatic.

"I think it's enough if you just add your share to the rent and the food fund. That's how the others do it, so..." Annie shrugged her shoulders. She was not entirely sure of how it all worked as she was not really a part of it.

Katie did not seem to register the odd part in what Annie spoke of and just nodded, sipping her tea. Her excitement was bubbling inside her and she felt like jumping around like a lunatic. The sadness was still there, of course, but now she had something else to think of. Something that would make her feel a little better. At least for a while.

Sitting down on the sofa next to her friend, she warmed her hands on the cup and distantly stared around the room. She had a hard time imagining that this was to become like a home to her. That her things would have a somewhat permanent place here. It was a very strange thought. Especially seeing as her last real home had been one she had been chucked out of. She did not want the same thing to happen here. She wanted to stay here and make a new life for herself. A life she might get to share with Annie, Mitchell and George. If the two later was willing to let her in, that was.

Author's note: Woho, another part! :) I'm really pleased with this one and I really hope that you all liked it too. I feel like this story is really promising and I hope I will have another flow of ideas so that I can be able to continue updating a little bit more frequently. However, it will depend on my current ideas and what is going on in my life. But I will do my best not to let the parts come too far apart! :) Thanks for reading and I hope you will leave me a review and tell me what you think!