A/N: Hey guys, hope your enjoying school. My teachers are nice and funny, but all in all I dislike school. This is another late update, I'm so sorry, it should be the last one, I promise you. It's just that I've been pretty sick, what was a sore throat turned into a cough and me barely being able to breath, and almost collapsing in exhaustion of walking from one class to another. So I almost went to the hospital, but I'm getting better :) Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Ghosts, like ladies, never speak till spoken to.

-Richard Harris Barham

Chapter Eight: The Almost Explanation

-Cleo POV-

Ever since I was tripped at the race, I was on high alert. I hadn't told the girls, but I thought B had it out of me the most. I mean, I was the one who broke my ankle over Bella's body. I was the one who was tripped. Why? I had no idea.

I adventured down the hall and to the cafeteria, where I bought my lunch and sat down outside with Emma and Rikki. Like always this past week, Rikki picked at her fries, peeking every once and a while at me, and Emma just took in the uncomfortable silence and tried to lighten up the situation with small talk.

"So, are you guys done with the Algebra assignment due tomorrow?" Emma asked, trying to make conversation.

"Yes," I said, just as Rikki said, "No." I looked up at her to make at least a form of eye contact, but she quickly looked down.

"What did you think of it?" Emma asked warmly, glad she could make us talk.

"It's okay," I said shortly, shrugging my shoulders lazily. I took a bite of my apple.

We sat in awkward silence. I was comfortable with this; it had been this way since a week ago, which was when the race was. We had not gotten a message from B since.

"Do you think B is finally letting us go?" Emma asked, bringing up the subject like she could read my mind.

"I don't know. It doesn't seem like her," I said, and Rikki remained silent. She chose that time to check her phone, as if B had heard and sent her a message.

We ate until about five minutes till the bell. I was sick and tired of the awkwardness, so I said, "All right, what gives?"

Emma looked at me, faking confusion, and Rikki said, "What are you talking about?"

"What is up with you?" I asked, directing my question more towards Rikki than Emma.

Emma opened her mouth to answer, but Rikki beat her to it, saying, "Shouldn't we be asking you the same thing?"

"Rikki!" Emma scolded, like a mother scolding a child.

"What?" I asked. Had I done something? Said something to insult them?

"Nothing," Rikki spat angrily.

"Fine, then if you won't tell me, I'll just be going," I said, picking up my lunch tray. There wasn't a say when the three of us hadn't sat together (besides when Emma was away and when we weren't friends) and even though there was only five minutes until the bell, it still felt wrong.

I turned my backs on them and walked away slowly, hoping one of them would call out, "Cleo!" and tell me what was going on, but nothing happened.

Fine, I thought. I don't need them! I walked inside, and sat down with Lewis and his friends.

-Rikki POV-

"Did we go too far?" the always-worried Emma said. "It was kind of mean."

I snorted. Cleo deserved it, for not telling us the secret between Violet and her. We told each other everything, and yet she doesn't tell us this? "If anything, we went too easy on her," I reassured. "And anyway, I did all the talking. You just sat there like a lump. So she can't blame you."

Emma fiddled with her thumbs. Even though she wasn't talking, I knew she had to agree.

"So do you think B is giving us a break?" I asked Emma.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Like Cleo said, it doesn't seem like her to do such a thing."

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and opened the text message. The first thing I saw was B's signature, nesting at the bottom like it deserved its special place there. "Speak of the devil," I whispered to Emma, rolling my eyes. I managed to read the whole text:

I'm closer than you think, bitches.

-B

I let out a breath of air.

"What? What does it say?" Emma snatched the phone from my hands. Her eyes scanned the message, before she handed it back.

"Oh," she said. "Well that's...new."

She didn't have to tell me. B was a pro at death threats, not...this. The way it was put made me do a once over of the cafeteria to see if any suspects had their phone out. Nope.

The bell rang, and Emma got up without a word to throw away her food. She, no doubt, was going to Cleo to make peace and report her findings. But I wasn't going to fall that easily.

I caught up to Emma, and we were both going to leave the cafeteria when something stopped us. A high, shrill scream stopped us dead in our tracks.

-Bella's POV-

Throbbing. Darkness. Something beating, beating, beating...it hurt my head. I put my fingers up to my head, but nothing happened. I tried to open my eyes, but it was still black. I had no idea if my eyes were closed or not, actually.

What had happened? Where was I? Who was I? It shocked me to question, but I faintly remembered my own name.

Bella, I remembered, and just as I had, I remembered some other things. A flash of a shadow, a forest, a glint off of something silver—a knife, footsteps, walking away, leaving me...

The glimpses didn't help me, but at least they gave me an idea. But what the hell was going on?

My eyes flew open, my head throbbing so that I could hear it pulse in my ears, like a marching band drum. I looked at my bright, bright surroundings. Everything was blurry and fuzzy.

"Can someone help me?" I tried to call out. I heard my words, but they were so hollow and empty I didn't even know if I really said them.

"Fine, then if you won't tell me, I'll just be going." I heard the words clearer than my own words. There was obviously someone else in this vast room with me. Didn't they hear me? Why weren't they helping me? I thought I was hurt or something was wrong with me.

My vision became better each second, until I finally was able to make out the room: a huge place with all white, long beige tables everywhere, and colorful posters hung up on the walls, contrasting to the plain color background. This place was familiar, actually, I was fairly certain I knew this place; I just couldn't put my finger on it...

I soon realized I wasn't alone in this room. Someone stormed past me, rage radiating off of them. I looked up into her face—and soon recognized it.

"Cleo," I whispered, knowing the name better than mine at the moment. "Cleo Sertori." Even though I said her name loud and clear, she still stormed past me.

"Cleo, wait, help me!" I screamed. I thought I saw her head perk up for a moment, but it must have been my imagination, because she just kept on walking.

I was on the verge of tears. Was this some kind of sick joke? Was everyone in the room pretending not to know me? "Please stop, it's not funny!" I shouted just in case. "I'm hurt, please help!" I just started noticing that not only combined with my lack of memory and dizziness; I also felt pain in my chest and some in my arms.

"Cleo!" I wailed, trying to get the girl's attention, although I didn't see her anymore. I suddenly noticed a table next to me, occupied by two teenage girls.

"Did we go too far? It was kind of mean?" a girl at the table said. She had straight blonde hair, and sparkling blue eyes. Looking at her, I was hit with a wave of a headache. I closed my eyes, seeing something—popcorn, sounds of arguing, a door slamming, people calling my name; I was trying to reply, trying so hard...

I opened my eyes again and saw the other girl was replying with, "If anything, we went too easy on her." Something in her voice told me that she was cocky, stubborn and ignorant. She had curly blonde hair, a bit shorter than the other girl's. "And anyway, I did all the talking. You just sat there like a lump. So she can't blame you." Who couldn't blame her? What? Why was I hear, and why couldn't anyone hear me?

I looked at the curly haired girl, staring hard, and I suddenly was hit. I whispered, "Rikki." Just as I did, I was hit with a flash: an orange fish tail—no, a mermaid tail, smiling, laughing, talking...it wasn't much.

"Rikki," I cried helplessly. "What's wrong with me?" I reached out my hand to touch her—only to realize my hand went right through her.

"Oh!" I cried, jolting back. I studied my hand, observing it. I looked at her, openmouthed.

I reached out to touch the straight haired girl, and I got the same results: my hand went through her head.

"I...I..." I stuttered, but it didn't matter what I said, they couldn't hear me.

"So do you think B is giving us a break?" Rikki asked, folding her hands under her chin like she cared, but it looked like she didn't. The pain in my chest and arms increased, and I screeched out. I needed to get their attention if I ever wanted to get help.

I rushed over to a poster that read: "Girl's Volleyball tryouts today! Get your sign up sheet in the gym!" I reached my hands up to rip down the poster and get their attention, but to no avail, my hands went right through it. I suddenly noticed something up and down my arms—knife marks, as if someone had stabbed me.

I sauntered back to the table. Rikki and the straight haired girl were exchanging short words that made no sense to me. I studied the no name girl, until I came up with it. "Emma Gilbert." This time, I was not hit with another vision, but with a realization.

No one could hear or see me. I went right through solid objects. I had stab wounds up and down my arms. It could only mean one thing: I was dead.

I scoffed, not believing it. If I were dead, why was I here? Why could I feel pain? Was I supposed to see my friends before I moved on? Something inside of me told me that Emma wasn't anywhere near my friend.

The two girls were now huddled over a phone. I stood on my toes and read over the girl's shoulders:

I'm closer than you think, bitches.

-B

Okay, that was...weird. The Rikki girl looked just as baffled as me, telling by her expression on her face. Emma begged to see the phone, and Rikki handed it to her. She read it, returned it, and said, "Well, that's...new."

Who was B? Wait. B...Bella? Me? Well, at least I thought it was me. I couldn't be entirely sure.

A bell went off, startling me. Rikki and Emma began to get up and leave. What do I do? Follow them? What if other people can see me? I hoped so; I was hurting.

I started walking in their direction, when something stopped me. I had stepped on a newspaper. I leaned down and was about to pick it up, when I realized it was no use—my hands would probably just go right through it. So I crouched down and read the uninteresting headlines. Something about more funds for schools, something about basketball, and suddenly, my life was turned upside down as I read something.

The date was printed in bold at the top. September 15, 2011 was what it said.

Numbly, I stood up. If that was the date, I was dead/in a coma for a year.

Calmly and surely, I let out a loud scream.

-Emma POV-

My head snapped up in surprise. I looked over at Rikki, who was jerking her head all over the cafeteria to find the culprit who had screamed.

"Did you hear that?" I whispered to her. It sounded loud, but in a way hollow, like it didn't even exist.

"Yeah," she said. "But it seems like no one else did." She looked all around her surroundings.

"Who was that?" I asked, now incredibly confused. "Did we just imagine it?" It was possible.

"No, I heard it, I know I did," Rikki said, confident in herself. "Shh, let's see if we can hear it again." We craned our necks to listen, but there were no sounds.

"Oh, well," I said, shrugging my shoulders. Rikki looked as if she wanted to stay and investigate, but I just brushed it off as our imagination and walked off.

-Cleo POV-

"It was so loud, I couldn't have imagined it," rambled Rikki. "I couldn't have, because Emma heard it too."

I looked at Emma. "You did?"

She shrugged uncertainly, wanting to say both yes and no. "Well, I thought I did, but I can't be a hundred percent sure."

I was lying on my stomach on my bed, randomly sliding my pencil lightly across my homework. I was stuck on Question #39, and whenever I couldn't figure something out, I doodled and erased my damage later.

The reason why Emma and Rikki were there after we had the big blowout at lunch was because Emma couldn't decide whether or not she chose to believe what she heard, so Rikki stormed over here to make me "smack some sense into her" (which were Rikki's words, not mine.) Rikki seemed to have forgotten our little dispute over trying to convince Emma.

"It does sound a bit strange," I drew out slowly, not wanting to upset Rikki all over again. "I mean, how many times do I hear a scream and no one else hears it?"

"Uh, correction, Emma heard it too," Rikki put in.

"Can we get off this subject please?" Emma pleaded, not wanting anything more to do with this.

"Sure," I agreed. "What's the answer to Question #39?" The question was directed for Emma, because I knew Rikki had not done her homework.

"For what subject?" Emma asked.

"Calculus," I said. I slid the paper over to her, and she squinted in curiosity of my scribbled lines all over the paper.

Emma slid it back. "We were only supposed to do the even numbered problems on the sheet," she informed me.

"Dang it!" I said, lifting my sharp pencil up and bringing it down to poke a hole in the paper. "I just did everyone, and I was almost done!"

"By the way, the answers was negative forty nine," Emma said, and I glared at her.

"Aargh," I said, frantically erasing every answer I didn't have to solve, wearing down my eraser down to nothing. "I hate Calculus."

"Speaking of Calculus," Rikki said, "When are you going to tell us what you told Violet that you were going to tell us eventually, the day of the race?"

"Huh?" I asked, super confused.

"Okay, number one, that had nothing to do with Calculus, and number two, stop pressuring her. She'll tell us eventually," Emma said calmly.

I snapped my fingers in front of their faces to get their attention. "Guys, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Seriously," I said. "Can someone bring me up to date?"

"We were...listening in on your conversation with Violet," Emma said slowly.

I raised my eyebrows. "You were eavesdropping on us?"

"Actually, Rikki was. I wasn't," Emma said.

Rikki raised her arm. "Guilty."

I crossed my arms. "What makes you think I have anything to tell you?"

"Because I heard!" Rikki insisted. "Please Cleo, just tell us."

I stopped and stared at the girls. They looked genuinely concerned and curious. "Alright," I sighed. They were readying themselves for my story, when I said, "Tomorrow, lunchtime. We all meet in the inside table, the one far away in the left corner." We sat in silence after that, leaving Emma and Rikki wondering what they were putting themselves into.

A/N: Sorry it's shorter than the other chapters, but I wasn't done and wanted to give you guys something. Okay, and by the way, when I was writing Bella's POV, I was like the whole time to myself, "What are you doing? You're going to erase this, right?" But I didn't. The reason I didn't is because most of you have already caught on that Bella's dead. Someone is posing as Bella. But who? That's basically my concept. I'm going to go now, wish luck for me on getting better again, I want to BREATH again without coughing, walk without suffocating. I'm just worried that I'll go into a relapse or something and not be able to breath at all. So all I can do is get a lot of Vitamin C (nurse's I talked to words, not mine.) All right, ciao!