Cat laid in her old bed. Her mom kept the room looking as it did from high school.

Mom, she chided her. I went to college, not got run over by a train.

I know, her mother nodded in return. I just miss you a lot.

The walls were hot pink and the ceiling was colored mauve. She eventually obtained a carpet that matched the ceiling. There was really nice cherry wood furniture to compliment the four post bed. Looking around her room, Cat looked at he surrounding posters hanging up. She had promos for musicals like Mamma Mia!, Rent, Hairspray, and My Fair Lady to name a few. All movie adaptations, since Cat missed out on the runs of most of these shows. However, there was an original Broadway one sheet from the 80's for Phantom of the Opera (which looked scary until Jade made her watch it; now she loves it).

As Cat stared at the Phantom poster, she thought more about Jade.

She was always glued to the side of the brunette since middle school. Even though you couldn't find more well-defined opposites; they were the best of friends. When Cat first became interested in dating and everything, she was hesitant about talking to her mother. She always had issue with her daughter growing up. With Jade, Cat could confide in her everything.

Well, almost everything.

As they got older and they started physically maturing, Cat was noticing more and more just how attractive Jade was. She had universally good looks in the face. She partakes in modern music and movies but her real passion is for older stuff. Some of the fashions she sported, as well, were vintage styles. There was a timeliness and a timelessness to her look. Then again, that was Jade's biggest source of attraction from others: she was a walking contradiction.

She looked soft and smooth on the outside but when she spoke she was hard and abrasive. Her skin was the color of winter snow and she dressed all in black. She smiled at things that most other people would find frightening and nauseating. She kept to herself while many were drawn to her. She disliked people for the most part but usually was up for a party.

It didn't matter to anybody that Jade hardly showed much skin. Her formfitting clothes hugged her curvaceous body very nicely. Whenever she bent down to pick something up, Cat caught the fleeting glimpse of her ass. She bit her lips and took in the sight for that very brief moment before pretending to focus on something else.

Cat had built up the reputation of being an airhead throughout school but the truth was she was terrible at thinking on the spot. She was very bright but Jade would just make her mind blank and whenever someone would ask what she was looking at or thinking about she would just say the first thing that popped in her mind. And unfortunately, Cat had such a fantastical brain that her first thought was pulled from her more creative side and it would babble out like pure nonsense. She would then laugh this nervous chuckle which, again, people attributed to her slow-witted.

To avoid Jade getting suspicious, she tried to mimic that behavior with her other friends. Ironically, she was often cast in plays and short films due to her strong acting talent. She never fudged a take or rehearsal and nobody seemed to notice how she became uncharacteristically focused all of a sudden.

Jade was the closest one to Cat and she didn't figure it out. The way she seemed when she was seized from the hospital room, Jade saw strains of the real Cat underneath the bubbly façade. What happened to her that night was so vile and vulgar that it broke through that barrier that had been so second nature for Cat to maintain. Even in the presence of Jade, who she wanted to see the real her the least, Cat couldn't do it.

Cat looked out her window, open to allow the slight breeze to come in. She wondered if Jade was asleep right now. Cat's phone was full of texts and voice mails. She hadn't checked any of them out; she just couldn't face Jade. She felt guilty as how Jade stood by her all this time and she just suddenly gave into her mother. She was paying her way through college and the sandwich shop job was just her source of spending money. What were her options? Either do what her mother said or get cut off. Still, the whole thing made Cat feel like shit. She knew that deep down that a part of it was her fear of accidentally coming clean to Jade with her feelings. All this was just too much.

Too much.

Jade stared at her phone, frustrated that Cat hadn't gotten back to her at all. Even in their worst fights, the lines of communication wouldn't be totally severed like this. She threw her phone across to the foot of the bed in disgust. She had a growing suspicion that her mother "convinced" her to move back home. The commute would be impossible so chances are Cat was going to transfer to a school near her house.

"Fuck," she belched before taking another sip of a Corona.

Jade knew that Cat was never given the opportunity to become financially independent, with her mom paying for everything and holding the key to the bulk of her inheritance. She didn't really get the chance to make her own money until college when her and Jade got job together. They toyed with this fantasy of becoming the authorities of their respective fields and living in a luxurious apartment overlooking Manhattan or Chicago or some other cosmopolitan place. Sure the money in the beginning was meager at best but the principle was most important: to make Cat see that she could stand on her own two feet and that her mother only made her think that she needed her to do everything.

But it looks like it wasn't to be.

She was scrolling through her old page on The Slap when a knock at the door startled her. Slowly crawling off the bed, she made her way to the living room and opened the door. Harry stood in the doorway, smiling. He didn't depress Jade but she wasn't up for company either so she just maintained a blank expression.

"Hey," his smile quickly dissipated. "Are you alright?"

Jade shook her head. "No, I'm not. What do you want?"

"I just came by to see how you two were doing?" His nose then cut him off and he leaned around Jade's head to a couple empty beer bottles on the floor. "Jade, have you been drinking?"

"Maybe a little..." her words were followed with a complete suspension of balance and luckily Harry acted quickly enough to catch her. The rest of her sentence trailed off into utter sloshy nonsense.

"Okay," Harry groaned. "Let's get you to bed. You need to sleep this off, girl." He picked her up and carried her bridal style to the couch, propping her head on the armrest.

Jade just looked at him like a doll her couldn't hold her head up.

"Jade," his voice grew concerned. "Why were you drinking?"

"...cat..." she whispered.

Harry put his ear closer to Jade. "What was that?"

"My Cat!" Jade growled.

He looked around the room. "I don't see a cat. Do you have a ca-"

Jade's pale fingers gripped Harry's shirt, sending a chill down his spine.

"NO! MYYY CAAAT! WHERE IS MY CAAAAAAAT!"

Her whole started trembling and she rolled into the pillows of the couch, weeping like mad. Harry watched powerless as his friend was coming apart.

Cat's eyes fluttered open when she heard what sounded like the creaking of a door. She tried rolling over but was met with great resistance. Blurred vision focused and she could see that her wrist was bounded to the bed post. Whipping her head around frantically, she could see all four of her appendages were tied down.

Her heart beat faster and faster.

"HE-" the attempted scream was muffled by a very sticky piece of duct tape.

Then a gloved finger caressed her cheek and she shivered at the hot breath in her ear:

"Found you."