AN: I'm so sorry I couldn't update any sooner. I just couldn't get to focus on anything lately. But it's finally here. This chapter focuses more on James and his reactions to Alana. I'm also adding in a little bit more about Dr. Collins since she also is an important character to the story. Bucket List is next to be updated to stay tune for that. Enjoy the chapter and leave a review with any thoughts, concerns and questions you may have.


Alana sat on the small cot in the tiny dark room she'd been placed in for the night, she was still confused about that happened in the game room earlier. She bit her lip while rubbing her temples trying to calm the nerves pinching behind her eyes and piece together the events that happened in the game room that seemed to be shrouded in a heavy fog in her mind.

'Don't worry about it Aly, your friends don't hate you and your precious Carlos will still love you in the morning,' Elektra said reassuringly and smiled at her strangely.

The green eyed girl chewed the inside of her cheek, her eyes looking to the blue eyed entity uncertainly before she exhaled loudly and rested her head against the small pillow. The sleeping pill she'd been given earlier finally kicked in and allowed her to sink into dreamless sleep.

Dr. Collins watched the young girl who flinched erratically shortly after she'd entered her office. She had wanted to talk to Alana about the incident that happened in the facility's game room, but at the moment, it appeared that she wasn't going to be able to get a straight answer.

"So Alana, I wanted to talk to you about what happened yesterday," the older woman said cautiously not entirely knowing which personality would react to the statement. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Her fingers twisted together in her lap as she tried to gather her thoughts together, "Carlos wanted to show me the game room after we'd come back inside from the garden," she started slowly and bit her lip nervously.

"Everything's fine Alana, you're not in trouble, I just want to understand what happened," the older woman said soothingly hoping to quell the nerves the younger was experiencing.

The dark skinned girl settled against the chair she was sitting in for a moment before taking a deep breath and exhaling loudly. She wasn't sure on what happened herself, but she wanted to make it clear that she didn't remember doing anything to the large boy the orderlies hauled out of the rec room yesterday. And she wasn't entirely convinced that any sort of blame for the boy getting hurt wouldn't fall on her.

"After Carlos took me inside, we sat down together on a bean bag and this girl named Stephanie came over to us. She was kind of mean, I don't know why though," she shrugged, her eyes looking at her nails which hadn't been painted since the time she'd been at the Palm Woods.

"Oh, so you've met Stephanie? What happened after that?" the therapist made note of Stephanie's hostile attitude towards Alana no doubt because of the pyromaniac, the teen in front of her was so fond of.

"Well, Ozzy started yelling at Logan for sitting on his spot on the couch. Logan looked really scared just like everyone else in the room was," she moved a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face from her eyes. "He was holding onto Logan by his arm, and it looked like it hurt."

Once the words left her mouth, she flinched, her whole body tingling while her head ached murderously as she hunched forward, her fingers digging into her scalp. Dr. Collins waited knowing that another personality was due to come out from such an outburst; it was just hard for her to predict which one. When her shoulders finally relaxed, the psychotherapist was greeted with an all too familiar shade of ice blue eyes.

"So Elektra, are you going to finish telling me what happened?" the blonde woman questioned her pen touching paper readily.

"I guess, it's not like she did anything anyway," Elektra started while slouching in the chair, her expression giving away no emotion. "The giant Ozzy needed to be taught a lesson, so I did and now he won't be bothering little Logie-kins anymore."

The smile that curled to her lips made the other female shiver inwardly, if she wasn't trained to recognize this type of disorder she'd assume that Alana herself enjoyed committing the act of violence. But she steadied herself and wrote down what she picked up on, the lust for blood with an odd mixture of possessiveness.

"Why did you do that to Ozzy? He wasn't bothering you or Alana," it seemed odd to her why the girl's alpha personality would protect anyone else beside Alana; it made for an interesting study.

"Because, Logan's a lot like Aly, and people who hurt people like her need to be broken," the cruel smile was gone, easily going back to an unreadable expression. "And he's her friend, if she can't help him then I will."

"Well that's pretty valiant of you," the therapist's pen wrote a few more notes down as the teenage girl shifted back into her quiet nervous self.

"What's valiant of me?" Alana questioned, her brows knitting together in confusion.

"N-nothing, don't worry about it, you can go now," Dr. Collins smiled at her kindly as she closed her pad and clicked her pen again.

"Oh, okay," the younger sighed, rubbing at her temples and made her way out of the room a faint fog hanging over mind. "I wish I could remember these sessions."

Dr. Collins didn't get to respond as the door shut behind the young girl which quickly opened up letting in James Diamond, fresh out of food therapy. The broad shouldered boy sat down in the arm chair across from her heavily, a thoughtful frown holding his face.

"Hello James how was food therapy?" she asked the young man who immediately averted his eyes to the floor and shrugged.

She sighed; it was going to be a long hour.

Alana had nervously sat down at the usual table in the library for study hall, she almost expected everyone to glare at her and tell her that she was no longer welcome to them. But to her surprise, that didn't happen instead Carlos leaned over to her and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek as the fire bug usually did, the others at the table smiled at her in greeting as if nothing had happened yesterday.

'And you were worried that your little friends would hate you,' Elektra chided and poked her in the left side.

"Hey Alana, um… I just wanted to say thanks, for ugh, yesterday and all," Logan muttered awkwardly, his dark eyes darting from hers to the novel he was reading.

Before she could make the expected confused reply, the green eyes he was looking into bled blue and a slow smirk curled to her full lips. "You're welcome Logie, hope you slept well last night."

"Oh… um, yeah I-I slept fine, t-thanks," he stuttered over his words, not at all expecting the personality shift.

"What?" Alana tilted her head to the side, her eyes fading back into their normal forest green as her countenance contorted into one of confusion.

"N-Never mind," he replied with a shake of his head that made her look at him suspiciously, but she didn't press the issue any further.

Besides, this wasn't the first time where she didn't know why someone was saying 'thank you' to her anyway.

James Diamond was not having a good day, but in all honesty he never really felt as if he was ever having a good anything. Especially on the day that his mother felt it necessary that he should be locked up in this dump (as he so lovingly referred it to).

Recently he had, of course spent much of the night reassuring his hyperactive roommate that his girlfriend wasn't going to kill him if he managed to upset her. Which the taller boy knew seemed impossible and terribly unlikely, even with what looked like a violent personality simmering just beneath that shy and quiet exterior seen by all. It was after the shorter boy had been calmed down and finally settled against the pillows of his bed did James try to fall asleep, knowing very well that the endeavor would be impossible.

But right now as he rubbed the last of the sleep grit from his eyes, he made sure to avoid questions from the nosy woman seated in the large armchair before him. Looking at his cracked fingernails, he did his best to keep his breath even and his secrets behind his teeth. Much in the same way he'd never put food behind them.

"James?" Dr. Collins prodded gently; he was one of the more difficult patients who would simply refuse speaking. She was lucky to get five words out of him.

He moved his eyes to her, making sure to construct a blank expression and keep it firmly in place. The brunette didn't want to give away anything to the therapist who kept telling him that he was going to die if he tried to stop eating. But doesn't everyone die anyway? The blonde woman only sighed and wrote something down in her journal then grabbed for her mug of coffee from her desk and took a long sip.

James watched her and calculated the calories she was taking in currently, his eyes now fixed on the crimson colored mug.

One (8oz.) cup of brewed coffee, 2 calories

3 creams, 156 calories

4 sugars, 192 calories

That all added up to 350 calories, that was more than half the amount that James used to allow himself from day to day (500 calories, 550 if Ana said he should take the extra 50 that he didn't (but totally did) want). He used to be beautiful, he used to be perfect, but now… now he was full of fatfatfat and he hated the woman for it.

"That's 350 calories you're drinking in that cup of yours," he announced quietly almost (almost) startling the older woman before she could take another sip.

Coughing softly she set the mug down and lifted her pen. "Oh, do you think that's too much?"

"That's why I told you," he replied shortly turning his head to look somewhere else.

"Hmm, so what did you all talk about in food therapy today?" she pressed, she'd somehow gotten him to start talking, and she wanted him to keep going.

"Nothing, they just tried to shove fat down my throat," he crossed his arms over his chest. 'She doesn't understand. I shouldn't be talking.'

Dr. Collins wrote down more notes into her journal, making sure to underline what James said about food. He was no doubt exaggerating about being force fed, but to anyone with the deluded vision of perfection, anything could easily be taken out of focus. She looked up hoping to get something else from the boy, but that hope crumpled at the hard eyed stare the brunette was currently giving her.

"That's all for today James, you can go," the therapist said with a loud sigh and closed the leather notebook.

Wordlessly the boy got up, his hand rested to the doorknob heavily as if he was thinking of saying something before he left the room. But not a word came out of his mouth when the door opened and then slammed shut behind him. Putting her leather notebook to the side Dr. Collins rubbed her temples; she couldn't give up on him or any of the patients in the Palm Woods facilities. Whether they accepted it or not, each of them needed her help, even if they didn't want it.

James took his usual seat in group between Logan and Kendall who was sitting next to Alana, her eyes entirely focused on the hyper boy next to her who was excitedly chatting about something as usual. The sandy haired boy could see the desire burning in the blond's jade eyes; shaking his head at the love struck boy he gave Kendall a nudge getting him to put his focus somewhere else.

"What James?" the blond hissed, green eyes darkening slightly at being disturbed from looking at the girl he couldn't have.

"You really need to stop," James replied simply making sure to keep his voice even and calm. 'I don't need him making me look any uglier.'

In response, the sullen boy huffed and crossed his long arms over his chest, then averted his vision to the carpet and dug the toe of his shoe into a patch in the coarse material. James didn't doubt that Kendall was currently digging his nails into his palms to calm himself. That was something the both of them could understand about each other. Pain is calm, pain is peace. Pain is good.

"Hey Aly, I guess you're going to have a new roommate," Mercedes chirped brightly as she sat down in her usual seat in front of her new rag tag group of friends.

"Oh, I am? Well… wait how do you know?" the other girl quietly spoke looking nervous and ready to panic.

That look on her face made James worry; it made him want to scoop her into his arms and sing to her. But of course, he wouldn't do that not even if Carlos said he could. He looked back to the blond girl who couldn't seem to keep herself still which made the brunette raise a brow.

"I know because, I'm your new roommate," she grinned widely at the girl who only blinked at her slowly all signs of panic draining from her face. "Don't worry, I don't snore."

'Guess that Collins lady doesn't think you'll hurt Blondie or anyone else, how nice,' Elektra smirked crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall next to Carlos.

"Well that's cool, I'm glad I didn't end up getting stuck with Stephanie," the two girls giggled while the boys around them chuckled softly at the remark. "Did they move your stuff in or do you need help?"

"They're moving my stuff for me, but I might need help unpacking," the flaxen haired girl looked to her hopefully. "This is going to be fun."

"Yeah, fun," Alana gave Mercedes a small honest smile as Kelly entered the room to start group.

The way she fidgeted with her hands went unnoticed by everyone in the group, but James. The hazel eyed boy made sure to not be obvious as he watched her have a silent battle with herself. He wanted to reach over and grab her hand when she flinched into Carlos slightly, but he restrained himself just as she went back to her normal still and quiet posture. His eyes then looked to the boy sitting next to him, he caught himself from sighing loudly at the blond currently looking at Alana with a smitten look stamped clearly on his face.

'He's becoming the definition of desperate,' he turned his head to face directly ahead in time to see Mercedes raising her hand to speak.

He felt an unfamiliar surge in his stomach when she mentioned "making friends", but obviously she wasn't talking about him, the two of them were not friends. And his cheeks shouldn't have flushed pink when she turned around and winked at him (he did not have a crush on her), because she was totally looking and winking at Alana who smiled back at her. He gently slapped his hand to his face and let his palm press against his mouth, uncertain of what he was feeling.

He did not have a crush on a liar… even if she was pretty.

'Stupid feelings… stupid Mercedes,' he cursed inwardly crossing his arms over his muscular chest and shook out his bangs.

He didn't have time to feel anything for girls like her.


Hopefully the next update will come faster. Please leave a review of your thoughts. Bucket List will be updated as soon as possible (hopefully). It's also that story's last chapter. Until then. xoxo