Summer: Get this, my story got put on this list thingy called Attackof the Bad Fics. Kinda funny... Erik?!

Erik: Yes?

Summer: I need a hug again!

Erik: -hugs Summer- will this be happening a lot?

Summer: Yes!

Erik: -mutters under breath- Summer owns nothing but a place on a list of bad fics. Special thanks to Zombina, Broadway Geek, Blue Flame and Fire Alchemest, Nutty Noir, Brooke Blue and Shadow Archer for reviewing. This chapter begins exactly where the last one (which was far too short) left off.

Mr. Gray looked a little taken aback at Erik's glare of doom. He blinked a couple times and opened his mouth like he was about to say some thing, only to close it again looking confused. I had several things I would have greatly liked to say to him, but I didn't think any of them would make a very good impression. So I said the words on the tip of my tongue in my head.

'Yeah, that's what I thought, you abusive, fat-"

'That's getting a bit carried away, don't you think?' he thought, cutting me off before I could get to the more profane part of my speech.

I turned away so Evony's foster parents wouldn't see me smirk, 'Yeah, I guess so... you know you agree with me though.'

He didn't respond but had a few I-won't-respond-to-that-because-it's-really-stupid thoughts and started taking long strides to catch up with Evony before we lost site of her. She lead us down a stair case that didn't have any carpet so that you had to walk on the bare, squeaky wood.

'That would give some bad splinters in bare feet, huh?' I thought, looking down to make sure we didn't trip on the steep, crude steps.

'Indeed...' he was, yet again, not really paying attention to me. His mind was elsewhere.

'Hey, I know you'd enjoy pushing Mr. Gray off a building and I would too, but I don't think killing him is a good idea. Killing people can sort of get you in a little bit of trouble.'

'Really. I never would have thought,' he wasn't joking anymore, just using sarcasm. Again.

We reached the bottom of that annoying staircase and looked up to see Evony's basement. It was even more dark and spooky looking than the ground floor, it probably would have been completely dark if it weren't for the single naked lightbulb suspended from the center of the ceiling, casting a weak, yellow light over the room. The floor -unlike the steps- was covered in a carpet that was slightly moldy and so dirty neither of us had the slightest idea what color it had been when it had been bought. There was a small TV with a pair of antennas sticking out of the top like demented rabbit ears sitting on a shabby looking table in one corner that was untouched by all the shadows and unlit darkness.

Gray, I decided, was a fitting name for this family. Gray. Or Grey. That word could accurately describe virtually everything in this dungeon-like building. I wondered if Evony had always been grey. Had she once been a happy color like yellow? Or a sensible but sweet color like purple? For how long had she been infected by this miserable colorlessness?

She had flopped down looking tired on a shapeless couch (also grey. A dark and leathery shade) that lined one of the dank walls.

I realized, a little late, that this was another awkward silence. I clambered to find something to talk about. These silences seemed to attract to me like unwanted magnets.

"Um, you want to watch a movie?" she asked hesitantly. Apparently her search for a conversation-starter had been far more successful than mine.

Erik and I simultaneously remembered being asked the same question just a couple days ago. That hadn't gone over well.

'Ugh,' I thought, 'still, I think it would be okay if we watched something... erm... un-painful'

He nodded silently in agreement. Evony saw and took it as a 'yes' in answer to her question. "What do you want to see? We have pretty much every horror movie known to man. But I don't want to go back upstairs to get one for, uh, reasons that go without saying. So we're going to have to limit it to half the horror movies known to man."

"Anything is fine."

She frowned, seeming to remember she had to do something she didn't really feel like doing. I knew I'd worn the same expression several times when thinking about homework.

"How about Phantom of the Opera?"

"Anything is fine except that," I replied shortly and thought, 'Lola's trying to corrupt her. I can tell.'

'Yes. However, she seems, for the time being, to remain uncorrupted.'

'Yeah. That's good. It'd be a shame if she crossed over to the dark side and we had to chop her limbs off with our lightsaber.'

'Quite,' he seemed moderately sickened.

'Remind me to show you the Starwars films some time.'

She looked at us apologetically, but mercifully didn't ask what our problem with Phantom was. "How about Sweeney Todd? Have you seen it yet?" she asked conversationally, getting up to search through another pile of DVD cases, supposedly looking for it.

"No. That's fine. What's it about?"

She paused, deciding how to phrase her answer before saying, "This dude that goes around killing people and singing show tunes."

I grinned and thought, 'that's right up your alley then, isn't it?'

That made him kind of mad. He explained my mistake to me with a deathly calm, 'I do not 'go around killing people' nor have I ever. I took the lives only of those who did not deserve them. Unfortunately, I knew far too few people deserving of life.'

That made me shudder. 'Um, okay. Sorry. Just, uh,pretend I never said that, okay?'

He nodded again.

Meanwhile, Evony seemed to have located the DVD she was looking for. She punched a few buttons and the small, square shaped screen came statically to life. She sat back down and picked up a remote, clicking 'play movie' on the disc menu.

We sat down next to her. "So, Andrew's trying to recruit you for her army of droids." I asked casually.

She smiled, "I think she's trying to."

"But you haven't crossed over to the dark side?"

She smiled wider, "Not yet. What kind of a jeddi would I be then?"

We both laughed. Even Erik seemed a little bit amused. Good, an amused Erik was better any day than an angry Erik.

Then, her smile faded until it was barely there and her eyes took on a sad, reminiscing look. "I like Starwars," she said quietly, "I saw those movies with my last family, no, second to last. They were one of the nice ones."

And out of nowhere, we were drowning in yet another awkward silence. I didn't even try to swim my way out of it. None of us were paying any attention to the movie anymore, if we ever had been.

I waited about a minute for her to continue. When she didn't I looked back at the movie screen, pretending to be absorbed in it. She surprised me by whispering, "They died in a house fire." We looked back at her. She still looked sad. She stared into thin air as if she could see her old family smiling back at her, but she knew she couldn't reach out and touch them. Her voice was thick with grief but she wasn't crying. I got the feeling it must take a lot to make her cry.

"Sorry," I whispered, just as quietly.

She nodded. "I miss them."

We nodded too, unable to think of a better response. For the next hour or so, we each pretended to watch the movie, occupied with our own personal thoughts -and in the cases of Erik and I, occupied with each other's thoughts.

'One of the nice ones? Do you think she means most of them were, er, un-nice?' I thought, feeling guilty for being nosey.

'I do not doubt it.'

'How many families do you think she's been with?'

'I do not know. I would guess it to be quite a lot.'

'That must suck.'

He agreed without comment and gave me the usual jab for present day language.

After a while, Evony paused the movie, using the remote that was still clutched in her hand. "Do you want to watch something else?" she asked, "It seems like you're not really into this one."

I shook our head, "No, the movie's fine. I guess I'm just not in a movie-watching mood."

She nodded muttering, "Me either."

"Evony!" a kid's voice called from the floor above us, "Mom says to come up here. Her and Dad want to talk to you," it sounded like a boy, but I wasn't sure because his (or her) voice hadn't deepened yet. If he was a boy, he couldn't have been over ten. We guessed him to be her younger brother -or foster brother.

She looked at us for a second before going "Stay here, okay?" and striding reluctantly in the direction of the stairs leading up. I felt suddenly worried about her, and not just because the stairs could give her splinters.

"Uh, will you be-" I started to ask, concerned.

"Oh, I'll be fine. He won't do anything as long as your in the house. Just stay down here though. Okay?" she said, cutting me off.

I was too occupied with worry to answer -if my own concern wasn't enough, I had to feel Erik's too. So he nodded for me. She smiled half-heartedly and made her way up the stairs, leaving us to ponder what was about to happen to her.

'Think she'll be alright, Compadre?' I thought, staring after her, up the rough staircase.

'I would hope so,' was all he said in response.

We heard shouting from up on the ground floor in the form of a man's voice. I winced and he got another one of those ever-so-charming urges to strangle Mr. Gray or, at least, kill him in some other satisfying form.

'Why do you think it is that that guy isn't in prison yet?'

'Perhaps because he had never been reported.'

'So why doesn't anyone report him? Evony's got the proof of his abuse all over her face.'

He gave an I-can't-believe-you-don't-know-the-answer-to-that-because-it's-so-obvious type sigh, thinking, 'She doesn't report her father because he is afraid of what he will do to her if she does.'

'...Oh. Hadn't thought of that.' We went on like that, with me asking stupid questions and him answering them (which surprised me), for quite a while, until presently, when Evony came stepping carefully back down the steps. We both immediately started scanning her face for any new bruises. Not finding any, I asked "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just like I said I would be," she replied, grinning at that last part. We nodded again, not expecting any response from her.

"It's just... they're not my family," she surprised us by saying, "they don't love me and they don't pretend to. It... feels like... I don't know, it feels like no one loves me. It sucks."

"That it does," Erik said sympathetically. Out loud. In front of an actual person. Who could hear us. Out loud.

I knew our cover was pretty much blown by then, so I said my bit out loud to. "Gah! First May, now..." I sputtered spastically for a moment, "G/d I thought we were going to make a decent attempt at keeping this a secret."

Evony raised her eyebrows, skeptically surprised.

"Excuse me while I rant to my fictional other self," I said to her before continuing to sputter. "If you want every one to know so desperately, let's put it in the news paper. Heck, lets put it on TV!"

"You know perfectly well that is not what I want," he responded calmly, this also out loud. He seemed completely undaunted by my maniacal fury.

"Then, why did you tell her?"

"I did no such thing."

"Well, you might as well have!"

"Um..." Evony finally said tentatively, cutting off our debate. We looked over at her again. Her eyebrows were arched in a question.

I sighed. It was no use trying to cover it up now. "My body is inhabited by the dead spirit of the Phantom of the Opera," I told her matter-of-factly.

She was still looking skeptical.

"You want his death glare as proof?" I asked, folding our arms over our chest.

"Er, no. I decidedly believe you," she said slowly. It looked like she really did.

"I am glad," Erik said, not wanting to give an innocent soul like her his death glare.

I grinned saying, "Yeah, me too," agreeably, before adding "That was Beverly."

"Huh," she said thoughtfully, "I never would have guessed that," then she smirked, "Phantom, highschool must be terrible for you!"

"Yeah," I agreed and then said as an afterthought, "He likes it when you call him by his name."

She raised her eyebrows again.

"Erik," he added, explanatorily.

She nodded and then said, "So if you guys can tell me, why don't you tell Lola? She'd stop bugging you."

"Huh. I hadn't thought of that," I said, considering it, "What do you think, Compadre?"

"I am, by now, beyond caring," he replied somberly.

I shrugged and took out my cell phone, flipping it open. I opened up my contact list and clicked on Lola's name, a number I had rarely called.

"Hello?" her familiar voiced answered.

"Hey. It's Beverly. So what are you doing this Friday after school?"

Summer: Hehe! That was the longest chapter since chapter two. sorry again for the wait!! I've decided that anything shorter than five pages is unacceptably short, so they might take a little longer. But they'll be better chapters, right?

Erik: Review and Summer will do her happy dance. Flame and Summer will force you to watch her happy dance -not a pleasant experience, trust me.