NICK

I stared at her, uncomprehending. "What?"

She closed her eyes and turned her face away from me. "Don't make me say it again."

My mind was racing faster than a Formula One car. It didn't make any sense at all. It made absolutely no sense. It made even less sense than differential calculus. It was impossible. Really, really, really impossible.

I didn't know what to do –hug her, tell her everything was going to be fine, even just pat her on the back (stupid, stupid). I was frozen. I couldn't move an inch. I was completely frozen.

Max sighed. "Listen, I know you're probably freaking out right now –"

"Freaking out? Who's freaking out? I'm not freaking out?!" I said, my voice coming out an octave higher than normal.

"Nick, I –"

"Who did it?" I demanded, my voice still sounding like Mickey Mouse. "Who did this to you? I'm gonna take their head and rip it clean off of their body, and then I'm gonna smash their skull into a pulp, and then I'm gonna –"

"Nick."

I stopped blathering and noticed, too late, that a tear had leaked out of my eye. I wiped it back furiously. "Max, this is so not okay, this is totally not okay…"

She looked at the ground. "I'm sorry for pushing you away, but you can understand why."

And that was when I realized what a major dick I'd been to Max. Flirting shamelessly with her, calling her my girlfriend jokingly… my God, I had even joked about her having sex with me. "Max," I said, fighting to keep my voice sounding robustly sane, "I'm really sorry for everything I did, or said, or thought…"

"Nick…" Max said, smiling sadly, "You didn't know, and that's okay, because it's not really the kind of thing I go around telling people when I first meet them."

I was about to open my mouth and insert my foot in it when a loud clang cut me off.

"What the hell –" Max said, looking in the general direction of the library, where the crash had come from.

"We have to go," I said urgently, and she nodded.

I grabbed Max's hand and pulled her through the halls. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I did know one thing –I was never going to let go of her.

…

JASON

"Would you let go of me?!" I snarled, wrenching my wrist out of Celeste's vice-like grip.

"Shut up! D'you want to get caught? That guy has a freaking whip, for God's sake!" she hissed right back.

"That doesn't mean I need to be pulled along like a dog on a leash all the time!" I whispered furiously at her, but she wasn't even listening to me. I took a good look around at the girls' bathroom and shuddered. One of the stalls was open, and I didn't want to describe what was inside. There were wads of toilet paper and… feminine products… all over the floor. The countertop with the sinks was stained from what could either be blood or just lipstick… I would never understand girls, would I? "Man, this place is disgusting."

"Are you talking about the school, or the bathroom?" Celeste asked me, a serious expression on her face, and I couldn't help it. The situation was so ridiculous. We were hiding in a girls' bathroom in a high school on a Saturday from a crazy meth-head janitor who was carrying a whip around with the intention of whipping the crap out of us. So I burst into laughter. Celeste looked at me for a few moments, trying to keep a disdainful face, but eventually she also started grinning madly.

"'You kids need to be taught a lesson!'" I said, imitating the janitor's scratchy voice. "'You can't hide forever, you know.'"

Celeste looked at me, impressed. "Man. That impression was spot-on."

"Yeah? I can do GH, too. One sec…" I pulled my cargo pants up to my waist and tucked my shirt in. "I'm a forty-three year old man who doesn't like his job. I hate kids. I hate 'em! We should bake 'em into pies and sell those pies to Russia, that's what I always say…"

Celeste grinned. "You could make a living out of doing impressions, Jason. Those are really good."

I grinned back at her.

"Where'd they go? Down the hall? I swear to hell, Batchelder, if you let these kids get away, you'll have a lot more than just blood on your hands."

Celeste looked at me. "Uh… that's just plain creepy now. You can stop pretending to be GH now."

My eyes widened. "But… that wasn't me."

Celeste's eyes widened and she pulled me behind the bathroom door just as it swung open and the real dragon of the school marched into the bathroom, red in his eyes.

…

MONIQUE

"This is deff not okay," I said, as we crouched behind one of the dated, patterned couches in the library. "My mom'll totally sue the school."

"That's if we get out alive," James said seriously.

I sighed. "Are you always this optimistic before a big game?"

"Hey, I'm optimistic when I have a reason to be. We're locked in a school with no phones, as per the stupid detention rules, so we can't call the police. There's a maniac after us, and he's armed with a fucking whip. Not to mention that he and the vice principal of the school seem to be hand-in-hand in their stupid plan to 'teach us a lesson'."

"This sounds like the plot to an episode of Pretty Little Liars," I complained, sitting up. "Someone's gonna end up in the hospital, someone else is going to get arrested, and someone else is going to go to therapy."

"What kinda freak show is that?" James asked me.

I grinned. "Eh… you'll never understand."

"It's been a few minutes since we heard anything from the weirdo janitor. I'm gonna see if the coast is clear," James said. "Don't worry, I'll be right back."

He left, turned a corner, and was soon hidden behind a row of bookcases. I waited with bated breath for any sign of disaster, so I could crawl my way to safety, and just a moment later I heard a loud expletive and I grimaced. "What happened?" I called out in a whisper.

James marched back, looking incredibly angry. "My contacts fell out!"

"Both of them?" I asked.

"Well… one fell out, and I took the other one out because it was inside out, and I dropped that one, so yeah –both of them fell out!"

"So?" I asked. "You can still see, right?"

James groaned. "I'm practically blind without them!"

I grinned. "C'mon, it can't be that bad…"

"Mon, I'm legally blind without my contacts on. I'm not allowed to drive without these on. I can't see a single fucking thing." He sighed. "Are you holding up fingers? I dunno how many fingers. It's all just a huge blur."

"This is great," I said. "You're blind and I can't run."

We jumped as we heard the loud creak that could only mean one thing –the door to the library was opening. James looked at me, an expression of complete panic on his face. "And we're effectively cornered."

I have a random question -I read somewhere that they were planning on making the MR books into a series of video episodes on Youtube. Does anyone know if that's legit? I know I'd be totally excited if it was true. (even if my main reason is to see if Fang is as hot IRL as he is in my head)

This is the last of the 'running' chapters. Crap's gonna hit the fan. And it will splatter everywhere (forgive the gross mental imagery).