NOTE: This is the second chapter I've posted tonight. Be sure to catch the first one (To Hold On) right before this! (it's so tiny!)

So, bad things happen in this chapter, but it ends with light. We learn a little bit more about why the Third is doing what he's doing here.

I hope you'll take the time to comment, if you can :) And thanks for reading. :D

"Trixie... monkey, wake up."

Trixie stirred, rising from the comforting space she'd made for herself inside.

Drawn back to wakefulness by the reassuring voice of her mom.

If mom was here, she was safe. Everything would be okay.

She opened her eyes.

Bright light streamed in, warm and yellow.

Sunlight?

No...

Spotlights?

"Mom?" she asked, and raised her hand to wipe at her eyes.

It was covered in blood.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she jerked up, clutching her wounded hand to her chest, her mouth falling open as she realized where she was.

On the stage.

In the auditorium?

And... and everyone in the school was sitting there, watching her.

"W-what?" she whispered.

But nobody moved. They weren't doing anything.

"Glad you're back. None of this will have much of an impact if you sleep through it."

"No," she moaned, dark dread swallowing her up at the sound of that voice.

Lucifer's son!

"HELP!" she cried, jumping to her feet. "SOMEBODY HELP!"

Nobody did anything.

"They can't hear you. And you don't need their help."

The man appeared behind her, clamped an arm around her waist, and pulled her back to sit on a chair.

She screamed and fought him, kicking and punching out. He simply wrapped his arms over her and held her still.

And he leaned in close.

"They need yours."

There was a shift in the air. A palpable current of energy that pulsed out from the stage across the entire audience.

Everyone in front of her took in a sudden breath. They started shifting, looking about themselves, and voices rose in confusion.

"What the hell?"

"Uh..."

"Dave? Did I miss something?"

"Who's that?"

"Is that Trixie?"

"What's going on?"

"Martha, did you bring your class here?"

"No - we were... how did..."

"Everyone clap!" the man holding her yelled.

And the entire audience applauded immediately, some looking at their hands in shock.

"I'm not..."

"Hey! What the hell!"

"That's enough," he said.

Everyone stopped.

"Mrs. Harris..." a young girl said in the front row, her eyes wide. "I want to go to the bathroom? Can we go?"

"Yeah, I wanna go."

"Me too!"

"No one is going anywhere," Lucifer's son said quietly. "Now! How many of you know Trixie? Raise your hands."

"No..." Trixie whispered. "What are you doing?"

"Breaking more of your toys, Second," he whispered in her ear. "When you'll feel it most."

"Don't be shy!" he yelled, pulling from her. "Who knows Trixie?"

Trixie shook her head. "No, don't!"

"Mr. Campbell, what's going on? Why can't I get up?"

"Just stay calm everyone, I'm sure there's a reason for all of this."

"There is," the man holding her purred. "There's a reward for participating, too. C'mon, hands up!"

And a third of the group before them raised their hands, slowly, tentatively, staring at each other as they did so.

"See? Easy. Right then, I don't need the rest of you."

Everyone who hadn't raised their hands slumped suddenly in their seats - some forward, some back, some onto the shoulders of their friends. Their eyes flat and staring.

Like puppets whose strings had been cut.

"NO!" Trixie screamed, seeing what'd happened, knowing what he'd done. "NO! LEAVE THEM ALONE!"

Confusion followed, attempts to rouse the ones who had fallen, followed swiftly by rising cries of disbelief.

"Paul? Paul?!" Mrs. Norris in the front row called, shaking a boy beside her. Her fingers moved to his throat, and her motions grew agitated as her eyes grew wide enough to show white. "He's not breathing! Somebody help! I can't get up!"

The cries and shouts grew into screaming.

Trixie started to shake, and tried desperately to sink back into herself again.

"No. You'll stay. We're almost done."

"Stop," she moaned, her throat closing as she started to cry. "Please stop! Please! I'll do anything you want!"

The man sighed.

"I want you to watch," he said flatly. "I want you to feel how much this hurts. Because maybe, just maybe, when I let you remember again, you'll have an inkling of how much it hurt me, spending a lifetime locked in a prison where I was forced to watch everything you were able to do, everything you were able to create, without any way to do so myself. Eons of watching you build and play and fashion entire worlds, as I was frozen, unable to do ANYTHING."

His eyes were storms of fire as he leaned in close. "It is our nature to create, Second. It is what we exist for. Our only purpose. You took everything I could have been from me when you joined with the First - the one I was to join with - and locked me away. You took it, and you left me with nothing. All I had left... all I could do... was watch."

The arms around her tightened, and she felt the oddest thing, even as her mind tried to make sense of the words he was saying. Which was impossible, because he was crazy!

Something wet against her cheek.

The screaming had died to sobbing, and the mumbled attempts of the teachers to comfort the students around them.

"Mark, why don't you come up here?" the man said suddenly, wiping his face. "You're really worried about Trixie. Lots of feelings there. Come on up! You've won the prize!"

"NO!" Trixie screamed, thrashing against the man's arms. "LEAVE HIM ALONE! DON'T YOU DARE HURT HIM!"

Mark, his blue eyes wide, stood stiffly and walked in slow, forced steps across the row of seats. Someone tried to grab him, catching his jeans and his black baseball shirt, but their arms jerked away as if they'd been burned.

"The rest of you, I'm stunned by how little you care. Don't you have any real friends, Second?"

"Pleeease, stop," she cried, shaking her head, twisting to stare at his profile, at those burning eyes. "Please let them go!"

He turned to look at her.

"Fine. I'll let them all go." He smirked. "Slowly."

Eyes widened across the seats, and then the screaming began again, desperate and rising.

And Trixie's eyes bulged at the sight of something drifting from their bodies - a fine smoke. They began flailing, raising hands to their own shocked gazes, as their limbs began burning ever so slowly, claiming them from the tips of their fingers and down, and rising from their legs.

She screamed louder than she ever had before, as if by the force of her voice she could stop what he was doing. She punched at him, kicked and bucked, but he simply held her.

And Mark, his eyes wet and wide with shock, walked the final few steps towards them both.

"Leave her alone," he whispered, shaking. "Stop hurting people!"

"GET AWAY, MARK!" Trixie screamed, still fighting Lucifer's son.

The man holding her froze, and his eyes widened.

"No," he whispered. "That's impossible."

He stood suddenly, tossing her aside. She landed awkwardly, grasping her hand back to her chest, and sought for Mark again.

And Mark started shouting, being stupidly brave, when he didn't understand at all!

"LEAVE EVERYBODY ALONE!"

Because this man wasn't scared of him!

He was scared by something else - the lights were flaring around them, and everything was getting brighter, and-

"Die," the man said flatly, pointing at Mark without bothering to look.

Mark fell.

Trixie screamed, jerking forward.

And the world dissolved in a supernova of light.