"not gonna scream in my face this time?"

Soon after Chico's life faded before their eyes, Maria dropped to Marcus's side to check on him, Willie right behind her. "I'm not the acid king," Marcus muttered, his eyes barely staying open.

Simon and Saya focused on Billy who was perhaps in even worse shape than the Arguello boy. "We have to go!" Saya shouted.

"Chico's body!" Maria cried out.

Simon shook his head, lifting Billy up. "Leave it. We don't have time."

"Come on!" Willie insisted, helping pick up Marcus.

Andi stood off to the side, simply watching as they hurried to evacuate the alley. Her eyes kept returning to Chico's body though, unable to look away. She didn't feel anything when she looked at him. Not sadness or contempt. Not even relief over the death of someone who was a grade-A asshole and sadistic fuck. She felt void of all emotion.

The blonde knew she was broken, mentally and emotionally. But, despite how much she hated Chico, she still expected to feel something when faced with his death. He had gone to school with her for years. He wasn't a stranger. It was one thing when she killed pedophiles and psychopaths out on the street. They had no connection with her, no ties. But, Chico was a peer one way or another, and she felt nothing.

"Andi, c'mon!" Simon called out to her, urging her to follow. She hurried over to him but stopped before they wandered out of the alley.

"Go to the Guild's medical clinic here in Vegas. They'll help Billy and Marcus," she told him.

He and Saya furrowed their eyebrows at her in confusion. "You say that like you're not coming with us?" Saya said, worry tinging the tone of her voice.

"I'm not. Someone has to go clean up the mess back at the hotel. The police have probably already swarmed it, but still, someone has to try to go clear anything that will lead it back to us." The two still seemed hesitant to leave her though. She shot them a small smile, one that was a lie. "We really don't have time to argue. Don't worry. I'll be fine, just meet me at the hotel before you leave town."

Giving them the directions to the clinic, she watched as they left to get the two boys medical attention. Slowly, she made her way back to their hotel rooms. By the time she got there, the police were finishing their initial investigation and moving on to canvas the area. Crossing her fingers, she hoped that their belongings were left there and weren't collected as evidence.

Her hopes were answered as she snuck into the room to see Billy and Marcus's bags still in place. Sighing in relief, she glanced around the room and surveyed the damage. Bullet holes littered the dingy walls like Swiss cheese. Dust and pieces of plaster were scattered over the furniture and floor. She hurried to get all traces of them out of the room before she was caught tampering with the crime scene.

Andi was surprised she even managed to make it to this room. For an active crime scene, the police were really slacking. Although, they may just be busy at the convenience store where a majority of the carnage took place.

Just as she is about to leave, she sensed someone behind her. Snatching a knife that had been hidden in the bag she was holding, she spun around quickly to face the new presence.

She froze in her place, taking in the wolfish grin. This time she knew he was real. The effects of the acid had begun to wane, the adrenaline fading. There was little chance what she was seeing was only an illusion that her dazed mind concocted.

"Not gonna scream in my face this time?" Abaddon teased.

Again, she wanted to attack him, to kill him. Hell, even running would be better than just staring at him. But, with her adrenaline fading, her energy had been leeched away. Andi was suddenly aware of just how exhausted she was. Her head throbbed, as did the wound on her leg. Her throat ached from the chokehold Chico had held her in and her breathing was ragged. She didn't have it in her anymore. The fight, the betrayal, life in general—it drained her. "No," she answered simply.

"What do you want?" she asked him.

His posture was relaxed, not at all perceiving her as a threat. Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he took a few steps forward. "Me? I don't want anything. I was sent by a—a higher power." She scoffed at his terminology.

"So what does your big boss want with me?" Ouroboros was an organization that she thankfully avoided since she started attending King's, but it seemed like they finally caught up to her. And of course, it was today of all days. At the risk of sounding super fucking dramatic, it was one of the worse days of her life. Probably only beat by the day the psychopath in front of her cut her up and tortured her.

"Can't say for sure," he answered with a shrug. "He didn't give me any of the specifics. Was really hush-hush about it. Just told me to bring you in. You know how Odin can be. He's always so secretive—plays it close to his chest."

The blonde girl hesitated. She didn't trust Abaddon for shit. Not after all he did. His betrayal hurt like it happened yesterday, the boy she once considered her best friend. However, there was no way she could fight him off in her current state. The tall boy had specific instructions to bring her in, and he wasn't one to disappoint.

Andi's best option was to play along until she could get up enough strength and plan an escape. Until then, she could only hope Odin gave the psychotic teen clear orders not to harm her.

"Fine," she stated dryly. "I'll bite. Call me curious." Abaddon laughed at her forced bravado. He knew just as well as she did that there was no real choice in this situation.

"Then get your shit and let's go," he said before strutting back out the doors. She knew he waited in the hallway for her.

As she stood in the destroyed, empty room, she allowed herself a moment of weakness, trying to purge those feelings from her. A few stray tears ran down her cheeks and her throat burned with the urge to sob. Her friends would wonder where she went, never being there to meet them in front of their circus-themed hotel. But, why should she care? Marcus and Maria already hurt her. It was only a matter of time before the rest of them did too.

Tightening her grip on the bags, she took them with her to the room she was supposed to share with Maria and Saya. As suspected, Abaddon stood outside, leaning against the wall of the hallway, though she didn't spare him a glance.

She dropped the bags by the door, knowing that they were most likely safe. When Andi didn't meet up with Simon and Saya later, they would come looking and find their stuff still in place. However, she hurried to grab her own belongings—those would not be here when they came. She finished up a couple of more things, a few more unintentional tears falling. She wiped them away angrily before she left.

Leaving her hotel room, she stared at Abaddon expectantly. "Well, lead the way." He smiled wickedly at her and turned to leave. "Wait," she called out, stopping him in his tracks. "If you even think about touching me, I won't hesitate to castrate you."

He laughed loudly, startling the blonde a bit. "I'd love to see you try."

Simon and Saya leaned against his mustang outside of Big Top Big Top. The others—newly patched-up—were sitting in the other vehicle, waiting to begin the long ride back to King's Dominion.

The Londoner was growing antsy though. Andi should've been down from the rooms already and she wasn't. He raked a hand through his hair, pushed off the car, and started to pace. Saya followed him with her dark eyes.

"Dude, calm down. I'm sure she's fine," the Kuroki girl tried to assure him, yet he could hear the slight waver in her voice. She was lying to herself as well as him.

"I'm freaking out. I've never seen her that upset," he hissed under his breath so that only she could hear him. Shooting a look toward Maria and Marcus, he shook his head, his fists clenching involuntarily. Sure, Simon was hurt too. He had feelings for Maria longer than Andi had feelings for Marcus, and lately, it finally felt like the Latina was returning them. But, he couldn't even dwell on his own heartache, as his concern for Andi trumped all of it.

The girl was more closed off than anyone else he knew at King's and two of the people closest to her took her trust and stampeded all over it, crushing the girl. When Andi was upset, she shut down and that was exactly what it looked like she was doing in that alley. Knowing that all of Andi's progress to heal had been destroyed, pissed him off to no ends.

Chico might be dead, but that didn't mean all the Arguello boy's worries were gone. All Simon wanted to do was punch Marcus's teeth in.

And Maria... did she even understand the gravity of what she did? Did she understand that her friendship with Andi was ruined after this? Next to Simon, Maria was the person she trusted the most. The dark-haired beauty knew just as much about Andi's past as Marcus did. How could she do that to her best friend?

Saya had enough with his pacing, pushing off the car and grabbing him by the shoulders. "Stop," she told him. "If you're that worried, just go look for her. She's probably still in the rooms." The tall boy sighed.

"All right," Simon relented. "You take the rest of them and hit the road. I'll be right behind you as soon as I get her." The dark-haired girl nodded, walking toward the convertible packed with teenagers.

Simon quickly and cautiously made his way up to the rooms, always looking over his shoulder for a stray police officer from the ongoing investigation or other threats.

When he got to Marcus and Billy's old room, he saw the familiar destruction, the walls ripped to shreds and the furniture wrecked. However, the absence of their bags was obvious, with little evidence that there had been anyone staying in the room aside from the damage.

She must have finished everything she needed to do here.

The Aster boy hurried to his and Willie's room next. Quickly, he located their bags resting on their respective beds. They hadn't even unpacked anything after they checked it, their first course of action had been going to the liquor store. A trip that had gone south quickly after Andi's episode.

He remembered how he held Andi as she cried in the middle of the sidewalk. She was going on and on about Abaddon haunting her and how he was there in the store. Simon had dismissed it as a hallucination at the time, but what if—

He barged out of his room and forced his way into the room next door—Andi, Saya, and Maria's room. Two bags were sitting by the door—Marcus's and Billy's—while the others were neat arranged on one bed, but there was still one missing. A small slip of paper rested beside the bags on the bed.

I can't go back. Not now.

- A

"No. No, no, no," Simon repeated, reading the note over and over. "Fuck!" he shouted. Clenching the paper in his hand, he raised his hands to his head and looked around frantically for any other sign of the blonde girl. Stuffing the note in his pocket, he grabbed all the bags and took off back to where his car was parked.

Tossing the bags on the sidewalk, he opened his trunk to stuff them inside and did so quickly. "Shit, shit, shit," he muttered to himself. Slamming the trunk shut, he yanked open the driver's side door and practically leaped into the seat.

Keys in the ignition, he was about to put the car in drive when he heard a familiar click and a pressure toward the backside of his head. The cool, metal barrel of a handgun pressed against his short, brown hair. Fuck, he thought. I forgot to check the fucking backseat.

His brown eyes shifted to look in the rearview mirror at his assailant. His breath skipped at the platinum blonde hair, for a split second hoping that it was Andi. But, he quickly scolded himself for getting his hopes up, also not believing that his friend would hold a gun to him like that. No, the woman in his backseat was older than the blonde he knew. This woman was middle-aged, her hair cut into a harsh bob, although her blue eyes were similar to his friend's.

There was only one explanation for who this woman could be. The Aster boy recalled her photos from information he'd come across in the past. He gulped, knowing how unpredictable and dangerous she was.

"Hello, Ms. Broughton," he greeted calmly.

Lorraine smiled, mockingly kind for someone holding a gun to him. "Hello, Simon."

So this is really short, but it's kind of a wrap up from the last chapter and an introduction into the next chapter. Overall, in my opinion, a filler but necessary.

The next chapter is the last one for part one!

It'll set up a big part of Andi's individual storyline going forward. After the next chapter comes out, I'll be giving an update on when to expect part two.

Sorry for the delay on this chapter, I was having some writer's block on top of being sick. Hope it doesn't suck! Enjoy!