Disclaimer: Still, I don't own WB, and if I did own that TV network, I would own Everwood, the show that is. But anyhoo, sorry for the long delay on the updating. My parents went to Hawaii Saturday morning without me and I have a sitter at my house for my little sis. But thanks for your patience, and your reward is: a new chapter!! Don't you feel lucky?

Chapter 7

POV-EPHRAM

I sighed as I looked out the window. I looked at the girl next to me that was NOT Karin. Karin had said that she knew a short cut to our surprise destination and said she'd drive. I tried to find out where we were going, but no one would tell me. I sighed again and started tapping my fingers against the window.

"Whoa, Karin. This is the industrial area here. No one lives out here." The girl next to me said.

"Chill, Rachel. I know exactly what I'm doing, and exactly where I'm going." Karin said, her lips set in a thin line.

"That's what 'they' said before 'it' happened, Karin." Another girl said.

"Shut up about that, Cherri!" Karin yelled to the girl on the opposite side of the car from me.

"What happened?" I asked.

Karin sighed as Cherri said, "A few months ago, a few girls, about five were going through this area and never came back-well, one did."

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Kar-."

"The names are not important, Cherri. If you are going to tell the story, tell what happened actually!" Karin snapped.

Cherri sighed and said, "Well, they were just by that water tower up there when their car broke down. The girl in the driver's seat got out to check the works under the hood. Another girl left to use her cell phone to call the tow truck. She didn't come back. Another girl left the car to find her. She didn't come back either."

"How many girls did I say?" Cherri paused to ask.

"Three, including Kar-the girl looking under the hood." Rachel answered.

I looked up at Karin and saw her lips still set in a thin line. I furrowed my brow as Cherri corrected herself, almost saying the name of the girl. Every time someone got close to almost saying the name, I thought of Karin. I tried to shrug it off, but found no avail and looked at the floor.

"Alright, uhm..oh yeah. The two girls remaining in the car were getting nervous and decided to look for them. So they slipped out of the car and went in the direction the other girls had gone in. They didn't come back either. The, uh-first girl waited, and when no one came back, she went to try to find the other girls." Here, Cherri paused to take a breath. Her blonde hair fell from behind her ears and she also stopped to put it up in a ponytail.

"But anyhoo, when the girl walked to the area that the other girls had been at, she screamed. There, she saw her friend's bodies on the ground-dead. She looked around and heard a twig crack in front of her. She turned and ran towards the car. She jumped in and slammed her door. She felt for the keys in the ignition and cranked it up hurriedly. At first, the engine wouldn't start, so she kept trying and eventually, right when the attacker of her friends was at the car door and reaching to open her door, it cranked up and she drove off in fear." Cherri said.

I looked at the girl beside me as she shivered in slight fear. I looked up at Karin, and a small amount of fear was in her eyes as well. Delilah kept glancing around hurriedly, as if searching for something. The girl in the middle was in a daze as she envisioned it all happening, supposedly, and the fourth girl in the back seat was fidgeting with something in her purse, acting as though she hadn't heard the story. I looked up at Karin again sadly.

'Ordinary stories like this wouldn't scare her, I bet. I wonder why she looks scared at something like this.' I thought to myself.

I shivered as we passed the water tower. I unconsciously looked to the left, out of my window, and had an overwhelming feeling of sadness for those girls that had so tenderly died in this area. Little did I know that I was looking directly at the same spot they had been before their bodies had been removed. I shuddered at the whole thought of this. It was an odd thought, but maybe it was Karin that was the girl who lived through this since she seemed so touchy on the whole matter.

POV CHANGE-KARIN

I mumbled to myself as she finally drove out of the industrial area. I slowed the car down as I turned on Main Street and then took a left into the residential area. Surprisingly, a smile crossed my lips as I saw the house at the end of the block with the lights on and people in the yard. I drove slower down the lane as a tried to see if anyone was in the road. I could feel Delilah boring a hole into my skull with her eyes as I kept driving slower until we were just coasting down the road. I came to a halt in front of the house that was my destination and took the keys from the ignition then handed them to Delilah with an ever-growing smirk on my face.

"A party? The secret destination is a party?" I heard Ephram ask.

"Yup." I said happily.

Ephram looked up at me questioningly. I smiled back at him reassuringly and jumped out of Delilah's car. Rachel, Lucy, Cherri, and Delilah all followed suit. I watched Ephram as he hesitated a moment then jumped out with a smile on his face. He walked up to me and we walked into my friend's house together. Inside was where the real party was happily carrying on.

"Ephram, if anyone offers you a drink, don't take it. If you get thirsty, go to the punch bowl and get the water only." I cautioned my date.

"Why?" He questioned.

"The punch is most probably spiked." I said, lowering my voice.

Ephram nodded in acknowledgement slowly and immediately took heed of my advice when some punch was offered to him.

"Oh, Ephram, can you drive?" I asked suddenly as I slowly sipped my cup of punch.

"A little bit." He said slowly.

"Okay, then I won't drink too much punch tonight then." I said and walked around to the living room to find the host.

"Hey Julie!" I called to my friend.

"Hey, Karin, long time no see! I thought you weren't coming!" She said to me and gave me a friendly embrace.

"Well, I decided to ditch the movies and get a ride with Del and the crew. And, I brought a friend along with me." I said and motioned to Ephram.

"Hi, I'm Julie, one of Karin's friends. You are-?" "Ephram." He said.

Julie shook hands with Ephram heartily and smiled. She then bent towards me and whispered something in my ear.

"Two things, Karin. One, he's a nice looking guy, where'd you pick him up? And two, watch out because John is here." She whispered.

My face paled as I heard her say the name John and asked, "John? My John?"

Julie nodded sadly, but then acted as if nothing was wrong again. She repeated her first question and I answered it by saying that he was my employer's son and his father was my uncle's co-worker. I also added the fact that since today was my birthday that he had decided to take me to the movies but we ditched it and came here.

"Oh, your employer's son." Julie said meticulously. She leaned in by my ear again and whispered, "Do you like him?"

My face turned a deep shade of red as I thought of my answer. I cleared my throat and said, "He's a cool guy."

"That isn't what I meant, Karin, and you know it." Julie whispered.

I grinned and said, "What us tonight and you'll find out, Julie, my friend."

Then I turned and laced my fingers around Ephram's, still holding my spiked punch. I grinned as I felt Julie smiling at me slightly. I turned and grinned back at her with a wink that said, 'How do you like me now?' She laughed and waved me off with her hands. Ephram and I slipped undetected onto the balcony, which was conveniently empty right now.

As I looked over the beach below us, I said, "This is why I love Julie's house. It's right over the lake. It's a perfect view of everything."

POV CHANGE-EPHRAM

I grinned as I heard Karin talking to her friends around us. I didn't know how social she could be around other people. As I watched her, I saw her face pale suddenly as she looked in a far corner of the room. "What?" I asked her.

"Nothing." She said as she quickly laced her fingers around mine and pulled me out to the balcony with a few words back to her friend Julie.

I was hardly listening when I heard Karin talking about something. I heard it was about the lake beneath us, but I didn't know exactly what she said. I sighed as I zoned out to my surroundings slowly. I wondered what had made Karin act as she did. She normally didn't just run away from a room full of people from what I knew of her.

"Ephram!" I suddenly heard Karin yelling to me.

"Yes?" I jumped slightly upon her yelling.

"What do you think?" She asked, gesturing her arm over the lake.

"Oh, uh."

"You weren't listening, were you?" She said, a cheeky grin on her face.

Karin started laughing and said between giggles, "I asked what you thought of the landscape here. The lakes, the tree, everything."

"Oh, I like them." I said lightly and noticed a small amount of moonlight shining down on her face, making her look light she was glowing.

"What?" She asked me as she soon found that I was staring at her.

"Nothing. It's just how the moon is giving its light off, it's shining on you so it looks like you're glowing." I told her.

Karin's face turned a light shade of carnation pink as I said that. A smile became apparent on Karin's lips as a silence lingered between us. I didn't realize that I was slowly inching my way closer to her. When we were just about to kiss, some other people came out, yelling about something. I sighed and lay my head back on my shoulders. I looked at Karin and noticed that the light from the moon wasn't shining on her, yet it was still in its previous place when it was.

"Come on, let's go inside." She said slyly.

I followed her inside to a corner of the room that was preoccupied by someone quite familiar, but I couldn't remember who it was. Karin just waltzed up to him and whispered something to him. I felt a pang of jealousy slightly as Karin kept whispering things to him. The boy's face looked red from either embarrassment or anger, which of the two, I couldn't tell. He stood up from the wall and pulled me by my shirt collar out to the front lawn.

"John, no!" I heard Karin yell as she did her best to run in her high- heeled shoes.

"I told you before, Karin, what would happen if I saw you two hanging out again." He yelled back to her.

"You cannot control my life as you control Todd's, John. Now stop it before-"

"Before you call the cops? If you do that, this entire party will be ruined. It'll be your fault, too, Karin. So don't you think of it."

Karin glared at him as the guy that had me by my shirt was staring back at her. He failed to notice that she was reaching into her skirt pocket for her cell phone, or did he? His hand sprung out and grabbed her wrist suddenly.

"I told you to not even think of that, Karin." He told her as he wrenched her hand from her pocket.

Now, he turned his attention towards me. His face was quite disheveled from the raging anger boiling his blood. He suddenly pulled his fist back at me. I shut my eyes, preparing for the worst.