Chapter Seven: Do You Know I Die?

"Ellie." Emma began, sitting on the side of her friend's bed and waiting for to wake up.

"Yeah?" She mumbled, still out of it.

"Why did you stand me up for Craig? I thought we were friends. Huh?" Emma wrapped her arms around Ellie's neck, choking her.

"Em-Emma." Ellie choked out, unable to believe that they were going through this again.

"Did you sleep with him? You did, didn't you? I can tell … you're glowing." Emma declared, still choking her friend. "You liked it didn't you? I can tell. You're such a slut." Emma eased up a little.

"I didn't do anything. All we did was kiss." Ellie promised calmly. She knew that Emma would never kill her and that if she even tried, the police would have her in a few seconds. "You don't have the guts to." She challenged as Emma let go.

"You're right. But I did do some investigating of my own." Emma smiled. "Are you sure you know enough about Craig Manning?" She turned on Ellie's computer.

"What did you do?" Ellie sat up suddenly.

"It's not about what I did, but what your little boyfriend did." Emma placed the disk into the computer, leaving it up to Ellie as to whether she would watch it or not. "See you."

Ellie played the floppy disk, unprepared to watch an intense sex scene between Emma and Craig. "No." She whispered to herself, trying not to cry. This couldn't be true. Craig wouldn't do this to—ring. The telephone.

"Now you'll see who your real friends are. I'd never do that to you." Emma's voice vowed on the other line. "I hope you're not mad, but I had to do it. Craig's not good enough for you. He was only using you for one thing. I would never let anyone hurt you and … he's not good enough for you Elle. He's just like your mother and everyone else who just uses you and blows you off. I'm the only one who really cares about you. You're amazing." Emma professed as Ellie looked out of her window. Emma was watching from her car.

"Whatever." Ellie mumbled, closing the window and closing the blind.

Emma quietly cursed herself. This was not how she thought it was going to go. Ellie didn't even let her finish telling her about how she felt. "Just hear me out." She continued. "Word is that Kendra is out of her coma and … we've got to fix that before we …"

"I don't want to anymore." Ellie admitted, opening up her favorite digital picture of her and Emma, erasing it. It was over.

"But we have to. We made a pact. I'll take care of Kendra and I'll meet you … you know where on Friday at seven, okay?" Emma asked as Ellie nodded. She knew what had to be done here.


"Kendra Mason. I'm detective Romalotti and I'm here to ask you a few questions." Manny pressed even though Kendra looked far from one hundred percent.

"Okay … How's Sean?" She asked, confused. No one had given Kendra a straight answer on anything yet.

"Why don't you tell me what you remember and then I'll fill in the rest, okay?" Evan offered.

"If you tell me about Sean." Kendra promised.

"We will." Evan nodded, pressing play on his hidden tape recorder and pulling out a note pad.

"So what were you doing the night of January 31st?" Mandy wondered as Kendra spewed out everything she remembered—from the break-in, to almost saving Sean, and later coming face to face two attackers.

"Were they female?" Evan asked, still taking notes. This wasn't looking as good as he had hoped.

"Both of them. They were small too, skinny I mean, but they had a lot of strength." Kendra struggled to say, coughing suddenly.

"Are you okay?" Mandy wondered, handing her some water.

"Yeah. Anymore questions?" Kendra responded, wanting to get this over. Whoever did this to her and Sean were going to pay for it.

"Do you have any clues who would've done it? Any of Sean's ex-girlfriends have anything against him?" Mandy looked suddenly interested.

"Well, Sean hasn't had too many girlfriends. He went out with Amy, who doesn't even go to Degrassi, Emma Nelson for a little the year before last, and Ellie Nash last year, before he ran off to Wasaga Beach."

"Wasaga Beach?" Mandy began to take over the investigation as Evan sat quietly.

"Yeah. His parents live there and he needed to get away from everything after the shooting—you heard about that no doubt … Sean struggled with the fact that he killed Rick for a while, but it was all to save Emma." Kendra looked down sadly. "I've told you all that I know, so where's Sean? What does he know?" Mandy and Evan looked at each other, trying to think of how to break this to her.

"Kendra Mason." The nurse began, interrupting the questioning. "You have a visitor." Emma appeared behind her with flowers again, and a smile.

"What are you doing here?" Kendra sat up, suspicious.

"Can we have a little privacy here?" Emma asked as the detectives nodded, Evan purposely leaving his tape recorder on in its hidden location.

"We're just leaving our things in here. You have five minutes." Mandy declared, looking at Evan. He had gotten the hint. The tape recorder wasn't in his hands.

"So, what do you want Emma?" Kendra repeated.

"I'm really sorry about what happened to you … and Sean." She whispered with fake sympathy.

"What happened to Sean? Is he all right?" Kendra's eyes darted around the room nervously as Emma started looking around, stopping at the tubes that Kendra was hooked up to and completely dependent upon to live. If she unplugged them, the detectives would be right out there and catch her, but … if she slipped this into the tube, it would work slowly and no one would have any trace of what had happened. Emma made a small slit in the liquid pack and smiled. Ellie was a genius, coming up with this chemical.

"Sean's dead." Emma sighed, forcing her eyes to tear up as she cried. Emma quickly slipped the chemical into Kendra's life pack, then rushed over to hug Kendra and consol her.

"How?"

"A fire." Emma muttered, running her hands through Kendra's wild hair.

"Fire?" Kendra looked up abruptly as some other images started to come to mind … she had been hit once, no twice and Sean attacked the attackers. One took off their mask—she gasped. It couldn't be Emma. She was imagining things … filling in the blanks to help her remember. "Emma." Kendra whispered, feeling weak all-of-a-sudden. "I'm tired." Emma nodded as if she understood, leaving the flowers on the dresser and letting the detectives back in.

"A fire." Kendra whispered again, able to feel the fire on her skin … how hot and stuffy it was. "Sean … no …" Kendra continued to yell out random things including references to two of Sean's three other girlfriends.

"Oh my God. She's burning up." Mandy noted as the doctors were called in and the detectives were whisked away. Kendra was doing worse than before and things began to look grim.


"What the hell is this?" Ellie threw the disk at Craig the next day she saw him in the hallway.

"A floppy disk." He answered, confused., picking it up.

"Wrong answer asshole. How could you sleep with her? What were you thinking? Didn't you learn anything from your relationship with Ashley!" Ellie yelled as Craig took her by the arm and pulled her into a corner where no one else could hear what she was saying.

"Ellie have you lost it? I don't get it. We had such a good time Friday night." Craig said as Ellie looked away from him, disinterested.

"You slept with Emma. You whore." Ellie pushed past his shoulder, beginning to walk away.

"Emma … I …" Craig's voice trailed off. He could barely remember what happened last weekend after Ellie.

"At least you took care of that." Emma smiled, walking close to Ellie, but not so close that people would think they were chummy.

"That goes for you too. Stay away from me slut." Ellie's steps became heavier, a symbol for her anger and nearness to an emotional break-down.

"Ellie, you still aren't mad at that, are you?" She followed her to the woods behind the school.

"No, I thank you for being such a great friend and taking care of things. I really appreciate you fucking the only guy I give a shit about right now." Ellie admitted as Emma walked backwards as if she had been slapped.

"You actually care about that dickhead? Come on Elle. I'm you're only real friend. The only one who car—"

"Save it." Ellie backed away slowly, unable to take this anymore. She would be glad when all of this would be over, so she wouldn't have to face either one of them anymore.

(A/N: I have two more chapters until I'm done ... actually I only have to write one more now. I hope you like and keep commenting. Thanks so much for supporting this fiction! --NL)