A/N: Yippee, another chapter.

I wrote this in a flurry of inspo so I hope it's good.

Thank you to Kitkatkatester, TDfan12, , and the five guests for reviewing the last chapter. :)

Enjoy!

Mike was back in school the following week, surprisingly normal and friendly considering how shut off he'd been the week before. He'd handed in the missed work all completed, albeit with a few slight noticeable switches in handwriting styles here and there. He avoided people whom he'd been told had given him a hard time last week, but overall things were going well for now.

Zoey was waiting for the right time to approach him about the note, but it didn't come until school was already let out.

She still had more obstacles to get through beforehand, however.

She felt a grimy hand grab her arm as she finished descending a stairwell and pull her forcibly to the area under said stairs, almost causing her to trip. Catching her breath in her throat, she blinked and saw Scott looking straight at her with wide eyes. "Wh-what the heck, Scott, you can't just grab someone out of nowhere like that-!" she started to protest.

"Shut it! This'll be quick, I promise," he replied in his usually snivelly voice with some urgency mixed in. "You're close with the new class freak show, right?" One of his hands had a notable new reddened line crossing over the knuckles, stark against his pale skin and contrasting other, more faded lines on his fingers. "Mike or Sva-something or whatever it is, I can't keep track."

Zoey frowned. "He's not a freak show. And we're not close, I just have classes with him." She wanted to be better friends with Mike. Scott didn't need to know that.

"Eh, you're the only person I seen 'em with outside class stuff. And," Scott admitted, "you saw what that sicko did to me." He removed his hand from her arm and held it up for emphasis.

"Tch…I didn't see anything. You probably instigated something like you always do," Zoey retorted, recalling oh so many instances of seeing him carted off to the principal for causing problems, calling her and other people rude or inappropriate things, and yanked away from the school by his red-faced mother in her frumpy old dresses she'd always worn while she yelled at him in a hefty accent.

Scott smirked. "That's besides the point, neighbor. I'm doing you a favor here by telling you to steer clear." He didn't deny what she'd said at all. "Wouldn't want your little pretty face getting messed up." He moved his hand to graze her cheek but she slapped it away.

"Whatever you're trying to say, I'm not buying it, and I need to get home," she said finally, turning to leave the stairwell.

I know he wouldn't hurt me. He's proven that before…at least, Mike has. When he's himself.

Scott frowned deeply, starting to follow her. "I'm not sayin' this stuff for nothin', Zoey. He's got a devil inside him, as my Pappy, may he rest in dirt, would've said. Me and you known each other forever, I trust you to know this too." He pulled up the strap of his oversized, slightly hole-spotted tank top to keep it from falling down his shoulder. "We're friends enough, right?"

Zoey looked over her shoulder and glared at him. "You and I are not friends. I barely know anything about you, other than you've been nothing but unpleasant since we were kids." She kept walking towards the exit of the school, hoping to lose him in the shuffle of other students heading out for the day.

"At least you know I'm me, always will be! And not some crazed lunatic pretending to be a foreigner girl!" Scott called to her after he stopped pursuing. "Don't trust that demon!"

Zoey looped around to her locker and took several breaths to calm herself. He's not like that. He's not a bad guy.

She chose to believe what little she understood, rather than consider asking further about what happened that day in that dark classroom. She barely knew a thing about Mike either; unlike with Scott, though, that only made her want to learn more.

It was at this point that she spotted him down the hall, shuffling through his own locker. He looked a bit distracted, staring down at a folder in his hand for a minute straight before blinking and putting it in his bag.

She had kept the note in her pocket and pulled it out as she approached him. "Hey, Mike?" she phrased her greeting as a question, double checking it was him.

Mike was slow to process the words being said to him but looked down from his much taller height. "Hm?" His eyes were half-closed and blinking periodically. "Hello," he replied quietly.

"Uh…I got your note," Zoey said awkwardly, unsure what was up with him at this moment. It was him, for sure.

Mike was silent in this state for a couple minutes before he came back around. Embarrassed, he looked away. "Sorry, can we…start that again?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "I lost track of things for a second."

Zoey raised an eyebrow but nodded. "I said I got your note the other day…I would like to catch up some time, if you still wanted to do that," she explained. "It's…been hard to find a good time to talk, huh?"

"Yeah, seriously," Mike agreed, looking more with it now that…whatever had just happened was over. "I would like that too. I don't remember a lot from before I moved away from here, but I did remember you." He smiled lightly.

Zoey's face suddenly felt warmer upon hearing that. "S-so are you doing anything after school because we could talk right now-" she asked nervously.

"Sure, we can talk now," he replied calmly. "I have to wait for my ride home for another hour, anyway."

So he didn't drive. "Oh. Um, I have my own car, we could…if it's alright with you I could maybe drive…somewhere?" Zoey suggested. What is up with you, you never do this around guys. Get a grip.

She shouldn't have been so surprised when he said yes.

Oh no not slow burning, one sided romantic interest again-

Please let me know any thoughts on the chapter. :)

If you're looking for something else of mine to read, I soft-completed A Merchant Stumbles into an Inn a few months ago. For MCS readers that are still waiting for chapter 67(I am so writers blocked on that for some reason) I actually rewrote the first three chapters so if you haven't already, I suggest reading those.

I did get a start on the next chapter of this story but no promises on when it'll be finished.

See ya next time *opens portal and jumps through*