A/N: I finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince the day I got it, and it was so good. This won't really give anything away, but I just want you all to notice (when you're done with the book) that my Drakey-poo does have a heart. Don't worry, this shouldn't spoil anything.
CHAPTER 4: Louis Frunge
Hermione stared at her ceiling, trying as hard as she could to not look at the letter lying on her stomach. But occasionally she snuck glances at it anyways, and was forced to stifle her wails in a pillow. She couldn't believe it. Her, torture someone? She wasn't sure she could do it. Slowly, she rose from the bed, rummaging through her book bag for a quill and piece of parchment.
Father, I have misgivings about this. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do it. I don't know anything about doing what you have asked of me. I suppose I could do it on the second Friday of next month, maybe the first Friday. But I'll need help getting prepared for it. Please tell me what I'll be doing.
Sincerely,
Your daughter
She looked it over. Her letters were shaky, and the parchment was a little rumpled, but it was readable. She put it in an envelope and went, for the second time that day, to the owlry, finding a sturdy bird to carry it for her. She wandered aimlessly through the halls, not quite believing what had just been asked of her. She bumped into people, who looked at her funny at her listless apology.
Slowly, she made her way to the room of requirement. She was unsure of what she wanted, but she did as Harry had once instructed her, thinking, I need somewhere to rest, relax, and forget, I need somewhere to rest, relax, and forget, I need somewhere to rest, relax and forget. Before long, it became her mantra, and she forgot what she was doing. The sound of people talking echoed down the corridor, and she realized what she was doing, quickly slipping into the door that had appeared. She closed it with a snap and locked it behind her to find a bathroom much like the prefect's baths. She grinned, and quite agreed with the room that a relaxing bath would help her.
Unhurriedly, she stripped off her clothing, folding it some way from the pool. Remembering her hair, she reversed the charm that had held it in curled perfection, realizing she would just have to deal with the red streaks until she could finally get that magazine again and remove them. Smiling, she found the correct faucet, filling the bath with mint-scented foam, and then added rosemary-scented bubbles to the mix. The room smelled delightfully rich now, and Hermione settled herself into the tub, her hair fanning out around her. Drowsily, she looked at it, and thought that she rather liked the streaks.
Hermione let the steam curl around her, and relaxed for the first time in nearly a week. She pushed thoughts of the upcoming torture away with little effort, it being easily forgotten amid the bubbles and foam she rested in.
Draco got up from where he lounged across two desks. He'd been staring at the ceiling this whole time, seeing written upon it his thoughts and worries. He stretched languorously, like a cat, thinking he could do with a bath right then. His muscles were aching from where they had rested across two desks, and he looked around the room, stifling a laugh. All the other desks were dirty, he'd cleaned these two before laying on them, and in comparison to the others, it looked quite funny, as they were all dirty with vacancy, and only these two stood out clean. He left the room.
He wandered through the halls, thinking which prefect's bathroom to use. But he wanted to be more alone than a prefect's bath. Sure, he could lock the door, but even so, he wanted somewhere that was personal to him, not where someone else could go. His owl came to him as he turned down a corridor, handing him a letter. Stopping to read it, he realized he was in front of the room of requirement. He smirked, this would do perfectly.
Pacing back and forth, he thought, I need a bath, I need a bath, I need a bath. Looking up, a door was now on the wall, and he grinned, turning the knob. It was locked! Confused, he pulled out his wand, "Alohomora," he murmured. He heard the click of a lock, and opened the door. He closed it behind him, and relocked it, wondering why it had been locked in the first place. A shrill cry of surprise made him turn around. There was a small splash as someone went underwater, and he watched as a line of foam and bubbles in the bath rose as someone let out a breath underwater. Wondering, he looked around, finding clothes some way away from the tub, and a wand near the edge.
A head popped up next to the wand, reaching for it frantically only to make it roll across the floor out of her reach. He recognized the streaked hair, and his mouth dropped. Of all the people he could have walked in on, it had to be her. "Malfoy, turn around now before I hex you to next month."
He smirked, "Sorry, I don't take orders from anyone but my master," he said, giving her a mocking bow and raising the sleeve on his left arm. He ignored the scrape of pain as the sleeve rubbed across his new Dark Mark. Her jaw dropped, not at the Mark, but at his words.
"Malfoy, if you don't turn around now, I'll tell him, and he'll—"
He cut her off. "You'll tell him what? That the big, bad, Draco happened to walk in on you while you were bathing? What's he gonna do to me? Tell me off for coming into a room no one is supposed to know about and that I didn't expect you in?"
She gave a low growl, and he knew he was proceeding into dangerous territory. But he was having too much fun to back down now. "Malfoy, turn around!" she snarled desperately. He just gave her his smirk, loving how her jaw dropped and her eyes blazed. With a snarl of annoyance, she ducked underwater, coming back up with her hair over her shoulders, and heaved herself up onto the side of the pool, snatching up her wand. Her hair was just long enough to cover most of her chest, and what it didn't, her arm did, so he didn't manage to see anything but her side and back.
Giving him a smirk of superiority, she aimed her wand at him. Muttering something under her breath, he quickly said, "Protego!" Her jinx bounced off his shield, and it dissolved, but before he could replace it, one of her other jinxes slipped through. Immediately, his feet dropped from under him as he crashed to the floor, laughing hysterically. She'd hit him with a Tickling Charm. Caught up with his laughter, he didn't manage to procure a shield in time for her to cast a Bubblehead Charm on him. The Tickling Charm disappeared immediately.
"Petrificus Totalus," he heard this time, and he went board-stiff and fell the rest of the way to the floor. "Accio wand," she said, and his wand flew to her. She placed it on the edge of the tub. "Locomotor," she murmured, and he was directed into the tub by her wand. Panicking, he went under the surface of the water only to notice that he could breathe. Clearly that was what the Bubblehead Charm had been for earlier. He was unable to hear what she said next, but the surface of the water seemed to become hard (the ripples that he had made getting in the water had gone suddenly, which was why he assumed this), and the water turned very cold.
He hung there for a good five minutes, forcing himself to be calm. Being trapped under the water, only being sustained by a Bubblehead Charm was not the most comforting thing, and while he wasn't normally prone to it, he was getting rather claustrophobic. But then the water warmed, and he was being lifted again to the surface. Granger stood calmly at the edge, fully clothed but for her robe, and her hair dripped water on her clothes. Clearly, she'd brushed it, and it hung in a straight, shining curtain around her. She didn't look too bad when her hair wasn't bushy. She directed him to the edge of the pool with her wand, undoing all of her charms, and without another word, headed to the door.
"Wait," he said, surprising himself. She turned to face him, raising her eyebrows as a question. He didn't know what to say now. The words came hard at his throat, but he choked them down, refusing to apologize. "I…er…" his words died in his throat. She looked away, but she didn't look like she was going to leave.
"They want me to torture someone," she whispered, looking distantly at something only she could see. He looked at her, and then he understood.
"Is that what the meeting is for?" he asked.
"Meeting?" she asked, "When?"
"In two weeks. And at my Manor again, I think." He reached into his pocket and a look of disgust crossed his features as he pulled out the letter his owl had delivered to him. He threw the wad of paper down onto the floor with a squelching sound, and realized he was still dripping wet. Sneering, he peeled off his robe, and then, with a glance at Granger, took off his shirt too.
He hung his clothes on a hook, taking off his shoes and socks as well. He hesitated, then took off his pants too, transfiguring his boxers into swim trunks. He turned back to Granger to see she'd turned her back to give him some privacy. Draco snorted. "My clothes had better be dry by the time I'm done swimming," he said.
Granger turned back to him, looking affronted. "No," she said defiantly, "I'm not your servant."
"Yes, but, see, you're the fault my clothes are wet in the first place."
"No, it's your fault," she argued. "If you'd just turned your back when I asked you to, I wouldn't have needed to trap you in the pool."
He opened his mouth to retort, but couldn't seem to come up with something to say. Sniffing, he dove into the pool, getting lost under the foam and bubbles Granger had put there. He began to swim laps in the huge tub, knowing that Granger watched his every move. Pausing on the edge, he asked her, "Why don't you have the Dark Mark?"
Looking confused, she said, "I do."
He looked down at her unfettered left arm. "No, you don't." She followed his gaze, then let out surprised laughter.
"It's on my back." He was astonished, having never heard of such a thing. He remembered seeing a little black something on her shoulder when she'd lunged out of the pool to get her wand.
"On your shoulder?" Draco asked dubiously. It had been pretty small. She shook her head, then came over to where he held onto the edge of the pool, and turned around, pulling up the back of her shirt a little. He levered himself up out of the water a little to examine it. There it was, a miniature version of the Dark Mark that was etched into his arm. He lowered himself back into the water.
"Then what was that on your shoulder?" he asked. He knew he had seen something there.
"That's just my tattoo," she said, not meeting his eyes.
"What's it of?" he asked.
"A star," she said, looking oddly grim. "And if you tell anyone about that, I'll hex you so badly you'll wish you'd never said anything. Maybe I'll just leave you wandless with a Bubblehead Charm under the frozen surface of a pool," she said cruelly.
His eyes widened. She had frozen the top of the pool? "You froze the pool with me under the water?" he stammered, stunned.
She looked at him guiltily, "Yes, but it was only the top six inches or so."
"Only…" he repeated, looking out at the water. He felt rather sick now, and had no more desire to swim. Draco pulled himself from the water, suddenly shivering.
"I wouldn't have left you there, you know," she said from right behind him. He jumped slightly at how close she was. He was scared of her now, and as usual, lashed out in anger
"Yeah, wouldn't have left me there unless I told someone about your tattoo. Or would you have done something else to me, Granger? Maybe left me under the water able to use my limbs, to see and feel the cage you'd trapped me in, able to swim around in that water. Or would you have made it so cold that I would be forced to swim, to prevent hypothermia and the complete breakdown of my own body, and sat there, watching my dark shadow move under the ice until I grew too tired to live anymore and died there, and laughed at me. Or would you just conveniently forget the Bubblehead Charm, leaving me there to drown, my fingers scrabbling at the ice, my lungs heaving for air. Yeah, you wouldn't have left me there. Not this time, but next time, maybe?" He sneered at her, at the stricken expression on her face, and knew he'd gone too far. Draco chided himself for taking out his fear at her thusly.
"Granger, look," he said, seeking to amend what he'd just done. But before he could get any further, she burst into tears, sinking down to the ground. By Merlin's beard, he thought, what have I done? "Granger?"
"Go away, Mal-Malfoy," she stuttered, "I don't w-want to talk to you," the last word came out a keening wail, and he flinched.
"No," he said fiercely, shocking her into looking up at him. "I'm going to apologize for what I've just done to you, and if I'm going to do that, you're damn well going to hear me out, because I don't apologize very often. And besides, I'm not going to leave you alone like this."
They sat in silence for some time, and she drew her knees up to her chest, tucking her head in between the two. "Do you really think I'm that heartless?" she asked softly. It was only because the room was utterly silent that he heard her at all. Draco's expression softened, and he hunkered down next to her.
"No, I don't. That's why I needed to apologize. I'm sorry," the words sounded odd to his ears. "I only said that stuff because…" he trailed off. He didn't want her to know he'd been scared of her. He had never heard of a charm powerful enough to freeze six inches of water in a matter of half a minute. That was why he was scared.
"Because you were scared," she finished for him. His head snapped up to look at her. How had she known…? No matter. She knew, and that was that. "I know that expression. I've seen it too many times myself."
"I've never tortured someone," she said, pulling her head up and looking straight ahead. "And what you said I might do to you sounded one hell of a lot like torture to me. But I didn't think…I don't…" a tear slipped down her cheek, and he felt just as miserable as she did, he was sure of it. He wanted to brush away that tear, make it all better. But they weren't even friends. He kept his hands firmly on the ground for support, only then realizing he was still only in his transfigured swim trunks. He blushed slightly, but made no move to get up from where he crouched at her side.
"I wouldn't have forgotten you," she said fiercely. "Never. No matter if I hated you more than anyone else in the world, I wouldn't have forgotten you. Never." Another tear slipped down her cheek, and his hand jerked up and was halfway there before he realized it. Unable to turn the gesture into something else, he laid his hand on her shoulder.
"I know," he murmured comfortingly. "I know." But it didn't help. She burst into tears again, and instinctively turned into his touch, crying into his chest. He nearly panicked, having never had to deal with something like this before, but calmed himself down. Her tears were hot against his bare chest, and before long she pulled away, giving him a watery smile. Her sudden absence was startling, and with a pang he realized that he'd actually liked her being huddled up to his chest.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just…I don't know if I can do it."
Draco stood and walked over to where he'd hung his clothes nearly an hour earlier. They were still very wet. Frowning, he decided to put them on anyway and transfigured his swim trunks into the boxers they were originally. He reached for his pants only to find them gone. His shirt and robe too were making their way into Granger's arms. Feeling awkward in only his boxers, he transfigured them back with a sigh and sauntered over to the brunette.
As he neared, she muttered, "Honestly, you're just as hopeless as Harry and Ron." Twisting her wand in a complicated pattern, she began to dry his clothes both deftly and silently. In five minutes, she handed his pants back to him, just as dry as when he'd walked in. He stood and walked behind her, transfiguring his swimsuit into their original shape for the last time that day and pulled on his pants. They were still warm, he noted as he sat down beside her and watched her finish drying his shirt. He pulled it on and she turned to his robe with a frown. "You may want to just get a fresh robe," she advised. "This'll take longer to dry than your other clothes." He eyed it and the way it still dripped water in Granger's lap, even after an hour of drying.
"Yeah. Ah, well. Thank you for drying everything else," he said, and paused. It was his first heartfelt thanks in a long while. "Think you can teach me how though? That looks like a pretty useful spell."
Granger looked at him dubiously, then shrugged. She did the complicated twist in slow motion, and he tried to duplicate it. He failed miserably, though his dysfunctional twist had managed to spray water over the both of them. "I'm not sure how you managed that," she muttered, doing the twist again with her wand and aiming it at all the wet spots on her clothing. She hesitated when she came to him though, and he took off his shirt once again (it had gotten the most of the water), handing it to her. It was dry in about half a minute, and she handed it back to him.
"Do you still want to try?" she said. "It took me nearly an hour to get it right myself, and I'm usually rather adept at spells. Then again," she mused, "I was trying to learn it out of a book, and it wasn't very good with the directions."
"Yes, I want to learn it," Draco said. She did it again, and he followed her movements. He still didn't get it right, but it was closer than before, as it shot out a stream of freezing air. He laughed when he saw that it had frozen some of the water on the floor around him, and Granger chucked too.
"Come on, now, you're closer. But it's more of a flick than a swish," she told him. She demonstrated again, emphasizing on the flick. He followed her movements, but failed miserably, not even able to get a stream of air out of it this time. She bit her lip, then reached over and took his hand and guided it through the movements. Satisfied, she sat back on her heels as a stream of hot air came from the tip. "There, now you do it."
His eyebrows drew together in concentration and he moved his wand as she'd shown him. With a cry of jubilation, he jumped up. He'd gotten it right! She grinned up at him. "Now, do it again just to be sure you have it."
Blushing slightly, he sat down again and did the complicated twist of his wand. He glanced at Granger, and she was positively beaming at his accomplishment. His stomach rumbled, and he caught sight of a clock on the wall, and cursed. Granger's smile slid off her face as she followed his line of sight, jumping up too. She groaned. "We missed another meal." For indeed, it was past the time that dinner was served. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes in frustration. All he'd eaten was what he'd eaten in a competition with her, and some (very little) of his normal breakfast. Together, they headed down to the kitchens once again, to eat a meal that was rathermilder than what they'd eaten that morning.
Hermione was getting nervous. The two weeks that stood between her and torturing someone had passed in a blur of frayed nerves. It had been two weeks since Malfoy had walked in on her in the bathroom, and it was tonight that she was going to torture someone. She'd spent eight nights of the last two weeks with Voldemort, learning legilimency. She'd told him she wasn't sure if she could torture someone, and he'd taught her legilimency. She still didn't quite understand his reasoning, but trusted him (for the most part). And tonight he would be leading her off to torture someone.
Sighing, she looked to her clock. A strand of red hair fell in her way and she brushed it back impatiently. She had decided it was too much trouble to rid herself of the streaks, as Lavender (or Parvati) had found the magazine and taken it back. It was about time to go, so she again donned her black clothes and cloak, sneaking out. Chances of getting caught this time were slim as she was leaving at 11 PM and everyone was (or should be) asleep.
She edged into the common room, ducking into the shadow of an armchair as the last two people set down or packed up what they were doing and left to find their beds. That left only one person in the common room, and his head had fallen into the book he'd been studying and he snored gently. She slipped from the common room.
Prowling the halls, she nearly ran into Professor Flitwick, but managed to slide into an alcove just in time. The rest of the trip was uneventful as she made her way to the Slytherin common room. Delving into memory, she found what she thought was the correct corridor and slid down it.
"Dragonflame," she murmured to a blank expanse of wall. Slowly, it slid open and she slipped inside. There were nearly six people in this common room, even at nearly 11:30 at night. Hermione went to the closest person to her, what looked like a first or second year. "Where's Malfoy?" she asked gruffly.
Looking frightened, the gril pointed to the boy's dormitories. Hermione pulled her hood lower and considered. No, she thought, I don't have time to wait for him. A look at her watch confirmed this. Sighing and preparing a speech to scold him with, she mounted the stairs. Hermione opened the door what a silver plaque claimed was the 6th years' room. It looked much like Harry and Ron's dormitory.
"Malfoy?" she called softly. Someone grunted and rolled over in their bed. She edged over to the nearest bed. Squinting, she read "Crabbe" engraved on the trunk. The bed next to his was probably Goyle's then, unless Malfoy slept between the two. The curtains were parted slightly on the third bed. She peered in cautiously. Blaise Zabini. Hermione crept to the fourth bed. She squinted at the trunk, pleased to see "Malfoy" engraved on it in fancy silver lettering.
Biting her lip, she pulled back the curtain. A hand dropped on her shoulder, and she bit her tongue hard enough to bleed to keep herself from screaming. Slowly, she turned…
It was just Malfoy. "You idiot," she hissed, still tasting blood in her mouth. "You nearly scared me to death." She looked at her watch. 11:41. "And now we're going to be later. You'd damn better be ready to run there."
"We'll ride," Malfoy said, shushing her protests. He grabbed his broom from under his bed and pulled her down the stairs, through the common room. Finally they were out.
"Malfoy, I'm not riding that," she said as they shut the Entrance Hall's doors quietly behind them.
"Yes, you are. It's my fault we're running late, and I'm not going to let you be any later. Hell, if we ride fast enough, we may actually be on time."
"But we can't cut through the Forest on that," Hermione pointed out. Malfoy looked grim as he mounted his broom, but insisted they could. The Forbidden Forest was the only place one could enter or exit Hogwarts grounds without running into Dumbledore's barriers. If they were able to just walk through the gates, their current "tardiness" wouldn't be an issue. Against her will, though she didn't fight it, he pulled her onto the back of his broom.
Suddenly the ground was no longer below her feet. Hermione clamped her jaws shut to not scream, and grabbed Malfoy around the waist with all her might. His breathing whooshed out, but he didn't complain. She closed her eyes tight against the sensation of flying, trying to scoot up as close to Malfoy as she could.
Hermione began to mumble things under her breath at once, "it's okay, you're just running on the ground really fast. It's just like…riding a bike. Your feet don't touch the ground, but you're moving. Yes, yes. You're not flying on a broom at all, and the thing you're clutching in front of you is…just the handlebars, yes. And—" she let out a short shriek as something snagged on her clothes. She opened her eyes. They were going at a breakneck pace through the Forbidden Forest, and Malfoy skillfully dodged trees the whole time, ducking and twisting and…oh, it made her stomach sick. She closed her eyes again and clutched Malfoy even tighter, and she practically felt him clench his teeth at how tight she was holding him.
And then they were stopping. Her feet hit the ground, and she still clung to Malfoy, eyes closed tightly. He let out a breathless laugh, saying, "It's okay, we're there now." She opened one eye warily, then, seeing that they were there, Hermione let go of him and clambered off the broom shakily. She opened her mouth to say something about how she was never going to ride a broom again when a Death Eater arrived with a pop. Like the last Death Eater, he (she?) soundlessly handed them a portkey and they all disappeared before long.
The front hall of Malfoy Manor appeared again. She recognized it from last time, but this time the Death Eater ushered them both down another hall, and Hermione was suddenly very, very frightened. She didn't want to torture someone, she didn't. But then they were in a room that was lined with weapons, and Voldemort was waiting there. She walked over slowly to greet her "father" and he handed her a length of white fabric, instructing her to go into an adjoining room and dress herself in it. As if in a dream, she did as she was told.
When the dress was upon her, she inspected it. It was rather like a wedding dress, and she felt ill at the thought of getting it dirty. It had a full skirt, and a low neckline (she suspected Narcissa had gotten it), and little white straps that crisscrossed all down her back. The bodice had intricate whorls of beading, and the beads gleamed iridescent in the flickering torchlight. She went back into the other room.
She was led down a passageway into a torture chamber. A fully clothed man was strapped down onto one of four stone tables, and the wild look in his eyes was nearly too much to bear. The chamber was filled with Death Eaters, all in black. It felt the same as the ball, as she was the only thing wearing white, and she as the thing that drew all the attention. Voldemort led her over to a weapon's rack, and she picked out several knives, feeling sick to her stomach. She handed her wand to Voldemort, and as she pulled the knives from the rack, he murmured in her ear, "he has raped many girls. And then he kills them. To find out for yourself, use your legilimency." Suddenly it was all clear to her, and she understood.
Hermione turned to the man on the stone table and walked toward him slowly. She set the knives out on the table next to him, and Voldemort handed her wand to her. She looked the man in the eye and murmured, "Legimens," holding her wand in one hand and a knife in the other. She saw a girl, crying in the corner, "No, please, no!" the thought swirled around. A brunette, frightened, peering around the corner, "Oh, Mr. Frunge, it's only you." The brown-haired girl stepped from the corner, and he took her and threw her across the room harshly, falling on top of her to rape her. Her screams echoed in Hermione's ears as she saw another girl, a blonde.
Her hand shook, and through a haze, she saw herself gently send the knife whispering through his shirt, peeling it off of him. She saw his skin, both in his thoughts and from her own eyes, and she began to draw the knife along his arms, making bloody stripes. He screamed, and she grinned wolfishly, concentrating on his thoughts again. The blonde was gone, and this time it was a child, and she knew it to be his own child. He roughly pushed the young girl to the ground, and began to rape her as she cried, "Daddy, no!" and Hermione knew how it ended. It ended with a slit throat and the poor, mangled body of his own child.
She began to absentmindedly draw the Dark Mark along his chest. She delighted in his screams, knowing that he was finally getting what he deserved for raping all those girls. Finished with the Dark Mark, his screams ended, and the steady stream of his memory stopped too. Confused, she looked up. His chest heaved as blood gushed from it, and she said, "Ennervate." He awoke again, looking like he was in pain, and she smirked. Finally, he was paying the retribution for his crimes. She met his eyes, those frightened round eyes, and said, "Legimens" for the second time. Again, she lived his thoughts, with all different girls.
This girl, he had strangled. She drew several deep lines coming out from his navel with her knife. He screamed shrilly, and the sound of it egged her on. Another person he knew, "Louis, no! Please, no, Louis." He had broken this girl's legs so she couldn't get away from him. Hermione felt sick as she drew more deep lines emanating from his navel. Ignoring her beautiful designs, she slashed across his chest at will, making the Dark mark unrecognizable unless under careful scrutiny. And finally, as her stomach threatened to show her the dinner she had eaten again, she pulled the knife up from his navel to his throat, slowly, painstakingly slitting it.
And it was over.
She set down the knife and looked the body over. The sight of her own handiwork made her sick, and somehow she walked to the door with a slowness that made her whole body ache and stumbled through the doors, falling to her knees outside the door. And then her stomach couldn't take it anymore, and it heaved up her dinner. She saw the blood on her arms, and her stomach heaved again.
"Scourgify," a familiar voice said. She didn't even look up as Malfoy neared her. Shaking violently, her arms folded under her weight, and her elbows hit the floor with a sharp snap. Her stomach gave way again, and she retched out what little was left of her dinner. Moaning softly, she cradled her head in her hands.
"I don't feel good," she groaned.
Malfoy chuckled as he squatted down next to her, cleaning up her mess again with his wand. "I know," he said soothingly. And before she knew it, she was in his arms again, sobbing. It seemed she'd been doing that a lot lately. "We should get you out of these clothes," he said softly. She looked down at her dress, the beautiful white dress. It was splattered all over with bright red blood.
Hermione tossed herself out of Malfoy's arms, but it was a false alarm, it seemed, as she dry heaved on the floor. She looked up at Malfoy again, but then the world seemed to lurch sickeningly (she wondered if it was just her stomach), and the ground came up to greet her as everything went black.
They call kids like us vicious and carved out of stone
But for what we've become, we just feel more alone
—Fall Out Boy "I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me"
