"Eww! Well that was traumatic." Madison fake gagged and Mac jumped back from Dick to find the watchful blonde standing in the hospital room doorway. "When I got a call yesterday that you were in a bad way… I didn't think it was as serious as you begging the Corpse Bride to rub your spirit stick!"

Dick frowned as his ex-girlfriend strode confidently into the room clicking her spaghetti strap heels on the floor, hips swaying in her typical sexually charged, femme fatale swagger. Snapping a picture as Mac narrowly avoided knocking over the IV stand, concern brewing in her grey eyes like a storm.

"Way to go champ! Although why you have him so thirsty is anybodys guess.." she mocked raking her narrow-eyed gaze over Mac in a slow deliberate appraisal before she returned her mocking smirk back to him. They hadn't done much more than kiss but Cindy was now a socially distant friendly 2 meters from him now.

Madison and Dick had been a matching set at a cliquish high school, as a former deputy head cheerleader, she still considered herself the reigning Queen at Neptune for orchestrating the humiliation of anyone who failed to meet her standards. She was the blue print for the high-school-is-hell subgenre Mean Girl it was hard to believe a kid like her actually existed outside Heathers.

Satan drunk on popularity and pink lipgloss…

"Honestly, Dick.. since when did you swipe right for belly rolls?" the blonde snarled at Mac. The little nerdy usurper!

"Huh, I didn't know my chart said I was due an injection of Basic Succubus Bitch…" Dick deadpanned, vicious biting words that snapped like firecrackers were typical of his scathing and hilarious interactions with his ex-girlfriend. It might be real hatred, or it was just verbal pigtail pulling, he was never sure anymore.

This little encounter had all the animosity of a bad divorce.

His gaze flickered between the two women... sweet and sour...

Madison was like the perpetual voiceover stirring up the tempest of insecurity and rot in the minds of most of their classmates. Her lasting impact was a horrid reminder that the lessons we learned as a teenager would carry us in to adulthood, for better and for worse demeaning social hierarchies had a way following you around…

Mac ran a quick look over the skin-tight and hyper-feminine strapless peach and gold dress Madison wore and wrapped her arms protectively around her chest, trying to swallow down the pantheon of raw emotions. Mac had long ago accepted being the girl that nobody noticed, and being in the cross hairs of a hormonal horror like Madison was nerve wrecking. She might look like a teen dream but Madison Sinclair was a wicked beauty, like Jennifer's Body but the demon came pre-packed and with a mean streak a country mile wide.

Where was JD with the drain cleaner when you needed it? She didn't usually feel inferior to the plasticky, and highly synthetic photogenic charmless Instagram click-bait like Madison. Belonging to a "clique" in Neptune high had almost been a life or death matter, and Mac had chosen to make it fractionally more bearable and avoid the peacocking pageant of high-school life and body image issues from behind the safety of a computer screen.

"Says the most delete-worthy experience of my life, and this is a twisted sequel?" she retorted pointing between Mac and Dick, grinning gleefully when Mac's face reddened. "You know it's harder nail and bail in a hospital, right stallion?" Madison whispered conspiratorially.

"This was a bad idea…" Mac swallowed blinking back tears that wanted to unfold like a gutted high-schooler's intestines.

"You should go." Madison snarled glibly in her stuck up tone.

"No!" Dick said reaching for Mac's bag as she attempted to flee the slash-and-burn verbal tension but it was too late.

Mac avoided eye contact, stepping out of his reach. "Please just…"

"Cindy!" he called. What if this cost him his only chance...?

He hadn't even got to tell her about the gorgeous beachfront condo...

Madison gave her a fake wave as the brunette fled the room. "Later bae!"

"Since when were you hooking up with Revenge of the Transylvanian Nerds?" Madison demanded, folding her arms across her chest.

"You're just peanut butter and jealous, rubbing the KY jealous all over the.." Dick chanted making a rubbing motion over his crotch.

"UH... I'm a 10, and she's barely a 3!" She said narrowing her eyes. "At least you tried."

"Were you expecting something else?" Dick sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Usually you just post thirst traps to snare human souls..."

"You think this is a game?" Madison growled. "Status update! I get a phone call saying you were in the hospital. SORRY if I gave a crap."

"Atta girl!" he said, less than impressed.

"My ex-boyfriend was buried yesterday, that was not the Vodka and handcuffs homecoming I'd had in mind. Then to top it all off my roommate was murdered but sure… let's make it all about you."

Something kicked in his chest, a flutter of old feelings he'd hoped to have estranged long ago. Love was a complicated emotion, and at one time... he'd felt that for her.

Even bad times have to come to an end.

She's bad news... the worst...

"Caitlin?" he asked softly.

"I feel like I've caught the Curse of Echolls." Madison nodded. "Now I'm stranded here."

Dick shifted uncomfortably as he adjusted his pillow and stared at the ice blonde. Neptune was a web of trickery and lies, in their uncanny world, anyone could catch a bullet.

""Sheriff Mars has requested I stay in town." She sneered, before her chin wobbled, a tell tale thaw and just like that.. those little glimpses of humanity stole a little more of his resolve. "We keep ending up in the same place.. and every time we do people die..."

Dick trailed his gaze over her curves, women with bodies made for sin like that should come with a warning label, but at least she was dressed to make the most of it before her expiration date.

You'd never guess her chest was a 16th birthday present from her dad...

"I thought you didn't see much of Caitlin after she was Marooned?" he frowned.

"Of course I didn't. She was public schooled!" the blonde snapped impatiently. "Her social life was dismal after that wetback fiasco, but we still had the same gymnastic class..."

"And on Wednesdays she still wore pink." Dick interrupted impatiently reaching for the bag of treats his Cindy had left him.

"No! Her grovelling and those TikTok followers meant I got first dips on swag promotions." Madison growled. "But NOW I'm going to end up getting stuck with some redheaded stepchild who probably wants to be a cardiac surgeon or something."

"How did the hospital end up calling you?" he asked opening up the box of nutter butters. Heaven's knew his beautiful ex was a master manipulator but he doubted the news reports had named the student involved in the campus shooting given the new blonde darling filling up the airways.

America loved nothing more than a sweetheart whose life was cut tragically short...

"Sophomore year... you slipped getting out of the hot tub..." Madison purred, recalling the night he'd broken his wrist and running her hand along the length of the bed as she approached. "You must have hit your head harder than I thought considering what I walked in on... the lengths some men will fall to have someone lick their wounds."

"Hey, don't slut shame me" he frowned.

"I'll have to fat shame if you eat this." Madison retorted taking the cupcakes out of the bag.