A/N: This fanfic takes place directly after the events of Memoriam in season 4. Everything before that is canon, nothing after is completely safe.
Chapter One: Phoebe's POV
The melody of The Crave filled the echoing band room as a slight girl sat on the bench, playing the song with her eyes closed. She was alone and seemed at peace. However, she was quickly brought out of her trance when the school bell rang, the harsh sound quickly filling the room. She got up quickly, grabbed her backpack, and headed towards her first class of the day: Chemistry.
"Phoebe McLean?" her teacher asked as she walked to the door. She nodded in confirmation before heading to her seat in the back of the class. She'd known Mr. Gibson since she moved to Nevada, and he still didn't recognize her, though to be fair the only people he seemed to recognize were his children. At least he let her sit by herself, unlike other teachers who harped on class participation. They had a silent agreement that Phoebe could sit alone as long as she stayed quiet and kept doing well, and she had no intention to give up her solitude. Chemistry was easy anyway, but so were all of her classes. Nevertheless, she still took notes. It only occupied half of her brain so she could keep thinking about whatever she wished, and it kept Gibson happy. Win-win.
Her thoughts wandered to the recent disappearances of girls at school. Three had gone missing, their bodies found 5 days after each disappearance. None of the girls tried to get away, so it was likely someone at the school who they trusted, maybe a fellow student. Whoever it was, extra precautions needed to be taken. No more staying at school until dark, or using the back roads to get home.
"Ms. McLean?," Gibson asked, looking at her, "Could you tell us the difference between Entropy and Enthalpy?"
She took a breath and looked down at her notes for a second before answering. "Enthalpy is the sum of internal and flow energy and depicted with a Delta H, while Entropy is the total disorder in a system, depicted by Delta S," she said, monotone. They had been studying Thermodynamics for a week now, and it was Gibson's favorite unit to teach.
"Correct as usual Ms. McLean. Class ends in 5 minutes, please copy down your homework from the board and then pack up," he said, before sitting down at his desk. The homework was another textbook activity, a worksheet page on the impacts of heat on a system. She quickly copied down the page numbers into her planner before sliding it into her backpack along with her notebook. Her next class was Spanish, something she needed to graduate, but since she was already fluent in it it didn't really matter if she paid attention or not. And as long as she was "interacting with the language", Mrs. Piper really didn't care what Phoebe did. So she usually brought a Spanish translation of a book she liked, and today was no different. The public library had an extensive selection of books in Spanish, including a few on "profiling" a killer, written by an FBI agent. When she got to class, she sat in her seat, which was in the middle of the room this time, and pulled out her book. Before she was able to read it however, a guy sat down across from her and began to speak.
"Hey Phoebe," he said, moving his arms to the center of the table, "What's up?". His eyes were cold, and Phoebe could tell he was angry.
"Alright," she said, trying to fake sincerity, "Worried about those girls, though. I was friends with all of them". She turned her eyes away from his, now looking down at the desk.
"You won't get hurt, Pheebs, don't worry," he said before Mrs. Piper told the class to quiet down. Filing away the encounter with the Jacobs boy to think about later, Phoebe pulled out her book and began to read. But that couldn't capture her attention forever, and before long she started to go over the encounter in her head. Jeremy Jacobs was odd. He and his buddies had bullied her since she started school in Nevada, but recently he had changed. It started after they were forced to do a project together, which was strange because he was mean to her while they were working on it. But no matter the reason, Phoebe was grateful. It was the first time since she moved that school wasn't as stressful, but of course, her peace had to have been interrupted, this time by the kidnappings. But before she could muse about her situation for too long, the bell rang, and for the first time since the day started, she was happy. It was lunchtime, which meant she could now practice the piano in the band room. She quickly packed her bag with a smile, hurrying towards the east wing of the school.
She didn't notice Jeremy Jacobs staring at her with a forlorn look in his eyes.