A/N – Many thanks to Judging. All Day Every Day for reviewing!

Chapter Six - (Grand)Motherfucker

I awoke the next morning thoroughly expecting a text from Nathan telling me all about his sordid night of passion with Ruth the Fit Volunteer. However, as I rolled over and unlocked my phone on the bedside table, I was greeted to nothing but the picture of me, Ella and Alfie I had set as my wallpaper. Don't get me wrong, I didn't exactly want to hear any of the details given that A) my feelings towards the Nathan-and-Ruth situation were more than a little volatile, and B) if he had slept with her then that meant I'd lost the bet and owed him twenty quid.

That didn't make this any less weird, though. Oh good God, what if he was waiting for me at the community centre so he could describe it all in graphic detail, probably with hand motions included? I physically didn't think I had the capability to listen to that without vomiting all over the floor. I say 'waiting for me' like there was any chance Nathan would be awake before I arrived. Four days outta five I had to either scream in his ear or spill water on his face just to make sure he was up and functioning before everyone arrived at 8 on the dot. Somehow we'd managed to keep his homeless situation under wraps for the last two weeks, no mean feat given that Kelly could tune in and listen to our thoughts at any given moments.

You up? Need any food before I leave? I tapped out before jumping out of bed and heading to the bathroom for a lovely, well-deserved shower. There was still no reply when I checked my phone after my shower few minutes later, dressed in my usual ripped jeans and black Carlsberg tee already because fuck you, I could be a morning person when I wanted to be. Although, the Carlsberg top did kinda have me craving another pint of sweet, sweet beer right about now. Hm, maybe the whole 'no news was good news' thing applied to not hearing a word from Nathan. Despite the radio silence from the world's gobbiest Irishman, I still packed him up a couple of packets of crisps, a can of Fanta and some ham sandwiches. Not to toot my own horn, but I am literally the best friend anyone could ask for.

Lacing on my Old Skools and shoving a few wristbands onto my arm, I was ready for the day and headed for my car with a weird spring in my step. Nathan was clearly still asleep and if he hadn't said anything last night, maybe he really hadn't slept with the prissy volunteer. I couldn't keep the smug smile on my face as I thought of how much I could mock Nathan over the one female he'd failed to conquer. That, and the idea of that twenty quid I'd soon have in my hand was also appealing.

"Ohhh, we're halfway there! Woo-ah! Livin' on a prayer!" I sang as I pulled into the car park at precisely 7:37am, weirdly pepped for the day and think of ways to wake up Nathan involving taking my moneeey. "Take my hand, we'll make it, I sw- what the fuck?!" I killed the engine, squinting at the railings by the entrance doors. "Impossible." I got out of the car, still unable to comprehend what I was looking at.

This was wrong. So amazingly, irrevocably WRONG. Nathan was actually awake. More than that, he was awake, he was dressed and he was outside the community centre before me, leaning against the metal railings smoking a joint.

"Oh my God, it's a fucking miracle," I joked as I approached him. "Nathan, you're actually up and moving around before twenty to seven? Are you ill?" I put a hand on his forehead like I was feeling for a fever.

"What, can't a guy get up early for a relaxin' smoke without gettin' interrogated?" he snapped, jerking away from me. Up close, his face looked drawn and a lot paler than usual, and his eyes had dark purple bags under them.

I raised my eyebrows. "Jesus, what crawled into your arse and died? I'd've assumed you'd be all happy and shit."

"What makes you think that?" he mumbled, dragging on his cigarette.

"I seem to recall you saying you were seeing Ruth last night and, I quote, 'picking up where you left off'? People don't tend to be this pissed off after they get laid. Did she reject you or something?" I tried to sound sympathetic, but the truth was I was now bursting to know what had happened to make him so pissed off.

"I don't feel the need to go into detail about what may or may not of happened last night," he sniped, still uncharacteristically angry. "Will you just fuck off and leave me alone?"

I quirked a brow. "Look, dickhead, we all get rejected, and it sucks. But don't you fucking dare think you can speak to me like that just because you couldn't get your dick wet."

"Blake, seriously, I'm not in the mood."

"Why are you being so fucking menstrual?!" I snapped. "Need I remind you of that little discussion we had last night? You and me against the world, remember? Don't shut me out, Nate. I'm the only fucker here who understands you."

Nathan sighed heavily. "I'm not dealin' with this right now." And with that, he stubbed his cig out on the railings and stalked off back into the building, leaving me standing alone with the breeze blowing uncomfortably around my neck. I'd never seen him like this before. I was so used to the prickish, moronic, arrogant Nathan who didn't give a flying fuck about what he said to you or what was said to him. I didn't know this version, this snappish, bad-tempered version, and I didn't like it. Not one little bit.

Suddenly I wasn't in such a good mood anymore.

Surprisingly enough, Alisha ended up being the first of the others to arrive, wandering into the locker room just before eight, coming across me in my jumpsuit, sulking by the mirror with a fag hanging out of my mouth. She seemed shocked to see me there, though not as shocked as I was to see her.

"What are you doing here?" I mumbled, tapping off some excess ash then promptly taking another deep drag.

"Could ask you the same," she said coolly, opening her locker and placing her bag inside.

"I asked first."

She rolled her eyes and replied, "Police called, innit. 'Cause of me curfew break. They wanna talk to me."

"Oh." A beat of silence. "Why do you do it?"

"What do you mean?" she asked with a frown.

"Like, why keep breaking your curfew?" I questioned. "Surely it's just easier to, y'know, just stick to what the court told you?"

"I get that the idea of a social life might confuse ya," she said, surly. "But some of us have mates that we wanna see."

I snorted. "Mates. Yeah, your crew sound like right loyal mates." I flicked the stub of my fag away and stood up, taking a couple of steps closer to her. "Maybe I don't have a lot of friends, Alisha, but the ones I do stand by me. Alright, maybe they're not the coolest. Maybe we don't spend all our weekends posting Facebook statuses with hundreds of likes. Maybe my best mate in the entire world is one of the thickest, most irritating blokes on the planet. But let me ask you this: would any of your mates save your life if you needed them to? Would they be there if the one man who was supposed to love you more than anything else left you bloody and broken on your living room floor? I doubt it."

Alisha blinked, her mouth agape. "Blake, what happened to you?"

I shrugged. "Some shit that I had to get on with." I held out my wrist to her, not to display the bird like I had to her and Kelly yesterday, but so she could clearly see the scar that stretched three inches down diagonally from my hand. "Choose people carefully. You're a beautiful girl, Alisha, and I think that deep down – like, well deep down – you're actually a really lovely person. I wouldn't want something like this to happen to you because you made some shitty decisions about who you hang around with."

There was another few seconds of silence. Maybe I was imagining things, but I was sure I could see a few tears in Alisha's eyes. "You think I'm beautiful?" she said softly.

I nodded. "'Course I do. Sure, you annoy the fuck outta me-"

"Oh cheers."

"-But you are beautiful. I'd have to be blind not to see."

Alisha's mouth flickered with the ghost of a smile. "Why are you being so nice? I've been a right bitch to you."

"And I to you. So why don't we start over? Hi, I'm Blake, I'm twenty-two and my favourite food is Bird's Eye chicken dippers." I smiled properly at her, holding out my hand. She just stared at me with a quirked brow, and I rapidly withdrew my hand as I remembered her power. "Fuck. My bad."

"Don't worry about it," she smirked, and it was at that moment Sally the Dementor of Fun entered the locker room.

"Oh. Blake. I didn't realise you were already here," she frowned. "This won't count as an early start."

"No shit, 'Sal,' but thanks for stating the obvious," I said acidly.

She decided to blank that little snipe and instead gestured at Alisha to follow her. "Alisha, PC Wilson is here to see you. Please don't be rude and just answer his questions."

"Whatever," Alisha huffed. She looked at me and gave me a small nod of appreciation. "See you later, Blake."

"Peace out," I called after her as she followed Sally out of the room. Within the next ten minutes, Simon, Curtis and Kelly all came and went, getting changed, sending some texts, Kelly having a smoke before individually heading off outside for today's morning task of litter-picking around the centre before we were set loose on the rest of the estate that afternoon. I stayed back still, though, hoping Nathan would appear so I could at least attempt to talk to him again, but no such luck.

Heaving out a sigh, I shoved my phone into my pocket and was just exiting the locker room when I suddenly heard Alisha scream out, "Fuck off! Get off me, you pervert!" Without a second thought, I took off in the direction of the yell, bursting into the main hall just in time to see Alisha come hurtling out of the probation office with tears streaming down her face.

"Alisha!" I shouted, but she just ran past me. "ALISHA!"

"Oh, fuck off, Blake! Just fuck off!" she yelled back, disappearing out of the hall and into the Ladies. Now I had two options here: let the 'fuck off' slide and try to stick to that starting again conversation from the locker room, or, take the 'fuck off' to heart and resume being complete bitches to each other. While I won't lie and say that the latter didn't hold some appeal – I didn't really need anymore friends and, in the words of Nathan from Day 1, she seemed well high-maintenance – I knew I had to go with the former because if there was one thing I'd learned from being lumped with these 200 hours, it was that maybe I did need to try being a nicer person.

"Oh goddamn it," I mumbled, following her. I found her hunched over a sink, tears streaming down her face. I walked up and stood at the sink next to her, deciding to look into the mirror rather than stare straight at her. "I'm gonna ignore what you just said because you're clearly fucking traumatised. What just happened?"

"Nothin'," she sniffed, not looking up.

"'Nothing' doesn't make a bad bitch cry," I said gently.

Now she looked up, but she did the same as I had, only looking at me through the reflection of the grungy mirror. "That fuckin' twat policeman...he...he touched my wrist...he tried...he tried to-"

"Don't say anything else if you don't want," I quickly said, not wanting Alisha to go into details as I now had a pretty decent picture of what she'd been through. "It isn't your fault. You know that, right?"

"Then why is this happening to me?" she demanded.

"Why is this happening to any of us?" I countered. "We didn't ask for this, we all got dealt a shit hand the day of the storm."

"You didn't," she pointed out. "Nothing hurts you now. You could live forever if you wanted."

"You don't know that," I argued. "And I don't know that. I don't really know anything. Yeah, so we know nothing physically on the outside can hurt me, but what else? Can cancer still get me? If I hing myself off the Empire State Building, will that kill me? If I have sex with someone, will I still get pleasure from it? I don't know. I don't fucking know, and it scares the shit out of me."

"But no one's gonna try and rape you because you gave 'em a high-five," she said sadly.

"No, you're right, they're not," I agreed. "But maybe...and don't think I'm calling you a slut or nothing, but maybe...these powers are extensions of the people we are."

"The fuck you on about?" Okay, so maybe I had hit a nerve with the slut thing.

"Think about it. Nothing hurts me, right? I never let anything mentally hurt me because of the shit I went through with my ex, now suddenly I can't feel physical pain. I'm guessing Kelly worries what everyone thinks of her, she hears thoughts. You've...had a few men in your life, now you can force sex on contact. It all makes sense when you think about it."

"So you are calling me a slut," Alisha stated, her tone hard.

I faltered for a second. "I mean, in a roundabout fashion...maybe? But not in a bad way!" I had shot myself in the foot well and truly with this one. "There's nothing wrong with liking a lot of sex. Maybe just choose your men a little better."

"You're shit at making someone feel better, you know that?" At first I thought she was still pissed off, then I saw the tiny little smile on her face.

"I've been told," I said with a small laugh.

The door suddenly opened behind us, and in the reflection of the mirror I saw Sally walk in, interrupting us for a second time in literally twenty minutes. "Are you okay?" she softly asked Alisha.

"And that's my cue to leave," I sighed. I placed my hand on her shoulder, on her cardigan where her power wouldn't affect me. "Think about what I said, yeah?" Alisha nodded slowly, so I took that as my indication to leave her alone with the probation worker. Of course, I did make sure to shoot Sally a venomous look as I left the loos; I was starting to really fucking hate that bitch.

Oh God, the old people were back. Seriously, what was it with the over sixties thinking that us young offenders actually enjoyed making them cups of tea and listening to stories of "when I were a lad?!" There was only so many times I could pretend to nod and act interested in stories of how Maggie Thatcher ruined/saved England and the miners strikes.

Still, I had to admit that by mid-afternoon, I was actually half-enjoying myself. I'd abandoned making what seemed like endless cups of tea and taken to the dancefloor with Alisha, Curtis, Kelly and Simon. James Blunt's You're Beautiful was playing over the speakers, a very guilty pleasure song of mine that I'd loved ever since it had first come out.

I looked around at the others. Curtis and Alisha were dancing side-by-side with two other old people, Simon was awkwardly waving his arms in the air as he danced with an elderly woman, Kelly was doing some hoppy-dance-type chav thing with the dude in the wheelchair from the other day, and Nathan was sitting in a chair, still sulking about God knows what. He hadn't spoken to any of us properly all day, and after this morning's outburst there was no way I was gonna be the one to break the ice first. He hadn't even insulted Simon, which got me really worried.

Admittedly, as I attempted to join Christine and one of her male friends in some kind of weird waltz-style dance to Blunt's dulcet tones flowing through the speakers, I couldn't help but keep stealing glances at him. He was just so...motionless, staring blankly at the wall ahead with his thumbnail between his teeth; I hated seeing him like this, and I hated not being able to do anything about it.

"Staring at your fancy man, my love?" Christine said slyly, turning her head to follow my gaze.

"Don't you start, Christine, he's being a right prick today," I huffed, unwillingly tearing my gaze away from Nathan to look at her. She let out a small chuckle. "What are you laughing at, eh?"

"You, Blake," she chortled. "Go and see what's wrong with him, then. Isn't that what a 'best friend' should do since that's what you insist you are?"

Now it was my turn to laugh, genuinely amused by the old bat's gall. "You kill me, Christine, you really do. I've already tried to see what's wrong with him. He won't talk to me."

"You young'uns have no drive, do you?" she tutted. "We are women, Blake, darling. When men don't want to answer us, we make them. Consider this a life lesson from someone who's made the rounds a few times; men like pushy women, it shows you have fight. Now go over there and make that boy give you some answers!"

"Alright, alright! God, now I get what you mean by pushy women," I mock grumbled, but I moved past her and headed towards the gigantic ball of male angst sitting ahead of me. When I was no more than about ten foot away, I saw Nathan actually stir. He made as though to get up, and I smiled at him, thinking he'd seen me. He didn't. Instead, he pulled a face of revulsion and leapt up from his chair with a cry of strangled horror. He pushed his way through the crowd of dancing OAPs and practically sprinted out of the doors, the glass wobbling as they shut with a bang.

Stopping dead in my tracks in complete shock, I turned to face back to Christine, who merely shrugged in a What can ya do? kind of way. I rolled my eyes. Fucking old people.

Another hour passed. The old people finally dispersed from the community centre for the final time, and us ASBOees were sent to the locker rooms to change back into our jumpsuits for the next three hours of litter picking. Nathan still hadn't returned from doing his runner, and I knew we needed to find him because I was starting to get seriously worried. Him randomly running away plus his freakish bad mood seemed like an equation for suicide or a drugs overdose, and I for one did not want to find my best friend lying prone in a muddy ditch somewhere.

Once we'd started making tracks, it didn't actually take that long. We found him skulking underneath the flyover. He was leaning against one of the concrete pillars and smoking.

"Nathan!" I called to him, causing him to turn to look at us. Suffice to say, he didn't look particularly chuffed to see us marching towards him.

"What happened to you?" Curtis directed at him as we got closer.

"I will not be in a room where that song is playin'," Nathan replied, taking a drag on his cigarette. "Line in the sand, my friend." The five of us clad in orange all arranged ourselves around him where he was sitting. He looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Some old woman was lookin' for you," Kelly told him. Nathan looked even more uneasy, his eyes twitching around like he was thinking about something. Suddenly, Kelly's eyes widened in repulsion and she exclaimed, "You shagged her?!"

"What?!" I yelped. We all looked in shock from her, then to Nathan, who looked at us and gave a pathetic half-smile, dragging on his cigarette again. No. No, no, no, no, that was not true. It wasn't. Nathan did not have sex with a fucking geriatric. If he had, I was about to puke in my mouth.

"Yeah, yeah, nice one!" he grinned weakly. "I gave her a right good seein' to!" We all saw straight through his feeble attempt to deny it. It wasn't like he had done too good a job at disguising it. He must've been thinking about it for Kelly to hear him. Various sounds of disgust were echoed around the group as I said, completely emotionally traumatised, "You have got to be kidding me."

"You totally screwed her!" said Alisha with antipathy.

"...No! No!" Nathan cried, scrambling to his feet as Alisha shrieked with laughter.

"You nailed that old woman?!" said Curtis disgustedly, pointing at Nathan with his litter-picker. "Nah! That is wrong!"

"Did you enjoy it?" Simon questioned him, and despite the absolutely sickening situation we were now a part of, I was actually kind of glad the little weirdo had a window of opportunity in which to pay Nathan back for all the shitty remarks he'd made to Simon.

"Shut up, you little freak!" shouted Nathan, jabbing at Simon furiously.

"I think he enjoyed it," Simon said, grinning at the rest of us.

I didn't want to ask the next question, but at this point I felt like I needed some serious clarification on what in the name of fuck was going on in here on this day. "So let me get this straight. You fucked a grandma? Like an actual, eighty-plus-year-old grandmother?!"

"She hasn't got any grandkids!" Nathan snapped.

"And that makes it so much better?" I retorted.

"Are you into that?!" Curtis demanded, still looking like he might vomit...which made two of us.

"No!" Nathan insisted. He made a noise of defeat. "She didn't look like that when we started! Remember that bird Ruth, from Tuesday? Beautiful, yeah?" He motioned an hourglass shape with his hands, and despite the fact I knew we were discussing an old woman, that rapidly-familiar jealousy still decided to make an appearance; I was sure I'd inadvertently let out a small growl. "That wrinkly old bint? That's her! It was the storm. It made her young again."

"Please," Alisha giggled. "Please tell me you didn't-" She proceeded to make an exceptionally explicit and suggestive gesture that involved her fingers and tongue (I'm not going into detail, use your imagination.) Nathan didn't need to say anything. The beaten and tragic look on his face was enough to confirm that yes, yes he had. I had to swallow hard to stop my breakfast making a reappearance while everyone else shrieked and cackled with laughter. I couldn't bring myself to laugh; he looked like he was suffering from some serious post-coital PTSD, as I'm sure anyone would be when faced with a pair of wrinkly tits bouncing away in front of them.

"He did! For God's sake!" screeched Alisha as Nathan gave us all a really aggravated smile and stalked off. I wanted to run after him, really I did, but what would I say? There really was nothing I could do to make this better. Now I knew exactly why he hadn't wanted to speak to me all day.

Evidently, Kelly felt bad for blurting out Nathan's mishap as did she hurry after him to what I guessed was apologise. From where I was stood with Alisha, Curtis and Simon, I couldn't hear what either of them were saying. However, whatever it was Nathan was spitting out, it offended Kelly, as, "Granny fucker!" was soon echoing around the surrounding area. Wow, we were in for an awkward afternoon.

This had ended up being one of the longest Fridays of my motherfucking life. Not only had I arrived before everyone else, but somehow I had now ended up being the last person left in the locker room at the end of the day. Changed back into my usual clothes, I was just placing my things back into my backpack when a hand closed my locker, making me jump. I looked up to see Nathan staring at me. "Hey," he mumbled.

Shucking my backpack up onto my shoulders, I then crossed my arms. "So now you want to talk to me."

He let out a groan. "Blakey, don't make this any harder for me than it already is. I know I've been a bit of a knob."

I snorted derisively. "'A bit' is a fucking understatement. You know, I totally get why you'd be a twat to the rest of the guys, but me? That really fucking hurt, Nathan. Like, a lot."

"You know I don't do it on purpose." He could barely meet my eye, and for some reason that irritated me even more.

"That doesn't mean it doesn't piss me off!" I exploded, my foot flying out and kicking him in the shin. "We've always been a hundred percent honest with each other and you couldn't tell me about this?! I'm supposed to be your best friend! Seventeen years, Nathan! Does that mean anything to you?!"

"I was embarrassed!" he insisted guiltily. "What, you think I wanted everyone knowing I put my penis – my poor, beautiful penis – inside something that may as well be a corpse?! I'm fuckin' traumatised, Blake!"

"TMI, Nathan," I grimaced. "T. M. I. No, of course you didn't, and I totally get that. But I'm not just 'everyone,' am I?"

He sighed. "No. I guess you're not." Sigh #2, accompanied by him running a hand through his hair. "I keep fuckin' this up, don't I?"

I shrugged. "Depends what you mean by 'this.' If you mean our flow of conversations recently, then yes. If you mean our friendship...of course not, you big dolt." I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, pulling him into a tight hug. His arms came up around my shoulders, pulling me in, and his cheek rested on the top of my head.

"I'm really fuckin' sorry, B," he said quietly, one of those rare times he could actually be serious.

"I know you are," I replied, my voice a tad muffled given my head was smushed up against his chest. "Just don't shut me out again. We're getting through this together, remember?"

"Together," he repeated. "Sherlock and Watson."

"And hey, look at the positive side of this," I said brightly when we let go of each other.

Nathan quirked a brow. "What the fuck positive have you managed to see in this disaster of epic proportions?"

I smirked at him as I took my purse from my backpack, opened it and proceeded to hand him a twenty pound note. "Technically, you did win the bet. Use your winnings wisely. Might I recommend a large bottle of vodka to drown these memories in?"

"You bitch!"

I decided the best thing to do would be to leave Nathan be for the weekend. Regardless of our heart-to-heart at the end of the shift, he still had a lot of mental shit he needed to come to terms with. If he needed to talk anything else through, he knew where I was. So I just got on with my days, keeping myself occupied and trying to ignore the minor separation anxiety I was experiencing. I just...I really wanted him to be okay.

Monday morning rolled around far too quickly, and after 48 hours of nothing from Nathan, I hoped he'd had enough time to clear his head and get things back to normal. I even made him a travel mug of coffee as a final peace offering, just in case he was still narky.

And yet, when I arrived at the community centre at my usual early time, things were clearly half-back to normal as Nathan was still fast asleep on his mattress. I thought it would be far too harsh to scream at him or chuck water in his face, so instead I resorted to sitting down next to him and poking him in the rib with my foot a few times until his eyes fluttered open. Making a loud groaning noise, he rolled over onto his side and looked at me.

"Mornin'," I said brightly, handing him the travel mug of still-warm coffee.

"Hey you," he mumbled, his voice still thick from heavy sleep. He took the mug and gulped down a large sip from it. "What's all this about, eh?"

"What, a girl can't bring her favourite homeless Irishman a comforting coffee without there being an ulterior motive?" I retorted.

"I've been homeless for over two weeks and you've never brought me morning coffee before," he pointed out.

"I've brought you plenty of things!" I argued. "Every day! Sandwiches and crisps and shit."

"Sandwiches aren't a, quote-unquote, 'comforting coffee.'"

"It hurts that you're doubting me." All I got in return was a raised eyebrow. "Alright, fine, you got me. I wanted to make sure you're okay. You know...after Friday."

At the mention of Friday, Nathan's face immediately clouded over. Okay, so bringing that up was clearly the worst idea I'd had in a while. However, it didn't take much more than another second before his face appeared to brighten back up. "Okay? Sure I'm okay, Blakey! Never better!" he exclaimed, falsely enthusiastic.

"Woah, Nate, chill your titties," I said quickly, a tad alarmed at his almost manic demeanour. "Just wanted to make sure, no need to go all Joker on me."

"You know me, Blake, not one to hold a grudge," he replied, still overtly cheerful. He scooched himself around to my side so he could put his arm around me. "It's a new week, a fresh start. No shit is gonna happen this week. I've got a good feelin', ya know?"

"Riiiight," I said, unconvinced. "Well can that good feeling lead you in the direction of a sink? You smell like you haven't showered in three days."

"That will be because I haven't."

"You fucking disgust me."

"I told ya there was other people that got messed up by the storm and you didn't even believe me," Kelly informed Nathan twenty minutes later in the locker rooms.

"Yeah, well, I was wrong, wasn't I?" he retorted, leaning against his locker. "There's a hurricane of weird shit out there." As a response, Alisha repeated the same graphic gesture she'd used yesterday. "Oh, another oral sex gag? Brilliant!" he scoffed sarcastically.

"Is it weird that I actually feel kind of relieved that there are other people like us?" I said, pulling my jumpsuit over my legs. "I don't feel like such a freak now."

"Blake, you were a freak before you had powers," Nathan snorted.

"We need to be ready for when they come after us," Simon suddenly said, shutting his locker.

"What are you talkin' about?" demanded Kelly.

"The other people who got caught up in the storm," he answered.

"Why would they come after us?" asked Curtis, throwing out his arms in a kind of Well? gesture.

"Because that's what people do," Simon said very intensely, and something about that tone of voice made my stomach drop.

"Yeah, well if they do, we'll just tell them it was all your fault," Nathan said dismissively, turning and opening his locker.

"Nathan, don't be a prick," I hissed, slapping him in the chest as he turned to his locker. However, still feeling unnerved, I pulled a cigarette out of my pocket with a shaky hand and stuck it in my mouth, lighting it as I did so. Nicotine was one of the only things that could calm me down at the worst of times, and right now, I classed this as a 'worst time.' The shaking of my hand began subsiding almost as soon as the first puff of smoke left my lips.

Of course, that was totally shattered when out of the blue, Nathan nervously said, "You know that…note you found in your locker? I think it was talking about the probation worker." We all turned to look at him. There, taped to the door of his locker, was a missing persons poster of Tony, the first probation worker. Scribbled harshly along the bottom in black Sharpie were the words I KNOW. All of us had gathered around Nathan's locker, all of us just staring at the note. My vision blurred with tears of sheer fear. No. Please God, no, this wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. I was too fucking young to go to prison!

"I'm gonna be sick," I gagged, dropping my cig and scuffing it out on the floor. Reaching up and wiping my eyes, I took a couple of deep, calming breaths and instead said, "Right. Okay. Time to breath. Let's think logically. Right. Okay. Okay.It's obvious that they're just trying to scare us. You said so yourself the other day, Nate, they'd have gone to the police by now. If that had happened, we'd be in those God-awful striped uniforms eating fried dog food for breakfast and dancing the Jailhouse Rock. But we're not. We're here, and we're safe. We are safe. We just need to calm the fuck down and relax." Was it getting hot in here or was it just me?

"Might I recommend takin' a leaf out of your own book, Blakey?" Nathan suggested.

"Shut up, you mug. Blake's right," Alisha said quietly. I went to give her hand a reassuring squeeze – glad our apparent truce from last week was a permanent thing – then quickly remembered her power. My arm froze in mid-air, and I had to make as though I was stretching. Alisha looked at me weirdly and moved to the mirror to put on her make-up.

"See?" I jabbed my thumb in her direction. "The girl talks sense. Now let's take a moment to think. Who do we know who may or may not know that we killed our probation worker?" I whispered the last four words.

"Do you think it could be Sally?" suggested Simon.

"Who's Sally?" asked Curtis.

"The probation worker, you twat," I replied.

"Ooh, Sally?" Nathan said in a really stupid voice. "How do you two know her name?"

"She told us!" said Simon.

"On numerous occasions, you fucking bell-end," I said harshly.

"Well you two are twats because 'Sally' didn't show up till the day after we killed the other probation worker," he retorted. "I suppose you both know his name to?"

"Don't call me a twat!" I exclaimed irately at the same time Simon said "Tony!"

Nathan mock-gasped, "Do you love him?" He conveniently ignored me as well, I noticed.

"Don't be a dick, Nathan," I sighed, smacking him in the back of the head. "It's not our fault that you seem to have lost the capability to listen to anyone properly."

"He's right, though," Kelly input. "She weren't here."

"If I'm invisible, I can see if anyone puts anything else in our lockers," Simon offered.

"Hey, good idea," I smiled, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "It's like we've got our own personal CCTV camera. No sarcasm intended."

"Yeah, sounds like a plan," agreed Curtis, who turned to look at Alisha as she applied her lip gloss and flashed her his supposed 'attractive face'. "You alright with that, yeah?"

Apparently though, Alisha was attracted to people who looked like they were having trouble taking a piss as she replied with a smirk, "Works for me." Oh God, it was happening. We had our first forming hook up, if we ignored what had transpired between Nathan and Wertham's own Nora Batty.

"Go on then," said Curtis, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from Alisha and looking at Simon. "Turn invisible." We all looked at Simon expectantly.

"I can't do it when everyone's watching me," he said, looking like a rabbit caught in some headlights.

"So I guess it's like pissin' at a urinal if you've got a tiny cock?" Nathan taunted, pointing at Simon's crotch. Simon blushed slightly.

"Oh come off it. You're being such a dick today, Nathan," I said scornfully. "It's not exactly like any of us can control our powers is it?" My words fell on deaf ears as everyone still looked at Simon with expectancy. However, it evidently wasn't going to happen as Simon remained perfectly visible.

"Well, that's, er, really impressive," Alisha said with only a slight undertone of sarcasm, heading out the door, followed by Kelly, Curtis and Nathan. I put my hand on Simon's arm and gave him a kind of sympathetic smile before following them. Monday morning and already we'd had some stupid cryptic shit. So much for 'new week, fresh start,' hey?

A/N – I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and enjoy a prosperous New Year! Here's to 2020! Please review! Xx Gee xX

Chapter Six Playlist
wonderful life – Bring Me The Horizon