if he's a serial killer, then what's the worst

that could happen to a girl

who's already hurt?

i'm already hurt

eloise "ellie" walters (16)

Ellie wanted to punch something. Not that she actually would, because that might ruin her manicure, and she'd just gone to the nail salon yesterday. "Who was that girl you were talking to earlier?" she asked Matt as they walked down the hallway after school, holding hands, swinging them back and forth in between them. Matt was a football player, and, her opinion, any high school relationship with a football player always made for a good popularity boost. Of course, he was much taller than her—he was six feet, and she barely cleared five—but a lot of guys liked when they were taller than their girlfriends, and with her, they never had to worry about that problem. She considered herself very unproblematic in that sense.

"Oh, that girl?" Matt tipped his head to the right as they walked past a stairway. Standing at the top landing was a freshman girl, maybe a little shorter than Ellie, and she was holding a stack of textbooks all clutched to her chest. Ellie almost snorted when she saw her. The girl wasn't even that pretty— maybe average, she'd give her that; with chestnut brown hair and alarmingly pale skin, she had a mousy way about her. Hadn't she ever heard of foundation? Her face might have looked a little more even, if she even knew how to put on makeup. She had potential, really, but Ellie hated her guts. And when Ellie hated someone, their potential disappeared instantly.

"Yeah, that's her." They had stopped walking so that now they were watching the girl coldly, leaning against the wall. The girl hadn't noticed them yet. She should feel lucky, Ellie thought to herself. "What were you and her talking about?"

Matt shrugged. "Oh, she's in one of my classes," he said. "Apparently she wasn't here yesterday. She wanted to know what she missed."

Ellie snorted again. She flicked her hair over one shoulder. "Well, you know, Matt, that's a lie." The girl was still talking to a friend at the top of the staircase, but she finally shifted enough to see Ellie and Matt staring; when she noticed, her eyes went wide, like a deer caught in headlights. Instantly, she whirled around and started heading briskly down the stairs, ponytail swinging behind her like a nervous pendulum. Ellie resisted the urge to yank it and drag her down the rest of the way by her hair. "Come on, we're going to teach her a lesson."

"For what?" Matt asked as Ellie doubled back, pulling him along as she set down the stairs after this unnamed girl, high heels clicking loudly with every step. All their classmates knew that when her high heels clicked like that, it meant business; either some poor girl was going to get beaten up, or Matt was going to beat up someone simply because some other guy talked to her, and she wanted to "teach them a lesson." Needless to say, Ellie felt the adrenaline rush as the two of them flew down the stairs, catching stares from all the people they passed. She fed off any attention, good or bad, not that attention was really ever bad, when it concerned her.

"Are you kidding me? For talking to you, of course!" Matt could be so daft sometimes. Thank God he was at her beck and call.

They caught up with the mousy girl at the bottom of the stairs. Ellie finally let go of Matt's hand and whipped the girl around by the shoulder until she was facing them. Two of her textbooks clattered to the ground. "What's your name, girl?" she sneered, gesturing for Matt to kick away the fallen textbooks. They skid across the tiled floor noiselessly. The girl just stood there, wide-eyed, rooted to the spot. "Hey, I'm asking you a question!"

"Hannah," the girl practically whispered.

"Alright, then, Hannah, listen up, because I'm only going to warn you once." Ellie tilted her head as she glared at Hannah, making her flinch. She knew her icy blue eyes were boring into this girl's soul. "This is my boyfriend, Matt. Do you know how long we've been together?"

The girl shook her head furiously, like a puppet dancing on cue.

"We've been together for two years. He's a senior. He plays football. Do you know what football is?"

Hannah's cheeks were flushed bright red.

"I don't know if you were absent. I don't care who you are. No girl talks to my boyfriend unless it's me. That's a rule around here, you know that? You must be new."

Her long nails were starting to dig into Hannah's shoulder. Hannah squirmed again, trying to get away. Ellie was leaning in so close, her blonde curls were tickling the girl's cheek. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. Hannah still wasn't looking her in the eye. Her head was down, and that probably meant she was fighting back tears. Ellie had seen the same look on a lot of girls before.

"You better be sorry—Hannah, was it?"

Ellie knew her name. Of course she knew her name—she knew the names of everyone in this school, their real names and their nicknames, whatever people called them behind their backs. But feigning indifference towards anyone always worked like a charm, and Hannah finally went running off to grab her fallen textbooks when Ellie released her shoulder, sprinting down the hallway with tears evident in her eyes. Ellie checked her nails to make sure the girl didn't ruin them. She didn't, thank God. Otherwise they'd be having a whole new problem on their hands.

"You ready for me to drive you home, babe?" Matt asked, slinging his arm around her. The crowd in the stairway was starting to disperse—this sort of thing happened with Ellie every day.

"Ready," she answered, a steely look in her eyes. If she ever saw Hannah in the halls again, that mousy girl was going to have some serious hell to pay.

aylin barrett (14)

Hospital rooms were painstakingly white. Who ever thought it was a good idea to make everything so bright in here? It wasn't the lightning, necessarily, although the fluorescent lights practically blinded Aylin every time she looked up—no, it had to be the paint itself. As of a few months ago, she didn't even know that they made paint so white.

Machines were beeping loudly, a constant metronome, which had started to drive her crazy about five minutes ago. It reminded her of that old torture method, the one where water dripped from the ceiling and you were tied up underneath, and you eventually went insane from such a thing, the water always dipping in the same spot, the plunk of its fall, the wetness on your skin; it was more of a mental game than a physical one. These days, Aylin felt a lot like she was trapped underneath an ever-dripping faucet, or a rainstorm that only fell for her—she was sick of these hospital visits. She was sick of how people could get sick out of the blue, out of nowhere, without the slightest bit of warning except for a lump growing on the side of someone's body.

Aylin waited by the door as her father Scott said goodbye to the doctors and her mom, furiously wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. She wasn't going to cry at the hospital—she promised herself from the first time that she wouldn't. She wouldn't.

"You aren't going to say goodbye?" Scott asked her gently as he met her by the door, pulling it shut behind him. The way he closed the door told her that he already knew the answer to that. Silently, they walked down the hallway to the cafeteria together, Aylin's combat boots clicking on the floor, the loudest thing in the entire hospital. It was like how things always seemed to be louder at night than in the morning, when you were staying up much later than your parents would've liked. Every little noise seemed about ten times louder in the hospital.

They sat together in the cafeteria, close to a window seat. It was pouring outside, and the sky was a dull shade of gray, a color that matched her mood right now. Rain wasn't supposed to be in the forecast. Aylin checked her phone and fiddled with her thumbs as her father bought sandwiches for them—it was those frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the only thing the hospital ever seemed to serve, but at least it was something. She had a couple texts from Liz and Cody, but she didn't want to check them now. They wouldn't be texting too much, anyway, because they were at rehearsal, trying to put together a show that seemed like it would not be ready for its opening night. After all, if its cast members were always on their phones during rehearsal, it would never get off the ground.

Scott came back with their lunch. "What's wrong?" he murmured, passing her sandwich across the table. Aylin just shook her head. "Come on, I'm your dad. You can tell me anything."

"Nothing's wrong," Aylin said firmly, in a way she considered very convincing. She was on the debate team at school, and knew how to be persuasive. However, Scott didn't buy it; he just looked at her, a deep frown making creases on his face. It was his thinking face. "I'm serious, Dad. Everything's fine."

"Look, honey, the doctors said—"

"Doctors are always saying the same thing," she said. Inexplicably, Aylin felt good that there was something to argue about. Arguments were her turf. She always won those. "They said the chemo would get her better. They said that months ago. Everything's been the same since then, you know? Mom's still sick. Doctors don't know anything."

Scott fell silent instantly, looking down at his sandwich. Looking at his face, Aylin felt some of the adrenaline high she was riding start to wear off, and instead, she just felt guilty. Of course, trying to pick a fight with your father in a hospital cafeteria just because the familiarity of a debate comforted you was not a good idea, not when her mother was down the hall in a private room, with nurses and doctors prodding at her. Naturally, she had let her mouth run away with her again.

The next few minutes passed in silence. She checked her phone, for lack of anything better to do. She drummed her fingers on the table. No new messages. "Sorry," Aylin muttered, after she couldn't bear to take the guilty silence any longer. Scott just looked pained. Naturally, apologies were not going to fix problems easily when a problem has been deep-rooted for awhile, when it had already made its mark. Breast cancer was one of those problems. It could not just be solved with a simple sorry.

"Aylin," Scott murmured softly. His eyes looked dim, even in the hospital lighting—he was tired, just as she was. "I understand this is hard for you. This is hard for me, too. It isn't easy for anyone in this situation."

Tears stung at her eyes, and she couldn't help but turn away, trying to disguise them.

"That's why we need each other right now, you know? We need each other." He sounded a little choked up, too; wordlessly, Aylin reached across the table and grabbed his hand. Her hand fit perfectly in his, just like it always had when she was a little girl. "We have to take it one step at a time. Especially right now."

"I'm sorry," she whispered again. This time it sounded vulnerable, not defensive.

"Don't be," Scott whispered back, "I get it." Together they sat in the cafeteria, just a couple rooms away from her mother, watching the rain beat down on the windows, and their fingers were intertwined. For now, that seemed to be enough—one step at a time.

A/N: Ellie and Aylin are two very different characters, but I had fun writing both of them. What do you think of them?

Submissions are still open! There are only a couple spots left now. Don't forget to submit in a tribute if you've reserved a spot. Hopefully, I'll get the next chapter out sooner than this one.

The song lyrics this time were from "happiness is a butterfly" by Lana del Rey. It's one of my favorite songs right now.