Happy New Year to all of you! I would like to thank you all again for encouraging me to continue writing. Without further ado, let's get to it!

Justine felt as though she were floating. She was weightless, suspended in the air. It felt so peaceful to simply exist, to just be. However, as she began to become more aware of her surroundings, she realized that she was not floating at all, but being carried by someone. She was cradled in the person's arms in a way that was almost gentle, but she could feel that she was not being held so carefully out of tenderness, but that so she could not wriggle her way out of the person's grasp.

She could hear the person holding her speaking to someone, but their words sounded like incomprehensible rambling to her. Their voices were warped and distorted in a way that could almost be described as demonic, just wrong. Justine tried to tell her body to move, but it would not respond to her commands. She was helplessly being carried down what felt to be a flight of stairs and into a room. The inaudible speech coming from the two people ceased, an eerie silence falling upon them. The sound of a metal door opening broke Justine out of her trance, and she could feel herself being lowered down close to the ground. She was laid down on a cold, metal surface, sending chills throughout her body.

Finally coming to her senses, she was able to see them through the small oven door before they slammed it shut, trapping her inside. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out as they stared back at her with cold, unfeeling eyes. She still felt the urge to cry and scream for them to help her, to let her out, but she could not form any words. She desperately pounded on the glass window inside the oven, but she was still too weak to break it and escape.

'No! Please don't! I promise I won't do it again! Please! Somebody help me!' Justine thought helplessly as she could feel the oven getting hotter and hotter. Looking down at herself, she could see that the heat had already burned through her pajamas and was starting to sear her flesh, pale skin turning black. She silently cried out in pain, tears beginning to run down her face. It hurt so much, it was too hot. Oh god, make it stop! The last thing she thought before she was sure the flames would put her out of her misery was,

'… Is… is this Hell…?'

Justine jumped up from her bed in panic, confused and utterly disoriented. She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her as she gasped for air, seeming to have forgotten how to breathe. She fell into a panic, shaking and sobbing and hyperventilating. Even when she did finally get a sense of where she was, she could feel the bile rise up to her throat and could not stop herself from throwing up on her bedroom floor. As she continued to heave and wretch, she internally felt grateful that, given the time of night, Akira should still be a work and would therefore not have to see her in such a state.

After completely emptying the contents of her stomach onto the floor, she began to catch her breath and tried to ignore the taste of bile that now invaded her mouth. She spent few moments she simply sitting on her bed, trying to remember where she was.

"I am in Japan… I'm with A-Akira… They're in France… I-I'm safe…" she shakily whispered to herself, trying her absolute hardest to remind herself that she was safe with Akira, that she was safe from them. Tears ran freely down her face as she cursed them for what they did, along with cursing herself for still letting them affect her so badly.

Justine had been told countless times that what happened was not her fault, that she was not to blame. While she had slowly learned to believe that to an extent, she could not help but carry unbearable feelings of shame and guilt with her whenever she thought back to her life before Akira. A small, nagging, hateful voice in her mind would always ask what would have happened if she had not been born evil, as they so often liked to call her. She would then reprimand herself for thinking that she was at fault simply for being born, which would trigger her thoughts of self-loathing, and it would just go on and on and spiral into a very dark place. There were times when Justine truly felt as though her own mind was working against her and trying to drive her absolutely insane. It was funny in a morbid sort of way; she had been feeling so confident and self-assured before she had gone to bed. It was amazing how quickly that feeling was extinguished.

After Justine quietly sang about a parade of pink elephants, she could feel herself finally calm down. She looked down at the mess she had made in disgust and irritation. Wonderful, she thought, now she was going to have to clean this crap up before Akira got home. She felt as though she would need a mountain of paper towels and a barrel of industrial strength bleach to at least get rid of the putrid smell. Moving to the end of her bed in order to avoid stepping in the vomit on the floor, she trudged to the bathroom to find some cleaning supplies. When she re-entered her bedroom, she was facing her window when she spotted something she had never seen in real life before, especially when the outside the sun was only just beginning to set.

A bat. An actual, living bat was hanging upside-down on a branch connected to the tree outside her window. While one might think it was simply minding its own business, Justine felt uneasy looking at it, almost as though it was looking back at her. It did not move as she stared back at it, almost as if it was saying "What now?" Justine walked to her window and closed the curtains. More things freaking her out was really the last thing she needed right now.

Saying goodbye to Akira as he drove off, Justine walked up to the front of the school. She was being especially vigilant today, anticipating that Laito would try and sneak up on her at any time. She would not let herself be caught off guard today, she resolved. Though this was admittedly difficult to do when she'd had a particularly tough time trying to sleep. After she woke up from her awful nightmare, she dared not try to go back to sleep. She doubted she would be able to even if she wanted to, but she still did not want to take any chances of being dragged back into her twisted night terrors. Justine had not had that particular nightmare in quite a while, given how well she had been responding to the therapy given to her by Dr. Sohma. She had a feeling that the recent surge of stress caused by a certain red-haired trust fund brat had something to do with the unwelcome return of her most hated dream/memory. Oh, how he enriched her life so…

As she neared the front doors, she quickly whipped her head back to check for one last time if Laito or any of his strange brothers were there. Seeing that the coast was clear, she made her way inside the main school building and switched out her shoes, calmly making her way to her classroom. Unfortunately, just as she made it to the door, she felt cold hands grip onto her shoulders, causing her to jump. She did not even have to look behind her to know who it was, the soft chuckling being a dead giveaway.

"Hello, Darling~. How are you feeling today?" Laito said, that infuriating playfulness in his voice annoying Justine to no end. Still, she was able to keep her calm, despite the fact that he was touching her with his strangely cold hands. She briefly wondered if he just soaked his hands in ice cold water before coming to school every night. Since this was Laito Sakamaki, it could definitely be some kind of weird fetish.

"Go away…" she grumbled, really not wanting to deal with Laito at the moment. Her dreams were already plagued with terror; she did not need that in the waking world. Behind her, Laito hummed flirtatiously and rested his chin on her head, which caused Justine's shoulders to tense up.

"As sharp as ever I see. Good, because I've been looking forward to playing with you all night~!" he purred, removing his hands from her shoulders only to wrap them around her stomach, pulling her into a tight embrace. An involuntary shiver ran up her spine, earning a chuckle from Laito.

"See? You are happy to see me! You respond so well to my touch; what a dirty girl you are~!" He taunted, causing Justine's patience to wear very thin, very quickly. Perhaps he really had found a way to learn a lot about her. After all, he seemed to know just what to say and do to make her the angriest in the least amount of time. He knew how to push her buttons, how to make her feel violated and furious. God damn him…

Turning her head upwards to that her blue-gray eyes met with his green, she boldly stated,

"Not even in your dreams, Sakamaki-san. Even if I wanted to touch you, I'd have to use sterilized gloves and a hazmat suit, at the very least. Now let go, we both have class." With him still clinging to her, she reached for the door and slid it open, no longer caring if her classmates saw him hanging off of her. However, she almost forgot that they even existed when she caught a glimpse of her desk.

There were crude, awful things written all over her desk in what looked to be black sharpie. There was so much kanji written that some of them overlapped, turning it into gibberish rather than legible language. But what she could make out did not make her feel much better about her school situation. Amoung the lovely messages addressed to her were such zingers as "WHORE!" "KILL YOURSELF!" and the oh so charming "GO DIE!" Not the most original threats Justine had ever seen, but she supposed it got the message across well enough.

Justine looked around to her classmates, silently asking them who had done this to her desk. Some gave her a sad, sympathetic look while most turned away to avoid her gaze. It seemed like they might know who did this, but if they did then they were certainly not saying anything. Their silent reaction only made Justine more curious about who her new tormentor could be, seeing as everyone looked to be afraid to tell her.

"My, my. Someone seems to be very angry with you, Darling. They must really hate you to do something like this." Laito teased from behind her, finally unwinding his arms from around her waist and crossing them over his chest. Justine quickly turned to glare at him, giving him the silent message of "Not now!" This only earned her a smirk, of course.

Curling her hands into a fist, she marched over to her vandalized desk and sat down, trying to pretend that the vile slander was not even there. She could hear Laito sit down next to her, no doubt with that damned grin still on his face. For a moment she wondered if it had been him who wrote on her desk, if this was just another one if his attempts to make her go ballistic. She quickly dismissed the notion, however, seeing as the writing was far too outwardly hateful to be from him. While Laito had somehow gotten information on her, Justine had begun to observe his behaviour as well. He always seemed to be rather fond of playing mind games. He masked his true feelings and intentions until the time was right, hiding behind a façade of flirtatious cheer. Whoever defaced her desk had no intention of hiding how they truly felt about her. She let out a frustrated sigh.

Clearly, God hated Justine Lenoir, and he showed it through Laito Sakamaki. Well, she and Him did not really get along, anyway.

Halfway through the lesson, Justine begrudgingly decided to throw in the towel. Her classmates were all giving her strange looks, Mrs. Namikawa was being her usual manic, hostile self, and Laito was once again hell-bent on annoying her by poking and prodding at her person. While he still found amusement in playing with her black hair, he had advanced to touching her face with his godforsaken fingers. When he ran his cold index finger down the side of her neck, Justine decided that it was time to throw in the towel. Standing up, she calmly announced to her teacher,

"I don't feel well, Sensei. I'm going to the nurse." She did not give Mrs. Namikawa time to say anything before she walked over to the door and slid it open, finally freeing herself from the madness. She honestly did not care if she got into trouble; she just wanted out. She did not look back at Laito, who was grinning and waving her goodbye.

'Fine. You win this time, you oozing ball of puss. Just don't get used to it…' Justine thought as she made her way to the nurse's office.

Walking down the barren, empty school halls, a feeling of unease began to creep up on her. Empty schools always had a frightening aspect to them. Usually bustling with life, the hollow halls brought out a creeping sense of isolation and dread. Though Justine supposed that the same atmosphere was present in empty hospitals as well, ironically a place where death always loomed.

"Did anyone die here, though?" She muttered to herself. Ryoutei Academy was over a hundred years old, after all. There had to an interesting death or two.

It was then that she could see a pair of eyes on her, burrowing into her back. She stopped her movement and tried to suppress a shiver from running down her spine. She internally prayed to a God that she did not even believe in that Laito had not also left class to torment her once again as she could feel the eyes dig into the back of her neck. Justine took a deep breath and turned her head to face whoever was staring at her.

She was surprised, however, to see that it was not Laito staring her down at all, but one of his brothers. Justine had seen him around school before, but at that moment his name eluded her. He was rather short, with Justine being slightly taller than him, and had lavender hair and eyes. The dark circles underneath his eyes indicted that he did not sleep well, which she could relate to. In his arms was a stuffed bear that was somehow both cute and creepy at the same time. Seriously, why would a teddy bear need an eyepatch when its eyes weren't even real? The boy's eyes, however, were very real and looking at her, wide and devoid of emotion. It was a truly unnerving stare, as though he were honing in on her.

For about 10 seconds they did not say anything to each other as they took in their presence. In the end, it was Justine that broke the deafening silence.

"Um… can I help you?" she asked, hoping in vain that he would say no, go away, leave her alone, and move to a different planet. Instead, he tilted his head to the left slightly before speaking,

"You do not know why I'm here?" Even his voice sounded a bit off, it was just a bit too deep to be coming from someone who looked so child-like.

"Uh, no… Do I know you?" Justine replied, slowly inching her foot to the right in a preemptive move to leave. Yes, Laito's stupid games had her on edge, but she did not think she was being paranoid at that moment. After all, what kind of person just stands there glowering at a complete stranger?

"I'm curious. Do you know why?" he exclaimed, taking a step towards her. Justine took a step back on reflex, not wanting this weird, creepy boy any closer to her than he already was.

"Um… no?" she responded quickly. He continued to stare at her with his wide, purple eyes.

"… I don't understand it. You're nothing special. He usually goes after prettier girls. Isn't that right, Teddy?" he said, looking down at his stuffed companion with an eerie grin. Justine frowned at the thinly veiled insult, now wanting to ignore the boy entirely and leaving without another word. However, reminding herself that he was Laito's brother, she decided that outright ignoring him would not be the best course of action. Besides, she already knew why Laito was targeting her. He seemed to be most interested in her abilities, and was doing anything he could to make her lose control again.

Once again, her powers were causing problems for her. This was nothing new, really. They had been making her life difficult for as long as she could remember.

"I… I don't know. Look, I need to go. It was, uh, nice meeting you..." Justine nervously said before taking her eyes off of his and turning to her right to walk away. Before she could even take her first step, however, she could feel something wet and warm slide down her cheek. She let out an involuntary shriek and jumped in place. Oh no, he did not just do what she thought he did…

"Hmm… Maybe it's your scent… Has he tasted you yet?" she could hear him ask from right beside her, turning to see him standing there with his wide, creepy stare and stupid stuffed animal. Justine quickly took several steps back to get away from him, wiping his saliva off of her cheek with her sleeve. She glared back at him in complete disgust and abhorrence. Jesus Christ, he just licked her! He licked her!

"What the hell is wrong with you?! Get away from me!" she shouted, taking another step back. In an instant, his curious expression was gone and replaced by a vicious snarl. His purple eyes darkened in anger, and he clutched his beloved companion tighter to his chest.

Oh, crap.

"How dare you, worthless girl! You have no right to talk back to me! You are nothing!" he screamed, almost making Justine wonder why students were not leaving their classes to see what all of the noise was about. It was almost as if he saw her lose her composure and wanted to outdo her. She took two more steps back before she felt herself hit a wall. Seeing this and the look of shock and fear on her face, his look of anger faded almost immediately, morphing into a wide, frightening smile. His eyes seemed crazed and deranged, which shook Justine to her core.

"Hehehe… I have you trapped now, don't I? You are completely at my mercy..." He giggled, lowering his face right in front of hers. Justine involuntarily started to shake, her thoughts racing about how to get out of here. She could try to make a break for it and run, but she was also worried about what he would do if he caught her. No, when he caught her, if he was anything like Laito. She thought about trying to hit him and escape, but she immediately dismissed that idea as reckless and dangerous. She was thinking about trying to apologize to him (even though she had done nothing wrong), when his hand wrapped around her throat. He squeezed tightly as Justine reached up to pry his hand away from her neck, but he was simply too strong, and she could not get him to even budge.

Panic seized her as tears began to well up in her eyes; was this how she was going to die, strangled in a school hallway by her stalker's psychotic brother? She became so terrified, however, that she did not notice a nearby trashcan begin to move and shake seemingly on its own. Her attention was faced solely on Laito's crazy brother, who was grinning madly as her lungs began to run out of oxygen.

"No… let… ugh…" Justine managed to croak out as she could feel her life slip away. This only made the boy giggle even more, taking absolute delight in her suffering.

"Hehehe… That look of fear on your face is pathetic...! Try and beg for your worthless life! Plead with me to spare you!" he practically cackled, looking like he was having the time of his life. When Justine felt that she was seconds from death's embrace, she once again felt something snap in her.

'NO! I REFUSE TO DIE, NOT BY YOUR HANDS!' She internally screamed. Just then, the metal trashcan flew right off the ground and slammed into the back of her would-be-murderer's head. Whether it was from pain or shock, he his hand let go of her neck and fell to the floor, dropping his stuffed bear as he landed with a thud. Justine sank to her knees as she could feel the sweet, life giving air flow back into her lungs. She coughed and wheezed violently before she realized that he had released her, she was free! Not missing a beat, she took off running down the hall before the boy could get back up.

Completely forgetting that she had been going to the nurse's office, she ran through the empty halls before she spotted a supply closet, opening the door and shutting herself inside. When she stopped to catch her breath, she could now feel fresh, warm tears run down her face. She pulled her knees up to her arms as she simply began to sob.

"Why… Why is this h-happening to me? Damn it! Damn it!" She had not felt so close to death in a very long time, so vulnerable and afraid. She felt like she was nine years old again, all alone, with death creeping all around her, waiting for the chance to claim her life.

But…

She also remembered that she had been able to pull herself out of her despair back then, and she knew that she could still do it now. Wiping the tears from her face, she refused to let this bring her down. She refused to be broken again! By anyone! She would survive this, even if she had to claw her way out. She always had, she needed to, ever since she was a child. All because that, for some godforsaken reason, Justine had been born with the ability to move objects with her mind. Telekinesis, people called it. A goddamn burden, she had called it.

Honestly, if she had to be psychic, why couldn't she just be able to see ghosts or something?

All though, she realized, she had been able to get out of that situation by using her powers. She had thrown that garbage can at his head, even if she did not mean to do so. But…

Her powers had always been something that she had been afraid of, something she wanted to hide from the world. Now, however, she felt that she would most likely have to make use of them in order to get herself out of this awful mess, even if the thought of having to use her powers at all still scared her more than Laito or his brother ever could.

After all, what if they took notice? What if they took notice and tried to find-

No! No, she was safe, they were safe. Akira said so, and she trusted his word absolutely.

They were safe.

Wiping away her tears with thoughts and songs about pink elephants, she pulled herself up and opened the door to the supply closet, leaving the tight, confined space behind. After quickly looking around to see if Laito's insane brother had followed her, she began to make her way to the nurse's office like she had originally intended.

Sliding the office's door open, she was greeted with the sight on who she believed to be the assistant nurse, a young, kind looking woman who was restocking one of the first aid kits, looking rather stressed and overwhelmed. She turned towards the door where Justine was and gave her a friendly but tired smile.

"Hello, can I help you with something?" she asked sweetly, though it was clear that she was struggling to keep up her chipper façade.

"Um, yeah. I'm not feeling very well; can I just rest here for a while?" she asked quietly, her voice sounding hoarse and gravelly after Laito's insane brother squeezed her throat like it was a stress ball. The nurse smiled again and gestured towards one of the beds.

"Yes, of course! Just take any of those beds right there, and I'll be with you as soon as I can." Justine nodded and went to lay down on the bed closest to the window, taking note of how surprisingly soft and comfortable the beds were. Apparently, Ryoutei was so wealthy that not only was the clinic large, spacious, and their equipment state of the art, even the beds had to be of the highest quality. Go figure.

Justine observed the poor nurse go from restocking the first aid kits and medicine cabinets to putting away all of the dirty sheets and medical waste. Justine thought about how unfair it was for the school to put just one person in charge of such a large clinic.

After a few minutes of trying to sleep, Justine just had to ask,

"Um… are you okay?" The nurse quickly turned her head in her direction, most likely expecting her to be asleep already. She gave her another exhausted grin.

"Oh, yes I'm aright. We've just been a bit under-staffed around here for the past few weeks, what with Dr. Reinhart being gone." Justine raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar name.

"Dr. Reinhart?" She questioned.

"Oh, you've never met him? Dr. Reinhart is our lead physician, but he's been away for the past few weeks. Some sort of family emergency, I think he said." She explained, almost dropping the armful of glass flasks she had been lugging from one end of the clinic to the other. Justine cringed at the unfortunate sight.

Whoever this Dr. Reinhart was, he had better be the best doctor in the world to justify having so little staff in his clinic.

"Um… do you need any help?" Justine asked, not wanting to watch the poor woman drown in her work. The nurse smiled gratefully at her, but still shook her head.

"Oh no, dear, I'm fine. You need to focus on getting some rest, and I'll help you as soon as I'm done here." She said.

The matter resolved, Justine laid back down onto the bed, and before she knew it, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep, fingers still lightly touching her bruised throat.

I would like to say that I am very sorry about the long wait. I had some stuff to deal with, please forgive me.

I hope I was able to capture Kanato's craziness well. So far only Laito has appeared in the story, so I thought it was time to bring in the other Sakamakis.

I hope you enjoy the chapter!