I unlocked and opened the door after I had finished showering and getting dressed, letting Derek come inside with the first aid kit. He closed the door behind him before motioning toward the sink counter. I took the hint and tried to pull myself up, but everything hurt too much. My entire body felt as if it had been hit by several trucks. My wrists and ankles were badly bruised, my face cut up very much like my arms. My legs, luckily, were free of scratches, but there were huge bruises on my calves and ankles from when Derek and the thing decided to play tug-of-war. And after the adrenaline had run its course, my headache was back even stronger than before, probably due to me attempting to wash some of the blood out of my hair but not reopen the cut.

"Can't I sit on the toilet instead?" I muttered, and turned around to see Derek roll his eyes before picking me up and placing me on the counter. He then pulled up his sleeves, ignoring my surprised look, and began to wash his hands.

"Just ask if you need help." He grumbled, turning the water off and shaking his hands dry. He opened the kit and took out a couple of disinfectant wipes. I tried to reach out for one, but he took it away from my reach.

"I can do this myself. No need to stay awake." I said quietly, reaching again for the wipe. He simply moved it to his other hand and shook his head.

"It's going to hurt. I don't trust that you'll clean it properly." I glared at him, crossing my arms. My glare was no match for his own, however, and I looked away, grumbling quietly in defeat.

"Besides," he said, grabbing my chin and ignoring my flinch. "I wasn't able to sleep anyway." He started dabbing the numerous cuts that I had left on my face from trying to rip the duct tape off. I held in any sort of whining, trying not to give Derek any more reason to act all condescending towards me. I couldn't help but flinch with each rub, though. He wasn't kidding, the stuff stung more than I expected it to, but I stood as still as I could, hoping that this would be over as soon as possible.

He was gentle, which surprised me. I was half-expecting him to rub half of my face off, or to bruise my chin just from holding it, but neither happened. I did, however, notice that his hands were warm… almost uncomfortably warm.

He stepped back and dropped his hand from my chin, turning and throwing the wipes before grabbing new ones to clean up the small scratches I had down my arms. I looked at him closely, noticing how his eyes were too bright and that his face was slightly flushed.

"Derek, are you sick?" I asked. He just shrugged his shoulders. "Just a cold, nothing bad." He then started on the next arm, wiping it all down before he put the bandages on. After he did, he held both of my hands out in front of him, inspecting them. I looked down and winced slightly at how bad they looked.

"I couldn't see what attacked you." He stated, looking more closely at the bruises. "But it was able to grab you, pull you." He measured his hands against the marks. "It had pretty long fingers, too." He muttered quietly to himself, dropping my hands. It was then that he looked up at me. "Was this like the one before?"

I was about to nod before I stopped myself, both from trying to figure out what to say and from Derek suddenly taking my head and turning it away, trying to get a better look at the cuts on the back of my head. I was able to start again when he let go to grab a couple more wipes. "S-sort of. I could hear it, and it could h-hurt me, but it looked different, and it didn't talk this time. Just… laughed." I shuddered at the thought. He thought for a moment, leaving the both of us in silence for a moment while he finished cleaning my head up. As he did, I looked down to assess the damage to my palms. Luckily, the bandages were on the entire time, only allowing minor scab damage to both. I sighed in relief.

The silence was broken by Derek when he turned my head back. "The cuts weren't too deep. Head wounds tend to look worse than they actually are. Just don't touch them. Any way you can roll up your pants?"

I nodded, thankful that I chose to wear my baggy sweatpants. I decided to roll them up to just below my knee, then stopped there. It was a little uncomfortable, especially with how close he was. I never was one for too much physical contact, and this was already too much for my liking. But I figured that if it was bad for me, it was probably worse for him. He did a quick clean of them, keeping the contact between the both of us as small as possible. He did take a moment to look at the bruises, around my ankles and calves, but not nearly as long as he eyed the ones on my wrists.

"The best thing to do for the bruises is to ice them. Twenty on twenty off." He took me from under the arms and dropped me down, not being to gentle. I grunted sofly, and gave him a small glare. It was rude to just drop me all of a sudden, but I was relieved to finally have at least some of my personal space back. I took a moment to straighten out my clothes as he continued.

"Make sure to wear long pants, as well as something to cover your wrists. Your bandages should work fine for that."

I shook my head slightly. "That won't work. I'm supposed to be airing them out more often, now that they're actually healing."

He opened the bathroom door, heading out and turning off the light before I could even make my way out.

"Just say they reopened again if someone asks." He reached for the door handle of his and Simon's room but paused when I made a small sound, and looked back toward me.

"L-L-Let's keep this between us. I don't want to trouble Simon. And if it gets out there that Tori did this, it could only get worse." And I also didn't want to brag about the fact that Derek was the one to save me and clean me up in the middle of the night.

He turned halfway back around. "Good idea. But you should talk to Simon. He…" Derek paused before running his hand on the back of his neck, trying to think of words he so rarely uses. "He would like to make sure you're okay. He's good at making people feel better."

I watched him for a second before nodding. "Good point. I'll think about it." I murmured, already deciding a hard no to that issue. He gave a sharp nod to this, and before I knew it, he was inside his room with the door shut tight.

Feeling suddenly alone in the cold, dark hallway, I quickly made my way back to my room and locked the door, breathing a sigh of relief that Liz was here, peacefully asleep. I made my way to my bed, my body falling asleep almost immediately after I pulled the covers around me.

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The next morning I was exhausted both physically and mentally. Due to how late I was up, I had only about five hours of sleep the night before.

I looked around the room to see that Liz had already gotten up and dressed, and was humming something quietly to herself as she flipped a page in her book. At the sound of me getting up, her head whipped around to look at me with a big smile on her face.

"You're awake! I didn't hear you come back in last night! What time did you come back? I didn't know if you would ever come out of our bathroom! Tori and I had to use the boys' bathroom the entire time. Tori kept complaining about you getting your germs all over her things, but I managed to convince her not to bother you while you were in there. Mrs. Talbot was worried too, but I told her that you'd probably be better in the morning. She's going to be so relieved to see you out and about again!"

Liz continued to ramble on as I breathed a sigh of relief. Even though Tori was enemy number one, I was relieved that she had made a cover story for me. I didn't feel up to having to explain to everybody where I was, or have the nurses accuse me of trying to escape. I slowly got out of bed, trying to ignore the slow throb of my head. It was getting better, luckily. I tuned back in to Liz as I made my way to the closet.

"- should've seen the look on Ms. Van Dop's face! It definitely was worth it. Rae couldn't stop laughing. Tori kept saying how immature it was, but when Simon joined in, she couldn't help but smile a bit too! Who knew that she was so scared of frogs! I can't believe you missed it! I've never seen someone pull such a great prank here. Especially on Ms. Van Dop, she can be really scary. But Rae wasn't scared, and she didn't even get into trouble! She just said that it must've wandered in from the pipes! She only told us later at dinner that she did it."

At the mention of dinner, my stomach gave a loud growl.

"Oh that's right!" she practically shouted, jumping off the bed. I flinched a little, my headache threatening to grow worse. She paid no mind, and seeing me finished dressing, she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. I tried to not wince at her grip, both loving and hating the fact that my bandages were working at covering everything. "You probably haven't eaten since yesterday! Well good news! I heard the nurses talking about making some french toast with strawberries today! I think it's because Mr. Davidoff is heading over, but why not enjoy a good thing, right?" We were making our way downstairs, me trying to keep track of Liz's conversation.

"Wait," I said, a little out of breath from her speed. "Who's Dr. Davidoff?" She started to slow down as we drew near the dining room.

"Oh, that's right! You still haven't met him! He's nice, though he looks a little creepy. He's basically the head honcho. He likes to check up on us every now and then to make sure that we're getting 'better'." she said, using air quotes. I couldn't help but match her smile when she turned to look at me. "Though we both know we're too much for even him to handle." She gave a small giggle as we emerged into the dining room. Liz took her seat next to Tori, and without looking at anyone, I quickly made my way into the kitchen to take my pills. Mrs. Talbot smiled at me and was glad to see that I was back to the land of the living.

If she only knew.

I made my way back to the table, sitting as far away from Tori as possible. I took the spot next to Rae, at the end of the right side. Rae gave me a smile, and went back to her meal as Simon started talking.

"Hey, finally feeling better? We were worried about you. Derek over here couldn't stop worrying." I raised an eyebrow at Derek, who was eating as much as possible before anyone could grab seconds. He rolled his eyes at Simon's comment.

"That was you." He grumbled, returning to his meal. Simon gave a small laugh and rubbed the back of his head.

"Oh yeah. I guess that was me." He said, sending a charming smile my way. Though I was a little concerned about what Tori would make of this, I couldn't help but smile back. His smiles were too contagious.

"Thanks, I'm good now. I'm sorry for taking up a bathroom." Rae gave a quiet snort at that.

"It's fine. Queen Victoria over here may have complained a bit, but it was obvious she was excited about 'accidentally' walking in on Simon…." I froze a second at the mention of Tori, but quickly relaxed in order to look unperturbed. The worst thing you could do with a bully is show them weakness. I just continued to eat my food, grabbing a second piece and a spoonful of strawberries before they were gone.

"Well, Rachel, look who's finally taken a breath between bites." She snapped back, not missing a beat. "What would your mother say to you stuffing your face? Oh, wait! That's right…. Maybe it's a good thing she's forgotten about you." Rae glared over at the other girl with so much ice that it almost could compete to Derek's.

"At least I don't throw a tantrum whenever mother dearest doesn't approve, Victoria. Shut up and go back to taking your princess pills."

At that, Tori gave a screech and stood up from the table, jumping onto Rae and attacking her. Liz and I quickly stood up from our spots and moved out of the way. After getting over the initial shock, her and I ran over to pull them apart, hearing the nurses from upstairs rushing down to us. Liz and I took Tori off of Rae, holding her arms to keep her from scratching any more of Rae's face. Rae stood up slowly and wiped the blood of her face with her arm. She suddenly grinned.

"Oh it's on, bitch." She made to leap forward, barely reaching Tori and scratching her face before Simon hooked his arms around Rae and pulled her back.

"Rae, hold on-" She pulled away from him, but I stepped in front of Tori. Holding myself as tall and as wide as I could for someone the size of a garden gnome. Rae stopped for a second, and the nurses came bursting in. Quickly, we stood straight, not moving. Derek was still sitting at the table, eating his fill. I glared as he reached over and grabbed at my french toast.

Asshole.

"What." Ms. Van Dop demanded, looking as though she was containing an explosion. "Is going on here?"

Tori pulled her arm away from Liz and straightened her clothes. "Rae," she sneered, the name poison in her mouth, "was just showing me some weird dance move that she saw around her...mother's roughed-up neighborhood. She messed it up, of course." I had to hand it to Tori, she was a quick liar, I would've just stood there stuttering, trying to think of something. The nurses looked doubtful, but turned to look at Rae. She gave Tori a cold glare before turning to the nurses. "Yeah… sorry, we accidently fell and managed to scratch each other." She said, pretending to look embarrassed. Liz and I made eye-contact and rolled our eyes at the bad attempt. It was obvious that the nurses didn't believe it, but they chose to look past it.

"Well. Let's not do that again. Tori, Rae, you're both in charge of cleaning this up. Rae, you take care of both bathrooms this week as punishment. Tori, you finish up the laundry. Lucky for you Chloe has some of it done already." They both reluctantly agreed as the nurses left, par for Ms. Gill, who decided to stay behind to whisper something to Derek, before padding him on the back and walking away. I saw a flash of anger pass over Derek's face before he quickly schooled his features, picking up his plate and putting it in the sink.

I quickly stepped away from Tori and moved to finish the last few bites of my food, relieved that the fight was stopped and that I wouldn't have to go downstairs again for the time being.