Downtime.

Every day, Brooke tried to remember more about her old life, re-learning some people's names and trying to catch up with months of school work, but the memories of three months in hell overwhelmed her, especially at night when the memories flooded back and she'd wake up sweating.

She remembered what happened to her next. She remembered the pain of the 'Brooke McQueen' mask being ripped from her face. When she'd come back to her senses, her hands flew to her face, unsure what she'd find. She was confused but relieved to find her face was still there. Then she remembered the mysterious figure and looked around, wondering where the next assault on her sanity would come from. Seeing no one, she lifted herself off the floor and peeked out the doors of the Novak and saw Harrison walking towards her, she was about to speak to him, but he spoke first.

"What do you want?" he sneered. "Didn't you hear? No one wants your boring-ass self, weren't you listening? Damn! Like I'd have ever picked you if I'd seen under the mask!"

Brooke realized, as she slumped to the floor, that this was the thing that she'd had screamed at her before, only this time it had Harrison's face.

"What do you what?" she begged, tears falling down her cheeks.

"Wow! You really are a stupid little bitch! What do you think I want? I want to hurt you, just like you hurt everyone else you've ever met!"

"But.. I didn't... mean to" she sobbed.

"Of course not," the creature sneered, "you always had such good intentions."

"Why are you doing this to me?" was all she could whimper.

"Because you deserve it, moron! This is hell, in case you were too dumb to figure it out – you end up here because you deserve it! You know you deserve it. Look what you did to Josh and Carmen, look what you put Sam through over me."

"You're not Harrison," she spat.

"No, not really, he'd never just stand up to you and tell you what a worthless bitch you are, using his obsession with you to one-up Sam so you could trick everyone into thinking you're a good person."

"I didn't..." she gagged, coughing up more blood. "I didn't do that – I care about him."

"Sure you do Brook-en, that's why you led him away from Sam and into your bed. You just love him so much! – You were using him, just like you use everyone. Just another plan to make you feel good about yourself. You're so fucking pathetic!"

"I didn't..." she repeated, but the more she listened, the more she realized it was true. She didn't love the boy, she loved how he adored her, how effortless it was to extract adoration from him. How... perfect it made her feel. She was weeping now. Her companion just laughed.

"Ah, what's the matter Brookie, truth hurt?" it had Nicole's voice and face now. "Really, though, how surprised can you be? I use you to pull myself up the food chain, Sam uses her little crusade against us to make her feel that her sad little life isn't the horrific waste of time that we all know it really is, Josh uses you to make himself look like the king stud in front of his friends, and you use Harrison to make everything think you're a nice, sensitive girl, interested in more than just a guy with a nice car, or a butt you could break a two-by-four on. See? Everyone uses someone."

Brooke could no longer argue as blackness overtook her again.