AN: Thankyou so much again, you guys! I'm so glad I disappoint you with that chapter! I couldn't be more pleased with your reviews, encouragement and guidance!

This one is probably going to be the last one where things move so slow and Dakota is verging on having a tiresome amount of self-pity. I just really wanted to show her vulnerability in these first few chapters and introduce her while playing around with the character a little. Next, her and Tate's relationship will progress steadily and you'll see how she becomes resilient and overcomes her problems. More dramatic things will start happening, and I'll hint more about how quickly Tate is starting to care about her and at the remourse he feels about the shooting in general, or at least about shooting Dakota and putting her through what she went through and continues to go through after it all. I hope this chapter is as good as the last one, let me know if there's anything particular you'd like to see happen next or if there's something you'd like to see more of in the next chapter.

Also, I'm sorry this is such a long AN haha. Enjoy this chapter!

Dakota couldn't help but feel a little excited about this. Someone who knew how she we feeling, who understood it. A boy of all people.

"You know, all this stuff happened between my mom and dad after I survived being shot and I can't help but wonder if it's my fault, sometimes. You'd think they'd be pretty damn happy I'm still here."

"They're not happy you're alive?" Tate asked, perplexed.

"No, they're glad I'm alive, they just used to be so happy. It's different now..." She sighed. "Everything's different now. People seem to hate me because I got out of the school shooting and the other kids didn't. I punched this girl in front of my locker, her sister died in that library. She started insulting me, and that was okay, but then she accused me of being involved. My best friend died and I barely made it, and she thinks I had something to do with it."

"That's horrible," he said it with feeling, almost like he'd experienced it, too. "Westfield High, right?"

Dakota nodded. "You heard about what happened there?"

"Yeah, I mean... Everyone did," he glanced at the floor for a few seconds, but it didn't go un-noticed by Dakota.

"Hey, you wanna let me in on this messed up shit you tell my dad about? I could use a reminder that I'm not the only one with problems," she laughed softly.

"No," her dad appeared at the door with a frown. "He can't."

"Dad, I-" she began, desperately racking her brain for a decent excuse or something more reassuring than what her dad had just heard her say.

"Tate, you need to leave my daughter's room right now," Her dad had something more than a stern tone in his voice. She'd never seen him mad like this. He seemed annoyed, but... Inside, she could tell he was more than a little unhappy about this. "I don't ever want to see you back here."

Tate frowned, and stood up reluctantly. He said something in a hushed tone to her dad that Dakota didn't completely hear, but it sounded... Menacing. Threatening, almost. She didn't like him speaking to her dad that way, but she really didn't like the idea of not seeing Tate again.

Her dad glared at him as he left, and Dakota was sure Tate was louder than he needed to be, running down the stairs.

"I never want to see you speaking to that boy again, Dakota," her dad turned to her. He really meant his words, she could tell.

"What'd he just say to you?" She narrowed her eyes.

"You have to stay away from him, Dakota, am I clear?" His voice was getting louder.

"What'd he say?" She persisted, knowing she shouldn't.

Her dad sighed. "He reinforced the fact that I had told him he has a fear of rejection. And he's right to do so, because you know what's going to happen when you do reject him? He's going to get angry and he's going to get upset, and if he ever hurt you I would never forgive myself. He's unstable."

"You told him he wasn't crazy," She shot back, tears gathering in her eyes suddenly.

"You can be sane and unstable, they're too very different things," her dad muttered. "Look, Dakota, stay the hell away from him, alright? If you don't, you're going to get hurt. I mean it."

"God, dad, he's not going to hurt me! And I'm not going to reject him, either. He's one of the only people who even gives a shit about me. Stop wrapping me in fucking cotton wool, I've had enough."

Her father seemed taken aback by her reaction, like it was completely out of character, because it was.

"God, I used to be so loved..." She burst into tears, and he wrapped her in a tight hug.

"Honey, you're still loved as much as you were before everything that happened to you and to us, okay? You're loved, Dakota. You're loved."

"Sophia Boggs told me I should have been the one with my brains blown out, and- and I agreed with her," Dakota murmured into his chest.

"No, honey, no... It's hurting you, being the one who made it out of there when Cara didn't, when the rest of them didn't, I can tell. But you can't let it eat you alive. You're not perfect, nobody ever said you were. You need to know that. You're going to be okay again, you're going to be okay..."

Dakota stared at the blades in the trash can behind his back. She could be okay again. She'd have to forgive herself, first, for what she'd done to herself. But she could be okay again. She could. It was also time, she realised, to stop with the self-pitying. She wasn't dead. She was lucky, and it was time to start acting like it.

The next day, after a somewhat un-eventful six hours at school that consisted of avoiding Sophia, who, in turn, seemed to be avoiding Dakota, and listening to Sasha talk. And talk. And... Talk. But surely it was better than being alone. That's what she was telling herself.

When Dakota returned to her room, she froze on the spot.

'You're gonna die in here' was written in block capitals on her blackboard. She rubbed it out straight away, then looked underneath her bed and in her wardrobe like a little kid checking for monsters. She found nothing.

"Mom?" Dakota headed into the kitchen to find her mother cooking. She sighed in relief when she found her mom safe. Moira was with her too, teaching her a new recipe.

"Hey, honey," her mom greeted her daughter with a smile, but a look of concern manifested itself in her features when she noticed that Dakota looked pretty shaken.

"Are you okay? Did Sophia Boggs start harassing you again at school, because-"

"No, it's just..." Dakota trailed off, then met her mom's eyes. She hated to see her worried. "Nothing. I have a bit of a headache, I should go lie down." She forced a small smile.

"Okay, Kota, let me know if you need anything, right?" Her mom wasn't completely convinced, but seemed satisfied enough with her answer.

"I will."

As Dakota turned to leave, she couldn't help but notice how worried Moira looked... Did she know something? No, that would be ridiculous. Of course she didn't.

When she walked back into her room, she felt her heart rate speed up within seconds. The same phrase had been etched into her blackboard again, very recently.

She frowned and her look of fear was replaced with one of determination. She'd find out who did this one way or another. She climbed onto the edge of her open window and scanned her empty yard, they must have climbed in through it.

"Looking for something?"

Dakota felt her body jump involuntarily, startled. She felt arms around her just as she was beginning to fall out and tried to scream, struggling when a hand covered her mouth. Whoever it was had a strong, tight grip on her and any efforts to escape it were useless. They gently turned her around, and she felt her back against a wall. She was sure it was Tate, since the voice sounded a lot like his, only... It sounded darker, somehow.

It was Tate. Of course it was.

"Stay the hell away from him, alright? If you don't, you're going to get hurt."

She should have listened to her dad. She looked up at him with wide eyes. His expression changed, softened, because she'd looked at him like that before and he was starting to remember it all too well.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Dakota," Tate said, gently but firmly. "But you can't scream, okay?"

She nodded slowly, still uncertain about him and his intentions.

He removed his hand from her mouth but still held her arm a little too tightly with his other one.

"Let me go, Tate," she glanced down at his hand on her arm and then back up at him. He released her and stepped back straight away. She took a breathe in relief, it was like she'd just shut down and forgotten how to let herself breathe until he let her go.

"What the hell was that?" She demanded.

His brow furrowed. "I was saving your life, you almost fell out of your window?"

"Yeah, because you startled me," she folded her arms and stepped away from the wall, sitting on the edge of her bed. "But... thanks," she added reluctantly, but gratefully.

"I couldn't let you call your mom, if you're dad sees me up here again he's going to stop treating me," Tate said, turning his attention to her blackboard.

"W-why did you write that?" She asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

He looked back at her with a frown. "I didn't..."

For some strange reason, she trusted him. How could someone who made her feel so terrified make her feel so safe in a matter of seconds? There was something definitely dangerous about this boy, but something else about him that was so comforting to Dakota.

Then again, who else could it have been? She couldn't let her guard down here.

"This isn't funny, Tate. Seriously, why'd you write it?"

Tate's eyes changed, could they have gotten a tone darker? That wasn't possible.

"I didn't write it, Dakota," he snapped. "I would never lie to you." His voice softened a lot and his eyes wet back to the colour of melted chocolate in a matter of seconds. It had to be some kind of illusion, her mind was playing tricks on her.

"... You wanna hear this CD I made?" She asked after a few seconds, reaching to grab it from her bedside cabinet.

The conversation flowed for an hour, and Dakota found herself hanging on his every word with close to nothing to say for herself, which was a pleasantly rare occurence for her. His words were like poetry, every sentence. Well, all but the ones where he described his mom as a "cocksucker". But she could deal with that.

They sat at the edge of her bed together, and she realised that she hadn't enjoyed a conversation like this in a long time.

Footsteps that were too heavy to be her mom's were approaching from downstairs, so Dakota quickly rubbed the sinister message from earlier off of her blackboard and turned around to exchange a panicked glance with Tate, who to her amazement, seemed to have vanished. Shrugging, she carefully climbed into her bed and pretended to be studying.

"Hey, honey, how was your day?" Her dad asked, and she smiled at him warmly.

"I can't say school is ever a positive thing, but it was tolerable," she laughed. "Pretty good, I guess?"

He smiled too, looking relieved. She always felt bad for her parents and even guilty, since they were always worrying about Dakota so much. But all parents seemed to, apart from Tate's...

"I told you that you could be okay again," he paused. "God, I'm so proud of you, Kota."

Why? All she'd done was go to school like she should and try not to make a habit of punching people. It wasn't that difficult. Dakota had to admit, she had a damn good dad, cheating on her mom and all aside. That was being an unfaithful husband, and although it had hurt Dakota, too, they had gotten through it.

"I'm proud of you, too, dad."

She wasn't being completely truthful, but she had felt obliged to say it. It was partially true, actually, since he'd given up everything to move away and buy all those pills so Dakota could temporarily escape the pain.

When her dad returned downstairs to see a patient, Tate poked his head out from under her bed. She burst into laughter.

Things really were beginning to look up around here.

The next few days continued to be uneventful, quiet and simple. Good things never seemed to last for Dakota, and her world started to collapse from the inside out again on Friday.

Dakota opened her locker and instead of being greeted with semi-old photographs of her, Cara and Sasha and of her and her family, she saw before her red, crimson blood. It covered her locker, and subsequently, her face and clothing. Some kind of somewhat basic, but evil trap had been set up, and the opening of Dakota's locker had triggered whatever had sprayed all that blood on her.

Afrer screaming before she could stop herself, Dakota saw a message written with the blood, it read: "you should have died in there."

Being eerily similar to the one she had found written twice on her blackboard, it caused her to take several steps backward. She slipped on the blood that had dripped onto the floor, and fell hard, hitting her head before anybody could catch her.

Dakota woke up a few moments later in the nurse's office, screaming.

A question echoed in her head, again and again, until it filled it.

"Why do you wear long sleeves in Summer?"

It was Tate's voice, definitely. But there was something... Dark about it. And it just wouldn't stop.

Before the nurse could her, she slipped out of a side door and ran home as far as her aching legs would carry her.

As Dakota approached the house, she felt eyes on her, and could swear she saw a figure at her bedroom window, watching. When she blinked, it was gone.

She shoved the key into the lock and roughly twisted it, bursting into the house.

"Mom?" Dakota called out in a wary voice. "Dad?"

No answer. The air became heavy and the temperature cold. The house felt all too empty and all too crowded all at once, or maybe it was just the feeling of her world falling apart. Hell, maybe it was both. Right now, it wasn't her main concern. The pain and the voices had to go before she could think about one more problem.

Dakota stumbled up the stairs and into her bedroom, grabbing a handful of sleeping pills from the medicine cupboard in the bathroom and a bottle of water from her backpack. She was half expecting to see someone behind her in the reflection, hoping it would be Tate; because she needed him right now. But nobody was there.

She glanced straight at her blackboard, and was relieved to find nothing written on it. Still, she downed the handful of sleeping pills and ignored the tears streaming down her now blood-free face and the sobs wracking her fragile body.

Wait, how many had she taken? Six, seven, eight? More, maybe? Shit. It had been a generous handful. She really should have taken a second to count. Panic coursed through her and she began to realise how much she didn't want to die. She just wanted the pain to stop...

"Throw them up," Tate appeared at her bedroom door, sounding angry. Disappointed. She couldn't disappoint Tate, too, she couldn't lose him.

"I-I can't... I need the pain to go away," she said in a small voice.

"Dakota, throw them up or I'll have to make you, and that's going to hurt more," Tate stepped towards her. "I don't want to, but you need to get them out of you."

"No, I'm okay, I didn't take too many, I swear," she said frantically, like she was trying to convince herself as well as him.

Tate sighed and shook his head, frustrated. She could tell she was making this difficult for both of them, especially him. But she just wanted to sleep and wake up somewhere peaceful. Not die, just... Wake up and walk into school and have a normal day like yesterday. That was what she wanted to do.

He gripped her arm tightly and pulled her into the bathroom, she stumbled along behind him. Just as she was starting to feel drowsy, he shoved his hand down her throat quickly, because there was no gentle way to do it, and she coughed all nine of the pills up and into the sink without protest. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't. He couldn't afford to give her a choice.

They were both sure it had only been nine that she had taken, and satisfied, he carried her back to her bed. "It's okay, Kota, you're okay. You're gonna be okay," he whispered gently, and for the second time in her life, his eyes were the last thing she saw before it all went black...