This took me forever to do, so please forgive me for the long-ass update time (again). I just wanted to get this as good as it could get.

Another thing: A bunch of you WILL be confused by the very beginning. I wrote a preface to GFN a little while ago and this is in reference to it. It won't really make that much sense to you if you don't think about it in contrast to the first story, but I'm just warning you. If you want the preface, tell me and I'll add it as the second chapter to GFN. Now that you actually know what the hell's going on with Troy, Wolf, and Brandon, it should be a little easier to figure out :]

Chapter 28 - Alone Once Again

It never ended. If anything, it was getting deeper and deeper with every inch he pushed on. And, if possible, it was getting darker. He didn't know how he could've ever judged that; it wasn't like he remembered what the sun actually looked like. He couldn't remember what anything pleasant looked—or felt—like anymore. Just the occasional sweet scent of roses, eventually bursting into flames and filling his lungs with even more black dust.

As usual, drowsiness began to consume his body, limb by limb, until he was practically weeping in distress. Sleep had become an unfamiliar blessing as well. No matter how tired he got, he was never able to close his eyes for hours on end and just let his brain shut down. It was impossible. Even if all the noise was cut from the invisible background, his subconscious never got the chance to take hold. Even if the whispers of the wind silenced, the rats scurrying away from him in the tunnel stopped, and the thumping of his heart deceased, he could never-

Ding, dong.

He could never muster the courage to sit his weary behind against a sharp rock, lay his head down, close his eyes, and-

Ding, dong.

Oh, for Christ's sake, WHAT?!

Ding, dong, ding, dong, DING!

"I'M COMING!!!"

Troy was pulled from yet another daily nap nightmare by the front door blaring endlessly in his ears. Throwing the thin blanket off of him annoyingly, he stood from the couch and stretched his tense muscles. He nearly made his tongue bleed when the doorbell rang again and mumbled a violent thought that his mother definitely wouldn't approve of. Neither would Gabriella.

The visitor at the door, though, would probably just laugh in his face. But that wasn't the first thought that popped into his brain when Troy opened the door. Instead, he stumbled backwards after rubbing his eyes and breathlessly shrieked. "Holy shit!"

"Long time, no see, Hoops," Brick replied, humored, with his signature arms crossed at his expanded chest. "How ya been, buddy?"

Troy involuntarily took notice of his teeth having a sudden attraction to each other and forced them to freeze the best he could. Before replying, he disguised himself shaking his bed-hair into his petrified eyes by trying to shift his head from side to side, as if looking for someone to share his disbelief.

"What…" he panted, "w-why are you at my house?"

Brick shrugged, tilting his head up to the roof and 'checking out the old, fading paint job' "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd just swing on by," He locked eyes with Troy again and noted the messy, uncontrollable mop and dull, baggy eyes atop his pale face. "Wow, not even my hangovers are this bad. Or is Gabriella just wearing you out 24/7?"

The second he heard Gabriella's name in Brick's chary voice, the sleepiness oozed from Troy's body in the form of deep growls and was replaced with nothing but chaste anger. "Fuck you. And what the hell are you really doing here, Wolf? You're supposed to be behind bars serving 20-30."

Brick stopped, the slit in his eyes getting a little thinner and the grin on his mouth a little less controlled. The slight vibration of his monstrous frame informed Troy that he was holding back a laugh. "They ran out of soap."

"Lovely."

"Fine," Brick chuckled one last time. "You wanna know why I'm here?"

Troy rolled his eyes and suppressed a yawn. "The quicker you tell me, the sooner I'll be back to sleep."

"That might be a bit difficult after today." The suspiciousness was back.

"Why, are you kidnapping me?" Troy's question came out in an obvious combination of extreme sarcasm and tremendous terror.

"Nah, there's no point."

He didn't take the quick second to let out a relieved sigh. "And there was to you beating the shit out of my girlfriend?!" It was back to the anger.

"I never said there was. But at least she did more than just lay there and sleep all day, Grumpy."

"You're sick."

"I know. Listen," Brick adjusted himself and pretended not to see Troy flinch when he placed his hands deeply into his occupied pockets. "I'm going to go back to my old high school days and dish some dirt that I think you'd be interested in."

"Like what, another lie?" Troy seethed.

Brick's eyes faintly hardened at Troy's constant interruptions for his serious news. "Your third strike was up a while ago, Bolton, don't push my good mood."

Troy disguised a gulp.

Brick obviously seemed pleased with himself, but had enough practice to hide it well enough to continue. "Trust me; you'll thank me for this when I'm through. I think I can help shed a little help with the not-so-golden couple as of Saturday night."

Troy made no point to veil his widening eyes and dropping mouth. If he noticed Brick's growing smirk, he chose to ignore it. "How is that any of your business?"

"How's it any of yours? Do you even know what business you're talking about?"

"That's a stupid question, Wolf, what did you do to them?!" Troy's fists began to curl.

Brick rolled his mocha orbs. "Calm down, I don't meddle unless someone forces me to. Now do you want to know or not?"

After Troy took his time to nod reluctantly, Brick continued as though he were talking to some old friend from high school. "So, I took a little vacation to California the other day…"

The line was drawn. "You son of a-" Troy stepped forward bravely, as if he actually had a chance at taking this monster.

"I said I went to California, not that I went to San Francisco, don't interrupt me."

Although his fists were still curled, Troy backed down by the smallest inch possible. Brick waited for him to calm himself somewhat before adding tauntingly. "Now that I can finish, yes, I did go to San Francisco. Nice house, her mom's got cash, doesn't she?

Before he had any inkling of what he was doing, Troy's fist lashed out at the speed of light heading directly for Brick's jaw. The bright red flash of antagonism had blocked any action that took place after that, but he soon figured that it didn't matter. A blink of an eye would be too long to catch what happened next. Instead of the rough, stubbly skin of Brick's jaw under Troy's fist, some sort of rock had conformed on the outside of his hand and stopped him from proceeding any further. The furious haze had to pass before he could realize that it was indeed Brick's hand catching Troy's, not even flexing a muscle or disturbing his smooth breathing pattern. The man was a machine, Troy thought to himself, because he sure as hell wasn't human. Brandon couldn't even do that and he was pushing for twice Troy's size.

"I just went up to say hi and annoy her a little," Brick's voice continued as though he were unfazed, but his eyes were as smug as ever. "but it turns out that an old…friend of yours beat me to the punch."

"What old friend?"

"Does the name 'Josh Greystone' ring any crazy bells?"

The impact of the blow was so chilling, so crushing that Troy had no chance at feeling his hand slide out of Brick's vice and land limply at his side. The warm spring breeze suddenly cooled back to the December winds that lashed a his now papery skin with vengeance for whatever he'd done to deserve such news. But thankfully, it was the door frame that stopped his body from falling backwards and landing on his head inside the house. He couldn't even control the single, relevant word about the fall from his mouth in a broken breath.

"No…"

"Yup." That was all the man in front of him responded, containing a beam.

"Izzy was raped?" Troy barely whispered.

"I swear my eardrums were blown by the time I left; the girl's got a pair of lungs on her. Oh yeah, and her boyfriend gave her a jingle right in the middle of it. And do you want to know what that little bastard did?"

"Please…please, don't tell me." He breathlessly gasped, grabbing a hold of the door frame.

"Why, because you already know that he hung up on her once he heard the moans?"

"Brick…" Troy pleaded, trying to hold up a shaky hand in surrender.

"Fine, I'm done, I'm done. So I figured that she'd be traumatized enough and left just as things were wrapping up—"

That was enough to snap Troy back into some sort of angry, semi-conscious state of being able to respond. "You just left her there?!"

Brick rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically, as if disappointed. "Okay, okay, I was wrong; story of my life, never done anything like that before. But just think: am I really the one you want to be mad at?"

Troy kept his hard gaze on Brick for a few seconds like he was trying to break him, make him crumble under his betrayal-filled eyes for just leaving his poor cousin in Hell to have her remaining innocence stolen by an eighteen-year old beast. Just like in the past, Brick provided him with a look just as—if not stronger—unbreakable, scorching, and sarcastic. And, just like in the past, Troy was the first to look away. But this time it wasn't completely out of horror; instead of turning his face to the ground as usual, Troy slowly rotated his head to the right, directly into the side of his girlfriend's house. If looks could kill, the wall of the Montez house would've had a hole already starting to burn before Troy's singing stare completely demolished it. It was now nothing but a large pile of ashes in the destroyed grass to him.

He had a feeling that a bleeding, mangled body would match very nicely…

"He's in his backyard," Brick told him, "I'd go have your little chat with him now before he goes into hibernation again."

It took Troy all but three seconds to gather some heated energy, roll back the imaginary clock in his head, and take a deep breath, his version of a battle cry. He kept up the frozen stare while the fire in his head smoldered to an inferno, Brandon's name flashing through the angry flames for encouragement.

As he stomped off to the neighboring backyard, Brick moved himself to lean against Troy's doorframe and check off another step in his plan, murmuring. "Let the games begin…"

--

"Brandon!"

Brandon sighed deeply as Troy's voice thundered through his backyard. He turned away from Gabriella but before he could even say 'what', he felt a sharp, familiar pain force his head back and cut off his stabilization, throwing him to the ground.

"Troy!!!" Gabriella shrieked, jumping back in surprise from the punch, but too shocked to do anything about it afterwards.

Troy ignored her, quickly advancing toward the teenager on the ground holding his sore jaw. Troy straddled Brandon beneath him and, holding him down by the neck, threw his clenched fist into his face over and over with no mercy. He could hear the yells of protest surrounding him, but was too furious to care.

Once Brandon received a small clue of what was happening, his confused and pained eyes switched to something that he hadn't used with Troy in almost a year. The rage, the violent bliss of the previous year returned to his body in less than a second, giving him the strength to shove Troy off of him and reverse their last position: Troy's back dug into the Earth and Brandon on top of him, attacking his face with all of the anger that had consumed him.

He only managed to get five or six blows in before two pairs of arms took hold of his right arm and yanked him up off of the ground. Brandon didn't even turn to see who was restraining him. Every muscle in his body was bulging with excitement and his heart rate had nearly doubled from the insane fuel that gave him the energy to fight against the arms.

"Brandon, cut it out!" Chad's voice commanded, tightening his fingers around Brandon's throbbing torso.

He watched through red-tinted eyes as Ryan pinned Troy's hands behind his back and dragged him as far away from Brandon as he possibly could, with him struggling to break free just as much as Brandon was. His face turned crimson from the quickening blood flow pulsing through his veins and his breaths came in loud, staggering huffs. After another few seconds, his jaw locked and his eyes froze over, the old signal that Brandon remembered meant that he was done getting physical and was ready to talk it out—or scream.

"I'm fine!" he snapped to Ryan behind him. Ryan hesitated before loosening his grip on the angry teen's arms.

Troy's head slowly turned back to his best friend, who was also slowing his struggles. Chad and Sharpay still had an extremely firm hold on his shoulders and abdomen, which soon proved to not be enough for Brandon finally broke out of their hold and took a step forward, facing Troy head on. Their eyes burned holes in the others, fighting to dominate their opponent.

Brandon spoke up first. "What the hell is your problem?!"

Troy's fists clenched again as he prepared to lunge at him once more, but Ryan threw his arms around him before he had the chance to. The growl emitting from his throat turned into a scream. "HOW COULD YOU?!?!"

Brandon's face made way for confusion, but it didn't stand a chance of overtaking the remaining rage. "What are you talking about?!"

"Isabelle, that's who I'm talking about! You broke up with her, you monster!"

Brandon's lungs gave up for the shortest second and the words came in contact with his nerves. He winced at the sound of his ex's name being spoken for the first time in days. "…how did you find out about that?"

Troy didn't hold back his raging fury yet. "Brick told me! My worst enemy told me that my so-called best friend broke up with my cousin right after she was raped!"

The helpful bystanders all gasped, even dropping their holds on the two teens. "What?!"

Gabriella turned to her brother and, with wide eyes and a serious tone, asked "Brandon, is that true?"

He ignored her as well and let annoyance sink into his words. "Oh, don't tell me that you're buying that bullshit!"

"How could you say that, Brandon?!" Troy begged, still pissed. "She was your girlfriend! She trusted you with her life and you just threw that away like it meant nothing to you?!"

Brandon immediately retaliated lowly. "You don't know anything about our relationship!"

Troy stepped forward and easily accused "I know that she was a way better girlfriend then you were a boyfriend!"

Brandon threw his hands in the air and sarcastically asked "Oh yeah, sure, because I didn't run off and sleep with someone else and then try to cover it up with some stupid rape story?!"

Troy ground his teeth together and felt a strong, low rumbling in his chest. He growled "That wasn't a story! Be serious for once in your life!"

Brandon rolled his eyes and said "Why would you believe Brick, anyway? After all he's done to us, you believe him over your best friend?!"

"I tried to call Izzy and she picked up sounding like she just got her heart stomped on! Now try to call that a story!"

Brandon glared "She's probably just PMSing! And besides, she has her other boyfriend to go cry on and fuck!"

Troy dug his fingers into his temples and took several deep, calming breaths. As soon as he inhaled once again, he felt the fury blend back into his sanity, tinting everything red and warming his bloodstream to make it a pulsing disaster. "You are so damn stubborn! I know that you loved her! So what if she actually did cheat on you?! You would just let her get raped as revenge?! She could've gotten killed!"

Brandon immediately jumped to his own defense without thinking. "Why should I care?"

Troy felt something snap inside of him, like a catapult that projected him forward and threw his fist in Brandon's direction. It hit him and he went back to return the favor, but Chad grabbed him before he got the chance. Ryan and Gabriella snatched Troy and pulled him back about ten feet from Brandon, which still turned out not to be enough space. If either one of the boys got loose, all they had to do was take two giant steps and they were right back to killing each other.

Troy took giant breaths through his nose, expanding his chest to try and calm himself down for at least half of a second to threaten him dangerously. "You're lucky that everyone's here. If they weren't, I'd make you feel more pain than Isabelle did!"

Brandon's smiled like a cobra, his teeth glittering in the afternoon sun and reflecting his anger in Troy's eyes. "I would love to see you try. I've gotten stronger since our last fight!"

"So have I and I'll put your ass back in the hospital in an instant! You know what I can do to you!"

"This is coming from the person who I stabbed!"

Troy lurched forward again, having Gabriella snatch his waist back towards her. "If you bring that up again, I'll let you know how it feels and won't take you to the hospital!"

Chad, from a few feet across the lawn, warned "Troy, don't even play like that…"

Troy snapped "Stay out of this, Chad!" He turned his attention back to Brandon and growled "Listen to me, Brandon, if you know what's good for you, you'll forget your anger and apologize to her! I know her way better than you do and I know how she gets when her heart's messed with! She lost her dad and her grandma; she doesn't need something else to cry over!"

Brandon crossed his now free arms and shrugged. "I don't know, maybe a little crying would do her some good. Let her see what's going on outside her own little perfect world!"

Gabriella let her hands slide down Troy's torso absentmindedly and her mouth dropped open in disbelief. "Brandon…"

Troy had the same reaction, shaking his head at him and looking over the man in front of him. This wasn't the same person that he had talked with this morning. He had changed in the course of a few hours and returned back to the same cynical, frustrated, angry devil that he hadn't seen in over a year. This wasn't his best friend. And he had a feeling that he couldn't be traced back to the light anytime soon.

"How could you be so heartless?" Troy whispered.

Brandon didn't hesitate to reply. His voice was shaking, almost as if he was begging. "I learn from the best."

Troy's mouth snapped shut and his fists clenched again, his veins stretching out of his skin. Brandon's arms were crossed and his feet were spread apart widely, as if he were trying to intimidate the teen in front of him. Things were painfully silent for a few moments while the two boys stared each other down, neither of them moving a muscle except for their broad chests and shoulders lifting and contracting heavily. The witnesses held their breaths as they watched the stillness and listened to the silence that had suddenly turned extremely screeching.

Troy couldn't help the sudden rush of hot tears that had run to his eyes. He was angry, that was obvious, but the harsh truth of the future has finally begun to dawn on him. The déjà vu of this moment was all that could be seen in front of him while he stared into Brandon's hard eyes. His shoulder-length, shaggy black hair shrunk back to the short cut that he had sported back when the two were thirteen. His 5'11" frame melted back into the short 5'3" body that he showed before his growth spurt. His blood was covering almost his entire body, even under his black hoodie and dark blue jeans. He knew exactly what he had to do.

He took a deep, shaky breath and whispered brokenly "Fine. Learn from this."

Brandon let his eyes close in a blink that lasted a little more than a second, the most relaxed action that he had committed all day. When he opened them again, they widened in horror upon seeing Troy's thirteen year old form, the way he was in middle school after their first physical fight. He was bruised, bloody, and pissed. His fists were curled and his eyes crafted into an angry, rage-filled glower. He knew exactly what was to come and he could never be prepared for the next words that came out of Troy's tight mouth.

"We're through, Montez."

Brandon couldn't breathe. The tears rushed to his eyes and pushed against the barriers he automatically put up to hold them back as he continued staring at Troy. His body fell cold and his blood turned to slush in his veins. It had been six years since this feeling had taken over him, the crushing pressure against his chest, the massive lump in his throat, and the feeling of no return at the three evil words that had just been spoken. He took a deep breath to return...

"…fine. I'm done with you, Bolton."

Not even a second after the words left Brandon's mouth, he darted off inside the house and up to his room. Everyone outside could hear his door slam and the wall rumble from his foot colliding with it. Troy inhaled deeply and exhaled a sharp, shaky breath as he stormed off the Montez property.

They weren't there to witness it the first time, nor have they ever wanted to, but the onlookers felt as if this time was worse than that day six years ago. This time no one was forcing the brothers to kick each other out of their lives and before, they weren't fighting over a sisterly figure who had gotten hurt. The five of them stood there like the boys had burst into flames and left them all stunned, confused, and very heartbroken. Chad and Taylor dragged their heavy feet after Troy to make sure he didn't do anything stupid as he usually did while Ryan and Sharpay stalked up to Brandon's room, making sure that he was okay.

As for Gabriella, she was left standing in the middle with a very large, hurtful decision to make. Her watery head spun around several times, a new stream of tears flowing down her face every time she tried to look for someone to make this choice for her. Troy was her soul mate, the one that she was designed to spend the rest of her natural born life and beyond with. He was the one who didn't take no for an answer when they reunited last year at East High and took her sarcasm seriously when he rode the wild hogs around like a complete fool. He'd been broken, battered, and tortured for so long with her in mind the entire time. Hell, he'd even been stabbed by her twin brother as a result to the buildup that she didn't help to stop at first.

Brandon…Brandon was her blood, the one who was born with the automatic responsibility to look after her with every breath in his body. He had jumped to her defense with every fight that she'd managed to place herself into and if she got hurt, he'd carry her through it in some sick, twisted way and finish with his infamous battle cry that screamed "I'll beat you until the very last drop of blood is spilled from your body." How could she turn her back on that? He was even protective enough to scare her away with the punch, a way to tell her—and himself—that he was in a dark place at the moment; she needed to get out before he caused even more damage.

Didn't family always come first?

Her head swiveled for the last time until it landed upon her final selection. With a deep breath and a mental apology for who was second on her mind, she hurried over to try and console Troy the best she could.

--

It rained that night. Course pellets lashed at the windows and doors of every home in sight, as if trying to get through the barriers to the vulnerable beings beneath them and steal every remaining defense that they still had. The midnight sky, once a beautiful velvet, soon became swallowed alive by the rain and held prisoner along with everything else it protected. It was broken, storm clouds invading it at random spaces to the point where everything—and everyone—underneath was torn open, weak. Two beings in particular sat and minute by minute, watched as their precious sky fell from their weakened grasp. It was as if they were both Gods who saw every wrongdoing in their world of perfect dreams…except a nightmare.

It rained that night. And for the ten tortured members of this world, it seemed as if it would never end...

How many are happy that Brandon got his ass whopped for what he did to Isabelle??? And if you are happy, do you think that Gabby made the right decision to have Troy as her first choice over her twin brother??? Oh, no, my friends, this is NOT rock bottom yet. The next chapter's even more shocking ;]

Oh, yeah, and Brick's such a LIAR, LIAR; PANTS ON FIRE!!!

Just another word of warning: the next chapter deals with a pretty sensitive subject--especially to me--that carries out to the end of the story. I'm just saying that if you're very stressed and have a certain way of dealing with your "depression" (you'll find out this method next chapter) come back to the next chapter with caution. I don't want to be responsible for any triggers...

REVIEW!!! Thnx :)

~Rachel :)