CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE EFFECTS OF DISAPPEARANCE

Adam leaned his back against the wall while looking over his classmates' faces. Most of their faces looked deathly pale while they whispered amongst themselves. Every five seconds one of them would glance up at Adam and then quickly glance back down at their feet.

He didn't really blame them for looking at him with frightened eyes after all of the rumors that were flying around the school about how he was a psycho murderer.

Alli glanced at Adam with sympathy, but she didn't look away. She stared at him with her big dark eyes. Adam stared right back at her with a serious face.

There was this electric spark between the two as they both refused to look away. Adam had just opened his mouth to ask what she was staring at when the toilet flushed from within the bathroom.

They both instantly looked away from each other. Adam began stepping forward as Bobby exited the bathroom and began approaching Fiona who had been guarding the door with Adam's gun.

As soon as Bobby was within grabbing distance, Adam yanked Fiona back and said, "I'll keep guard. You can go relax with the others."

Fiona watched Adam's expressions play out on his face carefully. Both boys looked like they were going to grab each other by the throat at any minute. And after the stunt Adam had pulled on Wesley, anything could be expected to come from Adam's hand.

Bobby took a step closer, looking down at Adam with dark eyes that reminded Adam of lumps of coal. Everyone went silent as Bobby sucked on the inside of his cheek.

For a second, Adam thought that he was going to make another stupid move. Bobby's eyes narrowed as he leaned closer like he was going to sniff Adam's shoulder.

He rebounded without warning while wearing a smug smile. "Whatever you say, psycho."

Adam felt Fiona grip his wrist tightly, begging him not to give in to Bobby's taunting. Adam obeyed what he was told. He let Bobby shove past him and join the rest of the group off to the side.

He inhaled as Bobby sat down behind Anya while still smirking in his direction. He badly wanted to wipe that smirk off of his face, but he knew it wouldn't be a good idea to go down his old path of violence tonight.

But if Bobby continued to taunt him or coincidently caught him in a darker mood, he might lose control like he did with Wesley at the end of last January.

"I'll be quick, okay?" Fiona asked. She placed the gun into Adam's hand while wearing a smile. "Keep me safe."

Adam removed his hand from hers. "You know I will."

Fiona placed a soft kiss on the skin near his lips before disappearing into the bathroom. Adam turned on his heel and kept his back to the door while keeping lookout with the help of his frightened classmates.

He squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temple with his index and middle finger as soon as it began thumping madly without warning. He tightened his jaw and swallowed hard.

Adam slowly opened his eyes to see almost nothing. Everything in his vision seemed to have a twin. The walls began spinning and Bianca's worried voice echoed loudly in his ears.

"Adam, what's wrong?" Bianca slowly rose from her sitting position.

Jenna glanced between Anya and Bianca. "Is he okay?"

"He doesn't look too good," Sadie announced.

"Is he sick?" Connor asked them all.

Adam swallowed again as his breathing picked up and the hot flash began to take over his body. His face reddened while the back of his neck and his face began heating.

He was just beginning to perspire when he felt Bianca take the gun from him and slowly hand it off to Connor. She then turned back to him and rested both of her hands on his shoulders to help hold him up.

"Adam, you're sweating like crazy? Are you okay?"

Her words continued to echo as if they were all standing in a cave instead of their high school's hall. He opened his mouth to say something, but he began coughing profusely.

The sound of the toilet flushing was heard a single second before Adam shoved Bianca away from him and ran into the bathroom.

"Adam?" Fiona asked in confusion as he ran into a bathroom stall.

He didn't bother locking the door as he fell to his knees and began puking in the toilet. It felt like he was puking his lungs out while he gripped the sides of the toilet.

"Oh, God, Adam…" Fiona joined him while pushing his bangs away from his sweaty forehead.

Bianca entered the bathroom while still ordering Connor and everyone else to stay outside. But her attention quickly turned to her friend who was still leaned over the toilet coughing.

"Is he okay?" she asked even though the answer was very evident.

But Fiona couldn't find the energy to snap back at Bianca right now. "Give me some wet paper towels. Do you know what's wrong with him?"

"Not at all," Bianca answered while wringing the water out of a paper towel. "Here," she said softly, holding two paper towels out for Fiona.

She took them and carefully began wiping Adam's face with them. Bianca crouched down and began rubbing Adam's back as gently as possible.

Adam's pupils looked dilated as he became serious. "Adam, maybe you're just having dreams. Most of us started having nightmares and stuff. That's kind of the reason why your girlfriend has to repeat her senior year," he said while putting on a faux girl voice.

Bianca's eyebrows rose, and Fiona glanced at her nervously. "What's he talking about, Bee?"

"It's his schizophrenia. Multiple personalities are a bitch," she muttered.

Fiona's mouth fell open before she slowly turned back to her boyfriend who was opening and closing his eyes in an odd looking manor.

Bianca glanced at Fiona a couple times before leaning dangerously close to Adam's face. Fiona was pretty sure that she was about to make out with her boyfriend.

But instead Bianca whispered shakily, "Adam, are you okay?"

Adam gasped out a heavy breath as if he'd been holding it this whole time, and his body relaxed as both Fiona and Bianca let out a breath of relief.

Fiona quickly took him into her arms and kissed his hair. He looked like he was a little confused, but he hugged her back none the less.

"What happened?" he asked while glancing back between Fiona and Bianca nervously.

Fiona pulled away but held his head in her hands while smiling. "Nothing," she lied, "you just kind of passed out for a few seconds."

Adam looked at Bianca and seemed to be asking if this was really true. Bianca nodded and said, "Yeah, we thought we'd lost you for a while."

The hint of a smile pulled at Adam's lips as he slowly rose to his feet. He was about to ask where everyone else was when the sound of a gun going off rang in the three friends' ears.

They all jumped, and Adam was the first one to step into the hallway. He looked at all of their faces with wide eyes. But only a couple of them looked up at him and the two girls beside him.

Everyone's eyes were really focused on the beast resting in the puddle of dark red blood. The blood looked so dark from Adam's angle that he was tempted to define the color as black.

"I…," was all that Connor could choke out. He was still holding the gun out in front of him.

"Did you do this, Connor?" Bianca asked while stepping forward to take the gun from him.

Connor practically shoved the gun at Bianca with his eyes still wide with pure fright.

"It jumped out of nowhere. It tried to tackle Alli, so I…I shot it. I didn't know what else to do! I'm sorry!"

Fiona stepped forward and rested to hand on Connor's shaking shoulder. "Connor, there's nothing to be sorry about. You did a good thing."

"Really?" he asked shakily.

Fiona nodded with a smile before glancing back at Adam. He was now crouched over the dog-like creature beside Bianca. He ran his finger over the stomach of the dog warily as if it was going to wake up and eat him alive.

But no heartbeat was audible in the creature's chest.

"Now what do we do?" Bianca asked Adam softly.

"We'll take this…thing to the Biology classroom. I'd like to know just what this thing is."

Bianca nodded hurriedly and stood up to look back at them. She snapped her fingers and said, "Dave, Connor, Wesley, carry this thing behind us. We're about to experiment."

Dave laughed and asked, "Are you insane? We're like twigs."

"Then Bobby will help you."

"Bobby's not here," Anya announced hesitantly.

Fiona turned around with confused eyes. "What do you mean?"

"He just left," Anya shrugged. "He didn't say where he was going either."

Bianca swore under her breath and threw her hands up in defeat. "Great, now we're two students short. What now?"

Adam stepped closer to all of them with demanding eyes. "Nothing will change just because some pansy decided to be a chicken and leave us. Now someone take this animal and drag it if you have to."

He watched them all with serious eyes before shoving past them all and walking down the hall. Fiona didn't even have to think before turning to follow Adam's strutting form.

Bianca watched them before looking at Dave, Connor, and Wesley. "You heard the man," she said. "Now help me lift this deformed dog."

A/N: Kudos to anyone who can tell me which girl said what Adam repeated in the bathroom stall