CHAPTER TWELVE: SLEEPWALKER

Bobby Beckonridge

There was a soft screeching sound rebounding off of the lockers caused by the curly-haired boy's large pocket knife. Bobby let the knife leave a long horizontal trail across every locker that he passed.

He'd decided to abandon his low-class mates as soon as he'd witnessed Adam's panic attack. As soon as everyone's attention was focused on Fiona's psychotic new boyfriend, he'd taken off from the crowd.

He was hoping that no one would notice his sudden absence very soon. But there was just no way that he was sticking around with those losers for any longer.

Splitting apart from the safety of other people was probably his lowest move though. Now his probability of being dragged off by one of those monsters had gone up.

But of course there was a reason why Bobby had slipped away from the amateur group of teenagers: he had to find Owen. He just wanted to find his friend dead or alive.

He couldn't sit around fretting about Owen's current status and do nothing about it. It was up to him to find Owen, because he knew for a fact that none of the other Degrassi students gave a shit about the cocky football player.

Bobby hummed a low tune while the jagged edge of his blade continued to make silver scars in the lockers he passed. He had to admit that the atmosphere was a little too creepy for him.

And the scene had gotten even creepier when he'd suddenly felt the urge to hum an old carnival-like tune. But the fact that he couldn't remember where he'd heard the familiar tune scared him even more.

A dim shadow fell over the rich boy's chiseled face as he slowly passed through the light from one of the windows. He didn't even glance over while he casually passed through the short distance of moonlight.

The lockers came to a stop when he turned the corner and walked past the main entrance of the community high school. Now he was headed straight to the cafeteria again.

Bobby secretly wished that he could go back in time and refuse Owen's offer to stay at this idiotic lock-in party. The only reason he'd even accepted the offer was because he knew that Fiona attended school here.

An impossible idea of possibly winning her over had swarmed his fast-paced head, but every idea similar to that had been crushed when he'd spied the victim of his abuse holding hands with some short kid with dilated pupils.

And even though he had been surging with jealousy and anger, he could still see that for the first time in a long time, Fiona looked happy. Really happy.

But of course he'd gotten Owen to follow Adam around school and had ordered him to mentally torment him as bad as he could. So as soon as Owen had seen the capsule of pills with Adam Torres's name on them, he'd taken the upper hand.

By that time, Bobby knew that he had this Adam guy just where he wanted him.

All of a sudden, Bobby stopped humming and gripped the handle of his knife tighter. His jaw tightened as he slowly turned around to look at whoever had decided to follow him.

"Owen…," he gasped when he saw his friend standing there. The large boy looked dazed and a little bit lost. But he didn't respond to Bobby's surprised reaction.

He didn't even glance over at his curly-haired friend.

Bobby stepped a little closer to try and get a better look at Owen. He still refused to look at him while Bobby approached him carefully while still gripping his knife.

"Are you alright, Owen?" he asked just before taking one last step towards him.

His dark eyes widened when he saw Owen's new features. His eyes were all white except for a single black dot in each eyeball. His skin had also paled to a certain extent so that he looked like Count Dracula.

Bobby jumped about three feet off of the ground and almost dropped his knife when Owen decided to focus on him without warning. He backed away a tiny bit while his friend stared him down.

He wished that he could just sink into the floor so that he wouldn't feel the urge to stare right back into Owen's empty eyes.

Owen took a step towards him; Bobby took two steps back and gripped his knife just a bit tighter.

"Is something wrong?" he asked shakily. Owen didn't respond. "Owen, you're acting like a freak. Say something already."

Owen still refused to answer him. Bobby slowly raised his knife so that the point was aimed at Owen's chest, but it didn't stay there for long. The strong boy slapped the knife out of Bobby's hand like it was nothing.

The blade skidded under a lunch table while Bobby's dark eyes stayed trained on it. Owen took his sudden advantage and threw Bobby into one of the lunch tables.

Bobby yelped at the sharp pain in his back before flashing Owen an angry look. "Are you insane?" he shouted while massaging the new bruise on his lower back.

For the first time since their encounter in the lunch room, Owen gave a very evil grin. Bobby gulped and tried to swallow his fear as Owen slowly approached him.

"Stay away from me," he ordered in a low voice. He pushed Owen back gently and repeated, "I'm serious. Don't touch me."

And then Owen did the weirdest thing that night. He grabbed Bobby's face and gazed into the boy's dark brown eyes. It would've seemed like he was hypnotizing him with some magical spell.

Bobby stuttered something unfamiliar while Owen leaned even closer so that the scents of stale cigarettes were burning Bobby's nostrils.

He opened his mouth again to try and protest to Owen's strong grip, but his friend was getting even closer to his face now.

"Ow-," was all he got out before Owen suddenly brought his hot mouth to his ear.

Bobby's face scrunched up as he felt something wet and squirmy enter his ear. Was that…Owen's tongue? He couldn't remember Owen's tongue ever being that long and snake-like.

His knees buckled as he felt a tingling in his head. His mouth opened to protest again, but nothing came out. Owen slowly retracted himself and let Bobby fall to the floor at his feet.

The rich boy was breathing heavily on the floor and looked like he was hyperventilating. Owen watched with satisfaction as his breathing eventually caught up, and the dark brown around his pupil slowly faded into white.

He looked like a better looking replica of Owen now. Bobby swallowed hard as his mind slowly slipped away. He closed his eyes for a small second before flashing them open and staring into empty space.

His eyes slowly rose to look up at Owen who had his empty eyes fixated on his new slave. Bobby nodded once before rising warily and following Owen out of the lunch room with a fast pace.