Disclaimer: Victorious is not mine. Jori...I wish was mine...

A/N: Here's ch18 on Sunday, as promised. This one is split view, Tori's first, Jade's after the break. I'm working on ch19 as I post this but it won't be up until at least tomorrow, depending on how it turns out. Thanks for the patience.

Anikky: The first few chapters switched back and forth. Sorry for the confusion.

And everyone else who reviews, favorites, alerts, or just reads(I can't make you do any of the listed..and I won't), thanks a lot. This story is definitely becoming more than I thought it would be.

Update on other stories, I'm trying to finish this one and the other stories are on pause (mostly because of writer's block...).

Enjoy.

Chapter 18

"Open the door."

"Go away."

But she doesn't. Trina's still knocking on my door, trying to get me to come out, but I don't feel like it. After all, what Jade and I are doing is wrong. I know I walked into my relationship with her without caring about what others thought about us, but I never thought that my own best friend would be one of the ones against us. I guess I should have seen it coming when he tried to convince me that Jade was going to hurt me, but Andre's hurting me a lot worse than she ever could.

The only thing is that that isn't the full reason why I'm locked in my room, ignoring my phone and my family, or why I told Cat to drive me home instead of going to her house to be with Jade, like I want to be doing. And it's killing me that I'm doing this to Jade, but I have to. I don't want to see her hurt. But I know I'm hurting her just by staying away, by ignoring her.

Andre told me to stay away from her, to end what I have with her, or she would suffer until she was wishing for death. What was I supposed to do? I wanted her to run with me, to go somewhere else where we could be safe because she's right, just because my dad's a cop doesn't mean that will stop someone from doing something. And even if I told my father what was going on…What could he do?

According to Jade, all the gang members were arrested once before when she went to the cops and some of them got out and still followed the order to hurt Beck. What if that happens again and Jade doesn't come out of it alive? It would be my fault. And Andre would be the one to do it, I'm sure.

There's another knock on my door and Trina's voice. "Tori, damn it, open this door. I know why you're not talking to Jade and honestly that's a stupid reason. Screw Andre and his opinions. If you care about Jade, you shouldn't worry about what he says. It's none of his business what you two do or how you feel about each other."

"And it's none of yours because you really don't know why I'm staying away from Jade. It's not something you need to worry about." And it isn't. She would just go to Dad about it and it would end badly. Even if she told Dad, it would fall back on me and still be my fault because this is something I have to deal with, not her, and not anyone else.

"Are you in danger?"

If she only knew how close to the truth she is. I don't answer that. "Look, Trina, just go away. Tell Jade to get over me, to just forget it. Tell her…I'm not doing this to hurt her." Hopefully Jade will understand. If she doesn't…this isn't going to get better. Trina slams her fist on the door one last time and I flinch. I don't like this anymore than her or Jade, but I have no other choice. Just because Jade was the reason I was hurt that night…that doesn't mean I'm going to be the reason she gets hurt this time. That was just an act of stupidity, and let's face it, if I hadn't gone with her, she could have ended up dead. And it would have been my fault if I hadn't tried to stop her.

That wasn't even a random attack. The guy knew who she was and was in the gang that wants Jade to suffer, the one that attacked Beck.

Something strikes me as odd, though. Jade was in the house when her father was killed. Any normal killer would have searched the house to get rid of witnesses. Perhaps it was because no one physically saw them kill Mr. West or because that was all they were there to do, or because Jade hadn't made a sound or let them know she was there. Maybe it was a deal gone wrong, that the killer just wanted money from him. Or maybe…Maybe that was to make Jade break. Maybe that was done to make her suffer, to show that they had no problem killing anyone close to her.

Jade can deny it all she wants, even at the man's funeral, but I know it broke something in her. He may not have cared about her at all, but he was still her father. And knowing that he would never be there, even to demonize, hurt her. With that thought, maybe Jade was meant to suffer. And something else…That was right about when Andre began disappearing.

Shit.

BREAK

I stare at my phone, reading the text over and over. Tori wants me to move on, to get over her. But now I know why. Or at least, I have my suspicions. And if what Beck says is true, she's doing this for me when she shouldn't. I can take care of myself. I glance over my shoulder at Beck, who's sitting against my headboard, and sigh. "This needs to stop, Beck. We have to do something about this before Andre or anyone else hurts her more."

He shrugs. "What do you think we should do? Get Tori to run away with you, go somewhere that's safe for both of you? Telling someone isn't going to help, especially Tori's father."

I nod. "I know that. They would kill him the instant we told him. And that would put Tori in even more danger." He jumps off my bed and pulls me against him in a hug before I can start pacing. I don't want Tori to get hurt and that's exactly what will happen, no matter what we do. "The only thing I can think of is to get them to back off."

Beck shakes his head. "Jade, we can't do that. They still blame you and chances are he's out there." He pulls away from me. "Just because we broke up, that doesn't mean I don't care about you. And I'll be damned if you do what he wants you to do."

"I have to. There's nothing else I can do."

He grabs my shoulders. "Yes, there is. There has to be something, anything else that you can do. Just run away with Tori. Get out of here and away from anyone and everyone that can hurt you." I push him away and leave the room, grabbing my car keys off of the kitchen counter. I can hear Beck chasing me as I rush out to my car, but I need to do this. There's no other solution. "Don't do this, Jade!" he shouts after me as I back out of the driveway.

I ignore him, heading in the direction of Tori's house. Before anything, I need to talk to Tori, to get her to understand that I'm not going anywhere, that I'm going to fix this before it gets worse. Trina answers the front door before I even reach it and the look on her face tells me that Tori's still not coming out of her room. I hurry up the stairs and slam my fist on Tori's bedroom door three times. "Come on, Tori! Open the door! I need to talk to you!"

"Go away, Jade!"

Like hell I will. I kick the door in and stare at her, taking in the shocked expression. "I know what he said to you. And I'm not going anywhere. If you're not going to listen to Trina or me or anyone else, then you've lost because we're trying to help you. You ignoring me, that's just going to make this worse, and they'd hurt me whether you do or not. They have a grudge against me, one that's lasted for two years, and I don't think it's ever going away until I answer to them. So before you think you're protecting me, believe me when I say you're not. They already tried to kill me once before you were ever anything to me."

"Jade…there's something else before you go into a long rant about why what I'm doing is wrong." I frown in confusion. What else did Andre say to her? "I don't think your father was killed just because. I think it had something to do with you. If someone had a grudge against him…they would have taken everything down with him, including you."

"So what you're saying…"

"Someone killed your father to make you suffer." I don't care about him. Whoever did it was sadly mistaken in thinking that that would hurt me at all. The only reason I even broke down the way I did was because I was the one who found him in the most gruesome way. "You can pretend he was nothing to you all you want, Jade, but I know he was. He was your father."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. It could have been that he was an asshole and someone wanted him dead for money. It happens all the time, Tori."

She frowns and her eyes finally meet mine. "I think Andre killed him."