Seeing only darkness is bad but feeling the redness drenched around me is exponentially worse. The warm, wet liquid is slick between my bruised fingers; it’s slippery where I crouch behind the school stairwell with a dirty hand clamped down on my mouth and a mind that’s reeling.

I can still hear the squelching of flesh when she stabbed Sam right in the throat; the way red squirted across the whiteboard and floor like a macabre abstract painting; the way she… she smiled at me.

Her lips curved at the sight of me as if I was the most precious thing in the world—a perfect thing only for her.

Well, fuck that. Obsessive psychopaths are not my type, especially ones who kill my teammates after school; teammates who were only cleaning up for Mrs. Bibinsky. That killer is a dead girl if I get my hands on her. But then again I am currently hiding in a corner like a little bi—

“Xavierrr! Where are you, baby?”

The lightly drawled words float down the moonlit hallway to my ears, to my shaking body that I’m trying to force to stay still for one damn moment.

What did I do to get the attention of Addie, of this obviously not-right-in-the-head girl? Did I smile too much at her? Did I make too many comments about her strawberry curls or those cat eyes of hers. Was inviting her to Friday’s party too mu—

The sound of a squeaky step on linoleum pierces down the silent stretch of lockers in the hall like an arrow. The squeaky, wet sound of sneakers, of Addie’s glittery sneakers, glistening in red that’s no doubt new and still hot. A step that’s much closer to the staircase than before.

Oh shit.

Hazel eyes darting to the slanted ceiling of the staircase above, to the dusty cracks in foundation that the janitors haven’t cleaned in years, to the rectangular, wooden archway at the base of the stairs leading to the cursed hallway beyond, I could've been gone by now. If I had ran straight for the stairs, no care for dignity or getting caught by coquette girl killers, I would have ran up each dusty step like a desperate dog and bursted through the first floor’s emergency doors like my life depended on it.

My life does depend on it... but I was too scared. Too much of a coward, like most of the time in life. Xavier Mills: Schuykill Haven's star football quarterback they say, lady charmer they say, most charismatic guy in this whole damn school they say.

Yeah, they're totally right. Always been right, right?

Xavier Mills: 6' foot, football quarterback who hides behind the school basement's dusty-ass stairwell to hide from a 5' foot, bubbly manic girl, lady charmer who gets hit by every girl he takes home but manages to catch the eye of addled Addie in one week, most charismatic guy in school who couldn’t say one word to stop a slice of silver imbedding itself into Sam’s throat.

I mean, I didn’t like Sam all that much but still—

A head slowly peers around the staircase wall. Slowly. Savoringly. Sweetly.

What the…?

Short curls both blonde and streaked with pink begin to appear.

no

A hooded eye with a wide brown pupil, of light lashes and pink swirling eyeliner, peeks from the wall to latch onto mine.

No

A slender hand crusted with dry brown and dripping with wet chunks of red slime crawls itself to the hard edge of the wall. And then Addie smiles with those goldfish lips that have probably kissed too many cats in their lifetime. A lovely smile. An obsessive smile. A smile that wants and gets.

The quiet voice of pattering blood, of melodious murmurs in an isolated room, of a lovely killer, slowly comes.

“Your time is up, handsome. Better run!”

Her filthy hand clutches the wall for a moment, until she shoves herself off and away from it. She’s a giggling mess as her tiny frame lunges from the wall… and towards me.

But there’s no cowardice in my mind now. No doubt. No fear. I’m coming out of this school alive tonight.

Addie raises her left hand with the knife, ready to slice it down across my face.

“Oh, fuck no. I ain’t no quarterback for nothin’, bitch!”

I launch my fist in a swinging arc right into her jaw as she bring the knife down. The knife clatters to dirty linoleum as she’s practically punched into the wall, like a baseball bat hitting a ball.

I’m the baseball bat. She was the ball.

Addie may now be crumpled upon the floor like a pretty rag doll, potentially dead, potentially knocked out, but I ain’t staying long enough to find out.

I’ve got a staircase to climb up, emergency doors to burst through, a reputation to live up to, and an urgent phone call to make.