Alive
Chapter Seventeen

Catriona was released the next morning. She had to go back for a check-up in a week, so the doctor could
make sure she was okay, and they wanted her to go see a psychologist. Catriona refused. She’d gotten through this once before, she could survive it again.

Faith picked her up Monday morning and took her to the apartment so she could shower and change
before going to school.

“Why do you keep looking over your shoulder?” Catriona asked, as they walked to the apartment. “You’re
awfully jumpy, Fay.”

“It’s- I just can’t help it.” Faith looked down at the stairs. “I- I just have this feeling. It’s probably
nothing.”

“We have to tell her, Faith,” Sarah said from the doorway.

“Tell me what?” Catriona asked, looking from Faith to Sarah and back to Faith.

“Wade threatened all of us,” Sarah told her. “You and JC were just the first.”

*~*~*

Lance looked over his shoulder when he heard his name and his eyes widened. Wade Robson was walking
directly towards him.

“Hey, Lance, just the man I was looking for,” Wade said, throwing his arm over Lance’s shoulder.  Lance
resisted the urge to pull away from him.

“Why? What do you want?” Lance asked.

“You’re not really friends with those Gothic bitches, right?”

“Not really.” He wasn’t at that moment; Faith probably hated his guts.

“Then you wouldn’t mind helping me get back at them.”

Lance stared at Wade. “Help you do what you did to cat to the rest of them? Hell no.”

“It won’t be that bad,” Wade said. “And she deserved it.”

“You’re sick if you think anyone deserves to be raped!”

“We won’t hurt them,” Wade said. “Just embarrass them a little. And you’d be popular, and you won’t get
dragged down with them.”

But, Justin was dating Sarah. If he helped Wade and his friends get back at them, he’d be hurting Justin,
too, and would end up losing his best friend. But he’d gain more friends. Probably a hot girlfriend. But, would
those friends be true friends? And if he didn’t help, he’d be one of the people Wade would be trying to get back at.

“Let me think about it,” Lance said, walking to his car.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow about it.” Wade grinned at him. “Hopefully you pick right.”

*~*~*

What should he do? Help Wade and lose his best friend and  the girl who had helped him broaden his
horizons and was a very interesting person and- ok, he’d admit it to himself- he had a slight crush on? Or don’t
help Wade and get hurt with the rest of them? If he was helping Wade, he could make sure that it didn’t go too far, like it had with Catriona.  But who the hell was he kidding? He knew Wade meant to harm them and nothing he could do would change that. And he doubted his friends would understand. But he didn’t want to die, or even get hurt. He was healthy. He didn’t want that to change.

Lance kicked a rock on the sidewalk. He had just started walking after Wade had talked to him. He was
missing history class right now, but he didn’t care. He had too much on his mind to even think about history.
Wade’s proposition for one. And how to get back in Faith’s good graces after what he had said in the hospital
yesterday.

Lance wandered into a park and sat down on one of the benches, his head back so he could stare at the
tree above him.

“What do I do?” he asked.

A bird chirped merrily.

“Some help you are,” Lance told the bird. It looked at him, it’s head tilted sideways and chirped again.

*~*~*

Faith glanced at Lance’s empty seat and bit her lip in a struggle to keep her tears back. It had become a
real struggle not to cry since yesterday. She’d felt tears rise to her eyes more times in the past 24 hours than she
had in the past six months.

She ran into Chris and Catriona after class like she did each time. Catriona looked small and lost and
afraid, hunched over in her jacket, as though she just wanted her 5’10” frame to shrink to as small as she could
possibly be.

“How was class?” Faith asked.

Catriona shrugged. “It was class.”

A chill ran down Faith’s spine as they walked into their next class. Before the door swung closed, she
caught a glimpse of cold brown eyes that sent fear racing through her heart, although she wouldn’t admit it.

Chapter Eighteen
Index