Ella, despite Alex's mocking about worms, plopped her chicken down on his plate and started picking at her fries. The fries were, surprisingly, very good and salty. Unlike most vegans, she thoroughly enjoyed the taste of overly greasy food. Weird to some, weirder to others.

"Look. They're all freaking out. Your phone is probably the same. It'll be a quiet day at school, tomorrow.Everyone will be either grounded or hungover. Or both. Probably both. Stupid kids, can't handle their own booze. American beer isn't even strong anyways. Tastes like watered down horse piss. Real beer is supposed to taste like concentrated horse piss."

Ella sighed, swallowing a few more fries. "Damn, you talk a lot. You know, I heard that the people who talk all the time are the people that have the deepest, darkest secrets." She popped another fry into her mouth and looked at Alex in seriousness. However, she quickly stopped, realizing how stupid she must have looked. "Oh, and for the record, I forgot my phone at home. I laugh at your pain, dealing with those idiots who are probably getting maced in the back of a cop car."

The brunette reached into the fry basket once more, only to find a bunch of salt that she quickly wiped onto the empty seat next to her. Ella figured, now that she was done, she would go to the bathroom to see how horrible she had looked for the past four hours.

"Be right back."

Ella hopped out of her stool, quickly striding over to the bathrooms and feeling weirdly vulnerable in the fluorescent, flickering lights of the arcade.

Alex raised his eyebrows when she said her piece about people who talk too much. Well, she was right in a way, not that she would ever know. People could speculate all they wanted, but if the truth wasn't going to come out, then no one would ever know how dark those secrets really were.

And she reminded him again that he shouldn't keep this on for too long. She was very troublesome. He had already exposed part of his rude side, one that he had kept separate from his school life. Not that she would tell anyone, she seemed to hate everyone. He wondered if she was part Finnish. She did seem to have that feel of "I hate everyone but I want life to be wonderful". He detested that sort of thinking. Either be morbid or be happy, it's a fucking disgrace to just sit on the fence.

Tony returned, standing and washing his dishes with a rag of indiscernible color. He had an ugly sneer on his face.
"Not like you to bring a girl anywhere." he remarked, spitting in the glass before rubbing the spot out. Alex looked at him with a deadpan expression.
"What do you mean? It's not the first time I've brought a date."
"I said a girl, Middleton. Not one of those broads you have one-night stands with. My brother keeps me informed about your trips to his hotel. Says he hasn't seen you recently."
Alex shrugged.
"Girls haven't come to ask me out. Every teenager sleeps around a bit in this day and age. I'd stand out if I didn't. Teenagers also go through dry spells sometimes when they're heartbroken after a messy break up."
"I know what heart break is, Middleton. Never heard of lump-of-coal-break though. You're not shagging this one, are you?"
"No, actually. We just met today."
"Hasn't stopped you before."
"Your interest in my sex life is becoming increasingly disturbing, Tony. Unless you want me to help you lose a couple pounds the hard way, I suggest you back off." Alex snapped, eye twitching in annoyance.

Pushing his money across the counter, he walked to the front entrance, standing outside. Once out, he pulled his pack out, taking a smoke and finishing it in under a minute, using the stub to light a second one. Damn that nosy fat bastard. Who did he think he was? He was a larvae, a fucking maggot compared to him! Something about him just got under his skin, put him in a bad mood. One of these days, that lump of lard would get what he had coming.

Ella made her way quietly into the bathroom, deciding to make sure no one else was in the stalls before letting her guard down. Something in the air was giving her a bad vibe, and she had no clue what it might have been. A quick but thorough check under all of the stall doors ensured that the girl was alone, and, with a quick sigh of relief, she returned to one of cracked mirrors.

Thankfully, she had brought her makeup bag with her, in her purse. The bags under her eyes were starting to show up through her concealer, and her eyeliner was fading and her eyeshadow was looking oily. Disgusting. The impressive layout she normally used was suppressed to a few little light-beige containers and some perfume. She couldn't afford to contaminate any more of her belongings on the grimy arcade sink.

It wasn't like she was trying to impress Alex. She still pretty much hated him - he smoked, he drank a lot, and he always acted like he knew everything about everything. And he was an asshole - not that she could really bank on that one a whole lot. Rather, Ella had set a certain standard for herself that she wouldn't let fall, and so, that resulted in the frequent trips to the bathroom, which were rarely for what people thought bathrooms to be for.

Some cheering went on outside the bathroom door, muted by the thick wood. Ella assumed someone had beaten some kind of high-score. Then, the cheap little ringing noise of an opening door rung out behind the closed door. It was hard to hear it, but it was quiet enough after the cheering that Ella was sure that someone had left.

Shit...I hope he didn't leave. I need to call Parker on his phone if we're leaving.

The brunette quickly gathered her products, stuffing them haphazardly into her purse before washing her hands and yanking paper towels down from the big plastic dispenser. She used the towels to open the door and quickly discarded them on the floor behind her.

"Hey, Alex, where the hell are you-"

A dark figure leaned against the glass outside, smoke lazily drifting up from in front of his face. Her pace quickened, and she felt the fat guy's eyes burning holes into the back of her head as she pushed her way out into the frigid night air. As she emerged, she tried to look as if she had not just completely panicked.

Hearing his name being called inside the shop, Alex looked over his shoulder, seeing Ella quickly make her way outside. He extinguished the source of his smoke, throwing the butt on the ground.
"'Bout time. Tony was getting on my nerves. I hate that man." he said briefly, pulling out his cellphone to check the time. It was going on eleven now, and while he had no curfew, he didn't want to be randomly stopped on his way home by some well-meaning police officer.

"It's getting late. Want me to call you a cab?" he asked her, as they walked further down the street. The lights were becoming farther and farther in between, and the place had an almost eerie feel to it, being so... empty. Well, actually, it wasn't empty at all. There were plenty of homeless people, sleeping in card board boxes or behind dumpsters. But the cigarettes and drinks had dulled his senses, and so he too was taken by surprise by what happened next.

Passing by another darkened alley way, a man in a gray hoodies stepped out of the shadows, grabbing Ella's arms and pressing a switchblade to her neck.
"Give me your purse, bitch! And you, get down on the ground, now! I swear, I'll kill her!" he threatened, his voice hoarse.
Alex turned around slowly, putting his hands on the back of his head. But while his body language signaled compliance, his expression was one of deep thought.

"Oh, now this won't do. This won't do at all. Normally, I wouldn't care about a simple mugging, but I'm afraid this cannot happen." he said quietly, not moving from where he stood.
"Shut up, and empty your pockets! You want this slut to die?!" the attacker shouted again, sweat rolling down his face.
"I can't have that. She's a classmate. And a dead class mate means police will come to school. Meaning they'll question people. Meaning they'll question me. But no one would really care if a two-bit criminal died, now would they? Don't you agree, Ella?" he asked, smiling coolly. He reached his fingers down to the small of his back, where his pistol was strapped.
"Motherfucker, I said DOWN NO-"

Fwshing!
The gun hardly made a sound. A small pop and a big whoosh, but that was expected of a sub-sonic weapon. Nice and quiet.
The man swayed slightly, before crumpling backwards, dead on the pavement, a small bullet hole between his eyes.

Alex gave a small sigh, taking the bottle out from his pocket.
"Honestly, such a waste of good Jack. But we can't have any of your friends being able to recognize you, now, can we?" he asked the corpse, pouring the liquor onto the dead man's face. Pulling a hair from his own head and his lighter from his pocket, he lit the hair and dropped it onto the man's face, setting it on fire. As the smell of burning flesh and smoke started to rise off the body, Alex put away his gun, giving Ella a sinister smile.

"I can trust you to keep this incident quiet, can't I? After all, it's not like anyone is going to believe you. If I were you, I'd focus on finding that taxi. It's time for little girls to go to bed. Ciao!" he called, turning down the alley, stepping over the burning man as he did so. Well, that had been an interesting evening. He was ready for a good night's sleep.

Ella didn't have time to think as she watched Alex's retreating back, his sadistic features flashing in her mind long after he turned the corner. Her nose burned with the acrid smell of burnt flesh, and she knew she was going to throw up long before she bent over behind a nearby dumpster. Tears welled up in her eyes as she used her hand to wipe her mouth. The brunette didn't know what had just hit her, but she knew that nothing was ever going to be the same.

She, Ella Haussler, had just witnessed the murder of another human. A horrible street rat that had tried to kill her, no less, but still. She was officially involved, and she knew that she couldn't tell anyone. Ever.

It took a few minutes for her body to catch up with her racing mind, but when it did, Ella had the common sense to walk away from the sight, her converse padding silently on the concrete as she turned corners and clutched her arms tightly. She needed a taxi. She needed Parker.

Why didn't I just stay home and go watch movies with him or something? You fucking retard!

A few minutes of waving and calling out into the now sinister night streets later, Ella was climbing into the back seat of one of the yellow cabs. It smelled like smoke and old food, which only served to remind her of the arcade.

"Where to, young la-?"

"Twenty-third, 2057 McCarthy."

The cab driver flashed a concerned glance through the rearview mirror before nodding and stepping on the gas pedal. That was when she remembered that she didn't have any money on her. The brunette decided not to bring it up. Not until she was at the destination. However, with every number the little red numbers on the dash went up, the more her eyelids fell.

How the hell was she even close to being tired when she had just watched a normal, if rather asshole-ish guy murder a guy without hesitation. Though the adrenaline high was still there, Ella must have fallen asleep eventually, because she was soon being woken up to the ghost feeling of a knife on her neck and the faint sound of a final, deciding gunshot.

Thankfully, Parker's house was coming up around the corner. All she wanted to think about was being in his arms, on his couch, and watching a stupid, cheesy, family movie with Adam Sandler in it, or something.

He didn't like taxis, they made him feel uneasy. He remembered too many times where he had shot his target in the back of a taxi. Those were probably the easiest kills he had ever made. People were always so trusting of their drivers, it made it disgustingly simple. So he took the bus instead, getting off three blocks away from his home.

The Holy Cow Bakery and Deli was probably the last place a highschooler would be heading to in the middle of the night, if not for the flat above it. His flat, to be precise. The elderly Indian couple who owned the building no longer had any need for the extra space, as their children were grown up and on their own now, so they rented it without question to the boy.

Kicking off his shoes, he decided it would be best to finish up the whole Ella business rather quickly. Opening up his laptop, a present from Juan, he went to his school's main page, then to the online yearbook. Ella, Ella... There she was. Her home phone number was also put along side from the teacher's view.

Pulling out his normal cell, he punched in the number, waiting patiently for someone to pick up. He got her answering machine on her cellphone. So she either wasn't home yet or wasn't answering. Well, this would be fun.
"Hello, Ella? This is Alex Middleton. We met at the party. I hope you haven't forgotten me. I had fun that night, I really hope we can meet up and do it again sometime. Maybe do some shots? Haha, just kidding. Anyways, you're probably curious about what I'm calling about. I was really concerned with that guy we saw before. I just hope you don't do anything to end up like that. Well, you're a smart girl, I know you'll do the right thing. See you around."

Hanging up the phone, he looked out the window over looking the street, a sadistic smile playing on his lips. Well, that should keep her quiet. But he'd have to keep his eyes and ears on her. If she started talking about what happened, he would have to kill her. An accident or a suicide? He couldn't decide, he was really too tired. Maybe he'd let her choose, if she sought him out again.

Getting out of his nice clothes, he put on a comfortable pair of shorts and a grey shirt, lying down on his bed. Glancing down at his left fore arm, he lifted up his sleeve, running his finger over the numbers. 24869... It was still there, and it always would be. His reminder. His chains. His name. Closing his eyes, he blocked out the memories that haunted him. Honestly, why couldn't they let him be for one night?

"Parker, open up! Please!" Ella stood, freezing cold, outside of her friends house, pounding on the door. She was sure that his parents were going to be pissed - they didn't like her in the first place. However, she was exactly in a position to be sneaking around, especially after what being out at night had just gotten her.

"Hey! You up? I know you are-"

She was answered when the dark green door opened rather slowly for her taste.

"Wha-Ella, what are you doing?" Parker's sandy blond hair was disheveled and his voice was gravelly and groggy, and he wasn't wearing a shirt over his boxers. She had woken him up.

"I just..Can I come in?" The boy's face seemed to wake up a little more and he nodded, opening the door a little more so Ella could step inside. A pregnant pause lasted into the small living room, until Parker decided to say something.

"You know, I called you to see if you wanted me to pick you up, but you weren't answering. I got really freaked out when people were saying that a huge fight had broken out at the party, so I went over to your house. I got your phone. Some guy named Alex Middleton left you a message." His tone sounded a little cold towards the end. Ella couldn't blame him. The situation suggested so much.

"Oh. Could I see that?" Ella motioned for her phone, and Parker brought it out of his pants, which, thankfully, had pockets. Without a word, he handed it to her, their hands touching in the process. Despite how warm it was in the house, Ella couldn't suppress a chill when she pressed the tab to open the voicemail.

"Hello, Ella? This is Alex Middleton. We met at the party. I hope you haven't forgotten me. I had fun that night, and I hope we can meet up and do it again sometime. Maybe do some shots? Haha, just kidding. Anyways, you're probably curious about what I'm calling about. I was really concerned with that guy we saw before. I just hope you don't do anything to end up like that. Well, you're a smart girl, I know you'll do the right thing. See you around."

Ella stopped breathing as the message went silent. Her blood froze in her veins and for a moment, all she could think of was her immanent death. She had seen too much, she was going to be murdered on a street corner where no one could ever find her. Her face was going to be set on fire and become another unrecognizable street urchin. She was going to-

"El? Hello? What was that about?" Parker's warm hand pressed onto Ella's shoulder, breaking her from her trance. She fumbled for an answer that wouldn't get her throat slit.

"I..It's not what you think it is, I swear. He's just some asshole that I ran into while I was out and we had a couple of drinks around the pool. While were there, some guy got really drunk and got stun-gunned by the police. That's all." There was a long silence, and for a moment, Ella thought he was actually going to buy it.

Parker's hand, once just resting on her shoulder, was now pulling her into a tight hug.

"You and I...both know....that you can always come here, right?"

"Mhmm."

Except when I'm dead. Or kidnapped, or something.

Probably one of the better things of the cushy lifestyle of the American teenager was that they got to sleep in. The fact that it was not pressing for him to get up until eight in the morning seemed like a dream to him. It had been a hard adjustment the first few weeks, he wasn't used to sleeping naturally. Going for so long without an actual sleep cycle and instead relying on long periods of hibernation had done horrors to his inner clock.

He got up when his alarm went off, doing his usual morning routine, a quick workout, brushing his teeth, showering, starting coffee and toast, and watching the news while he ate. All seemed to be rather normal in the world, at least according to the skewed views of the media. Switching to local, he saw that his handiwork had been found rather quickly, and the police had assumed the murder to be the work of unusual gang violence. Well, clearly they were confused, but they could bumble around like idiots all they wanted. So long as it never came back to him.

Getting dressed, he sorted his laundry and put it in the wash, it would clean while he was at school and when he returned home he'd dry it. He pulled on a black turtleneck, seeing as the weather was somewhat cold and drizzly that morning. That was fine for him, he liked the cold. He would have looked rather strange wearing a long shirt if it was hot. And there were only so many more weeks before the weather started getting warmer, and he would have to bring out the bandages again.

He walked to the bus stop, greeting some of his 'friends' on the bus and sitting with them. They were all talking about the party, regardless of whether they had actually gone or not. He smiled. Of course, it wasn't like the high school world would stop on a dime because some criminal had been shot and burned in an entirely different neighborhood. They probably hadn't even heard, and most likely wouldn't. It wasn't like the media to pick up on such cases, and even less like people to be suspicious of him. He was Alex Middleton, an exceptional student, likable guy, and a charitable goody-two shoes. An all-American prodigy.