Lucky for Julia, she already had Austin’s number. It was part of her sister’s contacts. She began to tap at her phone. He should be at the pep rally, and the majority of people were staring at their phones during it. There wouldn’t be a problem starting a conversation now.

“It’s Julia. Britney gave me your number. She said she wanted to go on a double date with you and Tyler on Saturday, but I don’t know. What do you think?”

She stared at her phone. That was too much at once. Unfortunately, she had already hit send. Shouldn’t she have started off with a, “Hey, it’s Julia,” or a “Yo.” No, no one said, “yo,” she was being crazy. Everything about this was crazy.

Her phone buzzed. “Not over text. Talk in person?”

“Where are you sitting? I’ll move over there.” She could sneak in and maybe move to where he was. If anyone asked where she was, she’d lie and say she was having toilet trouble or something.

“Not in the gym. Lunch?”

Julia’s chest felt tight. “I’m not at the assembly either. Now?”

Did she really want to go now? She did, she really did, but she had no idea what she would say or do. Maybe it was best that she just try to gather information. See what Austin thinks about what happened to Kara.

“Room 208.”

She really did want to talk to him, but… Julia shook her head and forced herself to walk. There wasn’t a need to ask why he was sleeping with Kara right now. Even if now was the time to ask, she wouldn’t be able to. The scent of him was still fresh in her mind, the way he touched her skin, or the lustful way he moaned with anticipation.

Julia stopped. Her face flushed red at the thought. That wasn’t her, it was Kara, and that wasn’t love. He forced her into it somehow. Austin wasn’t a good person. All she needed to do was chant that over and over in her head as she talked to him. He was a terrible person.

The room he gave her was the woodworking one. She could hear a machine going off within. Peeking through the window on the door, she couldn’t see anything. Julia gulped down her fears and forced herself to enter.

Austin was working on a lathe. He had a scarf tightly wrapped about his face for ventilation, but he was only doing some polishing on a resin bowl. Noticing Julia had entered, he turned off the lathe.

“Hey,” muttered Julia with a wave.

Austin took a moment to wipe off his hands and undo the scarf from about his face. “Hey…” He gestured about the room. “They canceled this class for the pep rally, but I wanted to finish up my bowl today.”

“Yeah, I get it,” she replied.

He kept his distance from her, eyes looking her up and down. After an awkward moment of silence, Austin shrugged. “We don’t have to go on a date.”

“... Uh… Yeah. Yeah, of course, we don’t,” she replied. This was absolutely embarrassing.

Austin held up his hands defensively. “Not because you’re not… Well, you’re you, but the point is that this date isn’t about us. It’s just Britney making it about herself and Tyler being an asshole.”

Britney was a bitch, and it did seem like too soon after Kara’s death for Tyler to be going out and having fun on a date. “... Yes, of course. I understand.” He stared at her like she didn’t. “Britney has been trying to hang out with me since…” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “But I’m fine.”

“None of us are fine,” he replied. He looked off to the side for a moment and then back to her. “Tyler and I aren’t friends anymore. Britney wants all of us to hang out and have fun again, but it’s not going to happen. Point is that she shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

Julia stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. She stared off at the wall, mindlessly focuses on a poster while also not being able to concentrate on it. “Were you two not getting along because Kara was sleeping with both of you?”

“Ah... “ Austin shuffled about uncomfortably before giving her a nod. “She, uhh… Kara… There was a point where I was in crazy about your sister. Britney knows that, which is probably why she’s trying to set us up, but I don’t think she knows that Kara and I were seeing each other… Like that.”

“Because you… You were blackmailing her into it.”

Austin’s face shifted with disgust. “Is that what she told you?” Julia glared at him. “... Shit. You two even have the same death look.” He put a hand to the side of his head and let out a sigh. “Kara came onto me. We had sex a few times, we were going to call it off, but she died before we did. I did the right thing and told Tyler about it so he wouldn’t be so torn up that he lost the ‘love of his life.’ What Kara did to both of us was shitty.”

“Kara wouldn’t have cheated on Tyler,” argued back Julia. “You did something to make her.”

“Kara’s dead… She’s dead.” Austin shook his head a few times. “I’m trying to give you an out here. You can remember her as your awesome sister and not the manipulative psycho bitch that she was.”

“Don’t you fucking dare call my sister that.”

He scoffed at her anger. “I walked in on her having an argument with someone on the phone, and it sounded like she had already been cheating on Tyler by that point. When I told her that I was going to tell him about it, she told me that we should be partners for the biology project and use that as an excuse to come over to my house and give me a few blowjobs. It’s not my fault that we got carried away. She straddled me, and I was not going to tell her no.”

Julia was fuming. She tightened her hands into fists in order to keep herself calm. Austin’s shadow began to lengthen behind him, and Trill crawled out of it. His motions were staticy and disjointed as he did so.

“You agreed to keep silent because she offered you her body. That’s blackmail.”

“Kara offered me a fair deal.” Austin put a hand on his hip. “I’ve got the video evidence to prove she was willing. Throw any accusation you want at me. I know I’m innocent.”

Trill’s tail whipped back and forth behind him in an eager manner. “He had a position of power over her, and he wasn’t afraid to use that to his advantage. Regardless of his claims…” Trill moved to behind Julia and whispered loudly in her ear. “That’s rape. One that he recorded in order to rid himself of guilt.”

And it wouldn’t have ended. He could have used that recording in order to keep her under him. Julia’s hands tightened to the point where her nails began to painfully dig into the skin of her palms. A lump had formed in her throat as well, and she couldn’t swallow it down no matter how hard she tried.

“Your sister was a slut,” continued Austin. “She wanted it, and when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to keep it, she killed herself. That isn’t on me, or Tyler, or that other guy. This was what she decided for herself.”

Trill’s unnaturally long fingers curled about Julia’s shoulders. “But you know that isn’t true. Someone set this up. Someone wanted her to suffer. This wasn’t your sister’s fault.”

Julia pulled her hands out of her pockets. She lifted her glasses so that she could wipe the tears away from her eyes. Austin took a step towards her but hesitated. He began to shuffle back and forth uncomfortably. This was made all the more awkward as Julia closed the distance between them. Now he was stunned as she began to bawl into his chest.

“It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be okay.” He patted her back. “We’re all struggling right now. Killing herself may have been Kara’s answer to getting herself out of a bad situation, but it was also done to hurt us. We can’t be held responsible for her mistakes.”

“I know…”

Julia put her arms around Austin’s shoulders and pulled him in for a tighter hug. He responded by putting his hands on her waist. Neither said anything. Not even as Julia took the edge of Austin’s scarf and tossed it towards the lathe. She quickly took a step back and switched the machine on.

The scarf was caught behind the bowl, and Austin let out a shout as his head was yanked down towards it. His face was marred as the plate sliced its way in, spraying blood, bone, and a part of his eyeball towards the wall. He began to claw at his throat, succeeding in loosening the scarf enough in order to fall to the floor.

He began to gasp and paw at his face, letting out loud shouts of agony as he did so. Julia didn’t know how to react. His body began to convulse, and she clutched at her chest in order to help her swallow down her shock. Suddenly he was still… At least, parts of him were still, as though he had passed out. There was a wheezing noise escaping him, and blood was flowing heavily from the gash in his face.

“You… You still hurt her,” whispered Julia. “Even if it was her own fault, you didn’t have to choose to hurt her.”

Trill absorbed the scene as it unfolded in front of him. His mouth had spread out into a wide, dry grin, and it was as though the eyes of his mask were sparkling. “What are you going to do now?”

Julia knelt down and began to search through his pockets. She found Austin’s phone and used his bloody thumb to unlock it. Afterward, she deleted the series of texts that they had sent back and forth so that there would be no evidence she was here.

She let out a horrified gasp as the bell rang. How long did that give her? Julia had splashes of blood on her body, and there could be students showing up within a minute or so. Dropping the phone, she ran out of the room and hid in the nearby bathroom.

This was terrible. Even if she deleted the conversation in the phone, he could still accuse her. She could say that she had gone to the assembly, but that wouldn’t account for her absence from her next class. Then there was the blood. There wasn’t a change of clothes that she could put on.

She was absolutely fucked.

A moment of anger had taken her over, and she had lost her rationality. What she should have done was manipulate him more. Maybe flirt with him, she didn’t know. Julia should’ve found out who that guy was that Kara was arguing with. The one she was willing to sell herself off for so that no one else would find out.

What was she going to do now? If Austin died, she might be okay, but if he lived? How long would it be before she ended up in jail? How would either of her parents go on with one daughter dead and another one who might as well join her? She hadn’t even gotten a chance to prove that it wasn’t Kara’s fault. That someone had done this to her.

“You’re fretting too much,” muttered Trill. He had followed her in here, but Julia was panicking too much to care.

“Go away,” she whispered. She pulled her legs up so that she was curled up in a ball on the toilet.

He leaned towards her. “Do you want me to save you?” His mouth spread open in that creepy grin again.

“Would that mean you would go away?”

He chortled at the response. The nerve of this girl. Her concerns wavered between murder, getting rid of him, and avenging her sister with such inconsistency. Yet none of those were her true desire.

“No.” Trill slashed open his left wrist with a claw and held it out for her. Instead of blood, a dust was trickling out of it. “Drink.” She looked up at him with a horrified expression. “That boy won’t remember you. If he wakes up, he won’t know what happened. You would remain free.”

Julia focused on his wrist. She grabbed onto his hand and pulled him towards her, sealing her mouth over the wound. It was like taking in a mouthful of fine dust. There wasn’t any flavor, but it turned into a thick paste as it mixed with her saliva. Forcing herself to swallow it, she found that she couldn’t.

She shoved her way past him and made her way to the sink, taking in handful after handful of water, swishing it about in her mouth, and resisting the urge to spit it back out. The blood that was staining her clothes turned black and began to flake off like ash. Julia looked up and stared at herself in the mirror.

Her skin had gone pale, but that was probably from shock. Trill approached her from behind. He stood on one side and put his arm about her waist, pulling her towards him. The disgust on her face was apparent, but he found it to be amusing.

“As you know, I require a trade when it comes to my dealings.” The class bell rang again. “We’ll discuss it this evening. Look forward to it.”

Right. She needed to go if she wasn’t going to rouse any suspicions about herself. Julia barely made it to class on time. It felt like no time has passed at all before an ambulance could be heard outside, and an even shorter time had gone by before students were checking their phones underneath their desks.

Julia couldn’t bring herself to look. She would push it out of her head. It didn’t matter if Austin died or not. He deserved it. He did all of those things to Kara, betrayed Tyler in the process, and he did it without feeling any guilt. He deserved it… He deserved it…

He deserved it.