"Ma'am, I don't know what you want us to say," one of the young deputies murmured as the mother of Nick Longford stared at them in disbelief. Thunder suddenly roared through the sky, adding to the blurred rushing noise of rain water cascading down over the town of Summerland. "There was no sign of forced entry-"

"Are you suggesting my son did this to himself?" Nick's mother accused angrily as she clutched a tissue tightly in her hand, after watching only thirty minutes before her son being rushed to hospital in severe pain, having woken up in a dried pool of his own blood. "Are you implying that he mutilated himself?!"

"No ma'am, but we've looked around the whole property and there is no sign that anyone forced themselves into the house-"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this." She scoffed, turning her body away as if she wanted to hear nothing else. "I know that my son wouldn't do this to himself. He wouldn't do this-"

"We understand-"

"I don't think that you do!" Nick's mother shouted, causing some of the other officer's to glance over from where they were stood next to their cars with cups of coffee, shielded from the heavy rain under big black umbrellas. They were stood outside now, letting some other officers check for the third time to see what else they could find since they'd turned up empty handed every time. "He will never be able to have children! Do you understand that?! Someone broke into my home and mutilated my child and you're suggesting that I'm lying?!"

"Ma'am-"

"Deputy, I think i'll take it from here." Sheriff Wilson murmured, placing his hand on the deputy's shoulder and almost pushing him away. He'd only just arrived on the scene, having heard about someone's son being castrated in their bed in the middle of the night. "Why don't you tell me what happened?" Sheriff Wilson asked, placing his hands on his hips.

"I've explained this four times already." Mrs Longford sighed, evidently distressed, dressed in her robe and her pyjamas from the previous night. Sheriff Wilson continued to wait until Mrs Longford decided to explain once more. "I woke up to Nick screaming, and when I went into his room he was just sat there in his bed covered in dried blood, all over the bottom half of his pyjamas, just screaming. He said everything was hurting and he was sweating and crying and he looked so pale..." Mrs Longford explained in a quiet voice as her eyes watered. She dabbed the tissue under her eye and licked her lips, tasting the tear that had escaped. "I called the ambulance and they said he..." she paused as the memory replayed in her head, a lump now forming in her throat. "They said that he had been neutered, like he was some kind of dog!"

"And they found nothing in the house..." Sheriff Wilson clarified calmly as Mrs Longford nodded and continued to wipe her eyes.

"Who... who would do such a thing? He's only sixteen," she began to sob, covering her face as Sheriff Wilson sighed, and reached over to place his hand on her shoulder to comfort her quietly. There was a lingering silence after that question... who would do such a thing? Sheriff Wilson came up with blanks, unsure of what to say only moments before one of his deputies approached, shielding his eyes from the heavy rain as it soaked his rain coat.

"Sheriff, sir? Uh, you're gonna want to hear this. Some guy got a weird package on his doorstep this morning... claiming it was, um...you know." The deputy interrupted, turning his body away as another deputy looked over towards them, holding their phone up against their ear...

Only a few streets away, only minutes before, a cop car calmly pulled up outside the Martin's home and two deputies got out, shielding their faces from the rain as they approached the property. Thunder rolled throughout the sky again as thick grey clouds lingered, dumping layers and layers of rain water across everything it could see.

The deputies knocked twice and waited, only having to linger in the rain for a few seconds before being allowed to step into the home. "It's through here..." Mr. Martin murmured, still not dressed for his working day as he showed the officers through to the kitchen where the brown paper bag was now sitting on the counter top with a few layers of newspaper between it and the clean surface.

"When did you receive this?" One of the Officers asked as the other peered into the bag out of pure curiosity and felt a sudden gag tighten their throat. The metallic putrid smell of newly rotting flesh wafted from the bag, and it was closed very suddenly.

"I don't know, when I got up to get the newspaper it was there waiting. I don't know how long it had been there." Mr Martin explained as the deputies glanced at a boy lingering by the walls, looking pale and a little green also.

"It... it was him." Seth whispered,

"Sorry?" One of the deputies asked as Seth crept forwards, evidently shaken. "It was who?"

Seth stared at each of them, including his father, and felt a cold chill travel down his back... cold beads of sweat clung to his forehead as his mind told him that just maybe the package had been a warning... that he in some kind of twisted way, had now been marked. And that now he was being watched. He knew he had sensed it when Magnus Johnson had appeared suddenly to defend Alice Murphy... he'd seen the dead look in his eye, the focus, the intensity of the darkness behind such normal looking eyes... He also knew that he'd seen enough horror movies to know that if you tried to speak out the faster and more violently you would be silenced.

Seth panicked silently, feeling his heart racing as the officers glanced at each other in confusion... he knew it had been a mistake to laugh at the joke his friends played on Alice. He knew it was going to be a mistake to confront her like that too. He wished he had said something, but he didn't listen to his instincts, which were now also telling him to keep his mouth shut. He was frightened, and almost trembling, but his mouth began moving before he could stop it. "M... Magnus Johnson... he threatened us."

"What?" Mr Martin demanded, shocked that this was the first he was hearing about it.

"We... we confronted his girlfriend, Alice... and Nick got aggressive with her and pushed her around, maybe she was scared, and... and I think he saw. He told us if we ever went near her again he'd.... he'd rip our balls off." Seth confessed, his hands trembling as the cold chill seemed to intensify and tell him he'd just said the wrong thing.

The officers stared at Seth in silence for a few moments before clearing their throats. Both now thinking the same thing, but one fought a smile by turning away discreetly and rubbing their upper lip. "What did you say your name was?" One of the officers asked.

"Uh, Seth Martin sir." Seth replied, watching the officers intently.

"Right. Uh, thank you for your statement, Seth. We will be taking this and we will get back to you with what we find." The same Officer replied, motioning for the other to grab the package. They left shortly after, walking back out into the rain and back towards their cop car. "God, how fucking pathetic was that kid?" The Officer muttered as they slid back into their seats and slammed the doors shut. "He... he... he said he was gonna r-r-rip our balls off..." he mocked quietly.

"Tell me about it. Jesus, I'd fucking take someone's balls off too if anyone touched my girl." The other muttered as they began to drive away from the property and down the road, the brown paper bag now concealed in a white plastic bag. "Whoever the prick was, as fucked up as it is? I applaud them."

"It's probably just some stupid prank anyway. You can buy goat balls at the damn market." the first officer replied, slowing down as they came to a dumpster. "You know what? Chuck them out, that fucking smell is gonna make me pass out and I don't want to spend another fifty dollars cleaning this shit tank out or spend the rest of my fucking day taking this to forensics."

"I have no idea how you even got on the force man, you're crazy." The other officer laughed as they got out the car, taking the bag with them and jogging over to the dumpster in the rain. He threw them in without a second glance and jogged back to the car to get back in, just as a dumpster truck turned the corner behind them arriving to take away the trash for the week...

Alice opened her locker to put her books away, already dressed in her cheerleading uniform so she could head to practice for that weeks up and coming game on Friday. She checked her make-up in the small mirror in her locker door before closing it and walked off towards the girls changing rooms...

Chatter gathered in the hallways, the blur of voices fading into background noise as Alice walked, moving through groups of students who clumped together to talk, mainly about the sudden breaking of news that another student had been attacked... Students continued to glance at Alice as she moved past them, since there were still many rumours about her circulating throughout the school... but she was growing used to ignoring them, and ignoring the stares and some of the whispers too.

As she past the school councillors office, she glanced in through the door just as a student opened it to leave, dabbing under her eyes since it was obvious she'd been crying. "If you need to talk anymore, I'll be here until five, okay?" Mr Hammond's voice emerged from the doorway as he followed the student out the door and noticed Alice. "Oh, uh- Alice?" He called, placing his hand briefly on the other students shoulder before he walked the few metres down the hall to reach where Alice had stopped and turned around in confusion. "How're you doing?" He asked, placing his hands on his hips as he looked down at her.

"Excuse me?" Alice asked, having never really spoken to the guidance councillor before, especially since the old one had left just over a year ago for unknown personal reasons.

"How are you doing with everything going on? I'm aware of what happened to you and I noticed you hadn't been in to talk to me," Mr Hammond replied, his friendly aura annoying Alice for some reason but she pushed the feeling down.

"Oh yeah, I've just been keeping myself busy." She murmured and shrugged, "I'm fine." She added and nodded with a reassuring smile.

"Hm, okay... Why don't you drop into my office after lunch today?" Mr Hammond continued as if he hadn't believed her in the slightest. "I'll let your next class teacher know you've got an appointment, alright? I'll see you at one." He smiled, and turned to walk away before she had a chance to protest. She furrowed her eyebrows, watching as the councillor walked back to his office whilst greeting other students warmly.

Alice sighed heavily before turning away, walking a little faster now to the girls locker rooms where her team were meeting later. She reached the door to the changing rooms quickly, and pushed it open, walking in and walking towards the end where the doors that lead to the sports field or the gym were. That's where they had the collection of seats, a new water fountain and a new little vending machine filled with tasty looking energy bars that Alice had been itching to try before the other girls got there.

But as she rounded a corner, both she and another person jumped. "Sorry," Alice blurted as a reflex as Juniper stood up from where she'd been sat and turned away, wiping under her eyes and sniffing suddenly. "... are you crying?" Alice asked curiously as Juniper took a deep breath and glanced down at her watch.

"Of course she'd be early." She muttered to herself, wiping under her eyes again and placing her hands on her hips before turning around about to snap back but Alice spoke instead.

"I actually wanted to try the new vending machine before every one got here." Alice replied, having heard what she'd said and moved past her, walking towards the machine and sliding in a couple of dollars so she could pick a bar. The machine hummed as a slightly awkward and tense silence settled between the two girls as Juniper hovered, watching the back of Alice's head as she waited for her bar to drop into the collection basket. Alice knew she was staring, she could see her in a strip of metal just above where the money went in... but she said nothing, and looked down to watch the bar drop.

Juniper's heart thudded inside her chest, the growing urge to find out what her fate might be from close to the source was becoming hard to ignore. And it was only her and Alice in the room... For the last few weeks she'd been struggling to keep her head down, for it was against her nature to be so quiet and behave like she was invisible just so she wouldn't draw any attention to herself... she'd been doing this for weeks, even though it felt like months, avoiding Magnus, avoiding Charlie, Trey and the others as much as she could. She'd managed to make up with Lucy but even then she was careful about what they talked about.

Without realising Juniper had moved closer to Alice, who suddenly turned around, making both of them jump again. "What are you doing?" Alice asked, disliking having her personal space invaded so she stepped back.

"Do you know?" Juniper asked, her hands clasped together in front of her as she stared into Alice's bright blue eyes. "Do you know about what I did?" She asked again, feeling her eyes watering just a little since the anxiety had been driving her crazy. She could barely sleep, and it had sent her into a frenzied, silent daze of confusion and sleepiness. The radio silence from everyone had almost made her insane, were they planning something? Or had they simply forgotten and moved onto something else? She hoped for the latter, but ever since she'd tried to confess, she'd had that one song swimming around her head a night... reminding her that Magnus Johnson would never forget. But little did she know she was already looking the culprit in the eyes.

Alice stared at Juniper wondering what she should say but her mouth began moving before she could stop herself. "You mean the Jasper thing or the burying me alive thing?" She asked casually as she opened the energy bar and took a bite.

Juniper seemed to physically retreat as she registered what Alice had said and blinked rapidly as her eyes watered again. "Oh god," she whispered, and began to rub her face as if she was trying to rub off the anxiety. "He's going to kill me isn't he? He just wants to make me wait and suffer, he's gonna kill me," she whispered quietly, her eyes watering heavily now as Alice witnessed her almost fold in on herself and sink to the floor to sit down.

"Who?" Alice asked stupidly, causing Juniper to look up at her sharply.

"Who do you think, you stupid bitch?" She spat aggressively before turning away and continuing to cry quietly. Alice stared down at her with an intensity in her eyes for a few seconds before she took another bite of her energy bar and moved around Juniper so they would be facing each other again... she crouched down and sat on the floor opposite her, causing Juniper to look up cautiously.

"Don't cry," Alice said gently, placing her energy bar in her lap and dusting off her hands. "You're probably just making this seem a lot worse than it actually is in your head."

"What?" Juniper spat, her tear stained cheeks now turning red from the pressure of crying.

"I could talk to him for you, you know." She continued, feeling her mind beginning to form a plan in her head like it was quietly putting puzzle pieces together. Her mind was quiet for the first time in a long time, which excited her since she could feel the focus in her veins, but she kept her neutral expression.

"This isn't some kind of kindergarten argument Alice," Juniper spat aggressively and Alice raised her eyebrows. "I can't just ask his girlfriend to go persuade him not to bully me in the playground."

"Can't you?" Alice asked, holding the eye contact. Juniper scoffed and wiped under her eyes, her mascara now smudging itself onto her finger. She cursed angrily and Alice stared at her for a few seconds before carrying on. "I feel like I have some influence over his actions," she shrugged, using a calm, slow and gentle tone as she wound some of her hair around her finger. "But if you don't want me to... I get it." She suddenly said in a normal voice before she made an effort to stand up. "Suffer in silence and all that, I understand."

"Wait," Juniper rushed, putting two and two together as she realised what Alice was implying. Alice stopped, now stood up as she took another small bite of her energy bar. Juniper stood up too, feeling the slight energy shift as Alice stared down at her. "The kid in the dumpster..." Juniper whispered, "he did that for you?"

"Of course not. We don't know anything about that," Alice replied with a calm expression on her face. "What happened to Jake was terrible, and I feel so bad for him and his family."

Juniper stared at Alice, feeling her heart racing... she could see it now... that something about Alice Murphy, it danced in her eyes, revelling in its cute and innocent disguise as a well mannered seventeen year old high school girl. Juniper felt the icy chill as goosebumps rose all over her skin... she'd never really looked at Alice properly, but now she wondered if she would ever want to again.

Juniper glanced down to break the eye contact for a second, but looked back as Alice waited patiently for an answer. "Will you talk to him for me? And just say, like... I didn't mean to do it. I wasn't thinking... and um, I was stupid and I'm really sorry,"

"So, you want me to lie?" Alice asked, taking another bite of her energy bar that was almost finished. The taste of the honey, oats and sweet nuts filled her mouth as she chewed politely with her lips delicately pressed together.

"No! No, I mean it, I swear. I thought I could outsmart him and it was stupid. It was so stupid. And I'll never do it again. I.. I'll do anything to prove it." Juniper whispered, her eyes watering as she got a wave of relief suddenly.... as if this was going to work. "I just really don't want to die." She mumbled, her voice cracking as she began to cry again.

Alice inhaled quietly, and cracked a smile for only a second before she returned her usual expression. In a way she did feel sorry for Juniper, she was just trying to escape the lifestyle of Magnus Johnson, who she suspected had kept them all in line some way or another. Juniper had tried to break out, but failed and now was so stressed she was sobbing into her hands in front of a girl she had once tormented. Alice felt the power shift tingle through her body, and she felt herself move before she thought about it much.

She hugged Juniper, wrapping her arms around her upper body so that her arms were constricted in Alice's embrace. "Don't cry, I can help you fix this." Alice said, gently rubbing Juniper's back. "But I need you to help me with something." She continued in a quieter voice, as Juniper's sobs quietened and Alice began to whisper her potential plan into Juniper's ear...

"How do I know you'll talk to Magnus, though?" Juniper replied after Alice had finished explaining her idea.