Dylan Di Angelo's house, Los Angeles

Underestimating your intelligence was bad but being overconfident and overestimating it was a thousand times worse.

I may have been the smartest in my college but reality is a bitch. I was probably just a wannabe hacker to the Mafia.

Oh shit, I had the motherfucking Mafia behind me! Realization slowly dawned on me.

What do I do? Do I go to the cops? No point, the Mafia had men in the police forces. Do I tell someone? Then two people will have a target on their backs.

Oh shit. I was so screwed. My parents were back in England, so I guess that was comforting. They were safe. There was no saying how far the Mafia's reach was, though.

I called up Dylan. No answer. Fuck.

I ran and grabbed my car keys and a knife. I hoped there was no fight. At five two weighing forty kilos I was no athlete. I probably wouldn't be able to hold on my own in a fight.

I didn't even know for sure who was after me. The DeLucas, the Castellinos or the Abandonatos. The three families that controlled this region. It could be any one of them.

I gulped. Or maybe it was all three. This was all Professor Roy's fault. Never mind that I hacked into the college mainframe after hours. It wasn't technically my fault.

I reached Dylan's house. Dylan lived near Beverly Hills, his family was stinking rich, that's also how he got into the college. God knew his grades weren't anything special. He used to flunk half the classes since sixth grade. Dylan's car was still in the driveway.

I checked under the flowerpot for the extra key. His neighborhood was eerily silent. As if it was waiting for something. My hand went to the knife in my purse. I didn't know how to use it but atleast it was still something.

Using the key I had found, I opened the door. I slowly crept inside. There was noone in. Atleast that's how it seemed. The empty corridor in front of me was a bit frightening.

I was tempted to scream 'hello' but decided against it. That's how the idiotic main character dies in horror movies. As if the girl from The Ring is going to invite you over to your room for Netflix and Chill.

Dylan's shoes were still resting by the door. But by now I was certain the house was empty. So what happened to Dylan?

Wait, maybe there was something else I could do, without giving away my location. I pulled out my cellphone and called Dylan. His phone started ringing but I couldn't hear it in the house.

He didn't pick up.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I hoped he was okay. Maybe he's out at college or something, but the innocent little blueprints were not innocent little blueprints and karma was a gigantic pain in the ass. Taking that into consideration, he was obviously not at college or something.

I pulled out the knife I had hidden. I'd watched enough Hell's Kitchen to chop up whoever came close to me into confetti. Gordon Ramsay style. Oh, who am I kidding!? I'm fucked!!

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity Fuck. Such a nice, versatile word. I wondered who came up with it. It was such an accurate way to portray the many emotions one felt. I've been using it a lot lately, haven't I? If I had a swear jar it would be looking like Bill Gates' bank locker by now. But that wasn't my fault.

My mind wanders off on a tangent in stressful situations, I need to keep reminding myself to stay focused (my therapist from anger management said that) like right now.

I walked into the house, the doors of all the rooms were open. Nothing out of ordinary.

I should stay here. It felt safer than my apartment. I'll wait till classes end and he would be home, if he wasn't home by five, I'd call the cops and go into witness protection and figure out a way to convince them to give me a fake passport and a ticket to Antarctica. Were there planes to Antarctica? There had to be.

By now I had decided that doing anything now would be a bad move. I was stressed. My decisions might be wrong. I needed to relax and think.

I wandered upstairs into the bedroom of the silent house. Dylan's family came from money, like most of his friends. I didn't expect his taste to reflect anything but. And it didn't, there was a King sized bed occupying the center of the room, above that was his family crest, a rose and a hawk. An ornate dressing table took a good portion of the space. A gold chandelier hung from the ceiling.

I sat at the edge of the soft bed and sighed. What could I do? The overwhelming fear had died down to a dull buzz as fatigue took over. I felt tears fill my eyes. I don't know why, maybe it was because I was too overwhelmed and I didn't know what was going on. Or what I should or shouldn't do.

I lied down on the bed and slowly fell asleep. I would be needing my energy. God knew how right I was.

I dreamt of home. My family was welcoming me back. I had graduated and a lot of things happened that didn't make sense but I was happy. It was as if my brain was telling me that I'd had enough.

When I woke up the sun was setting. It was well past seven. Dylan should have been home by now. But he wasn't.

Okay, no need to worry. I'll call the police.

I walked downstairs, still half asleep but driven by a sudden need to get out. I nearly fell down the stairs. Maybe the fall would have fixed my unusually stupid brain.

I walked out of the house and looked around, the neighborhood was silent. Strange.

I walked towards my car and got in. I needed to get sleep. I yawned. No, I needed to wake up. I felt a strange sensation on my back. Like you would when you know there's a killer loose in your street and you may have left your door unlocked. The feeling that something was definitely wrong.

I turned around and screamed. Loud enough to wake the dead. Loud enough to send goosebumps and chills of raw fear down my own spine.

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