Casey's POV

Everything was dark. I couldn't see a thing and it felt like every light in the world was suddenly cut off, leaving me in a dark empty room. The silence was unbearable; almost deafening. You hear people say that phrase over and over-the silence was deafening-and unless you've experienced that kind of silence, you keep wondering, what the hell does that mean? How can silence be deafening? But it is. Sometimes the world around you can be so silent, that the silence alone makes your ears bleed.

Until there is a piercing sound, something that breaks that silence so loudly, that you can literally hear it crashing to the ground. For me, it was a scream, a blood-curdling scream. Her scream. That sound of pure terror, raw fear; the kind that stuns you into shock.

"Casey!" she screamed, her voice begging for me to hear her. I looked around frantically, but still I could see nothing. The darkness enveloping me made it impossible for me to see anything. "Please, Casey," came her pleading voice and I tried to scream back that I was trying, but nothing came out. I tried again, only to fail for the second time.

I felt tears start to roll down my cheeks as I cautiously took a step forward, my arms reaching for something, anything. But all I found was an empty room and darkness. I heard a sob escape my mouth as I desperately tried to find her. Tried to stop the same thing from happening.

"Casey, please, help me!" her voice was desperate, screaming for me to stop her torture, but I didn't know how to. "Help," the voice was so much closer, almost a feet away from me. I swiftly turned around and heard a piercing scream slice through the air. I only realized that it was my own scream when my throat started to ache. She was right there, directly in front of me. Her eyes were bloodshot, huge blue marks surrounding them. Her lip was split in two and her cheek had a blaring red hand print across it.

I started to tremble as sobs racked my body. I tried reaching out to her but I only found air. She wasn't there, she was dead. I watched in horror as a red line appeared around her neck, slowly opening further as blood gushed out.

I looked away, tightly closing my eyes, begging myself to wake up. "Look at me, Casey!" she demanded, her voice cold and angry, and I shook my head no. "Look at me. Look at what you did. You did this, Casey! You did!"

I shook my head, a sob escaping my lips. "No."

"You did this to me; this is all your fault," she told me, her eyes hollow. She slowly walked towards me and with each step she took, I took one back. When I felt the cold, hard wall press up against my back, I was forced to stop. But she didn't. She walked right up to me, until our faces were inches apart and I could feel her cold breath as she spoke, "I'm dead and it's all you fault."

I closed my eyes tightly and turned away as silent tears fell from my eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry isn't going to cut it this time, Casey, you're supposed to be here with me, so that's exactly where you'll be." She lifted a silver-looking object and a lump caught in my throat when my reflection shone on it. It was the same knife that had killed her. The knife that would now take my life.

I sprung up in my bed with a scream. My heart thrashing in my chest as I softly cried, my breaths coming in short puffs. Beads of cold sweat trickled down my forehead and arms. I glanced around my room making sure I was alone, but the darkness and emptiness did not nothing to ease my concern. I grabbed the duvet that was now crumpled up at the end of the bed, wrapping it around me. I clutched it under my chin, tears streaming down my cheeks as I rocked myself back and forth.

I don't know how long I sat there. How long I sat trying to slow down my pounding heart. How long it took me to get the courage to get out of bed, but when I did, the sky was clearing up and the sun was starting to rise in the horizon, illuminating my room with bright light. When my legs had stopped trembling and I could firmly place one foot in front of the other, I made my way to the elevator in my room that would take me down to the kitchen. As I stepped in and pressed the down-button, I leaned against the elevator's side as flashes of my very-vivid nightmare played in my mind. I wrapped the hoodie I'd worn to bed, tighter around my body as fear tried to overtake me once again.

I hadn't had a dream like that for a week now, but I knew deep down inside that they weren't gone for good. No one knew that the dreams were happening again, no one knew that they had never actually stopped. I didn't need Nadia and Nissa worrying and insisting that I go back to that annoying shrink, so I kept the nightmares to myself.

The elevator dinged, bringing me out of my reverie and I stepped off of it when the doors slid open. The kitchen was completely empty and quiet, except for the soft hum of the refrigerator. I was happy that it was empty; I never woke up early and Nadia would definitely suspect something was wrong, considering that I was up before five am.

Pulling the refrigerator open, I grabbed the carton of milk and walked over to the stove, poured some into a pot and turned on the fire. I placed the carton down on the counter, next to the pot, and leaned against the stove, staring down at the white liquid. My mind wandered to my nightmare again and I had stop myself from doing this to myself, once again. Every time I had a dream about her, I'd spend days obsessing over it. They say that your dreams reflect what you're feeling, in this case, my dreams were reflecting the guilt I felt. People kept telling me it wasn't my fault, but deep down, I knew it was. It was my fault th-

"Casey?" I heard Nadia say as she walked in the kitchen. I cursed inwardly and turned towards her with a smile. "Honey, what are you doing up this early?"

I racked my brain for any excuse and came up empty. Shit. "Uh, no reason."

"Casey, you never wake up this early...unless a gorilla stands over you and makes you do so, so spill it," she demanded and I sighed. Here come the lies.

"I set my alarm for five instead of seven and I couldn't go back to sleep," I lied through my teeth. Nadia gave me a suspicious look and I smiled, trying to convince her that I was telling the truth. Seeming satisfied with that, she ushered me out of the way and started to prepare something for me to eat.

I rummaged through my locker later that day, looking for my calculus book. I let out a stream of swear words when my suspicion that I'd left it home was confirmed. "Fucking fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Now what did that locker ever do to you?" I heard a deep, male voice say next to me and I turned slowly to glare at the school's hunky creep-Nissa's words, not mine.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"Casey, right?" I nodded. "I'm Jonah." Jonah Tyler was what everyone called a quiet, dark, mysterious jock. He was like darkness, creeping up until his presence could no longer be ignored. Nissa thought it made him hot, but creepy as well. I couldn't help but agree with the latter. The guy could literally stare you down and make you feel like he was coming for you at night.

"Yeah, I know, we've been classmates for almost five years now," I told him and he gave me an awkward smile. I'd never seen the guy smile, but he could even make that look scary. "So what can I do for you?"

"I need to talk to you about Ryder," he replied and I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach. The dark gleam that suddenly shone in his dark blue eyes didn't help with the growing pit in my stomach.

"Okay..." I trailed off, uncertainty lacing my voice.

"Look, I'm sure you're a nice girl and everything, but Ryder is the captain of our team, and we don't need him distracted." I stared at him for a full minute. Was this guy joking?

"I'm sorry, what exactly do I have to do with this?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He gave me a withering look. "You're the distraction." I almost growled when he said this slowly, like he was talking to a five year old. Not only was he a creep, but he was also a jerk. Go figure.

"What makes you think I'm a distraction to Ryder?" I gritted out. I'd had a horrible night, I did not need this. And even though the guy was scary, I'd seen scarier things.

"Look, I know what you girls are like, okay? You're all the same. He's not interested, so don't get your hopes high," he told me, his face morphing into a dark glare. Any other day, I would have whimpered away with my tail tucked between my legs, but for some reason, that day I seemed to have developed some kind of machocist tendancy.

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say our little Jonah has teeny tiny crush on the hockey team's captain," I retorted with a smirk and I watched his eyes darken dangerously. "Don't worry, I'm not interested."

"If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, you better shut your mouth, you little whore," he growled and I almost laughed. Was he on drugs? "Ryder needs to keep his focus and you're not helping."

"Whoa, okay, dude, I know you really want our team to have a good season, but dial it down a tone, will 'ya?" someone behind me interjected before I could answer. I turned around to find a tall guy with blonde hair and blue eyes. I'd seen this guy sitting at the popular table before and in some of my classes, he hung around Ryder a lot and from what I could remember they were pretty close. I kept forgetting what his name was, though, because he mostly stuck to himself and never really spoke to people.

Come on, Casey, think...Is it Colton? Carl? Anthony?

"Oliver." Okay, definitely way, way off on the name.

"Casey," I told him, trying not to blush in embarrassment that he'd caught on to the fact that I had no idea what his name was.

He nodded. "I know, you've been the talk of the school this week, remember?" he turned to Jonah, who was still standing behind me. "You can go now." Jonah nodded and swiftly walked away, his chin tucked in his chest as he kept his head down. Okay, guess the big bad wolf wasn't as tough as he liked to pretend. Interesting. "Sorry about Jonah; he gets a little too invested in hockey."

I scoffed. "You do realize he has a guy crush on your friend, right?"

He laughed. "You tell me who doesn't."

I shrugged in agreement. "Guess you're right. I never really thought I'd have a guy get all up in my face because of Ryder, though."

"I guess Jonah is a little more possessive of our captain than most of us are," he answered with a shrug. I glanced at him for a moment and smiled. Oliver wasn't what I expected. He was actually nice. A regular guy. In my head, he was this jock who didn't speak to people because he thought himself better than them, but as I know really looked at him, I realized that Oliver was actually just shy.

I turned back to my locker, closed it with a laugh and turned to walk to class. "I guess so."

"Well it was good talking to you, Casey, but I have to get to class," he replied and I smiled with a nod.

"Thanks for rescuing me back there."

"Anytime," he told me as he walked away, still facing me. I smiled at him and then walked in my class. Spotting Nissa in the back of the class, I headed to the chair directly in front of her. "Hey."

She looked up from the magazine on her desk and grinned. "Hey ho!"

"Where were you this morning?" I asked curiously. Nissa and I usually met at my locker in the morning. She liked using that time of the day to fill me in on all the gossip of the day, much to my chagrin.

"I had a flat tire, so my mom gave me a ride," she answered and I nodded understandingly. Nissa's mom was always late. She always said it was to make a grand entrance. 'What's the sense of dressing up if you don't get an entrance where everyone is staring?' Was her favorite phrase.

"You are never going to believe what happened in the hallway," I told Nissa, rolling my eyes.

I spent the next few minutes recounting the events that had happened by my locker. She listened the entire time with a snort every here and there. I was almost finished when my phone buzzed in my hand. Looking down at it, I saw I had a message from Ryder.

I chuckled.

I texted back.

"Who are you talking to?" Nissa asked curiously as she peered over my shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of my phone.

"Ryder. He sent a message to the wrong person," I told her pointing a thumb in my direction, showing her the text. She laughed and gave me a suggestive look.

"Mm, I don't think he did," she answered and I rolled my eyes. "And if I were you, I'd be skipping school right now and down to Ming's to get a Brazilian wax and then down to the pharmacy to get me some lube." I raised an eyebrow. "What? The man wants what the man wants, who I'm I to judge?"

I laughed and felt my phone buzz again.

I shook my head and shoved my phone into my jean pocket when the teacher walked in.

***

"This is awesome! This is so awesome!" Nissa squealed next to me, stuffing a mouthful of fries into her mouth and then bringing her soda up to her mouth. "God, I love hockey games!"

"You know, you should really see someone about that," I suggested, glancing around at the excited crowd. It was Friday night and our whole town had braved the cold and come out to watch their favorite team on the ice; The Vikings. Hockey was a big deal to our town and our team were treated like royalty, so if you didn't want to be shunned, you had better get your ass to the arena.

As the chants and hollers of the crowd grew louder, my mood worsened. It seemed like I was the only person in the whole arena who didn't want to be there. It's not that I didn't like hockey; it was an entertaining sport. But this game in particular would be the first game that I was going to that I wasn't attending as Drake's girlfriend.

When we'd broken up, he'd asked to have his jersey back. That had to be the worst blow of the break up. I wore that jersey with pride. I was Drake Crane's girlfriend and everyone got to see that at his games when I pridefully sat in the front bleachers, wearing his name and number and chanting him on. I didn't know what I was supposed to do now. That was something we shared. He loved hockey and I was his number one fan, being there, just reminded me of that.

"See someone about what?" Nissa asked, never taking her eyes of the rink, even though the game hadn't even started yet. Nissa had always loved hockey, it involved two of her favorite things; hot, sweaty men beating the shit out of each other and demonstrating incredible agility while doing so.

"About your obsession with violence," I told her with a smile and she gave me a look of disapproval.

"Now, now, Case, let's not forget that you were once also a big fan of the game," she reminded me, nudging me with her elbow. I snatched the fries out of her hands and stuffed a mouthful in my mouth before she could take them back. She grabbed them back out my hand and hissed when I tried to reach over and get some more, making me laugh.

the overly excited, peppy, voice of our school's newspaper reporter crackled through the sound system and the crowd bolted out of their seats and I followed at a more unexcited pace.

Clad in blue, yellow, and white colored uniforms, the hockey team skated onto the ice, their sticks in the air as they hooted. In my opinion, they sounded like owls, not Vikings. My eyes scanned the team for my favorite player. As I searched among the players for Drake, I noticed their behavior start to shift. They no longer seemed pumped and ready to kick ass, now they just seemed nervous and fidgety. Some of them seemed annoyed, while the others looked confused. I glanced back at the crowd when they began to grow silent, with the occasional whisper here and there.

"What are they doing?" Nissa inquired, her eyebrows lowering as she watched the rink. Following her stare, I frowned. Was that Drake? Ryder?

The crowd began restless as the Drake and Ryder just stood in the middle of the rink, seeming to be in a stare off. I turned to Nissa in confusion and she shrugged just as the crowd gasped. Turning back to the rink, my eyes widened. Somewhere in between turning to Nissa and turning back to the rink, Ryder and Drake had engaged in a fist fight. I watched motionless as Ryder swung at Drake, knicking him right in the jaw. Drake skated-stumbled backward with the force, but soon skated back to Ryder and lunged at him, knocking them both down to the ice.

The crowd gasped each time one of them delivered a blow. The ice girls were hopping around confused while the opposing team, just stood on the sideline laughing and enjoying themselves. I watched in horror as Ryder flipped them over, kneeled over Drake and delivered hit after hit. What was he doing? He was going to kill him!

Relief flooded me when the rest of the players hurried over and dragged a kicking Ryder off of Drake and off of the arena. Drake laid still on the ice for a few seconds and I could feel my heart pounding loudly in my chest. When he finally pulled himself up, I sighed with relief and went to go check on him when a girl with long blonde hair, ran onto the ice and grabbed him in a hug, before helping him off the rink.

I felt my heart crash in my chest as the crushing blow of disappointment clogged my brain. He was seeing someone. He'd already moved on. How could he have moved on so quickly?

Pushing my way through the rowdy crowd, I stumbled here and there as I made my way to the exit. I needed to get out of there. I needed air. I needed to catch my breath, because if I didn't, I was afraid the pain would kill me. I'd let myself love, I'd let myself fall, and now I had to face the consequences.

Once outside, I stumbled through the parking lot in search for my car when I heard shouting.

"This isn't about you and him! This is about all of us! Some of us care about having a future in hockey and you and him are taking that away from us! Since when do you get into a bitch fight over a fucking girl?" I recognized the voice as Oliver's. He was definitely angry and I felt scared for the guy on the receiving end of that anger; he sounded ready to murder.

"What the fuck was I supposed to do, huh? He came at me. He was looking for it!" Ryder. I found myself angrily stomping my way towards his voice.

"How about being a mature adult and not hulking up? You ever thought of doing that?" Oliver asked right before I reached them.

"Yeah, I was wondering the same thing," I made my presence known and they both turned towards me. I turned angry eyes on Ryder, gritting my teeth together.

"Well, I guess I can take my leave now," Oliver interjected, turning away from me. "Hell has no fury, like a woman scorned."

***