"If you want the rain then we comin' down."

-Watch Me, Jaden Smith

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I speed down the steps, less wary and more urgent. My name has never felt so much pain.

I come to a chilly corridor with several steel-iron doors along the walls. I twist the handle of the closest one but nothing happens. The second door has the same result, and her screams of pain are only getting louder. I'm getting closer.

Finally, I come to the final door. This has to be the one since I can feel her piercing scream from inside puncturing my heart. Without thinking twice, I shove open the door and stumble inside.

The screaming stops. Everyone goes silent apart from a faltered whimper from the centre of the room.

And for this moment, I'm completely and utterly terrified.

How could they do this? How...?

Liv is strapped to a chair, head bowing down. She's panting heavily- gasping- with her hair soaked with sweat and her hands shaking. Her hands are handcuffed to the chair, her ankles likewise.

Rosa is standing behind Liv, hovering around a little black box with voltmeters and buttons inside.

And Jasper. Stood, frozen, watching me with shock. I feel anger brewing in my insides, and I know it's only a matter of time before I explode.

"Alec?" Jasper says, confused.

At the sound of my name, Liv lifts her head and the smallest smile appears on her tear-stained, dead-eyed face. "Alec," she releases in a torn-apart voice.

I run over to her, and put my hands on either side of her face, frantically trying to put the life back into those deep green eyes. Kneeling in front of the chair and clinging her to my chest, I spit at Jasper and Rosa, "What are you doing!"

"We're getting rid of the voices that are killing the people at this school. We're saving her along with everyone else," Jasper says. The voices were the cause of the deaths? I guess that would make sense. So, Liv...? No. It wasn't her. It was the voices in her mind. They aren't her.

I stare back at Liv, watching her bottom lip quiver. "I'm here. I got you."

I smile for a split second and nod a painful nod.

He's here. Alec is here. Alec.

Standing up again, he turns back to Jasper, his eyes filled with fire and ice at exactly the same time. His eyes, not just brown anymore, but a mix of amber behind copper and the earth and windy forests and warm fireplaces and a feeling of hope. Brown eyes are so underrated.

"You were supposed to protect her. When you care about somebody, you do everything to make sure they don't get hurt!" he yells, standing and facing Jasper.

Jasper glowers. "This is my responsibility!"

"No, this is your fault. Look at her, look at what you're doing!" Alec shouts, stepping aside so Jasper can get a view of me.

Rosa is watching the three of us closely but doesn't do anything apart from look frustratingly bored.

Jasper's lips move as if he's about to protest, shout, maybe even yell at the top of his lungs. But he stops, sighs, and replies in a small voice, "Why won't you see this for what it is? Me caring for you!"

"Because I thought I could trust you and I was wrong. Because I cared so much about you and now you're doing this to me, now you're torturing me over something I can't control." My head feels empty, and it seems there's only one voice left. Mine. "And when I look at you, how do you expect me to see love when all I see is pain?"

"It was necessary, there was no other way," he pleads.

"Stop it."

Alec begins to fumble with the cuffs, looking for a latch that can undo them. We share a look that tells me things will be okay.

But just like that, Jasper's pained, torn expression turns to anger as he picks up my knife from the floor.

I try to shout but my voice shatters at the last moment and fails me. He plunges it into Alec's side.

I scream but it fades into a sob as Alec's body falls to the floor and Jasper pulls the knife out of Alec's side. He drops the knife onto the floor while Alec grips his side, trying to stop losing so much blood, and grits his teeth.

"ALEC!"

"I'll be...fine...I'll...be okay..." Alec says in a pained voice, glaring at Jasper who shows no hint of remorse. Blood is seeping through the gaps in his fingers and staining his clothes and the floor.

Jasper's scowl deepens as he snaps, "It was always you, Alec. Right from the start. She loves you. And do you even understand how painful that is for me?" There's so much hurt in his voice. "And it makes me angry."

Rosa only watches.

"I thought you didn't want anyone dying," I snap at her. "So do something!"

"It was going to happen regardless. He knows too much."

Alec isn't making a sound anymore, and his body is lifeless. It's silent once more.

"Alec," I murmur under my breath, tears working their way slowly- painfully slowly- down my cheeks.

Now hope is gone.

And there's nothing I can do to help Alec apart from spend my final few moments watching him die. His eyes are closed, black eyelashes resting gently on his tanned skin, and the ceiling lamp projects rays of light onto the side of his face.

Oh, Alec...

"Now he's done trying to be the hero, let's finish this off, shall we?" Rosa says, moving to the voltage box again.

Jasper nods stiffly. I don't have enough energy to tell her the voices are gone. She won't believe me anyway. At what point will she realise my head isn't full of them anymore? At what point will any of this be worth it?

Alec is gone. There is no point anymore.

"You can do whatever you want to me, but you must save Alec," I plead, looking up through my eyelashes at Jasper. And even I can tell. The boy that I met is gone.

"He knows too much," Jasper says resolutely.

My heart breaks a little more. This can't be it, can it? It can't end like this. Not for me, and not for Alec. We didn't get this far, we didn't go through hell to die this way.

Rosa says snidely from behind me, "Sit tight, Olivia."

"Rot in Hell, bitch," I snap.

I can feel her glare burning into the back of my head.

"I was just going to say the same thing."

I snap my attention from staring lifelessly at the floor to the door. And just by hearing that light, breezy voice I can feel a look of hope work it's way onto my face.

After a heavy thud, Jasper falls to the floor and doesn't get up. Rosa's eyes widen and all I can do is gape at the tall, carefree boy at the door.

Seth loosens his grip around the metal wrench in his hands and rests it on his shoulder casually. He grins that signature grin and points the wrench at Rosa in a way I can only compare to a comic-book character.

She's so shocked she doesn't say anything. Seth smirks and says confidently, "Please, leave now. I don't want to hit a woman, but if someone ever hurts someone I care about, it doesn't matter who they are."

Rosa's eyes only widen further until they're so large I think her eyeballs might fall out of their sockets.

"What are you doing here, Seth?" she says, still astonished.

"I'm saving the day," he says cheerfully, and his easy tone astounds me.

"You need to leave or I'll expel you. And then where will you go? Huh? Prison. That's where," she says quickly, taking a few steps back.

"Actually, prison is exactly where you'll be going. You're torturing a student. It's child abuse," he states, swinging the wrench around. "It's also a really shitty thing to do."

"How dare you-"

He interrupts, "I suggest you leave before the police find you. And maybe leave for good. If not..." He points the wrench at her and his expression darkens. "I'd be happy to give you a little...nudge, so to speak."

He grins like it wasn't a threat but we all know that's exactly what it was. Rosa fixes her flustered hair and hurries out the room.

When she disappears from sight, I turn my attention back to Seth and I swear I could cry with joy.

He drops the wrench and moves to the chair to help me unbuckle my cuffs. Thankfully, a key isn't needed, only a little fidgeting with the bolts. "Sorry for my lateness, I just love to make an entrance," he says, watching his fingers as he fumbles with the cuffs.

"How did you even know where to find me?" I ask, still shocked.

He motions with his head to Alec, still motionless on the floor. "I won't take all the credit. Seems he really does have a thing for you. He knew something was wrong and he followed his instinct."

I smile and reply, "Thank you, Seth."

"Don't worry about it. But this is the second time I've saved your ass, would mean the world if you didn't make it a regular occurrence."

"I'll try," I say weakly. "I'm sort of a danger-magnet."

"You don't say."

I chuckle as he unbuckles the cuffs around my ankles and I can stand again. I don't waste a second before perching beside Alec. I press two fingers to his neck and breathe a sigh of relief when I can feel a pulse. I lift him into my arms, using my hands to cover his wound, as Seth prods Jasper with the wrench, nose wrinkling.

Smoothing my hand over Alec's dark hair, I cling him to my body and rock him gently.

"We're safe now. I got you."