"Yeah, but did you see his face? I wonder who he got into a fight with." Someone I passed by in the hall was whispering to her friend. I was heading down the corridor pretty quickly, trying to get over to room 309.

I kept hearing people talk about someone who was all beat up to hell, and it was driving me insane. It couldn't have been Sam, because he would have immediately told me. So who was it? I hated not knowing.

While I was sitting in the library with Millie, my phone went off with a text from Sam. All it said was to come to room 309. That wasn't a teenage make out session, that was serious. If someone was wondering how I knew, it was because he didn't use the nickname Sugar, and nor did he add a winking face. Also, I liked to think that he wouldn't do something like that after what happened last night.

I finally rounded the corner to see the hallway of unused rooms come into view. It didn't take long to see blonde hair through one of the small windows. I grabbed the handle and pushed it open.

I didn't look up until the door was closed behind me, but when I did, I flinched. Dennis was sat on a desk, while Sam was leaning against a wall, but it was actually Brian that caught my attention. As shocking as that was.

His face had a deep scrape along one of his cheekbones, and was complimented by an array of colors painted by someone's fist. His lip was split, and his left eye was swollen shut, only causing me to grimace more. That couldn't have felt good.

"What the fuck happened?" I asked after studying his new complexion.

"Brian was heading over to Caden's house to apologize, when he was jumped." Sam spoke for him, looking at his friend with anger brimming in his eyes. It wasn't anger directed at Brian though, it was anger directed at the people who did that to him.

"I don't understand why the hell they would just suddenly start this shit." Dennis' voice was lower than usual. He was blatantly on the verge of punching something. Or someone.

Sam let out a long sigh. "I don't know why, but they were extra active last night." He looked at me. "Sawyer, tell them about what happened to you."

I opened my mouth to start explaining, when the door suddenly burst open. A short blonde head went running past so fast that I couldn't process what was even happening. By the time I did, he had already reached his destination.

"Brian!" Caden cried out as he jumped up and wrapped his arms around Brian's throat. I swore that I could see tears in the corners of his eyes.

"It's okay, Cade. I'm fine." Brian tried to reason with him, but it was in vain.

"No! If I'd just let it go sooner, then you wouldn't have been trying to apologize to me and you wouldn't have gotten hurt." Caden continued, burying his head into his shoulder. The gesture was sweet, but it almost seemed more intimate than the way friends would hug.

"Cade, I'm fine now." Brian repeated, placing his large hands on both of Caden's shoulders. He pushed Caden back so that he could look directly into his eyes. "And I'm sorry."

I knew that it wasn't the time, but damn, Brian seriously dwarfed Caden.

Caden brought his gaze to the ground and pouted. "You don't have to be sorry, I'm the annoying one who acted selfishly and impulsively." His voice was hardly a mumble.

Instead of saying anything else, Brian simply removed one hand and flicked Caden's forehead. I gave Sam a weird look, because that was not what I was expecting. Caden bat his hand away as his pout remained intact, before taking a seat beside his friend. Honestly, I was more confused than anything.

"Okay, now that we have that out of the way, we need to discuss what this may mean." Sam cut in quickly, hoping to gather everyone's attention before something else became a distraction.

"Wait. You said that something happened to Sawyer last night?" Dennis questioned, causing everyone to turn my way.

"Oh, right." Sam nodded his head encouragingly. "Tell them about last night."

"Well, I woke up because it felt like someone was watching me, but it wasn't until I heard my door open that I realized it wasn't my imagination." I began, earning some interested stares from everyone. Even Sam looked caught up in my words, despite already having heard a far more detailed version that morning. "I couldn't really see anything, but I was freaking out enough to jump out of bed. But since I'm a class-A moron, I tripped over something on my floor and hit my head on my nightstand."

To give them proof, I used my hand to lift up my floppy black hair. I studied them all for a few awkward seconds, waiting for someone to say anything.

"What happened after that?" Caden's voice was quiet, so different from what I was used to from him. "Why didn't they hurt you like they did Brian?"

I shrugged helplessly. "My parents heard the sound of my fall and came into my room. I don't even know when the guy left, but he made one of the stealthiest escapes to ever exist."

"They may be fucked up, but they're not dumb enough to attack a teenager in front of his parents. Not when his parents aren't a part of this." Sam sighed.

I nodded. "But Brian was by himself. As long as no one was walking nearby, they didn't have to worry about holding back."

"They know we won't contact the police."Dennis huffed, running his large hands over his face.

"But why did they do those things last night?" Caden furrowed his dirty blonde eyebrows, looking to Sam for an answer.

"Because they wanted to remind us."

Everything was silent for a moment. Dennis just stared at his shoes, and Caden had his eyes glued shut, almost as though he was scared to face the reality. It was scary for me, but what was it like for them? Did they fear the possibilities too? I didn't know if I would be able to sleep that night, no matter how many times I checked to make sure that my door was locked.

"Why would they need to remind us? Haven't they done enough? We've done everything they've asked of us, and then some, and now they feel the need to remind us!" Caden suddenly blew up, getting up from the desk and pacing the length of the room. His eyes were trained on Sam in seething fury.

Sam kept his face neutral. "They need to feel like we haven't been falling into a false safety-"

"Fuck them! There has to be a different way to do this. I don't want to see my friends get hurt anymore, and I certainly don't want to have to stand idle while it happens." Caden continued, releasing mass amounts of frustration all at once. He was starting to slow his pace.

"I know, Cade. I hate every bit of this as well, but there isn't anything we can do about it other than make it even worse." Sam kept on, seemingly knowing exactly what to do to deescalate the situation. "But they're psychotic, they want us to be on our toes at all times."

Caden let out a long breath, Sam's words finally registering. "I'm sorry. I blew up too much. You're dealing with this more than any of us, and I couldn't help but make it about me."

Sam shook his head, walking over to pat the shorter boy on the shoulders. "No, you're right. I shouldn't be forcing you guys to deal with my problems."

"That's not what I said." Caden looked at him. "Ignore what I said, I take it back. What's more important to me than anything, is sticking with my friends no matter how screwed up the situation may get. You guys are all I've got."

Sam appeared visibly relieved. He was trying so hard to stay strong and pretend like none of it was affecting him, but that just wasn't true. I was almost sure that his biggest fear was his friends turning their backs on him. But he didn't need to worry. Not only could I see that none of them were planning on leaving him anytime soon, but I also knew that I would never.

I may have wanted to scream and cry, but I was falling too quickly into whatever this was to ever just give up on Sam. Everything about him made me want to stay by his side. If someone were to have said that would happen a few weeks ago, I would never have believed them. We were sworn enemies. Now we were something so different.

"Do you think they'll do anymore?" I heard myself asking without the words even registering in my brain.

Everyone's heads turned my way. I knew that they all felt the weight of my words. There was no more joking around. It was the point in which we stopped pretending that it was okay, and instead started strategizing. We needed to keep each other from getting hurt again.

"I don't think so." Sam spoke up, looking at me with determination in the forest of his eyes. I wasn't sure if he was determined to make sure that nothing would happen, or if he was determined to be right. I hoped that it was both. "They already did what I think they were trying to do - which was to remind us of the threat."

"But how do we even know that's their intention?" Dennis asked.

"Do you have another theory?"

A pause. "Not that I can think of."

"Then we'll just have to hope that I'm right until potentially proven otherwise." Sam let out a tired sigh that seemed to hang in the air like a heavy blanket. We were all over it, but it was only the beginning. How much longer until the water boiled? What was everyone thinking right then? What were we supposed to think?

That time, it was Brian's turn to speak up. "They said something to me."

All of our eyes were on him. "What did they say?"

"They said that Friday was the new deadline." His dark brown eyes trained on Sam. "They asked me what you do when you've reached a money deadline."

There was a fire behind Sam's hazel eyes. Whether it was a candle or a wildfire, I couldn't tell. Either way, it was ferocious enough. "You mark it up." His voice was sharp as he spoke.

As if Brian could read Sam's mind, a different sort of flame appeared. He was studying his blonde haired friend with an emotion I couldn't quite decipher.

Caden took a seat next to him again, leaning his heavy head against his shoulder. "Doesn't any of this make you tired?" His voice was hushed, but it didn't waver.

I let out a humorless laugh. Nothing about our situation was funny. "I don't think I'm ever going to sleep again."

"Motivated or not, what they did to the both of you-" Sam glanced at Brian and I "-was absolutely uncalled for." I could see that it was taking a lot out of him to not beat someone senseless.

"Beating someone up, and breaking into someone's bedroom, is always uncalled for." Caden pointed out, sparing the both of us his sympathy.

Brian shook his head, sending dark waves of messy hair flying. "Not always, Cade. Just in this context."

Caden's eyes fixated on the other boy, and I could tell what he was thinking.

How many more bruises would be spent painted it was finally over?

•O•O•