"Miriam!" Michael called out from the front yard of the tiny, Los Angeles house that was in need of a new paint job with neglected garden beds that needed a good drowning. "Miriam!" His voice bellowed with glee and a moment later the front door swung open, the frame banging against the side of the panelled house.

"You called, dear?" A short and rather stocky woman appeared, staring down at the two teenagers. Miriam had razor short hair the colour of ink and pointed eyebrows that made her look like she was in a permanent state of hard-boil deviance. But the growing smile that picked up her cheekbones said otherwise. While the woman was dressed in only black and red, there was a warmth to her voice when she regarded Michael Langdon, her ward. But the blond boy with the Devil clutching him tightly with talons—dipping in his claws deeper and deeper with each passing day—was more like a son than a ward.

"Yes!" Michael grinned up at the woman. "Am I allowed to be excused from afternoon tea?" The way he said 'afternoon tea' gave Carrie the impression that it wasn't the ordinary afternoon tea one would assume and hope was taking place at a neighbour's house.

"Afternoon tea is important, Michael," the woman said, dark eyes shifting to Carrie standing beside Michael, swaying on her heels.

"I know, but I wish to go someplace with my new friend." There was a pleading in his voice, a subtext that was directed right at Miriam. Meanwhile, Carrie's heart flared with the words 'new friend'.

"A new friend?" she questioned, eyes still trained on Carrie, whose cheeks had started to burn under the woman's strong gaze and Michael's statement. New friend!

Michael nodded enthusiastically. "Carrietta Moore, from across the road. Remember?"

"Ah, yes." Miriam's eye softened just a touch towards Carrie, remembering a conversation or two she had had with Michael earlier that week about the girl that lived across the road, who was subject to her own horrors and that of her mother. There was a moment of silence, Carrie feeling awkward in her own skin, Michael looking to his substitute mother with bleeding eyes and Miriam caving. "You kids go have fun," she settled on. Michael dashed toward and hugged the woman, arms wrapped around her stocky body with an incredible and touching warmth. Standing just a little away, Carrie saw Miriam's dark painted lips moving, whispering something into Michael's ear; he just nodded along before stepping away.

Carrie looked away from the odd family of two that didn't resemble even the tiniest bit of relation to each other to her own house across the one-way street. The windows were already swimming with shadows behind the old, white lace curtains. Her mother would be home soon, no doubt, and expecting her daughter to be home like a good little girl. Margaret Moore would be spitting blood when she returned home to an empty house.

"Will you lead the way?" Michael was suddenly at her side, cocking his head to the left, his blond mop catching the dying sunlight. It almost looked like he had a halo. Almost. With rebellion waking in her blood, Carrie turned away from her house and gave Michael a solid nod of conviction. Let dear mother spit blood, Carrie thought darkly.

—

Carrie Moore wasn't sure if taking Michael to Westfield High was a good idea, but his blue eyes were wide and expressive, and she found herself wanting to take him there. Wanting to do anything he asked of her.

Michael Langdon had that power, to allure people, to captive them and win them over mind, body and soul. But it was a power that would grow further the older he got, the closer to hell he got.

The light from the golden hour drenched the world in shades of deep and rich oranges and yellows plagued with creeping shadows. The high school was quiet, almost deserted for the week, but it wasn't yet late enough to lock the doors and gates. Carrie and Michael had no problem sliding in through the double doors and sneaking down the empty halls towards the library.

"Miriam isn't your mother, is she?" Carrie asked in a low voice, that still echoed off the lockers. She had never been at school after hours and it was strange being in a place that was usually so busy and filled with people. Little did Carrie know, the place was still filled with souls even after hours. "I don't mean to pry," she added quickly, knowing she shouldn't be so rude. People were entitled to their privacy.

Michael waved her off, finally returning his eyes to her. He'd been busy soaking in the high school, absorbing everything about the place that Tate Langdon had crossed, the place he had bruised with blood and death. "She's the closest thing I have to a mother," he explained, with a longing hiding in the thinness of his voice. He had only ever wanted a family, one that wouldn't reject him, wouldn't abandon him. A family, hell even a friend, that would accept him despite the darkness that crawled inside of him, a darkness that he had never asked for but was born with.

"She seems nice," Carrie said, and it wasn't a complete lie. She gripped at the straps of her backpack, her knuckles almost turning white. She felt wrong being here, in the cold and empty halls of the high school.

Michael nodded, looking ahead. "Is the library just up here?" He pointed towards an upcoming door. It wasn't the only entrance into the library, but it was the main one.

"Yeah," she whispered out. "It feels so weird being here, alone and after hours." There was a whisper on the air, sailing down the hallway. It wasn't audible exactly, but it did mimic the voice of a girl.

"Who says we're alone?" Michael smiled at Carrie, his eyebrows pumping up with the suggestion that they weren't the only souls that wandered the halls of Westfield High. Carrie didn't know those souls, couldn't sense them just yet, but Michael could. And just as he recognised those lost souls, they recognised him, recognised him as a Langdon, so similar in appearance to the one that shot them dead over twenty years ago.

"Funny," Carrie laughed nervously. Her palms were damp and her pulse was racing under her skin as the teenagers stopped at the library door. Michael turned back to her for a second and gave her a wide grin that lingered on damn right creepy before he pushed open the door and crossed the threshold.

The library was usually Carrie's haven. She found safety and peace in here on a normal day during normal school hours. But she didn't feel that this afternoon. There was something heavy that weighed on the air now, a coldness that walked side-by-side with the stretching shadows. Michael strolled through the library, breathing in deeply the smell of old books and ink. Yet he wasn't just smelling that, but blood and gore, and he rejoiced in it with a smile that wanted to split his lips and break his cheekbones. Carrie followed behind him, her saddle shoes tapping out a slow tempo. She hardly recognised the library now, all draped in chill and shadows that seemed to be moving, multiplying.

"A girl today told me this place is haunted," Carrie uttered out, the warmth of her breath was taken away by the coldness in the air instantly. She hugged herself, the straps of her backpack tightening around her.

"She wasn't wrong," he replied, eyes seeing things and details that Carrie couldn't. Things and details that should have been lost with time but now lingered. "The year was 1994. The Wolverines were winning, tipped to be the new state football champions that Friday." Michael had found the centre of the library and stood still, listening to the air, to the walls, to the souls that were both sad and angry that he was here. He chuckled, mostly to himself, at least that's what it looked like to Carrie. "They didn't win that year, didn't even compete. Not after the massacre. Fifteen students snuffed out in blazing glory. Ripped away from this world by a roaring bullet, roaring just like the crowd would've roared had the Wolverines got that last, tie-breaking touchdown." Michael lifted one hand, making a gun with his fingers and acted out shooting invisible people hidden around the library. The air was stirring and gooseflesh broke out across Carrie's skin. She chewed at her bottom lip, watching Michael enjoying himself when he shouldn't be, not in this place stained by horror and loss. "Kyle Greenwell, Amir Stanley, Chloe Stapleton, Stephaine Boggs and Kevin Gedman. Those were the ones that died in here, did you know that?" He didn't turn to face Carrie, didn't even glance over his shoulder.

Her throat felt thick. "No, I didn't know that. And I didn't know you knew that either. You said you only knew a little about... all of this."

"I must confess, I have a macabre obsession with this place and this massacre," Michael said slowly, now looking over his shoulder at Carrie with a smile, his eyes darker and glittering with excitement. "Do you have an obsession, Carrietta?"

He stared at her like he was staring into her soul, and perhaps he was. Perhaps he saw through her skin, through her blood and through her bones to the depths of her heart. Saw her obsession like it was as clear as crystal. She did have an obsession and that was her power. Keeping it secret and practising in the dead of night like it was a dirty sin. Perhaps it was, but either way, it was like Michael somehow knew, but surely he couldn't know she had the power to move objects with her mind. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip a little too hard, drawing up blood, leaving the taste of sweet copper in her mouth. Yet she didn't answer Michael, just glanced away, towards the stacks of books that seemed to be... moving.

A hardback book flew off a shelve, hauling towards Michael still standing in the centre of the library. Surprise echoed in Carrie's heart as another book soared through the air in Michael's direction. She wasn't doing this and scanned the library that was suddenly darker than possible in the golden hour of the afternoon. Shadows leapt from the corners and the air was freezing. Fear came next, flooding Carrie's bloodstream as she skidded away from the shelves, looking towards Michael, but he wasn't worried.

He was laughing now, darkly and deadly. "Is that all you can muster for me?" he yelled out into the freezing air and the dancing shadows. The library groaned and echoed with that same inaudible whisper that was quickly turning into a scream. "Who knew the dead breakfast club would be so disappointing?" He was provoking whatever was here, in the cold shadows of Westfield High.

"Michael, we should leave!" Carrie shouted out. A wind that couldn't possibly be inside, whipped around her, tugging at her hair and the hem of her skirt. There was an awful energy in the static air.

"Don't you recognise me? Surely, you must!" Michael called out, spreading his arms out at his sides, lifting them. The lights shuddered on and off before exploding with shards that rained down.

Carrie let out a frightened cry, covering her head with her hands as more books attacked Michael with a grudge. Carrie didn't know who Michael was talking to, for she couldn't see anyone else in the library and she half-believed he was insane as he continued to laugh, throwing his head back as wind tousled his blond hair violently.

"Michael!" she yelled over the rushing wind and the sparking lights. He didn't even register her presence, but it was getting dangerous to be in the library now and fear propelled Carrie forward.

She couldn't process or comprehend what was happening and just acted out of instinct. Her flight response was stronger than her fight, for now, at least.

She hurried forward, wind ripping at her face, and wrapped her fingers around one of Michael's wrists and tugged with all her might. He didn't fight her and instead slid his fingers into hers, holding her hand as she led them out of the library.

The hallways weren't any better and that impossible wind tore down the empty hallways of Westfield High, like someone or a group of people were screaming out in violence and agony. Carrie and Michael picked up their pace, running through the hallways as locker doors flew open, trying to attack them with invisible fingers.

Michael was still laughing, and Carrie wasn't sure why, but a bubble of laughter was tickling at her own throat. And all she could think of was Michael's warm skin against hers, hot even. His skin was sweltering.