After my short talk with Alyssa, I tried to concentrate on classes and to push everything out of my mind for the time being. But I couldn't. To me, every person who came to say hi to me or to ask for any notes, was someone who wanted to kill me, or someone who had potentially had something to do with Dylan's death.

It was the worst I had ever felt in my life. I couldn't trust anyone, and that caused me to be extra jumpy. In History when Cassie had tossed me a note, asking how I was doing, I had jumped out of my seat upon an impulse, much to my embarrassment. I had put my phone on my lap while I was working, just in case Alyssa texted, and when I had jumped like that, the phone had slid to the floor with a thump, causing several people to glance at me from their work. I guess I was a little too paranoid. During gym, we were made to play a friendly game of volleyball and when Stephanie McKinnon threw the ball at me, My first thought had been that she wanted to kill me but then I had reminded myself that there was no need to act like that: this was volleyball we were playing.

After gym, I was changing back into my regular clothes for the day and I sighed, remembering how stupid and weird I had been acting the whole day. Gwen, Cassie and Tiffany had noticed my discomfort and were trying their best to keep me calm but it was not helping. I could not tell them why I was acting the way I was, because Alyssa had made it sound like I was not supposed to tell anyone about what she had said to me.

"You okay?" I turned to see Cassie standing behind me. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail and her face was pink from all the exercise we had gotten. Her hair was sticking to her face and her eyes were filled with worry.

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just a little tired, I guess."

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at me. They roamed over my expressionless face, my sallow eyes and my drooping shoulders.

"Are you sure?"she asked sharply."You were acting really weird today."

"I'm tired so I'm cranky," I said, hoping I would convince her.

"Listen, Ellie," she began again."I know you're upset about Dylan, okay? But it'll be okay. You'll get through it."

After that, I couldn't take it anymore. I broke down into heart-wrenching sobs. I buried my face in my hands and sank onto the cold bench that was sitting against the wall. Cassie came over and sat beside me. Throwing an arm around my shoulder, she said gently."He's in a better place now."

"But I wish he was here with us. Now we'll never go to Disneyland together." I whined. Alyssa, Dylan and I had wanted to go there together for months, but every time we planned to go, something just had to come up.

"He died an honourable death," she muttered, and I could not help but raise my eyebrows.

"What's so honourable about dying in a car accident, Cassie?" I questioned.

Cassie was silent for a minute before she said,"I just mean that he was a good person and the accident was not his fault."

"Oh," I said, wiping my tears.

"The funeral's today." She whispered, and I sighed quietly. No one had told me about that. Not even my mother. But then again, maybe she hadn't known about it.

I got up and stretched, marvelling at how fresh I felt all of a sudden. I guess when you do enough exercise, it really does make your limbs feel alert.

Cassie and I made our way to our next class which happened to be biology. Today, we would be learning how to dissect a lizard. To be honest, I think Mrs Lassy just brought any reptile she managed to get her hands on for us to dissect. We soon fell in step with the other students who were making their way to the lab.

As the hours ticked by and it got closer to lunch, I was getting very frustrated. How had Dylan actually died? All over the school, rumours had spread about how they had found an abandoned car outside Glasserville and how there had been a trail of blood leading into a forest where they had found a student's dead body.

I didn't dare ask for details since It seemed just too gruesome and besides, I didn't want to go against what Alyssa had told me.

At lunch, I made my way over to a table near the back of the cafeteria with my lunch tray. It was next to a window and Alyssa was already sitting there, waiting for me. We had always sat here since high school started: Alyssa, Dylan and I. When it was only us thar is. When Alyssa and I ate with the dance team or when Dylan sat with all the other football team members, we usually sat at the tables in the centre.

Sitting there by the window just brought back more painful memories: how on the first day of High School, Alyssa and I couldn't find a table and then a friendly boy with dark brown hair had told us to join him at his table since he was sitting alone. That had been Dylan Grace. He had looked completely different compared to the small boy I had known so well. I almost didn't recognise him that day. Pretty soon, Alyssa had become close friends with him too, and then we had also sat there at that table, laughing and teasing each other. Somehow, Dylan's soda always ended up in Alyssa's hand. The fact that that would never happen again broke my heart.

Alyssa was eying her tuna sandwich like it was the most interesting thing in the world and I cleared my throat uneasily.

"So I need to tell you some.....stuff," she began.

"Yeah, I gathered that," I replied with a small attempt at a smile.

She dug her hand into her purse and brought out her phone and opened voicemail.

"I....I went out with my parents yesterday," she said in a shaky voice."I forgot my phone at home and when I came back....Dylan had called twice and left a message too. She tapped on Dylan's name at the top of her voicemail list.

*"Alyssa , I don't know if I can talk for long, but we were right. Everything we thought is true. TL is one of them and there are many others too. AB too. For all we know, the whole cheerleading squad is in their circle. They want her. They want her badly Alyssa. We need to tell her. We have to. And there's one in the other high school school too. His name's EL. I have to......."*

And then it ended. Whatever Dylan had had to do was never done. He was killed right after that message had been sent. He had somehow, miraculously managed to press "send" before the enemy, whoever that was, had succeeded in killing him. Those were his last words: a final goodbye.

But I was shocked to say the least. The whole voicemail was just so confusing. I had no idea what it meant. Dylan had used initials of people's names, but why had that been necessary? Who were"them" and who did they want? Dylan had also implied that everything he and Alyssa had thought was true. That thought caused my stomach to turn in knots. So they had been working on something without telling me.

"So , Dylan," I started but Alyssa cut me off by raising a finger to her lips.

"Hey Ashley," she said in a fake cheerful voice."What's up?"

Ashley Brenton was standing there in perfect poise and wearing a light blue cardigan over a pair of black pants. Her makeup was perfect, not even a little smudged. Her lunch tray held a fruit salad, diet soda and strawberry frozen yogurt. Typical cheerleader lunch.

"Hey guys, Lisa and Stacey are busy doing extra credit for Mr Laster," she said, rolling her eyes. "So I thought I could sit with you?"

"Sure," Alyssa said. The fact that Lisa was doing extra credit was enough to baffle me. She normally tried her best to get out of extra work, not into it! This had to be some kind of joke. Lisa would never, ever do extra credit, especially for Mr Laster.

Ashley sat down and took a spoonful of her salad."So I always see you two hanging out with Dylan Grace. Where is he today?"

"Dylan's.," I began, but was interrupted by Alyssa.

"He went to visit his grandmother in Glasservillie a week ago. I think he's still there."

"Yeah, probably," Ashley replied dismissively. Okay, that was weird. First she asked where Dylan was and then when Alyssa told her, she acted like she did not even care? "So are you two coming to Lisa's sweet sixteen slumber party next Saturday?"

Lisa Thompson was officially the most obnoxious girl at Crescent and her parents spoilt her rotten. This year for her sweet sixteenth, they were taking her to Hawaii and she'd be allowed to skip school too. They would leave on Sunday which meant she could have a slumber party on Saturday if she wanted.

We had been invited but I wasn't sure if I would go. First of all, it was supposed to a cheerleaders only party. Alyssa had told me that weeks ago. So I didn't know why they had invited me. Alyssa was on the squad, so it made sense when she was invited. I wasn't on the squad, but I guess I was popular among people, Lisa had hated me since third grade so it made no sense to me!

"I'll come," Alyssa said.

"I can't," I said at the same time. Ashley's eyebrows furrowed and she said sweetly,

"Why not, Ellie? You have to come. It'll be a blast. We're even watching The Hunt For The Lost!"

"I uhh might have to go out with my parents," I said lamely.

"Well, at least try to come, okay? Lisa wants you to come so badly! We'll miss you if you don't come."

I nodded and took a bite of my chicken sandwich. I didn't get it. Lisa wasn't exactly the kind of person who'd " miss" me . She might even be grateful if I didn't go. I had hated her since third grade too and wasn't going to try one bit to go to her stupid party.

Ashley made casual small talk while we ate, occasionally commenting on other girls' outfits and how artificial their makeup looked. Hadn't she ever looked in the mirror?

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The three of us had now eaten and were making our way to our next class: Math. I realised I had left my math books in my locker so I quickly told Alyssa and Ashley to go on without me and that I would join them later.

"Listen, Ellie," Alyssa said."I'm sorry I couldn't explain the math homework to you, Call me today and I promise I'll explain everything to you, okay?"

I got the message loud and clear: I'm sorry i couldn't tell you the whole truth about what Dylan meant. Call me today and I promise I'll explain everything.. So I nodded and said,

"That's okay. I'll call you at eight,"

"You guys take homework way too seriously," Ashley said pushing her leather book bag further up her shoulder. I shrugged and started walking in the direction of the lockers.

The lockers were practically on the other side of the school, so I had to sprint in order to get back to class in time. Skidding to a stop in front of my locker, I saw that Cassie was groping in hers as well. At least now I wouldn't be the only one late to Mr Numen's class. Knowing Cassie and her bubbly personality, she would have a witty excuse ready for being late.

We quietly slipped inside the class in hopes of not being spotted by Mr Numen. But as always, our hopes were shattered.

"Miss Sanders and Miss Wright," he said. "Good to see you."

"Why, it's a pleasure to see you too, Mr Numen!" Cassie replied perkily while I smiled sheepishly.

"I'm afraid to hear your excuse for being late this time," the teacher sighed.

"Okay, so you see, Mr Numen," Cassie began in a voice that I was sure annoyed Mr Numen to no end. "What happened was that Eleanor and I were coming to your class when...."

"Save it for next time, Miss Wright," snapped Mr Numen. "Just sit down." Cassie grinned victoriously as we took our seats near the back.

Unfortunately, Ashley was sitting in the seat right next to the one I had plopped into and was now glancing at herself in a small handheld mirror. The length to which this girl was willing to go to look good was beyond me, and was enough to make me roll my eyes when I saw her. She opened up her bag and fumbled around in it until her hand came back up with a tube of shocking pink lipgloss. Ashley pouted, unscrewed the tube and applied a layer of it onto her otherwise bland lips.

The worst part was how she kept glancing at me from time to time. She looked at me in a way that made me feel like she knew something I didn't, and that made me extremely uncomfortable. She would also smile at me occasionally and make an unnecessary comment about Mr Numen which irritated me even more.

Mr Numen was a tall well-built man with black horn-rimmed glasses and his pearly white teeth shone whenever he smiled. His voice was normally quite squeaky too. That was exactly why some people laughed at him. He was a really good teacher but got annoyed whenever anyone was late for his class. Even if you came in while he was taking roll, he would snap at you.

After math, Cassie and I had art together so we jogged over to the art wing. The halls were empty and I figured everyone was in class right then. We ran all the way to the classroom and I nearly jumped for joy when I saw that Ashley was not in this class.

Thankfully, we had made it just in time to this class. I sat down and immediately started working on my self portrait. It was almost done now, and I had to admit that it looked pretty good. I only had to highlight the eyes a little and then I'd be done. I had managed to get the skin tone perfect and had drawn the shape of the face almost accurately too. If I was lucky enough, this portrait would earn me an A.

Cassie was working on her own portrait. She was far from being done though. Up until now, the only thing she had managed to do was to draw the outline of her face. I was curious as to what she had been doing in the previous three art classes when we had all been working on our portraits. But knowing her, I'd say she had been playing games on her phone under the desk.

***********************************

"I'll see you there then," I said sadly to Alyssa that day after our last class of the day. We had been talking about Dylan's funeral. It was going to be at five so I would hardly have enough time to get ready when I got home. We were all skipping dance practice too, or in Alyssa's case: the cheerleaders' meeting.

When I got home, it was to see both my dad and mom dressed up along-with Elizabeth. They were all dressed for a funeral.

"Ellie," my mom started."Dylan's funeral's today."

"I know, mom," I replied."I'll go get ready."

By five o'clock, we were all standing in the cemetery. This was a very odd time to hold a funeral, I'd say but apparently Dylan's mom wanted him to be buried at sunset. My mother was standing with Mrs Grace in a tight embrace and my father was standing and offering his condolences to Dylan's father. Elizabeth, Alyssa, Cassie, Gwen, Tiffany and I were standing together and were trying our best not to break down.
I was impressed at how well I was holding up. I had only torn up three times since the ceremony had begun.

But now his casket was being lowered into the ground and this time, I could not stop the tears from flowing freely down my cheeks.

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A/N
Thank you so much for reading this, guys ! :-) and I really appreciate the votes... Comment and let me know what you thought of this chapter!

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS LIKE AABOUT ELEANOR, DYLAN AND ALYSSA'S PAST, PLEASE READ FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL :)) You won't regret reading it!