"Wonder where she's off to in such a hurry," Micheal mused as the door swung shut on Debbie's departure.

"I have no idea what you mean," Tony replied and glanced down at his phone. "It's only one in the morning and she only left the keys to her restaurant with a bunch of public disturbing teenagers. I don't see any difference in her behavior at all."

Ian glanced over to Lisha. "Was that sarcasm? I not sure if that was sarcasm."

"Who knows," Abbie chuckled over the mouth of her glass. "Maybe she got herself a dangerous uptown boyfriend who kills people in his spare time and can only see her in the dead of the night to protect her from his boss."

"Yes," Lisha rolled her eyes. "That's definitely it." With a wave of her hand, the sax player dragged herself up from the table.

"Now where are you going, gorgeous?" Tony called after her.

The overhead lights seemed to flicker as Lisha shot a strange, twisted smile over her shoulder before jangling the keys over her head. "Wouldn't want any ax murderers to stroll right through the front door, now would I?" She quickly locked the main entrance then jogged across the room before shouldering her way through the kitchen's double doors to lock up the back.

"I guess," he sighed in belated reply as he slouched down in his seat. Maybe the others didn't notice, but his pout seemed genuinely sad as he tucked his chin into his chest stubbornly; the movement threw a lock of his black hair down into his face. Tony was skinny kid, Abbie noted as she took a sip of her water. Under his quirky grin, messy hair, and brown eyes full of life, there was something stirring, something she just couldn't place.

As she finished her pie and sipped at her glass, Abbie took the time to analyze her friends from a distance. They had been through so much together, she and them. The five of them had been friends since the time they still swung on monkey bars and thought heelies were cool. Time was said to ruin all company, but in their case, it only seemed to bring them closer.

A silent laugh echoed through her head as she watched Ian fork a grape at Mike's head. The two them immediately launched into some sort of argument, but whatever it was about, she clouded her mind to it.

Those two always argued, it's what made them...them. But by the end of the day, they always came out closer than when they started. Sure there may have been a few bruises on Michael's jaw or an evil glint shining in Ian's strangely almond shaped eyes, but they were buddies. And if it really came down to it, they could really depend on each other.

Abbie's eyes wandered a bit as she looked for Lisha. The copper haired sax player had been her friend since she had moved to their small town in second grade. Lisha had always been around for her, even in those bleak times when Abbie wanted nothing more than to leave the earth and end whatever agony she was in.

Lisha was the reason she had joined color guard in the first place. After the school cut the orchestra budget, all string players were forced to either switch to a wind instrument or leave the ensemble. Being a violinist with no air support whatsoever, Abbie chose the latter of the two options.

Unknowingly, that decision almost completely cut her off from her best friend. With the marching season taking all of Lisha's time, and their class schedules forking in completely different paths, Abbie found that what little she did see of her friend, was an exhaustion on Lisha's part. The next year she signed onto the color guard.

The rest is high school.

The group had been through everything together, be it birthdays, hard days, or fun days, when something went wrong, even Tony and Ian grew up and somehow made the sun peek through the clouds.

Her eyes flickered over the table at Tony who was staring over the table, at Lisha's glass, like he was wishing it was filled with beer. "What's taking her so long?" He muttered. "I've barely had time to charm her into going on a date with me..."

"Dude, that's all you've been doing since we got here," Michael laughed as Abbie set her own glass back down on the table.

Ian flicked a grape at Tony before adding. "You probably scared her off."

The percussionist's eyes seemed to perk up at the possibility, causing his signature smirk to return just as quickly as it left. "I guess she couldn't take too much of this sexy man beast."

As the guys chattered on, Abbie looked around toward the doors. Tony was right about one thing, it didn't take that long to lock up the restaurant. She should have been back already.

"No seriously, where is she?" Abbie asked nervously as her friend's words from the practice field echoed back at her. Do you ever feel like something bad is going to happen? Abbie had laughed it off then, of course, but now, her stomach rumbled in unease. Maybe she was just being paranoid, but....

It took the guys all of twelve seconds to catch whiff of the storm brewing under her skin and when they did, the dinner was plunged into high charged silence.

"The back door sometimes get jammed with the key in it. She's probably still trying to lock it," Ian pushed his seat back and got to his feet. "I'll go check on her." And like that, he disappeared into the kitchen after Lisha, leaving Abbie, Michael, and Tony alone with their thoughts.

"Do you ever feel like something bad is going to happen?" Abbie murmured toward her folded hands.

"Do you?" Michael countered just as quietly.

The three of them sat in silence as the seconds on the clock ticked by. Seconds turned into minutes and still neither Ian nor Lisha returned from the kitchen.

"What are you guys doing back there!?" Tony yelled suddenly. It was probably meant to lighten the mood, but all it did was make the other two jump.

After five minutes slipped by, Michael stood from his seat. "I'm going to go check on them," he smiled jokingly, but the skin was stiff against his jaw line. He was just as tense as they were. "If I'm not back in two minutes, call for help."

After he was gone, it was just Tony and Abbie left at the table with a half slice of uneaten pie getting cold between them. "It's nothing right?" He looked up at her. "We're totally over reacting about this, aren't we?"

"God, I sure hope so," she replied under her breath, but the silence in the restaurant was so real, that she was positive he had heard her.

They both looked up at each at the same moment and started laughing nervously. That was the thing about Tony, even when worse came to worse, he could always make her laugh -- even if it was nervous false laughter, it was still laughter.

"I bet they're all having an --" but she never got to finish that sentence.

Just then, her sentence was cut short by a bloodcurdling scream that sent Abbie's heart hammering in her chest. She and Tony shared a panicked look as they both abruptly leaped from their chairs and ran toward the back door.

It was Michael.

Accompanying the scream was a large blast of the light from above as the ceiling lights all blew out simultaneously. Abbie's breaths grew ragged as the two of them were plunged into darkness, cold, raw, darkness.

A shallow beam of white light broke the blank as Tony flicked his phone light on. They were in the kitchen, surrounded by hanging pots, long tables and a deep fryer to their right.

"Lisha?" Tony called uncertainly. "Lish. You here? Ian? Mike?" He nodded at Abbie to follow him, like she was actually going to sit alone in the dark and let him check out the situation by himself.

The two of them crept deeper into the dark kitchen, Abbie's heart pounded so loudly, she was sure she wasn't the only one who could hear it.

Above the echo of their footsteps, she cold feel a cold draft drifting in from somewhere in front of them. She patted Tony's arm and whispered  for him to move the light toward the draft. Be complied and they were both shocked to find the back door hanging wide open.

And the others were no where to be seen.

"Where are they?" She murmured as she glances outside.

Tony moved his light to look at her, and instantly his lipped parted a little while his eyes widened. Abbie couldn't comprehend the look of sheer terror on his face until his phone hand started shaking violently causing her to catch sight of a third looming shadow stretched over the floor.

"He's behind me isn't he?"

Abbie only had time to register a brief nod before a hard object struck her from behind and her legs crumpled beneath her.