Most of the buzz surrounding Jonah had been dying down until he stepped into class with red scuffs across his cheeks, one of his eyes half-shut, a bandaged nose, and a busted lip. People stared. A girl pulled out his chair and tried to help him sit, but he scoffed and said, "No thanks." Then he tripped and almost fell to the floor. If it had been anyone else, everyone would have laughed. But the room went silent.

Charlie's gut urged her to say I'm sorry, but Lilith's memory pawed away the thought, scratching it out of sight.

That afternoon, the security company came to fix her home alarm at last. But the relief it provided felt trivial when the phantom in the classroom was still banging down the doors to her own head.

She thought everyone finding out about her cat's murder might've worked in her favor, but Peter had ruined that chance. He'd gone too far, and now Jonah could easily turn the story against them. Had Evan or Mateo told anyone? Peter swore those two would keep the secret. How he knew for sure—or whether Jonah would be the one to tell—Charlie had no clue.

In the dining hall, Quincy picked at his food but didn't eat it, his expression foggy and faraway. She nudged his hand and asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Sleep deprived," he said, though that was his excuse for everything. The shadows under his eyes didn't look more purple than usual—definitely not as bad as hers. He leaned his head against the table, earbuds blasting punk music. It hurt to see him like this, his cheery demeanor replaced by something he never talked about enough for her to fully grasp.

She looked at his hair, his blonde roots already grown out. When she was more quiet than usual, he often made her laugh with silly dances in his tiger costume, dirty jokes about the football players, or cute animal videos on his phone. She considered showing him one of those videos now when she saw Jonah across the dining hall, sitting with none other than... Raquel.

Raquel Gonçalves. Metalhead-turned-cheerleader. The girl who used to sleep over at Charlie's house during senior year but now never came over, the girl who had pins stamped with things like GRL PWR covering her messenger bag, the girl who, before Peter, had dozens of pages in Charlie's diary littered with her name.

And now she was leaning in close to Jonah, wiping a wound on his cheek with a napkin. She said something Charlie wished she could hear from afar—but it didn't take a genius to guess she was probably asking why he looked like a beat-up mess. She moved her hand to his arm, and Charlie flinched before Jonah did, grasping the knife in the waistband of her skirt.

He doesn't like to be touched, she wanted to say—more like scream—but maybe he hadn't made that clear. Maybe he liked it. Maybe it was better than getting punched in the nose.

Count to ten, an inner voice ordered Charlie in Spanish. Deep breaths. Calm down. How else would she bear feeling like she'd explode, like her guts would fly all over the place and splatter onto people's clothes?

She forced herself to keep watching. Maybe it was just his swollen face or all the fucked up thoughts surely swarming his brain, but Jonah did look... tense. Like a statue, his gaze as faraway as Quincy's while Raquel lightly traced the veins on his arm.

"Do you dare me to do a line?" Quincy was asking.

Charlie noticed a small baggie filled with white powder in his hand along with a Florida Public Library card, and her eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"Is that cocaine?"

A grin finally found its way onto his pierced lips. "Do you dare me?"

"Put that away," she hissed. "What even—"

"It's like sugar." He dipped a finger into the powder then rubbed it into his gums, his earbuds draped around his neck and still blasting music. Was this why he'd been distant? Strung out from whatever he'd been taking...

Charlie reached for the baggie, but Quincy dodged her and let out an airy laugh. "Come on, dare me. Think anyone will notice if I do it right here?"

"This isn't okay. You're going to get in so much trouble, Quincy."

"Says the girl who carries around a knife."

Her heartbeat thumped in her ears. "What are you..."

"You're always touching that thing. It's a tick of yours, I've noticed."

Before she could come up with an explanation, something else caught their attention.

Evan, eating nearby, suddenly rose from his seat. He clasped his hands around his throat. The following seconds passed in slow-motion, a cartoonish sequence of animated frames: Evan King projectile vomited all over the floor.

Again and again he retched. Vomit dribbled down his chin. Some spread over the table. The boys sitting around him shot up and pinched their noses, all chanting variations of: "What the hell, bro?"

The dining hall fell silent. Evan grasped the edge of the table, then looked up. He showed no reaction to the dozens of eyes staring straight at him.

"God damn it," Quincy cursed, running toward the commotion. He dodged the vomit and grabbed his brother's shoulder. "Hey dumbass, you okay?" Evan shrugged, looking queasy again, and Quincy led him to the nearest bathroom stall.

And an hour later, it happened again.

Charlie was sitting in the campus coffee shop, hoping to catch up on her missing assignments. Instead, her eyes drifted to Mateo a few tables away, his tall, muscular frame comically slouched over a tiny laptop. He took long swigs of coffee every few minutes, anxiously running a hand through his wavy hair. Maybe he's stressed over his classes, Charlie thought, but then Mateo bolted out the door. Muffled retching sounds came from outside.

Within minutes, his puddle of vomit became the unlikely spectacle of Sabre College. People stared as if it was toxic waste, dodging it as they scurried out of the residence hall nearby. A group of boys laughed and told each other, "Touch it; I dare you to touch it—" scrunching up their noses "—that smells like shit!" until the unlucky janitor arrived to hose down all traces of Mateo's stomach contents from sight.

The next day, both Jonah and Peter were nowhere to be found. Charlie hadn't heard from her boyfriend since Friday and was starting to fear Jonah sliced his throat and threw his body into the swamp. She assumed church on Sunday had been canceled because of the storm, but Peter hadn't even texted.

During football practice, she peeked her head in the boys' locker room, hoping to find Peter. Instead, a linebacker wearing a gray jersey shook his head and told her, "Wright went home early—don't even bother looking in there. Smells like death."

One by one, every member of the football team fell ill. No one had seen anything like it, and gossip spread faster than the illness had. On the way to class, Charlie saw the coach pacing outside the boys' locker room, mumbling about how the game was supposed to be on Friday.

She sent Peter a text: i heard you went home... please tell me you're okay.

Hours later, her phone buzzed.

Peter: I'm fine.

Charlie: are you sick?

Peter: Yeah.

Charlie: why didn't you return my calls?

Peter: Needed time to cool off.

Charlie: because of what happened last week?

Peter: Yeah.

She couldn't entirely blame him, even as his absence sent her deeper into all-consuming paranoia. Count to ten. Deep breaths. Calm down. It wasn't Peter's job to be her bodyguard. She reminded herself of her mother's words, gnawing deep since her "birthday" last year: You're eighteen now, Charlotte. It's time to start taking care of yourself.

●     ●     ●

"They're postponing the game," Quincy said as they stood in his dorm. He was rummaging through a drawer for hair bleach and volume thirty developer. Their plan for the evening? Re-touch each other's roots in the communal bathrooms and try not to stain the sinks red with his signature CRIMSON SUN dye. "I heard it's a stomach virus, but what the hell? My piece of shit brother is fine, but now I'm hearing Mateo went to the hospital? Sucks. I was looking forward to seeing him all hot on the field while my mascot ass sat on the bench."

The rasp of Jonah's laughter, gargled with blood, filled Charlie's ears.

"Peter texted and said he's fine too," she said. "Do you really think it's a stomach virus?"

Quincy shut the drawer. "You know what I think? That someone did it on purpose. Maybe the USF guys broke in and put something in their water. But why would they do that if our team sucks anyway?"

She stared at her Mary Janes. For all she knew, maybe it was a highly contagious stomach virus. The football players roamed the campus like a pack of close-knit wolves. Even, in some cases, according to Quincy, a little too close.

"Shit, I'm too fucking short," he was saying, standing on the tips of his toes. "Charlie, can you get that box up there on the shelf for me?"

She wasn't much taller than him at 5'2", but she easily reached it—only for a small, plastic baggie of white powder to fall from the shelf.

She frowned. "Not again..."

He grabbed it and shoved it into the back of his shoe, not meeting her gaze. "I might've stolen it from Evan while he was puking in the bathroom yesterday."

"Evan does cocaine, too?"

"It's kind of, uh, family tradition? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, that kind of thing?"

"Quincy..."

"I get it. I have issues—I know I do."

What could she do to help? How could she help anyone if she could barely help herself lately?

"Anyway, think I could convince coach to let me play?" he joked. "Quarterback Quincy hitting up the field on Friday?"

Charlie sighed. "Then who would be the mascot?"

"You could do it. A lot more fun than being a cheerleader, that's for sure." He opened the box and finally found the bleach. "Got it! So, cross-our-fingers-our-hair-doesn't-fall-out time?"

"Only if you promise you won't do that." She pointed at his shoe. "Give it to me. And the one from yesterday."

"Baby, that one's long gone. And what are you planning on doing with it anyway?"

"If you let me flush it... you can dye my hair any color you want."

"Hold up, am I hearing this right?" He got on the tips of his toes again and inched close to her, nose to nose, and took a strand of her hair between his fingers. "Tired of the blonde look?"

The only reason she'd fried her hair to begin with was because she'd meticulously researched Peter's exes—all natural blondes.

"Yes," she said, blushing at Quincy's sudden proximity. "I think I am."

"You have yourself a deal then." He pulled away and opened another drawer. The inside was spray-painted red and covered in stickers Raquel had designed for their band, BLOWFLY ANGEL LUST. They ranged from torn-up angel wings to cartoon zombies. And filling the drawer were several bottles of brightly colored... hair dye.

"Where did you get all this?" Charlie asked.

"You think drugs are my only stream of income? I'm the official hair dye supplier for our local art student population." No wonder he's a business major, she thought. He picked out a bottle labeled with the words PIGGY PINK NIGHTMARE. "Have you ever tried pink?"

Her favorite color. But she had never dyed her hair anything other than blonde or a light, chestnut brown.

"The only nightmare about this is the maintenance," he explained. "But hey, if you need any tips, I'm the expert."

"I'll do it," Charlie declared. "Our first dye of the semester."

He held up the bottle like it was a glass of champagne. "Cheers!"

A few minutes later, they made their way to the bathroom, nearly dropping their supplies, Quincy giggling the whole time. And for once, Charlie wasn't worried about Jonah looming from every corner—only where Quincy would get his inevitable next fix.

By the time they finished dying each other's hair, both their hands were stained CRIMSON SUN red.

●     ●     ●

a/n: if you'd like to support me as a writer & read all the chapters without waiting for me to post, the e-book is now available on amazon, apple books, kobo, b&n press, and google play. go to pico.link/destacia for direct links! and i just wanted to thank those who have purchased thus far :') this year marks my first year actually making some money from my writing. slowly but surely we're getting there ^-^

song for this chapter:

➼ ❝ okay❞ by chase atlantic (truly quincy's theme song. i've been obsessed since 2017 tbh.)