Ephemeral

Combustible

I took a couple of more steps down the hallway and strained my ears to hear anything. If Aidan's men were best known for anything...it was that they liked to be loud. It seemed like they had enjoyed what they were doing, even finding amusement in it.

Sickening.

It was tempting to call in over radio – wanting Aidan to realize just who he was dealing with.

But...I didn't even know if Aidan was here at this school.

It would be taking a large gamble with that option. My hand went up to the gold medallion around my neck. This option....was also tempting -- I didn't want to ruin the chance of finally squashing Aidan and winning this game of ours.

Once I came face to face with him...then I would press it.

I took a couple of more steps, hiding behind a column of lockers.

I didn't know if someone would recognize me – I had changed a little from the last time I was in Aidan's hands. My hair had changed color, from a dark brown to a light blonde. So, because of this concern, I was mostly sticking to the shadows and silently killing the men as I saw them.

Hiding the bodies, though, was a complete pain in the ass --

I had hidden one of them so far and was so far on the second one.

For the first one, I had pushed him into an open locker. The boy was far heavier than I ever expected it to be...luckily, I had been training my muscles up until this point. I had a good amount of upper body strength and was able to shove the two hundred and thirty pound man inside of it, closing it gently shut after.

This one that I was pulling by his arms...he was arguably a little lighter. However, there was no open locker to slide him into. The blood that was on the ground let me pull the grown man easier, though I was still exerting a lot of energy.

I spotted the bathroom and pushed open the door with my butt, sliding him into the large area where there was only one open stall. Letting out a small sigh, I entered into the stall and heaved his body to rest on the toilet. His slumped over and hit the stall barrier, before I could correct it.

The sudden noise caused a yelp to emerge from the stall next door.

I raised an eyebrow at that and waited.

I could hear multiple pairs of heavy breathing from my left. Students must have hid in these stalls that hadn't been in a classroom when the entire event started. "I'm not a killer..." I spoke gently out, turning the man's dead body with a huff.

It was a cold faced lie I was telling myself – I was a killer, though I wasn't the one that they had to be worried about.

I forced his legs up to his chest and then turned his body to huddle against the back wall. "You should probably all be as quiet as you can, though."

"A-Are..." One high pitched voice squeaked out. "Are they still h-here-?"

"Yes," I responded. "Please be as quiet as possible."

I didn't get a reply after that. I closed the door as I exited out of the stall, opening up the main door of the bathroom. The instant I did...I came face to face with one of the men. He had both of his hands attached to his rifle and was staring unwaveringly at me.

I couldn't see his face because of the mask he was wearing – I didn't know who was under it.

We stared at each other for a bit, and I wasn't sure on what to say to him. I couldn't use my sneak tactics because he had already spotted me. I couldn't very well charge at him since he had a gun and I only had a knife, not to mention if the gun went off then Aidan's men would think something went wrong because of the noise, even if it were a tranquilizer gun –