𝙁𝙄𝙉𝘼𝙇 𝙂𝙄𝙍𝙇. 𝙀𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙉 𝙇𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙍𝙔

𝙤𝙣𝙚. 𝙨𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙖𝙮

The last time Ethan saw Felicity was a week ago when he just came back to his shared dorm. Just as he opened the door, eyes heavy with fatigue after working out his psychotic plans, he made a full stop when he saw the dark haired girl leaning out the window.

Ethan could distinctly remember the smell of cigarettes and the urge to grab a kitchen knife to stab her in the back just for fun. After all, who had the opportunity to kill Felicity Prescott since Amber's and Richie's first and final attempts?

Before he could act on his sick fantasies, she craned her head around at the sound of his footsteps—which Ethan hadn't believed were that loud. Felicity must have been sensitive to sounds since that night at Stu Macher's old house.

Now, Ethan hadn't seen Felicity Prescott many times before. She always lingered for a few minutes when he was around and then vanished. Even when he spent some time around her shared apartment with Tara and Quinn, she always stayed out late. He always took note of her little presence in her own home.

Her dark brown eyes bored into his, her face illuminated by the gleaming light of the full moon. Whether the dead and cold look on her face was intentional or not, it almost made him scared to double cross her path. She looked tired, like she had been awake for more than 24 hours and only surviving by a thread.

Ethan did not know if it was just the circumstances that were making his pupils dilate and his heart beat faster.

Then, Felicity took another drag of her cigarette, unbothered by his presence, and blew the smoke out the side of her mouth toward the open window. For some reason, she was still considerate of if he was sensitive to cigarette smoke.

"Hey Chad's roomie," she coughed out.

Ethan furrowed his brows and maintained his innocent façade. "Uh, hey?" He gave a quick glance to the rest of the room, then to the door. "How did you get in? Why are you here?" For a moment, the thought of her sleeping with his roommate crossed his mind and his gaze almost darkened.

If Chad was somewhere around and about to enter the room, he didn't have time to kill her off so easily.

Felicity turned her body around and leaned her back against the window sill. She dunked her cigarette into an empty glass cup beside her body and sighed. "I felt... off and this was the nearest place I could stop. It's closer than home." Her gaze flickered down to the books in his grip and looked back up. "Don't worry, I'll be out of your hair soon."

"No, it's- that's fine," he excused. Ethan thought for a moment about pushing her off and watching her body fall down a few stories. He quickly shook off the thought and shuffled to set his books down on his bed. "Hey, um- do you always smoke?" He scratched the back of his neck. "I've just- I've never seen you do it-"

She cut him off with a dry chuckle, as if she found his words bitterly humorous. "No, I don't." Felicity shook her head and brought her hands up to tighten her ponytail—though her hair was too short and looked more like the top half was pulled up. "Just occasionally."