FINAL BOY || Ethan Landry

- CHAPTER TWO -

IF LOOKS COULD kill I'd be six feet deep right now. It's not like I wanted Chad to hate me...I just didn't want him to notice me. None of them were supposed to notice me.

"Can we just talk this out?" I ask but he ignores me.

I sigh. "Look, I was really drunk and Jasmine was going on about how I'm not man enough to get any other girls and so I walked up to the first girl I saw, okay?"

"What are you even doing here, Emmett?" He randomly asks. "You hate Ethan and I, you hate everybody, you hate the whole fucking world so why the fuck are you even here?!?" He shouts and I flinch.

There's nothing but silence for so long and then the news channel comes on.

Someone's been murdered. They found a ghost face mask at the scene.

"Sam!!" Chad shouts as he rushes down to the stairwell.

I freeze. I can't be here. I was never supposed to be apart of this. I was supposed to keep my distance so that if anything like this had ever happened again, I'd be far away from it all.

I have to go...then why am I still frozen in place?

"What's going on?" Sam says as she enters with some guy I've never seen before.

"Cute boy." Quinn acknowledges. "Nice."

Sam takes one glance at the tv before immediately going protective mode on Tara. "Pack a bag. We leave in ten."

"Wait Sam!" Tara calls after her.

"We're getting out of the city." Sam replies.

"Wait what?" Random guy speaks, gaining all of our attention. Especially Chads.

"Thank you suspicious new guy but we got it from here." He says while pushes the man out the door. "You too asswipe and asswipes girlfriend." He says gesturing to me and Jasmine.

I scoff but do as he says cause there's no way I want to be caught up in this.

I walk outside and pull a cigarette out of my coat pocket. "Those things kill you, ya know?" Jasmine says and I scoff.

"You're one to talk."

She shrugs knowing it's true and only further proving my point when she pulls out her own cigarette. I lend her my lighter and for what feels like a moment, we just sit there in blissful silence.

Then my phone goes off and Jasmine groans next to me. "Who is it??"

I pull out my phone and look at the unknown number. I know I shouldn't answer it, I really do, but I have this weird feeling that I need to. So I do.

"Hello?" I ask the person on the other line. "Who the fuck is this??"

"Hello Emmett."

I drop the phone on the ground, making Jasmine look at me in concern. "What is it, Em? What's wrong??"

"It's him." I whisper. She looks at me in confusion. "It's ghost face."

She grabs the phone from the ground despite my protests and places it against her ear. "Leave him alone you fucking coward!!!" She shouts, gaining weird looks from the people around us.

"Jas, just give it to me." I say, struggling to pry the phone from her hand. I go to say something to him but the call has ended. "He fucking hung up on me."

Jasmine goes to grab my phone again but stops when a message from the same number appears on my screen. "What is it?" Jasmine asks.

I look at the video that was sent and then back at her. "I-I got to go." I stumble over my words, and before she can say anything, I'm running away from her, too fast for her to keep up.

Only when I'm sure I'm alone, do I play the video the number had sent.

"Andrea, truth or dare!" Some background guy asks.

My mother smiles. "Dare."

The other man smiles smugly. "I dare you to make out with Mickey." He says and Mickey shrugs before crawling over to my mother and engaging in a short but passionate make out session.

"Okay, my turn..." Andrea says. "Mickey, truth or dare?"

"Truth." My father replies immediately.

"Are you in love with Halle?" She asks with a taunting gaze. I watch in confusion as my father shifts around uncomfortably.

"Yes." He responds.

Andreas not having it. "You're lying." She teases.

"Excuse me??" Hallie, my dads girlfriend at the time, interrupts.

"I could've sworn I had seen you sneaking around with someone last night." My mother drags on with faux innocence.

I don't understand. This isn't my mother. My mother is kind and warm hearted and she would never-

"Wasn't it Dorian Riley??" My mothers viciousness interrupts my thoughts.

"Mickey..." I hear the guy from earlier question. "Are you a fag??"

Suddenly everyone bursts out laughing as Mickey storms out of the room.

I shut the video off, unable to watch any more. I hadn't even noticed the tears running down my face.

My mother had outed my father to all of his friends...that must've been his real motive. But why go after Sidney? From the looks of the video, Sidney and Randy seemed to be the only two who didn't judge him or make fun of him.

My phone ringing again brings me out of my daze. This time it's not an unknown number. It's...Ethan?

"Ethan? Why are you calling me?" I ask.

"Emmett! Sam, Jasmine and Tara were just attacked." He says and I go still. "Mindy is rounding us all up on campus tomorrow for some investigation thing...just, be careful, okay?"

I nod until I realize that he can't see me. "Yeah, thanks." I say before hanging up. "Fuck, I shouldn't have left her all alone."

As I make my way back to the apartment I can't help but think back on what just happened. My father had a romantic relationship with the infamous Dewey Riley's younger brother, and my best friend was just attacked by a serial killer and I was too caught up in my own problems to do anything about it and...

...I can't breathe.

Fuck, I can't breathe.

I fall to the pavement right outside my apartment and my vision blurs. I hear a voice but only barely, due to the ringing in my ears.

I think it's telling me to breathe.

I can't.

I can't.

I...

Darkness.