Salem

✨Chapter 10✨

The whole thing with the night in the woods and Melissa just completely freaked me out.

I've been spending my breaks in the library for the past week. Another thing to add to this is the guy in the library staring at me.

Ever since Charlette sat with me the group seemed to have warmed up to me. As in they don't turn around and walk in the other direction when I walk up to them. Now they just pretend I'm not there.

It feels weird. Just two weeks ago I was getting excited about going to the beach and sleeping over at my friends and now... now the only thing on my mind is the woods. What was going on in there?

"Hey," my eyes flutter wide open when someone waves their hand in my face. The guy that was staring at me. Great.

I grunt in response and turn back to my book.

"I'm Eton..." head nod. I can sense his confidence wavering.

"So, you, uh, wanna get something to drink later tonight...?" Oh, yeah. It's Friday night. Scar, Rowan and Liv were probably going to be doing something together. Without me.

I suppose I should be used to it, but I'm not.

"Sure." I sat and stand up, quickly scribbling my number and address on a spare piece of paper then forcing it back to him.

"Eight. Names Ellie, in case you were wondering." I strolled our the library and into the bathroom.

I had just slammed the door close when the tears started falling.

Why am I crying?

I have no idea, but the tears kept falling.

I suppose I was crying for my friends. And that girl. And my mom, for how she's changed. I guess I was crying for my dad, too.

Sobs racked my body and I cried until the tears in my body dried up and all I was doing was shaking and hiccuping, that was about an hour after break.

Walking to class was utter hell. Everybody stared at me, apparently we were going to last period.

I sat down hard in my seat last period. Math. I usually sit near Scar, but she didn't even look at me during math, let alone sit in her usual spot.

Maybe it was because my eyes were red, or maybe because I was still hiccuping that nobody spoke to me.

*~*~*~*

Eight came faster than I expected and I was busy with my hair when the bell rang.

Heart pounding, I raced to the door and just stopped my hands from flinging it open.

What can I say? It's my first date. Ever.

I gently opened the door and was greeted by the smooth dark shadow of Eton.

For some reason seeing him here at night made him so much more...familiar. But he took my hand and lead me to his car.

"You look beautiful," he breathed.

I hadn't even bothered to change much from school, just swapping the jeans for a dark maxi skirt and the sweater for a striped shirt and blue cardigan.

I mumbled thanks and hopped into his car. Well, I'm assuming it's his parents car. It's fancy. Low down and the flashiest sliver I've ever seen.

"I thought of taking you out to a restaurant," he began as we sped off down the road. "But taking you somewhere secluded seemed so much more romantic..."

We drove past the houses in the fancy neighborhood. Near Liv, actually.

We came to a stop at her house, which confused me, until I saw what we were closer to. The woods.

"Maybe..." I swallowed hard, trying to push the panic rising in me down. "A restaurant would be better...?"

"No." He said sharply, not looking at me, but staring straight ahead. My heart started to pound, but he can't have known anything about the other night so why did he bring me here?

"Ellie," He began as he leaned his whole body over me, blocking me from going anywhere. Instinctively I lifted my legs up to my chest to put some space between us. "You really have been a problem to finish up, you know that?"

His lips barely brushed my ear. "W-what do you mean...?" I looked up in horror as thoughts came rushing into my mind. His hand grazed my cheek then ran down to my throat. I saw a silver flash inside his sleeve. I think he has a knife.

He laughed, a low, soft and soothing in a would-be-soothing-way-if-he-wasn't-leaning-over-me kind of laugh.

"The Coven doesn't like people interfering...or snooping for that matter...We also like to get rid of our loose ends." And just like that it hit me like a bus. Looking up into his dark, handsome face I saw Jonas, the man who chased me through the woods the other night. This wasn't Eton, this probably wasn't even a high school student.

Then the other thoughts started pushing through. This man had murdered someone, this man is from a group of religious murderers. My stomach rolled at this thought.

"What?" He breathed. "Well, I must admit you did help us quite a bit when your friend 'died', or should I say that you killed her? If you had just told someone she'd be alive right now...oh, what was her name?"

Eton tapped his finger to his chin in mock thought. I felt sick, because I knew exactly who he was talking about. "God, I can't even remember...Kelly? Kat? No, Wasn't it...Kaylee?" Even though I knew who he was talking about, the sound of her name still sent a shock to my body and made me jump.

My knees slammed his head straight into the top of the car. Hard. His head hit to roof with a dull crack, then fell limply into my lap, blood trickling down onto my lap.

He wasn't moving, or breathing.

Did I just kill a man?