The Girl Next Door

Chapter 14

Scarlet's POV

I woke up sitting by a tree and noticed that I couldn't move my hands. I pulled and pulled but nothing was working. I looked down at my feet and noticed that they were tied too. 'What is going on?' I looked around to see if anyone was there. No one. I tried to get my phone out but my hands were behind the tree. Out of nowhere I saw Logan walking. 'What is he dong here?' I was about to speak but I also had tape on my mouth. He looked right at me like he knew I was there. He had a shocked facial expression and ran toward me. 

"Scarlet, what happened?" He took the tape off my mouth and I was finally able to speak. "I don't know. The last thing I remember wa-was," I stuttered. I couldn't remember anything. "Was what?" He asked, finally untying me. "I don't remember. I just remember waking up here." I said. Something was up. I never forget anything that happened the night before. "Can you remember anything that has happened for the past few days?" Logan asked. I shrugged. "We were at Tom's, talking to Mike. Orey died, didn't he?" He nodded. I stood up and saw a man in a black hood. "Logan, the black hood is behind you." Logan turned around but he was gone. "Scarlet who's the black hood?" Right as he asked that I knew something weird is going on. I walked away before he touched me again. "Something's wrong. The black hood. He killed Daniel." 

"Who killed me?" I quickly spun around and saw Daniel. "You said someone killed me? I'm still here." I backed up. "You're not supposed to be alive. You died." I went into full panic mode. "What the?" I didn't know what was going on. My head was spinning with thousands of questions. All I could think of, was to run. So I ran. "Scarlet! Where are you going?!" All I could do was run. I didn't know what was going on. Last thing I knew was Daniel was dead and there was a black hood. I kept running and running. I found myself running on a beach. 'What? How did I get to a beach?' I stopped and looked around. 

All of a sudden I saw him. The black hood. "What do you want?!" I screamed. He just looked at me. "Answer me!" He took a step forward, which seemed like 100 steps because he ended up right in front of me. "I'm not real. Right now I'm just in your head. I never killed anyone. No one died here." He said. "This is reality. What you were thinking was reality was all a dream. A very long dream that your mind made up for you. I'm not real. I was never real. Just accept that." He said. 

There was something different about him though. There were no old designs on his hood. I saw a red spot on his neck. I realized I had something in my hand. A pen. I didn't know where it came from but it gave me an idea. "You are real. This place isn't real. You killed innocent people and you deserve a great punishment. Death." I took the pen and stabbed it in the red spot. 

All of a sudden, he disappeared. The beach flickered and became dark like a TV. I looked around and saw Logan, Jack, Jane, and the black hood. "Guys move! He's behind you!" They didn't move a muscle. I stepped forward and though they were frozen, then I saw Jane blink. "What's going on?! What happened?" Logan moved forward. "Scarlet, let us explain." He said, moving his hands out to hug me. "Yeah you got a lot of explaining to do. Is this the secret that you were hiding from me last night?" I asked furious. I started remembering everything. "She wasn't in there long enough." Jack said. "I wasn't in where long enough?" Jane walked forward. "Scarlet, listen to me. After last night, you came to my place." 

Last night  

"Scarlet, come here." Jane said embracing me with a hug. "It's okay." I was sobbing. "I didn't want to but he was keeping a secret. We always tell each other everything. He even confessed that he was keeping a secret." Jane sat me down on her couch. She brushed my hair and we watched movies together. Until Jack came. 

"Sorry Jack but Scarlet and Logan had a fight. You can't come in now." Jane said, talking to Jack at the door. "Can I at least see her?" Jane opened the door and let him in. "Hey Scarlet. What happened?" He said sitting next to me, hugging me. "I don't want to talk about it now. How are you?" Jane sat down in a chair in front of us. "I'm okay. I actually had a fight with my dad. He found something out and he got really mad." Jack backed away. "What did he find out?" I asked. "Nothing. You already know." I nodded. "Okay. You got a bruise on your face. Did the fight get that bad?" I asked, worried about him. He was already keeping a secret from me. "No, this came from something else." 

"I didn't see it yesterday." I could tell he was getting frustrated. "You know what, let's talk about something else. Jane, how was your night?" Jack said, quickly changing the subject. "Oh yeah. I cancelled the slumber party. What did you do the whole time?" She looked down at the floor. "Well, I didn't do much. I was texting Mike and making sure he was okay and then I went out." She said. "Went out? With who?" I saw a drop of sweat run down her face. "An old friend." I looked at Jack. He was also sweating a little. "Did I miss something? You both are sweating. What's going on?" No one answered. "Okay, whatever. I'm gonna go to sleep." I started for Jane's bedroom but she stopped me. "No don't go in my room. It's a mess." I laughed. "That's a good one. Your room is always clean." I started again but this time Jack stopped me. "Yeah you don't want to go in her room." He said. "Guys, I've been in there before. Forget it I'm going." I ran past them and opened the door. I couldn't believe my eyes. 

"Why are you here?!"