Rose’s father sits in the front seat, while a chauffeur drives the Tesla.

Rose herself leans against my shoulder, having fallen asleep in the five minute drive to school

Things sure moved fast, didn’t they?

It has barely been four days since I was killed by the Whites. During that time I have been shot, met a goddess, been forced to fight a mind controlling lunatic, been shot again three times, then I killed a mob boss and rescued a girl that I have some serious feelings for.

I really should send a thank you note to the gods. I haven’t had such a fun school week since kindergarten.

The Tesla pulls to a stop at the curb of the high school. I gently wake Rose up and get out of the car.

She follows me, wiping away a small amount of drool from the corner of her mouth, her father helpfully hands her a backpack.

Rose reaches for the backpack and attempts to pull it away, but her father holds on tight. “You will tell me exactly what happened last night. There are too many questions unanswered.”

Rose glances at me before responding to her father, “Even I don’t know exactly what happened last night. I am sure that Elena will be happy to explain to you exactly how I ended up at her house.”

“It was probably superman.” I say, nodding my head.

They both stare at me.

“What? How else am I supposed to explain Rose getting rescued from an evil mob boss? Maybe there is a new superhero in town.” I act as If I actually believe the crap I am spewing. “Or maybe some elite crime fighting unit rescued her.” I shrug, “Whatever story you want to believe.”

Mr. Demor studies me with a cold look and a calculating smile. “Maybe you can tell me all about this… Elite crime fighting unit tonight. Over dinner?”

Rose smiles a smile identical to her father’s. “Yes, that would be fantastic. I want to hear about this Superman too.”

Weeooo weeooo! Warning Warning! Girlfriend is on the attack, all personnel to their stations.

Cadet: What is going on Captain?

Captain: It appears that we are under verbal attack.

Cadet: What should we do? Should we open fire back at them?

Captain: No. It’s too dangerous, we don’t know what kind of Girlfriend powers Rose has gained since our last verbal encounter. No, we only have two options. The human Elena can either:

• Say no. The human has a lot of things she needs to deal with and I don’t want to sound the alarm every time she needs to bullshit during the dinner. or

• Say yes. This means free food and lots of extra points with the Girlfriend. Plus, free food.

Cadet: Isn’t the choice obvious, Captain? We may not survive another battle with The Girlfriend.

Captain: Very well. Prepare to open the mouth. And may god have mercy on our souls.

“I would love to have dinner with you.” I respond, a pained smile on my face.

Mr. Demor finally lets go of Rose’s backpack “We look forward to seeing you.” He says, closing the Tesla door.

Rose looks at me with an amused expression, “‘Whatever story you want to believe’? Really?”

I don’t answer.

We are both quiet after that, lost in our own thoughts as we walk to first period together.

Mr. Monroe isn’t in the classroom when I enter it, but Blake is waiting in the back with two open seats on one side of him.

I sit down gracefully next to him, Rose on the other side of me.

We sit there quietly, the silence almost visible as our other classmates make up for it with their conversations.

Rose breaks the silence. “So Blake, apparently, we are girlfriend and… girlfriend now. That’s a thing.”

“Nice.” He responds, writing something down in his notebook. “I should have known that Elena was gay. There was no other reason for her to turn me down.”

I snort. “You are way too egotistical.”

“What can I say? I am just that fabulous. Even I can’t help but love myself.” Blake says with a smile, flexing his arms towards us.

The class quiets down as Mr. Monroe enters the classroom.

This class passes almost exactly like the last one, except I can tell that Rose notices something is wrong. It looks like the bracelet is working.

I note with interest that Mr. Monroe actually seems to be teaching us. He isn’t just waiting for the hour to be over, he uses his psi to grab our attention as he lectures to the class about mathematics.

My attention turns back to Rose who has a puzzled expression on her face. She is watching everyone else as they give Mr. Monroe their entire attention.

I glance back at Mr. Monroe, who hasn’t even glanced at the classroom since he started his lecture. This means that he hasn’t noticed Rose’s odd behavior.

Rose moves to raise her hand, but I grab it before she can. She looks at me curiously, I just shake my head at her. No need to draw attention to the fact that she is unaffected.

“What is going on?” She whispers to me.

“Don’t worry about it, it isn’t harmful to anyone. Just don’t show that you are unaffected. I don’t know what he will do then.” I respond, my eyes on Mr. Monroe the entire time.

“He? Mr. Monroe is the one causing this?” She asks incredulously.

I make a calming gesture with my hands, whispers are louder than you might think. I am just glad that we are at the back of a rather large classroom “Yeah. That is what my bracelet is for, it stops his magic from affecting you.”

“Magic? What the hell Elena!” She whispers furiously “You need to tell me what the hell is going on. First that dome of earth around those men and now this. You can’t just keep me in the dark.”

I smile at her, she looks cute when she is angry. “You know, you look beautiful even when you are angry.”

We pause as everyone starts putting pen to paper at once. It’s eerie.

“Don’t distract me Elena. What is going on?” She continues, but I notice the smile she is trying to hide.

I giggle at her expression, before sighing “Magic exists. Mr. Monroe is using psychic energy to control the people in this room, the bracelet on your wrist has an attachment on it that stops you from being affected.” I speak quickly. “Ask Blake to explain the rest of it to you later, for now we should stop talking so that we don’t draw attention to ourselves.”

Thankfully, she listens to me after that. I follow the example of everyone in the room and start writing what Mr. Monroe says down in my notebook. I want to pass the class after all.

The bell rings, signaling the end of class. I can feel as the spell ends, the psychic presence leaving. Everyone in the class packs up their things and leaves.

“Elena. A moment of your time please.” Mr. Monroe says.

I stop in the doorway, considering what I should do. I walk back into the classroom. Rose follows a few steps behind.

He glances at Rose. “You may leave.” I feel him use his psi to affect her. She ignores it.

Mr. Monroe gives her more attention when she doesn’t follow his orders. His gaze drops to the bracelet on her wrist.

“I see. You decided to create some protection for your friend.” He says thoughtfully.

Rose steps closer to me. I smile at the Beta Tester, “After the way you asked me to come to your house two days ago, I decided that I should protect all the teenage girls I could from your lecherous advances.”

His thoughtful look turns angry. “How dare you insult me. You pathetic brat of a girl.”

I lean back on my left foot, “How dare you be such a terrible and cliche villain. You sociopathic con artist of a teacher.” I respond in the same tone he used with me.

He pauses, getting control of his emotions remarkably fast. “Just because you have put some protection on your friend does not mean that she is safe. A bullet still moves fast enough to pierce her pretty little head.”

“Just because you gave someone a gun does not mean that you are safe. My hands still move fast enough to snap your neck.” I respond, real anger beginning to flood me from his words. I pause, regaining my composure. “But that is neither here nor there. You called me back, what do you want?”

He considers me, “I want you to become my subordinate, just imagine what we could do, two Beta Testers-”

“I refuse.” I interrupt him.

“Consider your words carefully. Last time, I had my servant miss her shots so that she wouldn’t kill you. Next time, you won’t be so lucky.” He says, his eyes narrowing.

I consider his words. My eyes flicker to Rose. The spell that I have to stop gunfire is easily disrupted by psi, so if a firefight starts here, she won’t be safe. “I want a partnership, I don’t want to be anyone’s subordinate.”

“I can live with that.” He says, a crocodile smile curving his lips.

I look at him. I can’t trust him. What I saw of his status makes that abundantly clear. But I can’t afford to fight him. I almost died during my last encounter with a Beta Tester and there is no guarantee that I will live through another fight with another Beta Tester. Even then, I might risk it, but Rose…. “Fine, I’ll think about it.” I finally say.

“You have two days.” He holds up his fingers to emphasise his point. “After that, well… may the best Beta Tester win.”

“Elena.” Rose stops me as I am about to step away from him. “He means to kill you if you don’t agree, doesn’t he?”

“I do.” He says, making a lecherous smile towards her.

She looks sadly at her backpack, “Then I have something that might affect your decision.” She reaches her hand into her backpack.

Both him and I look at her curiously, wondering what she has that could affect my decision. Before either of us can react, she pulls out her gun and fires it three times at Mr. Monroe.

He stares at her, his face frozen in shock, blood pouring out of the gunshot wounds in his head and body.

I stare at the both of them, also in shock.

Shit. Bitch be crazy. And god is she also sexy.

My thoughts catch up to me, as I realize what she had just done. “[Unmatchable Speed]” I cast, pushing her to the ground as more gunshots go over our head.

I feel a bullet skim my arm, but ignore it as I try to find Mr. Monroe’s assistant. Alarms go off as the school realizes that there is an active shooter.

Wherever his assistant is, she stops shooting suddenly. I hear footsteps running down the corridor.

Rose whimpers under me and I realize that blood is starting to pool underneath her. I roll her over and look for the bullet wound. Carefully, ignoring the sirens and alarms. I cast my healing on her. It takes a good five minutes. My psi reserves are practically empty and I can hear people coming closer to the classroom, but the bullet is out of her and the skin has patched itself up.

My eyes study the room as I understand the predicament we are in. Rose’s bag is open, showing a gun that just killed a teacher at the school.

Rose passed out at some point during my healing, so I zip up her bag and move her away from the spot that the bullets came from. There is nothing I can do about the blood stain on the floor where she used to be, but I take my sweater off and put it over Rose, using it to cover the whole in her shirt.

Then I wait.

It doesn’t take long for the police officers to arrive, they carefully enter the scene to find two girls huddled in a corner and a dead teacher laying on the floor.

Rose wakes up by this point.

I whisper in her ear as the police attempt to lead us out, “you don’t remember anything since class started, it is all blank.”

An almost imperceptible nod proves to me that she heard me and I let us be dragged out of the building.

An EMT looks us both over when we get outside of the building. He examines her to find nothing wrong, but stops when he sees my arm. “Ouch. That looks nasty.” He says, kneeling down to look at a bloody wound in my arm.

I look down at it in surprise, a small “Oh.” coming from my mouth.

“You might want to look into getting some stitches, but I can do the basic cleaning and bandaging here.” He says, pulling out some anti-bacterial wipes and bandages. “You look familiar, do I know you from somewhere?” He gently uses the wipes to clean my arm.

“My dad works at the hospital on 39th Avenue.” I answer distractedly as the police take Rose aside to question her.

“That’s right! I remember meeting you at that work event. Dr. Trudeau, right?” The medic says, trying to keep up a dialogue.

One of The police officers sigh at the lack of information Rose gave them, “Huh?” I respond, bringing my attention back to the medic. “Oh, yeah. That’s him.”

The police officers walks over to us. “Miss Trudeau.” the younger of the two greets me before turning to the medic “can I talk to her?”

“Yep. Just finishing up. And done.” The medic finishes with my bandage and steps way.

The younger police officer watches as the medic walks away before turning back to me. “Can you tell us what happened Miss Trudeau?” He pulls out a notebook and clicks a pen.

“I can try.” I start, acting the part of the frightened teenage girl, which I technically am. I pause for a moment, trying to think of a good story that would explain all of the bullets in that room. “Mr. Monroe asked me to stay after class so that we could talk about one of my assignments. Rose-”

“Miss Demor?” The officer interrupts me.

I nod, continuing with my story, “She stayed behind to keep me company. Then- then it happened.” I pause for effect, “I don’t know who he was, he wore a hoodie and a mask, but he was carrying a gun. Mr. Monroe tried to talk with him, but the person wouldn’t respond. He just shot him.” I say the last part in a whisper, forcing myself to believe that my story was true, so that the Police would buy it. “Then he started to walk away. I don’t know what made him turn around, but something did and he started shooting at us too. I realized what he was doing and pushed Rose to the ground. It all happened so fast…” I trail off.

“Is there anything else you can think of? Any identifying features?” The officer asks, his pen hovering over his notebook.

“No sir. I can’t think of anything else.” I respond

The young officer writes something in his notebook. He offers me a small smile “I understand that this must have been hard for you Miss Trudeau, I promise we will do our best to catch this man and punish him for what he did to your Teacher.”

The Police Officers walk away, the older of the two patting me on the shoulder as they pass me.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I see them go. They bought my story.

I look at Rose, who is sitting on the curb. She is lost in thought, staring into space. I walk over to her. “Are you ok?” I ask.

“I don’t know.” She responds a confused look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I feel alright, but I think I might be going crazy.” She says, a little worry in her voice.

“Crazier than you already are?” I ask, raising my eyebrows in surprise. She doesn’t respond to my joking tone so I continue, “What is making you say that?”

“I don’t know if I can talk about it. It says that I signed a non disclosure agreement?” She finishes her sentence like a question.

My eyes go wide. “Please don’t tell me there is a blue window in front of you.” I say almost in a whisper.

“How did you know?” She asks, her voice rising slightly.

“Shit.”