My next victims [Leah + Laura]

[Riordan Shonski]

Rio wandered down the corridor after a thoroughly satisfying afternoon. Having the male Dr Hudson break his wrist wasn't all a bad thing; a lot of girls at the drama session had paid excessive attention to him due to his cast, perhaps more than was needed even for an invalid. He snorted at the thought. Invalid? Not bloody likely. It was great; he'd spent half the session telling the hot blonde one about how many painkillers he had to take and skillfully evading her questions about how it had happened. It was a pain, though, having his arm in a plaster cast. It made it difficult to express anything, for a start. Rio had discovered, over the course of the last day, that he used his hands a surprising amount while talking, and having one of them out of action was really quite an inconvenience.

Then he'd run into the little blonde girl, the one he had seen around before. Laura. She always seemed to have her sketchpad with her, and she always, always looked miserable. Rio's softer side (he grinned at the idea) had surfaced, and he had asked what was wrong. She'd told him, in faltering tones, that the only way to help was to hurt her. Naturally, he'd been fascinated by her case, and eventually, he hadn't been able to resist offering her his... services. And now she was following him down the corridor to his bedroom.

His fingers drummed against his thigh as he walked, flicking restlessly in and out of his pocket. He was enjoying his time here hugely so far; it was nowhere near as bad as he'd imagined. His psychiatrist was hot (and, he might add, very easy to scare), the girls were eager, he'd formed some sort of alliance with another boy - he was fairly sure he couldn't call Morph Brown a friend, but he had seemed cool enough – and now a girl was asking him to hurt her. Willingly. This place was a dream come true.

He knocked the door open with his hip, sauntered in, beckoning Laura after him, and tossed his bag onto the bed, before noticing something out of place. Turning slowly, he saw a familiarly pretty, dark haired girl sitting on the bed opposite his, singing quietly to herself. She was the girl he had spent most of his English class passing notes to, he remembered. The one who supposedly didn't have OCD. Rio highly doubted that any psychiatrist was incompetent enough to mis-diagnose someone with that particular condition- the symptoms were obvious enough, after all. But then, he couldn't talk. He'd told the girl he had post-traumatic stress disorder. As if. He hastily wiped the puzzled frown off his face before talking to her.

"Hey, Leah," he greeted her, treating her to a bright grin as he sat down on the bed opposite, indicating Laura to seat herself on another bed, leaning back against the wall and stretching out his long legs. "You weren't joking about visiting me, were you?" He was laughing slightly, eyes roaming over her face, but he stopped them from dropping any lower. No need. She was sitting in his room, after all. Resting his arms behind his head, Rio toned the grin down to a faint smile, an encouraging, friendly look. “How's it going?” He kept his voice carefully neutral, wondering if he ought to react differently to having a strange girl sitting in his room, especially since he now had two of them. He decided against it- nothing new, anyway. And it wasn't like they didn't have reasons.

[Laura Richardson]

Laura wandered into the room after Rio and wondered what exactly she was doing. She was sure if any adults found out about this they’d be a bit angry at least and there might be shouting. Deciding she could probably cope with shouting, if it meant no one would die, Laura followed him in and smiled awkwardly at the other girl. She hadn’t thought boys and girl were allowed to share dorms, but maybe they were… she doubted it.

Maybe she wasn’t even allowed in here. Hesitating slightly, Laura sat on the edge of the other bed, legs dangling, and hoped this would help. She didn’t want to be hurt, not even a little bit, but if it meant no one here died she would be content. And Rio seemed nice, not like he’d laugh at her or anything. Looking over at the other girl, Laura wondered why she was in here. She was now pretty sure that boys and girls didn’t share dorms, so she must be here for a reason.

Swinging her legs, Laura watched her knees and listened to the conversation. She had that feeling in her tummy, like there were winged hippos dancing about because she was nervous, but it was alright. She wondered who Leah was and wondered why she was here too. Maybe she was nice? Hopefully, anyway, she wouldn’t mind knowing some more nice people besides her room mate and Rio. Part of her hoped she wouldn’t be here for when Laura was getting hurt, but mostly she didn’t care. After all, so long as it happened it didn’t really matter who saw as long as it wasn’t an adult. They seemed to over react a lot.

She hummed to herself a little bit, chewing on her nails. Not desperately, but just enough to calm herself down a bit as she listened to Rio and Leah chat. Were they friends? Laura thought she’d like friends if she was allowed them, but she was still learning about who were friends and who wasn’t. Sometimes people seemed to hate each other, but they were friends really. Sometimes. This wasn’t one of those times, Rio had evidently invited Leah to visit him, but maybe that would come in handy at some point. She hoped no one expected to be friends with her… That would be bad, if only because she’d have to explain. Explaining hurt.

Watching the two other people in the room, she wondered how they’d met and if it was normal to walk in and find people in your room who didn’t live there. She would have asked, but that was probably rude. She wondered if she should say anything. In the end Laura decided against it. She didn’t really have anything to say, so instead she swung her legs and watched. She wanted to make sure none of the people in the room would touch her. Unless it hurt. In which case it was ok, because it meant the evil wasn’t affecting them. But it was better to avoid touching people altogether usually. Biting her nails, Laura wondered if she just felt awkward or whether the other people did too. It wouldn’t surprise her, but she’d never really felt the same things as other people. That was the evilness, like her wanting to be touched and things. It was good for other people, just… not her. Laura sat up straighter and tried to look like she was paying attention. People usually preferred it if you pretended to pay attention, or maybe that was just teachers… well, it probably wouldn’t hurt. Laura suppressed a giggle. Of course it would hurt. That was what she was here for.

[Leah Wright]

Her class had ended a few minutes early; although she had been assigned some irritating homework. As there were currently two members in the music class, herself and a boy named "Maddox", she was expected to work with him. They had to make a recording of a song that they both agreed on, and the two had spent part of the class arguing about what song to use. He liked sexually explicit rock; she was classical. After hearing him sing for a minute, however, she realized that there was no way he was cut out for classical. His voice was too rough, too...not classical. She, however, could sing rock reasonably well, so they had agreed. She'd possibly be playing piano as well, as Maddox couldn't play any instruments. He was...slightly irritating, especially after her class with Riordan. Now, he wouldn't have made her sing stupid rock music. He'd be nice. She smiled to herself, remembering the notes they had passed earlier that day. She had kept the sheet of paper at the end of the lesson, and it was tucked into her back pocket as she wandered into the boys dorms, on the lookout for room 102; acting. There had been no answer when she'd knocked, and rather than wait outside in the corridor like a freak, she'd decided to enter, settling herself down on his bed.

Hoping that he wouldn't think she was too weird for breaking and entering (although, without the breaking), she wondered what he thought of her generally. She knew that she was reasonably attractive, so he wouldn't be repulsed by her physical appearance. But had she written all the notes right? Humming to herself quietly, she went through the notes in her head. He had put kisses by his name... Leah sighed dreamily. She loved this part. When you first met someone that fit your criteria, when there were sparks and you knew that you were perfect for each other. Even if it didn't work out, this part was just...nice. Leaning back on the wall, she sang softly to herself. Evanescenece's My Immortal. It was a slightly depressing song, but seemed hopeful at the same time. As the door opened, she jumped, but continued to sing quietly. Boys tended to like her voice; it was good. She hoped she wasn't stuck up. It was just a fact. She was bad at other things, like song-writing, so that evened out.

' I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone, and though you're still with me, I've been alone all along. '

Stretching her shoulders, she looked curiously as another girl entered behind Rio, one she didn't recognize. She looked younger... Weird. Turning her attention from the girl, she smiled at Rio who was sitting on the bed opposite her. " Yeah, got off class early... Thought I'd come and say hi. Everything's good with me, except crappy homework. You? " She wondered if she should introduce herself to the other girl... It seemed slightly awkward, and she was unsure of who the hell she was. When she looked more closely, she realized that she recognized her; there were only about ten students at St. Dympha's and she must have seen the girl around at some point. What was she here for? Leah didn't know. Riordan had PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, from 'childhood stuff'. She hadn't liked to enquire further. And she had... She had obsessive love, apparently, and OCD, but she didn't think that was true. She just enjoyed being in love.

It had been a long time since she had been in a relationship. Almost a month now, what with the psychiatrist hospital after that...incident, and then not being allowed to leave her house. She had missed being allowed outside. It was boring. But now she had met Rio! She smiled at him, fiddling with the ends of her hair. She had really missed being in the start of a relationship. And she'd missed the middle bits. She'd missed the last bits less... They weren't as nice. They were generally quite painful, but she didn't want to think about that. It had just been so long since she had stroked anyone. She needed to. It was a desire, a burning that was always there. She just needed the physical closeness of another person, that would let her touch them for hours on end. When they wouldn't let her... Well, that was just bad.

[Riordan Shonski]

He was curious as to how this could go. Either very good, or very bad... Both seemed too shy to get bitchy with each other, so he was fairly safe, but he should probably try and keep them neutral all the same. "Leah, this is Laura; Laura, Leah." he indicated each one of them with a lazy wave of his hand. Laura looked extremely confused; Leah looked a little bemused, but not particularly lost. "Laura's here because she wanted some help with stuff, but that can wait, right Laura? Since Leah's here, we don't really want to be doing anything that'll make her feel..." Afraid definitely wasn't the word he was looking for. Nor was uncomfortable, angry, scared, or disturbed. OK, that wasn't a problem. "excluded." Perfect.

The two girls sat, both looking a little anxious; Rio was completely at his ease, stretched out languidly on his bed. He didn't have a roommate, thank God, so there was no chance of anyone walking in on them and demanding that the two girls leave. He hoped they'd relax soon. He was happy enough, but sitting here with two girls who refused to talk to anyone but him would grate on his nerves. He liked it when people were social. It took a little bit of the pressure off him to come up with things to say. Brilliant and intelligent as he was, he couldn't always come up with a decent conversation starter. Of course, there had been the occasional girl who didn't seem to find conversation important; they'd just sit there and gaze at him, nodding at everything he said. He found that annoying, to be honest. They didn't provide any interest, didn't engage him at all, and he'd been forced- well, persuaded was a much better word- to get rid of them as soon as possible. Then had come the crying and the wailing... those were the types who most often got friends to come and yell at him, screaming on their sobbing girlfriend's behalf. They were fun, he had to admit- their reaction to his flirting often gave a classic pleasure, but when he wasn't in the mood, it would just irritate him. Silly little girls and their silly little girlfriends and their silly little tears...

And now the fond memories were running away with him. He dragged himself back to reality, but was fairly certain he hadn't missed anything major. Laura was still looking awkward, swinging her feet and staring around; Leah was still humming under her breath and watching him.

[Laura Richardson]

Laura smiled shyly at Leah and wondered if she should say something. Probably should. She scrambled for something to say and realised she hadn’t said hello yet. That would do for a start. “Um… hello.” She smiled a bit more and nodded vigorously at Rio’s suggestion. She’d rather they be the only ones around when she got hurt. After all, there were less people to tell and less people to make sure didn’t touch her blood…

She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d ended up telling Rio about her problem. She didn’t even think about it before it got catapulted from her mouth like a giant rock of insanity. At least, she’d assumed Rio thought it was a giant rock of insanity. Although… he didn’t seem to mind. He’d offered to help. Laura began to chew on her hair by mistake as she thought about this. Maybe he was just a nice person. Realising what she was doing, Laura blushed and removed her hair from her mouth. “Um….” She cast about for something else to say. She was not going to be reduced to talking about the weather. Weather was boring, nobody liked talking about that. “Do you… like it here? I don’t. Much. Um…” Her question was directed at her knees, or the room at large. She could do without being thought rude.

Swinging her legs some more, she wondered if she should just sit there and blend in. Crawling under the bed like she wanted to seemed like a bad plan, but she felt a little freaked out. Like she needed space to breathe. But she had a room mate and there were people around all the time. She decided to just grin and bear it. There was nothing else to do anyway…

Gnawing her nails, Laura began to think about things she could draw after this. That was what she did when her uncle decided it was best for her to get hurt. Maybe she could draw some kind of landscape? She’d never been spectacular at landscapes, but she was in the mood for mountains, big skies. She wondered if Rio or Leah would notice she wasn’t paying the most attention she could be to the conversation. She hoped they wouldn’t, sometimes people got upset, but Laura was a terrible liar and actor. There were reasons she was in the art class here and not the others. Even if dancing looked fun and music sounded good, she was a one-talent girl and she didn’t mind that at all. Except when it came to the one thing she was allowed to lie about…

[Leah Wright]

Leah smiled at the girl, 'Laura', nodding slightly. She felt awkward and out of place, and decided that she'd make up an excuse to leave as soon as she could. She had homework to do anyway; it wasn't a lie. With that irritating boy who would sing nothing but rock, which meant that she'd have to, or risk failing. That wouldn't look good: an F for her first piece of homework. Her mother would not be impressed. Though, did she care if her mother cared or not? To be honest, not really. Her mother was the one that had sent her to this awful place; she should be the one to deal with the consequences, which were failed homework.

Sighing, Leah decided that she needed to be more rebellious. As a punishment to her mother for sending her here, she'd fail some homework? In her heart, she knew that she wouldn't even let herself fail the homework. Not in music. Other subjects, fine. As she glanced at Riordan, she smirked to herself slightly. Maybe she could be rebellious with him... But not with Laura around. What did he mean, anyway? She wanted help with stuff that would make Leah feel excluded? What...stuff? Trying to stop herself feeling possessive, she bit her lip. " I don't mind, really... What sorta stuff? Maybe I can help. " She smiled, hoping vaguely that it wasn't sex stuff. That'd be...awkward, to say the least.

Looking at the other girl, she frowned slightly. She looked young, although she couldn't have been twelve or younger, due to the rules of St. Dympha's. Thirteen, Leah decided, fourteen at the oldest. So it'd be very, very weird if it was sex stuff. Hoping that Rio wasn't a pedophile, she answered the younger girls question with a shrug, before remembering that shrugging could look slightly rude. " It's okay. Sorta boring. Too much homework... How come you don't like it? " The girl seemed like she wanted to chew her own fingers off, something that Leah found slightly odd. She had never really bitten her nails, and she couldn't see the attraction. It just made you look nervous and slightly weird.

Turning to Rio again, she smiled at him. " Really, I don't mind helping with...whatever. I have to go pretty soon, but until then... " Hoping that he wouldn't tell her to go now, so he could do 'stuff' to Laura, she played with the ends of her hair. That was her nervous habit; Laura bit her nails, Leah played with her hair. She was sure that her own habit was much more appealing. Less nail-debris afterwards.

[Riordan Shonski]

Rio sighed to himself. Crap. This was worse than he'd thought. He hated awkward situations. He hoped that one of them would come up with an excuse to leave soon; it didn't bother him which one, but he didn't like being sat in his room with two shy girls who refused to talk to each other. He remained where he was, stretched out comfortably on his bed, letting them stay where they were, sat on the edges of various items of furniture, allowing his grin to fade away into an expression of contentedness as he watched his two new friends talk. New friends. That's a good one. One of them looks like she's in love you- that's nothing new- and the other one thinks she's evil and wants you to physically abuse her. Lovely little social circle you've got going here, mate.

Crap. What kind of stuff? OK, this was the part where he outright lied. Glancing at Laura, he said, "Just some homework shit. It's all psychology stuff, so I said I was interested and she asked me for help. It won't be that interesting, I'm willing to bet- freshman level, but y'know. Nothing better to do. What kind of stuff have you gotta do? Homework?" Show an interest. Don't act like you want her to leave right now. She will, eventually. One of them will, then you can keep the other one a bit longer.

Great. She wanted to help. Well, he could improvise. "Sure, if you like. How long have you got?" He leaned over to his bag and pulled out a notepad and pen, throwing Laura the ghost of a wink as he did so. Leah wouldn't be here long, then they could get down to business. Unless something else came up, as it seemed likely to do at this school.

[Laura Richardson]

Stay and… help? Laura’s eyes widened just a bit. No. No way, no no no no no… She glanced over to Rio in panic. It had taken everything she had to ask him for help. Although two people were probably twice as efficient… biting her nails, Laura looked at Rio for what to do and was pleased when he came forth with something. Even if it was a pack of lies. Lies were bad, she couldn’t actually lie…

Laura caught the look and nodded awkwardly at the carpet. Psychology? Did they even teach that here? She supposed they probably could do if they wanted, they had psychiatrist people. But her learning psychology? Why? Laura hid the myriad of questions and hoped they weren’t planning on asking her anything, if only he’d said drawing homework… she had plenty of that. Not that she minded. Maths homework, then. She was no good at maths. If she hadn’t been so shy about her complete inaptitude at maths she would have asked someone. Laura almost giggled. No she wouldn’t. There weren’t many in her class, and she didn’t know her room mate well enough to ask anything let alone to please please help her with algebra.

Eternity only knew she needed it.

It chilled her slightly that Rio seemed like he was looking forward to hurting her, but she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. He was being nice. why couldn’t she just appreciate it? Her dad and her uncle got that look, it was probably just the look people got when they knew they’d have to hurt her for her own good or something and she was reading it wrong. Fine. There. Maybe she’d ask Doctor Hudson about it… and if he was ever going to hurt her. A small, selfish part of her hoped not.

Laura turned and smiled at the other girl awkwardly. She wasn’t entirely sure what to say, but it was ok. Leah seemed far more interested in Rio than her, and that was ok with Laura.

[Leah Wright]

Ew, homework. She had some of her own; she needed to leave to complete that soon, actually. She had to do a duet or something with some kid from her music class. She sighed quietly - sounded boring as hell - and checked her watch, hoping it didn't look like she wanted to leave. She had another twenty minutes or so until the time they'd arranged to meet, in her room, but she wanted to get there a little early, in case Maddy came early. Good excuse to leave though, in case it started getting awkward...er.

" I've got about fifteen minutes... Got some of that homework shit myself. " Psychology? Cool. She didn't remember taking psychology when she was a freshman, even in a normal school, and hadn't seen it on the choice of classes, but she supposed it must be a weird, special class for the kids. One of those irritating things that came around every year, where you got a taste of different careers or some shit.

She smiled back at Laura, seriously wondering how that girl could chew on her nails for so long without them bleeding or something. She'd used to bite her nails, when she was in the {other} psychiatric hospital, but had stopped herself doing that. Now she just cut them short; playing piano with long nails was pretty damn tricky. " What sorta psychology stuff is it? I haven't taken the class before, so might not be much help... " Leah began considering leaving. It was slightly weird having Laura here, although the girl seemed nice enough. Luckily, she looked about fourteen, so Rio probably wasn't attracted to her. Hopefully not, anyway... Pedophilia was such a turn-off.

[Riordan Shonski]

Rio shrugged at her. "It's just an essay type thing, not too interesting. It's a thing about inspiration and ideas. It's mostly pretty boring, but Laura asked me for help, so I said yeah." He smiled winningly at Leah, and scrawled across the top of the page 'psychology: inspiration'. He leaned back against the wall, lounging on the bed as he watched the two girls, wondering what would happen next. Hopefully, Laura wouldn't say anything, and Leah would leave soon. Maybe he could come and visit her in her dorm some time, just to make up for it.

Tapping the pen against the notebook, he watched the two in silence, head tilted slightly to one side. "So, what is it you have to do, Leah? Music?" He hoped he'd got that right... yeah, she played piano and sang. And she was pretty good at it, most likely, considering she'd managed to secure a place in the school. He scribbled down a few sentences of shit about psychology, hoping Leah wouldn't ask to see it. The situation was getting awkward already, and Rio didn't want to have to explain psychology to top it all off. He just wanted Leah to leave, actually.

Chewing his pen, he examined her, wondering what she'd been sent here for. What was it, OCD? And 'some other shit', he seemed to remember. He went through everything she'd said to him for clues: asking how old he was, how tall he was, whether he was a sadist, telling him she had to touch people, and now she was sat in his room... a suspicion formed in his mind, but he wasn't certain, and he sure as hell wasn't going to ask her. It wasn't as if she'd tell him anything, anyway. She hadn't mentioned it before, she probably wouldn't now.

[Laura Richardson]

Laura turned bright red and nodded emphatically in response to Rio’s words. She didn’t want to lie, but if she didn’t say anything… was it still lying? Lying was bad. People could die if she lied… Laura’s fingernails returned to her mouth as she watched the other two talk, feeling a lot like a little kid watching a grown up’s party. She wasn’t even entirely sure what they found interesting about it, but she wanted to be a part of it.

Deciding to talk to Rio once Leah left, Laura watched with interest. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t accidentally said anything about homework. Rio sounded like he believed it, and she had said she needed some help to do things and that these things would be painful, but she hadn’t meant homework. Mayeb Rio got muddled. She eyed him worriedly. She had no idea where he got psychology from. Should she say something now? Laura opened her mouth… and closed it again. She didn’t want to make him look silly in front of his friend.

She too wanted Leah to leave, so she could tell Rio and also so if it wasn’t a misunderstanding, they could get on with it. If there was one thing worse than getting hurt, Laura was sure it was the waiting. The ‘I’ll deal with you when I get home’ sort of waiting was worst. She could spend all day being content and drawing and at the end of the day the outcome was usually the same. Would it make things worse if she said stuff now? Or later? Laura wasn’t stupid, she knew that, but she was sure Rio had misunderstood now.

Anxiously, Laura began to bite her nails again. This was not good. What if Rio was angry with her? What if she did the wrong thing and he was angry with her? Should she keep nodding or say something? It would be useful if somebody would say, she was sure getting hurt was better than lying was worse, but still… Feeling a little sick with the decisions, Laura decided to ask Rio soon. When Leah went. Please let her go soon… Laura didn’t want to have tummy ache or anything, she hated not knowing what to do.