Of all the things Owen was expecting to encounter when he walked around the corner, seeing his best friend being choked out by his science teacher was not one of them.

Ms. Perren, apparently, is freakishly strong, effortlessly holding Harris at least a foot off of the ground. By his neck. With one hand. There's blood around her fingers. Harris is clawing at her hand and glaring at her, his feet kicking uselessly against the lockers behind him. His phone is on the ground by Ms. Perren's foot. He needs help, and Owen starts forward, but he's barely moved before Rhea is grabbing his upper arm and roughly yanking him out of sight.

"What are you doing?" Owen protests in a whisper. "We have to help h— where did those come from?!"

"Don't worry about it," Rhea says quietly, her grip tightening on the hilts of the thin purple knife-looking things in her hands. "Be quiet."

"But Harris—"

"Has been through worse," she interrupts, frustratingly calm. "He will be fine for a little bit longer."

He watches, speechless, as she peeks around the corner before ducking back to cover. Harris has been through worse? What the heck? What's worse than being attacked by a teacher?! Why isn't Rhea freaking out right now? Oh, God, is she going to stab Ms. Perren? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

"Stop freaking out," Rhea whispers, her fingers flying over her phone screen, texting someone.

"I didn't say anything." Has he even breathed in the past minute and a half? He doesn't think so.

"Your panic is loud enough. Reminds me of someone, but she got used to it… I think? Hmm."

It's the first time since he's met her that she's ever seemed unsure. Frustrated and also kind of scared out of his mind, Owen blurts, "Emily. The person you're thinking of is Emily, okay?!"

"Your ghost girl? Interesting. I think that's who I meant, somehow. I wonder—"

"Is now really the time?"

"No, I suppose not." She puts her phone on the ground and stands.

"Wait, are you leaving? What am I supposed to do?!"

"Trust me."

Owen grabs her wrist before she can leave. There are so many things wrong with this entire situation. What does she think she's going to do? They should be calling the police, or looking for a teacher or something. Why is she acting like this is something that she's… done before…

"This is what you guys do, isn't it? I'm not really sure what's going on right now, but… this is what you both do. This is how you both get hurt."

"Yes," Rhea says. "But like you just said. Now is not really the time."

Rhea steals down the hallway they came from, her footfalls both quick and soundless. The sounds of Ms. Perren's voice and Harris's feet thudding against the lockers echo around the corner. Is Owen really supposed to just sit her and do nothing?

A tinny sound catches his attention, and he looks down. Right. Rhea left her phone behind, and it looked pretty intentional. Like she wanted him to see something.

He picks it up. On the screen is a text conversation with someone named "Derek Young." Isn't that the school nurse…? Her last message to him is "S.O.S. unknown + ghost?" followed by their location in the school.

He notices the ongoing call symbol in the notification bar at the same time that he hears the sound of a voice from the phone.

"...to put you down, and you're not going to try anything. Okay?" he hears. There's a hoarse sound that may or may not be Harris agreeing. Then, Harris gasps and coughs.

"Is… is your neck alright?" Ms. Perren asks.

"What do you think?" comes Harris's hoarse reply. "I'm bleeding."

"Harris, I'm sorry. This… you weren't supposed to remember. I don't—"

There's a sudden shuffle. Harris grunts, and another dull thud sounds against the lockers.

"I would love it if you didn't try that again," Ms. Perren's resigned voice says over Harris's ragged gasps. Owen isn't sure what she just did to him, but it sounds like it hurt. She sighs. "I don't know what to do with you. Rhea's probably on her way, knowing you two. I don't want to hurt either of you. I don't want to hurt anyone…"

"Somehow—" Harris coughs, tries again. "Somehow I doubt that."

"Because you guys don't want to believe it! That's the whole problem! I respect what you're doing because there are some very dangerous things out there, but have you ever stopped and considered that maybe some of us just want to be left alone?"

"Left alone to kill people? God, I should have known there was something weird about you—"

"I don't kill! I don't need to kill to feed, and I haven't killed in a long time. I just take harmless memories from my students, like where they put their pencil or something. What happened with Emily was self-defense—"

"WHO is Emily?! Why does that name keep popping up? You feed on memories… is that why everything feels off?! You made us forget whoever she is, didn't you?"

"Wait, if you don't remember me or what happened, then how— AAGH!"

The yell is loud enough to echo in the air. Owen's hand tightens on Rhea's phone. There are sounds like people are… fighting? He isn't sure. He should probably get help, though. Right? He should get help. He should get up, right now, and call for help, or look for another adult in the school. He should do that.

The phone in his hand dings. "Derek" has responded, "on my way."

Owen gets up.

He knows he should call for help, but he doesn't.

He turns the corner and walks towards the conflict.

Rhea snaps her wrist to the side, flicking blood off the purple knife-thing in her hand. Ms. Perren clutches at a bleeding shoulder. Rhea's eyes move to Owen. She scowls at him, the most expression he's ever seen on her face, and pays for the brief lapse in attention with a backhand to the face courtesy of Ms. Perren.

The force of it throws her at least ten feet backwards, and she hits the wall behind her hard enough to make a dent in the lockers. She falls to the ground with a quiet groan and doesn't move. Her purple knives lie prone under her hands.

"Oh my God," Owen whispers. Ms. Perren rolls her head in his direction; the movement is terrifyingly ominous.

"Owen? Oh, I'm so sorry you had to see that." She sounds genuinely apologetic as she starts walking towards him. "Those two haven't dragged you into their… fights, have they?"

"I don't… I'm not…" He backs away from her. He can't stop looking at her hands. The normally round tips of human fingers are sharpened to points, and her nails are half-inch long little weapons on top. They glisten crimson on one hand. When he glances behind her, he can see a column of four little bloody bruises on Harris's neck.

Owen really should have just called for help.

Ms. Perrens stops walking and sighs. "I'm scaring you, aren't I? I'm sorry. I just… how is Emily? I haven't seen her around my room recently. I think Harris or Rhea tried to exorcise her the other day, it must have been so traumatic. They're good kids, they just have this awful 'shoot first, ask questions later' mentality. Emily was the same way. They were quite a trio."

"I... " That was… a lot of information. "Shoot first?"

"Yes. You know. The whole 'hunter' thing."

"What?!"

"Nevermind, maybe you don't know about that. Forget I said that. Is Emily okay? It's so hard seeing her most days and I just—"

"You can see me?" a new voice says. Emily has appeared to Owen's left, once again seeming… distressed. Her hair is doing the creepy floaty thing again, and the same choking terror-despair-ANGER feeling from before is blooming in Owen's throat.

Ms. Perren's face drains of color. "Emily…"

"You can see me… and you didn't say anything?!" Her form is flickering between the way she normally looks, and the bloody, injured state she was in last time he saw her like this.

"Emily, honey, I just… I couldn't. I couldn't look at you. I felt— I feel so guilty about what happened, I just—"

"You know how I died?"

Ms. Perren closes her eyes. "I'm the one that killed you, and... I'm the reason no one remembers you."

There's a rush of wind. Owen blacks out.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.