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“See ya.”

Josh practically pushed Kevin out of the way in his haste to get to Jasmine. Just a few seconds later, he was staring into the flashing strobe lights that lined the entrance of The Rock. The store was a renegade shop that sold music themed t-shirts, gothic apparel, and dead head collectibles as well as offering body piercings and tattoos. The aisles were packed with patrons, but they were mostly just penniless teens doing a little window shopping.  

Josh found Jasmine sitting in the counter of the store, flipping through a magazine, looking bored. Her extensive silver jewelry, from her nose ring to a dozen bangle bracelets, glittered under the bright lights. She was wearing a short black leather skirt, and with her legs propped up on the counter, Josh and every other guy in the store received quite an interesting view.

“Jazz?”

She was annoyed to be distracted from her magazine even before she realized who he was. When she finally tore her deeply outlined eyes away from her reading, they widened with surprise that was quickly replaced by anger. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. Her black lips were set in a tight frown.

“I told you I had to talk to you,” Josh reminded her.

“And I told you I have nothing to say to you.”

Jasmine dropped her magazine and rose from her seat with a stack of death metal CDs in her hand. She began to line them up on a display case. Josh followed her, much to her displeasure.

“Jazz, will you please talk to me? It will only take a few minutes.”

“No.” She gave him a sarcastically sweet smile, and headed back to the counter to help a customer.

“Aghhh!” Josh cried in frustration. “That’s it! I don’t have time for this!” He grabbed Jasmine’s shoulders, and forced her to turn and face him. He didn’t even care that people were casting suspicious sidelong glances in their direction. “You’re going to listen to what I have to tell you, Jazz. You don’t have a choice!”

“Are you threatening me?”

She tried to sound strong, but her voice came out more timid. Her tough girl façade was fading as Josh’s grip on her tightened. The scared look in her eyes grew to panic as she tried to struggle but couldn’t pull free. Josh realized he must have looked crazed, and loosened his grip on her shoulders. When he spoke again, he softened his tone.

“No, Jazz, of course I’m not threatening you. But someone else is. That’s why I have to talk to you. Now, please, just come with me for a few minutes.”

Jasmine was watching him with a mixture of confusion, awe, and fear as she debated. Finally she let out a heavy breath that sounded almost like a grunt. “Okay. But not now. My break is in two hours. We can talk then if you can you wait?”

Josh sighed. “I’ll guess I’ll have to.”

Josh spent those two long hours on a bench across from the store, alternately biting his nails and picking at the peeling paint on the wall. His eyes never strayed far from Jasmine. He carefully examined every customer who walked in and out of the store, just in case any of them were suspicious. Most of them did look suspicious, since the vast majority of them were dressed like vampires or covered in facial piercings. But none of the faces in the mall were familiar. Josh certainly didn’t see any of the people on Bryan’s suspect list, at least not since he had run into Kevin.

When it was finally time for Jasmine’s break, she insisted on going to the food court, even though Josh would have preferred somewhere more private. She even made him pay for her dinner in exchange for her time. Josh was more than happy to comply. At least he knew she would be safe while they were together.

“So, Josh, are you going to explain yourself?” Jasmine asked as she took a bite out of her hamburger.

For the third time that day, Josh summed up the whole mess that had become his life. Jasmine listened to the story with calm indifference while she munched on French fries and slurped her soda as obnoxiously as possible.

“I don’t want to scare you, but I thought I should warn you. Soooo. . . .” Josh watched her chew nonchalantly on a French fry. “Do you believe me?”

Jasmine crossed her long legs thoughtfully. “Actually, I don’t believe a single word of it. The only reason I listened this long is because the story was so interesting. Really Josh, you should write a book or something.”

Josh wasn’t surprised by her reaction. At his point he was used to a less than positive response to his theories, but this time it was more important than ever to convince his audience that the story was true. Jasmine’s life depended on it.

“Jazz, this isn’t a joke. I swear that every word I’ve said is the truth. Someone wants to hurt you!”

“Someone already did hurt me.” Jasmine crumpled up her napkin and tossed it onto her plate with so much force that it bounced off onto the floor. “And this whole stupid story about serial killers . . . it’s just your twisted way of getting back at me for yelling at you in front of your new girlfriend!”

Josh shook his head, feeling defeated. “Why won’t you just listen to me?”

“Because I’m not an idiot!” Jasmine exclaimed. “Give it up, Josh! I’m not falling for it.”

Jasmine picked up her black leather handbag, stood from the table, and dumped the remnants of her dinner into the nearest trashcan. Then she headed out of the food court without saying another word. Despite her belligerence, Josh was only a step behind her.

“Where are you going?”

Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Not that’s it’s any of your business, but I’m going back to work. My break is over.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No! You won’t!” Jasmine finally lost her patience. “Don’t even think about it or I swear, I’ll tell the mall guards that you’re harassing me! Go home, Josh! Nobody wants you here, especially not me. If somebody really is after me, and that’s a pretty big if, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“So you just left her there?”

Josh hated the disapproval he heard in Rosa’s voice. The cool wind coming in through the open windows of his freshly painted and repaired Mustang did nothing to cool his burning cheeks. He felt awful all over again. Not even the fact that his parents had relented and given him back his car keys made him feel any better.

“There was nothing else I could do! I can’t follow her around for the rest of my life, can I?” He grumbled. “I just wish she had taken my warning seriously. She thought the whole thing was a big joke.”

“Do you think she’ll be all right?”

That was a question Josh had asked himself a thousand times throughout the previous sleepless night. “I hope so. Jazz is nothing like Lily. She’s tough. She’s doesn’t scare easily, and she can hold her own in a fight. I think she’ll be all right as long as she’s on her guard.”

Josh could feel Rosa studying him, even though he kept his eyes glued to the road. “You’re still worried. I can tell.”

“I’m very worried,” he admitted. “I know these threats are serious.”

“What about your investigation?” She made quotation marks with her fingers. “Did you and Bryan find anything worthwhile yesterday?”

Josh thought about the earring, and he found himself glancing inconspicuously at Rosa’s ears to see if they were pierced. They were, but the flashy dangling butterflies hardly seemed her style.

“Josh, red light!”

Josh looked back at the road and slammed on his breaks just in time. He came to a screeching halt centimeters away from a truck. Rosa’s white fingers were gripping the dashboard almost as tightly as Josh’s held the steering wheel. Neither of them spoke, even after the light changed to green and they started moving again. They were both too shaken up.

Josh couldn’t believe that he was so busy examining his girlfriend’s ears that he had almost crashed his car. He didn’t actually suspect Rosa, but he didn’t tell her about the earring or reveal their list of suspects. They were both quiet when they pulled into the student parking lot. Josh’s stress level was through the roof, but he felt a little better when Rosa took hold of his hand. He wrapped his arm around her waist as they walked into school, glad for at least a few minutes of normalcy. They were hardly through the doors when two equally frantic people accosted them.

“Oh Josh!” Elena cried. “It’s so horrible!” Her eyes were red and puffy as she threw herself into Josh’s arms. He was too surprised to think about pushing her away. He dropped his hand from Rosa’s waist and wrapped his arms around Elena, patting her soothingly. At the same time, he felt his stomach sink. Something bad had happened. Something really bad.

“Elena, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“You didn’t hear.” Bryan looked slightly less hysterical than Elena. “Everyone’s been talking about it.”

“What?” Josh demanded.

“It’s Jazz.” Elena sobbed onto his shoulder. “She was attacked last night. They don’t know if she’s going to make it!”

Elena was gone. Rosa had taken the frantic girl down to the nurse’s office to try to calm her down. In the meantime, Josh and Bryan snuck off to the yearbook room where they could talk without being overheard. They were cutting homeroom, but the possibility of getting detention hardly seemed to matter in light of this new disaster.

“Bryan,” Josh snapped. “What happened to Jasmine? Tell me everything!”

“She was attacked last night at the mall,” Bryan explained. “One of the girls she works with is a junior here. She was quick to spread the word this morning. Jazz was hit from behind with a crowbar or something. When they found her, she had no wallet or jewelry, so the cops think it was a mugging. I think we know better.”

Josh had to clear his throat to get any the words past the lump that had suddenly developed there. “Have you heard anything about her . . . her condition?”

“Rumor has it that she’s critical.” Bryan had trouble looking him in the eye as he spoke. “She’s in a coma.”

Josh leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He felt horrible having left her alone. “Maybe we should go back to the cops,” he suggested. “They have to believe us now. They can’t think it was a coincidence that two of my ex-girlfriends were attacked.”

Bryan shook his head. “Think again, buddy. If we go to the cops now, who do you think is going to be on the top of their suspect list? Jasmine and Lily went to different schools. They had different friends and different enemies. The only connection between the two of them is you. We can’t go the cops until we have some kind of evidence or you’ll be the one who winds up behind bars.”

“What about the notes and the earring?” Josh argued.

“What about them? Didn’t Gibula already suggest you had written them yourself? And wasn’t it you who pointed out that we have no idea who that earring belongs to or if it’s even connected? Trust me, Josh, you don’t want to go to the police again. Not yet.”

Bryan was right. The last thing he needed was to have the cops on his case. His father harassed him enough. “Okay, you’re right. No cops.”

“Good. Hey, man, are you all right? You’re looking a little funny.”

Josh hadn’t even realized that his whole body was trembling. Once Bryan brought it to his attention, he felt his legs shuddering and he had to sit down. He tried to pull himself together, despite the overwhelming guilt he felt, and the possibility of the cops fingering him as a suspect.   Bryan shouldn’t be worrying about him. He was the one who had just buried his little sister.

“I’m fine,” Josh told him. “Just a little shaken up, that’s all. I just talked to Jazz last night.”  He filled Bryan in on his meeting with Jasmine.

“You idiot!” Bryan swore when he was finished. He punched the wall for emphasis, putting a large dent in the plaster. “You left her alone? What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you realize this would happen? How could you be so damn stupid?”

It was probably the fact that Josh knew Bryan was right that fueled his own anger. It was one thing to silently rebuke himself, and something else entirely to have someone screaming accusations at him. Josh took out his frustrations on his yearbook supplies, and with one quick motion, sent all the papers and photos that had been arranged in neat piles flying off his editor’s desk.

“What was I supposed to do? Follow her around for the rest of her life? She was at the mall, surrounded by hundreds of people! I thought she would be safe. I thought that I . . . that she. . . .”

His lame explanations trailed off as he realized there was no excuse for what he had done. Jasmine was hurt. She might even die, and all because of him. Josh pressed his fingers against his eyes to stop the tears that threatened to sneak through. He sat back in his chair and put his arm over his eyes so Bryan wouldn’t see his weakness. He couldn’t cry. No matter how much he wanted to.

Bryan put a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. I had no right to yell at you. You did the best you could, I guess. You couldn’t have possibly watched her every second. Don’t torture yourself over it.”

That was easy for Bryan to say. He had nothing to regret. “No, you’re right,” Josh said miserably. “I shouldn’t have left. Jazz would be safe right now if I hadn’t left her alone. I could have stopped this from happening.”

“You have no way of knowing that.”

While Bryan tried to sound compassionate, Josh only felt patronized. “Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay? Let’s just move on. Did you talk to any of Lily’s friends about the earring?”