DO NOT DO NOT

Chapter 14

 Aubrey couldn't speak. She didn't know what to say, and anytime she tried to say something, the words would get caught in her throat. Her worst fear had come true. Her best friend was gone, and she could have stopped it. She got up and walked over to the room she put Chloe in last night. Chloe's blood was still smeared from the door of her room, to where Beca was still sitting, clutching her lifeless body. Aubrey looked across the room to see the window wide open, and blood smeared on the sill below the glass.

"But I don't understand. How did the killer even get in here last night?" Emily asked.

Aubrey walked back towards the group and managed to find her voice. "Her window is open. She must have opened it last night, because they can only be opened from the inside."

"He saw his opportunity and took it," Flo added.

Beca looked down, vision blurry from the tears, and saw the color of Chloe's once bright ocean blue eyes had lost their sparkle and began to fade into a grayish blue. She thought back to the night before when Chloe was her normal, bubbly self and how easily her flirtatious side came out. She never could have imagined her life without Chloe, especially since she never got the chance to tell her how she truly felt. The longer she held Chloe tight, the more she wished that Chloe would just blink and everything would be alright again. It didn't even matter that her hands and clothes were covered in her friend's blood or that she couldn't control her tears. She just wanted Chloe back.

"Becs, why don't we get you cleaned up and let the others take care of Chloe?" Emily suggested, snapping Beca out of her own thoughts and back into reality. 

The sound of Chloe's nickname for Beca made her flinch, but she allowed Emily and Amy to help her off the floor and into the nearest bathroom to wash up.

"That's it. From now on, we're using the buddy system. If the killer comes after us again, the only way he'll get through is over my dead body." Aubrey declared.

"Well, I sure hope she's not my buddy then," Amy muttered under her breath after walking back to the group.

Karen interjected, "Hang on now! I refuse to be any of your 'buddies.'" She said putting air quotes around the word buddies. "You're the ones this guy seems to be after, and there is no way I'm putting myself or any of my other somewhat important staff members in danger by being buddied up with one of you."

"Are you being serious right now Karen? I swear-" Aubrey started.

"Hey," Emily intervened, "why don't you and Brenda just buddy up. That way you can watch out for each other, and avoid us. I mean it would be nice to be buddied up with someone who will actually be looking out for my well being. Well, not that anyone else wouldn't look out for me, but I really think that with the killer still on the loose we should be on alert and willing to fight with and for each other because-"

"Fine! Just shut up!" Karen interjected. Although the mere sound of Emily's voice made Karen want to flip a table, she admitted she made a decent suggestion.

Aubrey requested that Karen and Brenda work together to move Chloe's body to a more appropriate place for the time being. Once they left the room, everyone else in the group soon had a buddy. Emily and Benji stuck together, despite Amy's objection of putting the two clumsiest people together. Because they had an odd number, Aubrey decided that she, Beca and Amy should be buddies, which left Flo and Lilly together.

"Sure, put the minorities together. We are guaranteed to die now." Flo complained as she looked at Lilly who was standing in the corner smiling and eating an ice cream cone.

Aubrey ignored her, and now that they had their system set up, she made Beca and Amy follow her into the basement to grab something. Amy practically had to drag Beca along, which turned out to be difficult because the stairs leading to the basement were especially steep.

"So Aubrey, what are we looking for down here--" Amy interrupted herself when she spotted a large bag of gummy bears, "Aubrey.... YOU'RE A GENIUS!" She shoved Beca to the side and beelined to the pantry to get the candy. Beca just leaned against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and Aubrey disappeared into the dark basement.

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Emily and Benji were getting worried about the three girls in the basement and decided to check on them to make sure everyone was alright. Flo told them it was not a good idea because they would be in danger if the girls were dead, but they went against her warning and continued on. When they opened the door leading to the basement, Emily saw the killer behind Beca, knife in hand and ready to attack. However, before she could warn Beca, she misjudged the height of the first step and fell only to crash into the killer. Her clumsiness gave Beca the chance to realize what was happening and move behind Amy, who was still standing there eating the candy.

"Legacy! Your stupidity came in handy!" shouted Amy.

"Get down!" Aubrey ordered.

Everyone turned to look at her as they ducked down and saw that she was holding a rifle aimed right at the killer.

"Things are heating up here on 'Mock-appella,'" the all too familiar voice of John Smith announced startling Aubrey and causing her rifle to go off, just missing the killer. He bolted up the stairs and out of the basement at the sound of the gunshot.

"Go, killer, go! Quick before they realize we're distracting them!" Gail called after him.

The girls followed Aubrey's lead and chased him up the stairs leaving Amy behind (she doesn't do vertical running).

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Amy snarled. "Beca could have been killed because of you! Or worse...I could have been killed!"

"Oh, isn't this so exciting, John? This is more action than that night in Tokyo with the Jamaicans!" Gail said.

Amy was so upset that she grabbed their microphones from them and vertically ran up the stairs as fast as she could. John and Gail just laughed, pulled out new ones and continued to speak about the events on their live radio show.