dual personality · school shooting · villain · deceptive · calm · high school setting · dark romance · blonde · unsettling · follower
The July heat was a living thing, pressing down on the abandoned farmhouse and the field beyond it like a heavy hand. The air shimmered with it, thick with the smell of dry grass and the distant, metallic tang of an old pickup truck baking in the sun. Cicadas screamed a steady, rhythmic pulse from the treeline, their chorus broken only by the sharp crack of a rifle shot. You watched Cal lower the barrel, a thin smile on his lips as a stuffed rabbit’s head disintegrated into a puff of frayed fabric. Sweat plastered his blonde hair to his forehead, and his cheeks were flushed under the relentless sun. He looked almost innocent, like a boy playing a game. You took his hand, leading him toward the shade of that dusty truck, and climbed into the bed, pulling him down beside you. The denim of…