Sam

Samantha Harris had been enjoying the party inside for quite awhile. It wasn't hard getting attention with her bright red hair and stunning looks. There had been flirting, and there had been the occasional jab.

Plus her competitive nature crushed all the football players in Beer Pong. But lost in it all she had two realizations...

First, that her brother, tall and thickheaded as he was, had stealthily disappeared from the crowd. More an annoyance than a problem, but she always had to look out for him with his differences during their childhood.

The second and even more perplexing thing was the life of the party, and the hostess with the most-ess had apparently gone to her room and not come back down.

With a quick ribbing and joke or two with the jocks, Sam slid away herself, managing to work her way through the crowd to get upstairs to her friends room. She knocked on the door, "Jess? You in there?"

She knocked again, "Jess?"

The third time she didn't bother to knock and opened the door gently, finding no one but an empty window, the night breeze rolling in.

"Well that's odd," she muttered, something was off...

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Sam immediately stuck her head out the window and looked down behind the backyard, seeing two figures in the dark with one on top of the other.

"What the hell?"

She bolted from the room and ran into a few friends on the way down, Brad Myers, mid-beer chug spun around as she pushed past him, "Whoa, Harris what's the rush?"

He was an ass of a person, and while she humored Jess' ambitions to get with the QB as the head cheerleader, it didn't seem to stop him from wanting what he wanted. Sam could make him whimper like a little puppy if she wanted to, but now wasn't the time.

"Just c'mon and..."

"Hey! Someone is getting attacked outside!" another party goer called out from the back door, causing a scramble as Sam ran and hurdled to beat the crowd out the door.

She ran with the others, and watched as those around her pulled out their cellphones to capture the scene. Sam's eyes widened as she witnessed what was happening in front of her.

Jessica Edwards was beating Kevin Scott to a pulp.

His shirt was stained, his face bruised and swollen, shirt ripped from scratch marks. Jess' eyes were red with tears and her voice was becoming hoarse as she screamed in anger. Sam had never seen her friend like this - Sam's concern only grew, especially as the mutterings began...

"Jess?"

The blonde's head snapped up as she looked around her, dazed, blinking and unable to focus in the dazzling array of cellphone lights.

Chris and Brad moved forward, "That little fucker, did he..."

"Guys wait..."

"What did he do..."

"Did... did she just..."

"Is he dead?"

Kevin coughed and groaned from the floor.

Sam ran forward and pulled her friend off the boy as Jess looked at her hands in shock at what she had just done. The redhead watched her friend as panic filled her face and shifted around to focus on the scene around her, "S-Sam... I-I...he..."

"It's ok..." Sam soothed, holding her friend and turning her away.

Another member of the party ran forward to check the boy on the ground, looking at the people still filming on their phones, "Someone call 9-1-1 you assholes!"

"Jesus..."

"What did she do?"

"What did he do...??"

"I knew she hated him, but wow..."

Sam frowned and wrapped her arms around her friend before leading her round towards the front of the house, passing Tiffany and looking at her, "I'm getting her out of here. Call an ambulance and find my damn brother."

"Master..."

Sam looked back as she registered her brother's name from Jess' mouth, calling out meekly. Jess looked up at Sam and whimpered, "Master... Master... went home. He wanted to go home."

"What do you mean Simon went home?" Sam asked worriedly.

Her brother went home? Without telling her? Shit, Simon probably got a bit overwhelmed by everything, but he would at least tell her that he would want to leave first. She'd driven him... He couldn't walk home by himself...

"He told me... We scared him."

Samantha Harris suddenly felt a deep sense of protectiveness as she grabbed Jess' shoulder and the passenger's side door to her car. Kevin and Jess both hated each other, she knew that the moment they entered high school, but both of them knew better with her brother. She slammed the door shut and then slammed the door to the driver's seat as she got in, starting the engine before speeding away in to the night as the sirens sounded.