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Dave took whoever wanted to go to the hospital.  They were able to find the room where he was.  He was listed as Critical but Stable.  He was unconscious, and looked like someone had really done a number on him.  His face was badly bruised, and the notes said he had several cracked ribs.

Lisa sat next to the bed, holding his hand.  She glances over when you arrive.  "Sammy, I'm sorry I didn't call.  I, I just didn't think about it.  Mom and dad are on the way back, they should be here tonight."  She lets his had down gently and goes to the door, I'm going to go call them again, I'll be right back."  She says as she leaves the room.

Colin gets beside the bed, ready to help. He lets Sammy get there first, though.

Blackbird, please tell me I can help him a bit. He's good guy.

Sammy moves over by the side of Elrod's bed.  Taking one of his hands in hers, she moves her face close to his and kisses him on his forehead.  Then she gets by his ear and starts talking.  "El.  Its me, Sammy.  I'm here, ok?  I'm not going anywhere until they kick me out." 

Sarah thinks, And I'll just get you back in if they do kick you out.  She wanted to find who did this and do bad things.  Once again things seemed to be getting slowly worse and worse like it did with the witches.  How many more people have to get hurt?

She puts her hand on Sammy's shoulder and gives a comforting squeeze.  She looks down at Elrod and considers him sadly.  He's beat to hell and he still looks kind of suave.  Sarah almost expected him to open his mouth and make a joke of it all.  After a moment she steps back to stand next to Colin. 

Leaning next to his ear she asks him quietly, "While Lisa's out can you help him or find anything out?"

She wished she could talk with him telepathically like Sylvia.  Saying anything in the room felt like intruding somehow.

"I'll try." he whispers back.

He gently put his hand on Elrod's arm, the one to the other side of Sammy. Then he touches one of his bruises, very softly. He tries to let a wave of soothing energy flow through him to the young man.

Sammy notices what Colin is doing.  She whispers, "If you need more power to help him, Colin, take it from me, or push your will through me.  Thats how djinn were used by magicians.  The tattoos are probably enough of a bond between us to make it work."  Looking back at El she says, "I'm so sorry this happened to you.  Whoever did this is gonna pay."

"I can try, Sammy, but anger isn't a good emotion for what I'm trying to do. Try to focus on what you feel for him." Colin says before taking her hand.

Now there's a question.  How does she feel for him?

She digs down past the anger at whoever did this, past the double-guilt that she was not only not there, but was probably walking home with Nick when it happened... that ends right here...  (but even she isn't sure if she means the guilt or her feelings for Nick).  She digs past the confusion and the lust and the anxiety and the anticipation of separation pain to come, digs deep deep down and finds a safe, warm, happy, light filled place filled with affection for Elrod.  Suddenly she remembers a song on the radio, an older song that he sang along with as soon as it started which surprised her because she didn't think it would be his kind of music, and she starts singing it low and sweet near his head.

OOC: Need a Will Save from Colin DC 14

Will save (1d20+6=18) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1439071)

Colin feels the flow of life from the Earth come up through him and down into Elrod.  The other boy takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly.  Some of his bruises fade and he begins to breath more easily.  He remains unconscious, but Colin sees the blackbird sitting on the heart monitor next to the bed.

Humans sleep to recover.  He will awaken, fear not.

Sammy hears Elrod's breathing change, and it sounds better to her.  She gives Colin a tremulous smile, and keeps on singing for Elrod.  That's all she can think to do right now.

"He's better now. He just needs to sleep." Colin says, letting them go. "I don't know what happened to him, though. We'll have to wait for him to wake up."

Sammy nods.  "Thanks, Colin."

Tension slightly relieved, she calls home to let her mom know what is going on.  She doesn't let go of Elrod's hand.

After a while Sarah takes off for a few minutes to fish up a drink and a snack for Sammy.  She leaves them within reach.

"Thanks, Sarah.  Could you guys see if Lisa needs anything?  Maybe El talked before he passed out; she might know something.  If I find out Torrance is behind this..."

Sarah nods and gives Sammy a little smile.  She tugs on Colin and pulls him along out of the room to track down Lisa.

Lisa isn't hard to find, she's standing just outside the emergency room doors smoking a cigarette and pacing back and forth.

Sarah gives Lisa a small smile.  She looks with concern at the girl who until a few minutes before had meant practically nothing to her other than a few anecdotes at the lunch table.  "Hi Lisa.  How are you doing?"

Lisa looks over at Sarah and shrugs.  Then she looks at her cigarette and frowns, "Don't say anything to El about this."  she holds up the cigarette to ensure Sarah knows what she means, "He's trying to get me to quit."  She takes another drag.  "He's always looking after me, always worrying about me."  She's pacing again, and her voice is a little hoarse.  "Then he has to go and do this to make me worry."

"Yeah, brothers can be a real pain."  Sarah leans up against nearby post and crosses her feet.  "I think under the circumstances he will let it slide.  Did you... see anything or hear anything?"

Lisa shakes her head.  "No, I got home late and found him on the porch.  The police checked the house, nothing is missing.  They're not sure what the motive was."

"Do you have any ideas or suspicions?" asks Sarah.  She shakes her head.  "I'm sorry, I don't want to sound like a cop or something.  I like Elrod.  He's been nice to me and we want to do anything we can to help."  She looks back in towards the hospital.  "Because it's better than standing around feeling useless."

"No, nothing.  He and I don't really talk that much about stuff.  Not like when we were little."  She takes another drag from her cigarette.  "He really doesn't have anyone that doesn't like him.  Not really.  That's why I hate him sometimes.  It seems like everyone likes him, and I have to work to get people to like me."

Sidenote:  Ms. Feeling Useless is sitting by Elrod's side deliberately ignoring the tide of omg el! is he ok? messages flooding her inbox.

Colin tries to follow a line of thought.

"Does it look like he's been beaten by your porch, or somewhere else and then just dropped there?"

"The police are pretty sure it happened near there.  They think he opened the door and was attacked.  It was still open when I found him."

Colin looks at Sarah, an eyebrow raised as if asking a silent question.

 Sarah asks Lisa, "Is there anything we can get you?  Or do for you or anything?"

She gestures a bit futily. 

If there is nothing Lisa needs Sarah leads Colin off to a dark corner... to port them on their way to Elrod's. 

She looks at him and asks, "This is what you were thinking?"

"Yes. It shouldn't hurt to take a look around."

Once on the Janusch' porch Colin breathes deeply and lets the air out in a large puff of vapor, trying to discern what happened through it.

OOC: Need a power roll so 1D20+6.

Sarah, knowing she can't pick up on any of the mystical business, keeps watch over the area and guards Colin's back. 

A power roll? It's new. Anyway, here it is: Power check (1d20+6=25) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1452030/)

Colin lets the place reveal it's turmoil to him.

OOC: PM sent with important details.

Colin is utterly shocked by what he sees. He sits down to breathe a bit, trying to regain control, but he doesn't know what to think. There must be something wrong. There has to be.

"Sarah, can you bring me back at school, please?" he says finally.

"School?  Sure.  You saw something that's sending us there?"  The expression on Colin's face worries Sarah a little but she did as requested. 

She takes Colin's hand and pops off towards the school.  Once there she asks, "Would you like somewhere in particular?"

"I'm not sure. Let me check."

He close his eyes and sends them through the Blackbird to look for... He still has trouble believing what he saw happening. But he has to find him. Before anyone else does.

Colin is able to find him easily.  He's in his afternoon class.

He takes out his phone and messages him.

I'm in the hall outside your class. We have to talk. Now.

Sarah looks at Colin.  "What's going on Colin?"

"I don't understand. And I'm not sure if I should hope to be right or wrong."

OOC: Sarah, make a Notice Check DC 14

OOC: I noticed the #$% out of it. 
Notice Check (1d20+8=28) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1452894/)

Glancing through the window in the door to the classroom Sarah can see the familiar face of Donnie.  She's able to glance down in time to also see that is indeed who Colin sent his text message to.

Colin and Sarah see Donnie raise his hand and a few moments later (after some appropriate giggling from his classmates) Donnie steps out in the hall, stepping a few lockers down out of direct line of sight from his teacher.

"Hey guys. What's up? Trouble in Candlyland again?"

Sarah is speechless for the moment though her brain is running full speed.  I can't believe Colin thinks it was Donnie.  No wait, I can believe that.  I guess I can't believe Donnie did that.  Why?  He's got no reason unless he's totally unhinged.  I think Sylvia would notice that... but would she mention it to the rest of us?  No that's stupid.  Donnie is fine.  This is either a case of switcheroo or Donnie got his brains scrambled.  Isn't it great to live in a place where the most improbable answer is the most likely?   

"Hey Donnie." she says.

"Donnie..." Colin is deadly serious. "Donnie you said you've been taking care of some business yesterday. Can you tell me what have you done exactly?"

"Why?" Donnie looks curiously at his two friends. "What's going on?"

"How did you bruise your knuckles, Donnie? We went to check at Elrod's porch and I saw you, beating him up. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

Donnie shrugs, looking unconcerned. "He was unecessarily cruel to Sammy. He said some really hurtful things to her, and I went and showed him that just because he is a senior, it does not mean he can treat a freshmen girl like that and get away with it. Especially one of my friends."

"Donnie, Sammy right now is at the hospital crying over him, since he is in really bad shape, and she surely doesn't look like someone who's angry at him. Are you sure this is what happened?"

Then another thought comes to his mind, and he frowns. He rolls up his sleeves and calls upon the power of the Eye.

Let the truth shine. If there's an influence clouding his mind or his memory, get rid of it. And please don't hurt him.

"Hell yeah I'm sure. She was crying to me and Sarah about what he said to her yesterday. Maybe she is just feeling remorse that someone took what she said about Elrod being 'taught a lesson' as a true wish as opposed to simple blubbering over a break up." He looks at Sarah. "You were there. You heard her."

His eyes narrow as he sees Colin rolling up his sleeves.

Donnie can feel magic swirl down from the air and into the tattoos on Colin's arms.  They form the all seeing eye.

OOC: Is Donnie concerned about this, or is he going to let it happen.  As far as he knows he would have no reason to worry about the spell, he's not hiding anything.

"Colin, let's move out of the friggin hall if you are going to do that. We don't want to make go boom if your eye does it's usual number." Donnie turns and walks down the hall.

Colin looks questioningly at Sarah too. "Did that happen? Yesterday?"


"Uhm. Ok." he says, following him warily.

"Of course it did. Before the threesome pillow fight. Where I got double-teamed by two babes." He grins mischeviously.

Donnie walks them down the hallway and out one of the side entrance doors where there is a span of brick on either side and no one can see them unless someone were to look out the door they just exited.

Donnie opens his arms. "Well? Let'er rip spirit dancer."

OOC: Why do all these posts happen when I have to leave my desk?

Sarah's been thinking. 

"Um Donnie?  I can't recall Sammy ever saying that.  I mean, she was more concerned about Elrod's friends.  Remember?  Torrence was the person we were grumbling about.  Sylvia uncovered how she'd messed with El's friends and then you said something smartass and we beat the stuffing out of you.. or at least one of the pillows."

She puts her hand on Donnie's shoulder and looks worried.  "I think you might have got your head messed with.  Have you had a chat with Torrence anytime lately?"

Donnie's brow furrows. "Yes she did. I remember it. I know the two of you were getting catty over Torrance and that was before Sylvia came over. You are getting things mixed up since the pillow fight was before Sylvia arrived. Obviously you have things mixed up. Maybe Torrance did a number on you or something."

"Torrance? She might have said something to me in the hallway, but it was just to ask about Sylvia rejoining the cheeleaders. It was a bare moment, surrounded by peopole. She couldn't have done anything to me."

"Well, I hope this way we find out for sure."

Colin closes his arms, letting the Eye shine its light on Donnie.

The eye forms and Donnie can see the ragged edge of the two spell matricies reaching tendrils out for one another, weaving themselves back together until the snap into place.  The tattoo is a split Eye of Horus, and once they connect Donnie can see a magical eye form just in front of Colin's forearms.  The eye has a green eerie glow to it, and stares without blinking into Donnie.

Colin's view of things changes when the eye works to reveal things.  Looking out over his fists is like looking through a strange window into other places and times.  Colin can see the threads that connect Donnie to the Dragon Reach.  The colored threads that connect him to his dragons. His sword is just over his shoulder, connected to him by a thread as well, looking like it might be sheathed across his back in some other-space of magic.  Floating around Donnie's head are what Colin realizes are the spells the young mage has in his memory.  They form intricate patterns of magical potential, threaded into the universe itself.  As he looks, one of them seems broken.  Colin can't decipher the pattern in any of them, but they all glow with power, save for one.  The broken symbol floats around like the others, with it's thread to the universe, but the light that moves along the thread stops at a tiny crack in one of the paths along the pattern.

"Donnie, one of your spells has been broken. I'm not sure which one it is, and neither if I can fix it. Didn't you notice?" Colin says, looking intently at the patterns of light.

"None of my spells are broken. Well, then again I haven't cast any of them lately." He frowns, and looks around. Colin can see one of the ley-lines of power that lead away from Donnie to his dragon become thick, pulsating as it contracts, and the spirit dancer can see it 'pull' Pip into our world. The little dragon chirps happily and buzzes over Sarah's head, perching up on a gutter and looking down at them all.

Donnie begins weaving his hands through the air, leaving sparkling trails to Sarah's eyes, but warping the air in a tortured glow to Colin's eyes. Colin sees one of the spells floating around Donnie's head unravel as he casts, and Colin realizes that his friend was re-wriiting the spell in a larger form in the air in front of him. As the last pass is completed, the glow dissapates and Colin can see a shimmering light around Donnie's closed eyes, mirrored in Pip's.

"Well that works."

The spell is discarded, and Donnie begins casting again.

he goes through three spells, and upon the third, he looks at his hands in concern. He looks up at Sarah. "Can you see me?"

"Donnie, if what I see are the spells in your memory, maybe your memory of one of them has been altered."

OOC: Donnie would know that it's more likely his memory in general has been tampered with, which resulted in a subtle shift of the building blocks the spell was formed from.  So, not the spell itself, but memories near the spell.

OOC: You have a corrupted file and need a defrag.

IC: Sarah nods at Donnie.  "Yep.  Are you supposed to be invisible?"

"Yes, I am. The spell has worked perfectly since I debugged it several months ago. What the hell?"  He paces back and forth, one arm crossed over his chest, the other covering his chin. Colin and Sarah can hear him murmuring to himself. Apruptly he turns.

"If the part of my brain that includes memory has a glitch, it would affect my memorization of the spells. This damn near proves you are right. Shit. How did she do that in front of all those people and in the blink of an eye. Our conversation was less than a minute!"

Donnie begins to realize the conversation seemed brief, but he was late to class.  He should have been in class with plenty of time to spare.

"Because she's powerful?  If she really is that good, and it really was her then my talent is just a party trick by comparisson.  Or maybe not.  She could have just told you what to remember.  You two might have had a ten minute conversation and you wouldn't necessarily recall it.  We will get it figured out.  But we can't eliminate other possibilities yet."  She looks from Donnie to Colin before asking, "What do we tell Sammy?"

"Sarah, can you make him remember what really happened? Or maybe we should look for Sylvia."


Colin looks down. "I don't know yet. Let me think."

Sarah shakes her head.  "I don't know how to fix someone else's tinkering and I don't want to try practicing on Donnie to figure out if I can.  Let's get a hold of Sylvia."

Colin flips out his cell phone again, and tries to call Sylvia.

"Syl, where are you? We've got problems here, and we kinda need your help."

[There are some funky timeline problems with this, but if no one else minds, I'll proceed as if Sylvia's just finished lunch with Smith.]

Sylvia's on her way back to school, flipping through French vocabulary cards.  "Problems?"  She figures at first that Colin's talking about the paper.  "Gretchen knows my password.  Whatever she does with the layout is okay by me as long as we save some space for the table of fundraisers."

Colin frowns. "No. The other kind of problems. Donnie's memory has been tampered with, and he... Please meet us at the paper hq. We need to figure out what exactly happened before anybody else gets hurt."

"I'll be there as fast as I can," Sylvia says and takes off down the sidewalk like Clark Kent getting ready to peel off his shirt.

"Thank you. Elrod's at the hospital. Somebody has made Donnie believe he had been mean to Sammy, and he kicked the shit out of him. I helped him a bit, but he still needs to sleep it out. Sammy's there with Dave and the others. She doesn't know yet. And we should try to work this out before she does. If she gets too angry... Things would get ugly. She is not very stable yet. She needs more time to get used to what she is now."

Sylvia's sprint slows to a stop.  The sick twist of her stomach makes her knees too weak to run.  "Somebody?"

"That's what we need you for. Sarah doesn't feel like experimenting with Donnie's head. You, on the other hand, already did it once with Shelia. Maybe you could see through what Donnie believes he remembers."

Sylvia feels a rush of heat that makes her head warm and buzzy even as her fingers go ice cold.  She's going to find Torrance.  She's going to find Torrance, and she's going to--

She forces her voice to stay low and even.  "I'll do what I can as soon as I can get there."  Inspiration hits.

She steps into the street and flags down the first passing vehicle, a harried-looking soccer mom in a minivan.  "Lady," she beseeches, "I have to get to Oak Park High School.  It's an emergency."

The woman takes one look at her, face full of sudden, deep concern.  "Get in, honey."

Sylvia moves someone's burpy cloth off the minivan's back seat and puts the phone to her ear again.  "I'll be there in about five minutes."

"She'll be here any moment now. Let's go to the paper's rooms." Colin says.

Once there, he takes Donnie's hand in his own, wondering if he'll manage to glimpse anything.

There is nothing but a moment of discomfort when Donnie realizes Colin is holding his hand.

And that's just about the time that Sylvia shows up.  She stares, door to the newspaper room closing behind her.  "Am I interrupting?  I could come back if you guys are having a moment."

Colin just rolls his eyes, and drops Donnie's hand.

Sarah smiles and waves at Sylvia.  "Come and fix your boy.  He's got dain brammage.  Some other girl's been messing with his head." 

"I'm gonna kill her."  Just then it sounds like Sylvia really means it.  She closes in on Donnie and looks him in the eye, sick with concern.  "Are you okay?  Do you feel like yourself?"

"We cannot be sure yet it's her. She's just the most likely suspect." Colin says, ever trying to be the conscience.

Sarah nods, "That's true.  Other folk have had some blank spots... I've wondered if that's what Vandross was capable of but I don't think she's Vandross.  Waaay to petty to be him, her... whatever.  Plus Torrance has an actual reason for being mad at Elrod, a small, nasty, petty reason." 



OOC: Sorry!  typed Donnie instead of Elrod.  Donnie was just a tool  (heh) 

"What?" Sylvia asks.

Donnie feels a moment of embarrassment and discomfort at Colin's holding of his hand, but it's covered quickly with embarrassment over his feelings of embarrassment. He's probably just trying to 'see' if there was anything he could, um, see. Yeah.

Still totally not gay.

Donnie feels like an invalid being led around. "I'm fine. I understand what she did to me. I was late for class, and I shouldn't have been if all we had talked about was Sylvia and cheerleading. I don't feel bad for beating up Elrod, which is kind of odd in itself. All I want to know is if you can fix what she did. I have faith in you, Sylvia. Beetlejuice has taught you well."

He sits on one of the chairs, holding her hand in his.

Sylvia turns back to Donnie and gives a grave little nod.  She can afford to be cautious and methodical in this, so she takes her time unraveling whatever knots have been tied in Donnie's brain.

OOC: Need a power check form Sylvia.  1d20 + 4.

Power Check (1d20+4=13) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1457435/)

Sylvia swims freely into the mind of the one person she probably knows as well as she knows herself.  The space is a wash of fantasy and facts.  Donnie's mind is a whirlwind of impossible places and people, monsters and magic.  All organized into categories and threat levels, dice rolls and page numbers.  It's as fantastic as it is dull, and it's a strangely comforting place.

Among the pillars of warmth hat make up the threads of power for his spells, threads that are hot to the touch and make Sylvia wince as she glides among them, she finds the strange flickering movies of his memories.  One in particular stands out.  The memory part is short, but the fuzzy underlying mask that is wrapped around it and laying on top of and beneath nearby memories is what draws Sylvia.


Donnie, I need you to do something for me.  Elrod Janush said some mean things to me yesterday, and I was told you were the best fighter in the school.  You're going to his house tonight and you're going to prove that.  Don't think about it, just do it.  It's not important enough to remember, unless someone asks you if you did it, then you tell them you did.  You can also tell them it's because of mean things he said to Sammy.  Remember, what he said to Sammy really made you mad, so he needs to get a good beating.  You're not going to remember this request after I say crimson.  You'll be quiet and listen to what I have to say, and then go to your class like nothing is out of the ordinary.  You're relaxed and feel good.  Crimson.

"Colin," Sylvia murmurs, glassy-eyed.  She holds out her hand.  "Help me fix this."  The venomous directive is over and done with, and if Smith has held true to his word, Torrance is now just another meat puppet in the Oak Park Punch and Judy show.  Still, it seems important to free Donnie entirely from Torrance's work, and Sylvia refuses to blunder around in his brain without a higher power behind her.

"Beetlejuice?"


Colin readily takes her hand, and wills his magic into her, to guide her metaphysical skills without hurting Donnie.

Sarah smiles at Donnie and says, "I got the reference Donnie.  Good one."

Sylvia slips back into the waters of Donnie's mind, with the calming presence of the black bird at her side, flying around her and leading her down the safest path.  The world Sylvia is familiar with has a hazy under image to it, the magical.  It's sharp contrasts of color and spikes of imagination, but the black bird knows the way and leads her to the place where the memory is lying, neatly folded so Donnie can only see part of it.

OOC: Power check 1d20+4+2 for Colin's assistance.

Fixing Donnie's Drain Bamage (1d20+6=19) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1458039/)

Sylvia carefully unwraps the memory covering the truth, and it falls apart into nothingness, leaving Donnie's actual memories intact.  Opening her eyes, she's back in the world.

OOC: Donnie will need to re-memorize the broken spell as that can't be fixed this way.

Maybe the flat, hard look in Sylvia's eyes alone can convey her intent.  "Where can I find Torrance?"

Colin starts worrying.

"Sylvia, that's not our priority. Our priority should be how to make sure that Donnie doesn't end up in prison for something he didn't do of his own accord. Because if Elrod wakes up and tells what he saw, he's in real trouble."

She looks grim.  She needs to make sure Smith has done her that last favor.  "Someone else can tell him what really happened.  I have to make sure Torrance can't hurt anyone ever again."

"How exactly would you do that?" he says, frowning.

"I hope it's already been done."  Sylvia looks at Sarah and Donnie.  "If something goes wrong, if you think I'm acting weird later, say his name around me?"  She puts a slight emphasis on 'his' and hopes they know to whom she's referring.

Colin is confused and looks at the others.

Sarah shakes her head.  "Nuh uh.  No chance.  I'm not telling him that you got smacked for being a dumbass cowboy.  Don't drop foreboding comments about this stuff and try and slip off to fly solo.  Yeah , Torrence has to be stopped but guess what?  If she gets the drop on you the next place you find yourself could be between two pieces of a closing bridge!  Then Beetlejuice goes off the deep end and who knows what happens.  You aren't living in a little bubble called Sylvia's world.  Your actions affect more than you.  Most of the time I'm pretty sure you are aware of that and actually give a crap.  Be mad.  Be pissed off but don't go marching into a fight alone because that's what they do in the movies."

She walks over to Sylvia with a look of determination.  "I amuse S.. Beetlejuice but he loves you like a daughter.  You dragged him out of the hole he'd buried himself in.  If something happened to you he could go Nova and take the whole damn city with him before anybody could get near him.  If anybody could get near him."

Sylvia suffers guilt.  She's worried about Smith, despite his awesome cosmic power, and it never crossed her mind that imperiling herself would distress anybody.  "Torrance shouldn't be a danger to anyone anymore, not if B's kept his word.  I asked him to fix her--"  Her lips twitch with inappropriate amusement.  "--kind of like a dog.  She won't be able to fuck around with anybody anymore.  I just need to make sure, and I don't know anybody else who'd be able to tell if it's worked or not."

Sarah sighs in relief.  "Then just say so silly.  But you still don't have to do it alone.  If B's preoccupied and he hasn't gotten to it then you could walk into a bad fight.  Between, you and me with Colin along for protection... she's got no chance.  If that fails I think Donnie knows a hungry dragon that could take care of things in a hurry."

"What's the chance that Sammy will get parole in time for graduation if we tell her?"

"We don't tell her, and when she finds out, you tell her it's all my fault."

Suddenly something clicks in his mind and Colin finally realizes who they mean with Beetlejuice.

He turns to Sylvia, alarmed. "You asked Smith to do what to her?"

Donnie should be mad. He should be furious at what Torrance did.

Instead he feels small, finally realizing that someone really did a number on him. Small, and sick, and under the sudden realization that he nearly beat someone to death.

A tear, hot and scalding, slips down one cheek. "I-I almost killed him. Oh my god. I pounded his head into the concrete of their porch. Oh god."

He turns swiftly and is violently sick into a garbage can.


"Augh. Oh, god."

Colin puts a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Sammy and I healed him. He'll be all right. But you see now why I was so worried. I was afraid... to find something really wrong with you. I'm so glad it wasn't the case."

"I asked him to turn her off, to set her back the way she was so she can't hurt anyone anymore."


Sylvia strokes his hair the way Mitzi does for her when she's ill.  "It wasn't your fault.  It was like Torrance wearing you, that's all.  It's all on her."

Colin's frown deepens, but he doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. His quest to find the right thing to do gets more difficult everyday. Sylvia found a solution of her own. He cannot blame her. Still, he's not sure it feels 'right'.

Sammy's free hand idly rubs at the tattoo on her collarbone, and she wonders where Colin and Sarah got to.  They've been gone for a while.   Since nobody else is around, she sits there and quietly starts telling Elrod about what's been going on with her.  She's pretty sure he isn't listening, but talks because she needs to say some things and maybe this is just a practice run.  She talks about her dread of saying goodbye to him because she feels so close, almost too close, to him after such a short amount of time; she talks about finding other things and other people so the goodbye might not hurt so bad, about feeling like she needs to drop out of the band because of what Jeff and Andy did to Nick and because they seem to see her as property, not a person; she talks about the power surge and the tattoo, and the changes she's feeling inside of herself.  She stops if anybody comes too close to the door to his room.

Sarah says, "We should tell Sammy I think.  I know none of us want her going ballistic and harming herself or risking her grasp on her Sammyness but she deserves to know what's happened.  The first thing we should do Colin, is go back and bring Sammy up to date.  I don't want her thinking we ditched her at the hospital."   She sighs and with a small smile at Sylvia says, "I may have to try and play the guilt card on her too.  Elrod is an understanding guy but I don't think he'd be okay if Sammy killed someone.  Sammy certainly wouldn't." 

She looks at Sylvia and Donnie.  "You two should track down Torrence and check her out.  If you can, bring John along.  Super speed would be a handy surprise if you two get overwhelmed for any reason.  That way we know Torrence is taken care of and it should help diffuse Sammy before anything horrible can happen.  Much as I'd like to sock Torrence in the mouth we can't beat her down.  We've got no proof to show anyone other than Donnie's word right now.  I just wish there was a way to get proof.  Well wait.  Colin, could the police do anything if more subjects started remembering the truth and testifying that Torrence told them to do stuff?  If Torrence is still active then that can be our plan B.  Sylvia you can unravel all of Torrence's little works around the school and nail her to the wall.  Plan C is probably let Sammy fly Torrence out over the middle of Lake Michigan..."  Sarah shrugs and says, "Let's hope Plan A or B works."

Sylvia gives Sarah a grim nod and pulls out her cell phone while she watches Donnie with deep, gentle concern.  She rings Dave and asks him where they can find Torrance.

Donnie wipes tears from his eyes and spits the sour taste of bile and regurgitated pepperoni pizza from his mouth. He can't look his friends in the eye and busily pulls out the trash back and twist-ties it to keep the stench of vomit from filling the newspaper room.

"I can't- I can't see her right now. I don't know what I would do. Half of me wants to cut her facking head off, and the other wants to run away and hide and pretend nothing has happened. I feel so utterly used. The only thing missing from this feeling like rape is penetration."

Tears leak from his eyes again.

Sylvia has that hard, old look in her eyes again.  She folds away her phone after her call to Dave and puts both hands on Donnie's back in a strangely mystical gesture.  Maybe she's tempted to heal him of his emotional injuries.  In the end she only plants a kiss on his cheek and tells the others, "I'm going to go find her.  I'll let you know when I have, and I'll try not to do anything stupid until John gets there."

She leaves.

Sarah looks over at Donnie with a worried expression.  She fishes a pack of gum out of her pocket and tosses it to him.  "Hey," she says, "I know this is all really messed up and I know what it's like to not be in control of your actions.  Would you like to come to the hospital with us?"

Donnie looks over at Sarah wide-eyed. "Are you kidding? Elrod wakes up and points a finger at me? I get my ass kicked by the Djinn or dragged away in cuffs by the police? No way. Not going."

Sarah nods.  "Okay then.  We'll let you get back.  Are you coming back Colin?"

"I am." He says, but he's clearly reluctant. He just hopes he's not going back to prevent Sammy from doing something stupid, and in the meanwhile letting Sylvia and Donnie do something stupid. He tries to have faith in the best part of his friends, and gets after Sarah.

OOC: I'm going to secure this thread at the end of the day.