A cry for help rang out, causing Alicia, Caitlin and Lindsey to look up from their search.

“Uh oh.” said Alicia.

“Where'd it come from?” asked Lindsey.

“I think it was over by the dressing rooms! Come on, let's go!” urged Caitlin.

They ran over to the dressing rooms, but what they saw when they got there stopped them dead in their tracks.

The thirtysomething woman was dead, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Chase was crouching nearby. She seemed to have broken up a wood hat rack into small pieces and was trying to make a fire out of them to roast the body over.

She was wearing the dress. Bloodstains had been added to the floral pattern.

“Oh my god.” said Lindsey, horrified.

“Holy shit. Holy shit.” repeated Caitlin.

Chase noticed them and stood up, smiling broadly. She did a small twirl. “Dress coot?”

...........

Things moved very fast from there. Eyes darting around to make sure there were no witnesses, they quickly hid the body in one of the booths. Chase was unhappy about this, as she didn't like to waste food, but they hustled her away before she could kick up too much ruckus.

They got through checkout as fast as they could (Chase still wanted the dress), then left the store. Caitlin seemed to think that it was a good idea to leave the mall immediately and never come back, and while the others definitely valued her opinion, they went ahead and got Chase's hair and makeup done, and set aside time for a mani-pedi as well.

“I can't believe you guys,” griped Caitlin, taking a sulky bite of her churro. Oh yeah, they got churros, too. They were back in Alicia's car, heading home as the sun set behind them.

“So what did you think of the mall, Chase?” asked Alicia, rounding a corner. “Fun, huh?”

“Mmhmm!” nodded Chase eagerly. She was riding shotgun, and couldn't stop looking at herself in the visor mirror. Her blonde hair had been styled into a cute, wavy bob, and her modest makeup further accentuated her already arresting green eyes, as well as her tender lips.

She couldn't believe the person in the mirror was her. Growing up in the woods, knowing nothing of style, cutting her own hair with a machete, and having never seen a bar of soap in her life, she could comfortably say she had never looked so neat and pretty before. And she loved it.

Lindsey made a warm declaration: “Ladies, I think we can count this makeover as a complete success.” She went for high fives and got them.

“So, er, what do we do with her now?” asked Caitlin. “Are we still going to try to get her on the squad after she murdered somebody in cold blood?”

“That is the plan, yes.” said Alicia.

“Well, where's she going to live? Are we getting her a hotel room, or something?”

They hadn't thought about that. “Hotels are expensive. And this isn't going to be a night-to-night thing. We need a permanent solution,” said Lindsey. “She should stay with you, Caitlin.”

“What?! Why me?” asked Caitlin.

“She likes you best.”

“No she doesn't!” Caitlin looked at Chase. “Do you?”

Chase smiled at her. “Yes. Cait best. Funny.”

Caitlin sighed. “Well, thanks, I guess. But I don't think it's a good idea. My mom would freak out. Lindsey?”

Lindsey shook her head. “Sorry, no can do. My parents are pretty strict about no sleepovers on school nights.”

“She can stay with me!” said Alicia brightly. “My parents won't mind.”

“Seriously?” asked Caitlin. “You can just bring some random person home like a stray puppy and have her live with you, without your parents saying anything?”

“I can try!”

…..

“I don't know, Alicia,” her mom wavered from across the dining table. “I don't think it's a good idea.”

Alicia's parents had consented to letting Chase stay for dinner, but anything more than that seemed unlikely, growing more unlikely by the second.

“Why knife?” asked Chase, looking from her eating utensils to the steak on her plate with immense confusion. “Meat dead. No need hunt.”

“Uh... it's so you can cut it,” said Alicia's dad, from the seat next to her “You know, to take small bites.”

“Oh.” said Chase. She clutched the knife in her fist, raised it high over her head, and stabbed it into the steak hard enough to make the table rattle. Then, she began carving the meat into small pieces, in rough hacking motions. Alicia's dad subtly moved his chair away from her.

“N-not a good idea? C'mon, don't say that!” begged Alicia. “I still have more stories of her escape from the old country to tell you!”

“Look, Alicia, we all respect her bravery in outwitting those border guards. We know digging an eight-hundred-meter tunnel using only a sausage knife is difficult. That isn't the issue here,” said her mom. She looked at Chase, who was now grabbing chunks of meat with her hands and popping them into her mouth. “It's just... she's just...”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Mom, Dad, please,” said Alicia. She put down her silverware and moved behind Chase to hug her shoulders. “Chase's family is gone. She doesn't have anywhere else to go, anyone else she can turn to for help. She's all alone in a strange new place, haunted by a complex and troubled past. She needs our love and guidance right now. Without it... she may never get the new beginning she desires.”

…...

There wasn't a lot they could say to that.

“See? I told you they'd say yes!” cheered Alicia, rolling out a fresh sleeping bag after finding vomit in the one from the previous night. Chase sat on Alicia's bed, flipping through a book. It was nighttime by now, and a slivered moon shone through the window behind her.

Alicia fluffed a pillow and put it at the head of the sleeping bag. “You can have the bed, I'll sleep on the floor!”

Chase looked up from the book quickly, as though just jerked out of a trance. “No! Leash take bed. Chase sleep nice on floor. Used to it.”

Alicia looked doubtful. “Well, if you say so.” She smiled and sat down next to Chase on the bed. “What's that you're reading?”

She saw it was her yearbook from last year. Chase was browsing through it, looking at all the faces. “What this? Why you in it?” she asked. Alicia looked closer, and saw that Chase was looking at her class. There, near the top of the first page, was Alicia Alcott. Over on the next page was Caitlin Boyd, and she knew a couple pages later they'd find Lindsey Ericson. “And what read mean?”

“Ah. It's called a yearbook.” she explained warmly. “These are all the people I go to school with.”

Chase couldn't believe it. There were so many.

“Here, let me show you a page you'll really like.” said Alicia, taking the book from her. She flipped past the class pictures to the sports and activities section. After finding the page she wanted, she handed the book back to Chase.

The blonde's green eyes lit up. It was a two page spread dedicated to the cheerleading squad.

“Cheer!” she said excitedly. There were action shots of the girls performing at a game, a couple shots of them goofing off at practice, and then one big picture of the entire squad, posing in pyramid formation for the camera.

Chase looked at Alicia excitedly. “Me? Me?!”

Alicia smiled. “Yep, that'll be you soon. Tomorrow, Lindsey, Caitlin and I will go over some of the basics with you. Tryouts are on Monday so we've only got a day to get you ready... but you seem like you have a true knack for it, so I think if anybody can do it, you can!”

An expression crossed Chase's face that Alicia hadn't seen yet. She looked uncertain. “Chase can?”

Alicia didn't miss a beat. Chase looked like she needed a pep talk, and pep was the redhead's specialty. “Of course you can! Why wouldn't you be able to?”

Chase put a reflective hand on the group photo. “No cheer in woods,” she said softly. “Chase hunt, Chase fight. Chase kill. Them.. them no kill. Them coot. Cheer... cheer not for kill.”

Her statement was fractured, revealing Chase's still-limited grasp of spoken English, but her meaning was very clear. Alicia picked the girl's hand up off the photo, taking it reassuringly in her own.

“I know your life was very different before you found us. This kind of thing, this whole world I live in, is very new to you. I understand how you might feel like an outsider,” she said. “But that doesn't matter. You heard us before: anybody can be a cheerleader as long as they're good—and pretty. The squad needs somebody with your talent. Sure, maybe you've never heard of cheerleading before today. But you'll be great anyway! You'll dazzle the whole school!”

Alicia gave a dazzle of a smile, herself, as she continued. “All you need is a chance.”

Chase looked taken aback for a moment. Then, she did something that surprised Alicia: She gave her a big hug.

“Thanks, Leash.” she said. “Thanks for chance.”

Alicia tenderly hugged her back. “No problem.”

After a few seconds, they separated. “Let's go to sleep.” Alicia suggested. “We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

...........

Police Chief McBride sighed and took his coat back off. “This had better be good, Johnson.” he announced, hanging it on the back of his chair and having a seat. “If I'm late for dinner again, my wife'll see to it that you boys investigate MY murder next.” He gave a dark chuckle.

“You'll want to see this, sir.” promised the young cop, holding a tape. He looked very pale. It was immediately evident to McBride that whatever was on the tape was not for the faint of heart. “We got this from the mall this morning. It... concerns the McGuff's Pass Incident.”

McBride frowned. He laced his thick, sausage-like fingers on top of his desk. He was a large man, even sitting down, with broad shoulders and a barrel-like chest. His short, graying hair did not give him a look of age, but of weathered experience. “We closed that case, Johnson. I closed that case.”

Johnson popped the tape into McBride's VCR, and turned on his small, black-and-white TV. Both were mounted up in one corner of the chief's office. “I... I think we've got a compelling reason to reopen it, Chief.”

It was a surveillance tape from 18 Eternal. On it was captured the entire grisly scene of Chase killing the woman and being quickly ushered away by her stunned friends.

McBride was silent while he watched, and he was silent for a moment after the tape ended. He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “So. There were five.”

“And she's... and she's in Sunnycrest, Chief. She's killing,” said Johnson.

“Who were those three girls who helped her get away?”

“We ran a search and found out they're students at Sunnycrest High.” Johnson handed him three thin manilla folders. “Here's what we have on them. It's not much. Three squeaky clean kids, Chief.”

McBride leafed through them quickly, then tossed them on his desk. “How many people have seen this tape?” he asked.

“Nobody outside this department. Well, and the manager at 18 Eternal.”

The chief made a decision. He stood up, dropping his fingertips on the files. “I want this buried. Cover this whole thing up. Do not let the media catch wind of this.”

“Chief? Don't you think the town should be warned there's a dangerous fugitive in their midst?”

“The last thing we need is for the public to be in a state of panic. We'd be putting them in even more danger.” he said. “Plus, we already went public with the four killers story. That's the story we're sticking with. I won't have this department looking like a bunch of inept clods. Rewind the tape.”

His last request caught Johnson by surprise. He fumbled with the remote for a second, then hit rewind. When Chase reentered the camera's view, McBride gave another order. “Pause.”

The rookie hit pause. Frozen on the screen was the cluster of cheerleaders, fast tracking Chase away from the scene of the crime. The burly man walked around his desk and approached the TV, craning his thick neck to regard its display with his hard, cold gaze. “This will be handled... discreetly.”

“Discreetly, Chief?”

“The public doesn't need to know. We do our jobs, we take out this perp, and we keep quiet about it.”

This gave Johnson pause.“Take out? You mean...”

McBride glanced at him. “Kill her, yes.”

As he turned and walked back to his desk, Johnson stammered out a response. “But... but isn't that... don't we have, like, rules we have to—?”

The huge man returned to his seat. “Not to worry, Johnson. You'll get a stomach for it.” On his desk was a phone. He picked it up. “That's one of the nice things about handling things discreetly. The rules are more flexible. Not as much paperwork, either. Once you try it, you won't want to go back to the regular way of doing things.”

He began to dial. Johnson searched for a response, but he couldn't piece one together by the time the call connected. “Hi, honey. Sorry, something big came up at work. It really looks like I'm going to miss dinner. I know. Put it in the oven for me, alright? Thank you. I love you too.”