For Nevermore Season 1

Noella stocked the dairy shelves in the fridge, rotated the breads, and filled all the bean bins for the following day. Eventually, the chatter died to nearly nothing, and the next time Noella looked over, she expected to see the table half gone.
    She didn’t expect to see Becca sucking Sam’s face, or Sam’s lips letting it happen.
    Their kiss seemed painfully long before it suddenly broke. Sam’s eyes met Noella’s, then flooded in shock. She swallowed her tears just as Tony returned from one of his smoke breaks.
    “Bathroom break,” Noella said, tossing her apron onto the counter and brushing past him and into the employee restroom in the back of the shop.
    Noella closed and locked the door behind her, then sat on the toilet and quietly wept herself empty.
    How can I be so stupid?
    Why would he like me when he can have someone like Becca? Someone just like me, but beautiful, rich, and popular.
    Noella wondered if that was their first kiss or if Sam had been seeing Becca for a while and had kept it from Noella. It didn’t matter, the result was the same. She was about to lose Sam to EnvyUs, just like she lost Becca. Only this time, she was losing a longtime friend, and someone she’d fallen hard for.
    Third worst birthday ever.

    * * * *

CHAPTER FIVE

    When Noella came out from the bathroom, the members of EnvyUs were all gone.
    Of course, Tony had done nothing to clear their area, so Noella started clearing the wrappers, throwing away their empty cups, and wiping her damp rag across the table.
    It looked as though one of the girls, probably Britt, had cleaned out her backpack and left crumpled papers, along with some assorted trash and backpack lint in a small lake under the table.
    Bitch!
    As Noella was cleaning the mess, she found a paper folded neatly like a note, and smiled at the thrill that maybe she’d found something she wasn’t supposed to see. She grabbed it, looked around the shop to make sure Tony wasn’t watching her — he was outside smoking again — and opened the note.
    Except it wasn’t a note.
    It was a crude drawing in black ink of a girl with long dark hair, and a heart-shaped birthmark on her cheek. She was holding a knife that was dripping with blood, and wearing a lunatic’s smile.
    Noella crumpled the paper hard enough to feel her nails dig deep in her flesh, then dropped it in the bag along with the rest of their garbage.
    You’ll always be a freak to them. And to Sam, too.
    EnvyUs had been in the shop for three hours, plus the time before she got there. They’d bought a total of six drinks between them, and hadn’t left a tip, unless you counted the seven pennies and one nickel they left on the table.
    She wondered if Sam or Becca had known about that, had to believe the answer was no. A yes would simply hurt too much. Though Becca and Noella weren’t friends, they weren’t enemies (though that might change after today). They were more like a divorced couple who acted cordially, even though the love had gone. Becca wouldn’t have let the others stiff Noella on a tip if she’d been paying attention.
    Though Becca hadn’t been cruel to her, she hadn’t defended Noella, either. She tried to remain neutral, which wasn’t exactly something a real friend did. Real friends defended you. It’s what Noella would’ve done, anyway.
    Maybe Becca and Sam are a perfect match, after all.
    Once the EnvyUs left, the energy in Keefer’s died. There was a final handful of customers scattered across the next hour, mostly single cups of decaf, though one ridiculously high-strung woman came in and ordered an overly complicated latte that Noella had to make three times while Tony chuckled behind her.
    The last 40 minutes passed like molasses, until Noella was setting the day-old brownies in the cooler and Death in a Mets Hat came in to shatter the quiet at Keefer’s.

    * *

    Aurora Falls, New York
    Friday, October 26
    9:55 p.m.
    now...

    He’s going to kill you.
    You saw his face. You saw him kill someone. He can’t let you live.
    Their eyes locked, and he looked down at the gun in his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, raising the gun to her head.
    Then the impossible happened.
    She heard the man in black seconds before she saw him seemingly appear from nowhere.
    “No!” the man in black screamed as he grabbed Mets Hat by the back of his head, shoving him face first hard into the counter.
    The would-be thief dropped his pistol and fell limp to the ground as the man in black