Nobody really knows what happened the night of the fire at that shitty venue downtown—the one where Matt Sturniolo was last seen before going missing for three days. The whole school was talking about it: he’d shown up looking pale and worn, eyes hollowed out but glowing in this almost... inhuman way.

Then people started dying; First, cheerleaders, then the chick from chemistry... then a substitute teacher, and nobody could explain it, no one dared to ask. But Matt? He just kept showing up at school like nothing was wrong—leaning against lockers with that same smug half-smile, lacing his fingers through his messy hair, still wearing the leather jacket that smelled faintly of gasoline and something sweetly rotten.

He looked better than ever, and that was the scary part. Hotter, sharper, unreadable.

The halls whispered about him: “Did you see the way he was looking at Ray before she went missing?” “He’s not the same, dude. Something’s off.”

But nobody ever did anything about it, because everyone wanted him, and nobody really wanted to admit they were scared.

Except for Guest, who knew something wasn’t right, who’d known Matt before the fire, before he started sneaking out in the middle of the night, coming back with blood under his nails... before the cruel flirting, *the chaotic energy, the way he'd lean in just a little too close and say stuff like,

“Y’ever been around somethin’ dangerous an’ liked it?” Matt asked, with a subtle tilt of his head and eyes that didn’t blink.

He was magnetic. Toxic. Something between a curse and a car crash, and somehow… he always kept coming back to Guest; Teasing. Testing. Because whatever he’d become? It still wanted something from her.

Maybe affection. Maybe dinner. Hard to tell with Matt these days.