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The following Monday morning, Alicia was hanging out with two of her friends who had just started talking to her again in the main hall of East High when she spotted the indestructible couple of Troy and Gabriella walk down the hall together, their hands clasped tightly around the other's as they smiled and waved at random people. Her gaze followed them as they passed her, not even acknowledging that she was standing right here.
"They make me so mad and sick!" burst out Alicia, unable to contain her anger at seeing them together again, as they had been despite the stunt she pulled over two weeks ago with the phone camera. "She should be livid and beyond hurt that he kissed the cheerleader!"
"Alicia, maybe it's time to give up," suggested Mandy. "It's clear that they really do care about each other."
"How can you say that Mandy? He was mine first!" exclaimed Alicia. "Then she came along and stole him from me! And then she stole Riley's attention from me! She's like this leech I can't get rid of that's sucking my life away!"
"That may be true, that you were Troy's girlfriend before her but Alicia, I worry about you when you obsess over this like this, especially about Riley. He really did rape Gabriella, at least that's how the judge ruled. Do you really want a guy like that?" asked Stacey, careful not to upset Alicia more than was necessary.
"Riley wouldn't have done that, I know it," returned Alicia. "He and I have a bond, don't you see? I did what I did with the picture text for him, to try to help him weaken Gabriella enough while she was testifying to try to crack her into telling the truth, that Riley didn't do it."
"But Alicia, why would Gabriella make it up?" asked Stacey, shooting Mandy a worried look.
"Because! That's what she does! She loves attention and will do anything to get it. She couldn't just leave stealing Troy from me, she had to play havoc with my crush on Riley too. Don't you see? My life is hell now because of Gabriella Montez. I wish she'd just die!" exclaimed Alicia, her voice now loud enough to start attracting attention from nearby students.
"Calm down Alicia, please," begged Mandy, afraid of the hysterics her friend was launching into. "This isn't helping your situation."
"I don't care, I hate her! I hate the stupid bitch!" yelled Alicia, jerking away from Mandy and Stacey who were both trying to calm her down and running down the hall into the girls' bathroom, locking herself away in a stall as she finally let out all the frustration she felt at her situation through her tears until a new idea began to form in her head. 'Riley may be a lost cause in jail but I can still do something about Troy being with Gabriella. What if I take her out of the picture?' A smile finally began to form on Alicia's face again as her tears dried and a new plan began to be put together that would ensure Gabriella's absence in Alicia's future.
"So why did you drive into school by yourself against me wanting to take you this morning?" asked Troy as he got his books out from his locker after Gabriella had done the same moments before.
"Because you have pre-season basketball practice," returned Gabriella. "Did you forget that already?"
Troy shook his head as he zipped up his backup. "No, but you could have stayed to watch us practice you know."
"And risk getting yelled at by your dad for being at a closed practice? I don't think so, I like being on good terms with him," replied Gabriella, kissing Troy's cheek.
"Kiss up," murmured Troy with a smile on his face before he captured her lips with his for a brief moment before he closed the locker door. "Come on, homeroom and Darbus awaits."
The couple slowed as they passed by Gabriella's old locker and saw even more words etched into the door, both silently wondering if they were new or if they were now being allowed to accumulate as most of the door was now covered in different names. They ripped their attention away from the locker door though as two masked people ran through the halls screaming "Her Royal Slut!" through the halls and past them, throwing paper up in the air as they continued down the halls.
Without a word, Curtis took off down after them while Paul stayed with the couple and caught a piece of paper to look it over, glancing over at Gabriella immediately as she read a paper she had caught with Troy looking over her shoulder.
H.R.S., Gabriella Montez, among all her adoring fans.
Below that line was a photo shopped picture of Gabriella's head on a bikini clad body in front of a line of barely dressed guys that had the faces of West High and East High guys alike also pasted on the bodies, Riley and Troy both being the faces on either side of her, each with a hand on her waist.
Gabriella slowly shook her head before she crumpled the paper and tossed it into the recycling bin nearby. "Will this ever end?" asked Gabriella in a quiet voice, keeping a wavering control over her emotions.
Troy pulled his girlfriend's body closer to hers as he kissed the top of her head. "I hope so," murmured Troy, paying more attention to Paul after seeing that Paul seemed to be conversing into his ear piece. "What is it man?"
Paul looked over at Troy and then Gabriella. "Curtis caught them and they are now going to Principal Matsui's office. Two guys, Curtis isn't sure who they are though."
"At least they're caught," commented Troy.
"But what did I ever do to them?" asked Gabriella, some sadness creeping into her voice as she stared at some of the papers lying on the floor of the hall and then again at the locker that used to be hers. She noticed that the writing on the locker door wasn't the same, not just in differing words but also different writing styles. "Am I that hated throughout this school?"
"I don't think you're hated," replied Paul, giving Gabriella an encouraging smile. "Just the target for many immature teenagers who are jealous of you. Don't worry your head about this Gabriella and I'll be sure to leave this out of mine and Curtis' report to your dad, I promise, even though I guess that's a form of treason but for you, I'll risk my head being chopped off or being exiled."
Gabriella smiled at Paul who she really now considered to be more of a friend than a bodyguard. "Thank you."
The three of them walked down the hall and reached their destination, Gabriella seeing Taylor and Sharpay stuffing more of the same flyers in a recycling bin as soon as they had spotted Gabriella coming. "Thank you Tay, Shar, for doing that."
Taylor gave Gabriella a sympathetic smile. "The least we could do. Maybe I should be calling whoever Curtis here caught the lunkheads and not the basketball team now."
"I second that," agreed Sharpay as they all walked into the classroom just as the bell rang and class was called to order by Ms. Darbus.
Gabriella's lungs were burning and they were burning because of a certain black haired girl and her tricks. She pushed aside the anger she felt at Alicia as she went back to focusing on finishing the last two laps of the five she was sentenced to as a punishment for supposedly pushing Alicia into the ground after Alicia had verbally attacked Gabriella again. Paul and Curtis had tried protesting it but Gabriella had them back off, not wanting to prolong the attention Alicia was getting for milking an incident that didn't really happen.
"Come on Montez, faster!" called out a faint voice that mocked her.
Gabriella looked over and glared at the other girl who was now smirking back at her. "Get lost Alicia," got out Gabriella, turning her attention back on the track. The teacher had already gone inside, knowing Gabriella would do her punishment without any supervision being needed.
To Gabriella's surprise, when she looked back up, Alicia was nowhere to be found. "Wow, she actually listened to me for once."
Gabriella slowed her pace down as she finished the last lap, walking a few yards with her hands clutching the back of her head to try to get her vitals back down before walking towards the school's building, which was now emptying of East High students leaving for the day. Curtis and Paul followed her up until the locker room door and she waved them off as she entered, going to her locker and opening the door. She was relieved the girls' locker room had cleared out already, looking up at the clock and realizing her punishment laps took her twenty minutes past when all the other girls returned to the locker room.
Once she had her shirt off, Gabriella sat down and grabbed a towel from her locker, grateful that it was a clean towel from laundry over the weekend as she used it to wipe her face and her neck as her heart continued to slow down its beats, only to increase as she thought she heard the unmistakable sound of a metal lock falling into place echo through what she thought was an empty locker room. It also sounded faintly like the turn of a lock from several months ago, when Riley advanced on her in her old home.
"Stop it Gabriella, you're just imagining things. Riley is behind bars, he can't hurt you," murmured Gabriella out loud, turning her attention back to putting her discarded shirt and used towel into her bag to take home. She had just pulled the light blue sweater on that she had been wearing during school over a white camisole when Gabriella heard an all too familiar high voice.
"Riley may be behind bars but I certainly can and will hurt you," said Alicia, standing now only a few feet away from Gabriella, a slightly sick and crazed look on her face. There was a flash of light off steel in the next second and Gabriella realized for the first time that Alicia was also armed with a knife with a sharp blade.
Without giving it another thought, Gabriella's hand dived into her locker and had just managed to find her watch to push the panic button before Alicia shoved her, causing Gabriella to hit her head hard on the lockers before she felt her body hit the ground. Gabriella blinked several times trying to regain focus as she slowly tried to back up and away from Alicia who was now slowly advancing, following Gabriella's slow progress away from the other girl. Distantly, she could hear banging on the locker room door, some relief comforting her that it seemed that Paul and Curtis had heard her panic call loud and clear. That relief though was short lived as Gabriella felt her head hit a wall and looked up to see she was now trapped between Alicia and the wall.
Instead of immediately advancing and going for the kill like Gabriella thought she would, Alicia took her time, in some ways torturing Gabriella as the maniacal grin on her face grew bigger as each second went by. "So sad Gabriella that you won't live to see your eighteenth birthday or to see when I'm crowned Prom Queen with Troy as my Prom King. I considered letting you live to see that day but I can't chance you ruining my life anymore Gabriella. You must understand that," said Alicia, breaking the tense silence between the two girls as Gabriella slowly tried standing herself up, using the wall for support as she slid up.
"I never meant to ruin your life Alicia," replied Gabriella, keeping a close eye on the knife still firmly under Alicia's control.
Alicia let out a crazed laugh. "Of course you did your royal slutness! First you stole my Wildcat boyfriend, then you went after my Knight crush, and then you had the audacity to come to East and steal my popularity, my friends! You went after my life with all the life you had in you, it's only appropriate I take your life away now. See, I tried doing little things, to get you to back off Troy, to get you to exit the picture on your own free will but you just wouldn't go away! I paid Stephanie fifty dollars to get her to surprise kiss Troy, as much as I hated even having her lips touch his for my purposes, and sent you that picture text to get you to back off. You should have wanted to leave him Gabriella, to leave his cheating heart yet you stuck around, you saw the better in him. You didn't even have the audacity to be so distracted at the trial that Riley's lawyer could expose you for a liar, you still had control up on that stand from what I have heard. That control ends now though."
"Alicia, it doesn't have to be this way! I know you're hurt and you think I stole Troy, I don't blame you as I did kiss your boyfriend when you two were still together and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I should have thought of you in this whole thing but I didn't," returned Gabriella, finding she meant her words. "I really am sorry I was so heartless Alicia."
The other girl stopped her advancement as she eyed Gabriella, wondering the truth in her words. "So you'll dump Troy? You'll leave and have this fairy tale life as a princess far, far away?"
The banging got louder just then while male voices could be heard calling out to Gabriella, louder now:
"Gabriella!"
"Are you okay?"
"Who is in there with you?"
"Brie, please be okay. Answer me!"
Gabriella's heart soared as she heard Troy's voice call out to her, knowing Alicia had recognized it immediately as the crazed look entered her eyes again. "Of course you wouldn't be stupid enough to dump Troy Bolton. I guess I'll just have to make it easy for all of us and take you out of the picture," stated Alicia. "Don't worry Troy, you won't have to worry about Gabriella for much longer!"
The pounding on the door got louder at this after a momentary silence before it got louder, like something was being rammed up against the door. Alicia let out a dry laugh. "Who would have known that the locker room would have such a nice, sturdy deadbolt? Speaking of dead," started Alicia as she eyed Gabriella again, giving Gabriella little time to think as she dodged Alicia's lunge at her, feeling the sickening feel of something sharp slicing into her right side as she fell onto the ground again in pain before starting to see black spots in her vision.
Before Gabriella knew what was happening, Alicia had hauled her up, surprising Gabriella as Alicia's build was the same as hers if not smaller. A flash of pain traveled through Gabriella's body as Alicia wrapped her left arm around Gabriella's waist, pinning her left arm to her side while Gabriella's right arm was held up against her wound, which was now oozing more blood with Alicia's left hand on top of Gabriella's right wrist. Before she knew it, Gabriella felt the warm sticky tipped knife pointed into her neck as she gulped, trying her hardest to fight to stay conscious as the banging on the door continued.
"See, the way I see it Gabriella, I'm not the only one that benefits from your death. Do you know how many girls and guys at East and West combined will thank me? I wasn't alone in writing on your locker. Sure, I was the first brave one but those black rose petals, those came from someone else. And those flyers today? Not my doing, although I wish I had thought of that too. So you see, the world would be much better off with you gone," hissed Alicia, taking delight in seeing Gabriella seeming to break down as she felt the other girl's body tremble in her hold and yet saw no tears.
'Maybe Alicia is right, maybe everyone would be better off without me. If I had never been here, Alicia would still be with Troy so she'd be happy and maybe so would he. Troy wouldn't have those scars and wouldn't have been in all those fights with Riley. Paul wouldn't carry around his scars. My parents wouldn't have to be so worried about me, if I was okay if I wasn't around,' thought Gabriella, starting to see Alicia's train of thought.
The blackness started pulling at Gabriella again as she continued to lose blood from her wounded side. She fought hard though, trying to stay conscious, in the meantime seeing flashes of memories from the past year, starting with when she met Troy on New Year's Eve at the ski lodge. From there she saw her first day at West, meeting Tessa and then meeting Riley. She saw moments filled with such sorrow but also saw those times that were filled with unbelievable amounts of happiness spent with her friends. Gabriella saw Chad and Taylor kissing each other when they thought no one was looking, Tessa blushing after Zeke had presented her with a corsage, and Sharpay and Kelsi really acting like friends, as equals. The last faces she saw were those of her mother and father both smiling at her and lastly Troy, just before he kissed her after saying those three special words she had longed to hear, "I love you".
'No, you are not going down without a fight Gabriella, not this time,' screamed Gabriella to herself in her mind as she gained consciousness again after a momentary slip, causing her body to have gotten heavier, throwing Alicia off balance a little before she regained control. "You're wrong," whispered Gabriella, closing her eyes as she put all her energy into trying to find a way out of this.
"I'm wrong?" questioned Alicia. "About what?"
"People will miss me, people have changed for the better since I've known them. I haven't destroyed everyone's life but I'm not claiming all the credit for them changing either," said Gabriella. "My friends are friends because they were able to see past the social clique walls and embrace each other's differences. My love with Troy has been tested by the same things. Social walls, rivalry schools, scheming people, all of it and yet we are all stronger for it. I'm not going to let you take it all away Alicia!"
Alicia tightened her hold on Gabriella, who didn't have the strength to break free at that moment as Alicia brought the knife's point deeper into Gabriella's neck, just barely drawing blood. "Oh really? I don't think you have the choice here Gabriella. I'm the one with the weapon this time and no one is here to save you. What are you going to do now?"
Gabriella suddenly remembered the self-defense moves Paul had taught her over the summer when he was trying to get her more comfortable. 'He always told me those three moves would help me against any attacker but I think he meant guys. Would it work on her?'
Alicia sensed something going on with Gabriella and pressed the knife tighter against Gabriella's neck. "Any last words bitch?" asked Alicia, getting ready to slit Gabriella's neck.
Within a heartbeat, Gabriella slammed her foot on Alicia's right foot, throwing her right arm out to break Alicia's grasp on her wrist but also knocking Alicia's arm with the knife away from Gabriella, wincing in the process as Gabriella felt the blade graze her skin again. Before she lost her nerve, Gabriella swung her head backwards and winced at the pain but heard, along with felt, a sickening sound as the back of her skull slammed into Alicia's forehead and nose, causing the other girl to scream. They both fell to the ground, wrestling for control of the knife, which Gabriella managed to fling aside during the struggle while Alicia now had her pinned to the ground.
Gabriella felt her head being slammed into the ground one last time before she used the last of her energy to push Alicia off of her, hearing distantly a loud thump as Alicia's body hit the wall while Gabriella used the bench nearby to prop herself up against it, drawing in labored breaths as Gabriella fought to stay conscious if only to keep Alicia in her sights. Alicia just laid there against the wall though, showing she was alive by the clutching of her head in her hands accompanied by small sobs.
The door finally burst open and Gabriella heard male voices draw closer before she felt two familiar arms embrace her as she cried out in pain from Troy's hand clutching her wounded side.
Troy drew back immediately and saw the blood on his hand, along with the blood that stained her sweater, her pants, and was gathering in a pool below Gabriella. "Chad, call 911!" screamed Troy before turning his attention back to Gabriella, who finally allowed herself to cry. He kissed her forehead before he ripped his shirt off and gathered it together to hold against her side, trying to apply pressure to her wound while not hurting her further. "It's going to be okay Brie, you're going to be okay. I love you."
Gabriella faintly smiled at this, looking back into his blue eyes, before losing her grasp on consciousness finally, after all her fighting, and gave into the soothing darkness.