I grip the mace so tight the leather bound handle digs into my skin. I said before that I didn't want to kill Jim, but he is clearly working with that thing. And if the last resort didn't work then I'll have to go to drastic measures. Like knocking him out with a mace. 

I see Jim round the corner, and just as I'm about to hit him, I'm pulled backwards. At first, I think the Creeper has me, so I frantically swing the mace behind me. 

"Eli, stop." Oh good, it's just Steve. 

"What the hell?" 

"Sorry" Steve says, letting go of me. "I just didn't want you to knock out Jim. I think he's one of the good guys."

"What?"

"Yeah, when I was in the bathroom--" 

"Do I really need to know about this? When we dated I didn't even want to know what you did in the bathroom." 

Steve blushes a bright red. "I saw Jim fighting the Creeper, and get this, flour hurts it."

"Ok... Where are we going to get flour?" 

Steve smiles and opens his backpack. "So I kinda brought our flour baby." Steve pulls the bag of flour from his backpack and hands it to me. 

"Nice. We just need to get close enough to the Creeper to exterminate it."

"How are we going to do that?"

"First we need to get the innocents out of here, I'm thinking fire alarm." I point over to the fire alarm on the far wall. "Then we chuck the flour at the Creeper, easy as that." 

Steve nods, and I quickly run over and pull the fire alarm. 

Alarms blare and the sprinklers come on and the few people here start quickly evacuating. Perfect. 

From the corner of my eye I see the Creeper waling towards something. I can't tell what the Creeper is looking at, but I just hope it's not a human. 

I start running towards the Creeper, using the rock displays as cover and Steve follows close behind. 

Eventually, we're only a few feet away and I can even smell the sewage sent coming off the Creeper. I'm about to throw the flour when I freeze. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest, and I think my adrenaline from finding the Creepers has finally run out. My breaths become heavy and shaky. 

Steve puts his hand on my back. "You ok?" His voice is muffled by my pounding heart echoing through my ears. 

Steve looks at me, concerned, before saying, "we'll do it together." He grabs the other end of the bag of flour and together we throw it at the Creeper. 

There is a loud cracking sound, and when I look again the Creeper is nothing more than a pile of dust. 

"Thank god." I mutter, my vision blurring at the edges. 

"We did it." Steve says, smiling at me. "We just killed a Creeper." 

"Yeah. We really did it." 

"Are you sure you're ok? You look kinda sick." 

"I'm fine." I say, staggering to my feet. "Lets just go home. But we need to figure out more about the Creepers, and Jim's connection to them. Meet me at my house on the weekend, we'll figure this out." 

Steve looks at me funny, and it's only then do I realize what I just said. I grit my teeth as everything Steve did comes rushing back to me. The fake relation ship ending in heartbreak. But I don't redact my statement. How could I? That would be like admitting that sometimes it still hurts to think about him. 

"Sure." He says, and together we walk back to where we left Steve's Vespa. 

I feel Steve straighten when I wrap my arms around his waste. It's definitely not a cutesy date holding, it's holding on for survival. I'd rather swallow my pride in favor of not falling off the Vespa. 

---

Steve says goodnight when I get off his Vespa, I don't say anything back. I just walk inside. 

"Is that..." Mom trails off when I get inside. 

"Yep, it's a long story." I say. "He's coming over on the weekend too." 

"Oh."

I go upstairs to my room where I start working on more connections to Jim and the Creepers.