Chapter Four: Crossing Paths:

    Why particularly did Janine not like Bella so much? No one has yet to find the answer. There are many speculations, however. Bored tops the list of everyone's mind. Jealousy didn't fit the bill in this case.

    "Not many people saw her as a threat," Linda said. "She only kept to herself and stayed away from people."

    "Janine was bored," another classmate said. "She just wanted something to do before school let out. Bell just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time."

    Everyone has some clue how this started. It was just days before school let out. They can't exactly place what triggered the exact moment of torment. They just crossed paths and it all spiraled to hell from there. Not right away, mind you.

    "Janine started just by name-calling, messing up her desk, petty things like that," a third teacher said. "The whole time she didn't say anything. Just took it in silence."

    "I asked her if she wanted me to tell the teachers, but she shook her head," the class rep. said. "I couldn't understand it at all."

    The other students and teachers around her didn't seem to do much to help Bella out either. She pretty much was just left to suffer it out alone.

    "I think everyone was just glad that Janine left them alone for someone new to pick on," the principal said. "Hell, even Janine made me nervous. She threatened to report me for sexual abuse if I tried to stop her."

    In the short few days, Janine and her crew decided to raise the steaks. Bella didn't really react to them like the other kids did. She only took it quietly and kept to herself. Janine didn't like that. So, she made it worse.

    "I couldn't remember a day when Bell didn't have bruises on her arms," the class rep. said. "She ended up going to the nurse's office on a daily basis."

    "I kept asking who did this her," the school nurse said. "She wouldn't tell me, but I already knew. I asked if I could help her in any way, but she said no." Bella took it all in silence as the days wore down. Janine and her crew didn't let up until school let out for the summer.

    From there, things seemed to return back to normal. Bella wandered around her neighborhood, picking up trash. Janine and her crew enjoyed their summer like they had. Everything looked nice and dandy, right?

    Not so fast.

    Janine and her friends still plotted to bring Bella misery. They plotted a game to give her the perfect hell. But first, they needed a little help.

    Enter Shannon.

    Shannon still refuses to talk to police after all of these years. Not much is known about her prior to the arrest. She was a high school dropout and had priors to drug possession and trespassing. She didn't even seem to have permanent living address and moved from shelter to shelter in the town. She used to go and buy beer for Janine and her friends. Other than that, the high school dropout didn't have any an other personal ties to her. Shannon wouldn't talk to reporters on camera.

    "I didn't really care," she told them. "I just wanted something to do for a short time." Why would someone like Shannon be associated with someone like Janine and her little crew?

    "Money," Shannon tried police during questioning. "Janine gave me money in exchange of me doing little jobs for her." The high school dropout did odd jobs for Janine and her family for cash on the side. She said that Janine called her up on thirteenth of June with a "job" to do. They never did let Shannon in on the whole plan.

    "All I had to do was talk to her and drop her off at Drop Bottom Black Woods," she told police the first time. "That was it. The rest was out of my hands."

    Out of her hands into the jaws of darkness.