She succeeds, and he loses his metal bar, but he throws himself onto her, hugging her legs with his arms.

It's a good thing she still has the stake then, isn't it?

She kicks him as hard as she can (which, admittedly, probably isn't very hard on account of her legs being hugged) and twists to get in reach with the stake, then swipes at him.

Perhaps she should try to remaneuver so she can actually get him in the heart.

She can try but he's not shaken off by either the failed kick or the successful swipe which leaves a cut on his face. With inhuman strength, he start to stands up, still holding her legs, and tries to swing her against a wall.

A wall of the subway train moving at high speeds? Eva would rather not, thanks, so she grabs onto a metal pole near one of the seats. She's not sure how secure they are, but presumably it will at least slow her.

It does slow her, but where did she think the man's metal bar came from in the first place? She tears it off, which is exactly the opposite of the man's goal, so he lets go of her legs to try to step on the hand that's holding the stake. "Just let go of it, damnit," he says, with a heavy British accent.

Okay, well, that is a good point, but now she has a weapon with reach. She winces at the pain in her hand, but stabs at him with the metal rod.

From this direction, it might end up hitting an unfortunate area.

She doesn't hit the unfortunate area! She hits his lower abdomen. And the pole goes through it. But that's alright, because he has managed to kick off her stake and he's on all fours on top of her, impaled and all.

Impaled is actually rather good for a status she's inflicted. This guy is fucking annoying.

However, she seems to be in... a bit of an undesirable situation. She tries to buck him off, but it's kinda hard to get leverage from this position.

Any chance she can get a headbutt in? Because she will try to break his nose if she can, and maybe that'll get him off her.

She hits! His head is rather harder than heads should be! "And now you die," he says, and starts strangling her. She's stronger, much stronger, than she's used to being, but he's even stronger than that, and she starts running out of oxygen pretty quickly.

She attempts to rip off his ear, butcher his nose, and claw and his eyes, trying them in that order and moving to the next one if the previous fails. After that, she'll claw at his hands, and then try bending the fingers back, starting from the pinkie. If they snap, that is not her problem.

If they all fail, she'll act as though she's running out of oxygen quicker than she actually is, feign unconsciousness, and then hope he loosens his grip so she can push him off her.

… She's not particularly hopeful.

She's losing strength quickly, and doesn't manage to do much damage as the world starts disappearing around her eyes—

—and then his face changes with an audible crack, and he lets go of her neck just enough that she gets some air back. He reaches inside her shirt to rip out a crucifix she's wearing, watches it sear through his flesh, throws it away, and sinks his teeth into her neck before she can get enough strength to do much of anything.

It hurts. More than anything she's ever felt, this was almost designed to cause pain, and her awareness starts fading much more quickly than when she was being strangled.

She tries to flail and scream, and probably succeeds, but it's rather difficult to tell when there's a weird pulsing in your ears and everything's going black.

There's not much else she can do.

Pain pain numbness cold darkness—

—bedroom. Bed, drenched in sweat. Feeling like she hasn't caught a wink, completely exhausted, physically and emotionally. The dream is still vivid in her mind, not fading into the forgetfulness of reality.

She screams a bit upon waking, but quickly stifles it when she realizes that she is not in fact dying.

Hands at her neck, she checks herself over to make sure it was all imagined. It seems ridiculous, but it's easy to do and she is not feeling very... safe.

She notices the time and makes a noise of frustration, but does indeed get up, feeling overall: pretty shit.

Pretty shit is a reasonable way to feel!

The time is: three minutes before her alarm would sound, so at least she's not late.

That is true! But she feels ugly. At least it's a Friday? It means she has the weekend to recuperate, when she's not busy.

She gets dressed and sorts out her hair, then goes downstairs for breakfast, then brushes her teeth, and then she is ready for school. She looks in the mirror a bit to try to remove her resting bitch face (ugh, she needs her sleep, but she can deal for today) and then decides she's okay for the day.

Presuming nothing unexpected happens, she'll respond to any texts she might have received overnight (she's not expecting any, but after the mess that was yesterday, it's definitely a possibility), and then she'll walk to school.

Janet has sent Eva a text about how terrible Verity is, and Verity has texted her wondering if Janet's mad at her for some reason.

Of course.

She tries to focus on the fact that she wants to improve things, despite how terrible she feels, and sends off a text commiserating with Janet but also pointing out some good things. To Verity, she explains that Janet seems a bit tired right now and she probably doesn't mean it if she's being rude.

Stop-gap measure, but it should hold for a bit.

She starts walking to school.

And there's the school!

And Sadde, arriving a mere thirty seconds ahead of her, apparently oblivious to her.

How nice. And he seems to be a boy today, what fun.

Eva goes over to her typical group – Janet's already there, Erik is fortunately not – and catches up on things. She also looks around, seeing if there are any signs of impending doom. Couples fighting? Nope. Anybody crying? Also nope. Jocks being jocks? Yes, but not in the awkward 'in your face' way. Brad?

… It's probably bad that she's starting to think of him as a sign of 'impending doom', but he's caused so many problems for her the past week. Maybe she should flirt with him a bit today and suggest that she's not into guys who are being dicks.

Uh, actually, nah. She's a bit tired and it might not play out how she wants. Plus it's just effort. It can wait until another day.

Brad is with his own clique, as usual, and not causing any particular trouble. He does follow Sadde with his head and a look of disgust, but then laughs at some joke a friend told and resumes his conversation.

Well of course he does, because he— Yeah, no, she'll just stop herself there, no need to get that frustrated over him. He's an ongoing problem with a fix in the works.

Does anyone look like they could really use Eva's guidance? She's gonna guess no, just because it doesn't happen that people really need it that often, and she's not really in the mood for randomly inserting herself into other conversations, but maybe someone does!

Her friends are pretty used to her looking around like this, but even so, she does try to contribute to the conversation. It wouldn't do to be rude, of course.

No, not really. People are milling about, socializing, being teenagers or, occasionally, teachers.

Indeed they are! Here's another student arriving at the school, who then proceeds to go find Sadde.