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  As Dean brushed some hair behind Mindy’s ear, he saw a change in her hazel eyes; they widened with fear. He whirled around to get a look at what was grabbing her attention. Alongside the houses lining the sidewalk was a person walking in their direction on the pavement. The man had to be at least six and a half feet tall. His muscles bulged with power against his skin, which was as white as untouched snow. Even with the sun going down, this man’s complexion was clearly visible. The figure was carrying a large black trench coat in his hand. Blood was splattered on his pale arms, like deep red lipstick staining a clean napkin. The pale man looked satisfied about something and as he passed Dean, they met each other’s gazes. The man’s perfect features looked dangerous, like an alluring trap. He stopped a few feet away from Dean, staring intently at him. A wide grin formed on the man’s face as if he knew a secret. He turned away and continued walking, disappearing into the dark forest.

  “Do you know him?” asked Mindy.

  “No, I’ve never seen him before.” Dean kept his eyes towards the empty distance.

  “He creeped me out Dean.” Mindy looked over to where the pale man had disappeared. “And what’s up with the blood on his arm?” she asked.

  Dean’s bright green eyes darted back and forth between the direction of his house and the forest where the man had disappeared. His flawless face was puzzled. “You should go before that weirdo comes back,” he warned. And just like that, his face turned serious, like he had just made an unpleasant discovery. “Something’s wrong...” Dean breathed out.

  At that moment, he jumped into a sprint towards his house. Mindy followed closely behind, her red waves trailing behind her like a silk cape. Dean was picking up speed and soon became too fast for her to keep up. She arrived at Dean’s house moments after he got there. The front door was broken in half with only one of its pieces still hanging on its hinge. She stepped over the broken wood and slowly walked in only to find that crimson had taken over the living room. A bloody smear was spread before the hallway, as if a body were dragged from there. Mindy followed the trail that led to a lifeless body, twisted on a pile of broken metal and glass. She approached the body; it was Dean’s dad. Chris’s eyes were closed and his hand lay on his bloody gut. There was a metal beam sticking through his stomach and his other hand lay extended towards a knife, as if he were trying to reach for it before he died. It was a painful death from the looks of it, and one that didn’t end quickly. A lump welled up in Mindy’s throat. Chris had always been good to her, always with a joke to make her laugh. To see him like this quickly brought tears to her eyes.

  Mindy stood up. She wiped her tears and then looked around for Dean and his mom. She didn’t find them in the kitchen so she headed for the bedrooms. After looking into each room, there remained only one; the master bedroom. As she approached the door, her stomach sank to the floor. It was quiet. Not a good sign. She stepped in and saw Dean’s mother, Mari, lying on the floor with Dean kneeling down beside her. He brushed her hair out of her face. She was still, like a beautiful mannequin. There were no signs of a struggle and no marks on her, not even a drop of blood. Dean sat motionless and seemed to be looking down at her. Mindy knelt down to meet his face; there was a distant look on it. His lost eyes looked past Mindy as if she didn’t exist.

  “Dean?” Mindy quivered. There was no answer. She stood up and slowly stepped away, studying the room for a phone. “We should call someone.”

  Still, he didn’t answer.

  Mindy ran to the computer room where she knew she’d find the house phone. After explaining the situation to the police, she hung up and ran back to the room. Dean was standing this time, looking down at his mom. His jet black spikes pointed to Mindy. His mother had had the same hair color as Dean and a lovely, light olive complexion, but now her skin was pale and lifeless. He slowly raised his head up and even though his eyes were pointed in Mindy’s direction, he was looking past her. His body was present, but his mind was off somewhere else. She took a step forward to get a closer look at him. His eyes were no longer bright like she was used to; they were lost in a dark lagoon. A quiver of fear ran through Mindy. She had known Dean since they were kids. They went through their entire elementary school years together and were both now thirteen. She knew him better than anyone, but now she could see something was different. Mindy couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow…in a matter of moments…the boy she once knew was not the one standing before her.

  Crap! I was late. The buzzing alarm clock grew louder and louder. I wrestled with the blanket that clung to my leg, forcing me to stay in bed. I bounced on one leg to free the other. Trying not to fall, I reached for the nightstand and missed it completely. My rear crashed against the floor and my head made a loud thud against the nightstand, causing my lavender plant to wobble. I closed my eyes expecting it to fall on me, but it wobbled quickly to a stop. I sighed in relief.

  “Mindy. Get up!” My mom swung the door open. “You’re going to be late for your first day.”

  “Ugh…I feel like crap.” I moaned. I swept the knotted hair out of my face and unwrapped my leg from the blanket’s grip. I slowly stood up, stretching every body part in the process.

  “This should help.” My mom came across the room and spread opened the curtains letting in the bright sun. I squinted to block out the stinging rays that spilled over my room. “I made breakfast, so hurry.” She turned off the alarm clock next to the door and walked out.

  I only had a half hour to get ready. Great, this meant I couldn’t go all out to look my best on the first day of school. The phone rang.

  “What up, Red!” Markus greeted.

  “Hey you! What’s going on?” I asked, wondering why he called me so early.

  “You know I’m picking you up right?” he asked.

  “Oh!” I totally forgot. Now I had negative five minutes to get ready. And counting! “Ummm…yeah, of course,” I lied. Markus was punctual and would come early just to rush me if he knew I’d forgotten. “See you in a bit!” I assured him. He hung up without saying another word. I hated it when he did that.

  After my shower, I cracked the door open to let the steam out so I could see myself in the mirror.

  “Mindy?” Markus poked his head in. His brown skin got darker over the summer break. He spent way too much of his time going to the beach and trying to drag me there with him. The one time he was able to, I never stepped foot in the water. “You’re barely on your makeup?!” I could clearly see the annoyance on his face. He narrowed his eyes at me. They were brown and already small enough as it was. He also scrunched his slightly big, but attractive nose.

  Markus took a whiff of the air. “What’s that smell?”

  “I haven’t put perfume on. Maybe it’s my shampoo. It’s coconut.” I smiled.

  “Yuck.”

  “That makes sense coming from someone that can’t stay away from the beach!” I snapped back.

  Markus laughed at the irony. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and nodded his head. “You have two minutes.”

  “I’m so sorry!” I finished up and jumped off the sink. Running into my walk-in closet, I hurriedly put on my clothes and flip flops.

  “Thirty seconds!” Markus yelled from the first floor.

  I quickly grabbed my backpack and practically flew down the stairs. I absolutely had no time to eat, so, regrettably, I grabbed a pop tart packet from the pantry and glanced longingly at the ham and eggs my mom had on the stove. My mouth watered as I ran past the pan and the warm smell trailed to my nose.

  “Love you, mom!” I called out before bursting through the front door.

  Over the summer, Markus’ dad bought him a used car. The sucky part was that his dad believed that buying a beat up car for Markus would make him into a man. I didn
’t see how that had anything to do with it and neither did Markus. He tried to convince his dad to get him a nicer car, but his dad wouldn’t budge. Another reason he gave Markus was that if he didn’t have a nice car as a teen, then neither would Markus. At least he wasn’t as bad as the grandpa. That old man defines perfectly what was known to us as ‘the grouchy old man.’ He had never remembered Markus’ name so he was known simply as ‘boy’ at his house.

  And there it was. My first glimpse of his new/old car. It was some…thing I had never seen before. Must have been from another country. Far from us. The small two-door car resembled a shoe. An old beat up grey shoe that someone abandoned. I smiled at Markus to show him my approval but he just rolled his eyes at me and exhaled while looking at the car. He must have seen the laughter behind my smile.

  As Markus opened his car door for me, it creaked. It literally creaked. “Hey! It knows your name!” I laughed then imitated the car. “M-a-rkuuuus.”

  Markus nodded his head and looked at his phone again, his patience was running thin, but he still couldn’t hide the small chuckle he made at my joke. Practically shoving me in the car seat, I stopped to think he probably would have picked me up off my bathroom sink and thrown me in the car in an instant if he could. Lucky for me, he was too nice to do that.

  “How do you like my new hair-do?” he asked while putting the car in reverse.

  “Huh?” I hadn’t even noticed. I took my face out of my hand mirror and looked at his hair. He buzzed it all off. It was a big change from the usual spikes and I kind of liked it. “Cool! I’ll have to get used to it though.” I said politely and smiled at him.

  “Yeah, I know. I actually didn’t mean to do it like this.” He scrunched his eyebrows up and rubbed what was left of his hair.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Heh, I was actually trying to fade my own hair and I forgot to change the setting on the razor,” he said half out loud.

  “Ha!” I laughed out. I couldn’t help it. “How did you manage that?” I tried keeping the laughter out of my voice.

  “I don’t know. It was my first time and I started with the top of my head and buzzed clean through it. After that there was no way of fixing it,” he said and laughed along with me, though not as hard as I was laughing. “So, are you going to school like that?” he asked.

  “What? Is my make-up messed up?!” I flipped my mirror open again and examined my face. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I found nothing wrong.

  “You want me to give you a buzz too?” Markus asked with hidden laughter.

  “My hair!” I squealed. I couldn’t believe I forgot to do it. We were already pulling into the school parking lot so I dug through my backpack and pulled out whatever I could find. I found a hair tie and a few bobby pins. Hopefully, the tiny hair tie could handle my horse hair. My hair is super thick and almost reached my waist. But I had to try something. I combed my fingers through it and put it up into a pony tail. I couldn’t believe this was happening today of all days! My first day as a senior in high school and I didn’t even do my hair. I turned to Markus in hopes that by some miracle I looked decent.

  “You look fine, Red.” He looked at the worry in my eyes. “It’ll be okay. I don’t know why you’re so worked up.” He pointed out.

  Markus was right. It was just another day of school. I just didn’t want anyone calling me Raggedy Anne like they did in elementary. It was horrible, I walked to school that day and it rained on me. When I stepped inside class, my hair was so frizzy it looked like someone rubbed a balloon all over it.

  We got out of the car and walked towards the school building. I spotted a long red hair on Markus’ black shirt so I snuck in behind him and carefully pinched the hair off his back. That happened more often than I liked to admit.

  We came to a halt before the school entrance and gazed up at the towering building. It was like the double doors dared us to enter. We both turned an eye to each other and nodded our heads, an agreement that we were in this together. We shoved the doors open and stepped into the beginning of yet another year of struggle.

  “What number is your locker?” Markus asked. He pulled a crumpled paper out of his pocket and opened it up.

  “I think it’s. Wait…hold on.” I said. My number and combination was paper-clipped to my schedule so I pulled it out of my backpack. “Six. Six. Six.” I softly said. Markus stopped and looked at me with a puzzled face. He looked back down at his paper and then over to the lockers.

  “We’ll take mine…” he continued on, “…I don’t want no voodoo locker.” And we headed in the direction of his locker.

  Markus was superstitious to the core. He believed in: not crossing the path of a black cat, keeping mirrors in one piece, and the rest of that mumbo jumbo. It was hard to keep up with all of the superstition in the world. Next, he was going to tell me that vampires and werewolves actually existed. Yeah right!

  “Ok.” I agreed. We’d been sharing since junior high school and it never really mattered whose locker we used. “Hey, have you heard from Tanya?” I asked. Tanya was the missing link of our trio. I loved how she was so brave and spontaneous, especially when it came to the way she would always experiment with her hair and style. I briefly pondered what look she decided to go for this year. True, I had seen her this summer, but she always changed the day before the new school year.

  “Yeah, I talked to her this morning. She should be on her way.”

  We arrived to his locker and he tried opening the combination lock with the numbers on his crumpled paper. “Do you remember if I’m supposed to spin it all the way around after the first number or backwards to the next?”

  “Great, now I forgot,” I admitted. While he tried to master the lock, I looked around to see if I recognized anyone. There were a lot of new faces, as usual. And all of the students rushing around made the hallway look so much smaller.

  “There! I opened it.” Markus turned, smiling at me. Then he stepped out of the way so I could put my things in it.

  “I don’t have anything to put in there.” I said.

  “Neither do I.” Markus shrugged his shoulders and slammed the locker shut. “I’ll text the combo to Tanya.” He pulled out his large cell phone. Whoa. It looked like a miniature laptop in the palm of his hand.

  The bell rang.

  That first bell always made me nervous. I was totally used to this whole first day of school experience, so why did it always make me so nervous? I pulled my schedule out of my backpack and looked for the first class. Markus didn’t need to pull his out. He was always organized and prepared for everything. He already had his classes mapped out in his head.

  All of the students began to pour into the hallways, filling the empty walking spaces.

  “You ready?” Markus asked as he grabbed the schedule from my hands and looked it over. “We have second and sixth period together.” He continued, “I think you have first period with Tanya.”

  “I hope she comes in today. I haven’t seen her.” Worried, I glanced around to see if I could spot her. It’s just things went so much smoother with her in my class. Ok, I can do this. Markus and I split up and I headed to my first class. Fortunately, Tanya was waiting right outside the room. She sure looked different than the last time I saw her what with her short punk haircut that went up high in the back and long in the front. It looked like she was going for a Goth look this time because all her nails and clothes were in different shades of black.

  “Mindy!” Tanya screamed. She ran up to me and hugged me hard. I hugged her back equally as powerful. “Do you like it?” She asked with excitement.

  “It sure is different…” I said. I was used to seeing her in her variety of purple skirts and layered brown hair, but this…this was going to take some getting used to. I hoped she didn’t notice my last minute hair-do. “…I like it though.” I assured her.

  “Wow.” Tanya’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. Following her gaze, I saw that it was Dean walki
ng past us. He practically towered over all of the other students walking around him. And the way they distanced themselves, it was as if they were trying to avoid him. His aura seemed…darker. The details of his face were hidden underneath the shadows of his eyes. From what I could see, his face showed zero emotion. His black hair was short everywhere else but on top. It was combed forward and swooped into tiny spikes in the front. Cute. It seemed like he got bigger every year that went by. I knew everyone got bigger, but man, he must have had to work out every day for hours to look like that.

  “Warning, the mean look goes with the personality.” I rolled my eyes.

  “He sure looks nice to me.” Tanya peeked over the students in front of her to catch another glimpse before Dean walked out of site. “But hey…he could be mean to me anytime he wants.” She winked.

  “You perv!” I accused and gave her a light push.

  “Come on, Mindy. Why do you hate him?” Tanya asked.

  “Cause he’s an A-hole,” I said. Dean wasn’t the same as he used to be. Years ago, before his parents died, he was kind and gentle. He always smiled, and it was the kind of smile that could bring anyone out of their lousy mood. It always worked for me and he knew that. Now, he acted like I never existed, like I was a nobody.

  Then, I felt someone wrap their arms around my waist and swing me around.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” exclaimed a familiar, husky voice. He squeezed tighter.

  “Ayden? Is that you?” I asked while he set me back down. I spun around to face him. “Wow, look at you!” I cried out. I hadn’t seen him all summer. He called me almost every day, but I never got the chance to hang out with him. His dirty blond hair almost matched his tanned skin perfectly. And the bronze on his face made his sapphire eyes more noticeable.

  “Hi, babe. Is this your first hour?” There was excitement in his voice. Ayden put his arm around my shoulder and roughly pulled me against him.

  “Yeah. You going to grab a seat next to me so you can copy my answers again?” I asked as I elbowed him.