My first class was chemistry. I quietly opened the door, praying I could slip into my seat without Ms. Drake noticing I was late. To my luck, I made it over to my seat next to my BFF, Chelsea, without Ms. Drake noticing. She was busy preparing the chemicals for the day’s lesson—it looked like I wasn’t the only one unprepared for class.
Chelsea took the chance to grill me about the events of yesterday. “So, I guess you’re still alive?”
I gave her a ‘what the hell’ kind of look.
“Chrissy was telling everyone that she heard from someone that you died in a car accident last night,” Chelsea said, answering my unasked question.
“And you believed her?” I asked sceptically.
Chelsea gave a little laugh. “I don’t believe anything that girl says anymore.” She shook her head, obviously thinking about how much Chrissy had changed over the years.
We had all been best friends for years—that ended soon after Aiden transferred to our school. It turned out Chrissy thought she was a better match for Aiden and tried everything she could do to break us apart. I just couldn’t believe she would throw away our friendship over something so silly.
“What really happened?” Chelsea asked, her eyes gleaming. She was always eager for a good story.
I tried to play it cool. “Nothing much. It was just a minor car accident—”
“Minor accident, my butt!” Chelsea cut me short. “Ben said he saw your car on his way home from the gym last night. He said it was a write-off!”
It was just my luck Ben had seen the car. Ben was one of Aiden’s friends, and there was no way that I would be able to convince anyone he was lying. For all I knew, Aiden had been giving him a lift home from the gym, and that was how he ended up at my house last night. That kind of made sense, because I hadn’t planned to see him ’til today, and he didn’t exactly explain why he had come over so late. And I was pretty sure my mum hadn’t called him.
All I could do was go with the facts and try to minimise the gossip. “All I got was a small cut on my head.” I pointed at the gauze.
Chelsea’s eyes dropped with disappointment.
“They released me from hospital almost straightaway, and then I went home. Aiden came over….” I trailed off as I watched Chelsea’s eyes gleaming once again as another thought popped into her head.
“Ooh. Do tell.” Chelsea was sitting on the edge of her seat, her head resting in her hands, waiting eagerly for me to divulge any juicy details.
“Oh my God! Is that all you think about?” Thanks to her non-existent love life, Chelsea seemed to live all her romantic fantasies through me.
“Ah-ha, so there is something you’re not telling me.”
I shook my head, bewildered by her persistence. “You really need to get your own love life. And before you say anything else, nothing happened last night. Okay?”
Chelsea sat there staring at me. “I know you’re hiding something. You’ve got that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“Ladies, please!” Ms. Drake snapped. “Class is not the time to be discussing your love life—or lack thereof.” Ms. Drake gave one of those demeaning smiles to Chelsea. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll get back to the reason we are all here today,” she said, turning her attention back to the rest of the class. “We are already behind schedule.”
“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Chelsea muttered under her breath, which got her a warning glare from Ms. Drake and a few snickers from nearby students.
Ms. Drake quickly moved on. “If you can all move quickly over to your lab stations and put on your protective wear, we might just get out of here on time.”
Chelsea and I were, of course, lab partners. We got up from our desks and headed over to our lab station.
“Are you going to put me out of my misery?” she asked.
I gave her a questioning look, not knowing what the hell she was on about.
“You. Aiden. Last night?” she said as if she couldn’t believe I wasn’t following her. “What are you hiding?”
God, that girl never gave up. I was just thankful that all she thought I was hiding from her was a sex-frenzied romp, instead of the truth.
I ignored her prodding and decided to turn the tables on her. “You know Ben likes you. Maybe you should give him a chance.”
“Ben?” Chelsea scrunched up her nose. “Are you serious?”
A small laugh escaped my mouth, which I quickly shut off to show just how serious I was. “Come on, give the guy a break. He’s changed a lot over the last few years. It’s about time you gave him a shot.”
Ben had had a thing for Chelsea since we were five. Chelsea was the pretty, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, girl next door type of girl that everyone thought was cute as hell. And Ben, well, he was kinda geeky back then. Actually, he stayed that way until he was about fifteen, when he finally filled out, swapped his glasses for contacts, and got his braces off. His popularity had soared ever since. And with his ever increasing climb up the social ladder, he never once strayed from his adoration for Chelsea.
Sure, he would date other girls, but that’s where it would end. He was really only interested in one girl—Chelsea. And the poor bugger didn’t stand a chance. She would forever see him as the geek he’d been.
Chelsea was about to say something when Ms. Drake instructed us to turn on our Bunsen burner. The experiment was ‘how to make seawater into drinking water.’ She could have picked something a little harder for a grade twelve experiment.
Anyhow, I followed Ms. Drake’s instructions. “Just think about it,” I whispered to Chelsea, while I waited for the next step to the science experiment.
Chelsea stood there, chewing on her bottom lip. “Okay.”
I shot her a sideways glance. “Did I hear right—you’re actually going to give him a chance?”
“Yeah, but only if you…” She grabbed me by the shoulders to whisper something in my ear, and that’s when it hit me. At the moment of contact, sheer terror surged through my body. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. I was literally terrified beyond what words could describe. A searing pain ripped across my neck, and all I could see was blood, swallowing me into a pool of darkness until everything went black.
I awoke seconds later, being blasted with foam from a fire hose Ms. Drake was pointing at me.
I screamed out for her to stop and shielded myself from the spray. But she didn’t. She was relentless in her desire to cover me in the thick white foam. I had to get away from her. I continued to shield my face as I clambered to my feet.
“Just stay calm!” Ms. Drake shouted and continued to spray the hose at me. “I need to make sure the flames are properly extinguished.”
I didn’t listen. I ran.
As I rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs, I ran straight into Aiden. I collapsed into his arms, tears streaming from my eyes. He wrapped his arms around me, instantly calming me. I felt safe. I felt like nothing in the world could hurt me while I was with him.
“It’s gonna be okay. It will all make sense soon,” he whispered into my ear.
I pulled back, studying his face, trying to figure out where the heck that came from. Aiden’s face suddenly went blank. He was looking over my shoulder. “We have to go.” He grabbed my hand, dragging me towards the exit.
“What’s wrong?” I didn’t understand why he was freaking out. I mean, I was the one who’d had the crap scared out of me, been set on fire, passed out, then was woken by the teacher spraying a fire extinguisher at me.
He pulled me through the front doors. “They’re coming for you,” he said, not looking back. He was too fixated on getting me out of the school, but I still had no idea why.
I waited for him to explain his absurd reaction, but none came. “Who’s coming for me?”
He continued to drag me towards the parking bay. “Ms. Drake, Chelsea, and a couple of others from your class.”
“So?”
Aiden didn’t answer my question until we had rea
ched his car. “Look at you. They’re going to wonder why?” He spoke as if it was so obvious. Aiden was no longer looking into my eyes but down at my dress.
My eyes followed Aiden’s, wondering what the hell he was on about. I gasped, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. My school uniform had been burnt through, yet my skin was untouched. I had been set alight, the flames had engulfed my dress, and yet, there wasn’t a mark to be seen on my skin. How was that possible? I know I saw the cut on my head heal right before my eyes, but there was always the possibility I was going insane. And now, knowing that Aiden could see the hole in my dress, I couldn’t possibly be insane. This was real. Something was wrong with me. No human could possibly heal so quickly. Did this mean that I wasn’t human? And if I wasn’t human, then what the hell was I?
I could faintly hear Aiden calling my name, but I was too caught up in my own freak-out to respond.
Aiden reached out and lifted my chin so that I was looking at him. “You need to get in the car.” He didn’t seem at all concerned by my lack of burns, and I couldn’t understand why. All his eyes portrayed were understanding and desperation.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, looking me directly in the eyes.
I couldn’t seem to make my mouth work, so I nodded.
“Good. Then get into the car, and I’ll explain everything later.” He already had the passenger door open, waiting for me to get in.
As I was climbing into the car, I heard Chelsea calling out to me. I looked up to see her, Ms. Drake, and a few others running towards me.
“Just get in the car,” Aiden said when I paused to look at them.
I sat down and watched them all come to a halt as Aiden pulled his car onto the road.
It wasn’t until we had pulled into Aiden’s garage that I finally found my voice. “What the hell’s going on? What’s wrong with me? What am I? Wha—”
Aiden interrupted my endless questions, “I’ll explain shortly, but first you need to come upstairs and get changed into something a little less… holey.” He had a smirk on his face as he looked down at my dress.
How could he be joking around? I was about to say something about his inappropriate behaviour while I was going through the biggest freak-out in history, but he cut me off again.
“Sorry. I know you’re worried, but it really is all going to be okay. Just go upstairs, get changed, then we’ll talk.” Aiden got out of the car, walked around the side, and opened my door. I hadn’t moved. I didn’t want to get changed. I wanted him to tell me what was happening to me before I got out.
“It’s best that you get changed before I explain anything. You’ll have too many questions, and you’ll wish that you had cleaned up first.”
How did he know what I was thinking? He always seemed to know when something was wrong or on my mind. Was he just being “observant,” as he had once put it, or was there something more to it?
Aiden laughed. “You’ll find the answers to all your questions soon enough.” He held out his hand. “Now, will you just get out of the car?”
Taking his hand, all my anxieties slipped away just like they had when I ran into him in the hallway at school. I looked up into his eyes, wondering what just happened.
“After you get changed,” Aiden replied to my unspoken question.
Chapter 3