All of this crap I was about to get into, mind you, was totally not my fault, I assure you. Every little drop of it is Oliver's. Although, I'll admit, I doubt I could have avoided it for much loner, given my...uh...special talents.

I'll start a little earlier in that day, just to give you an adequate background of the worst day of my life. I was just sitting in class, like always, listening to Mrs. Flip ramble on and on about the Egyptian's and their religions and all of that junk. I was paying attention, of course, but I couldn't help it if it was about as interesting as watching all of those reality TV shows that littered my television screen. Whatever happened to good daytime television? Maybe some crazy guy took over the television company, or whoever runs all that junk, and is trying to take over the human race to create an army using hypnosis. Wow. How boring was this that I had to resort to conspiracy theories to keep me entertained?

So, I let our social studies teacher ramble on without an interruption and took out my notebook. I tried to make it look like I was taking notes on her incredibly interesting rant, but in reality I was writing. I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, and give people more interesting things to do than succumb to the evil of daytime television. But I wanted to be a professional dancer too. And the president, and an Actress. So I guess writer was the most realistic thing I had in my arsenal.

"Mrs. Williams, what was the last thing I said?" snapped Mrs. Flip. Unfortunately, not only was she long winded but she was also a complete and total nut job. I wondered who in the world would be sane enough to marry her. Although, I thought, looking at her elaborately draped in beads and a funny perm, perhaps he didn't have to be sane at all and they would make an excellent couple.

"You were talking about how and why the Egyptian's did mummification, ma'am," I answered, twisting my face into the most innocent and child-like smile I could manage. I have this curly ginger hair and these big blue eyes, so I can pull stuff like that off. It usually works.

Mrs. Flip sniffed. "Of course."

I nodded and returned to my "note taking". Once upon a time there was young boy, who was unhappy with his life in a slow and dreary place called Cincinnati, Ohio. One day he just decided to pick up and run off, disappearing from the world, leaving his sister and mother to wonder what the crap had happened to h—

By this time, the lead in my pencil snapped from the pressure I was putting on it. "Poor pencil," I muttered. Poor Oliver...

The loud and obnoxious bell that sorely reminded me of our principal, although don't tell her I said that, shimmed in all of the classes around the school, and Mrs. Flip stopped right in the middle of her sentence to control the sudden shift in the students. All of the people that had remained quiet like good little children started talking to people right beside them like they were across the room. I wasn't worried. That's what usually happened after the dismissal bell rang. I sat there quietly and rose up to eave when they called walkers over the intercom. It's not like I had anyone to talk to. No one wanted to be friends with the girl who had the missing, criminal brother; no matter her long ago he left.

Not that I hated my brother. I didn't, honest. But, the thing is, I hadn't seen him in two years, since he was about to turn thirteen and I was only eleven. One day he just grabbed all of the money we had and a bunch of food and scooted his little butt out of the door to go who knows where. I missed him. But mom never seems to care. She even talks about him like she knows where the heck he is, and when she doesn't tell I go into this huge rage and storm up to my room. But hey, no bodies perfect, right? At least according to that annoying girl with the wig on Disney channel.

"Hey, Victoria," shouted one of the girls that hung out after the bell rang, because they had nothing better to do after school than sit around and make fun =of perfectly decent people. She spit out my name like it was a curse word. Not that they ever had an aversion to the more naughty words in the modern dictionary. "How's your brother doing?"

"Just fine, thank you," I said airily. I just hefted up my bag onto my shoulder and walked passed them with m nose in their air, although I'm pretty sure I looked really stupid.

I broke out of the school's main doors quickly and sprinted, but didn't run, off of the property. Luckily for me, my house was relatively close by, so if I "sprinted" I made it there in about two minutes.

"Ugh!" I groaned when I walked into the doorway of our house. Everything in our house was bright and sunny, like lime green and hot pink and baby blue. Usually, it just makes me feel better, but not today.

"Tori?" asked my mom. "Is something wrong?"

"No mom."

"Are you sure?" she asked, concern echoing in her voice. I could see I in her face even though there was a solid wall in between us. She looked more like me than Oliver ever had. She had big eyes and ginger hair; only she made it look mature and confident.

"Yeah..." I said softly. "Everything is just peachy."

Before my mom could poke he head out of the door to the kitchen (a door to the kitchen? Yes, it threw me for a loop too) and look at me wither hg eyes and get me to spill, I raced up stair just as quick as any of the track team and slammed my door behind me.

I took a few deep breaths, trying to forcefully pull back the tears in my eyes. But that battle had been lost the day my brother left. I leaned back against my bedroom door and slid down it until I sat in the floor, my knees pulled up touching my chest. I am ashamed to say I was blubbering. I was a little girl who missed her big brother. But what was wrong with that? What was wrong with missing the person who taught you how to be strong and how to throw a baseball and all of that stuff? We had never really had a firmly set pair of parents. Mom had gotten married to her long-term boyfriend about eight months before Oliver was born, because he was pre-mature. Then they had me, and then the guy I never really knew had just picked up and left. Like father like son, I guess.

"Oliver?" I asked him, my voice watery. "Where are you?" I didn't care that he couldn't hear me. I deserved an answer, whether he was willing to give it our not.

"Tori?" my mom asked a little while later, knocking lightly on the door. I grabbed a book from my bookshelf an crawled out of the doors path and onto my bed, so she wouldn't know about my breakdown. "Tori?"

"What?" I asked, which is Middle Schooler lingo for "come on in, I'm decent."

Mom opened my door slowly, checking on the floor in the place I had been a short while ago, like she knew what my last ten minutes had consisted of. I lifted the book a little higher to conceal my red eyes and nose. "Some one came here to see you."

"Um, hi," called someone from out of my view. But I knew who it was. It was Joshua Blake, the kid in school that always got into trouble. He had some sort of mental issues, and if you knew him, you would agree. Although, considering whose speaking, I can't really say anything. But he was kind of cute. He had this really awesome tan and honey blonde hair with these eyes that were so gray they were scary. "Um, you lost your junk."

He held up half of the contents of my bag. Luckily, it was the half that consisted of textbooks and stray papers, and not my notebooks or the deodorant I carried around everywhere. I didn't need another reason for kids to laugh at me.

"You sort of dropped this when you ran from the school. I think you have a whole in your backpack, just so you know."

"Right," I muttered. "Thanks." I put the book down and went to pick us my pile of crap. Then I remembered my eyes. "Oops."

"Were you crying?" asked my mother, shocked.

"Mom, it's Middle School," I told her, irritated. "Considering the circumstances, I'm lucky I haven't gotten beat up this year."

"What circumstances?" asked Josh. I laughed a little. Those girls at the locker had obviously put him up to this. But his face was simply overflowing with curiosity. "Don't you pay attention? I thought everyone at school knew about the Oliver Situation." I angrily wiped some of the moisture out of my eyes.

"Oliver?"

"Yes, Oliver," I said, twirling a stray thread from my bedspread in between my fingers. "My brother. He left two years ago. Everyone thinks he's a criminal. He's not..." I let my voice drift off.

Josh looked thoughtful for a moment. I was sure he was contemplating exactly all of the stupid things he could do to me. "But it's no big deal."

"Are you sure? He was your brother, wasn't he?" He said, sticking her hands into his pockets and looking out of the window. He had stray lock of that golden honey hair out of place by his ear, and I found the little part of my thirteen year old heart that hadn't hardened want to push it back. Darn hormones. What were they good for, anyway?

"Yeah, well thanks for giving me my stuff back," I said hurriedly. Anything that got him out of my house, out of my room, so I could get my heart rate back to normal.

"No problem," he said with a smile. His teeth were a little uneven, and they weren't movie star white (thank goodness) but it was a smile that made my stomach flip flop like one of those silly girls in a cheesy soap opera. He pulled out one of the weirdest things I had ever seen out from behind his back. Okay, that's not true. I had seen some really weird things. Some guys with only one eye, a couple of giants, some kids shooting arrows at sphinx in a dark alley. But it certainly wasn't something I expected this kid to carry around with him. It was a big old sword made out of bronze, and it was glowing. Freaky.

"Are you going to baseball?" asked my mom calmly. Did she not see the sword in this kid hands? I bet he was a murderer come to assassinate me because my theory about television had been a little too close to the truth. Not that she would know. She was talking about baseball.

"Yes, ma'am." He smiled again, but he had this funny look in his eye, like he thought something was amusing.

"Good luck." Mom bustled out of the room.

"See you in school," he said in my direction, saluting me with the lethal blade. Then he walked out of the house.

I blinked a few times, and then I rubbed my eyes. So he wasn't going to run me through? Then why did he had a sword with him? And why was I the only sane one and could see it when my mother couldn't? Or maybe insane...

I grabbed my sweatshirt, which I had neatly deposited around my hamper, and ran out for the door. "Mom?"

"Yeah?" she shouted from the kitchen. My mom was really into to crafts and stuff like that. Pottery was her current obsession. I knew if I peeked into our kitchen I would see her at the table with clay up to her elbows, pumping the spinning wheel furiously as a pot started to take shape from the blob on the spinner.

"I'm going to the park."

"Are you meeting that nice Josh kid?"

"Um, sort of." Was following really considered meeting up with him? And, just to clear this up, I do not randomly decide to stalk people around. Just people with murderous weapons in their current possession. And I don't think that can really be considered at stalking...per say.

He walked around the school for a while, surely looking for little kids to gut with his evil stick of doom. After that he walked by some houses, but he didn't look in the windows or anything. He was getting really boring. But I could tell he was walking somewhere. He wasn't just roaming the streets randomly. Meeting up with one of his evil gang members, perhaps?

I thought I was doing an incredibly good job for someone who had no previous spying experience. Or at least I did until he stopped in the middle of the road at the park. "Why are you following me?" he asked, his voice full of amusement all over again. He didn't even turned around.

"I wasn't following you," I assured him, jumping out from behind the tree I was hiding behind. "I was simply observing you." Man, that sounded lame. Oh well, I'm not at my most witty when I'm put on the spot. If he wanted a good answer he should have given me some advance notice.

He just stood there, when unexpectedly, with a movement as smooth as silk and with a fluid air, he pointed his sword at my face. "And why is that?"

"You're asking me why I'm following you when you have a sword pointed at my head. Gee, I wonder," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. One for Tori!

He looked at me for a minute. "This is a bat."

"No, it's a sword," I said. "Hate to break it to you."

"Prove it," he said.

"Prove what?" I asked.

"That you can see it."

I took a deep breath, careful not to move any closer to the sword point than absolutely possible. "It's bronze, I think. I glowing..." I tried, attempting to describe it. For an aspiring write I wasn't doing very well. "And it's pointed at my face." I tried to put my finger on its surface top push it down, but my finger just passed through like it was part of the air itself. "Whoa." I look at it in shock. "On the other hand, maybe I am crazy. I'll be going now."

I turned to go, but Josh grabbed my arms, and I was sure he was going to cut off my head or something equally fatal. But he just shouted over his shoulder. "Oliver, I found her."

My heart skipped a beat, and not just because Josh was touching me. Okay, maybe it was a little like that, but mostly it was because he said Oliver. And then the unthinkable happened.

Oliver just stood up from his previous position on a bench a little further down, one that was hidden from me by a canopy of trees. "Hey, Tori," said my fifteen year old brother.

Didn't see that coming.