"Your late!" Caroline scolded, tossing me the car keys as I bolted down the steps, my curls bouncing across my back as I ran.

"I know, I know!" I snatched the keys from the air, shoving past Mike. He looked for a moment as though he'd say something to me, probably along the lines of 'Good Morning', but I didn't give him the chance.

"Remember to go straight to Melissa's tonight Hazel, no detours."

"Whatever," I grumbled, shooting Caroline a look. I didn't need to be reminded about how much of a troublemaker I was. One teensy arrest and she'd never let me live it down. "I told you that wasn't my fault."

"Yes," she mused, smiling at me and raising an eyebrow. "Your hand just happened to fall into someone's face."

"She was picking on a retarded little boy," I stated matter-of-factly, shoving a muffin into my mouth. "Someone had to hit her."

"My daughter, the hero." Caroline said, pecking me on the cheek and shooing me out the door. I rolled my eyes but smiled anyway, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. Genevieve was waiting for me in the car, her blonde hair washing over her shoulders as she waved me over hurriedly.

"Late!" she yelped, throwing her black Ford Explorer into reverse. I grunted as my chest strained against the seat belt, my backpack slamming against the dashboard.

"Christ, Gen." I groaned, flipping down the roof mirror and digging my makeup back out from the backpack. A pair of dark, nearly black eyes met mine in the mirror above me. Genevieve flickered her blue ones to me.

"Not my fault you can't wake up before seven o'clock." She smirked. I rolled my eyes, applying mascara.

"You're a tool."

"And you have mascara on your cheek."

"Where would I be without you again?"

"In a desolate, desolate place, probably lost amongst the coffee-drinking, no-friends-having wannabe geeks of our generation."

"A lovely display of kindness of Genevieve Harbor, ladies and gentleman."

"I never claimed to be nice!"

That was true, to say the least. Amongst the girls at our school, Genevieve had the reputation of being one of the nastiest to ever walk the hall. It'd be nice to say that Genevieve had a reason to act the way she did, that she had some heart-wrenching story of childhood that had turned her stone cold (At least that was my excuse) but no, the truth was that Gen was a bitch. Just a flat-out, gorgeous, bitch. Isn't that how it always goes in these highschool stories?I ignored the thought of it and dabbed a bit of tawny concealer across my light brown cheeks, blood pooling underneath the skin to give me a warm, rosy glow.

Sitting next to Gen was nerve-wrecking, just imagine what it was like to be her best friend! No matter where we went, or what we did, I felt the constant comparison going on through my mind. Our complexions, our hair, our smiles, they were both complete opposites. Gen was, to put it plainly, a white girl, and while I was only half black, I was still five or six shades darker than her. Her blonde hair fell in lush waves over her shoulders, and unless I straightened my own dark tresses, they looped in thick circles down between my shoulder blades, a wild mane. Gen had perfect, flawlessly white teeth. While mine weren't completely awful, my left canine rose higher than the others, and they were not perfectly straight. I wasn't ugly necessarily, I just had never thought to believe myself pretty until the boys at school had started telling me so.

We pulled into the school parking lot, Genevieve tossing her hair over her shoulder as she stepped out of the car, a crowd of people greeting us as we met the cool morning air. I grinned cheerfully, playing the part I'd spent years concocting for myself. I was the cute cheerleader. I was the prettiest girl in school's best friend. I was invited to parties, had more boyfriends than I could count, and spent endless amounts of my adoptive-parents' money on clothes I didn't need. I was living the teenage dream. I was living a lie.

I hated almost every single person at this school, and none of them knew the first thing about me.

"Hello, gorgeous." Anthony smiled, his teeth glittering in the sunlight as he threw an arm around my shoulder. "How's my Princess this morning?" God, I hated when he called me that.

"Wonderful," I lied, sliding my hand to his lower back as we walked towards the school. "And how is my handsome Prince?"

"I was thinking of you the second I woke up!" he lied, waving at someone across the lot. Anthony had been saying things of this nature since he'd first became interested in me, and to be completely honest, most of it was only to get into my pants. Apparently whatever was in there was good enough to keep him around, because we'd been dating for four months.

I suppose I should tell you a few things about myself so that you don't feel completely and utterly overwhelmed with my tendency to drop facts on you like Hey, I'm a huge skank.

My name is Hazel Kyle, and I will turn seventeen in three days. I am not a COMPLETE skank, only a little bit. Only because I haven't had a proper father figure. At least that's what Caroline likes to think. Speaking of her, ignore her comment about the cops earlier, okay? She likes to call it "Being a troublemaker", and I like to call it "Being Adventurous."

My parents both died when I was born. My Mom died in childbirth, and Caroline, my adoptive mother, says I look exactly like her, with dark curly hair and bronzed skin. My Dad committed suicide soon after. We used to live in the country. At least my parents did, when they were younger. They were happy. My Mom was only twenty three years old. I only have one picture of her.

After they died, I moved from place to place. No one had wanted to keep me around for long, and I couldn't blame them. I could never sit still, I was always moving, and after a few years they decided on ADHD as the reason- as if I needed another excuse for people not to want me. Caroline found me when I was eight, digging through the trashcans behind her restaurant., her blonde hair plastered to her concerned face as she called her husband out to help grab me. I screamed. I clawed. But obviously they were able to drag me into the damn place, or we wouldn't be here discussing this story, would we?

To make a long one short, I grew up like any other child would until my sixteenth birthday. I was having nightmares, screaming in the dark, the back of my neck burning as if someone were branding me with a white-hot iron. Every night I'd scream myself awake, run to the bathroom,and there, all over my body, would be a small red marking, repeated over and over again. It would cover me from head to toe, repeated over and over and over again.

It would always fade by morning. Caroline had chalked it up to bad memories, stress and fear of my old families finding me, and so she'd hauled us out to Brooklyn in hopes of starting new.

Anyways, back to being a skank.

I wasn't one, by my friends' standards anyways. I'd slept with more than my fair share of people, yes, I wasn't proud of it, but Gen had doubled my number before she was legal, so who was I to feel guilty? Besides, after years of watching Caroline's marriage, I'd learned one very important lesson: Love is just a myth. Men do not fall in love. They lie. They get comfortable. They sleep with woman after woman until they get bored or she ropes him in with money. Either that or the sex is just too good to leave. I have never loved a boy in my life.

I thought idly over this as I stared at Anthony, his cheeks a slight red as we entered the building. Why couldn't I love him? He was handsome, obviously. He was no genius, but he could at least recite his ABC'S...

Joking, joking, my standards aren't that low...

But really. He was smart enough to earn a full ride into a nice college for next fall. So what was wrong with me? Why didn't I want him the way I was supposed to?

"New meat." Gen whispered into my ear as she brushed past me, grinning. My eyes flickered behind her into the Guidance office as we passed it. Thick black Converse shoes tapped against the floor impatiently as a tall, lean boy sighed in annoyance. My eyes flickered to his hair first, an odd mix of blonde and fiery red, so thick that it deepened the color to a heavy, glossy bronze. The muscles of his shoulders shifted underneath his black T-Shirt, his tanned fingers roaming through his wavy locks. I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a better look, and in doing so I gracefully tripped over Anthony's sneaker.

"Easy, easy," he laughed uncomfortably, looking around to check if anyone had seen. I let him help me to my feet, glancing nervously to see if the boy had seen me.

He had.

And he was trying (but failing) not to laugh.

I glared at him, but the second our eyes met, his face faltered. His golden, lively, eyes seemed to dim at the sight of me, his full bottom lip falling slightly as his mouth opened to speak.

"What?" I demanded rudely, standing up straight. The boy's creamy cheeks reddened slightly as I spoke.

Anthony laughed behind me as the boy stared. He was handsome, that was for sure.

"I know you." he said softly, his voice dripping through the air like honey.

"Whatever." I grumbled, following Anthony down the hall.

"No, no!" The boy cried, running out of the office. "I know your Mom, I've seen her. The real one."

It was my mouth that fell open this time. Anthony gave me a worried glance as I waved him off, a signal for him to go on to class without me.

"What are you talking about?"

"You have to be Maia's daughter, you look exactly like her."

"How do you know who I am? How have you seen her?"

"She was a friend of my parents'," the boy stated. "She was one of their best friends, they uh...they went through some stuff together."

"And who are your parents?"

"Losers." he laughed. I shot him a look and he rolled his eyes. "Forget about my parents. I'm Jamie Lightwood, at your ever-humble service, Small One."

"I am not THAT short...rude. My name is Hazel."

"Pretty name," he murmured. He raised his arm and scratched the back of his neck, his T-Shirt slipping down his bicep. "I can't believe I found you, this is amazing, this is exactly why I came he-"

"What the Hell is that?!" I demanded, my eyes widening at the sight of the thick black marking that peeked from behind his T-Shirt. His eyes flickered to the inside of his bicep, his arm still raised.

"That? It's an angelic rune, haven't they told you?"

"It's a what?"

"You've seen it before?" He asked, teasing me.

"It's not funny!" I yelled, as he side stepped my attempt to grab him. "Let me see it! I've had it before!"

"No way, your Mom was a Downwo-"

"It's been on my body before, not like that but just a little scar and it was everywhere and-" I was rambling, but I didn't care. Adrenaline was shooting through my veins like a drug and I couldn't stop it. Jamie had my mark. He had my EXACT mark, this angelic rune that had been plastered all over my body every night I'd woken from a nightmare. I needed to know where he'd gotten it.

"You were a lot cuter when you weren't being a brat." Jamie grumbled, raising an eyebrow at me. I shoved at him and he glared, anger flooding his expression.

"Let me se-AGHHH!"

Grabbing Jamie's arm had been a huge mistake. The second my skin touched his, our fingers tightened in sync, and we grunted, unable to let go of each other. I winced, crying out as a searing hot pain shot through my arm, the skin two-inches below the inside of my right elbow turning bright red. It was glowing, like fire in my veins, Jamie's angelic rune appearing, small and burning, in the flesh of my arm. I screamed, wrenching my arm away from him as soon as it felt physically possible. Jamie scrambled to his feet as I cradled my arm, my face hot. He eyed me fearfully, a tiny black and silver stele dropping from his pocket as he backed against the wall. All we could do was watch each other in terror as he backed away from me, glancing at his now-bare bicep, no mark in sight. Jamie ran before I could stop him.


Ohhhhh boy...can anyone guess who Hazel's real parents were? ;)