Jess:
I frowned as I plopped myself onto my dorm room bed. Sure, I wasn't a cheerleader or girly or anything like that, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have wanted to go with him. Not that he wanted to go with me because he didn't, but did he have to take her? The one girl I couldn't stand more than anything. She was my antithesis with her long flowing blonde hair and bright green eyes. Even without the pom poms and short skirts she was gorgeous. I guess I could see why he liked her so much. Still, it was weird they were even a couple, I mean Galen was gorgeous, but hardly the type of guy a cheerleader was usually after, his cheeks and nose were always smudged with pencil lead, it was cute, it suited him. He wasn't on the football team or class president or anything. He was an amazing artist and brilliant at math, but that doesn't particularly knock the ladies dead, I don't think. Though it works for me, so maybe it is something to covet, still, we've been through so much together and he's with her. You see, bad stuff seems to follow Galen and I. We'd both lost our parents when we were in fifth grade, that's how we ended up here at St. Bernard's Boarding School. To make matters worse we are both clinically diagnosed with ADHD and I have it worse than him. I constantly have to be making something with my hands, paper airplanes, wind up toys, all sorts of things. My mother had been a mechanic and I grew up working with her, when she died I was devastated, but that's not the point, ever since sixth grade I'd been best friends with Galen, but that was when weird stuff started to happen. A teacher attacked us once when he'd sent us both to detention in sixth. In seventh a man with one eye nearly killed Galen thankfully my rock throwing skills are unmatched. Eighth grade went by surprisingly safe and so far ninth grade was seeming that way too. Then I heard a light knock on my door. My cheeks felt a bit warm as I checked my door's peephole. It was Galen in a suit and wow I really had to admit I felt a bit more jealous of his date now. I opened the door slowly. "Hey Galen." I murmured softly. He smiled at me. "Hey, how do I look?" Freaking gorgeous, would you like to meet my bed good sir? "You look good. Handsome." I flushed slightly. He looked so much more than gorgeous. He'd tried to get all the pencil off his cheeks and nose, but there was still a little left. Right on the very tip of his nose remained the last bit of pencil he couldn't scrape away. It kind of made me glad, she'd been extremely bossy since she agreed to go to this stupid dance with him. She'd made him stop painting and all this other stuff. She'd made him flatten his messy hair, tuck his shirt in all the time. It wasn't right, it wasn't him. He looked at me with a different expression than I was expecting, was that wistfulness? It sure seemed like it. I personally wasn't going to the dance, Galen didn't ask me and no other guy did, so I just kind of took a lazy day, told the school attendants I was sick. I probably even looked less appealing than normal, my hair wasn't brushed at all, I was wearing a paint stained white t shirt, his shirt actually, and boys' basketball shorts. I wouldn't be caught dead in makeup or a skirt or a dress, but still it was hard not to want to improve the way I looked because clearly he was into the barbie doll type, and then he pulled me back from my own over analyzing thoughts with a few simple words. "You look gorgeous." I must have flushed tomato red at his comments because he grinned. My heart was fluttering and I wanted to say something, anything before the door across from me opened. Sadly, I had no such luck. Marie Evans in all her glory stepped from the room across from me, normally seeing her would trigger an instant reaction of hatred, instead I nearly burst out laughing. Her left leg was so hairy it looked like she had fur and the other looked metallic, bronze it appeared, and her eyes were bright red, not the emerald green that made Galen swoon. He however didn't even seem to notice. He had this dreamy gaze in her eyes. I had an instant gut reaction, that this girl was going to hurt Galen, my Galen. I needed to break him from whatever thing she was doing to make him not notice her freakish body and fast. Her voice broke through my thoughts. "Galen, can we go dance now?" Galen instantly nodded. "Yes, of course." So I did the only thing a sane person would naturally do. I hit him with my Algebra book in the back of the head. He fell to the ground with a thud, dazed. He stood looking very confused and then practically jumped seeing how Marie truly looked. She glared daggers at me. "I was going to make it so he wouldn't feel a thing, just a quick draining of all his blood." She frowned. "No matter. I'll just tear you both to shreds." She dove at us and I let reaction take over, I pulled Galen into my room and slammed the door, locking it. She pounded on it, hard, and I had a sinking suspicion that my door would be gone pretty soon. "Okay...uh...what do I do?" I rummaged my drawers and found my philip's head and a hammer. Not exactly elegant weapons, but they were my best option. This was the breaking point I was making Galen leave this blasted school with me, all these freaks who hated us for no reason were too much. "Galen?" I asked quietly as there was another loud thump at the door. "Yea?" He was still a little dazed as he rubbed the back of his head. "This is what you get for dating a cheerleader." I gritted my teeth. Here we go, I thought as the door burst open. I threw my hammer first. Boom! Direct hit! Right between the eyes. The creature I'd later find out was an Empousa fell to the ground. I took Galen's hand and pulled him down the hall and out to the main lobby. At some point the creature began to follow us again because I could see her ugly fanged face in the reflection of the school's glass door. The school security guard, Chuck, was screaming at us, but we bolted out the door, right into downtown Boston traffic. For once, I was glad to live in this city if we couldn't figure out how to best Galen's former date we still had a good chance to shake her off our trail in the many winding streets of the city. Under normal pretenses I'd be blushing at the fact Galen hadn't dropped my hand yet, but I was way too scared to think like that. The Empousa had easily subdued Chuck the security guard and was jumping from top of car to top of car to catch up with us, as a last hope I took my screwdriver and through it off hand. For the first time in my life I prayed. Please hit her, please hit her, I thought. Another direct hit, right between the monster's eye my screwdriver embedded itself. Next thing I knew Marie Evans was nothing but dust blowing in the wind. I craned my neck and saw a red and blue glow down the street. There was no way we were going back there. "Galen..." I whispered. "We're going to run away now, okay?" He looked at me scared, but nodded. "Okay. Okay." He murmured. I offered him a weak smile and squeezed his hand. I led him to the Boston Commons, at the very least it would make a place where they could spend the night.