Chapter 1

Ipswich, England

Her body ached from the pummelling it had received from Chase and it took all her energy to raise herself from the ground where she had fallen after throwing her last energy ball. She wiped the blood away from her right eye and winced in pain as her hand caught the gash which went from her forehead, through her eyebrow and then continued under her eye. As her vision and hearing started to make sense again she became aware of someone screaming her name, over and over again. "ALEX!" came the frightened yell, quivering as the person who created it struggled to hold back tears. "ALEEEEX!" Alex stumbled as quickly as she could towards the voice that was calling her, slowly taking in the scene around her, the burning barn, her two friends slowly picking themselves up from the ground just as she had done a few seconds, or was it minutes, before. As she came closer to the voice she saw her third friend, the youngest of them, clutching a body to her chest. Alex started to run, skidding down to the ground as she drew close.

"What happened?" she asked as she tried to price the body from her friend, "Jo.." She stopped, the words stuck in her mouth as she turned the body over. There was blood trickling from its nose, eyes, mouth and ears. Without thinking Alex flung it to the floor, her eyes turning black as she did. She place her hands on its chest and with her mind found the heart inside, it wasn't beating. Calling all of her power from her body into her hands she sent a shock into the corpse. It didn't do anything. She looked at her friend. "Josie, I'm sorry but..."

"No, Alex. No." Josie practically screamed at her, leaning forward and putting her hands on Alex's shoulders, "You have to bring him back, he can't die." Alex saw the pleading look in Josie's eyes and, even though she knew it wouldn't help, she tried again, and again, until she could no longer feel any of the power in her body and the world started to spin. Just as she thought she was going to pass out she felt Josie's hands leaving her shoulders and another, stronger hand, take their place.

"It's no good Josie, we can't bring him back now," said Serena from behind Alex. Alex heard Josie's pained shriek and turned her face away from the sound.

"C'mon Jose, we need to go," whispered Aggie, the fourth member of their coven.

Alex heard Aggie help Josie get up and slowly the shrieks subsided as they moved away. She brushed Serena's hand off and shoulder and stood up, swaying a little as the blood rushed to her head. "We should put the fire out," she muttered as she looked up at the barn, once again wiping blood from her eye. She raised her hands but found them being pushed down by Serena.

"I'll do it," and within seconds the fire was out. Alex put her hands in her pockets and looked down at the body as Serena turned to face her. "It's not your fault Alex. You're the strongest of all of us and even you could barely stop him."

"Where is he?" asked Alex, anger clearly audible in her voice.

"I don't know, that last energy ball you threw at him, well...he disappeared." Serena looked at Alex almost apologetically. Even though Alex was the strongest, Serena was the eldest and she felt responsible for her three friends and their safety. Tonight she had failed them.

"Well we'd best find him them hadn't we," stated Alex before turning away swiftly and striding purposefully back into the night.

Ipswich, America – 3 months later

It was the start of their final term at Spencer and the group couldn't contain their excitement at the prospect of graduating and leaving for college.

"So, English Lit," said Reid flippantly, "Could we start the new term off in a worse way?"

"What happened to Dreamcatcher being the shit?" asked Pogue playfully, causing a small smile to spread over Caleb's face and a huge grin to spread over Tyler's. Reid stopped and narrowed his eye as he turned to say a rather rude comment to Pogue, stopping only because he saw Sarah and Kate approaching them from behind.

"Good morning, ladies," he said smarmily as he moved towards them and wrapped his arms around their shoulders, "Tell me now, when will you both admit that it is in fact me you want and not these two bozos?"

"Whatever Reid," said Kate, brushing his arm from her shoulder and not even trying to hide the disgust from her voice. She walked swiftly towards Pogue and planted a brief kiss on his lips, "Hey baby." Sarah smiled at the sight of her friends before purposefully picking Reid's hand up from her shoulder and dropping it before moving next to Caleb who put his arm around her and gave her a quick kiss on the head before leading the way into the classroom. The normal chatter of students swirled around them as they seated themselves together in a line.

"So, are we going to Nicky's tonight then?" asked Kate as she absentmindedly curled Pogue's hair around one of her fingers.

"Is there anywhere else to go?" asked Sarah, sarcasm deeply rooted in the sentence but a small smile on her face, clearly showing that she was only teasing her best friend.

"Well, ya know, I just thought..." Kate was interrupted by Tyler's gasp of surprise and Reid's sleazy comment of "Well hello there foxy mamas." When Kate and the others looked up they saw immediately what had drawn the attention of the two single guys, and in fact Caleb and Pogue's. Stood just inside the door were three girls who none of them had seen before and it took Kate just one look for her to understand why Reid, Tyler and most of the other boys in the room were staring at them.

The tallest of the three was stood slightly in front, tall, slender, with long blonde hair cascading over her shoulders and bright blue eyes staring out from chiselled features, the girl looked like she belonged on the front of Vogue. As she moved forward her two friends could be seen more clearly and, whilst not as strikingly attractive as their friend, they weren't exactly ugly. The one at the back had dark brunette hair scraped back into a ponytail and glasses behind which were piercing green eyes, the shortest of the three she was muttering something to the girl in front, oblivious to the stares her friends and herself were receiving. Finally, the girl in the middle looked like a rabbit trapped in headlights. Only slightly shorter than the blonde she had mousey brown hair framing her freckled face and doe-like brown eyes, making her look like a damsel in distress.

"I bet the boys will be fighting over who gets to protect that one," murmured Pogue, reminding Kate that, just like everyone else in the room, she was staring at the newcomers.

"She looks like she needs protecting," said Sarah as she leant across Kate to join in the whispered conversation, her voice sounding sympathetic, "She looks petrified." As the three girls walked up the stairs to take seats in front of the gang Sarah felt Caleb shiver next to her. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," muttered Caleb, "I just got a weird feeling that's all." Suddenly all the murmuring stopped as a loud thud reverberated around the room, immediately drawing everyone's attention to the front where a man who none of them recognised stood.

"Welcome to your final term of High School. I am Mr Smith and I am here to guide you through the wonderful world of Literature." The English accent was unmistakable and Kate and Sarah couldn't help it if their heart-beats sped up a little as they looked at him. Tall, slim but well-built, with tussled dark blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes, the fact that he was old enough to be their father didn't bother them at all. "We're going to start this term by looking at a play I hope you have already heard of. "The Crucible" by.." He was interrupted by the door slamming closed and he, followed by the rest of the class turned to see who would be idiotic enough to show up late to their first lesson of the new term.

"Well fuck me sideways," breathed Reid as he leaned back in his chair, gazing lustily at the girl who had just walked in. She was the same height as the blonde who had arrived earlier but it was there the similarity stopped. Whereas the blonde could almost be an angel sent down from Heaven, the girl who now stood in front of the classroom could almost be sent by the Devil himself. Shoulder length dark auburn hair with a spiky fringe covering one eye she looked almost as pale as a corpse, the only downfall to being born with red hair, and her complexion wasn't helped by the dark brown, almost black eye which moved slowly around the room almost as if she was daring the class to say something. The intensity of her stare eventually caused the group to turn away, the four Sons of Ipswich shifting uneasily in their chairs, almost as if some unseen force was tickling them unpleasantly.

"You're late Miss Putnam."