Chapter One – Rage

I walked into the cafeteria of the cheaply painted, filthy old school. My hair was in my eyes, as always, and I scratched the edge of the black button that had a bloody chainsaw in the center and the words "In case of zombie apocalypse follow me" sprawled across its surface that was pinned firmly to the left pocket of my black jacket. Coming up to the table where all my friends sat by or near eating or pretending to eat I was welcomed by Toni throwing her arms apart and yelling my name. I pushed her arm away from me, refusing her hug.

Ali murmured, "Uh-Oh, she's pissed."

Cassandra nodded and looked up into my red rimmed eyes, frowning. Alex, at the opposite end of the long table, noticed my awkward stance and stood to approach me but I noticed his movement and threw a glare down towards him, making him taking his seat again. I stepped behind Cassandra and leaned against the pillar that supported the indoor awning we were under. Toni took her seat again and just a few feet away at a circular table a boy stood. His blonde hair over one eye and dressed darkly but nicely. His eyes were concerned and were dark blue. He was slightly small but taller than me by a few inches.

He made his way over to me and pinned me to the wall by putting his hands over my shoulders against the wall and leaning forward to that our faces were inches apart.

"What's wrong?" He murmured.

I leaned forward, not wanting to escape him, and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He returned the favor and wrapped his arms around my waist and picked me up off the floor by a few inches. I smiled slightly and he set me back on the floor.

"Your mom or your dad?" He asked again smiling back at me but still looking concerned.

"Mom," I answered softly, "Just fighting again." I paused for a moment before murmuring, "I love you."

"I love you too," He answered, still holding me around my waist.

A teacher barked something about PDA and he let me go, smiling slightly. And he went back to his seat watching me as I wrapped my arms around Toni's neck and hugged Ali and Cassandra in turn. Then I walked down the table to Alex and wrapped my arms around his neck briefly before he released me and I hugged Tyson, who was seated beside him.

Cassandra had brown hair and celestial eyes that were multicolored and brightly lit with intelligence. Toni had hair that was a light dirty blonde at the roots and faded darker at the tips and hazel eyes that gave the illusion that they were either sinking or popping outward with the iris because of the rings of different shades of hazel. Then there was Ali with brown eyes that were very dark and with hair that was black at the roots and was an odd off red of dying her hair. Alex had long dark brown mixed with opaque black hair from dying it and dark brown eyes, and he was tall and broadly built as well.

Randy, the blue eyed boy who I did in fact love very much, was still watching me as I relaxed against the wall behind Cassandra. I was here earlier than normal so after a few seconds of waiting impatiently I walked back down the tableside to stand beside Alex and look over what he was drawing. He pulled the lines across the page to make the outline of a character from a long lost cartoon.

The intercom came on, and the principle's voice careened through it, "Teachers please keep all students in the cafeteria and auditorium. We're on lock down, code red."

I looked at Alex's face, "Red means somebody is in the school or something right?"

"I don't know, what, you think I pay attention?" He asked in response, snorting at the thought of paying attention in class.

I bit my lip and looked over at the table just a few feet away where Randy sat just beside Julie Cole, one of my best friends. There was a shatter sound as the glass wall that protected the fall from the balcony where the academic halls were broke. People at the tables under the glass screamed as the glass rained down on them. I was protected from the glass and so was the people at the table I stood beside but Randy and Julie were hit with the hail of glass and I let out a cry.

Everyone scattered from the center of the lunchroom except the few kids who were shoved and pushed into the floor as everyone trampled one another to get away from the glass rain. I was sheltered from the crowd but Cassandra and Toni and Ali were bombarded by the teenagers running from something that was now in the center of the room. I stepped up onto the table, using Alex's shoulder to keep my balance. My first goal was to spot Randy in the mayhem. He was still seated at his table, out of range from whatever had came through the windows. He was okay, just a single cut beneath his right eye. I met his eyes and he had a look of shock and confusion behind the enchanting blue.

I screamed his name for some reason, scared for him. A fear that was struck deep into my heart suddenly swelled as a form lifted itself from the center of the room, a circle of frightened children around him. He wore a trench coat, black, with a gray button-down shirt under it and normal black trousers under the coat and his feet were covered by big black boots. His head was down, facing the floor.

"Holy shit? Did that guy jump through the window?" Someone shouted.

His hair was gray, flecked with black. His eyes were sharp and narrowed with a grin that reflected evil itself. Fear. Just fear. Fear was all I felt. I shut down for a moment, freezing. I tensed, like a dog with its hackles raised. The man's head rose and I met his eyes. He didn't seem to recognize me. Once his eyes combed over me my fear turned to rage. Rage so hot and so fierce it exploded in my mind and my heart, every thought was solely focused on killing the gray-haired man.

Another man leapt from the balcony landing beside the first. He was younger, mid-twenties, with brown hair that hid the sunken eyes that were vacant blue, almost appeared unseeing even though his vision was impeccable.

"Where?" The gray-haired man screamed at the second younger man.

"Hush," The second man hissed to himself, his eyes flicking through the crowd quickly, "I don't see her."

I smirked, almost intrigued by how well I was hidden, they had narrowed my hiding place down but they still couldn't find me. So I decided I would help them, I wasn't running anymore.

"SYX!" The man screamed, "WHERE ARE YOU?"

The younger man suddenly looked excited, "Come out and play, Syx."

I snorted, "Still a fucking creeper, aren't you?" I'd said it loud enough for him to hear me and he narrowed in on where I was but the older man's senses weren't as good as the younger's and he was searching frantically.

The younger man's face spilt into a wide grin and his eyes searched me. He whispered something to himself.

I laughed to myself, shaking my head, "I'm right here, blood traitor."

The room was deadly silent so he heard me that time and his eyes were burning with rage.

"Blood traitor says the coward?" He taunted.

My stomach reeled with anger and hatred and actually injury, "Coward? You call me a coward when I did just what you told me to do and followed instructions? I was given a direct order. I followed it. Isn't that what you told me to do, sir?"

His lip twitched up and he made a clicking noise with his tongue. Another three men jumped from the balcony above me into the cafeteria. One of them pulled a bow; black wooden bow carved carefully, and notched an arrow and pointed it at my chest.

I grinned, "Go on, and shoot me. I can't die."

The gray-haired man nodded and the arrow was sent flying towards me. It hit me hard in the chest just beneath my collar bone on my left side. I felt it hit my heart and pierce it but I did not die. It hurt. The pain was excruciating. But I didn't sway. I felt blood trickle out of my nose and onto my lip. Alex cried out. I reached up and wrapped my fingers around the delicate arrow's shaft and pulled it straight from my heart without flinching.

I spat blood onto the floor in front of me, "Is that the best you got?"

The man that had shot the arrow at me was alarmed when the skin around the entry wound healed itself within a few seconds. I grinned wider. I flipped the arrow in my hand so that I was holding it as I would a knife. I stepped off of the table and started walking towards the men.

"Come on, traitor, tell me, how do you kill our kind? How do you like to lather a child's blood on your hands? Hm?" I asked my voice low and cold.

He didn't answer but he spoke to his companions, "Kill her."

I smirked as one by one they approached me screaming useless battle cries. The first man, the one armed with a bow shot me a few more times, enough times to fuel my anger. I ripped one arrow out of my stomach and threw it down and ripped the second arrow out of my thigh. When he was directly in front of me I could see his eyes, milky brown and laced with fear. He shot again, and I had a brief second of blankness from where he shot me between the eyes. I reached up and ripped the arrow out.

"That hurt," I growled, "And I just forgot my sixth birthday party, bitch."

I shoved the arrow he'd just shot me with into his throat. His eyes dilated with pain and I grinned as blood poured from his throat. I ripped the arrow out of his Adam's apple again and I smiled at the blood flow.

"Didn't tell your men my blood was poison, did you?" I asked softly, watching the man in front of me die.

The other men had stopped short, staring. I smiled as the light left his eyes and his hand that clutched his throat went limp. I used my converse to move his hand away from the injury on his neck and smiled at the wound.

"That's low, even for a blood traitor." I whispered.

He seemed enraged, the gray-haired man, and he barked, "Kill her!"

The second man, a skinny man with light muscle tone and a dagger in hand. He took three steps toward me and plunged the knife through my neck, cleanly. It went all the way through and it hurt. It hurt so badly. I was blinded for a second, by the pain alone. But it did not kill me. I spluttered and spat blood on the man's face. A drop hit his lip and his face went pale. I killed that man just by coughing. I reached up and pulled the knife out of my neck slowly, the pain blinding me, almost bringing me to my knees. My shirt was blood stained and it flowed down my side and my head fell over onto my shoulder while the flesh healed back. I screamed in rage before mutilating the dead man's body with his own knife.

"That fucking hurt!" I shrieked, casting aside the arrow and staring at the knife for a moment.

This left only one man left not counting the brunette man and the gray-haired man. I didn't waste time on him, just throwing the knife, pegging him in the shoulder. Usually the shoulder wasn't a kill shot but the knife had my blood on it so he keeled over.

I gave up fighting hand to hand and knelt, lowering my head.

"Are you asking for the kill shot, my dear?" The elder man asked.

I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the venom in my veins, trying to feel it inside my arteries, trying to make it do what I wanted. After a moment with my eyes squeezed shut I felt my eyes dilate and heard a weird electrical sound and a few girls scream. When my eyes opened I could feel the change in my pupil, the venom splitting in and sending a prong-like tail off the outer edge of my pupil and my irises getting bigger and the edges darkening *. I tilted my head back up and I lunged at the man with gray hair.

This was now an animal's fight. The younger man fell back away from us as I dug my nails into the man's neck, choking him. I raise one fist to him, striking his face, leaving my mark on him, making sure that if he left this fight alive anywhere he'd go the people around him would see my injuries on him. He grabbed my hair and ripped my head back from him and I let one hand fly away from where I'd reattached to his neck to grab his wrist. I remembered the knife and brought it down on the shoulder of the hand in my hair. He cried out and I brought my free fist away from his neck to strike his face again.

"Foul little demon!" He screamed, "I'll kill you!"

He flipped himself over to where he was kneeling on my stomach and I thrashed beneath him. I still had hold of my new knife and I slashed at his chest before he wrapped his fingers around my wrist. I cried out in pain as he squeezed until there was a grinding crunching sound and my fingers loosened from my weapon. He plucked the knife from my grasp and pressed the blade against my throat.

"Go ahead!" I shrieked, "Do it! I don't care!"

"You'd let me kill you so easily? I know how to! You know I do! But no," He grinned, pushing the knife softly against my flesh, "I won't kill you so painlessly. I'm going to make you suffer, Syx. I'm going to punish you for shaming me so whimsically. You dishonored me. I'll make sure you're dishonored when you die."

"But I've never killed a child," I spat into his face, leaning into the blade and cutting myself deeper, "You can't shame me the way I shamed you. I'd never do what you did!" My face was contorted as I spoke, twisted with rage burning to profusely and so brightly it was hurting me worse than the knife blade was.

"Silence! You insolent brat! You know nothing of what you've done to me! You only know of one shame to my name! You took my seat on the council! A child, a child took my seat on the council! The Council of Elders! Elders, NOT minors! You shamed me by throwing me into exile! You will suffer for what you have done!" He screamed.

"In justice." I finished for him, "I will suffer for what I have done in justice." His face twisted, "Is that what you're saying to me?"

He took a handful of my hair again and slammed my head against the ground hard enough to make me dizzy and my ears to ring, "What do you know of justice? You? You know nothing!"

My hand and wrist had already healed back and I grinned into his face as the concussion he'd just given me was already fading, "I made it onto the council, didn't I?"

Then I decided I wanted a little backup. I was tired of running and I wanted to fight but I was still too weak, even in the form I held. So I opened my mouth and shrieked. I shrieked from the bottom of my stomach and it pitched up enough to make the remaining glass in the room shatter and was heard by everyone in the room. People clapped hands over their ears and cried out and soon I snapped my mouth shut again.

After a few seconds of shock some blood trickled out of the elder man's nose and he whispered, "Who have you called for?"

I grinned as I heard a noise in the distance, howling. Another howl joined the first. Then another joined the first two. Three howls were ringing through the air now. Then I heard a fourth howl barking up toward the sky. Then five.

They all came crashing through the school within seconds. Cantus – gray hair and dark eyes and aged with pride. Daemon – dark rugged hair that hung low over his dark bloody red eyes that highlighted his face, still prime with youth. Ani – red hair that was long and hid her face of bloodlust and fear of being seen, her eyes were bright flashing green and she was thin and toned. Rose – She was older, but still young, with dark knowing brown eyes and auburn hair that hung to the middle of her back, she was a mother and was kind and caring in features but mysterious and young.

Then there was the one who held my attention, Sparrow. His eyes were dark brown like his mothers and his left eye had a scar that ran over the iris just beside his pupil that was black like his pupil. His lips were healthy in shade and his teeth were shining white. His hair was short enough to hang above his ears but long enough to hang over his brow.

I was stunned to see him and the only words I could manage to say or even think were only two.

"You're alive." I murmured.

Daemon was the closet and screamed in rage at the sight of me with a knife to my throat. He was across to me with a demon's speed and had the man about the neck with his forearm behind his back and his knees on the floor. The elder man released the knife and Ani was there in an instant to take it from him. I was still on the floor, lying on my back in shock at who I was looking at.

Sparrow moved up to me, slowly picking his way through the corpses. He stopped at my side and searched my face for a second.

"Get up, Sy," He said quietly, softly, reaching down for my hand.

I stretched my hand towards his and let him pull me to my feet. He had one hand on my forearm and the other in my hand as he helped me up gently. Then he released me as I gained my footing. I stepped back from him and stared a moment longer.

He offered his arms to me, just closing his fists and holding them out slightly from his sides, "I've missed you, Sy."