I watched Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children over the weekend and loved Enoch. I've also read the books so I'm going to try and keep his personality like that, just aged up. All the other characters are their book versions, peculiarities and all.

Also, this is a modern au version of the books. Miss Peregrine will make an appearance, but she won't have as big of a role because this focuses mostly on the children.

I own nothing familiar, only the new parts.

I remember the first time I sensed someone dying. I was seven years old and in the park with my mom, dad, and little brother when the icy feeling slid down my spine. I looked up and everything turned black and white. While it was like that, a woman ran across the park in the middle of a couple kids playing with a soccer ball, a man chasing behind her with a knife in his hands. He tackled her down right on a blanket that had a woman lying on her back with her baby sitting on her belly, the two of them unfazed by it. When I looked around, it seemed like no one could see it other than me, but it was very real in my eyes.

I tried to run over to them when I saw the man lift his arm and I heard the woman's screams as the knife sank into her stomach, but my feet wouldn't let me. I was stuck on my little spot of grass watching a woman be killed. Then everything went back to color, the two of them were gone, and things were back to normal. A few days later, the same woman appeared in my bedroom with me and things turned black and white again. She touched my shoulder and an intense pain blossomed in my stomach.

I must have screamed or done something else to alert my mother because she came running upstairs to find me doubled over on my floor, sans dead woman. She rushed me to the hospital, but the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with me. The look she fixed me with the entire way home told me I should never tell her about the thing I saw in the park or if another person came to me like the woman did. This was something I couldn't tell anyone about, I had to take this secret to the grave.

Since that day at the park, I'd witnessed thousands of murders other people couldn't see. As I got older, I started seeing them on TV or as a headline in a newspaper and learned they were real people. Then the spirits would appear and touch me, making me feel the way they died, and then disappear. I put the pieces together when I was about fifteen and realized I was kind of like the door to the afterlife or something, the spirits had to pass through me to get to whatever lies beyond the plan of existence we're all on.

Being different in a time when everything is broadcasted on either social media or television is very tricky, but I've kept it under wraps for ten years. I've also never come across anyone else with any kind of ability like mine, just the crackpots you see on TV exploiting grieving parents and using them as their next meal ticket. I kept my weirdness a secret so well that I was actually pretty popular in school, and you know no one who has a hint of being different is ever popular in high school so I had to be doing something right.

School had been in session for two months when my biology teacher decided he wanted to change the seating chart. Apparently, our test scores were terrible and he thought it was because we were too comfortable with our table mates and were talking instead of listening. The real reason was the poor man had the most monotone voice I'd ever heard and everyone chose to be on their phones instead of listening to him lecture, but we couldn't very well tell him that so we agreed to change seats.

The teacher went down the aisle between the first two sets of rows and read off the new list of lab partners. I wished he would sit me and Noel back together, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. The two of us had to be what was dropping the class average so abysmally, we were each getting matching Ds on every exam. She was my best friend and you always wanted to sit beside your best friend in class, right?

"Ivy Richardson and Enoch O'Connor," Mr. Trenton announced, tapping the table on his left as he passed it. Then he tapped the table beside ours and said, "Oliver Weathersby and Hugh Apiston."

I made my way over to the table he gestured to and took the stool closest to the wall. Enoch came over a beat later and sat on the other stool, placing his elbows on the table with his chin resting in one of his palms. I don't think we'd ever said a word to each other, and I've known him since I was at least nine years old.

Noel ended up on the complete other side of the room from me beside Jacob Portman, much to her displeasure. She had a crush on him our sophomore year, but the kid only had eyes for Emma Bloom. It wasn't often she got rejected, and the girl could hold a grudge better than anyone I've ever met in my life. She was stubborn and prideful in a way that scared me and made me glad I didn't possess. I just had some weird ability to see people die and then I was a portal to the afterlife…you know, casual things.

Mr. Trenton lectured and for the first time all year, I actually paid attention instead of texting. Enoch's spine was bent as he leaned forward and took notes, his eyes were alight in a way I'd never seen before. Wonderful, he was one of this kids who was way too interested in dissections. It only made sense, I suppose, his parents did deal with dead people on a daily basis after all. It must run in the blood.

"Today we're going to identify the anatomy of the frog and the starfish because they're the first things we're dissecting next week. The worksheets are being passed back," he said, finishing his lecture and moving on to the work. "Please work with your lab partner to complete the assignment, you may turn in only one paper with both of your names on it."

I reached forward and took the worksheets from Alyssa Merriweather. When I returned to my regular position, I saw Enoch's book open to the correct page. He wasn't even acknowledging my presence, he just wanted to do the assignment.

"I suppose I can write," I said, figuring that's what he wanted.

"That'd be best," he told me matter-of-factly, not looking up from the book in front of him. "I know all the parts already, I'm just looking for vanity sake. I wouldn't want the others to feel even more inadequate."

I was immediately put off by his statement. Was he insinuating that I wasn't smart enough to do anything other than write what he told me to? Granted, I wasn't doing the best in the class, but he still had no right to say that to me. Instead of starting an argument, I wrote both our names on the paper and opened my own book.

I labeled the lungs, kidneys, and the heart before going back to my book. Those were obvious, but Enoch seemed unsettled by me doing so. I saw him glance at the paper out of the corner of my eye and pale a bit before looking back at his book for the unlabeled body parts. After a couple minutes, he started listing off the internal organs of the frog for me to write down, seemingly impressed that I could spell them correctly without asking or looking them up. Even if most of them were phonetically obvious.

We moved on to the starfish and he seemed less confident in his answers. Well then, I guess it was my turn to be the smart one. I slid the paper over to him with a sassy grin, gesturing for him to write while I looked up the answers. I even read them off the page as slowly as he did, making sure to enunciate like I was talking to a small child to make him feel the same way he'd made me feel.

When the bell rang, I close my book and slid it back into my backpack along with my notes. Then I grabbed his arm and smiled my prettiest smile when I told him, "Never treat me like I'm stupid again."

Instead of waiting for him to respond, I turned and left the classroom. Noel was waiting for me outside the door with a pissed off expression on her face. She immediately started ranting about how infuriating it was to share a desk with Jacob and about how much of a stupid pig he was while I just walked beside her. This is how things went with us usually, she would rant and rave about something I didn't necessarily care about and I would nod and listen like I was really paying attention, even if that was the furthest thing from true.

She was in the middle of complaining about a note Emma left him in the margins of his notebook when icy fingers slid along my spine. Shit, I had to get away from people before they noticed me standing and staring off into space. I seriously didn't want to be checked into St. Mary's just yet, if ever, and seeing ghost was a surefire way to do that.

"I have to go grab something from my car really fast. I'll meet you at lunch after third, okay?" I asked, turning around and hurrying away before she answered my question.

I slipped into the auditorium and sat in one of the seats, gripping the armrests as I waited for the scene to start. As predicted, it played out on the stage in front of me like a very real version of Macbeth. A man had a gun in his hand with the barrel of it pressed to the temple of the man he was clutching in front of him. I watched him pull the safety back and spin the bullets into place before placing it back against the temple. The man was shaking and trying to pull the gun away, but his strength didn't seem to compare to the other man's. Even if I knew it was coming, I still shrieked and closed my eyes tight when he pulled the trigger. I covered my mouth immediately, but it was too late to stop the sound.

"Ivy?" a concerned voice asked, footsteps echoing through the room as someone came over to me. "Are you okay?"

I forced my eyes open, and I could see tears clouding my vision. I hurriedly dabbed at them with my fingers so I didn't mess up my makeup and realized my hands were shaking. Usually, it took me a couple minutes to recover after I saw things and go back into the public, but Enoch O'Connor had to interrupt that like he hadn't already been a thorn in my side today. Of course he would be the one who witnessed what just happened, he probably thought I was having some kind of mental break or something. As if he didn't already think I was dumb, this was going to be icing on the cake.

"Yeah," I replied in a quiet, shaky voice. "I'm fine, I just thought I saw a spider. It's fine, I have to go to class."

I jolted up from my seat so quickly I almost knocked him over from his spot crouched beside me. I smiled apologetically before scurrying out as fast as possible and heading as far away from the auditorium. I saw things like that all the time, but they never seemed to get any easier to deal with.

Of course I'd tried to stop the murders from happening a couple times before, but it was next to impossible. There was never any hints given about either person's identity and it had, thankfully, never been anyone I knew. It was basically a dead end until the story was released and I figured out who they were, kicking myself for not digging deep enough as if it were possible.

I was so lost in thought that I nearly jumped out of my skin when a hand wrapped around my wrist. Because I was wearing wedges, I ended up losing my balance and fell into the person who grabbed me. Enoch's arms wrapped around my waist timidly and helped right me before dropping them backing down to his sides. He wasn't looking me in the eye, but I could see worry around their edges.

"Is there something I can help you with, Enoch?" I asked, sliding my carefully constructed mask into place to hide the vulnerability I still possessed from watching the scene on the stage.

"What did you see in there?" he asked, his eyes meeting mine with a hint of fear in their depths.

How did this kid know I saw something in there? And even weirder, why did he seem afraid that I'd seen something. This kid was always strange, but he seemed to be getting stranger and stranger as I got to know him.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I was just trying to get a couple minutes of peace after being talked down to for almost an hour," I replied, straightening my spine and pulling my arm from his body. "Contrary to what you believe, I'm very intelligent and I don't appreciate you making me feel like I'm not. I also don't appreciate you interrupting me when I obviously went somewhere to have privacy."

Enoch's expression changed from worried and afraid to icy in a matter of seconds. It seems like I'm not the only one who has crafted a mask to cover my fragility. He stood up straight, towering over me by at least four inches, and turned to head the opposite way of me down the empty hallway.

I slipped into the bathroom to fix my makeup after my minor meltdown from earlier. Then I felt the icy feeling again as my vision went black and white. It was rare, but sometimes I got multiple vision a day and they really took it out of me. I was exhausted by the time the last one happened and this one was going to be rough too, I'm sure.

This time it was a kid and those were always the worst, with pregnant woman right behind them. She was tiny, maybe three of four, and the woman behind her looked twenty or so. The woman was her mother, I don't know why I knew that, but it happened sometimes. I just got random insights into their lives that I couldn't exactly explain. Even with those insights, it was never helpful to figure out their identity.

The sink in front of me turned on suddenly, and I watched as the woman held the little girl's head under the water. I realized a beat later that she must've been drowning her in a bathtub or something and that's why the vision came to me in the bathroom. I forced my eyes closed but could do nothing about hearing her muffled screams and gurgling sounds of her dying. I knew tears were coursing down my cheeks, but I couldn't stop them. Thankfully, when I opened my eyes, everything was in color and only my mascara was running.

I fixed my face quickly and took a couple calming breaths. I lied earlier when I said I had a class to get to, I had a free period between second and lunch. Once I'd gathered myself, I left the bathroom and made my way to the cafeteria right as the bell rang. Noel met me at our normal table and I tried to act normal. I was lucky because she never seemed to notice when I was torn up, she was too wrapped up in telling me some story about what happened in her last class as we got in line.

She kept up conversation the entire wait and once we were back at the table with our friends. I was picking at my salad, my appetite gone and replaced with garbled screams. Then I felt eyes on me and froze completely, that's what happened before the spirits appeared to use me as the entrance to the afterlife. I looked around quickly and saw Enoch's entire lunch table look away from me. I relaxed every muscle in my body and nearly shrank with relief, there wasn't a spirit here. My secret could stay hidden longer.

He must've been telling them about how big of a bitch I was earlier. If they knew the same Enoch that I knew, I'm sure they'd take his tale with a grain of salt. I wouldn't have been so mean if he hadn't been so rude to me before. And also if he hadn't interrupted me earlier, I'm always a bit off right after I see things.

"So, what's it like being lab partners with Dr. Frankenstein?" Wren, one of the football players that I talked to occasionally, asked during a lull in conversation.

"Uhm, he's a bit much," I replied, wishing he'd let the topic drop. "I could've done worse, I suppose."

I never talked about people behind their backs, it wasn't fair. Just because Enoch was weird, it didn't give people the right to talk about him. Granted, he was an ass, but that didn't mean I was going to trash him. He couldn't help that his parents were undertakers, and it wasn't very nice of Wren to call him that.

"Come on, tell the truth. I saw your face when we were working on that assignment. You looked like you wanted to drown yourself in the sink," Noel grinned, making the others laugh and my stomach flip.

I jolted up from the table and grabbed my backpack before rushing out of the cafeteria. I scarcely made it to the bathroom before I threw up, visions of the kid bombarding my mind even when I closed my eyes. Even if I was in a dress, I dropped from my crouch to sit on the floor with my legs resting on the ground as a broken sob worked its way out of my mouth.

This rarely ever happened, I usually held myself together pretty well after I saw things. Noel's flippant comment was just the final straw that broke the camel's back. I checked the time on my phone and realized I still had three classes before the day was over so I seriously had to get myself together. No one could know how fragile I was or that I saw dead people.

It just wasn't socially acceptable.

Thanks for reading! If you liked it, maybe drop a review and encourage me to get the next chapter out sooner.