Disclaimer: I am getting no profit from this story and the only characters that belong to me are Michelle, her parents, and Stellan. The other characters and the main idea belong to Neal Shusterman.

Eight and Nine

Chapter 1: Of Weremen and Psychics

Michelle Asiral winced as a loud bang sounded from downstairs. She was the only one in this house that had known of the danger. She wished that there could have been a way to warn her mother, but she knew her waning would never have been heeded.

Michelle turned back to bags half-filled. She had plenty of money after selling her beloved horse, Spirit, to her good friend Addy. She had even managed to convince her mother to give her a credit card. It would be easy enough to track her if she used it, but it was comforting to know that she had the money if she needed it.

You've tortured me all my life, woman! Now you're going to pay!

Her father's angry thoughts echoed through her mind and sent tears streaming down her face. She blindly stuffed clothes into her packs.

Oh God, please! Let him kill me, but spare my daughter this pain! Let Michelle escape!

Michelle bit back tears at her mother's prayer. At least in death her mother would find solace in the fact that she did escape her father.

Now even more determined, Michelle did up the zipper on her pack and slung it over her shoulder. She climbed out over the roof, at the same time feeling her father's triumph and feeling absolutely nothing from her mother. She was either unconscious, or dead. Michelle paused, biting her lip, wondering if she should try to confront her father.

Now where is that damn girl?! She deserves death just as much as her slut of a mother did.

That thought from her father was all that she needed to at last be done with him and the memories of her mother's pain at his hands. Michelle jumped off the roof and ran into the forest, the darkness of night swallowing her up. Little did she know that she was running straight into the adventure of her life.

o

Stellan Nairda ran through the woods near the city of Winnipeg. Thankfully, no one saw him, for the woods of southern Canada were thick. If he had been seen, the rumors tomorrow would be the strangest in town in a long time. Wolf-man and Werewolf were what they called him now.

It had started when he was twelve. By this time, most of the other boys had begun growing hair on their legs. Stellan, however, had grown thick, black hair all over his back, his chest, his arms, and even his face! Now, three years later, he was covered in thick black hair. The puzzling thing was that no matter how long he stared into the mirror, he only saw a normal-looking fifteen-year-old boy. Not the extra hair that everyone else seemed to see.

He neared a house with all of its lights out, hoping that he could break in and steal some food. He first walked around the house, looking for an unlocked door or window. Finding none, he moved to the back door, taking a bobby pin out of his back pocket.

Once he had picked the lock successfully, he cautiously opened the door, not wanting to alert the homeowners of to his presence.

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

The sound of an alarm system rang out through the house and sounds of running feet and curses echoed down from the stairwell. Like a wild animal, Stellan took off across the back lawn, hearing a man's voice echo after him, saying that it must have been a bear or some other wild animal. Stellan took a sharp left and ran right into a girl, knocking them both over.

o

Michelle shifted the backpack, attempting to take the pressure off of her shoulders. Suddenly, a boy turned and ran right into her, knocking her over. She sat up slowly, assessing the damage (none had been done) and trying to not crush and more of the food. Her possessions she didn't care about, she hadn't packed anything fragile, but to her, flat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches weren't exactly what she wanted to eat until she reached the USA.

The boy, however, was already standing up, seeming to be about to bolt deeper into the woods. As Michelle stood, she wondered why he seemed so nervous.

"Why are you out here, in the middle of nowhere?"

"You don't think that I look like a monster?"

Michelle looked up at him, trying to figure out what he meant. When she screwed up her eyes so that everything was fuzzy, the boy showed up clearly, but he seemed to be covered in thick, dark hair.

"I think so, but you look normal enough to me."

She paused for a moment, curious as to what this odd boy was thinking. Her gift of thought sensing had been useful to her, if annoying. This boy, however, seemed to be giving off no thoughts whatsoever.

"Wait, why can't I hear your thoughts?"

She blurted it out, not realizing how odd it probably sounded. Why should this boy have the answer to that question. It had never happened before, and just to make sure, she reached her mind out to the nearest home. She could certainly hear a man's thoughts thinking something about a 'damn bear'.

"You can hear people's thoughts?"

Stellan's words were filled with awe and shock. Michelle just shrugged in answer, a look on her face that read 'well, we all have some gifts, don't we?'

She held out a hand.

"I'm Michelle Asiral."

"Stellan Nairda."

He reached out his hand to take hers in a cautious handshake.

As their hands met, a surprisingly warm breeze for Canada blew around them, pushing the leaves of the trees above them to one side, revealing the sky. High above them, a star suddenly shone with amazingly bright shades of pink and green. Michelle and Stellan, Dillon and Deanna, Tory and Winston, and Lourdes and Michael all knew at that moment that they had to find each other. Then the moment passed, and Michelle pulled her hand from Stellan's.

"We have to go south."

o

A/N. This probably won't be amazingly detailed or anything like that, since I'm writing this for a "Developmental Reading" class. I didn't put an amazing amount of effort into this, but I suppose it is a fan fiction, even if it is for Scorpion Shards, which is virtually an unknown book.