Payton looked at herself in the mirror as she waited for her hair straightener to warm up. She messed with her short hair again and watched as it poofed up then flattened again. She smirked thinking that yes it was a cool idea to cut her hair. She felt the heat from the straigtener and picked it up to slightly style her hair.
The girls have tried all summer to forget their encounter with the Akatsuki. It was surprisingly easier than anyone had thought. Payton found herself still laughing as she looked at the wall in her room that held a few Akatsuki posters. She was still a die-hard anime nerd/freak, the visit didn't effect her like some would think. She had all but pushed back the memories Hidan had so graciously left with her. But as said before, she was still a die-hard fan. The girls had decided to quickly get rid of the machines parts before calling the police at the apartments. Once they arrived the girls each explained that the exchange students left them there as a 'prank' before they left for home.
'Only problem is that they will have to search in a different world to find them,' Payton had thought at the time.
Payton sprayed the hair wax in her hair and ran and twisted her fingers through it until it looked slightly tousled and spikey, a punk look. Her once shoulder-blade length hair was now not even touching her shoulders...unless she looked upwards. Payton smiled to herself in the mirror, happy with the outfit she had picked out a few days before. 'I think people might notice more than my hair this year.' she thought with a small laugh. She didn't really care but the one thing she wanted to do was to make people wonder about her. She didn't know why, but the new hairstyle had brought on a new attitude and liking of styles. She didn't really mind but she would like to know why she could suddenly tell what looked good on her.
'If life had a keypad, i would probably be putting 'XD' in everywhere.' Payton thought distractingly as she turned off her morning music and then television. She gathered her bag and purse and weaved her way through to her door. 'Maybe i'm so happy because of the anime convention....and the fact that it has to do with my birthday. Man that sounds maybe it's the fact that i now have my permit!' she let her thoughts wonder again.
Her mom pulled into the school's driveway and turned left to let her out in the usual spot, away from the big crowd at the front of the school. She didn't like the feeling of being watched as she would walk through them, just to get to the cafeteria with her friends. She put her MP3 away and said bye to her mom. She heard her drive off and then smiled to a friend that she knew. Payton starts to walk to the side doors but her hair on the back of her neck start to stand up. 'Why do i feel like i'm being watched?' Payton thought. She snapped around to find no one there. She looked suspiciously to the top of the roof and all around the walls. 'Would they be stupid enough to return?' she thought. Payton shook her head and continued walking into the school where she sat alone in the cafeteria wondering where the crap Ava and Stacey were.
Stacey waited for the bus outside her house. It seems that the three girls made an unknown pact that if one of them cuts their hair, the other two must follow suit, as Stacey too had recut her hair to make it into a shorter style. Since she had mostly nothing to do over the summer besides band the last month, Stacey mostly thought of the last school year's fiasco. Pein had started to warm up to her and she thought she might have figured out why. 'Leave it to the almighty leader of Akatsuki to be shy about commitment.' she joked.
One thing that bothered her, and Ava for that matter, was the fact that Payton still hadn't told them what had happened between her and Hidan. "It's nothing, really. Let's just forget it because they're gone now." Payton would say everytime they would ask her. Stacey knew that was a load of bull. She just wished Payton would tell them.
The bus pulled up and thus began her first bus ride of the school year. She got there and ventured into the cafeteria, knowing/hoping that her friends would be there. Luckily for her, Payton was sitting in their usual spot. Payton stood up and pointed at Stacey making an odd noise. 'She certainly hasn't changed...if anything she might have only changed attitudes.' Stacey thought as she made her way over to her after stopping saying hi to some friends.
Ava stretched as she got up. She huffed as she realized that there was school, the first day. She shut off her phone alarm and got up to prepare for her shower. Once inside, visions from what happened last year came rolling back. One image paused, the one where Deidara looks back pleadingly at Ava. At that moment, Ava had seriously thought about going, screw her friends and family here. But she decided not to as she knew that was selfish and she didn't want to be remembered as still couldn't bring herself to look at the posters of Deidara Payton had in her room. She had hoped the whole deal wouldn't have effected her as bad as this did.
She stepped out of the shower and began her hour and a half long process of getting ready. She, like Payton, had cut her hair short. In fact it was the same style as Payton's. They had both found a picture online that they both liked and she waited for Payton to get her hair cut before doing hers. Once she was ready she gathered her things and then paused. 'Why do i get this feeling that something bad is going to happen this year?' she thought. Then her eyes caught the lunchboxes and her mind turned. 'Payton's going to be mad but i'm not taking them today.'
She arrived at school and walked through the lunch room. She was now with Gloria and they were walking to the cafeteria together. They found Payton and Stacey and went over to them. Once they were there Payton began to tell them the plans for the convention. In total Ava, Stacey, Payton, and Gloria were going the next weekend on Labor day. They were all excited about it, Ava mostly only going because it was with friends and in Dallas.
The bell rang and the girls waited for their names to be called out for their schedules. Payton felt stupid as she walked to the wrong place for Drill Team. How was she supposed to know that it was in Morton's office?!
The day ends and the girls go home. Well except for Stacey who had to stay for band.
Payton all day, even at her own home couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her. All day she could be seen looking around anxiously, as if she suspected someone was there. The other two blew it off as paranoia from last year, since they were feeling it as well.
'But it feels like someone is actually watching me...' Payton thought as she cleaned her rabbit's cage out. She felt a small breeze and it then felt like someone tapped her on her shoulder. She turns around, almost dropping the litterbox in her hands, to find no one there. As she turned around again something caught her eye. She turned towards it to look at a new house put in next to the one in front of hers. The movement was from a window where she swore that she made eye contact with someone before the pulled back and all she could see were the blinds. She shook herself and put it off as being too cautious. She finished cleaning the cage and took one last glance at the house before going back inside.
Stacey still didn't understand Payton's flinchiness all day. But now she had a bit of it too. She was outside chating with friends when she sees a car drive into the parking lot. No one really takes notice of it, including Stacey, until no one even got out of it for a long time. Inside you can see movement, papers folding out. 'Maybe they're lost..' Stacey thought. She then saw one of the band people knock on the heavily tinted windows. "Hey are you ok?" The person didn't roll down the windows but Stacey, with her 'ninja' hearing, heard a muffled reply. The student nodds and says "Um yeah, you're in the wrong place. That's going to be down the road across the rail road tracks somewhere." pause "No problem man." The SUV pulls out of the parking space and down the lane to get back onto the road. Later, after Stacey got home, she got an odd feeling of de ja vu. She looks across the street for some reason and, in the dim light of the house not too far from hers, was the almost well hidden SUV from the school.
Ava sighed as she turned on her laptop. 'I'm going to get in at least an hour on Twitter before drivers Ed.' she thought as she logged into said place. She saw that Payton was already on but made a different tweet about still having to go to DE. She chatted with Payton for what seemed like a small amount of time before she realized that it was time to go and she shut down the computer. She popped in her ear phones and put the volume on full blast, blaring out Speechless by The Veronicas, much to her mother's dismay. She was super excited about going to see them again in concert for her own birthday, though she figured Payton was better at the birthday planning game, since Payton's convention wasn't until a week after her real birthday and her own was three months away. 'Krys is going this time damn it!' Ava thought determinly. She didn't get the feelings that the other girls felt but there was one thing she found odd. The fact that someone new was in the neighborhood, yet she had never seen them.
"Do you think she suspects us?" a man asks as he watched the short-haired Mexican girl enter her house.
"No. She doesn't. I think she is most likely thinking about the coincidence that the same car, even though we tried to hide it, was now stationed at a house near hers." said another.
The two men looked at each other across the room as the one at the window moved away from said area to sit at one of the many computers in the room. The other lounged on the couch letting his gaze rest on his and his partner's objective. It was a picture of the girl on top of a folder that held information about her. He picked up the folder again, bringing the object in his other hand to his mouth. He read over the girl's, Stacey, file again.
Suddenly, there was a crackle on the screen as a man's face came into view. It was slightly shadowed, but he knew who it was. More faces were then shown on the vairous screens. It was time for the meeting.
He didn't move but let his collegue do what was necessary to make them shown to the others. Once it was done, the man on the far left screen spoke first. "Did anyone get suspected?"
"We drove by the band hall to try and check one of the broken cords outside of their, but we couldn't because the girl was standing there along with others. We were able to get away easily but she spotted our car. Don't think she thinks anything of it though." His collegue replied first. The man nodded his head and then the one on the screen in front of him said, "Ours seemed comepletly oblivious to the fact that someone is watching her. We are fine here."
After a slight silence the one on the right answers. "We seemed to have been given false leads as to our girl. We couldn't find her inside the school as well as the neighborhood. One girl seemed to be ancy about us watching her though. I suspect that she might know something."
"Good. Follow the lead. Remember, you will only go in when we need to get further information." The man on the left screen said before clicking out like the rest. Things were dim for a minute and all that was heard as a small crack and crunch as the man on the couch ate his chocolate.