Chapter 1- Maddie
High School was never really my thing. There were too many students, mulling around the halls like cattle waiting to be slaughtered. There was too much noise—with the jocks yelling nonsense over the dozen of other voices, as though the world truly did need to know about how that was bogdacious mannnn. And then there were people like me, the students that kept their head down, did well in classes, and couldn't be bothered to be noticed by the minds of others.
But it soon became abundantly clear to me that things are conditional, and none of the rules I knew applied in the tiny, hole in the wall school that I had been forced to live out the rest of my senior year.
Keeping my head down, I tapped my pencil quietly against the desk in attempt to keep from making eye contact with any of my other peers. Seven months, three weeks, and seven days was all I had left. Seven Months, three weeks, and seven days before I jumped on the earliest flight with a one way ticket to the rest of my life.
"Maddie." And though her hushed, I winced at the sudden loudness in the near sudden classroom. But it had become abundantly clear to me after my first day that teachers had a different type of expectation here. In other words, there were none. "Are you going to the party tonight?"
A smile cracked on my lips, and I leaned back into my seat and differed from my extracurricular work. "Yes, I'm going to the party." I said sarcastically. My fingers tapped nervously on my worksheet, my mind raced with the equation I had been focused on.
"Oh my god! Really?" Emily's eyes lit up, and because of that excitement, I nearly gave in and agreed to actually go. But given that Emily had known me for over half a year, she should have known what my answer would be before it left my mouth.
"No…" The clock hit the hour, and the already packed-up students filed out of the room, desperate to get home at the end of the day. I, on the other hand, wasn't too anxious to get home. "I have to work, you know that." Even with the extra hours I was pulling, and the two scholarships I had managed to snag, I was going to be drowning in student loans before I graduated. In more ways than one it was my fault, given my choice in attending the MIT, but there was nowhere else I'd want to be.
She stood by my desk, twirling at her knee-length skirt. It hit my desk rhythmically swish swish swish swish, like the tail of a dog. "But I heard the new kids will be there, and they are so yummy. Come on Maddie." My lips thinned at the whine of my name.
I hauled my bag onto my shoulders. I hated letting her down, especially when she put so much work into being my friend. I wasn't blind, and I knew it wasn't always the easiest to hang around when I didn't put much work into the friendship. But friends came and went, and perhaps I knew that better than anyone.
"They aren't going to want people oogling at them." The Cullens. So far there'd only been one sighting, when the eldest and the father had come to enroll the brood, but the spies of Pine Grove had collected more than enough information. More information that I could remember, more information than I cared for. But Emily swore that her heart stopped when she gazed lovingly into his eyes—not that her word held much credit—because in Emily's mind, everyone was in love with her.
"Oh, they are fine." Emily waved them up, her heels clacking as she made a desperate attempt to keep up with me. Clack, clack clack clack clack, I grit my teeth against the sound, the pounding too loud. Too sharp.
I rolled my neck and hurried out the front of the building, my muscles already too stiff. I needed to run.
"What's it going to take for you to leave me—"
"Oh look!" Emily gasped, and I yelped as she gripped into my arm. "It's one of them!"
I managed to yank my arm from her talons, but she continued to gasp toward me until I turned my attention to the girl stepping out of a porche. She was tall, and impossibly gorgeous with long caramel hair that curled along her back. Her skin had that perfect flush that girls attempted by pasting blush onto their cheeks; but the worst of it was that she wasn't even trying in the jeans and oversized hoodie that draped her body.
And it was clear the hoodie belonged to the boy that followed her out. His huge body leaning over her as though shielding her from the non-existent dangers of the world. But one look at the body's russet skin, and at the way he looked at her, told me they were far from related.
"And they are brother and sister?" I asked, trying to keep up with the topic.
Emily laughed and waved me off, her body slightly hidden behind mine as though she were in danger of being undermined in their beauty. "No. Well, I don't actually know. Cousins, maybe. It's all very confusing."
"Huh." I started forward, headed toward the buses. But I was stopped short, attacked by the senses that flooded my mind. I swallowed thickly and turned slightly to look over my shoulder, and to where the two newcomers were disappearing into the school. And just like that, my defenses dropped, my brain fixated on their presence.
Lovely lovely lovely couple. Very lovely. Very lovely indeed.
I dug my fingers into my temples, pushing the voice from my presence. Instead, I focused on Emily's voice, her chatter endless and oblivious to my sudden discomfort. My sudden panic.
My muscles bunched, my fingers itching with the energy building beneath my skin. I itched at my arm, my skin already raw. I needed to get home. I needed to hide.
"I'm going to miss my bus." I said quickly, cutting Emily off short. And I didn't look to see her face as I pushed away, leaving both my only friend, and the ghosts, behind.
#
I learned from a very young age that monsters were real, but more importantly, that I shouldn't be. Or at least, it was incredibly important that those very same monsters never know of my existence, because they were a greedy species.
The sight had run in my family for centuries, skipping a generation every once and awhile. So between getting burned at the stake, and being thrown into insane asylums, the Brandon family had learned to keep their mouth shut.
I slowed my run into a walk, my hands instinctively finding their place against the back of my head as I caught my breath. My heart beat against my breast, mimicking the anxiety that was rising up inside me. I purposefully kept my gaze averted from the trees lining the forest, knowing full well that in a few paces there'd be a loop-death that had occurred long before the road had been paved. And on cue, a girlish scream cut through the air. I didn't wince, not even when she started choking on blood, not when it started over again. I was used to it.
My mother didn't understand why I was the way I was, mostly because I had inherited the sight from my father, but most days she was too preoccupied with my baby brother to notice me whispering to empty air.
And my father had always been careful to keep her hidden to this world, if only to make it easier for her to sleep at night. But between his tours, he'd pick up his family and relocate us to somewhere he had deemed safe—somewhere he had known I would be safe. But he was gone.
I picked up my run again, careful to look both ways before I darted across the road and into the forest's side path. The trees instantly swallowed me, the sun replaced by the coolness that the shade provided. The ground was uneven, but my feet found their sure mark.
I didn't know what the Cullens were, only that they weren't human. It had been obvious to me the moment the wind carried their presence to me, and how the ghosts fluttered around them. Spirits fed off energy, and whatever they were, they had a whole hell-of-a-lot.
If needed, I could convince my mother that I needed to leave the town. I could stage a breakdown. But with a heavy heart I knew I couldn't do that to her, not when she had just started her job at the hospital. I couldn't be that selfish. Seven Months, Three months, and seven days. All I had to do was keep myself hidden for that long, and then I'd be safe.
Without warning, I pitched forward as my foot caught onto an uplifted root. My breath caught, and I flung my arms out in attempt to regain my balance. I winced as I fell onto the rocky forest floor, and I knew by the sting that I had skinned my knee.
"You should really be more careful." Dean said from a tree. Moving so I was sitting, I narrowed my eyes at him. "Blood can be a funny thing, turns out you need it."
"Yeah, and you should stop annoying me." I grumbled. I rose to my feet and inspected the damage for a half a second before I started jogging again, but slower now. I knew that I needed to turn back soon, but the day's events had left me wound up.
"But what fun is that?" He said, jogging beside me as though the exercise would do his dead heart good.
I shook my head once more, not wanting to egg him on. Most ghosts came and went, but Dean was a regular, clinging onto me like an unwanted scab.
"I was exploring Egypt earlier, hoping to get some glimpse of king Tut or whatever. But the dude wasn't there. Honestly it was quite rude. If someone had built me a pyramid, I'd respect that hard work enough to stick around."
A laugh bubbled from my throat, disrupting my breathing pattern. And I coughed, my footsteps slowing once more. Leave it to Dean to make it impossible not to respond, but when I went to open my mouth, he was already popping out of sight.
"What the…" A twig snapped, and I stiffened, suddenly and acutely aware of something in the vicinity. I turned my head slightly, looking from the corner of my eye at the density of trees around me.
I took a step back, and then two. I needed to go home anyway. Maybe I was being ridiculous, and overly cautious, but I knew of the existence of monsters.
Spinning on my heel, I sprinted back the way I had come, no longer aware of the blood that was dripping from my knees.
