Jack

The North Pole was busy year-round with Yetis building and painting toys and elves running amok and leaving havoc in their wake. Prototypes of new toys the likes of which the world has never seen drifted through the air and around the giant globe in the center, making flight through the workshop nearly impossible. I had never actually visited here anywhere near Christmas time, though, and I made myself a mental not to never do so ever again.

A runaway toy jet nearly collided into me the second that I dove through the hatch in the ceiling, an elf clinging onto its wings for dear life. The rest of my visit didn't seem to go better from that point on. It was absolute chaos in the Pole. The Yetis ran about everywhere, loading and preparing the sleigh for its big Christmas Eve flight and working frantically to fulfill any last-minute Christmas wishes. Even a few elves were actually lending a hand, carrying massive stacks of letters from children from all over the world back and forth but crashing into each other more often then not, creating a cacophony of clashing bells. I easily found the vast Nicholas St. North amidst the confusion, barking orders to just about anyone who passed by in an attempt to get everything under control. I flew up to him as he grew quiet for just a brief moment, rubbing his forehead from the stress of it all.

"Rough day?" I inquired. He flinched slightly at the sound of my voice, probably grating on his headache, but smiled, nonetheless.

"Jack!" he greeted loudly, clapping me almost painfully on the back. "Is not really good time right now. Why do you visit so close to Christmas? I've got a lot of work to do." He shouted something at a passing Yeti before I could answer, and I waited patiently, knowing that his own patience had to be wearing thin.

"It's about Pitch," I told him, once I had gained half of his attention back. He only groaned at this unwelcome news, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Let us step into my office." He forced his way through the current of elves and Yetis until we came to a wooden door as massive as he was that he slammed shut behind us. Contrasting greatly with the hustle and bustle of the rest of the Pole, North's personal workshop was cool, quiet, and serene. Ice crawled over the walls, originating from a large, frosted window at the end of the room. Toys, cookies, and other Christmas-related knick-knacks littered the numerous shelves, and a wooden workbench stood in the room's center, equipped with small, precise tools to be used for just about any job. North practically collapsed into the chair beside it, gnawing on a sugar cookie and looking absolutely exhausted. "Now, what is this about Pitch?"

"I thought I saw him not too long ago. His shadow, at least."

"Well, Jack, you know that we cannot be rid of him forever. Like us, he has been given a purpose here, and though we work to keep his actions in check, we cannot really stop him from doing them entirely," he explained.

"I realize that, but it was where I saw him that concerned me most."

"Please, go on. Oh, where are my manners? Cookie?" He took a silver platter from a tottering elf behind him and offered it to me. I shook my head no, so he shrugged and set the plate down on the workbench, grabbing yet another cookie as he did. I went on to tell him all about the situation back at the Bennett house.

"Okay, so I was waiting outside Jamie's cousin's bedroom window, but when I looked inside, she wasn't-"

"Wait a second," North interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "What were you doing outside a girl's window?"

I face-palmed and probably would have blushed if that wasn't something that I was physically incapable of doing. Did we really need to discuss this? "No, it wasn't like that!" I insisted, which only succeeded in making North more suspicious, so I rolled my eyes and had to explain further. "Jamie's cousin Darian is visiting for the holidays, and Jamie wants to get her to believe in me, so he told her to leave her window unlocked and that I would make it snow in her room, but as I was saying before, she wasn't there!"

The look of suspicion and confusion finally passed from North's face, and he gestured for me to continue.

"I was looking into her window to see why it had gone dark, but I saw a shadow pass by and disappear. I could have sworn it was Pitch. I get that creating nightmares and mayhem is pretty much his 'purpose' and all, but I'm just worried that he appeared inside of Jamie's house, of all places. That's why I came straight here after telling him to go find Darian to see if she's really okay."

North nodded thoughtfully, swallowing maybe his fifth cookie since we entered his workshop. "I can see how you would be concerned. And you're sure that this 'Darian' isn't associated with Pitch in any way?"

"You have the Naughty and Nice lists. You tell me."

"Just one of many possibilities."

"I know. Darian's uptight and all, but I really don't think that she's working with Pitch."

"If you say so."

"So what do I need to do?"

North shook his head and clapped a reassuring hand on my shoulder, which may have had the unfortunate side-effect of bruising me for a solid week. "Jack, I know you are worried. Jamie is very close to you." I nodded along with his statement, still wincing. "But I simply cannot call meeting over this one thing, especially not this time of year. If it bothers you so much, all I can say is that you better keep an eye on things down there. Make sure nothing gets worse."

"Okay. I get it."

"If something really does happen, then come back, and I will call Guardians." A Yeti burst through the door at that exact moment, shouting to North in some frantic gibberish that I was still working on understanding. Judging from North's reaction to whatever was being said, it wasn't good.

"What? Really? Again?" North rose to exit the office. "I am sorry I cannot speak longer, Jack. Go. You know the way out."

I smiled, saluting with my staff and flew out of the office after him, the door magically slamming shut behind us. I didn't leave immediately, though, pausing on the walkway railing to watch as more craziness unfolded throughout the workshop. Some elves glared warily at me as they passed, but other than a jaunty wave, I didn't bother them, knowing that North probably would need all the help he could get to solve whatever fiasco was going on a few levels below. (I heard some words in Russian yelled angrily below that probably weren't to be said in front of children.) I laughed, letting the sound ring above the shouting. I made a mental note to come back after Christmas to freeze a few elves to make up for the ones I had generously let by and flew out. I think I dodged that same elf on a jet plane on my way.

It was well past sunrise when I finally reached Burgess again, my flight slowed as I ran through what North had said in my mind. I flew to Darian's window first, but she was still nowhere to be seen. At this hour, though, that could mean nothing, so I ran across the roof to Jamie's room, which was also silent and empty. I pushed through his unlocked window, leaving it open behind me just because I knew that it bugged him sometimes, and I drifted down the stairs to see if he was anywhere inside the house, not that he was really able to talk to me with any adults around. The kid was perfectly willing to act casually around me even when others nearby couldn't see me, wanting to gain as many believers as possible, but at times, we both agreed that getting him sent to an insane asylum for hearing voices would be a little counterproductive in our quest. The only inhabitants I found in the house were Sophie and her mother in the kitchen preparing to make some Christmas cookies. I quietly slipped out without disturbing them, knowing that if Sophie noticed me, she would come squealing happily, probably bothering her mother quite a bit with the only explanation for her behavior being that she glimpsed her imaginary friend Jack.

I retreated from the house, remembering to leave the window open to be a nuisance, and looked across the street, where sure enough, I found Jamie. He and his friends played in the empty lot where snow was able to gather undisturbed by rogue toys or fences or trashcans. I noticed one extra playmate in a far corner of the lot, rolling up the midsection of a little snowman. It was Darian, her bright red coat standing out against the gleaming snow around her. Thankfully, she seemed relatively unharmed, other than how she stumbled along through the powder. I attributed that to the fact that she was still not very used to being out in all of this snow, but just to be sure, I flew over there, bringing a halt to a sled race that had been going down a small incline.

"Jack! You made it!" Jamie cried happily, leaping from his sled and helping Pippa up as well. They, along with Cupcake, Monty, Claude, and Caleb, gathered around me as I landed. One was missing. I climbed atop my staff to look over all of their heads - they had all grown unbelievably tall in the past two years - and found Darian, red coat and all, still kneeling by her half-finished snowman. She had glanced up when she had heard their enthusiasm, but at most, she looked weirded out by all of it, not understanding a reason for it. She glanced around for a source, seeing past me and through me but not seeing me, before returning to her work. She still didn't believe, not that it should have been much of a surprise at this point. I frowned and peered at Jamie quizzically, wondering about last night.

"She really is fine," he assured me, answering my silent question. "She just couldn't sleep is all, so she went downstairs. I found her, ad we stayed up most of the night watching Christmas movies." His sentence was punctuated by a gaping yawn, drawing out a few giggles from the other kids. His friends didn't seem at all confused by his statement, meaning that he had already briefed them on the events of the night. "By the way, you can always let me know if you suspect Pitch. I'm not afraid of him," he scolded. The others joined in with choruses of 'me neither.'

"Yeah, yeah," I said flippantly, not quite sure whether or not I should apologize for that. It had been a tad presumptuous on my part, but Jamie understood. I hopped off of my staff and back into their midst, kneeling down to take a large lump of snow in my hands. "Now, how about a good, old-fashioned snowball fight to liven things up around here?" The kids cheered in delight and scattered all different directions to avoid the snowball I had been forming.

"Everyone against Jack!" someone squealed, but I couldn't tell who. The had all hidden behind makeshift forts. The twins dove behind the high snowdrift they had been sledding down earlier, Pippa was slender enough to use a nearby tree for cover, and Jamie was holding up his sled for a shield. Cupcake just didn't care and stood challengingly out in the open, and Monty had fallen face-first into the snow while scrambling for protection. I didn't even get a chance to remark on the unfair odds before I was pelted from all sides. I batted several snowballs away with my staff, but I really had to hand it to these kids. Their aim was getting a lot better.

"You guys are going to lose this fight!" I laughed, dishing out snowballs almost as fast as all of them combined. (Magic wasn't considered cheating, was it? Who cares?) Monty was hit in the back of the head, causing him to fall forward once again. A snowball hit Jamie so hard that even with his sled to protect him from the blow, he was knocked onto his back. I got in a good shot to Pippa's face at one point, causing her to cough and sputter, but it was all in good fun. Their cheers and laughter rang through the air, and eventually, what few rules were set were abandoned, and it became a snowy free-for-all.

All except one.

Darian avoided the fun and continued to work on her slightly lopsided snowman, alienated partly due to the fact that she couldn't completely understand all that was happening without being able to see me. She carefully dodged any projectiles that wandered her way and was currently carving a crude face into the head of her snowman, her usually deft fingers made clumsy by the thick gloves that she wasn't quite used to wearing. She appeared to be frowning (so did her snowman) and almost seemed to scoff at the snowball fight whenever she glanced up from her work.

I rolled my eyes at her odd behavior. Really? How uptight could you get? She needed a little bit of fun, and as the Guardian of fun, it was my duty to give it to her, whether she thought she wanted it or not. I knelt down again, gathering up as much snow that would fit in both hands, and packed it into a large, dense sphere. After adding a bit of my magic (the final step in the perfect snowball), it left my hands and flew through the air in a graceful arc, aimed directly at the back of her head. It hit its mark, like I knew it would, and the impact sent her face-first into a pile of snow. (She had already been kneeling to concentrate on her diminutive snowman, so it wasn't really a long fall.)

There were some cheers and laughs at what I had done, but they quieted down to concerned murmurs when we all realized that she wasn't giggling with us, and she hadn't picked herself up yet. "Um, Darian?" Jamie called worriedly to his cousin. She shifted. At least she wasn't dead.

Darian

I wanted to die. Or cry. But neither was exactly acceptable in my situation, so I managed to refrain from both.

My head hurt. It wasn't exactly the snowball's fault, nor was it the person's who had thrown it, but it certainly hadn't helped matters. There were quite a few major downsides to staying awake all night, and perhaps my least favorite on that long, long list were probably the headaches that came in the mornings. (Well, that and death.) It felt like thousands of knives were being hammered into my brain every second that I kept my eyes open. If anything, the bitter, biting cold only seemed to sharpen those blades.

In all honesty, though, I wasn't truly mad at whoever had thrown the snowball at me. It was all in good fun, and I was fair game, sitting out in the open like that. I really had been asking for it, even though I thought that I had made it abundantly clear that I didn't want to be bothered and left to my snowman. It was almost funny if I thought about it, but the pounding in my skull kept me from laughing, and the ever-watchful eyes of others kept me from crying. "Um, Darian?" called Jamie from somewhere behind me, his voice muffled by the snow that my head was buried in. I groaned quietly to myself, not loud enough to be heard by anyone else, and dragged myself out of the whiteness.

As I cleared my vision, spitting snow and shaking it from my face (my gloves were too coated with the substance to be of any use in wiping it off), I saw Jamie's relieved smile. I tried to return it and assure him that everything was alright, but for whatever reason, I seemed only able to scowl. My headache decided at that moment to throb so painfully that I gasped and nearly fell backwards from the dizziness it left me with. I pinched the bridge of my nose with thick, uncomfortable gloves, shaking my head and squinting my eyes shut, wishing with all of my might that the shooting pain would go away. "I'm going back inside," I muttered, hauling myself to my unsteady feet.

Nobody questioned me as I trudged away. (Thank goodness! Any sound right then felt as if I were being stabbed.) A hop, skip, and a jump across the street later, I was back inside Jamie's house, my numb face suddenly assaulted by a wave of warm air emanating from the fireplace in the den. I shed my coat and every other layer underneath that until I was left in a long-sleeved t-shirt, sweats, and socks that I had managed to keep dry out in this winter weather. My mother had once taught me a trick of wrapping plastic bags around my feet inside of my boots to keep any snow out.

I collapsed onto the couch, closing my eyes and allowing the sharp pain to subside into nothing but a dull ache. I must have fallen asleep sometime after that because the next thing I knew, Abby was nosing me awake. The headache had mostly vanished by then, and all of my frozen extremities had warmed to their proper temperature. I scratched the dog behind the ears and checked the clock. Thirty minutes had passed since I entered the house.

I became aware of an intoxicatingly sweet scent wafting my way, and dreamlike, I followed my nose into the kitchen, where a flour-coated Sophie and my aunt were removing a fresh batch of sugar cookies from the oven. My aunt noticed me and beckoned for me to join them. "How are you liking all of this snow?" she asked, setting the burning hot pan on the counter to cool.

I smiled and shrugged, eyeing the cookies hungrily, mouth watering. Breakfast suddenly seemed ages ago. "It's a lot of fun, but the cold is going to take some getting used to."

"You better keep bundling up. We don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose."

I had to stifle a giggle, remembering all that Jamie had told me. "I wouldn't worry about that."

Sophie seemed to catch onto our conversation suddenly, and she brought her attention away from the precious sweets for just a moment to speak with me. "Do you believe in Jack yet?" she inquired, staring up at me expectantly with her one green eye that wasn't concealed behind her wily blonde hair.

I bit my lip, unsure of how to respond. On the one hand, I didn't want to disappoint her. I really had grown fond of my youngest cousin during my stay. On the other hand, I couldn't truthfully say that I did and wondered if she, like Jamie, somehow knew if I was lying about being able to see their shared imaginary friend. Luckily, my aunt saved me from my awkward situation.

"Would you like to help us frost the cookies?" she interjected, gesturing to an already cooled tray of confections set on the stovetop. I nodded enthusiastically, always willing to lend a hand.

Sophie had already mixed the frosting earlier. All that was left was for us to fill the bags, which I had never done before. I realized too late that the metal tip went into the bag first, and I spent several minutes after that epiphany scooping and squeezing globs of the sweet substance back into the bowl to start over. By the time I had fixed my mistake, hoping that no one had really noticed, my hands were sticky with frosting, and Sophie and my aunt had already finished over half of the pan. I joined them quickly, absentmindedly brushing a rogue strand of hair from my face while I worked.

We finished our task and paused to admire our work. Mine were definitely not the best looking of the bunch. I wasn't used to using frosting as an artistic medium. Paint or pencil? Sure. But snow or frosting? My handiwork seemed sloppy at best.

Sophie looked up at me while we rested, the other tray still too hot to pile any frosting on without it melting right off, and chuckled. I remembered that when I had pushed the hair out of my face that my hands had been covered with frosting, and sure enough, a white streak dashed across my forehead. Despite my ever-present exhaustion, I joined in on her laughter. I really did look funny, and now that the headache had died down considerably, I felt a little more free. Besides, she was six. What harm could a little cutting loose around her possibly do?

"Do I have something on my face?" I asked dumbly, causing her to snicker louder.

"You're silly!" she snorted.

I dipped my finger into the frosting bowl and ran it across her cheek playfully. Now we both looked funny. "So are you!" I replied. We both burst into a fit of giggles. I thought Sophie was about to fall over laughing - how much sugar had she consumed that morning? - and maybe I looked just about the same way.

"Do you want to come play with me in my room?" she asked, taking my hand. "Mommy won't let me have a snowball fight with the big kids." That was understandable. I had feared for my life back on dodge-ball days in middle school. Teenagers didn't hold back, and some had very, very good arms. I remembered the hard impact of the snowball from earlier and could almost still feel its sting.

"Sure," I agreed, allowing her to drag me up the stairs. Why the heck not? No one was around.

As we ran past Jamie's open door, I felt an unexpected chilly breeze wash over me, and a yanked Sophie to a halt to investigate. I rolled my eyes and scoffed. His window had been left wide open, allowing snowflakes to drift in and soak the floor. I hurried over and closed it, keeping my hands against the cool glass as I considered locking it, as well. In the end, I didn't, knowing that it would inevitably get me into unwanted trouble with my cousin who so fervently believed that his friend came through the window. I took my hands away, observing how the frost quickly grew to conceal the handprints I had embedded into it. With a brief sigh, I continued following Sophie down the hall.

Jack

I watched, crestfallen, as Darian strode away and disappeared behind Jamie's picket fence. That had been very odd. I couldn't remember the last time that I hadn't gotten anyone to have fun. I turned to Jamie, who looked just as confused and unsettled by the event as I was, if not even more so. "Maybe some people just can't believe?" I wondered, breaking the stifling silence that had settled over all of us.

"No. I just know that we can get her to see you," he insisted, determined. "She's still full of hope, wonder, and fun, I think, even if she just hides it very well sometimes. You said it yourself: people don't really change. The same old Darian just has to be in there somewhere."

"I would be lying if I said that I had never been wrong before," I said, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"Honestly, I think she's just tired. I told you we stayed up all night. I don't know how she handles that all the time. I feel crummy enough after just last night." He rubbed his forehead to prove his point.

"Wait, what?"

"She told me that she's a bit of an insomniac. Apparently, she doesn't really sleep well that often," he explained.

"Why is that?" I questioned. Alarm bells went off in my head as I recalled the shadow in her room. Did it have anything to do with him?

Jamie shrugged in response. "She never really elaborated on that. Come to think of it, she never really explained much about herself at all. I'm telling you what little I can infer from our conversation. Hey, you don't think-?"

"Want to get back to our snowball fight?" I interrupted, not willing to venture into a conversation about Pitch just yet. If North thought it was nothing, maybe it really was.

"Jack!" he whined, and his protest was rewarded by me with a snowball in the face. He only sputtered and laughed, of course, deciding to leave the discussion at that for now. The fun picked back up for an hour or so, during which we sledded down the street and spent a short moment fixing up Darian's snowman, which was already falling apart. Before too long, though, all of our friends were called back home for lunch by their parents and were gone after a few apologetic goodbyes and promises to come back later. When the lot had emptied save for me and Jamie, he gathered up his sled, and we both departed for his house.

I came in through the front door with Jamie, knowing that nobody would really mind. As we entered, the most mouth-watering scent washed over us, and we followed it to its source: the kitchen. Two large trays of sugar cookies sat out on the counter, tempting enough to make me regret not accepting North's offer. Jamie's mother was icing one batch, keeping her back turned to the other. Jamie smile mischievously and snuck over to the already frosted pan, but had only just reached up to snatch a cookie when his mother whirled around and slapped him lightly on the wrist. She wagged a scolding finger at him while he nursed nothing but his twelve-year-old pride. "It's almost lunchtime. Go wash up," she ordered.

Jamie heaved an exaggerated sigh, and we left the kitchen. The thought crossed my mind that I could grab us cookies, and she would never even notice, but I refrained from doing so, knowing that it would only get Jamie into trouble. He went into his room, tossing his extra layers haphazardly on the floor. I noticed that someone had closed the windows before we had come back, but Jamie still noticed the puddle left on the floor from melted snow and raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged and smiled before a chorus of squeals and giggles caught my attention. While Jamie struggled with his boots, I wandered down the hall to Sophie's room.

I peered through her partially opened door, and my jaw dropped the floor at what I saw. "Jamie!" I whispered, careful not to alert the one occupant of the room who could at any moment become aware of my presence. I didn't want to disrupt this confusing scene. Jamie tip-toed to my side after I motioned for him to be quiet. His eyes widened when he took in the sight.

Sophie's room was painted a fluorescent princess pink with a canopy bed on one end of the room and a giant, lavishly decorated doll-house on the other. Next to it was a tiny table decked with an elaborate mock tea-set. Sophie sat at the table, face smeared with frosting and wearing a tutu, fairy wings, and tiara. That was nothing out of the ordinary. What puzzled both of us was her tea-party guest, who also wore a frilly costume and pretended to drink tea from a doll-sized cup while sitting at a table that didn't even reach her knees, however petite she was for her age. The sight was so ridiculous that I nearly laughed, but I was too shocked by it to make a sound. I really wished I had a camera.

Jamie and I backed away from the door and leaned against the wall in disbelief. "Darian?" we both wondered quietly out loud. As much as Jamie had vouched for her, it seemed that even he hadn't expected her to have such a childish side. A side that genuinely laughed and had a grin that reached her sparkling blue eyes. As for me, I was dumbfounded, not knowing how she was before. To me, she seemed like a totally different person from the stick-in-the-mud outside.

"Okay, maybe she has a chance," I told Jamie, nodding thoughtfully while processing this new information.

"Let's try again tonight."

"Let's."

Darian

The day went by just about uneventfully, though I did notice Jamie silently staring at me during meals. Had my leaving disrupted his fun that badly? The thought had caused me to shrink back in my chair and blush apologetically, at which point Jamie appeared to remember how rude it was to stare and returned to chewing his meatloaf while I pushed half-eaten food around my plate.

A long sweatshirt and shorts served as my pajamas for the evening, and after brushing my teeth and hair (it was excessively wavy after being in that braid for so long), I returned to my room for the first time that day, rushing to the lamp to rid it of any darkness. I continued my usual nighttime routine by wandering over to the window and opening the curtains to look out at all of the freshly falling snow. The clouds mostly covered the moon that night, but a sliver of its cold light escaped and seemed to shine directly on my window.

I was about to close the curtains back when I noticed the latch on the window. It was an ordinary latch, nothing special about it, but I distinctly remembered Jamie making it a point to mention Jack Frost before heading off to bead. I carelessly flicked it to the unlocked position. Why the heck not? I was on the second floor, and any ivy that intruders could have climbed up had long ago withered and died. Even if I didn't believe in his imaginary friend, what was the worst that could happen?

I said my nightly prayers and climbed into bed, but I didn't close my eyes. As always, I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, but I didn't want to keep Jamie up again, so I restricted myself to the limits of my own room. There were a few old books inside of the nightstand that the lamp stood on, and I dug one of them out to read. After blowing the dust off of the worn cover, I saw that I had selected Peter Pan. I shrugged and opened it. I remembered reading Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland books once, but I didn't think that I had actually read this one before.

Later that night, I had made it halfway through the story when a loud bang jolted me out of the book's world. I slammed the book shut angrily when I saw that a strong gust of wind had blown my window open, and flurries of snow were flying in and filling the room. Setting the book gently aside, I slipped out from under the covers, shivering as the snowflakes brushed against my mostly bare legs. I rolled my sore neck around after leaning against the headboard for so long - my pillows still remained in their makeshift fort at the foot of the bed - before moving to shut the window.

After batting away the wildly flapping curtains and fighting the wind, I managed to close and lock it. I scoffed then at Jamie's insistence that his imaginary friend was real. These windows had to be weak or something for the wind to blow them open like that once the latch was moved, and with the snow flying about like it had, there really was no wonder that he believed in his friend Jack Frost. I should have locked his window earlier when I had the chance. There really was no Jack Frost. I found myself frowning at that. Maybe a small, foolish, childish part of me had wanted to believe in that magic.

I drew the curtains and turned around, shivering again. Flakes still drifted about in my room, and despite my irritation at the whole event, I endeavored to catch one on my tongue. I succeeded after a minute or two, and upon opening my eyes, I saw that not only had the flakes not landed, they had increased in number, originating from some unknown point above me. "Okay, that's a little strange," I remarked as it continued snowing within my room, just as Jamie had predicted. My hair had turned white with the powder, and I was absolutely freezing, but my awe and wonder at the sight seemed to take the edge off.

A flake landed on my nose, and I laughed. It wasn't even snowing this hard outside! Had Jamie really been right? Jack Frost was real? "Jack Frost!" I exclaimed breathlessly, spinning and dancing around in the flurry. "It's Jack Frost!" It was too amazing for me to believe, but somehow, I did. I kept twirling until I came to a sudden, dizzy stop in the corner. A pair of icy blue eyes met mine, so alike my own in every shade that for a moment, my brain was confused by it all, and I could have sworn that I must have been looking in a mirror. What other explanation was there? That notion vanished as I blinked and saw that they were attached to the pale face of a boy that I didn't know.

It didn't register at first that this boy with snowy hair matched Jamie's description of Jack to a T, staff, blue hoodie and everything. All that really registered in that moment was that there was a strange boy in my room that I didn't know, so I reacted exactly like my dad had taught me to in this kind of situation.

I screamed and punched him in the face.

(I know. It's been forever since I last updated. In my defense, I was busy at Junior Theatre Festival [JTF] and came back from that with a sinus infection. Hopefully, this chapter makes up for the lateness. It's longer than all of the others with a whole lot of Jack! Please review while I go and mope over medicine and make-up work for school!)