"I can't believe you agreed to such a stupid bet," Sarah groaned as they lay sprawled across the floor of her dorm room, "you do realize that he will stop at nothing to win."

"Yeah, I know," Amelia sighed, now realizing the full extent of her mistake. How could she have been so stupid? Sarah stuffed a cheeto in her mouth and glared at her pointedly. "I mean, seriously, Ames, you should of just rolled over and said 'Take me!' because that's exactly what's going to happen."

Amelia crinkled her nose. "If he wins, which he won't."

Sarah scoffed. "Oh. Yes, he will."

Amelia was beginning to believe he would.

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Reid stared into the chlorinated pool for several minutes, trying to wrap his head around his thoughts.

"You okay, man?" Tyler asked, slapping him on the back, "You've been acting weird all day."

Several girls sashayed by seductively, cooing his name, yet he didn't answer.

"Okay, now you're scaring me," Tyler said in concern.

"Hey boys," someone called before sitting down. Reid finally looked up to see Nathan sitting next to the with a friendly smile on his face. "What are you doing here?" Reid asked bluntly. Nathan seemed unphased. "Came to see Amie."

"Who?" Reid and Tyler asked in unison.

Just then, the girls piled out of the locker rooms and Reid noticed Amelia chatting animatedly with a girl she had begun to hang out with regularly. He couldn't really remember her name, but he wanted to say Lucy. The girl spotted them staring and whispered to Amelia causing her to turn towards them and blush wildly. For a moment, Reid thought Amelia was blushing at him until Nathan got up and started towards her and her eyes followed him. Lucy batted her eyes seductively at Nathan and Amelia's smile faltered slightly.

"Well, looks like there's one girl in school who is immune to the charms of a certain Mr. Murdoch," snickered Tyler. Reid didn't answer, instead he walk to the pool's edge and jumped in and sat on the bottom of the pool, waiting. He could hear Tyler yelling faintly, but still he waited and closed his eyes. Then he felt arms surround him and fought hard to keep the smile from his face.

"I don't think he's breathing," Amelia said worriedly, before muttering, "Why do I always have to save your ass?"

He felt her prop his head back and pinch his nose. Reid felt her lips brush his and he instantly threw his arm around her, holding her against him as he kissed her roughly. Amelia lay crushed against him, frozen in shock and unsure of what to do. When he finally let go, he put both hands behind his head and smiled devilishly. "Geeze, Thorne, if you wanted to kiss me all you had to do was ask."

"Reid Garwin," she snapped incredulously, feeling her body begin to heat with what she could only imagine was complete mortification, "you are the most disgusting, arrogant, vile human being I have ever had the misfortune to have met. And I'm most certainly would not even dream of kissing you. Ever."

"If that's true," he said, his grin growing, "then why did you kiss me back?"

Amelia's cheeks began to turn scarlet, and she growled before turning on her heel.

The coach yelled after her, "Hey, Thorne, class isn't over!"

Amelia didn't bother to turn around, but instead yelled over her shoulder before letting the locker room door slam behind her, "It is for me, so fuck off!"

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When Nathan didn't come to school the next day, Amelia assumed he was sick. A stomach virus had been making its rounds. He had even called her late that night to tell her wasn't feeling well and would probably not be going to class the nest day. A few minutes in to class, their Trigonometry professor, Mr. Travers, was given a note by a very upset office aide, who quickly darted out of class. As he read over the note carefully, his expression began to darken, and he finally looked up at the class.

"Students, it is my sad duty," he said, pausing to clear his throat as his voice cracked, "to announce with great sorrow, that Mr. Nathan Eldridge was killed in a car accident on his way to visit his parents after school yesterday-"

Amelia suddenly felt the walls close in around her and a roaring in her ears as Mr. Travers continued. "There will be a small memorial tomorrow and his funeral will be held……"

Amelia started straight forward at Mr. Travers, no longer hearing his words, and unaware of the sympathetic looks from her fellow classmates. Nate was dead. Nate was dead. The words raced through her mind, over and over.

"Ames," Sarah said, shaking her shoulder gently, "class is over."

Amelia looked around numbly. Caleb, Reid, Pogue, and Tyler stood in the doorway waiting for them, their expressions solemn. Amelia gathered her books mechanically and walked past them barely acknowledging them, her eyes fixed on some unknown point.

The only thing she was aware of was the whispering.

"That's her."

Nathan was dead.

"That's the girl Nathan was dating."

He wasn't coming back.

"She's the one."

Amelia walked straight out the front doors and into the pouring rain and she kept walking, trying hard to understand-trying to figure out why the people around her kept dying. She sat down under the large oak and stared down at her soggy books She wished that they held the answers to all her questions, that they held some explanation as to why there were so terrible things happening to her.

"Oh, Ames," Sarah cooed, sitting down beside her.

"I just don't understand," she said flatly as Sarah pulled her into her arms, "he was just fine when I talked to him last night."

"I know-"

"Wait," Caleb exclaimed, cutting Sarah off, "Last night?"

She nodded. "He was supposed to come over and watch a movie with me, but he called me a couple hours before hand to tell me he wasn't feeling good and he was going to go back to his room and that I shouldn't worry if he wasn't at school today."

"But Mia," Tyler said soothingly, "Nathan got into a wreck on his way back from school at five."

Tyler's words slowly began to register and she shook her head adamantly. "No, he called me at seven p.m."

"Amelia-"

She cut Caleb off, and held out her cell phone toward him, "and this will prove it."

"I was in the shower when he called the first time and left a message. So, I called him when I heard it to make sure he was okay."

"Ingoing from Nate and outgoing to Nate," Caleb said gravely. Reid snatched the phone from his hand and studied its small screen thoroughly.

"How is this possible?" he asked finally. Caleb shook his head. "I don't know."

Amelia was beginning to feel the world close in on her as if she were in the center of something unnatural.

She stood up quickly and backed away from the large group. Ever since I met you," she snapped, pointing a finger at Reid, "things, weird things have been happening! We get in a wreck and total your truck, yet the very next night your truck shows up perfectly intact at Nathan's house and-and-you watching me and-and-the wolf with the eyes and the-the-the phone call-"

Reid held up his hands, "Whoa, Amelia calm down."

"Calm down? Calm down?! How the fuck do you suppose I do that? Calm down!" she screamed. "I may be different, but nothing like this has ever happened to me, ever."

"Different?" Caleb asked in confusion, "different?"

"Look, she's just upset," Reid said, "she doesn't know what she's talking about."

"Oh, I do know what I'm talking about Reid Garwin," she yelled, "your parents never picked us up when we ran off the road. It was you…you- you did something. You can do things-"

"Amelia," Pogue warned, aware of how much attention they were attracting. Amelia's heart was racing and she was panting heavily. Her vision was blurring and she turned away from the group to look around them, try to understand why she felt so trapped, so faint. She could feel herself begin to fall and a pair of familiar yellow eyes sparkled out through the rain, watching her as she collapsed.