A knock at my door woke me up the next morning. The sun was beaming in through the window, brightening up the white in my room, momentarily blinding me. I glanced over at my alarm clock that read it was seven o'clock. Wow, three hours later than our usual wake up call to say we're heading out again. I groaned and was ready for Aunt Lauren or Tori to burst into my room, telling me we were leaving again but it never happened. Instead, Tori barged in and ripped my comforter off.

"Get up, girl," she demanded. "I'm helping you pick an outfit for today."

I sat up and watched as Tori rummaged through my closet that was mostly black clothes, which I oddly didn't seem to mind. She pulled a black button-up out of the closet, walked over to my dresser and threw a pair of dark blue skinny jeans at me.

"Wear your Converse with that." And with that, she disappeared into the hall, closing the door behind her.

What. The. Hell. Tori never offered to help me before and now she was picking out clothes for me? Was she okay?

I climbed out of bed and put on the clothes laid out for me. I looked in the mirror and decided that there was no sense in arguing with the choice. Although I did look good, black wouldn't always be my choice of color for clothing. Or would it? I decided to use some of the make-up left for me. I applied some black eyeliner and some mascara before brushing through my hair, ultimately going with what I had.

I walked downstairs and found Aunt Lauren and Tori at the island eating breakfast. I took one look at the food and wanted to throw up, but I continued my way downstairs and sat with them. Tori continued eating and Aunt Lauren watched me with concern. I offered her a small smile.

"I'm never good on the first day," I said.

She smiled because she already knew this. She sipped her coffee and read through the paper for a minute before remembering to hand me a new backpack. It was a simple white Jansport bag, which I thanked her for. When she went back to reading, all I wanted to do was blow up about how these two were acting so damn calm about this whole thing. Does it not worry them that the Cabals could show up at any moment catch us? How do we know that we can trust the person who gave us all of this? How can Kit be sure that this isn't a set up by the Edison Group or something?

Someone tell me that I am not overreacting! I shouted at Tori and Aunt Lauren in my mind. Of course they weren't going to answer me since they didn't read minds. But I needed someone to tell me the truth. Were we safe?

...

Kit handed us all lunch money before we climbed out of the van, watching as the only adults we trusted drove away to their own first day at work. My heart ached as I watched the van disappear around the corner. A hand rubbed my back and I turned to see Derek standing there watching me carefully. His touch was light on my back as if he applied too much pressure I would shatter.

"I'm okay," I said.

We walked into the school and separated to find our lockers. Luckily, mine was closer to Simon's that I could see him down the hall. He looked over as if sensing me looking and waved at me. I lazily waved back before looking at my schedule to find my first class. I looked around at the room numbers above a doors before I decided to shyly stop a friendly looking blonde girl.

"Excuse me," I said.

"Yes?" She smiled at me.

"Um, I'm new here and I was wondering if you could help me find room 245?"

Her smile got bigger. "I'm headed there now. You can follow me."

On my way to my first science class, I learned a little about the girl I stopped in the hallway. Her name was Ashley, she was a straight-A student with a dream to go to Berkeley to study business. She was in the tenth grade like me and she seemed all too happy to get to know me. It took me a minute to remember my fake name, Chloe Davis.

"How did you end up in Ivoryton?" she asked.

I gulped. "M-Mine and my friend's homes burned down in a big fire in our last town."

"So you all moved here together?"

I nodded. "We're all really close."

She smiled at that. "That's good. We all need good people in our lives."

I don't know about you, but having genetically modified supernaturals as good people would count for much since we still barely knew ourselves to consider ourselves "good."

We arrived at room 245 and I was about to find a seat when she insisted on me sitting with her. I felt a sort of friendly vibe pulsing back and forth between us, but I didn't want to get too attached. Right now I had two women in my life and I'm sure that's all I needed right now. I sat down and watched as our teacher walked into the room.

"Good morning, everyone," Mrs. Williows said. Everyone returned it quietly. "Right, well let me start by welcoming a new student of ours." She looked down at her attendance. "Chloe Davis?"

I was shaking with humiliation, wishing my other teachers weren't planning on doing this later. I slowly raised my hand and noticed everyone turning their heads to look at me. When I saw the teacher catch me, I immediately dropped my hand and slouched down.

"Alright," she said beginning her attendance.

...

I walked to my locker after history ended for lunch. I dropped my new history text book inside and shut the door.

"Hey," a voice startled me. "Wow, you're jumpy."

I said nothing. I looked up to see a boy about Derek's height with a pale round face, short dark hair and brown eyes. I'm not going to lie that he was good looking, but I wasn't going to imagine anything beyond that.

"Sorry," I said.

He smiled. "It's cool. I'm Nolan." He offered me his hand and I shook it. "Are you headed to the cafe?" I nodded. "Cool, I'll come with you."

Nolan followed me to the cafeteria where I found Derek, Simon and Tori sitting together at a table in the middle of the room. I made my way over, completely forgetting about Nolan and was greeted by a low growl from Derek who was glaring behind me. I turned to see Nolan right behind me, glancing at everyone. His eye caught Derek and his harmless demeanor faltered. His appearance suddenly became territorial and animalistic. What the -

"Um, I'll catch you later," Nolan said to me before disappearing into the crowd.