"You mind if I sit here?"
Warren looked up and saw Eris standing at the other side of the table.
"It's just that most of the other tables are already filled up and --"
He shook his head. "Eris, it's okay. Sit down."
Eris pulled up an unused chair and dropped her bag onto the table.
"So how was your night?"
Warren looked a bit surprised, like no one has ever asked him about his day before.
"My night?"
"Yeah. What did you do? For example, did you kick any bad guy butt, anything like that?"
Warren took a sip from his bottle of iced-tea and shook his head.
"Not really. I went to work and then came home, did some homework. Not much else."
She nodded and grabbed another golden-brown piece of something out of her lunch box with her chopsticks and popped it in to her mouth.
"What about you?"
"Same. Homework, chatting with my friend Miko at an unbearable hour of the night on MSN. Pretty boring."
"Why were talking to them so late at night?"
"Because she still lives in Japan and there's the whole time difference thing."
He nodded and pointed to the container in front of her.
"What've you got?"
"Leftovers. My uncle was too tired to cook yesterday, so he got us takeout from this really good Chinese restaurant."
'Do you know the name of the place?"
"Um, I'm pretty sure it's called the Paper Lantern. Why?"
"Oh, I work there."
Eris smiled. "Maybe I'll have to come stop by and see you sometime."
"Maybe."
Warren glanced at the clock on the wall behind Eris' head and then stood up.
"I've gotta go."
"Bye."
"Bye."
He picked his bag up off the table and then walked out of the cafeteria.
Eris smiled to herself and then concentrated on finishing her lunch.
"I hope you realize that what you're doing is kinda stupid."
She looked up and saw another girl sitting in the now-empty seat on the other side of the table.
"Excuse me?"
The girl waved her hand towards the door of the cafeteria. "This whole flirting with Warren thing. It's never going to work."
"I'm not."
"Not what?"
"Not flirting with him. And what does it matter to you anyways ?"
"It matters to me, because I'm his girlfriend."
Eris studied the strange girl sitting in front of her. Her skin was even paler than Eris' own almost lily-white shade and she had long, shiny white-blond hair that looked like it had been professionally styled that morning, perfectly white teeth and cornflower blue eyes. She was wearing a pale blue polo shirt with a strand of pearls around her neck. Two blue barrettes held her hair back out of her eyes, revealing flawlessly applied glittery eye-shadow.
Finally she spoke.
"I wasn't aware that Warren had a girlfriend."
"Well, he does and I don't like it when other girls flirt with him. So back off."
"I think that Warren's a big enough boy to make up his own mind about who he talks to. And besides, I heard that you dumped him."
"Well, you heard wrong."
Eris calmly took a sip of her drink. "Mm-hmm. So if I go ask Warren, he'll tell me you two are still dating?"
Sadie stiffened a bit, but then smiled. It would've have appeared to be a friendly smile, if her eyes hadn't hardened and begun to bore into Eris.
There was a long silence and Sadie still didn't respond.
"Well?"
She sat up straighter and flashed Eris another smile. "Yes. He'll tell you that we are still dating and very much in love."
"All right. Well, if you don't mind, I'll just go ask him then."
Eris collected her containers into her lunchbox and stood up. She picked up her bag and was about to walk away when Sadie stood up as well and grabbed her arm.
"Look," she snarled, her pretty face twisting into a hideous parody of itself. "You do not want to have me as your enemy. So leave him alone or things will get very bad for you."
Eris glared back at her. After a few tense seconds, Sadie yelped and pulled her hand back. There was a nasty looking welt on the palm and it was still smoking slightly.
"Word to the wise, Frost. It shouldn't be me that's worried about you. It should be you worrying about me. I may be training to be a superhero, but I am my mother's daughter and you really don't want to fuck with me. Got it?"
Sadie nodded slowly.
"Good."
Eris began to walk away, but Sadie yelled after her.
"This isn't over. You've just made your life a living hell."
If anyone had seen Eris' face at that moment, they would have been terrified and they probably would have every reason to be.
She smiled to herself and shook her head.