Stephen pulled his car into the driveway, grabbed his phone and laptop, and headed inside. He stopped at the door of his new house, put his hand on the doorknob, and waited for a minute before turning to go inside. He hoped that everyone had had a good day. He worried about his family with everything that had happened recently and them having to pick up and leave. Nevertheless, the scars of Zzyzx were just too much to bear, and he was not sure that they were through with that nefarious corporation.

He opened the door and came in he heard a commotion in the kitchen. He looked in the hall mirror that was positioned in such a way that if you stood at a certain angle at the front door, you could see into the kitchen. He could see his wife and Amanda preparing the meal. Amanda enjoyed cooking. He could hear Josh talking but could not see him. A sense of joy filled his heart; he loved moments like this with his family. Walking into the kitchen, he saw Nicole stirring something on the stove. Josh was setting the table and Amanda was preparing the salad.

"Well, something smells delicious," he said as he moved towards Nicole.

"Hi dad," said Josh.

"Hi honey," said Nicole turning from the stove and giving him a kiss. He kissed and hugged her back. "Welcome home."

"Hi. Mr. Trager," said Amanda a slight blush on her face. She was not yet comfortable with people showing so many affections towards one another openly.

"Josh can you get the others and let them know dinner will be ready in ten minutes?' asked Nicole.

"DINNER'S READY IN TEN MINUTES!" yelled Josh.

"Josh!" snapped Nicole.

"What?"

"We don't yell in the house," said Stephen.

"Oh, ok. We do now," said Josh walking out of the kitchen.

Nicole just looked at Stephen and shook her head. Stephen smiled back at her.

"So, dinner does smell great. What are we having?" asked Stephen.

"Amanda found a recipe online for a chicken-spinach dish with jasmine rice and baby carrots," said Nicole.

"Sounds scrumptious," said Declan coming in with a basketball under his arm. Kyle coming in behind him. Both drenched from head to toe in sweat from playing basketball outside.

"Ugghh..." said Nicole and Amanda at the same time, both wrinkling their noses.

"Go get cleaned up before dinner," said Nicole.

Declan and Kyle looked at each other turned their faces towards their armpits and sniffed. Looked at each other. Smiled and headed towards the bathroom.

"Why do guys do that?" asked Amanda.

"Do what?" said Stephen picking out a cherry tomato from the salad bowl and eating it.

"When you tell them that they stink," said Amanda. "They smell themselves, and then act like they don't smell anything."

"Well, as men we don't smell our own stench," said Stephen. "For if we could, we would not be able to be around ourselves either."

Amanda just looked at him, smile, and shook her head. "Men," she mumbled under breath.

"This smells great," said Lori coming into the kitchen with Jessi right behind.

"Thanks, said Amanda putting the salad bowl on the table.

The girls fell into a rhythm in the kitchen, talking about nothing important as Lori buttered some pieces of bread and placing them on a sheet pan. She added a light sprinkling of garlic salt before she put them in the oven. Jessi helped Josh finish setting the table. Amanda finished the salad and Nicole made sure all the food completely cooked and not burnt. Once the bread was a nice golden-brown Nicole removed it from the oven and placed the slices in the breadbasket and set it on the large table in the dining room. The others placed the rest of the food on the table as well.

Declan and Kyle came back into the kitchen each wearing a different shirt, smelling of soap, and took their seats at the table. Kyle sat in the middle on one side Amanda and Declan beside him. Josh was in the middle of Lori and Jessi on the other side. Stephen and Nicole were on the ends.

"So how was everyone's first day at school?" asked Stephen taking a piece of bread and passing the basket to Amanda.

"There are so many fine women that go to that school," said Josh reaching for the chicken putting two pieces on his plate. He passed the plate to Lori.

"Hungry much?" she said taking one piece and passing the plate along to Stephen.

"There was this one blonde chick. She was a certifiable 20 on a 10-point scale. She was the total package, her looks, her body, the way she moved. Dad she was... I don't know if I can describe her adequately." said Josh stuffing chicken into his mouth and a dreamy look in his eyes.

"Well, the look on your face tells me all I need to know," said Stephen with a smirk on his face. He remembered what it was like to be a young man and seeing a beautiful woman.

"You must mean Rosalie Cullen," said Lori. "She is in my English class with me."

"I don't know her name. But would love to know her better," said Josh. "Do you think that you can introduce me?"

"Sure, and every other guy in high school," said Lori.

"Is she one of the ones with the lower body temperature?" ask Jessi putting salad dressing on her salad.

"Yes," said Kyle.

"What do you mean lower temperature?" asked Nicole.

"When I at looked her and her companions. I noticed something not right with them. So, I looked them in the infra-red zone and noticed that some of the had temperature that was significantly lower than baseline. While two had a temperature that was hot enough for them to have a very high fever. " said Jessi.

"Do you have X-ray vision also?" asked Josh excitedly, he kept a record of any unusual thing that Kyle or Jessi did.

Jessi just looked at him as if she were pondering something in her mind.

"Mom, Dad. I know that you want us to blend in and all, so... I have a question for you. There is this...um... party tomorrow," said Lori trying to stop Josh from monopolizing the conversation about Kyle and Jessi's abilities.

"What party?" asked Stephen.

"Everyone is going," said Josh forgetting about Jessi's x-ray vision.

"What type of party? asked Stephen with a little bit more bass in his voice.

"I met some new friends at school today and Caroline Forbes, our cousin, said that everyone normally goes to the preserve and has a big party to celebrate the end of summer," said Lori.

"I was invited also," said Kyle.

"Me too," said Declan smiling, but quickly lowered his head when Stephen gave him the dad look.

"I heard some of the teachers talk about this party," said Nicole. "They were not too fond of it. Saying that alcohol and drugs have been there in the past and probably will be this time as well."

"We could get those at school if we wanted them," stated Josh. Everyone just looked at him intensely for a minute. "I'm not saying I want any of those things, but, if I did, they are in the school already. Dad, we are not into any of those things."

"Yeah, if we wanted to do drugs, we could ask boy or girl wonder here to make us up some really good stuff," said Lori eating some of her salad.

"What is really good stuff?" asked Jessi with a slight tilt of her head.

"Illegal street drugs," said Kyle.

"Those are easy to make," stated Jessi. "We just need..." she stopped talking when she noticed everyone looking at her.

"Plus, it will give us a chance to make friends," said Josh trying to get the conversation off drugs. "You do want us to make friends, don't you?"

"Caroline is going and you know that Aunt Meredith would not let her go if she thought anything bad was going on. Plus, since she is on the cheerleading team the whole squad is going also," said Lori. "I was thinking about trying out for the squad but wanted to get to know them first."

Nicole got up from the table, went to the china cabinet, and pulled out a metal box from the lower shelf. When the others saw what she was doing, they started pulling out their phones and turning them off. Jessi and Kyle started looking out the windows for anything suspicious and making sure that the blinds were in a position so that no one could see into the house. Once Jessi and Kyle were sure that no one was watching the house they sat back down at the table. Declan got up and turn on an old hand-held radio in the living room. He tuned it to a music channel and let the music play in the background, loud enough that you could hear it but not so loud that they had to scream to hear each other either. Once all of the phones were in the metal box, Nicole closed the lid and handed the box to Declan who took it to the study at the other end of the house.

When the Tragers and Amanda, Jessi, and Declan decided to move to Beacon Hills, one of their concern was that Zzyzx was still after them. They knew how manipulative that company was, it played them against each other, and they almost ended up losing everything. They all decided that if they suspected anything that was off that they would talk about it, with as much privacy as they could.

"Ok, I am not sure how to say this," said Nicole watching Declan as he took his place at the table. "But I believe Josh might be onto something."

"See I am right," said Josh smiling and looking at Kyle and Declan smugly. "Wait, what am I right about?"

"When you said this morning about the strange occurrences that have gone in this town," said Nicole. "The school has gone through many counselors in a short period of time. I read several students' records today there were some similarities with a lot of them. "

"You mean about the animals' attacks and boathouse fire?" asked Kyle stuffing some baby carrots in his mouth.

"Yes, and more," said Nicole. "I got to go through dozens of students' records. Most of them were just the normal stuff. Grades, social status, and school activities everything that you should find for a typical high-school student. But there were several records that don't make any sense. No grades or any history. There was one that I looked at from Stefan Salvatore. It had only blank pieces of paper in it. I took it to the red-headed receptionist. She looked at the blank papers and went through them. Then handed them back to me and said that they looked like everything was there. They were still blank. I didn't argue with her."

"I have Stefan in biology class with me. He sat beside me. There is something not right with him," said Kyle.

"What do you mean not right?" asked Josh all interested now. He was sure that Zzyzx had other experiments and not just Kyle or Jessi.

"We introduced ourselves to each other and proceeded to do the experiment," said Kyle. "It was a simple experiment to check your blood type."

"I am type O negative," stated Jessi looking at Amanda as if she wanted to know. Amanda just smiled, used to Jessi not being up on social norms when people are talking.

"Yes," said Kyle. "Something happened, I am not sure what. But his eyes turned very dark and his veins around his eyes bulged out and were darker also."

"Could it have been a seizure or allergic reaction to something?" asked Nicole.

"Drugs?" said Stephen.

"I don't think it was either of those," said Kyle. "When I tried to bring it up. He looked at me directly in the eyes and told me to forget everything that I saw."

"I can't believe that he just said that to you," said Lori. "I mean was he trying to bully you."

"No, I don't think that he was trying to bully me," said Kyle. "I think that he was trying to make my mind forget what I saw."

"Huh, with a mind like yours, yeah right," said Josh eating the last but of chicken on his plate.

"That is just it. I think that if I would have been someone else. My mind would have forgotten," said Kyle.

"What, did he try to hypnotize you?" asked Nicole.

"I don't believe it was hypnotism. It was more like a form of mental compulsion," said Kyle. "I could feel my mind starting to erase what I saw, but since I knew what was happening, I did not allow it to complete the process."

"He could be another Zzyzx experiment," said Josh "Instead of being a person with a smart brain. He could have a brain that controls people. Maybe that is what he did to the recepti-"

"That is not all," said Kyle stopping Josh from continuing on about his conspiracy theories. "His blood was black, there was no blood type."

"That is intriguing, black blood could mean that he has no oxygen in his system or extremely poor circulation," said Jessi. "It could be a cause by deoxyhemoglobin."

"That could be the case," said Kyle. "But his blood should have still given the type. His was inconclusive."

"We have the same lunch period," spoke up Amanda. She would normally stay out of conversations like this unless directly asked. "He did not seem to like the Cullens all that much. He just seemed weird around them. Everyone else was looking at them and saying how gorgeous they were."

"That blonde was a 20 out of 10. I'm telling you," sighed Josh.

"Yes, they are all extremely attractive. But once that wave of calmness… contentment? settled over - not sure how to really describe it," continued Amanda. "I saw him. He was leery of them for some reason."

"Speaking of strange experiences," spoke Declan. "Me and Kyle had one when in the hallway between some football players and lacrosse players."

"I heard that there was almost a fight today," said Nicole. "There is a strong rivalry between the football and lacrosse teams, I've overheard some of the faculty talking about it."

"Yeah, but the rivalry between different sports teams is not altogether unheard of," reminisced Stephen, "When I was on the basketball team, we occasionally had some altercations with the baseball teams."

"That is not setting a good example," said Nicole giving her husband a stern look. "People should not fight. Everyone needs to learn other ways of dealing with our problems instead of with violence, especially men."

"That was not the weird part," said Declan. "It was as if the real fight wasn't between the football team and lacrosse team. But between the blonde girl and the tall guy and-."

"Erica and Isaac," interrupted Kyle.

"Yes, that is them, maybe you should tell it. You have a better memory than me," said Declan.

"OK," said Kyle. "We were putting stuff in our lockers when Tyler and Matt came up to us and asked if we played any sports. They wanted us to join the football team. Jackson and another lacrosse player came up and basically said if we wanted to be winners, we should join the lacrosse team. Now the strange part happened when Erica and Isaac showed up."

"Yes, I swear when Jackson saw them, he was terrified of them," said Declan.

"He did get nervous when they showed up, Erica got them riled up even more. But she acted weird when she smelled Tyler. For some reason, his scent startled her."

"Yeah, it was creepy when Isaac walked up to him and sniffed him," said Declan.

"Was it his cologne maybe?" asked Lori.

"I don't think so. It reminded when animals sniff each other to get the scent of something new," said Kyle. "Well, the sniffing and Jackson's comment made Tyler attack Isaac, But Scott McCall was there to stop it."

"Yeah, he had gotten between them so fast, I had not even seen him anywhere near them. Then, all of a sudden, there he was, in between them," said Declan.

"I also agree. Scott's arrival seemed to change the attitude of the area," said Kyle.

"How do you mean?" asked Nicole. She knew she was going to have to look into Scott McCall.

Kyle thought about it for a second before he replied. "It was like a pack of wolves meeting a grizzly bear. The wolves will all notice the bear in their midst."

"Yeah, even though Scott is on the lacrosse team, he did not seem interested in the fight between Tyler and Jackson. He was more interested in what was going on with Erica and Isaac," said Declan.

"I know that they have a history with each other," said Kyle. "He reminded Erica and Isaac about the Ice Ring, whatever that meant. His mentioning it made them want to leave the area."

"Did you try to trip Isaac when they left?" asked Declan, then immediately regretted it. He knew that Nicole did not like violence. He did not want to get Kyle in trouble, but he knew that he would not lie if she asked him directly.

"Yes," said Kyle.

"Kyle you know that violence is not the answer," said Nicole.

"Yeah, but Isaac deserved it for bumping into Kyle as he did, it was totally a dick move," said Declan defending his friend.

"He was not hurt," reassured Kyle. "He bumped into my shoulder rather hard before leaving. I wanted to take him down a peg or two. So, I telekinetically tried to trip him. But for some unknown reason, it did not have the desired results that I wanted. He was able to stay standing without any difficulty."

"What are the odds that more than one Zzyzx experiment is in the area?" asked Stephen. He wasn't sure how he felt about there being other kids that possibly were special like Kyle and Jessi.

"The odds that Zzyzx would have more than one experiment in the area is extremely remote," said Jessi she wasn't sure if she should include the odds that she had calculated in her head. She was learning that when she threw out numbers, most people were not able to understand what she was saying. "The odds do go up if you factor in, that perhaps there are other companies that could be doing similar experiments to those that Zzyzx was performing. But the odds are still slim that they would be in the same area."

"I just don't like this," said Nicole looking at Stephen. "It just seems a little much. I mean, it is a lot to take in. You just started your first day at a new school and strange things are happening. Now you want to go to a party. It is a little fast, don't you think?"

"If these are experiments, then the logical thing to do would be to act normal and not let them know we suspect anything," said Jessi. "If we start digging around it could tip off whoever it is, that we are on to them. Best to act like we don't know anything and observe things in a crowd."

Nicole did not like that. She did not want to put her family in danger. What they just got out of had been a mess. She did not want to go through that again.

"They do need to make friends," said Stephen looking at Nicole's face. He could tell that she was not ready to allow this. "But, on several conditions. One, you all must go together and look after each other. Two, you MUST respond to our texts, so keep your phones on. Three – and most importantly, no drinking or drugs. And lastly, you have to home by midnight." He looked over at Nicole and saw that she approved of those conditions. She wasn't happy but she knew that it was fair.

"Midnight?!" protested Josh. "Why not two? Most people don't even arrive at a party until 1130."

"Shut up Josh," said Lori looking at her dad. " Midnight will be fine and thanks. Love you." She got up and hugged him. "Come on girls, we need to pick out what we are going to wear tomorrow."

"Well, guys, I guess we need to prepare also," said Josh standing up from his chair.

"I don't think so," said Nicole. "Someone needs to clean the kitchen."

"But they didn't have to clean the kitchen," stated Josh

Nicole just looked at him. She got up from the table, grabbed a wine glass from the cabinet, and poured herself a glass of merlot. "No, but they helped cook the food. The least you can do is help clean up."

The boys got up and started clearing off the table. Nicole returned everyone's cell phones and Stephen turned off the radio. He poured himself a glass of wine and headed towards the living room to sit with his wife and watch TV.