Dedication: To all of my lovely reviewers :) I love you all. What? I'm serious!

~*~*~

Near Newport Beach, California

Lincoln Stern made his best attempt at keeping still like his mom told him to do. Okay, maybe not his best attempt, but at least he was trying. He wiggled around in his seat belt in the back of his mother's car; putting his hand against the window, frost etching its corners. It was a chilly day, especially considering it was May, and the cold never really suited the seven-year-old. His curious, multifaceted, hazel eyes stared out into the heavily forested, rolling hills of Californian countryside. It was nine o'clock in the morning, and fatigue nearly drowned his rarely pessimistic expression. His hair was dark and messy, and no matter how much you combed it, brushed it, or even gelled it, it would stay the same, and unruly, and he liked it.

"Mom?" Lincoln, or rather Lin as he preferred, asked, his gaze shifting to the front seat, where his blonde mother was perched.

"Yeah, honey?" her own line of vision remained on the road.

"Where 'r' we goin'?"

There was a long pause. "Home."

~*~*~

"Mom-ee," Chloe whined. "I don't wanna go to school!" she stamped her foot against the ground defiantly.

Marissa sighed and re-tied the ribbons on her already messy pigtails. "I know, sweetie, I know…" Chloe had been saying this for almost an entire school year now, since she'd started in way back in September. She was very clever and intelligent, and she most certainly flaunted that, but the school therapists were calling her 'very anti-social'. And since her only and best friend had moved away, it only worsened Chloe's little 'situation' as that damn therapist called it.

"Do I have to go?" she added.

"Look on the bright side," her mother told her. "Only a few more days until summer vacation."

"Summer's going on vacation?"

~*~*~

"Well, I've got stooperpowers!" Marc Ward gloated to an amused crowd of young children, pleased.

"It's superpowers," Chloe corrected, mumbling.

"D'you say something, kid?" he asked her threateningly, waving his fist.

"You said you have superpowers, not stooperpowers." She said, standing up to face him. He was a little intimidated; Chloe already stood taller than all of the boys and girls in her class. "Wanna prove it?" she, too, now held a single fist up.

~*~*~

Nurse Joyce Schwartz had never in her ten years of practice seen anything like it. The little boy was covered in bruises, scratches, cuts, and not to mention a bloody nose, while his opponent, a tall girl his age, left the duel unscathed.

"An Atwood in a fight?" Marissa said just before entering the nurse's office, pretending to be shocked. "Never."

"It was bound to happen sometime, I guess. And you won't believe who she got in that fight wit—"

"You must be Chloe's parents, come in, please." Joyce smiled one façade of a smile seating them in rather uncomfortable seat next to her next. For a moment, the only sound was the annoying buzz of florescent lights hanging in the ceiling, then she said:

"I recall we discussed this before with the school counselor. Your daughter needs to be more open with people." She tilted her glasses to the tip of her nose. "Or she might get into more spontaneous little scuffles like these."

"Miss Schwartz," Ryan forced a smile. He'd barely met her before, but now he didn't like her even more so than the last time. "Our daughter is open with people she trusts, and she doesn't trust a heck of a lot of people."

"Well, she needs to have mutual trust, Chloe must give a reason for people to trust her, Ryan."

He cringed. Okay, going into the informal is not a good thing, lady.

~*~*~

Seth entered his home, an immediate sense of restlessness and tension hitting him like a sledgehammer against a watermelon. Worse still, his wife was seated at the dining room table, and she wasn't doing anything. Just twiddling her thumbs. Okay, who is she and what did she do with Summer? Thought Seth.

"Um… Seth…"

Another not-so-good thing. He knew he was in trouble she went straight to the formal and called him 'Seth' instead of playfully using his surname or some other title.

"Summer, something's wrong… w—what's going on?"

"I—I…" began she, "I—I'm pregnant…"

Before Seth could react, the phone gave a shrill ring. "I—I'll get it…" he said, running toward the receiver and picking the phone up.

"Cohen's'."

And for what seemed like a very long time, he listened, uttered a few, 'Oh my God's and hung up. This couldn't be happening.

"What is it?" Summer asked quietly.

"It—its Anna. She's gone, Summer."