"Little girls get in trouble...Add some boys and you get double."

"I heard you the first time."

"Why?"

"When?"

"I remember the night of the fire."

"I remember when you were asleep."

"Forgetting yourself is half the fun."

"Twirl and dance the night away...When the day comes down you will lay."

"And every night the twelve princesses would sneak out and in the morning their shoes would be worn through."

"I mistook you for a moth."

"Cape."

"Why?"

"Remember him?"

"You do, don't you?"

"When the evil stepmother saw it was Snow White getting married, she squeezed the rose and it's poisoned thorns dug into her flesh."

"...And when the daylight fades.

"Kill me or leave me alone...I am no one's king anymore."

"You butchered them."

"Everyone loved you."

"White as snow, red as blood and black as ebony."

"Crunch went your feet in the snow."

"Dead...all of them."

"Can't you remember?"

"I beg you."

"She was no bigger than my thumb."

"The midnight hour."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you a secret..."

"And this man had seven wives."

"There once was a bear from Peru."

"You mustn't tell anyone..."

"A man lived many years trying to die, when he tried to live he died."

"The saints."

"This is all just..."

"Why?"

"Remember!"

"Live or die...is there something in between?"

"Fate."

Violet eyes snapped open. Raven pushed away from her bed and ran a hand through her hair. The girl panted a bit from the strange dream. She had a strong urge to call her mother and just cry into the phone.

But it was an ungodly hour, and her mother needed her sleep since she was still recovering from depression. Raven hadn't been there when her mom had slowly deteriorated into a pathetic self.

The girl's father had been violent, but good natured when it came to his family. He had died in a freak accident.

While he was driving home from work, a plane flew above him. A small piece of metal broke away from the plane and went straight through the roof of the car and into his skull. It killed him instantly.

After that, Raven, who had been small, clung to her mother. This gave her mother a sense of responsibility that kept her together.

When the girl eventually left home to seek her fate, her mother lost her responsibility. She had eventually gone to a doctor, though. She was diagnosed and assigned a social worker to help her. She had also been given a pygmy goat to take of.

Raven missed her mother, but she would live strong for her.

Guess there's not going to be any sleeping tonight.

So little Raven got up and headed to the kitchen where she looked around for a bag of tea. Once she had found one, made her tea and sat down in her tiny living/dining room. She just sat sipping her tea in the dark for a few minutes.

Everything's so quiet. I wonder if I'll pass the exam. I've been preparing and cramming. I wonder if Vic will force me to ride with his friend. What will I do if they drive off and leave me to ride with the guy? Walk home? Video games have never been my thing.

Raven looked up as she heard a faint crash from the front of the house. She set her cup on a counter in the kitchen and crept to look out the front window.

There was a tiny kitten on the front lawn. It had somehow gotten into the recycle bin with all the empty tin cans and was trying to get out by mewing loudly. The girl sighed and walked out to it. She proceeded to pick it up and carry it into the house.

Once there, Raven turned on a light and took a good look at the kitten. It was a soft grey color with a white belly, paws and had a stripe of white in the midst of it's face. It was a short hair with big greenish-yellow eyes.

"Let's see if you're a boy or a girl..."

Raven flipped the kitten over in her palm and saw it was girl. It had a strange bob tail that was the same soft grey.

I wonder what she was doing here, alone?

"Guess you need a name, huh?"

She took at the kitten who started to rub her head against the girl's grey hand.

"Hmm...You do seem to have a lot of love. Maybe I should name you Aphrodite?...Too long. How about, Venus?"

The kitten continued to rub her hand without noticing the girl talk.

"Venus it is."

Raven fed the kitten some milk and decided to try sleeping again. Venus was well ahead of her.

How weird...Seems that animals really do come and help you.

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"Booyah! I passed!"

"Yeah, me too. How about you, Raven?"

The girl in question was leaning against the wall. Her head was down and her shoulders were shaking. The boys looked at each other and quickly got scared. Vic reached towards the girl.

"Uh, Rav-"

Raven lifted her head and started laughing. Full out, loud laughing. The boys were even more bewildered and just shook their heads.

"She finally lost it."

She waved a hand at them and covered her mouth with the other. Once she had regained herself she turned to go down the hall with a smile on her lips. The boys were following her but stopped as she turned back to them.

"Oh by the way. I can't come today. I have some stuff to do at home. So sorry."

Vic's face fell.

But I already told BB that she was coming with him.

"But...but you never had stuff to do before!"

She just waved and jogged down the hall. Her tiny pony tail waved good bye to the pair.

"We've gotta get her back for this."

"Any ideas?"

Vic smiled wickedly and turned around to head off the opposite way the girl had gone. Robin followed his lead.

"I've only got one. As long as BB cooperates."

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"Are you sure?"

"Yup, she really likes you. Told me herself." The boy talked from inside the pickup. His dark lips spread wide over his pale teeth.

"But...I've never even seen her before. Or at least, I don't think I-"

"Yeah, yeah. Just get up there and say the words I told you."

The smaller boy looked back inside the truck and frowned. Everyone seemed to know something he didn't.

Well...I can't just run away when I'm in front of the house, can I? Actually, I can.

He sighed and marched to the dark green door with the plain knocker instead of a doorbell.

No, wait, there's the doorbell.

And there it was. With a wasp sitting on it lazily. Seemingly waiting for someone to just try and press the haunted button.

The boy inhaled deeply and reached for the knocker instead. He knocked three times. Waited. Knocked seven times. Waited. Prepared to knock eleven times.

The door opened slowly. The two on opposite sides of the door froze.

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Raven hadn't forgotten Venus was in her arms. She just pushed the thought behind this new one.

It was the boy from the Great Taco. And behind him was the pickup, with her former friend, Vic. Robin was there too, but Raven didn't quite know him well enough to say she was his friend.

Venus started to wriggle and meow in the girl's tightening grip.

"Uh...I was set up."

Intelligent little man. I do so covet your mind.

"Excuse me."

She shut the door and walked to sit on her couch with Venus. The kitten curled up into a ball and started to doze.

The boy was still standing in front of the closed door. The two other boys decided that they'd meet their friend at the arcade after picking up Kori. So they drove off.

"Don't forget to bring Raven, Garfield. I know she likes you."

The girl heard them from inside. She knew the couch could be seen from the front window by the door. So the boy could probably see her just sitting there, ignoring him. She was hoping he would get a clue and leave before she had to actually go and tell him that he should go.

There was a tap on the window. Raven clicked on the tiny tv and switched to some random channel.

"Hello? I can see you!"

The girl just sat, completely relaxed by the little bundle of love. She noticed she was watching Oprah. One with those two British girls who searched for women with bad fashion and redid their look. In a very rude way.

They wrote a book? Don't they know that people hate them?

"Why did those chicks rip that lady's pants off?"

She almost responded to that. But, no worries, she didn't. She hadn't known he could see the screen from there. Especially since it was such a small screen.

"They really like to overdo stuff..."

Maybe I should humor him?

"Of course, they are British."

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Yo. This last bit wasn't supposed to offend British folks out there. I was just writing about an Oprah I saw a couple days ago with the weird make-over chicks. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with their style.

Anyways, I'd like to dedicate this chapter to Venus. A real life cat that lives with my friend. She's nothing like Raven's Venus which I modeled after my own cats. The real Venus was named after Venus Williams and she's a long hair. She's dark grey and black but the eyes are about right. She has big paws. She can be really evil, but she loves attention. Whenever I go to my friend's house (which is often) she comes to me and demands I give her attention. And occasionally she'll attack me.

The reason I dedicate this chapter to Venus is because my friend can't find her. As in Venus either ran away or got lost. She's an indoor cat and stays close to home. She got caught outside in a thunder storm and no one has seen her since. And we're worried because my friend had her boy kitty (a real fighter) get killed by her neighbor's dogs earlier this year. And they don't exactly trust their neighbors to tell them if their dogs killed Venus or not. They're the kind of neighbor that would throw her into the garbage can and tell her that they hadn't seen Venus. Or she might have been ran over or lost or anything. By the way, their other cat was named Damien and he was so sweet and mellow. Didn't mind dogs or anything.

So I shall end this before it becomes overly long. And, yes, I know pathetic to post this in a fanfic, right? But it shows I care...I hope. I suppose it's all just fate.