A/N-So here are those two new characters I promised you! Enjoy, and please pm me with any suggestions. :) There's always room for improvement.

Rachel Redford was emo. She was snobby. She thought she was too good for everybody else. She was shy. A brain.

All of the above were accusations the nearly sixteen-year old high school sophomore faced daily. She'd heard them spoken verbally in whispers as she passed, but aside from that she also read them easily on her classmates' unmoving faces. Rachel was good at interpreting people, understanding how their minds worked. And manipulating. Her teachers said on report cards that she was very persuasive and well-spoken when she rarely opened her mouth. The operative word in that sentence being 'rarely'. Rachel wasn't necessarily shy. She just didn't trust people or feel safe talking to them.

Paranoid. Her parents had made the snappish label to fit her bill several years ago, and the criticism had stuck in her brain like old chewing gum ever since. Maybe she was paranoid. It had been the only thing on her mind lately, this word, because she truly believed that she was finally going mad with her nervousness.

The sixth sense of knowing when you're being watched or followed was with her constantly now, it seemed. She couldn't count the number of times that she thought she'd heard soft footfalls or felt a warmth in the room and turned around to see...nobody.

Ghosts, maybe. She'd never really been scared of haunts and tried to use the supernatural theory to mask her fear. But in all truth, she did not really believe in them and still...why could she feel this almost everywhere, not just at home?

Surely this wasn't natural. Rachel summoned all of her logic- and, truth be told, she had plenty, along with a secure standing as official 'smart kid' of her class-to make sense of it, poring over library books preaching about the effects of anxiety and hypertension. Neither condition seemed to fit her. She didn't experience any other jittery symptoms and so she tried to ignore this blistering feeling inside of her.

She certainly didn't let it interfere with her life, not that she'd had much of one to begin with. She didn't alter her routine of school, bus, homework, walk, reading, writing, music, practice, shower, bed. She was content with her pathetic, nearly solitary life. After all, the only person she needed or trusted was herself, so why bother making friends? She'd just run out of things to say and agonize later that they were plotting to hurt her and/or said bad things about her behind her back.

So it was that fateful Friday afternoon. She was relieved that it was the start of the holiday break, because now she wouldn't have to deal with the always annoying people. She could never understand why ninety-nine percent of them were so damn stupid. Rachel planned to spend the entire vacation at home.

Rachel walked in off the bus with her little brother Chris and fixed him a snack. He was eleven, by far old enough to do it himself, but Rachel enjoyed doing the small things for him. He was probably one of the few people spare her parents that she loved and honestly trusted.

When she was done, she walked to her room and pulled on a thick woolen peacoat over her soft green turtleneck sweater and jeans. Then she grabbed a hat and scarf and, locking the door behind her, stepped back outside into the frigid cold.

It was beginning to snow, but Rachel didn't care. She wouldn't miss her daily walk in the woods behind her house for a tsunami. The forest was the only place in which she felt at peace, calm, truly alone. It was quiet there, not only physically but also in her mind. Her brain seemed to clear itself of the thoughts that she constantly had bouncing around. Her uncle Frederick always said that the human brain was like a gigantic washing machine set on spin cycle 24/7, thoughts bleeding into one another like the dye from fabrics. Rachel admired him. He always was smart, which was probably why citizens had voted him state governor. Another contributing factor was probably his devout, sincere compassion for all humans.

Rachel inhaled deeply the cool, crisp air and smiled as she glanced back at the quaint box-shaped house in the distance. Chris was always fine on his own while she walked and he was so used to her habits by now that he didn't even question where she was going.

Her feet were silent on the frozen ground, leaving a light trail from her boots that was easily and rapidly covered by a fresh dusting of crystallized flakes.

She hummed a little song as she strolled into the thicker woods. The hum turned into light singing of lyrics after the first verse, completely in tune.

In tune. In tune with life. In tune with everything. That's me. And nobody will ever hurt me.

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Alec Rocher was a cold, hardened profesional. When he needed to be. At the young age of twenty-one, he was already one of the best in the business. He was Rippner's pride and joy, and Jackson had even admitted that if anyone were to take over his managarial position, he hoped it to be Alec.

He had morals, sure. But morals and business were two different things entirely and never to be mixed. It wasn't that Alec enjoyed killing, it was simply a means to an end. And as Machiavelli had said, the end always justified the means.

He did honestly enjoy the probing, the manipulation, the mind games, the part of jobs where he got to delve into people's undisturbed minds and pick around, meddling with their emotions and hopefully breaking them down into even less than little balls of shriveling weakness. He liked not being at risk for that weakness factor. No, he was too strong.

This job was no different. He usually never had to lie, never did lie, as Jackson hated it wholeheartedly and banned it in most practices. But this time it was permitted. It wouldn't work otherwise.

He shivered in his flimsy sports jacket and huddled against a tree. Alec was thoroughly unaccustomed to surroundings like these, a native of Orlando, Florida. It was so damn cold, and now it had to fucking snow. Fantastic.

His universal cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he answered it without hesitation, realizing that in an area with no cell service for miles, the unusual noise would be picked up quickly.

"Rocher."

"Its me."

Alec nodded at Rippner's familiar voice. He liked to consider Jackson a very good acquaintance, if not a downright friend. He still wasn't sure if the relationship he and Rippner shared could be called coworking or merely coexisting. "What's going on?"

"I did my job, you do yours?"

"Not yet. Should be soon, though. Let me get this straight, though: we're supposed to stay in state until this is over?"

"Correct. Unless she gives you too much trouble and you need a threatening point. So after, you can either dispose of the bodies and hightail your ass out of there, or get the bitch home and get back here."

"Got it," Alec groaned. "Its so fucking cold up here, you wouldn't believe it. Jack Frost thought, 'hey, fuck nipping, let's go for full on chomping.'"

"Well, you need to go to Albany anyway, to carry out the job. It's a little farther south, at least."

"Yeah." Alec paused as he heard a female scream in the background. Laughing, he asked, "Who was that?"

There was a long, angry pause and then finally Rippner's voice and some muffled thuds. "We'll have to call you back, I'm afraid."

"Okay, see you la-" Click. Alec smiled, wondering exactly who the 'we' was. Before it had just been 'I.'

Alec repocketed his phone and peered out onto the trail, concealing himself behind the bushes. It was almost time. He could hear her walking.

She was singing. In the ten weeks of watching her, of course, he'd heard it before, but every time she did, it pulled on something in him. He wasn't sure what, but he did know that he treasured the brief moments when she would let the angelic voice pour out of her cherry lips.

Alec couldn't help but watch her face move as she smiled. She hardly ever did, but when she did, her whole face lit up, her olive skin to her chocolate eyes.

He felt like a bit of a cradle-robber as he thought this. She was fifteen, well, nearly sixteen, and he was twenty-one. Illegal, for sure. But she was a mature fifteen.

He hoped he'd get his moment with her before this was over, mostly to satisfy his masculine curiosity. He knew his feelings for the girl extended little beyond lust and also knew he'd feel no remorse if he had to kill her. Just another job.

As she rounded the bend, he stood and grinned. It was time to go. And she'd be coming with him this time.