A.N.: This has been typed up for a few weeks now, I just haven't had the chance to upload it until now what with school and stuff. I planned to upload it over winter break but my family and I went to my grandmother's house. Where there was no internet connection. Anyway, here's chapter 5.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Aiden and the plot.

Aiden sat down in a seat in the front, right below a skylight. She could feel the excitement coming off of the other students. They sat in their little cliques, talking to each other with wide eyes and animated hand movements. she sighed and took out her colored pencils, starting to shade in the picture as she listened to the kids around her. The sparky feeling of excitement, the tingling one of curiosity, and the 'pit in your stomach' of nervousness swept through her before she took a deep breath, calming herself and soothing the feelings away.

She had only gotten through half of her latest picture before Mr. Gryffn, the principal, came out on stage. It took a while, but everyone eventually quieted down. Aiden half listened to what he said, her mind on what she was going to make for dinner. She sighed quietly. 'Mom can't cook for her life. Unless she needed to poison someone, then she would be fine.'

She was drawn out of her thoughts when another guy, presumably Batchelder, walked out on stage. 'He's hot,' she thought. 'Very hot.' She could distantly feel a tingling feeling run down her spine. She closed her eyes and took a few breaths, clearing her mind. She opened them again, thoughts focused on the presentation and nothing else, for now. Tuning back into what the man was saying, she just caught the end of a question. "…made this change?"

Her hand shot up out of reflex, her mind simultaneously going back and replaying what she had heard but hadn't paid attention to. She cursed herself silently when she was called on, hating the attention she received because of it, and recited the answer word for word from a text book she remembered reading. 'Perfect textbook answer, but-'

"-that's not what actually happened."

Aiden's eyes widened. 'How does he know that? Nobody knows what happened! Except for…' She mentally slapped herself. 'Don't think about that stupid! You know you're not supposed to.'

Feeling a strong wave of paranoia, Aiden quickly glanced around her. Spotting nobody out of the ordinary, just the kids she had been going to school with for the past month, she turned her attention back to the man on stage. Her eyes unfocused for a few moments as she blanked her mind, using a short meditation technique that her mother had taught her.

She barely paid attention to what the man continued to say, instead trying to figure out who he was and how he tied into all this. She ruled out white coats. They were all much older people that tended to have this air of "you're not worth my time because I'm so much smarter than you" around them. 'White coat sympathizer? Or maybe the son of a white coat? He's old enough for that. I think there was a Batchelder talked about at the lab now that I think about it.'

That figured out, she tried to listen to what Batchelder was saying, but worried and paranoid thoughts kept running through her mind, distracting her. She restlessly played with her hands as she waited for a break to ask the man his name, and if necessary, make a break for it.

When the man finally paused in his speaking, Aiden could feel her heart racing. He knew. This only further cemented the thought that he was related in some way to the white coats in her mind. Her fists clenched, nails digging into flesh, as her stomach dropped.

'Where there's one, there are many more to follow.'

They'd be moving- once again- because of this man.

Aiden lowered her head to glare at her lap. 'Just when I thought we found a place we could actually stay! He had to come in and ruin it! Who knows where we'll go now.'

She wanted to scream in frustration, but of course, she didn't. 'Wouldn't want people to think I'm crazy, now do I?' she thought vehemently.

She sighed softly and let the glare disappear from her face. 'Time to figure out who this guy is.'

Putting on a "sweet schoolgirl" face, she raised her head to look up at Batchelder. Raising her hand, she waited until it caught his attention before she asked the question that had been bothering her since she had answered his question- just who exactly was he? Except she didn't word it like that; didn't want to seem rude.

His answer made her heart stop, though she hid it with a smile and a softly spoken "Thank you."

Ari Batchelder. Ari Batchelder.

She tilted her head back slightly and stared up at the clouds she could see through the skylight.

'There's no way it could be the Ari Mom talked about in her stories, could it?'

She glanced at Ari who was looking out at the chattering people in the audience, her eyes quickly scanning his face.

Her shoulders shook slightly as she silently laughed.

It was.

A.N.: So, what do you guys think? Review please?

~Dragon~

P.S.: By the way, my grandmother hasn't been doing so well lately, so if there is a very long gap between this chapter and the next, that's the reason why.