A/N: This chapter was so hard to write like I don't even. I didn't write it out on paper before when I had wrote the second chapter already. This chapter is somehow too slow and too fast at the same time and I rushed it and I wanted it over with and auuugh. So I apologize, this isn't going to be good.

Chapter One
preppy little tie

I remembered the day I first held my guitar.

Little puffs of breath formed white clouds in front of my face as I walked along the sidewalk to Stuyvesant High School, reminding me that it was a particularly chilly day for late April, and the day I had decided, God knows why, to wear a skirt. A red, plaid skirt that fell a few inches above my knees and even more above the heeled boots that reached halfway up my calves. With the white button-up shirt, black blazer, and a preppy little tie that hung around my neck, I felt like a schoolgirl. And like a hooker. I also felt really stupid, because my legs were so cold and it was me who decided to trade my tight pants for this little ensemble knowing I had to walk to school each day. I usually got a ride on days like these, but only two of my friends had a car and Jay's phone had been picked up by his mom who said he was very sick, and Demitri was already at the school and was too lazy to pick me up. That had ticked me off, because he was early and I knew he would be twenty minutes late for first period anyway, so I think in my cold-numbed brain I tried to send him a telepathic warning that he had a hard kick coming his way.

As I walked, the memory floated into my head without much warning, but it was a comfortable and happy memory I didn't mind reliving. My guitar was a slick black Washburn KC-70v, with perfect strings, coils, electronics, tabs, everything. It wasn't in a store. My friend Jamie, who was more of a bass player herself, had gotten herself a new toy and was willing to sell the old shredder for four hundred and fifty bucks. The day I got my work permit and a job that didn't involve me being too nice to people I worked around the clock, all of my take home pay going straight into that guitar. After about three and a half months of minimum wage and forced smiles, I had my Washburn, a decent sized amp, and a red leather strap. I remember running home and flying into my room without saying a word to my parents, setting up everything within a flash. The moment my fingers curled around the neck of that guitar and the moment I strummed a few notes there was something like electricity running through my veins and a magic in the air and a soft voice whispering, "Yes, this is right, this is okay."

I played that guitar all weekend almost nonstop. I wasn't very good, my fingers slipped often and my parents banged on my door to complain almost every ten minutes, but I didn't care. It was magic, I knew it was magic. I even gave my Washburn a name— Felix. Such a magnificent instrument could not go without a name, I had decided. But then I began naming all of my old guitar picks, my amp, my strap, and a piece of pocket lint I found, so I was probably just in a really good mood.

But the name Felix stuck.

"A skirt, Jacky?" I heard someone fake a gasp, and I snapped my head up from the ground. I had just set one foot into the parking lot of Stuy, and someone was already calling me out. Near the huge front doors, a lanky figure sat on the hood of such an old, crumbly, rusty truck that it was surprising it didn't collapse underneath the weight of one person.

I recognized him right away. "Shut up, Demitri, you lazy ass!" I focused on him instead of the front doors, making a beeline towards his poor, sad vehicle. I owed this guy a good kick to the shins.

"Aw, don't be mad, Jack," Demitri sighed when I drew closer, the heels of my boots clicking with each step on the cold concrete. I was surprised I could walk in these things. Or even fit them, for that matter. "I didn't really feel like goin' out and about, picking up weird girls who scare me by showin' off their short little white legs. You got a cigarette?"

"No," I snapped, shifting the weight of my bag on my shoulders. "And don't call me Jack, I'm not a guy."

"Why not?" he whined, and I could tell just by the way he pined and the way his fingers were twitching he wasn't asking about the forbidden pet name.

I folded my arms. "Because you denied me a ride to school, made a big deal about my clothes, called me Jack, and made a comment on my legs. I wouldn't give you a cigarette if I had one. I'm not eighteen, loser."

"Jerk." He pursed his lips and looked away like he was really offended, but I knew better—he was just sore because he was craving nicotine. Insulting this guy was easy: a toxic green porcupine head that made his eyes look just as bright, a body skinnier than most girls, a face full of metal and none of it done professionally—but he didn't even mind. Though I had to say, I loved all of the pins in his face. My favorite one is the safety pin stabbing through his eyebrow.

I spun around on my heel and headed towards the door, my ears stinging from the wind. I heard Demitri follow close behind.

"So, you going for the Japanese schoolgirl look or somethin'?" He asked as he hurried alongside me, hands deep into his pockets and his eyes straight ahead of him as well passed through the doors. Inside Stuyvesant High School was pretty cool, I won't deny—but it lost it's magic after you learned you'd have to climb six stories every day just to get to one class. And so God willed it, I had a biology class up there for my first period. You got love getting up in the morning walk six stories into the air to listen to your teacher drone on about your worst subject. "'Cause you look like one. One of those dumb, squealing ones, too."

"Shut up, Pins," I said and brushed some hair out of my eyes only to have it fall back. The little skull clips on the side of my head did nothing to my choppy fringe, and I liked it that way. "It's cute, don't deny it."

"Whatever," was his reply. The late bell rang, and unlike ninety percent of the masses of bodies around us, Demitri and I didn't feel the familar surge of terror at the thought of being late. It would probably take me fifteen minutes just to get my stuff, and that's if I felt like hurrying. I stopped at my locker, but he kept walking to some unknown destination.

"See you, ugly!" I called. He turned his head to send me a smirk.

"Bye, bitch."

I laughed, but it faded into a groan as I swapped my heavy backpack for two textbooks, a pencil case, and a thick book of notes. By the time I had reached the first escalator, only a few stragglers and hall monitors with eyes sharp for hands without a late pass remained, but I really didn't care about that. If someone called me out, then I wouldn't have to spend so much time in Mr. Fredrickson's classroom. If they didn't, I wouldn't have detention. Or at least as much detention, because my biology teacher loved whipping out his detention pad at every chance he got.

I took a step to the escalator connecting floors one and three. Click. And another, and another. Click click. I smiled, the sound of the the heels of my boots hitting the smooth marble a strangely satisfying one. I took slow, deliberate steps just to hear the steady clicking noise until I climbed onto the escalator, and then I ran up it not because I was worried about being late, but so I could get to the next hallway and hear the awesome click click clicking of my boots. At the fifth floor, though, I was stopped.

"Late again, Jacqueline?" a familiar, weary voice asked me in the middle of the hall. A gangly Junior who held a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other. The stone gray eyes of an insomniac stared at me in such a tired fashion I felt guilty for making her work like this. "Or are you just messing around?"

She didn't sound mad at me. "Sorry, Ester. I had to walk to school today, and well... yeah, I was messing around. But I'm on my way to class now."

Ester looked at me considering, the pen poised above the paper of her clipboard and ready to sign my name down in the blink of an eye. Instead she sighed. "Okay, I'll just let your teacher deal with you. I don't feel like doing this right now, I'm too tired. See you, Jacqueline."

She always insisted on calling me by my first name.

"Bye, Ester."

After that I resumed my clicking at a faster pace, because I really didn't want a confrontation with someone who wasn't so lenient as the bookish girl monitoring the fourth floor. Luckily, after playing army a few times by diving behind big plotted plants and hiding in the bathrooms whenever an adult voice floated by, I made it to floor seven.

The clicking was so fascinating, I didn't think up of a good excuse as to why I was late, other than that my mother is a cold, heartless beast who wants me to not only freeze to death but face horrible punishments at school.

The door was shut. Perfect. I pushed up it open and walked into the classroom, shutting it as quietly as I could behind me, but it was too late—all heads were turned towards me. Except for one.

I walked into the "side" of the classroom, which meant all of the student's desks were facing the front wall which was the wall to my left, covered with an unused dry erase board. Five rows of desks. In front of the first row was a little walkway, and then there was the teacher's desk, covered in papers and grading pens and photographs. To that desks right, there was another desk pressed to it in the opposite direction to form a right angle, where the high-tech computer ran and where Mr. Fredrickson sat, his balding head facing me and apparently too absorbed to notice my presense.

"Sorry I'm late, Fredrickson," I said as I walked through the space between the teacher's desk and the front row to reach the little lane of desks closest to the windows.

No response.

I faltered in my step in front of all of my peers before stopping completely. No response? From Mr. Fredrickson? The strictest teacher in this school, the one who won't tolerate lateness, who hates me to the core and loves to shout? And hates it when I drop the "mister" from his name?

I tilted my head to the students, and my blood ran cold. They sat in their seats and made no sound, only stared with eyes as wide as saucers right through me, fingernails gripping the sides of their desks so tightly knuckles were turning white. I knew who they were looking at, and it made me scared just to look and see for myself. The silence alone was enough to shake me up—this was the worst behaving class of the lot, no matter the time or occasion.

This is freaking me out, I thought. Freaky. This was freaky. What was the matter with these kids? Why were they staring past me like there was some sort of boogeyman behind me? A girl in the back was crying silent tears, hitting the wooden desk with a light tap, tap, tap, and it was like that alone left me feeling hollow. Something wasn't right.

"Fredrickson?" I repeated, and I wanted to kick myself because my voice raised an octave in what could only be friend. I twisted my head around to look at him, and... stared.

In a few words, he looked like hell. His thinny grey hair stuck to the sides of his face in sweat, his lined face sunken and saggy looking. I don't know how to describe his skin at the time other than a horrible, blistered, soggy gray. This was beyond my own pale skin that earned affectionate nicknames of "vampire" and "pasty." Droopy, glazed over eyes stared vacantly at the computer screen, mouth slightly agape and a trail of saliva dribbling down his chin. I slowly shifted my eyes to the monitor, and felt my throat constrict tightly. The screen was black. The computer wasn't even on.

Creepy, I thought. Creepy, creepy, creepy, creepy. This was creepy. Mr. Fredrickson was creepy. The silent classroom was creepy. This couldn't be good. This was bad. Very, very bad.

"He's been like that," someone whispered. "for fifteen minutes."

Oh my God, I was really late for class.

What a retarded thing to think in a situation like this. Mr. Fredrickson looked like a zombie, and not the overworked high school teacher zombie, either.

"Are you serious?" I whispered back.

The person must have nodded, because I heard no response. I vaguely wondered why nobody called the nurse, because he looked really sick.

"Okay," I said, thoroughly spooked. "Okay..."

Spooked and not knowing what else to do, I started walking back to my desk again, adjusting my books underneath my arm. The horrible, gray, saggy face snapped his head in my direction with an expression full of snarls, drool, and fiendish eyes, a look so feral and freaky and shocking I stumbled back to into one of the desks on the front row and let out an embarrassing shriek.

He shrieked back, spun around in his swivel chair to us, and made a lunge over the table like he was going to take a swipe at me from there, but his body froze and his face twisted and contorted awfully as if he was in horrible, horrible pain, and he put his hands on his front desk and heaved all over the floor in between me and him.

My body was frozen in place, my mind screaming for me to get out but the muscles of my arms and legs refusing to budge. I just leaned as far as I could back on Steven Miller's desk, who didn't seem to pay attention in the slightest. We watched in morbid fascination as he puked red liquid, red blood, all over the floor and his desks, chunks going along with it that looked strangely like his insides instead of what might have been his lunch. I was paralyzed. That... wasn't normal puke.

That wasn't a normal illness.

After he finished, he just stood hunched over his desk, breathing heavily for a few seconds. And of course, some girl in the back had to scream, "Are you alright, Mr. Fredrickson?"

Again his head snapped up in the same feral of expression, only intensified with the blood dribbling out of the corners of his mouth and his eyes, oh God, his eyes—a gleaming yellow. He snarled not unlike a dog and leaped over his desk.

"Shit, what?" I yelled and jerked to the side as he flung himself at me, instead getting Steven. He bit, clawed, gnawed, and everyone else screamed and burst into tears and scrambled out of the desks. I followed some and ran as far away from Fredrickson as I could—to the back of the room, where I pressed my back against it as if I could mold into it if I tried hard enough. He was mauling Steven, he was digging his fingernails into him like some sort of animal, biting him like he hadn't eaten in weeks, and all I could do was watch and cry and scream like all of the others, everyone else too scared to do something and expecting someone else to play the hero.

It turns out nobody had to play hero. Nobody had to knock the guy off. Because what seemed to be bigger threat popped up and while he might have saved the rest of our lives, I doubted it would be for long.

Because Dylan McKeizel pulled out a gun, and he shot our teacher to the ground.

Dun, dun, dunnnn.