Thanks for the reviews! As always, anything DP belongs to Kelley Armstrong.

The next few days went smoothly. Chloe turned in her English assignment, hoping that the quality of work would make up for her bad first impression. While their new school was no A.R. Gurney, they did have a decent theater program and even an AV club. She was even doing okay in Pre-Calculus (which she considered an achievement, despite the opinions of a certain genius, who gave her extra homework and deemed the coursework "remedial at best").

She also seemed to have a solution for her nightmares.

Aunt Lauren had wandered into the kitchen at 3 a.m. for a glass of water when she noticed that Derek and Chloe had accidentally dozed off on the living room couch. Instead of flipping out, she'd approached Chloe the next day with a bottle of sleeping pills.

While they didn't get rid of the nightmares, they did keep Chloe asleep for a solid eight hours with minimal tossing and turning.

However, there seemed to be a downside.

Chloe dreamed that she was back at the Edison Group Compound, but this time she was the one being controlled- she felt her own hand grasp the gun and pull the trigger, the force of the gunshot throwing her slightly off balance.

Diriel whispered, her breath warm against Chloe's ear, "Do you understand what is happening? What you have the potential to become?"

As Davidoff collapsed, so did the building- she could feel the ground shaking beneath her…

"Come on Chloe wake up!"

She woke up to find Tori's hands on her shoulders, shaking her back and forth.

"Okay- Okay I'm up," Chloe grumbled, then felt a jolt of panic- "Did I sleep through my alarm?"

"No- It's only…" Tori glanced at her watch and cursed, "Jesus. It's five-freaking-thirty."

"And…why exactly are we awake?"

Tori cursed again and pointed towards the window, "We seem to have a few of your creepy-crawlies for company."

Chloe jolted out of bed and ran towards the window- luckily there only seemed to be a couple birds, and they didn't make much noise- their decaying wings would occasionally brush against the glass, but the heavy wind kept them preoccupied with simply staying near the window instead of screeching and crashing against it like she'd normally expect.

She quickly released their spirits then mentally scanned the surrounding area for any others she might have accidentally summoned.

By the time she had finished, Tori was fast asleep. While they seemed to vacillate between friendship and blatant indifference (which Chloe wasn't going to complain about- it was way better than Tori's initial psycho-enemy phase), Tori made it clear that she was no one's friend before nine a.m.

It was still dark outside, the clouds of an approaching storm blocked out any moonlight and the wind whipped furiously around the house. It rattled tree branches and whistled eerily across the yard.

For someone who dealt with actual ghosts and zombies, admitting that a storm gave her the shivers made Chloe feel kind of silly, but there was no way she'd be able to go back to sleep.

She grabbed some clothes and headed to bathroom that she and Tori shared, figuring that she might as well take a shower and get off to an early start. She got ready and headed downstairs, but just as soon as she started to pour herself a bowl of cereal she heard someone open the side door and step inside.

Considering all they'd been through, she should have ducked behind the counter, silently observing the intruder before taking any action or alerting the others.

Instead she jumped, spilling cereal everywhere.

"Whoa- Sorry Chloe- It's just me," Simon said as he came into view. He was already dressed for school but his hair was messy from the wind- his blonde spikes pointing in every direction.

Chloe held a hand against her chest, heart hammering at what felt like a million beats per minute. "It's okay, you just spooked me – What were you doing outside?" she asked, curious and a little confused.

Simon shrugged off his jacket and threw it on the couch. "Just needed some fresh air," he said casually, then lit up a bit, "and you really shouldn't lecture other people on being spooky," he joked, flashing a wide grin.

Simon may have been a good actor, but she knew him well enough to realize that when he wanted to hide something, he always turned on the charm and joked around. Realizing that he was lying to her hurt a bit- weren't they supposed to be friends?

She raised an eyebrow in a way that said "you are so full of BS- now fess up".

For a second Simon ignored her, but finally his smile faltered. He sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. For a few moments there was an uncomfortable silence, with only the mournful whistling of wind and the noise made when Simon grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl at the center of the table, then started to roll it back and forth between his hands.

Watching someone else fidget made her feel the same way- she was about to grab a broom and start sweeping up the mess she'd made when Simon finally spoke.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone," he said in an unusually serious tone.

Chloe nodded, still confused and a little wary. Why was it that whenever someone insisted on keeping something a secret, it was usually something that needed to be shared? For a moment, her mind flashed guiltily to what she'd said, or more specifically, hadn't said, to Derek. She shook off the thought, but it reminded her of something else.

"Wait, what about," she glanced towards the stairs- just to check- and curled her hands into claws. In lieu of actual sign-language, it was the not-so-creative gesture that Simon, Tori and herself used whenever they wanted to signal that Derek might be listening.

"Noise enchantment," Simon casually explained, pulling what looked like a very old, very tattered leather-bound book from his back pocket. It was really small, about the size of a wallet, and the cover had something stamped on the front in gold ink. Before she could get a good look at it he started to flip through the yellowed pages, which were covered in sprawling script and complicated symbols.

"It won't block out anything really loud, like a scream or an explosion, but normal conversation should be okay- I've been practicing ever since-" he bit off the sentence, his expression darkening a bit, "ever since Andrew gave me this at the safe house."

Considering how Andrew had turned out to be a rat-faced traitor, it was easy to forget that at one point he had probably been the kind of person that Simon looked up to. Chloe knew what it felt like to find out that one of your heroes was actually one of the bad guys- how much it hurt to be betrayed by someone you thought you could trust. The only thing worse than hating someone, was wanting to hate someone, but still caring about them- even after being stabbed in the back.

"That could be really helpful- you know, if we ever need to hide from someone- it definitely would have helped with the whole warehouse fiasco," she said lightly.

It was a very Derek-ish comment- purposefully optimistic, focusing on the logical aspects of the situation instead of the emotions- but it seemed to work.

"I was just planning to use it on myself- drown out Tori every once in a while…but yeah, I probably should perfect it- just in case," Simon replied, already a little more cheerful. "That's actually why I was outside, with this," he waved the book in the air, "I've been practicing some new spells- just in case anything happens again. I don't want to be unprepared, and really, with whatever they did to my powers…I could use all the practice I can get."

"And this is a secret…why exactly?" Chloe prompted.

"Well…They're kind of experimental spells- It's all in runes, so I'm making educated guesses on half of them. Derek wouldn't be cool with it, and my Dad would want to help- which is kind of like when parents volunteer to help with homework...Don't even get me started on Tori. That's why you can't tell them."

"By experimental do you happen to mean dangerous?"

"Um…not really. I set one of the trash bins on fire, but really- that's the worst thing that's happened- scouts honor," Simon insisted.

Chloe groaned.

I really can't keep all these secrets from Derek.

"Oh come on- it's just one…Wait. What do you mean by secrets? As in the plural form of hiding things?"

Chloe's eyes widened marginally.

Did I say that out loud? Oh fu-wait stay calm! Maybe you can play this off.

"Don't try to hide it- I already saw your expression, so either there's a ghost standing behind me- which I'm not buying- or you're definitely hiding something," Simon said, arms crossed against his chest.

Shit.

"How about we make a deal- I won't tell anyone if you don't tell anyone about me," Simon suggested.

Not good enough.

Chloe sighed, then realized that he was right- well partially right.

She had the leverage to make a deal, but to make it work she needed to change the terms.

"How about this- I won't tell anyone about your secret. But you need to promise to not ask about mine."

Simon looked kind of uneasy, so she added, "It's nothing serious...It's just kind of awkward and I really don't really want to share," she said.

For a second Simon looked just as confused as she had been when interrogating him, but then something seemed to click- a look of understanding…and something she couldn't place.

"Okay- no problem," he said reassuringly, "Deal?"

She had no idea what explanation he'd just come up with, but she wasn't going to question it.

"Deal."

Okay...so please let me know what you thought! Please review and give me your input on three things:

1) I want to do the next chapter or the chapter after that in Derek's POV. Would that be good/bad/whatever?

2) I'm getting kinda sick of writing in third person POV and might change to first person, alternating between Chloe and Derek. Again, what are your opinions on this- good/bad/whatever?

3) If you have any critiques for my writing, they would be greatly appreciated (even if its just saying "I thought that this paragraph/scene seemed awkward/OOC/poorly written"

I promise that there is a plot and there will be action soon enough, but I'm REALLY REALLY busy these next few weeks so I might not have time to update. If you want a chapter sooner, REVIEW- knowing that someone out there is actually interested in reading this motivates me :)