Okay guys I am so sorry that I'm not updating as fast as I said I would. So I telling you know I only going to update once a week and it will either be Saturday or Sunday late in the evening. This chapter is a little slow I think because I really wasn't much I could do with it so it refers back a lot to different parts in the darkest powers books. I was going make this chapter a 'break' chapter where I just write about the charters doing thing and putting some Cherek stuff in there but I didn't get a chance to. I will be doing once soon though I promise there will just maybe one or two more chapters before it. So quick question have any of you read 'The Mark of Athena' yet? I am dying to read that book.

Note: don't own Dp

DPROV

We ate at a small local sandwich shop for lunch. Despite my protests it was still dad's decision. The food didn't look remotely healthy at all and I was worried about what Simon was going to.

In the end with my constant bricking and nagging at him he finely settled on getting a salad. Which didn't look much better. I had a foot long with a small bag of chips.

Chloe didn't eat much taking small nibbles of her sandwich and munching on some chips.

She offered me the rest of her sandwich and I didn't refuse. We all ate quickly anxious to get back to reading, but none of us tried to show how much we each wanted to head back to the hotel. When my dad van pulled into the parking lot all of us partially sprinted to the rooms. One we were settled Simon handed the writing pad to me.

I sat on the edge of my hospital bed and tried to persuade myself I was still asleep. That was the best explanation for what I was hearing. I could also chalk it up to delusional, but I preferred dreaming.

Tori snorted but said nothing. While I saw Simon frown out of the corner of my eye.

Aunt Lauren sat beside me, holding my hand. My eyes went to the nurses gliding past in the corridor. She fallowed my gaze, rose, and shut the door. Through the glaze of tears, I watched her and pictured mom instead. Something inside me crumpled, and I was six years old, huddled on the bed, crying for my mother.

I reached over and tucked Chloe into my side as I continued reading. She barred her face in my shoulder and closed her eyes. I know it could be easy for her to hear this much less write about it.

I rubbed my hands over the covers, stiff and scratchy, catching at my dry skin. The room was so hot every breath made my parched throat tighten. Aunt Lauren handed me my water, and I wrapped my hands around the cool glass. The water had a metallic taste but I gulped it down.

"Ewe," Tori said. "Doesn't blood have a metallic taste to it?" She asked and looked straight at me; I glanced around at the others and shrugged not really wanting to answer her question.

Blood actually did have a metallic taste but I knew that from the time I bit my tong when I was little, not from hunting but I didn't want to say anything that would seem creepy.

"A group home," I said. The walls seemed to stuck the words from my mouth, like a sound stage, absorbing them and leaving only dried air. "Oh God, Chloe." She pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her noise.

"Yes a group home, it's such a tragedy." Tori said sarcastically as she interrupted me. I glared at her and she shut her mouth only to glare back. I cleared my throat and continued reading.

"Do you know how many times I've had to tell a patient he's dying? And somehow, this seams harder." She shifted to face me. "I know how badly you want to go to UCLA for college. This is the only way we're going to get you there, hon."

"UCLA is a pretty cool collage." Simon said. Chloe's eyes were open though her head was still on my shoulder. "Yeah," she said with a sad sigh. "I'll defiantly never get to go there now."

I much as it killed me I had to agree; I couldn't go to the college I wanted to either now. But I mean what did we aspect going from hotel to hotel now days. As if reading my thoughts Chloe said, "Will have to stop somewhere eventually." I just nodded not wanting to say anything.

"Is it Dad?" She paused, and I knew she'd like to blame him. She'd wanted to raise me after my mom passed away, spare me a life of housekeepers and empty apartments. She'd never forgiven my father for refusing.

Just like she'd never forgive him for the night my mother died. It didn't matter that they'd been sideswiped in a hit-and-run-he'd been driving, so she held him responsible.

"I mentally winched I know

"No," she said finally. "It's the school. Unless you spend two weeks undergoing evaluation in a group home, it will go on your permanent record."

"I wouldn't care if it was put on my permanent record," Tori said. We all gave her a look. "Ok I would care a little then," she admitted and I rolled my eyes. "But probably not much now."

"What will go on my record?" Her fist clenched around the tissue. "It's that da-" She caught herself. "It's a zero-tolerance policy." She spit the words with more venom than the curse.

"Zero-tolerance policy?" Simon repeated testing the words out on his tong. "That when you should have known that your Aunt was lying." Tori said, "My mom said the same crap to me." I grunted, "They all told us something like that."

"Zero tolerance? You mean violence? B-b-but I didn't-" "I know you didn't. But to them, it's simple. You struggled with a teacher. You need help." In a home. For crazy kids. I awoke several times that night.

"A scary thought like being stuck in home with crazy kids like us will do that to you." Simon joked and Chloe tossed a pillow in the direction of his head. While Tori punched his shoulder. "Bro a little help," he asked. "There ganging up on me." I just rolled my eyes, "Sorry busy." I said and held up the yellow pad.

The second time, my father was in the doorway, watching me. The third, he was sitting beside my bed. Seeing my eyes open, he reached over and awkwardly patted my hand. "It's going to be all right." I fell back asleep.

"Very touching moment there," Tori said. "Your one to talk," Chloe snapped and we all went silent. "Sorry," she mumbled. "It's just he's my Dad and even though he wasn't always there he did his best." She let out a sigh, "And I miss him," she whispered.

My father was still there the next morning. His eyes were bleary, the wrinkles around his mouth deeper then I remembered.

He'd been up all night, flying back from Berlin. I don't think Dad ever wanted kids. But he'd never tell me that, even in anger.

This time Tori was quite deep in thought about something or someone, and Chloe was giving her worried looks.

Whatever Aunt Lauren thinks of him, he does his best. He just doesn't seem to know what to make of me. I'm like the puppy left to him by someone he loved very much, and he struggles to do right by it even if he isn't much of a dog person.

I snorted as she compared herself to puppy even though she's as cute as one. I blushed slightly just thinking about that, and Chloe gave me and odd look.

"You changed your hair," he said as I sat up. I braced myself. When you run screaming through the school halls after dying your hair in the girls bathroom, the first thing people say-well, after they get past the screaming-through-the- halls part-is "you were doing what?

" Coloring your hair in a school bathroom isn't normal. Not for girls like me. And bright red streaks? While skipping class? It screams mental breakdown.

"Oh god Chloe you changed your hair color you must be insane." Simon said in a fake tragic voice. She stuck her tong out at him, "Then I guess your insane too; since you have such natural blond hair that you got from the sun."

Simons face paled then turned red from embarrassment while Chloe and I tried to keep out laughter to ourselves. "What are you guys talking about?" Tori asked; I cleared my throat, "Nothing," and continued reading.

"Do you like it?" My father asked after a moment. I nodded. He paused, then let out a strained chuckle. "Well, it's not exactly what I would have chosen, but it looks all right. If you like it that's what counts."

He scratched his throat, peppered with a beard shadow. "I guess your Aunt Lauren told you about this group home business. She's found one she thinks will be okay. Small, private. Can't say I'm thrilled with the idea, but it's only for a couple of weeks…."

"Yeah and look how well that turned out," Chloe said shaking her head. "I guess I shouldn't complain because if I hadn't have gone to Lyle House I would have never met you guys." Tori scrunched up her noise, "Chloe if you're going to start in with that mushy crap I'll leave."

"Please leave," Simon murmured and Tori hit him with a knock back spell. "Hay," I yelled. "Both of you knock it off before some see's."

No one would say what was wrong with me. They had me talk to a bunch of doctors and they ran some tests, and I could tell they had a good idea what was wrong and just wouldn't say it. The meant it was bad.

"Scary bad," Simon said and put on a fake scared face. I rolled my eyes at my brother; he was defiantly the over dramatic one.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen people who weren't really there. That's what Aunt Laruen had wanted to talk to me about after school.

When I mentioned the dream, she'd remember how I used to talk about people in our old basement. My parent figured it was my creative version of make-believe friends, inventing a whole cast of characters.

"Most kids do," I said. Everyone stared at me. "Just saying," I grunted out.

Then those friends started terrifying me, so much that we'd moved. Even after that, I'd sometimes "seen" people, so my mom bought me my ruby necklace and said it would protect me. Dad said it was all in psychology.

"That is psychology isn't it?" Tori asked confused. "It would be if Chloe was a normal little kid but I guess the necklace really did help her stop seeing ghost." Someone cleared there through, "Um still here," Chloe said raising her eyebrows at us.

I'd believed it worked, so it had. But now, it was happening again. And this time, no one was chalking it up to an overactive imagination. They were sending me to a home for crazy kids. They thought I was crazy. I wasn't.

"Or were you," Simon said rubbing his pretend beard. "Or were you," Tori mocked and elbowed him. "Grow up why don't you Simon." Simon stuck his tong out her and Tori was about to snap at him when I interrupted them by continuing reading.

I was fifteen and I had finely gotten my period and that had to count for something. It couldn't just be a coincidence that I'd started seeing things the same day.

All those stockpiled hormones had exploded from my brain misfired, plucking images from forgotten movies and tricking me into thinking they were real.

"There you go comparing things to movies again." Tori told Chloe and Chloe just giggled and rolled her eyes at Tori.

If I was crazy, I'd be doing more than seeing and hearing people who weren't there. I'd be acting crazy, and I wasn't. Was I? The more I thought about it, the more I wasn't sure.

I felt normal. I couldn't remember doing anything weird. Except for dying my hair in the bathroom. And skipping class. And breaking into the napkin dispenser. And fighting with a teacher.

"Technically you didn't really fight them, it was self-defiance." Simon pointed out.

That last one didn't count. I'd been freaked out from seeing that burned guy and I'd been struggling to get away from him, not trying to hurt anyone. Before that, I'd been fine. My friends thought I was fine. Mr. Petrie thought I was fine when he put me on the director short list.

"Which I didn't get," Chloe said grumpily.

Nate Bozian obviously thought I was fine. You wouldn't be happy that a crazy girl was going to the dance. He had been happy hadn't he? When I thought back, it all seemed fuzzy, like some distant memory that maybe I only dreamed.

"Don't we all wish that," I grumbled. Chloe glared at me. "No need to get jealous Der," she said. And Simon and Tori snickered at the nickname and I growled shutting them up.

What if none of that happened? I'd wanted the director spot.

I wanted Nate to be interested in me. Maybe I'd imagined it all. Hallucinated it, like the boy on the street and the crying girl and burned janitor. If I was crazy, would I know it? That's what being crazy was, wasn't it? You thought you were fine. Everyone else new better. Maybe I was crazy.

"We're all are crazy," Simon said agreeing with Chloe's book self.

My father and Aunt Lauren drove me to Lyle House on Sunday afternoon. They'd given me some medication before I left the hospital and it made me sleepy. Our arrival was a montage of still shots and clips. A huge white Victorian house perched on an oversized lot. Yellow trim. A swing on the wraparound porch.

"They make it look all nice and sweet but once your there they try brain wash you and suck out your soul." Tori said in a fake sinister voice.

Two women. The first, gray haired and wide hipped, coming forward to greet me. The younger one's dour eyes fallowing me, her arms crossed, braced for trouble. Walking up a long narrow flight of stairs. The older women- a nurse, who introduced herself as Mrs. Talbot- chirping a guided tour my fuzzy brain couldn't fallow.

Chloe shook her head, "I barely remember any of that." I frown, "They must have drugged you; but with what? What did the meds look like that they gave you?" She thought about it for a minute, "I don't remember."

A bedroom, white and yellow, decorated with daisies, smelling of hair gel. On the far side of the room, a twin bed with a quilt yanked over the bundled up sheets.

The walls over the bed decorated with pages ripped from teen magazines. The dresser covered with makeup tubes and bottles. Only the tiny desk bare.

"All of the rooms where laid out the same," Tori complained. "They were so boring and didn't have any color to them."

My side of the room was a sterile mirror image-same bed, same dresser, same tiny desk, all wiped clean of personality.

Time for Dad and Aunt Lauren to go. Mrs. Talbot explained I wouldn't see them for a couple of days because I needed time to "acclimate" to my new "environment." Like a pet in a new home. Hugging Aunt Lauren. Pretending I didn't see the tears in her eyes.

"I'm just glad that she was on our side in the end. I don't know what I would have done if I lost Aunt Lauren too."

An awkward embrace from Dad. He mumbled that he'd stay in town, and he'd would come visit as soon as they'd let him. Then he presses a roll of twenties into my hand as he kissed the top of my head.

"That's the kind of good bye every kid wants from their parents." "Tori," we all said as a grown. "What? I meant getting the roll of twenties."

Mrs. Talbot telling me they'd put my things away, since I was probably tired. Just crawl into bed. The blind closing. Room going dark. Falling back to sleep. My father's voice waking me. Room completely dark now, black outside. Night.

"Man, you must have been really drugged." "Simon," I growled. "What? Oh, um sorry Chlo." She smiled at him, "It's okay."

Dad silhouetted in the doorway. The younger nurse-Miss Van Dop—behind him, face set in disapproval. My father moving beside me and pressing something soft into my arms.

"We forgot Ozzie. I wasn't sure you'd sleep without him." The koala bear had been on a shelf in my room for two years, banished from my bed when I'd outgrown him. But I took him and buried my noise in his ratty fake fur that smelled of home.

"You slept with a stuffed animal until you were thirteen?" Tori asked eyebrows raised. Chloe's face was read. "I was twelve not thirteen."

I awoke to the wheezy sleep breathing of the girl in the next bed. I looked over but saw only a form under the quilt. As I turned back, hot tears slid down my cheeks. Not homesickness. Shame. Embarrassment. Humiliation.

We all glanced at Chloe who had her face buried in my shoulder again so we couldn't see her expression.

I'd scared Aunt Lauren and Dad. They'd had to scramble to figure out what to do with me. What was wrong with me. How to fix it. And school… My cheeks burned hotter than my tears.

"Nothing wrong with you Chloe," Simon said. "Yeah, if something were wrong with you then something defiantly got to be wrong with him." Tori said pointing towage Simon who frown in confusion.

How many kids had heard me screaming? Peeked in that classroom while I'd been fighting the teachers babbling about being chased by melted custodians. Seen me being taken away strapped to a stretcher. Anyone who'd missed the drama would have heard about it.

"Gossip spreads fast," Tori said with a smirk, "Unfortunately."

Everyone would know that Chloe Saunders had lost it. That she was nuts, crazy, locked up with the rest of the loonies. Even if they let me return to school, I didn't think I'd ever have the guts to go back.

"Alright who's next?" I asked. Chloe lifted her head from my shoulder and plucked the pad from my fingers. I guess that meant she would. Suddenly she jumped the stiffened glancing back and forth around the room.

"Chloe?" I said unsure. I glanced at the other who both had worried looks on their faces. She must have found what she was looking for because Chloe's head turned to the left and smiled.

CPROV

"Alright who's next?" Derek asked and I sat up and reached over and took the writing pad from him with a teasing smile that probably would make Tori gag if she'd seen it. "I will." A light bubbly voice said and I froze.

I glanced around the room but did not see a ghost. To my left there was a simmer of something and I turned to see a young girl with blond hair wearing Mickey Mouse pajamas. "Hi Chloe," she said with a giggle and I couldn't help but to smile.

So I would like some suggestions on my 'brake' chapter that I'm going to do. The setting is going to be in the evening so I guess it could have something to with Derek's changes or Chlo and Der going on a date. Maybe just the gang going out to eat or something like that, but I could really use some suggestions. Please and thank you! R&R