"She's a GIRL?"

Excuse me?

"WHAT?" Another guy's voice rang from up the stairs. I heard two more pairs of feet come down the stairs. A really tall guy came down first. His hair was medium length for a guy. His bangs were brushed over to the side of his face. Another one came from behind him, he was shorter but he was still tall. His hair was pretty cool; it was spiked up in the front.

The two taller boys stood in front of me, not enjoying what they saw. On the other hand the boy with the spiky hair seemed happy that I was here. He moved around the other two and stood in front of them, a friendly crooked smile spread across his face.

"Hi, I'm Logan." He said as he and I shook hands.

"I'm Sammie." I said politely, trying to ignore the people behind Logan. Logan smile got wider once he heard my name.

"Sammie, I like it!" I smiled and bit my lip. I do that when I'm uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong a cute guy complimenting my name was awesome! It's just the reaction I have trouble with.

I tried keeping eye contact with Logan, but my eyes kept drifting to the two taller guys behind him. They both had their arms crossed while giving me a disapproving look. Logan eventually turned around to see what I was looking at, and laughed.

"Well since it doesn't look like they're going to talk to you anytime soon," He said as he moved next to me. He pointed to the blonde. "That's Kendall, and that's James." He pointed to the tallest one.

They continued to stare at me, it was rather awkward.

"Guys, aren't you going to say hi to Sammie?" Logan asked, starting to get annoyed.

James rolled his eyes, turned around, and walked out of the room. Kendall walked away into a different room.

"Am I that repulsive?" I asked to myself.

Logan laughed. "No, we were just expecting a guy to come here. Since there were already four of us here it only seemed logical that this place was only for male delinquents."

Riiiiiight…

"So where is the fourth one?" I looked around the room. I had only seen three boys around my age, being in this house it creates theories…

I saw someone slowly come down the stairs, not making any noise like the last three did. They bent down to see who was in the room. He was cute, and Latino. Truthfully I expected these people to be very menacing. Instead I come to four very good looking guys who didn't look menacing at all.

Logan saw the boy too and smiled. "That's Carlos." He said softly. "He just came here last week. He's still kind of awkward with this whole process. He's also quiet; he won't tell us what he did."

I turned my head to Logan. "How long have you been here?"

"About a month and a half."

I was about to ask what Logan did, but Carlos came down to meet Logan and I.

"Carlos, this is Sammie." Logan introduced.

Carlos smiled shyly. "Hi."

I greeted him back when I noticed James I think it was came back into the room.

"Logan, Kathy wants to talk to you." He said. He glanced at me awkwardly, and then looked at Carlos. "This is Carlos, by the way." He pointed out, trying to make conversation.

"I know," I said. "Logan just said that."

Logan looked between the four of us.

"Okay! Can you guys show Sammie to her room while I go talk to Kathy?"

James glared at Logan.

"Please? I'm not asking you to date her or anything just do it!" He scolded as he walked out of the room. James glared at me then left in the same direction Kendall did.

Which just left me and Carlos.

"It's okay; you don't have to show me where my room is. I'll find it…eventually." I said after a short awkward silence.

Carlos shook his head. "No. I-I…got lost when…when I had to find mine…my room."

"What, did they just leave you to find it for yourself?"

He shook his head again. "No."

Something was strangely familiar about this kid.

He grabbed one of my suitcases and walked up the stairs, I followed him with my backpack and my other suitcase.

"Carlos, how old are you?" I asked as we were going up the stairs.

Carlos looked back at me. "Seventeen."

"How long have you been seventeen?"

Hey, at least this way I can suspect if he's a vampire or not.

"Couple weeks."

Darn.

"How long are you supposed to be here?" We were walking down a hallway now.

"Ten months." He looked back at me again. "What… What about you?"

"Six months."

Carlos walked up to a door and opened it. He led me inside and I scanned the room.

Surprisingly it was very nice. Simple, but nice. There was a bed in the back of the room and a simple vanity dresser thing in the opposite corner. He set my suitcase next to my bed.

"Don't be…hurt, by James and…and Kendall." He said as he was about to leave the room. "They're…really nice…"

And then he left.

/

After I had put away all of my clothes, Logan came up to tell me that it was time for dinner.

Strange, really, I would've thought that it would be like a cafeteria type thing.

Then again…Nothing has been what I thought it would be.

I sat next to Logan at the table, James and Kendall sat across from us. Carlos sat next to Logan at the end, and Kathy sat opposite from him.

"Fine!" Kendall interjected out of nowhere. "I'll say it! Sammie!"

I looked up at him.

"What did you do?"

"Kendall!" Kathy scolded.

"What? Everyone wants to know!"

James and Logan nodded. Carlos was looking at his food.

Kendall turned back to me. "So what'd you get busted for?"

I looked at Kathy, who just shook her head.

"I uh, I stole a really rare and expensive ring."

Carlos' head shot up.

"Was it made out of this really shiny platinum metal with a diamond with sapphires surrounding it and then smaller diamonds going around the rest of it?" he asked, suddenly interested.

Everyone looked at him, and then back at me.

"Uh…yeah. Yeah, it was." I answered a little weirded out. Everyone's heads turned to look at Carlos again. Carlos looked at Logan and James.

"Excuse me." Carlos said as he got up and left the room.

"Carlos!" James called as he stood up too along with Logan.

"I don't want to talk." Carlos responded. He ran up the stairs with the rest of us staring after him.

James turned to me and sat down. "How'd you do that?"

I looked at his most fascinated expression. "Do what? Upset him?" I didn't feel too special if that was the case.

"No, make him talk."

My eyebrows furrowed. "Don't you guys make him talk?"

"No. Well, yes, but that's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"Will you shut up and let me explain?"

"Only after you tell me what you meant!"

"I will once you—"

"Okay stop it!" Logan interjected.

"My God, are you two going to be doing that the whole time you're here?" Kendall asked, annoyed.

"If that's the case then I'm going to go stay in the church." Logan threatened, though it wasn't much of a threat at all.

Kendall protested. "Aww no, Logan! That place is our…" He trailed off, now standing, looking at Kathy who was still with us at the table. "That place is just…creepy! Oh, so very creepy!" He corrected.

Kathy and I stared at Kendall like there was something wrong with him. Like, mentally. Or maybe…like we had just seen unicorns come in through the roof and do the tango with the lamp…Yeah like that.

"Uh, so um…Hey Kathy!" Kendall said, trying to get out of the awkward situation. "Where's Ron?"

Kathy seemed to forget whatever Kendall had said before, and smiled. "He just had to do some errands today. He said he'll be back late."

Kendall nodded understandingly. He and Logan sat back down at the table. "So how long are you here for, Sammie?" Kendall asked, creating another conversation.

"Six months." I answered simply. The three boys continued to stare at me like I had something more interesting to say.

"And?" James replied.

"And what? That's basically it. I stole a ring; I got caught; now I'm in…whatever this is."

By this time Kathy had disappeared from the kitchen, and we had all trailed up the stairs.

"It's basically a foster home. Er, rather it was. That's why it's so big. The government ran out of room in the detention centers in '98. So they found this place where people like us could go, when there's no room in the original place we were supposed to go. It still serves as a foster home, but no one ever comes here because it's so secluded. The closest thing here is the old abandoned church up the hill and the farm next door."

Kendall and James stared at him.

"Okay, James and I both have been here longer and even we didn't know all that." Kendall deadpanned.

Logan laughed. "He's really smart, if you haven't noticed yet." James informed me. Logan chuckled again.

"If you're so smart then what did you do to get you in here?" I asked.

"Technically I didn't do anything. Basically I was framed."

"By who?"

"Classmates."

"What'd they do?"

"Burned down half of my school."

"Woah! Lucky!"

"Lucky? I was framed for something I didn't even do. Now I'm stuck here for a year."

"Wow, Logie. I am shocked to know you feel that way!" Kendall put his hand over his heart like he was experiencing some kind of pain. Logan just rolled his eyes and turned back to me.

"You see, for my study hall I went into the auditorium to study. About halfway through the class these five guys came in laughing and talking. They didn't notice me there so I ignored them and went back to studying. A few minutes later I started to smell cigarette smoke, so I went to the back of the stage where I found all of the guys smoking. I asked them to stop—"

"Because Logan is kind of prissy." James whispered loudly. Kendall and James both looked really bored. Obviously they've heard this story more than five times.

"You guys don't smoke either!" Logan retorted.

"I used to…" Kendall admitted. "But not anymore."

"Either way, smoking is not good. It causes you to get lung cancer which—"

"Okay, Logan. Thank you; we don't need a medical lecture." Kendall stopped him, putting his hand out in front of him.

Logan sighed. "Anyway, they started to make fun of me. One of them threw their lit cigarette at me. I dodged it and it caught on the curtains. Sure enough it began to smoke and go up in flames. After everyone had gotten out of the school, the kids who were in the auditorium with me said that I was the one who set the stage on fire."

"Didn't you do anything to stop them?" I asked.

"I tried, but they chose to believe them instead of me. The following month I was sent here."

"And met us!" Kendall added, gesturing to James and himself, also wiggling his eyebrows.

Logan and James laughed, Kendall looking pretty proud of himself for being humorous.

"Wait, so how'd you guys get here?" I asked.

"Attempted manslaughter." Kendall said.

"WOAH! Really?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Nope."

"Then what did you come in here for?"

"I told you. It was for attempted manslaughter."

"But you just said—"

"I was framed too."

"But how? How could you be blamed for something like that?"

"By people who can think they literally can get away with anything."

"That's basically what happened with all of us." James butt in.

"Why, what'd you do?" I asked with a little bit of poison in my voice. It wasn't voluntary, but I've gotten to the point where I find that he doesn't like me too much.

"I raped someone." He admitted.

"Oh, God! Seriously?"

"NO!" James shouted like I was an idiot. "Gosh, don't you learn anything? I just said we were all blamed for what we did."

I tried to process this. "…So you did do it." I concluded.

"NO—well, not really." James said, lost in thought. "Her dad didn't like me too much, so she said I raped her."

"Ohh, interesting…" I did not need to know that...

Suddenly something came into my mind. "Wait," I said. "You're saying that all of us are innocent?"

"Yup!" Logan said quite cheerfully. "I like to call it the House of Innocence."

I blinked a couple times. "I'm sorry. The House of what?"

"The House of Innocence." He repeated. "Neither of the three of us are really guilty. Someone caused us to be here—in this house—and it was not ourselves."

"The three of you? Are you saying I'm guilty?" I accused, crossing my arms.

It was quiet for a few seconds. Then they all said at the same time:

"Yes."

"For your information, that is not necessarily true!" I said matter-of-factly.

"Okay," James said as he rolled his eyes. "Then what happened?"

I glared at him. "To be honest, I don't really know. All I do know, though, is that I was walking down the street in my town. Some random guy runs into me and knocks me down, he apologizes then runs away. I start walking again when I feel something in my pocket. When I pulled it out I found the ring. That's when a police car pulled up and asked me if I had seen anything. Next thing I know I'm being shoved into a cop car while the dude is explaining my rights."

There was a pause before anyone responded.

"…Cool story." James finally stated. He walked past Logan and I and went into his room and shut the door.

What is his problem?