I sat there on the bench in front of the one window in my room, my MacBook sitting next to me shuffling through my playlist as I sat there reading a book. It had been a pretty messed up few days since the last time I'd seen Tate. After the whole whatever that was down in the basement I had a bit of a hard time being around him, I couldn't process what the hell had happened.

Not to mention Jax hadn't been around much either for me to talk to someone about it, just Moira. The maid and I felt really weird talking to that woman. She was always trying to get around my dad, always talking really messed up to him. I guess I could always wait till Monday when Jax is forced to be in the same room as me, however Tate would also be there.

I had tried to apologize to Maddy yesterday however she refused to open her bedroom door and claimed to be really sick. Which wasn't like her, sick or not Maddy was always parading around like the world was her castle and everyone around her peasants. This wasn't normal.

I felt a hand on my shoulder as I turned to see Jax standing over me with a soft grin on his lips. He moved my laptop over taking a seat beside me on the bench. Pulling out my head phones after pausing my music I sat there and looked at him, feeling the sullen mood I was in lifting slightly.
"Hey, long time." I commented.

"Yea, sorry about that… I've been AWOL trying to keep Addy out of the house. You know give Lillian less to bitch about, I mean have you met Addy and Tate's mom? Woman is a piece of work." He commented as I nodded slowly.

"What's wrong?" He asked me suddenly.

I wasn't honestly sure of where to start. I had—had this conversation in my head to myself for the past two days and yet now that I was able to have it. I couldn't even form the words in my head let alone speak them. "Something happen?" He asked again the worry in his voice growing.

"The other day, the Maddy thing that Tate and I had planned out… something happened down there." I commented.

"Like what?" He peaked.

"Well, for starters I could hear children laughing like little boys. Than the lights they went off and I couldn't get them back on, then this thing showed it self to Maddy and her friend… Jax it was vile looking like not even human… and I know I saw what I did… there is no way I imagined it, Maddy and her friend saw the thing." I rambled out.

"I've heard the kids laughing too around the house, and sometimes right before I hear the laughter something breaks… I'm also almost positive there's something up in the attic with me…" He confessed to me.

"What do you mean?"

He sighed, "I hear chains moving around up there along the floor and this red ball is almost always on the floor in the middle of the room… Lex, I've watched this ball roll out from under my bed numerous times."

I lowered my head, "I've found a red ball in the basement and outside my door a few times. I pick it up and put it on my desk and it's gone within seconds of me turning my back to it." I told him as I watched him shudder. "Not freaky at all, do you think Madds or Dad have seen anything?" He asked me.

"I have no idea, I always see dad hitting on the old maid." I told him.

"Yea I saw that too, he kept asking me if I thought she had a nice rack and ass… dirty. Guess his tastes have changed since we've moved here." He chuckled. "I guess so."

Jax sat there staring out my window with a look of fear in his eyes, "What is it?" I asked him, "I've seen that man before he was following dad and I around yesterday." I motioned out the window for me to look.

"Creepy." I uttered staring at the horribly burned man that was standing in our garden staring up at the window that would be our Dad and Lillian's room. "Kind of weird, is dad home?" I asked.

"Yea." Jax said still staring out at the man. "Do you know what he's doing?" I asked him insistently.

"Yea, the maid." He scoffed.

"Ew seriously?" I asked as he nodded. "Gross." I remarked. "Pretty much." He chuckled, "Try getting that image out of your head." He stuck his tongue out at me.

"You are a sick man, a sick sad strange little man." I told him as I pushed him with my foot kicking him off the bench.

"Hey!" He cried out, as he couldn't contain his laughter. "So have you talked to Tate? You know since that basement thing? Maybe he saw it too, and you know heard things? There's no way it's just us."

I sighed looking over at him, "No, he's been acting weird and after the whole thing we where up here watching a movie and he just kept getting closer to me." I explained.

"He likes you." He shrugged as he sat back on the bench. "How would you know?" I snapped at him arching my brow.

"He told me? You went to the bathroom during the lesson and he asked me if it would be weird if he got closer to you…Chad told him to leave you alone, but he seems alright to me, maybe a bit intense." He smirked.

"Your setting me up with the guy we get tutored with… really?" I shook my head. "Oh come on Lex, when was the last time you crawled out of your shell and got to know someone besides me?"

Sighing I looked out the window only to notice the man wasn't outside anymore. Jax was right, I did need to start talking to new people and Tate wasn't so bad. He was a bit intense, kind of gloomy but he was a pretty cool guy. "How was hanging out with Addy at the mall on Friday?" I asked him.

"Pretty good, she's a very happy girl all things considered. I mean she loves her mom and brother unconditionally even though she seems to think she's a monster. Rough life. However I took her to a movie and lunch and she said she felt like a princess so, I think it was a good night." He smiled at me.

Jax was always a good guy like that, I just hoped he made it clear to Addy he was just her friend I think, she would if she doesn't already crush on Jax quickly. "I'm glad she enjoyed herself, and you took her home?" I asked him.

"Yea her mom Constance, she's a bit weird but she seemed pretty grateful that I had done something nice with her."

Nodding I sighed, "That's good, I guess your right about everything though. I do need to open up more I mean I can't act like this is Washington still, you being my only friend not going anywhere… smoking poppers and being drunk." I explained as he laughed.

"Those where the days though, I won't lie. However this place isn't so bad I mean once you get past how insanely creepy this house is, the fact that a woman watches me sleep and that I am almost positive there's someone in the attic with me, there is potential." He laughed again.

"A woman watches you sleep?" I questioned him.

"I guess, I mean I feel like this woman is watching me sometimes… could also just be that maid she's pretty creepy." He shrugged.

"Moira? She's alright its just really creepy that this like 60 year old woman is banging our dad…" I pretended to vomit causing him to laugh.

"I miss when Maddy would hang with us like this." I sighed, picking my laptop up and moving it to my desk before coming back to the bench. "Yea me too, she wont even respond when I knock on the door… whatever Tate set up down there, really freaked her out." He told me as I nodded.

"Guess on Monday I'll talk to him about it." I sighed, "I'm sure she'll be fine till tomorrow."

"I'm gonna go to the skate park for a bit before dinner, if you want to come with me?" He offered. "Yea sure, meet you at the front?" I said as he nodded leaving my room.

Sitting there on the bench I began to wonder what it was I could do to get her to leave her room. I felt horrible for the fact that I had scared her this much even if it was so her and her new friends would leave Jax and I alone whenever we left the house.

I knocked on her door with my skateboard in my free hand, "Maddy, I'm so sorry for what happened on Friday. I didn't think it would go that far, I didn't realize what was all going to happen. I just wanted to frighten you a bit so you guys would stop teasing us. The three of us have drifted apart so much that I'm scared; I hate us being so distant… I get that you don't want to talk to Jax or I anymore because of Friday but… don't stick yourself in your room and never come out." I said as I turned to leave.

"I saw the Devil that night, in the basement staring me in the face. It cut me… see?" I heard her say as I turned around to see she had covered her face with some sort of bandage, some of her hair was turning white. "Scared me so badly that my hair is going white… and falling out." She continued to tell me.

"I don't know what your friend is into, Alexis but keep him away from me and don't believe anything he says… he and this house are beyond saving… we should be turning to God in this hour… repent for our sins, and keep the Devil from ensnaring our souls." She explained before going back into her room.

"The fuck?" I mumbled as I heard someone move from behind me.

"Shouldn't swear like that Miss, it's terribly unladylike." I looked back to see the Maid behind me. "Guess so, is she right? Is the Devil living in our basement?" I asked her.

"You think I would know?" She mused; I just shrugged as she smiled. "Story for another time I think Miss, you should run along now. Your brother is downstairs waiting for you." She told me as I nodded slowly running down the stairs to find my brother at the door.

"Ready to go?" He asked, "Hell yes." I grinned.

SPACE

"I still can't believe her hair was white…" Jax said once we got back to the house, we had bumped into Maddy's junkie friend Leah when we had gotten to the skate park.

She looked like a boho-hobo, her hair was turning white she had a smoke in hand and she was acting incredibly skittish. She was telling people how she had seen the devil, looked him in the eyes. She sounded similar to how Maddy had sounded when she had finally come out of her room. Even if it was only for a few seconds.

"Maddy's is turning white too it's crazy. Like now I really need to talk to Tate tomorrow, I have no idea how what we saw down there scared them that much…" I explained as we entered the house walking down the hall towards the kitchen where Moira was preparing dinner for the family.

"Yea considering you're perfectly fine." He added.

"No clue, it's insane though how white her hair was…" I sighed pushing the soft pink hair back behind my ears. I looked over at Moira as she was cutting up some vegetables, she was oddly quiet normally she always had something to comment on when it came to Jax and I. I know at one point she had commented that we were the sensitive's in the family.

I guess Jax and I can be pretty sensitive, I mean I don't take to well with mean comments or drama. There have been times where I have cried myself to sleep over a comment someone made but I didn't think it was so obvious I was like that, that the maid we hired the day we moved in would notice. Kind of a piss off really.

"Moira, how long have you served the patrons of this house? You seem to know your way around really well." Jax said causing me to stop staring at her and return to looking at my hands that where on the counter.

"Oh, probably since my early youth if I had to round it out. Why do you ask Sir?" She pondered.

"Exactly that was just curious how you knew your way around. So there's this haunted homes tour that goes by our house. Why do they call in the Murder House? I mean Lex and I have noticed things that happen here but is it really possible that there are ghosts' in the house?" He continued.

"Jax come on, don't bother her with that, we can just Google it when we go upstairs later." I reminded him.

"Yea but if she's worked here a while she would know things." He smirked.

"I know the previous owners died here in a murder suicide, and the family who owned this home when it was built died in the same matter… anything else I don't really know…" She explained to him as she turned around to face the stove to continue cooking.

"Jax, stop it." I called to him again as he grinned. "You can't lie you're curious too…" He commented.

"Then ask Addy's mom she's lived next door forever." I snapped standing up; I don't know why I snapped. I looked around the room confused looking at a shocked Jax.

"Alright sorry; I was just curious Alex." He shrugged. "No… I'm sorry… I don't know why I snapped…" I said looking down at my feet, before leaving the room heading up to my room shutting and locking the door behind me.

I flopped down on my bed letting my legs hang off the end of the bed, my face buried in the bed sheets. What was going on with me, I had been having such dark thoughts. Snapping at my best friend—Jax, I had been getting angrier. Not to mention the intense distance between Maddy, Jax and I that was really only growing with each day we had been here.
I heard a knocking on my door, "What?" I growled from the sheets.

"Want to unlock the door and tell me what's going on with you?" I heard my dad's voice through the door. "No not really." I commented.

"Alexis." I heard his low voice call; he was likely leaning against my door waiting for me to open the door. "Ok, I'm coming." I said walking towards the door unlocking it before I turned back around flopping down on the bed again.

It wasn't long before he had sat down next to my legs on the bed, "I remember when I went through teen angst. I used to fight with your uncles all the time. I mean there where times where I thought we where going to right out kill each other." He had started to tell me.

"We knew we loved each other, that part was hard wired into us, but that would never cease the fighting. I'd get bullied at school all the time and in turn I would bully my younger brothers…that doesn't mean we didn't love each other. Look Alexis, I know your having a hard time adjusting to this move, this house… we all are in our own ways." He explained as I sat up on the bed looking over at him confused by the statement.

"How?"

"Look at Madison; she is slowly realizing that she can't carry on with the attitude she's grown and she's learning to accept and enjoy new aspects of life." What he means is she'd gone crazy and thinks the devil is in our house. How have I not seen Tate today, did he think I was pissed with him? Well I kind of was for whatever happened in the basement.

"Jaxson is starting to become more social, making friends doing less drugs." He continued to tell me, Jaxson hadn't stopped doing the amount he was doing. He simply just did it some place that wasn't here. His room gave him the creeps, always saying how he's hearing chains scrape on the floor. He wasn't being social he was looking for an escape route from this house.

"Lillian is adjusting; she's opening up her own store soon in town." He said causing me to arch my brow. When was she capable of running a business? Why did I care she'd be gone more often than not… wasn't like it really mattered to be honest with myself.

"And I've been getting a large amount of clients in, not like the cases are winning cases and most of them do seem rather… horrible in the sense where I'm almost positive they are committing felonies but still… money is money." Even if it's dirty apparently.

"Look sweetheart, you'll find your way soon… you have your new friend Tate, and Addy. Things will get better, just try to calm down don't work yourself up so much." He told me with a smile. "Yea your right… thanks dad." I smiled as he pulled me into a hug, kissed my forehead and left my room closing my door behind me.

There was something wrong with this house, Jax knew it, Maddy knew it, hell I'm sure even Lillian knew it and that's why she was never here. I was almost tempted to get my dad to put me into one of the public schools just to get me out of this house. I knew he'd say no, he wouldn't admit it but I know he thinks Jax and I have something seriously wrong with us; or that we were bad kids.

Maybe I was wrong but it was always the vibe I got when I approached the subject of public or private school with him. He'll mom had said it a few times in letters to him regarding the two of us, she'd call us the gruesome twosome, that usually every set of twins has a good and evil twin yet here we where… practically the same person. I just hoped class tomorrow with Chad wasn't like Friday, hearing him complain about how Lillian and Dad decorated the place is annoying as hell. However Tate would be there and I'd be able to talk to him about everything… and maybe figure out what or why he asked my brother about dating me. I let my eyes shut and take me off into the world of sleep, I couldn't wait till I fell asleep.