I'm so sorry that it's been too long! Here's the thing school took over my life, and then when it was Summer I had other projects to work on. But thank you for the support Arrowkid21, Lucann, fearius, , The Doctor, Sophie1101, little miss fairchild, Katiekatexoxu,Gnomej, stephanie 101,Amsalietull 7711, Amalie and Guest. I just hope I got everyone and spelt names right. If not you are welcome to yell at me via PM or review! aI'm not going to give false promises of having frequent updates. LY!

"Hey Alexa," Emmy greeted when she sat down in her usual seat in Maths. Alexa opened her mouth to reply but a yawn came out. "Someone had a late night?" Emmy smirked.

Alexa glared at her, something Emmy had never seen before. "Don't go there," Alexa ordered. "Because of that nasty selfish thing you call a brother, I spent way past midnight with Piper trying to console her. And when I got back to my room I woke up my roommate so she roared at me for it, and she stole all my make-up this morning because of it." Alexa looked around her, checking no one was eavesdropping. She leaned in closer to Emmy and said, "Promise you won't tell anyone this."

Emmy inspected the apprehensive look on Alexa's face; she was about to divulge a sensitive opinion. "Of course," Emmy assured her.

"I never thought Piper had a real chance with Caine. I mean, she's pretty, but not like you or Diana Ladris. Plus she is really bossy, it annoys me all the time."

"Why do you let her boss you?" Emmy asked.

Alexa shrugged, "That's always been the way."

Emmy focused harder on Alexa to find out if this was her thoughts or just a ploy set up by Piper. No, Alexa really thought all this. Perhaps Emmy was giving Piper too much credit to set up this trap. "Stand up for yourself," Emmy encouraged.

"That may be easy for you," Alexa sighed.

"One of the few benefits of an older brother like Caine, you have to learn to stand up for yourself to survive."

"Hey," Max said from behind them.

"What do you want?" Emmy snapped, irritated by him interrupting the harvest of information she was gaining.

"What's today's date?" Max asked. "I need it to put at the top of my page."

While Emmy crinkled her nose in disgust at him, yet Alexa answered, "November tenth."

Mrs Taylor stormed through the doors. The usually immaculate teacher was wearing a crinkled blouse without make-up, and her hair looked to have gone through a hurricane. Mrs Taylor appeared far older than thirty-two—her rumoured age.

"Gees, what happened her?" Alexa sneered. Whoa, Alexa was in a terrible mood.

Emmy eyed the teacher, and smirked. "Look at her wedding ring," Emmy whispered.

Alexa craned her neck to get a peek at the ring that seemed to hold the answer. "She isn't wearing one," Alexa pointed out.

"Exactly. Now what does that tell us?" Emmy joked. Alexa didn't answer so Emmy filled in the blank. "That we have the answer to the mystery of Mrs Taylor being off all of last week."

"Poor Mrs Taylor." The interesting Alexa was wearing off and being replaced with the girl's normal kind self.

"I bet her husband cheated on her with some college girl."

"Emmy, that's not funny!" Alexa hissed.

Emmy defended herself. "Well, look at the state of her, and with that nagging voice. I honestly wouldn't blame the guy!"

"They have a baby!"

"What?" Emmy asked; she never heard that piece of gossip.

"Yeah, she was just back from maternity-leave in September. She went off some time around Thanksgiving, so the baby—a little boy—would be almost one." Alexa gave Emmy a disapproving look.

"Maybe I take back what I said," Emmy conceded.

During the pair's discussion, Mrs Taylor had been sifting through a pile work that had accumulated over her absence. It seemed homeworks had just been dumped on her desk, and were hiding the work that she needed. It had been a hard week for Mrs Taylor. First her husband had found out about her affair with the next-door neighbour. Understandably Mr Taylor had walked out, running to his father: the best divorce lawyer in the county. So the selfish moron would end up not having to pay a cent towards caring for their son. Then, her lover decided it wasn't worth the agro leave his wife as she had no self-worth and had 'forgiven him'. Apparently Mrs Taylor was one of many of his side dishes. So she had the prospect of being a single-mother with no support, her friends had all decided they were on her husband's side. That's what happens when you're with someone for eleven years; who gets the friends is a separate custody battle, and Mrs Taylor had been annihilated. She couldn't care less about these 8th grade freaks that she was currently responsible for. For all she cared the class was empty until she found what she needed to begin it. That's why she didn't hear the spoilt brat Emmy Soren whisper to her neighbour. "Actually, I could be wrong. More like Mrs Taylor was playing away, and she's going to pay big time."

"Today is NOT going to be a good day," Mrs Taylor muttered to herself. She tried to pull open one of her desk drawers, but it wouldn't budge. Great, it was jammed. Mrs Taylor put all the effort she could into pulling that draw open. When it did open, it didn't do so slowly and controlled. No it had to come flying out of its place to hang freely and vertically from Mrs Taylor's hand, spilling its content. Only using one swearword was great self-control from Mrs Taylor.

"Oi!" Max, a delinquent, yelled. "You have to go see the principal."

"What?" Mrs Taylor demanded.

"That's what happens when you say the F-word."

"Shut up Max!" Mrs Taylor wanted to be anywhere but in that room now. She felt her tear ducts swelling. This was just to much. Her day would be hell in school followed by going home and being all alone. She had cried once before in front of a class when she was pregnant. In most schools it would be a grave and isolated crime to make a teacher cry, but other teachers commended her. Only the once and in extenuating circumstances. Well, she had never had Drake Merwin, thank the Lord.

The class was filled with the F-word flying about. The principal need only walk in and then Mrs Taylor would be a goner. An unemployed single-mother was even worse. "EVERYONE BE—"

The instruction hung in the air, waiting for Mrs Taylor to finish it, but she couldn't. She was no longer there to finish it.

"What just happened?" Emmy captioned everyone else's disbelief.

"She's just…" Alexa didn't have the words. Only a vague and uncertain hand gesture towards the empty space behind Mrs Taylor's desk.

Emmy raced through the minds of everyone in the room. She knew some people had powers, telepathy, telekinetic, super speed and many more that Emmy didn't know about. Maybe someone had the power to move people. Maybe Mrs Taylor was standing in another room somewhere in the school. No. No one had guilty thoughts. One person was thinking that this might be related to powers. Emmy concentrated solely on those thoughts. They belonged to a chatty Asian girl. "Can I do it other people? I'm only a three bar." No, she probably couldn't do that.

People were making moves to leave the class—not to get help, more likely to not waste a teacher gone AWOL. "All the other teachers are gone too!" a person in the hall shouted into the classroom.

"Every teacher?" Alexa asked, paling drastically.

"Don't worry," Emmy assured her, "we'll just call someone like the police and they'll get help. In the meantime, there are the older kids. Some of the eleventh and twelfth graders actually have some sense. They'll stop anyone from trying anything like world domination." Emmy didn't know what she felt so calm; maybe it was sheer refusal to acknowledge the ludicrous situation. But all that calmness left when Caine Soren's voice was heard through the speaker. Emmy imagined him sitting smugly in the large leather chair that belonged to the principal, flanked by Drake and Diana.

"Hello everyone," Caine began, oozing professionalism through the microphone. "Caine Soren here. It appears that minutes ago, the whole of the school's staff, those in tenth grade and above, and even some ninth-graders have suddenly… vanished." There goes Caine's roadblock to world domination. "Every effort is being made to contact the authorities, but to no avail. We are confident that we will be rescued, but until then we are on our own. But don't worry. We're not any old school; we're Coates Academy. Normal doesn't flow through this school's veins. Nevertheless, this is unprecedented and everyone's wellbeing is most important. So I think we need strong leadership in school, which I believe I can provide. If anyone disagrees with this and feels they would be a more suitable leader, then feel free to discuss this with me, and my good friend Drake Merwin." Yeah, Caine was not going to be challenged. "Don't worry though," Caine's tone lightened. "While we wait, you may as well enjoy yourselves. Leave everything up to me and my very competent friends. It will all be fine."

Emmy didn't need to read her classmates minds to know Caine had won all of them over. She knew she would have felt the same had she not grown up along side Caine, and knew the last thing he cared about was "everyone's wellbeing". As long as he was in control he was happy.

…

Caine swivelled in the principal's chair. The principal had sat on his ass all day so it wasn't surprising his chair was the type a person could sleep in. Not that Caine would dream of doing that right now; this was the most exciting day of his life. Computer Jack was working on fixing the phones in the principal's waiting room, though that seemed to be a hopeless cause. Nothing defeated Jack, and the nerd was beat. Drake was off around the school, making sure no one else was trying to impose their rule. The bullies were under strict orders if they got up to their usual antics they would face Drake. That would appease Caine's doubters. Drake controlled the bullies, and Caine controlled Drake. Drake wasn't an ideas guy and as long as Caine allowed him to dish out some brutality then he was happy. Diana had been sent to check on the school supplies. Lunch had been the first test; it passed with relative ease as most of the sixth and seventh grade had been drafted in. And Emmy? Caine's last spy had placed her in Piper's room. His name would be a curse word in there, but outside of it he was in control.

The door swung open, Diana was back. "Dinner is under control," she said as she settled into a seat opposite Caine.

"Good, people tend to be happier when they're fed."

"Then they won't be happy for very long. The school gets weekly food deliveries, and there was one scheduled for two hours after all the adults disappeared."

Caine's thumbnail instinctively entered his mouth. "That's thrown a spanner in the works," Caine said after several minutes of anxious chewing.

"In to what?" Diana barked. "The otherwise perfect plan of your dictatorship over this school?"

"Having more supplies would have given us more time," Caine reasoned.

"More time for what? Waiting to be rescued? In case you haven't noticed, it's been seven hours since the adults left and not a single rescuer has come near us."

"Maybe that's because no one knows about it. We haven't been able to tell anyone yet."

Another person would have viewed Caine as extremely scared, to be this delusional. Maybe the idea of real power frightened him—he was all talk. No, Diana knew him and could understand the real reason behind this false hope. He couldn't tell the truth to the ordinary students and so would need to lie. The best way to lie is to believe the lie. It would work on the simpletons.

There was a commotion outside and the door was thrown open, by an agitated Emmy. "I told you to stop anyone from coming in!" Caine yelled at the guy following Emmy.

"I didn't want to hit her," the boy stammered. Caine groaned at Emmy sitting down in the chair beside Diana. "What do you want?"

"I want to know what's happening," Emmy answered. "Which to me is perfectly reasonable. And I want the truth—not propaganda."

Caine sighed. "Okay you want the truth. The truth is that, I have just as much clue as you do to what's going on. But while we work out what this glorious truth is, I'm trying to make the best out of this. You know, making sure kids are fed and stopping Drake from massacring."

"Well you won't feed them for much longer," Emmy said snidely.

Caine threw a glare in Diana's direction. Even the guarded Diana had a hard time protecting herself from Emmy's power.

"I'm working on that," Caine snapped.

"And?" Emmy pressed. Diana was eager too to hear his great new plan.

"Present tense—currently on going." Emmy flopped back in her chair.

"We're doomed," she muttered.

Drake marched through the door, and flopped on the couch against the wall. He stared at those sitting around the desk—three people he would love to see die painfully. There were all so smug; that comes from having rich parents and good looks. Caine thought he was so brilliant just because he had brains to power his plans. Drake knew one on one Caine would be destroyed, but he could charm people and it wouldn't be a fair fight. Diana used people in every way possible, with her looks and appeal. It was obvious that she had no loyalty to anyone other than herself, a complete waste to have around.

To Drake, Emmy wasn't as evil-hearted as the others. She was just a little girl who loved herself and was over-confident. But, if you took away her looks, her daddy's money, and Caine, what was she? A pathetic piece of crap that would be easily trampled over. The only noteworthy things about her were her eyes. They were cold and unsympathetic like the rest of those in the room, but with those striking different colours they were fascinating. The mossy green beside dark indigo was alarming. It felt like they could penetrate his mind. What was worse was that when he looked in Diana's eyes he imagined the horror and despair that would be there as she took her last agonising breath. But with Emmy, there was that and other thoughts. Of her not filled with hurt or fear. Maybe even pleasure from him—

"Drake!"

Caine's voice brought him back to the present. He looked from Caine's expectant face, to Diana's waiting stare, and Emmy's proud smirk. What did she find so amusing?

"Drake, won't you share with us what you saw when you were around the school?"

"Uh, yeah," Drake stuttered. He was having unfortunate thoughts about Emmy. "A bit of trouble but I sorted it, and there shouldn't be a repeat."

"Good," Caine nodded. "Bug was sent out down to the town as a scout. I think he'll be back within the hour. I'm guessing there's plenty of liquor around the school. Gather that up, tonight we can have a party. That will keep morale high."