So I got a comment last chapter about moving this story along faster (or something like that hahha) and I wrote this story for my school's novel contest thing. So I needed it to be at least 50,000 words, so that's why it's starting out so slow. All in all, it's like 250 pages in word document. But im still editing and changing things sooo, who knows. Maybe it will be longer. Maybe shorter. But it does get better later in the story. Once the action picks up, it never stops. Trust me.

Anyways, enjoy the new chapter :)

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We entered the classroom to find the teacher not there. I scanned the room, searching for one pair of eyes. I found them and walked towards him. He was sitting on the top of a desk.

"Hello," Damian addressed me in his polished voice. I wondered if he new what I was about to ask.

"How did you get to my locker so fast?"

"Ours," he corrected me. I raised my eyebrow. "Our locker," he repeated.

"Mine," I replied stubbornly. He rolled his eyes.

"You're so tenacious."

"Thank you," I said sarcastically. He was dodging the question. I could feel Dustin's eyes on my back.

"How?" I reiterated.

"By walking."

I scowled at his smart-ass comment and he smirked. Clearly he wasn't going to tell me straight out. I turned my back and walked back to Dustin. He wiggled his eyebrows at me and I couldn't help but smile.

"You looked angry for a moment." I could hear the masked respite in his voice. I chose to ignore it.

"Not angry, just..." I fumbled for the right word. "Miffed." No, that wasn't quite right. I believe the word "suspicious" would have described my feeling at the moment better.

"Do you like him?" Dustin asked bluntly.

Taken aback, I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn't form a coherent sentence. It was just so blunt! I could feel my face heating up and had to look down. Even if I denied it, my face would give it away. I basically had "Of course I like him!" written all over my face. But this was the first time the thought ever appeared aloud.

"No I-"

"No?" I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped. I twisted around and saw familiar umber hair. I looked startled into Ayden's eyes.

"Welcome to History," he welcomed giving me a cheesy grin. I closed my eyes and counted to five. Maybe when I opened them, he would be gone.

"Boo," he laughed when I opened my eyes again. This could not be happening... Wait, I thought, it actually couldn't!

"How are you the teacher of this class?" I asked him.

"Because I'm a History teacher."

Duh.

"No, I meant that if Damian and Callie are in this class, how are you allowed to teach it?"

"Do you really not want me to be your teacher?"

I hesitated. I can't say I hated him because to be honest, I actually quite liked him. But it was strange too; he looked too young to be a teacher. ...It would be cool to have him as a teacher, I admitted to myself.

"I thought so," he smirked, guessing my expression before walking to the front of class. "Everyone take a seat."

I smiled and went to the sit front and center. Grinning, I sat down and faced Ayden with my full attention. Damian and Dustin came to sit on either side of me while Callie sat behind me. Ayden smiled at me before his eyes flickered behind me as someone cleared his throat.

"Madison."

"Nicolas?" I groaned. One class with Nick was bad enough. Now I had two. "What is it?"

"Well," he started and I noticed that his eyes flickered to Damian. I raised my eyebrows.

"What?" I asked after a few moments of silence. Wasn't Ayden going to start class soon? I threw an impatient glance at him. He was still sorting papers, smiling slightly to himself.

"That guy," Nick started with a hard look at Damian. "Doesn't he seem... odd to you?"

"Odd?" I repeated. I looked at Damian, who was watching with amusement on his face. "That's rude, Nick."

"Madison!" Nick protested. "Doesn't something seem-"

Ayden cleared his throat and Nick turned to look at him. I looked up to. He wasn't smiling anymore. I smiled. That's cute, him sticking up for his younger brother.

"I'd like to start class," he told the class looking directly at Nick. Nick nodded and strutted off to a seat in the back of the room.

"Welcome to History," Ayden greeted the class with a smile. Most of the class groaned as he said this.

"Oh, don't be that way," he continued, smiling even wider. His perfect white teeth shined brightly. I stared at them. Did everybody in his family have perfect teeth? Damian and Callie also had brilliant teeth. "History is actually exciting. I know all you teenagers think these days is, 'we don't need to know what mistakes people made in the past' and 'I don't care about Louis XIII's sister's brother's daughter's cousin's son's wife.'"

The class chuckled. He was right. That was exactly what I though about History. It was insipid and worthless.

"It must seem worthless right?" Ayden asked, looking directly at me. My eyes widened. He was good.

"But," he continued. "I'm here to make History this year fun. I know my facts, and how to make them fun."

"Of course you know your facts," Damian muttered.

"I heard that," Ayden replied, winking at Damian with a smile. Damian contrived a smile.

"All teachers say that about their subject," a guy's voice, I believe it was a kid named Alex, said dubiously.

"But I'm not all teachers," Ayden replied with a little smile. "But all that aside, I'm afraid I do have quite a lot of papers to hand out."

That being said, Ayden picked up a gigantic pile of papers. There was the course outline, the materials list, and my favorite, the signature from your parent or guardian. The rest of class was just reading over the course outline and discussing the many things we were going to learn throughout the year.

When the bell rang, I bid Ayden goodbye and headed off to my locker alone. Dustin had to stop at his locker, and I had lost Callie and Damian somewhere along the way to the exit. My next class was on the third floor, so I quickly rushed down the stairs and stopped at my locker. Damian and Callie were still nowhere around so I just tossed all the papers into my locker. I noticed Damian's jacket and all his other stuff was back. Had he made it here before me? I shrugged it off and made my way towards the science wing.

When I arrived I automatically felt relief. Mr. Smith was the teacher, someone who was absent a lot. And when he was absent we didn't do anything but watch movies or have study hall. Black tables were strewn out randomly over the classroom. Some were pushed together so roughly six people could fit at one table. Others, four people could fit and some were just individually set. Emmett was sitting at the big table so I went over and sat across from him.

"Hey," he grinned. "Awesome teacher, yeah?"

"Definitely," a voice commented from behind me before I got a chance to answer. I turned to see Dustin flanked by Callie. Dustin took a seat next to Emmett and Callie sat next to him.

The class was slowly beginning to fill in. I looked around for Damian. I could have sworn that he had said we had science together. When the bell rang, and Damian still wasn't here, I decided I must of heard wrong. I turned my attention to Dustin who was chatting excitingly to Callie and Emmett.

Mr. Smith began taking attendance over all the chattering. I didn't take notice of him until I heard him call Damian's name.

"Is Damian Weiss here?" he called over the noise. So he was in this class!

"Here." Damian's voice startled me and I wrenched around in my seat to see him sitting next to me. He flashed me a perfect smile.

"When did you get here?" I asked him. "You weren't here when the bell rang!"

"No I got here before the bell," Damian replied raising his eyebrows. "You were just looking around the classroom and didn't notice me come in."

"No I was..." I trailed off. I didn't want to say I was watching the door waiting for him to come in. But I didn't see him actually enter. I shrugged. He was right; I was looking around the classroom. I just probably didn't notice him slip in. "Yeah, you're right."

Damian smiled at me before turning back to the teacher, who had just finished calling attendance.

Seventh period went by slowly. We had a first day of school test, which I'm pretty sure I bombed. I had no clue what I was writing, it sounded somewhat convincing. Well, to me at least.

When I finished Emmett moved over and sat across from me and we played hangman to pass the time. I, being a beast at hangman, beat him every time until he finally decided to give up.

A few minutes before the bell rang, everyone began putting their chairs up. I told Dustin I'd meet him at the school entrance when I was done at my locker before heading to it. When the bell rang Callie, Damian and I headed towards our lockers, dodging all the students loitering around in the hall. Callie opened her own locker and Damian reached out and spun the combo to my locker before opening it. Papers spilled out onto the floor. He sighed and stooped down to pick them up.

"Take," he ordered while shoving fistfuls of all the papers I had accumulated over the day into my hands, "all these papers home."

"You're getting them crinkled," I complained before, hypocritically, shoving them into my bag.

"Take them home. Bring whatever needs to be signed back. And keep or throw the rest away, just do not keep them in our locker," he continued, ignoring me.

"My locker," I corrected him and he rolled his eyes.

"Have a fun walk home."

"Have fun riding home with your brother," I replied grabbing my coat from the locker and hitching my bag over my shoulder. "Bye Callie."

"Laters."

I turned and headed to the entrance, where Dustin was waiting for me. Together, we headed out of the building and made our way home. There were clouds in the sky, casting a gray shade over the town. I scrunched my face up, foreshadowing the rain I was sure to come. Dustin stayed silent the whole way home. I also kept my silence.

When we reached my house I expected him to head for his, but instead he went right up to my front door, grabbed the hidden key, opened the door, and invited himself in. I followed after, mildly surprised.

"Man!" he sighed flopping down on the couch. "Today was hectic!"

"It, uh, sure was," I replied sitting on a chair across from him. This was a sudden change of attitude. I debated asking him what was wrong. But then again, I probably already knew the reason. I took in a deep breath. It was better to not beat around the bush.

"Dustin, Damian-"

"I don't like him, and I won't ever like him," Dustin interrupted me with an intransigent look. I scowled back at him.

"I didn't say anything about liking him."

"Ah, but I knew you were about to say something like that," he replied with a little smile.

"You can't hate him. You don't know him enough."

"I know him enough."

"After one day?" I asked skeptically.

"You're just upset because I don't like your hot new neighbor," Dustin muttered, making a face and ignoring my question.

"Am not!" I replied crossing my arms. "I just want to be friends with him-"

"You do that."

"And you," I continued ignoring him. "So we could hang out together."

"No way in hell."

"Come on Dustin! Please?" Great. I've resorted to begging.

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No!"

"No?" I asked, faking confusion.

"Yes!"

"Ha!" I smirked. "Got you."

"That's not what I meant!" He tried to sound angry, but there was a grin spreading across his face. Dustin sat up and I went to sit next to him on the couch.

"What do you have against him?" I asked while fumbling around for the remote. I flipped on the light. Outside the sky was darkening, signaling the oncoming storm.

"There's something strange about him. Something..." Dustin's face was serious. Then (was it regret?) swept across it. "Something... inhuman."

At that moment a loud crash of thunder rumbled through the room, startling me. I felt my heart began to race. The lights flickered and then went off. Darkness bled into the room and I felt around until I clutched Dustin's arm.

"That was weird," I whispered as my heart rate slowed, but still didn't return to normal. Dustin's breath was even beside me. The he laughed, making my jump.

"That was awesome!" he laughed. "I mean how perfect was that? The thunder totally emphasized my words."

Lightning flashed from outside and I swallowed. "Real cool."

"Oh," Dustin said with realization in his voice while the rain pounded down on the roof above us. "I forgot you're afraid of thunderstorms."

I sensed a hint of amusement in his voice. "It's not funny," I growled.

"I know, I know," he sighed. He then stood up.

"Where are you going?" I stood up too as another crash of thunder exploded from the sky.

"To get a drink," he replied while moving towards the kitchen.

"Is it normal for it to be this dark out at this time?"

"When it storms, yes, I suppose."

I didn't believe him but shrugged it off. I had to be brave. I decided this was going to be the year I got over my fear of thunderstorms. Another crash of thunder brought my heart pounding again. I made a face.

"You know," Dustin started, prying my grip from his arm. "Thunder can't hurt you. And there's barely any chance that lightning could hit you."

"I know that."

"Then why are you scared?"

"We've been over this," I replied, keeping my eyes on the floor. The lightning still caught the edge of my vision, the light reflecting on the tiled floor. "I always feel something bad happens when it rains like this."

"But when has something bad ever happened?" Dustin replied as he stole two cokes from the fridge. He tossed one to me.

"That time the house caught on fire."

"They blamed it on a accidental ignition from a cigarette."

"It was still storming out. And then there was the accident when that senior died last year. It was storming then."

"He was drunk."

"And the little girl who was kidnapped?"

"That happens all the time."

"But around here?" I replied, skeptical again.

"It's bound to happen at least once."

I could tell he was just trying to make me feel better, but I really did believe everything bad happened when it rained. Dustin and I returned back to the living room to wait out the storm.

The power came back on awhile later and Dustin and I decided to watch T.V until the storm passed. About an hour later, the last rumbles faded into the distance as I heard Will's car pull in. Dustin bid me adieu and headed back to his house while I rummaged around in my bag for the papers I needed Will to sign. He signed them while I started dinner. After dinner I trudged up to bed.

I entered my room and switched on the light. As I did, something shifted outside the window. I fidgeted by the door for a second before deciding to go and investigate. I opened the large glass window and poked my head out, expecting something to pop out and grab me but nothing did. There was a mist lingering near the ground from the storm, adding an eerie effect to the already sinister looking night.

The dark woods gripped my attention and I couldn't pull myself away from it. I was waiting to see something I didn't want to see. My heart began to beat faster and I quickly pulled my head in, slammed the window shut and pulled down the shades.

"Dustin," I grumbled. It was his fault for implanting such a word as "inhuman" into my head. There was indeed something inhuman about Damian, but not in a bad way. I took a deep breath and surveyed my room before stripping off my clothes and pulling on my pajamas. The moon shone brightly through the curtains while I climbed into my bed. I shifted the pillows before pulling the comforter up to my chin. A sense of uneasiness washed through me again as my eyes drifted to window. Something flashed by and, unsure if it was my imagination acting up or not, I pulled the covers all the way over my head and blocked my ears.