"𝐇𝐄𝐘," 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐑𝐎𝐄 spoke up beside her niece in the driver's seat. Evie, who was completely staring into space while fidgeting with the strap of her backpack, whipped her head over to the blonde woman. "You're gonna be just fine. You too, Isla."

The younger Monroe sibling shot her head up from one of the backseats, meeting her aunt's eyes in the rear view mirror. Isla just pursed her lips and nodded before looking back down at her smartphone, scrolling through Twitter.

Michie turned back to face her eldest niece. "And I totally know how much I sound like a mom saying that, but trust me, alright? Some kids can be an ass, but some of them will be good."

"Yeah, I know," Evie replied innocently. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't nervous — but being bullied was the last thing she was thinking about. The main thing that was plaguing her mind was the information she discovered the night before.

"This school is so damn overpopulated. I mean — look at all these kids that applied after watching those shitty movies," Michie mentioned as she spotted some kids on the side of the road, walking to Woodsboro High School.

"You were in it, though. Isn't it cool? To, you know, be in a movie?" Isla wondered from behind her aunt.

Michie raised her brows as she shared a glance with the girl. "I would do anything to erase those movies from existence. Having a bunch of randos always come up to me to ask what it was like to be stabbed a million times in the gut will honestly be the death of me."

"Is it really that bad?" Isla asked again. "Not being stabbed. I mean being famous."

"Isla, that shit is traumatizing," Evie told her sister, twisting her body to face her sister with a slight scowl on her face. "Would you like it? If something that scarred you for life was to be brought up every twenty minutes?"

"Exactly," Michie commented, agreeing with Evie as she pursed her lips.

"No, I didn't mean it like that," Isla returned, straightening her back. "I just— I wanna be famous one day."

"Jesus, don't be like Sidney's stupid cousin and become an Ebay version of Ghostface for fame," Michie muttered, somewhat chuckling. She knew both of her nieces were too pure to become what two of her former friends from 1996 were.

"I'm not," Isla shot back defensively. She leaned back in her seat, sighing heavily. "Sorry..."

"Someone's on their period," Evie muttered, unintentionally catching her sister's attention. Evie felt the pair of eyes burning into the back of her head. She turned to look at her sister, only to greet glares. "I'm kidding, jeez."

Isla sighed, "How long until we're there?"

"Probably two minutes or something," Michie replied, glancing down at the small digital clock underneath the music system. 08:03. "Eh, make that one."

"This is presumably gonna be one of the worst days of my life," Isla groaned, setting her phone down beside her and covering her face with both hands.

Evie hummed, "High hopes, lil' sis. It might be one of the best days."

"I highly doubt that, Vee."

"Yeah, no, I agree with Isla. School is a goddamn nightmare," Michie agreed with her youngest niece.

"Well, it's not like I'd know that or anything. Considering Mom took me out of pre-school right before I started kindergarten. And— and Isla didn't even get to go to school at all," Evie murmured, rolling her eyes.

"All your mom wanted to do is protect you. Both of you," Michie reasoned, briefly turning her head to the side. "Kids can be asses."

"But she took that experience away from us. We missed out on a load of crap just because she wanted to protect us from what exactly?"

"The dicks that try to act like the original dicks," Michie answered simply. "Oh, look at that. We're here."

Simultaneously, Evie and Isla lifted their heads and gawked out the front window. The first thing they saw was the high school's yellow bus with numerous kids stepping out of it.

"Thanks for the ride, Michie," Evie smiled before pushing open her door, Isla doing the same behind their aunt. "Love you!"

"Love you too. Let me know if you meet anyone," she winked, clicking her tongue. Evie chuckled, rolled her eyes and nodded. "Have fun!"

And with that, Michie Monroe drove away, a few students watching the car with awe. Once the black Toyota was out of everyone's sight, most of the students turned their heads to the two sisters.

Evie and Isla stood side by side, glancing their eyes over everyone. "You said you wanted to be popular yesterday, right?" Evie wondered, leaning closer to Isla's ear. "Today is your day."

All at once, several students approached the Monroe sisters. "I wasn't really expecting ... this," Isla muttered, her eyes wide as the students finally reached them.

"Why the heck did you both just get out of Michie Monroe's car?!" a girl, around the same age as Evie, with dark brunette hair asked.

Evie immediately assumed that perhaps the girl was what was called the 'popular girl', since she had many people around her.

"Everybody else shut up. I'm asking questions first!" the dark haired girl shouted to the other students. She turned back to face the sisters. "You both know Michie Monroe?"

Isla folded her arms over her chest. "Yeah. Do you?" she questioned, raising her brows, already knowing the answer.

"Of course not — no one in this town does except her own freaking twin," the popular girl flailed her arms around. "What are you to her? Distant relatives?"

"Yeah, something like that," Evie finally spoke, nodding. She went to walk forward to depart from the frenzy, but was immediately stopped by the popular girl as she extended out her arm.

"I'm not finished, new girl," she warned. Evie rolled her eyes as she stepped back into the place she previously was. As much as she was excited for school, right then she just wanted Michie to turn around and pick them up. "What's it like having a family member that lived through—"

"Fuck off, Clara," a girl, which Evie recognized almost instantly, stepped into the small crowd. "She honestly doesn't give a shit about whatever you have to say. C'mon, Evie."

Amber Freeman wrapped her fingers around her friend's wrist, pulling her away from the people she didn't know. Isla blinked dumbfoundedly before following her older sister and her friend, but she was stopped when the girl, Clara, pulled her back.

Evie didn't seem to notice that her younger sister was held back and continued to walk away with her childhood best friend.

"Hi, Ambs," Evie laughed, watching the girl beside her. Amber had long black hair and had a great sense of fashion. No one could deny the fact that she was gorgeous.

"Hey," Amber replied, walking over to a group of people. "I would usually say 'you will love it here', but you probably won't." As Evie's landed on Amber's friend group, she immediately saw a familiar boy she saw the night before sitting on a bench beside a girl that also had jet black hair.

"I'll introduce you to everybody," Amber told her, noticing how Evie's eyes were glued onto the group. "None of them know that you're coming, I kind of kept it a surprise."

"One of them knows," Evie mumbled, loud enough for her best friend to hear.

Amber frowned, "How?"

Before Evie could say anything, the boy she was watching turned his head and she caught his eye. A bright smile etched onto his lips as he soon identified the girl.

"It's Evie," Wes smiled, straightening his posture as the two girls approached. The rest of Amber's friend group looked over at them, and most of them were confused.

"Who's Evie?" a dark-skinned girl with dark curly hair wondered, although her eyes were already set on the girl beside her friend. "Amber, you know her?"

"All my life, in fact," Amber replied, a grin on her pink-filled lips. "I was just never allowed to tell all you gooses."

The girl beside Wes, who brushed some of her straight, black hair behind her ear, used her other hand to dramatically set her hand over her chest. "Since when did I count as a goose?"

"You're an exception, Tara. You're not a goose — I just couldn't tell anybody," Amber reasoned, earning a small laugh from her girlfriend. "Also," she started, turning to Wes with squinted eyes, "how the fuck do you know Evie?"

"Well, we sorta ... bumped into each other last night," Wes answered truthfully, gesturing his finger at himself and the girl who watched him carefully.

The mousy-brown haired girl whipped her head over to Amber, who was staring at her. "My mom told me something last night I wished I never heard, so I went on a jog," she said half truthfully, half lied.

Amber hummed, shrugging slightly before turning to face the rest of her friends. "We have more-or-less twenty minutes or so to introduce each other, then we can do whatever the fuck we want — unless you actually want to spend time in class on your first day, E."

"Yes, I'd prefer that," Evie giggled.

"Alright. Let's start off with the best girl here — no offense to you, Mindy or Liv obviously," Amber pointed toward the girl beside Wes.

"I'm Tara," the girl with a sweet voice, Tara, introduced. She sent a small wave to Evie, who returned it. Tara had long dark black hair and dark eyes, which she genetically inherited from the Hispanic side of her family. She had a sharp jawline and was rather slim. She was definitely pretty.

Amber then went to point over to Wes, but she jokingly rolled her eyes and moved her pointer finger to the side, pointing toward another boy.

"Chad," he raised a hand for a greeting. Chad was also dark-skinned, just like the other girl who had called out Evie's name not so long before. She could immediately tell that they were siblings — twins even. He had a long but round face, and had dark, short, curly hair and dark eyes.

"Mindy," the girl, Chad's twin, stated. She had very similar features to Chad. Her hair length went down to her shoulders, but was extremely curly.

"And lastly, we have—"

"Liv. I'm Liv," a girl that had Chad's arm wrapped around her shoulder, spoke. She smiled across at the girl as she flicked some of her hot pink dyed hair. Liv had dark brunette hair, but her ends were hot pink. One thing Evie immediately liked about her was her choker around her neck — that was one thing they had in common.

After a few minutes of standing and talking, Evie and Amber sat down. Evie sat down on a bench that was next to the one Wes and Tara were sitting on. Amber climbed up on the table part of the bench and sat in between her girlfriend and friend.

Nervously, Evie bit down onto her bottom lip and brought out her phone.

MOM:
Good luck, sweetie. I love you ❤️

Evie read the small message on her lock screen, and couldn't help but smile. She knew her mom was only looking out for her. But then the thought of what had happened the night before snuck back into her brain and her smile instantly vanished.

EVIE:
Thanks

Evie thought she had every right to be pissed off at her mom, but she knew she'd have to forgive her one day — she was her mother.

"So, where'd you come from?" Mindy questioned, leaning forward and smiling over at the Monroe girl. "I've never seen you before."

"I don't think anyone has," Evie chuckled. "But I'm from here. As in Woodsboro."

"Yeah, you definitely don't seem familiar," Mindy's twin, Chad, commented.

"Well, I'm one hundred percent from here," Evie replied awkwardly. "I've lived here my whole life."

Everyone remained quiet for a moment, and Evie started to feel uncomfortable as she glanced over at the twins; they kept staring at her.

Amber instantaneously realized. "Stop acting like creeps, Meeks-Martins'," Amber rolled her eyes, her hand set on Tara's shoulder.

"Shit, sorry," Mindy apologized, a smile still on her lips as she leaned back, clapping her hands together. Chad squinted his eyes, which resulted in Mindy smacking him on the back of his head.

"Ouch!" he hissed, lingering his hand over the part where Mindy hit him.

"So, you got approached by none other than Clara Gomez," Liv started, crossing her leg over her other leg as she rested her arm on Chad's shoulder. "I can tell you now that she never approaches anyone like the way she approached you and that other gal."

"Oh, uh... she seems like one of those cheesy popular mean girls you see on TV," Evie mentioned, not bothering to look back at the spoken girl. If only she did, she would've realized that Isla needed some help.

After talking with the Gomez girl that was two years above her, Isla noticed that Clara didn't take a liking to her and started to make fun of her. For everything.

So far, Evie's first day was going okay. But for Isla, it was going terribly. Evie could even hear some people laughing, but she had no idea that they were laughing at her sister and not something they found on their phone or something.

"You know what," Amber began, stepping up from her seat. "I might head to class early. I have an assignment and my English teacher hates my ass. Better early than late..."

"Oh fuck, I forgot about the assignment," Tara leaned forward, beginning to stress until Amber rested her hand on her knee.

"Hey, relax. I can text you over some notes."

Mindy jokingly groaned. "You both are just reminding me how single I am. I better find someone soon or I will go crazy. Also—" she turned to Wes and Evie, "You two are also single. So, unless you both decide to mingle, we're all on the same boat and are in fact the third wheels."

Wes chuckled, but grew awkward. While Evie just went bright red and looked down at the ground. She realized that the night before she had taken quite a liking for the boy, but she didn't know if that's just what teenager's felt around boys.

"Hey, is your sister okay?" Amber wondered, her eyes now set on Isla Monroe in the distance. Evie subconsciously turned over and peered over her own shoulder, her eyes landing on her sister.

Isla was walking toward the entrance to the school, a stoic expression on her young face while Clara and her minions followed her, laughing. Evie just thought maybe they were just sharing jokes that Isla didn't find funny.

"I'm sure she's fine," Evie brushed off, turning back around to face her new friends. "Isla seems like the type to be popular anyway."