The Talented

Prologue

**Kat's Pov**

I could feel my stomach drop when I entered the bus climbing up those stairs with a slight pause, eyes pierced through me, but no one really saw pass my small thirteen year old frame. They saw the freak. I made my way through the crowd towards the seat at the end to the left. It was empty as usual, that writing that had been abusing it for years now. Words that were thrown out to me like daggers daily. Freak, outcast, crackhead, witch, they were endless. I expertly managed to dodge the feet that would stick out from under the seats in hopes to trip me sending me to the filthy floor. I curled my feet up in the seat with my earbuds in place as the comforting sound of music invaded my senses. I was losing myself to the music just before I felt the seat cave in from beside me causing me to whip my head to the side finding a boy sitting there. He could have been a year older than me, maybe two. His dark hair was coming down a bit longer than what it should have been for a normal boy. He caught me staring at him in disbelief.

“Can I help you?” He asked with a frown.

“I could ask the same,” I said indifferently.

“What are you talking about?” He sighed. “Do you want me to move?”

I shook my head turning away to stare out the window away from him, I knew that his eyes were on mine and that he was probably judging me from his standpoint. When the bus came to a halt I turned to tell him to move, but he was gone. I looked up to find him already at the door and he turned to give me a smile before disappearing out. I chose to ignore it, knowing people like him before. The type that shared a smile with you only to later figure out where it was you belonged and who you really were. He must have been a new kid because I had never seen him in the bus before, he’d learn soon enough not to even look at me.

I made my way towards the classroom where I knew I would be abused with words, things would be thrown at me, I would be treated less than an equal in there, and the teacher wouldn’t do a thing to stop it. Just as I made my way towards my seat I had been thinking about the boy before falling to the ground hurting my knee in the process. I looked back to see some kid smirking with his friends as he pulled his foot back under his seat.

“Katherine! What are you doing on the ground?” My teacher asked, when I didn’t answer she sighed. “Get up and go to your seat, young lady.”

I did as told without a single resort in my mind, I had long gotten used to this...abuse? No, that wasn’t the right word. This was a sort of isolation away from the world of others.

When everyone had finally sat down and I was staring at my lap as I often did the teacher called for our attention, even mine.

“Today we have a new student,” she informed. “His name is Cameron Blake and I want you all to welcome him.”

Boys muttered their “welcomes” and girls giggled theirs, I remained silent. My eyes down on the desk reading over the harsh words that had been carved into it, no one else had a desk this battered. This was a desk made for me.

“Hey,” came a familiar voice from next to me. I turned to meet the same boy from the bus. “I’m Cameron, it’s nice to meet you.”

He gave me that smile and I realized his eyes were that same violet color I had seen so many times in the mirror, it stunned me into silence.

“You’re Kat, right?” He asked still smiling. “You’re like me.”

I didn’t answer I just stared, this had to be a dream. But it wasn’t the next day he was sitting by me in the bus, in my classes, until finally we had become friends. From friends we went to something more and everything was okay. For the first time ever I didn’t have to wish I was like my sister...I didn’t have to wish to be normal. I had Cameron by my side the entire time. That is until we were getting into high school and that letter came. That letter that would change it all. Because when I saw that letter I felt something in my stomach twist painfully. Maybe it was the way my mother was thrilled she’d be sending me away, or the way the print was so perfect, too perfect. But when Cameron came over telling me he had received the same letter and that we could finally leave our messed up families behind I wasn’t about to decline.