Toxic

Chapter 1

Andre's arm slid around my shoulders protectively. Ever since the attacks started, he has been keeping a closer eye on me, despite the fact he is at risk. I didn't say any of this aloud, adoring the feeling of his warm body inches from my own, the fresh scent of his skin, as though he had just stepped out of a shower.

"What's up, Thorn?" he picked up on my worries. Andre knew me so well. His periwinkle eyes look into mine and I melt. He flipped his dark brown hair out of them like a wet dog shaking itself dry. He is so handsome that my pulse throbs at his every touch.

"I read the paper at breakfast. You know James Archer, from the year above?"

"Yeah, he was having some kind of party at his place at the weekend."

"Well, when his parent's got home, they found his body in the pool." I shivered as I recalled what I had seen that morning in the local gazette.

Andre flinched. "Do they know how he died?"

"Apparently he was poisoned. The forensic analysers think he drank something dodgy."

"If he was drinking the same stuff as other people, wouldn't they have died too?"

"That's what I don't get. Maybe someone spiked his drink?"

"Why James? They must have had a pretty good reason if they were prepared to kill him in public."

The bell rang at that moment, drilling into my ears. "Mrs Harper will lay into us if we're late" I sighed.

Andre drifted off to chat to his best friend Joey. Joey's hazel eyes and short ash blond hair make him look rather cute, but he is not a patch on Andre.

Fern and Erica hadn't arrived yet, so I leaned against the wall, chewing my already blunt fingernails as I stressed over the boys who had been murdered. What if Andre was next?

"Is this room G6?" A sweet sounding, little girlie voice cut into my thoughts.

I whirled round, expecting to see a year seven kid. Instead, a girl of my own age stood to my right. Her finely plucked eyebrows framed her delicate face, and her platinum hair hung ramrod straight down her back. Doll-like brown eyes blinked back at me.

"Er, yeah."

"I moved here from Sussex last week. I was supposed to start this class on Thursday but I had a migraine." She told me, looking me up and down as she spoke.

"Well, Mrs Harper's a real slave driver. You don't want to be off too much, or she'll come down on you like a ton of bricks." I resented the way she was studying me, as if I was a spider she had found in her bedroom.

"Thanks for the heads up," she smiled. If I was being perfectly honest, she seemed nice, but her face looked a little too perfect to be real, a bit like a human version of a barbie.

She chose the empty seat next to me and took out her books. "Oh, I'm Carly Remington, by the way." 

"Thorn Blake," I replied smoothly.

Several times that lesson, I caught her glancing over at the back row and licking her glossy lips.

"Joey's cute, isn't he?" I asked. She best not be making eyes at Andre.

"The dark haired one?"

Bitch. I decided to put her in her place. "That's Andre, my boyfriend."

Her shiny lips pouted. "Oh, what a shame he's taken."

"Yes" I almost snarled.

She stood up at the end of the lesson, tossing her hair over her shoulders and swished her way out of the classroom.  Her skirt left most of her thighs exposed, in fact, it was that short it looked more like a belt.