ｃｈｒｙｓｓｉｅ

They talked up until the lunch bell rang. She liked his laugh and his eyes. She didn't like whatever was behind them, whatever made them gleam.

"It was nice meeting you," she said as she stood up, hiking her bag up on her shoulder. Her voice was quiet, but fairly clear.

"Likewise," Grayson replied, nodding in agreement. He smiled at her saccharinely and walked off, melting into the crowd of people.

He was nice and handsome and seemed to be genuinely interested in the things that she had to say.

Still, Chryssie felt that there was something wrong, something strange and uncomfortable about the entire encounter.

But she ignored it, writing it off as simple paranoia. After all, it wouldn't be the first time she had felt paranoid about a boy and been wrong.

Although, it also wouldn't be the first time she had felt paranoid about a boy and been right.

That hadn't turned out very well.

Not at all.

~

Grayson knew that some people were off.

It showed if you talked to them for long enough - the ferocity in their smile, the way their hands move subconsciously, looking for something to hold.

Or crush.

They were different, and it was known. They' were suspicious. Blameful.

Some of them weren't aware, didn't understand that their thoughts were leaking out of their heads and into their physical being, exposing them for what they truly were.

But Grayson wasn't stupid like the others.

Every word coming out of his mouth had been carefully selected, every movement concealed or controlled. He attributed it to survival instinct - one wrong move, and everything went all to hell.

In truth, he was very wary of being unwanted by her. Outed for what he was.

(being alone.)

So he made a point to ooze charisma and charm out of every pore. His social intelligence was off the charts, so it wasn't especially hard, but he still put effort into looking loose and interested and friendly even when he wasn't feeling any of those things.

He was good at lying. Always had been. Always would be.

It would make protecting her from the world a whole lot easier on his part.

He noticed her wandering down the hallway, holding her books when the last bell rang and smiled at her. She looked a bit flustered and gave a small wave. His smile grew wider, then dissipated when she disappeared from view. When he turned into the headmistress' office, he sat down in the chair and waited patiently for her to finish her email.

"Mr. Holloway," she finally said, giving him a pleasant smile. She was young, with honey blonde hair and kind eyes. There was a ring on her finger. "How can I help you?"

"I'm here to turn in those packets that you gave me at the beginning of the year. I've had them graded and everything."

He placed them on her desk, taking great care not to disrupt any of her other papers. She looked through them.

"Well, this seems to suffice. Let me pull you up."

He waited patiently as she did so, waiting for the words that he knew would come out of her mouth.

"It looks like your testing is done. And you're scheduled to take early testing for A-levels on Monday?

"Yes Ma'am."

"Excellent. I suppose you're done with sixth form. You most likely won't have trouble getting into any university you choose to apply to, at least, judging by your testing scores."

"That's a relief."

(No it wasn't. He already knew that.)

"Well, you're free to go. I wish you luck. You're not required to go to your classes after Monday, seeing as you tested out of them all."

"Thank you," he said politely, standing up and nodding his head.

He exited the school quickly, pushing past packs of rabid teenage boys and gaggles of teenage girls that seemed to do nothing but titter. He was beginning to get tired of all the talk about Rae - not because he was worried about getting caught, but because he was bored. How could one person that vain be relevant to more than five minutes of discussion?

He supposed that people just loved tragedy, and left it at that. He didn't care to ponder much more on the ethics of that love as he walked home, sleeves of his uniform rolled up so that he could feel the cold air against his skin. He took the route he always took - the one that passed by Chrysanthemum's home. As he walked by, he could see her drawing the curtains in her sitting room, just as she always did. He smiled before continuing on his way, three streets up, turning onto Elizabeth Avenue.

Elizabeth Avenue was where people aspired to live. It was up on the tallest point of a hill, looking over the entire city, and inhabited by doctors, lawyers, and other members of similar professions.

They were all nosy bastards, as far as Grayson cared to know, and he hated living next to them.

His home was an old Victorian-style mansion that had been paid off long before he was born. It wasn't unique in architecture to the others along the street, but it was unique to the others in that every time he looked at it, he felt an intense hatred. It burned in his chest when he walked up the stairs to the door, fingers brushing against the ivy that crawled up the side of the house. He had put pumpkins up, in the spirit of Halloween, but otherwise didn't care much for decorations.

The wood creaked under his feet as he walked inside. He sulked past the mirror on the wall, past the sitting room and into the kitchen, where he dropped his bag on the floor and picked up a piece of paper to start sketching out his plan.

He couldn't get the smell of blood out of his nose.

a/n
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