It was still dark outside when a knock woke me. Hand slipping under the pillow and curling around the gun's grip, I rolled over until I was facing the direction of the door. "Yeah?"
Dad's voice rumbled through the wood. "It's time."
Hand sliding off the gun, I sat up and stretched my arms and upper back. "Okay," I yawned.
I ran a hand down my face as his booted steps thumped across the hall. I had my blanket thrown back and my feet wriggling against the cold floor by the time I heard him murmuring to Sam. The fine hairs on my arms lifted against the morning chill.
Rubbing my biceps, I eased out of bed and across the room to the door. I found Dad passing by on the other side, sparing a brief nod to me on the way. I followed, momentarily blinded when he flicked on the hall light before taking the steps.
The lights were already on downstairs. Outside, the trunk of the Impala banged shut. Sam was wandering down the stairs as Dean pulled open the front door, breath misting before him as he stepped inside.
Shrugging into his coat, Dad said, "Sarah's in charge." As Dad's sights zeroed in on him, Sam nodded. "The school has Bobby's number." That Bobby Singer had Dad's went unsaid.
As soon as Dad settled into his coat, I crossed the few steps between us and wrapped him in the tightest hug I could manage. "Be careful."
His arms squeezed me in turn. "You be good."
As we parted, Dad shifted towards Sam. Sam met his hug halfway. When they parted, Dad swept his sights between us. "You two look after each other, you hear?"
We agreed.
Before he could say more, Dean pulled me to the side by wrapping an arm round my shoulders. "See ya, kiddo," he said as he pressed me into a sideways hug. He let go of me and lunged for Sam with his other arm, catching our bleary-eyed brother in a headlock that ended with his knuckles musing Sam's hair. "Bitch."
"Jerk!" Sam squirmed out of Dean's loosening hold and shoved him back.
Dean gave an unrepentant grin as Sam attempted to smooth his tousled hair, glaring beneath messy bangs all the while.
Dad had a small smile on his face that wore away as he strode to the door. Dean's grin widened with a, "Don't do anything I'd do," before following.
"Dean."
Pausing at the threshold, Dean twisted round to meet Sam's stare.
"Give 'em hell."
Smirking, Dean answered with a nod and a, "Hell yeah," before disappearing out into the night. The door closed firmly behind him.
I moved ahead and twisted the deadbolt. Sam handed me the salt and I fixed the spots where the line had broken.
We both converged beside the large window dominating the street-side wall. Pulling the heavy cream curtains aside, Sam and I watched as Dad and Dean got into the Impala. We waited until the car started with a roar and backed out of the drive. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried, but it was an old, familiar feeling. It was submerged to the back of my mind by the time the car disappeared down the street.
"I'm going back to sleep," Sam said, already heading for the staircase.
I followed, but instead of collapsing back in bed, I grabbed my clothes for the day. The shower took until sunrise. Styling my hair and finishing makeup took another twenty minutes. By the time I was out, the hall had lightened, but a new soft rhythm overhead warned me to pull my hoodie on before leaving.
As I thought, a brief glance out the kitchen window revealed a gray sky overhead and rain drizzling down the glass. Grabbing a leftover slice of pizza for breakfast, I settled in at the dining table.
I was halfway through when the shower started up again. The best thing about looking after Sam was, really, he didn't need much minding. He'd always been quiet and rarely acted out. Except when he did, he really did. The last time he'd run off it'd taken a week to track him down.
Hair still damp, he joined me after he'd finished dressing. Aside from the sound of Sam eating his pizza and the light pelting of rain against the house, it was quiet. My eyes wandered up to the analog clock hanging against the dining room wall. We had a few hours.
We ended up in front of the television to pass the time. Used to motel room amenities, the recliners and huge tv were novelties to us. But the time sped forward, and it wasn't long before we were gathering our backpacks and heading out to the truck.
Finding the high school was a matter of getting back on the main street and heading further into town until we saw the sign and cluster of buildings. I pulled round to the foremost one, parking in front of large glass double doors. Sam and I left our bags in the truck and drew up our hoods before heading with slow steps into the main office.
A long counter separated the bulk of the room. A woman seated behind it looked up as we stepped out of the rain. "Hello."
I passed a pair of orange plastic chairs to stand before the counter. My eyes scanned the room, noting the doors leading deeper into the building to either side, the file cabinets lining the far wall, and various pieces of office equipment, before meeting the woman's curious stare with a well-practiced smile. "Hi. Sarah and Sam Winchester. We're—"
"Our new students," the woman finished. Sam and I exchanged a brief glance before I nodded. She rolled her chair to the side, pulling a drawer open and digging through the folders within. We waited as she pulled out several slips of paper before standing and setting them on the counter. "Here's your schedules," she informed us, separating them from the slim pile. Plucking a pen from a holder near her keyboard, she turned to another sheet—what looked like a map of the school's interior rooms—and began consulting the schedules before circling various cells within the outline of buildings. "Here are your classrooms." Finishing the first, she handed three papers to Sam before repeating the process for me.
"Thank you," Sam intoned, looking over the page in his hands.
"You're welcome," she smiled. "Be sure to have your teachers sign the form and return it here at the end of the day."
"Right," I said, accepting the papers she held out to me.
"You two have a nice day."
"You too," Sam returned while I wandered back out into the gray day.
Opening the door, I hid the papers against my chest and dashed for the truck. The splash of footsteps behind me told me Sam had followed. I was first, escaping the drizzle with a minimum of water damage to the bundle in my hands. Sam was barely a moment behind. "Anything surprising?" I asked.
"No," he said, boredom flattening his words.
I turned the engine and made for the parking lot I'd spied on the way in. It was already filling up as the old Ford grumbled along. I noticed that ours wasn't the only truck. I took the first empty space available and pulled in. Once parked, we pulled up our bookbags and consulted our maps before braving the weather again.
Sam stuck by my side as we crossed the lot. The constant double glances and curious gawking didn't escape my notice. I'm sure Sam caught them, too. New kids in a small town drew attention. This wasn't the first time either of us had dealt with being the first fresh faces everyone had seen since kindergarten.
Sam was studying his map, eyes lifting every so often to take in the buildings sprawled out before us. "I think my first class is there," he said, pointing with the sheet to one of the squat structures with a big two painted on the corner.
According to my map, I was in building three. "See you later."
"Yeah." Sam said, folding his papers and stuffing them into his pocket. Head ducking, he took off at a light jog for the building.
I kept to my sedate pace as I followed the sidewalk. I rounded a larger building before I found three. I followed a pair of girls past the door, following their move as they hung their coats on hooks just inside. I didn't have anything but my denim jacket. I kept my hoodie on, though I lowered the hood and looked around.
The students already seated in desks studied me as I observed all the windows and the seating arrangements. I saw a free desk in the back corner, near one of the windows, and started making a beeline for it. I had to backtrack as I remembered I needed the teacher to sign the sheet.
Tall with thinning hair, Mr. Mason stared like he'd never seen a new student before as he accepted the paper from me. His sights kept flickering up as he signed and handed it back. I gave a thin smile and moved to the seat in the back.
At least I hadn't had to introduce myself.
Before starting, Mr. Mason came back to hand me a sheet of paper and a book—Wuthering Heights. I flipped the cover open and looked at the first page. Catching the old-fashioned style, I let it fall shut. My gaze drifted towards the window and out into the grey day beyond. Rain sluiced down the glass. I watched the weak light gleam off the rivulets of water until the bell rang.
"Hey." I turned to find a boy ganglier than Sam, with a ton more acne, leaning towards me. "You're Sarah Winchester, aren't you?"
"Yeah." I looked down long enough to pack up my new book and shove the reading list in the vicinity of my folders. I found him standing by the time I finished. I got up, finding we were about the same height.
His smile was friendly. "I'm Eric."
Drawing a lock of hair back behind my ear, I nodded.
"What's your next class?"
"Um," I consulted the already crinkled sheet. "Government. Building six."
"I can show you the way," he offered.
I grinned. "That'd be great. Thanks."
His smile widened. "Sure."
We paused long enough to gather our jackets before heading back out. I lifted my hood and squinted out, noting it was raining harder than before. Glad I wouldn't have to consult my map to find the next building, I stuck close to my guide's side.
"So where are you from?" he asked as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"All over." I shrugged. "My dad travels a lot for business."
"What's he do?"
"Insurance," I lied with ease. "How about your folks?"
I made sure to carefully redirect the conversation back to him anytime he tried to move it back to me. Like most people, he was more than happy to talk about himself. He kept up a steady stream of facts about his life all the way to my next classroom. It struck me as pretty normal.
He lingered by the door. "Maybe our next class will be together."
"Cool." I hiked up my bag and smiled. "See you around, Eric."
He agreed, standing and waiting for me to enter before wandering back off to the sidewalk.
My morning classes each went the same way. Stares from other students. The teachers launching into subjects I was way behind in. A couple made me introduce myself. Long practice had me reciting my usual spiel with ease.
By the time I had lunch, I was already loaded with books and assignments that I doubted getting a passing grade in, if I bothered with them at all. A girl, Julia, who barely came up to my shoulders had been in two of my last classes, and so was happy to lead me to lunch. After gathering up our trays and some food, she brought me to her table of friends. Introductions were made.
I was the shiny new object, and everyone wanted to know something about me. I smiled and fed them the most generic things I could think of, sticking close enough to the truth that it'd be easy to remember, but neglecting certain details. Where was I from? "Kansas. Are you all from here?" What did I like to do? "Hunt. What about you guys?" I kept to the same trick, turning it immediately back to them.
It was after catching sight of Sam wandering in alone, looking for a place to sit, that I first noticed them.
He ended up a few tables down, which was about as far away from me as he could get. They were seated in the very back corner. There were five, three boys and two girls. The fact they were all ghostly pale caught my eye.
Their impossibly good looks kept it.
Each one could've modeled. The stunning blonde with the bored expression might as well have walked right off the cover of Vogue. Another girl with short, spiky black hair and a heart shaped face with delicate features was the definition of petite. The boys were all various shades of heart-stopping. Was it the larger of the three with the dark, curly hair and superhero jawline that was handsomer than the leaner honey-blonde with the aristocratic features? Or maybe it was the bronze-haired boy who wouldn't have been out of place in a boyband?
I drew my gaze away with some difficulty. I wondered how some of the best-looking people I'd ever seen were sitting by themselves, instead of being the center of some larger clique.
"Who're they?" I wondered aloud to Jessica, the girl to my immediate right.
She looked up, sights following mine. I didn't have to clarify who I was talking about.
The bronze-haired boy looked over, catching her eye. Her sights widened before immediately diving back down to her plate with a giggle.
His gaze slid to meet mine for an instant before breaking away.
"That's Edward Cullen." She peeked back up through her lashes and, seeing Edward was no longer looking, nodded towards the bigger boy across from him. "His brother Emmett. The short haired girl is Alice, their sister." She speared a green bean on her plate. "The other two are Jasper and Rosalie Hale. They live with Doctor Cullen and his wife."
"Oh." I watched Edward pick a bagel apart with long, pale fingers. He seemed to be speaking to the others, though they didn't look to be paying him any attention. "They're..."
Jessica giggled. "Yeah," she agreed. "But they're all together together. Jasper and Alice, and Rosalie and Emmett." Her voice lowered as she added, "And they live in the same house."
"Convenient," I decided, startling a laugh out of Jessica.
"No kidding." Jessica flicked her hair back. "Doctor Cullen adopted all of them. Jasper and Rosalie are twins, but they're all foster children."
I'd known foster kids. Usually I'd met them shortly after some monster had killed their parents. "They're lucky Doctor Cullen took them all in." No one wanted to end up a ward of the state.
"I guess."
She was lucky not to know how lucky. I picked up my apple and took a bite, letting my sights finally wander off the table of beautiful strangers and over to Sam.
My little brother was clearly keeping to himself. That wasn't unusual. He had a rougher time making "friends" then Dean or I ever had. Sammy had a big heart. He didn't like to get close to someone only to have to leave a few weeks later. Kid tended to stick to his books.
Lunch didn't last long. It seemed I'd barely sat down before everyone was swarming to the trashcans. I followed diligently after.
"What do you have next?" Jessica asked.
"Biology two," I said as I dumped the tray and set it aside. I was glad. It was a subject I wasn't entirely hopeless at.
"Me too," said a soft-spoken girl. I thought her name was Angela.
"Mind if I follow you?"
She smiled and shook her head.
"See you later," I said to Jessica, earning a smile and a nod.
The walk to biology was quiet. Angela didn't feel the need to ask questions or fill the silence. I kept up beside her, hood up, ready for school to be over for the day.
She led me to a classroom filled with long black tables covered with lab paraphernalia. I walked over to the teacher and handed him my slip. He signed it, grabbed a textbook from his desk, and told me to take a seat—no introduction necessary. Hiking my bag up, I looked around and found the classroom already full. The only seat left was beside Edward Cullen.
It wasn't until I got a few feet from the lab table that I saw his expression—and had to stop myself from reaching for a gun that wasn't there.
Murder was in those dark eyes.
I halted, taken aback, uncertain what to do. Every instinct in my body told me to get the hell away—which of course met with my dad's training. He'd taught me to run towards whatever my gut said to back off from. It was the latter that I listened to, sliding carefully into the seat beside him.
Edward turned away, back to his books. His jaw flared as he ground his teeth. The temple I could see shifted restlessly beneath unblemished, white skin.
The lesson started, but I barely paid attention. All my senses were fixed on the boy beside me. My instincts were screaming danger, but my common sense condemned my instincts as silly. So, naturally, I listened to my instincts. I knew better than to rely on common sense. It's not nearly well informed enough.
I watched him from the corner of my eye, listened to him instead of the teacher. He sat perfectly still, his sights glued to his unopened biology text, glaring at the cover as if the featured starfish had insulted his mother. Every so often his hands, curled into fists, would tighten until his arms bulged. His muscles were long but firm. He was stronger than his lanky build looked at first glance.
Something about that stillness of his struck me as wrong, but I couldn't say why.
His immobility only lasted until the end of class. He was up and out of the door as soon as the bell rang.
It was then that I realized how stiffly I'd been sitting. I forced my shoulders to relax as I gathered up my new textbook, dropping it into my bag.
"You're Sarah, right?"
The voice pierced the buzz of adrenalin still coursing through my veins. Blinking, I turned to focus on a cute blonde with gelled hair and a confident smile. Nothing dark lurked anywhere in his bright, open expression.
"Yeah."
"I'm Mike."
Only my years of helping Dad in some of his cons made the smile I fixed my lips into look anything close to genuine. "Hey."
His gaze flicked to the door before finding its way back to me. "Need someone to help you find your next class?"
"Oh, uh," I stood and he followed. "Sure."
"Cool. What is it?"
"Gym."
His eyes brightened. "Me too." He shouldered his bag's strap. "C'mon."
We walked back out of the building and took a left at the pavement. "So did you spit in Cullen's face or something?"
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who'd noticed the boy's weird behavior. "Nah. I've no idea what was up with that guy."
"He's weird." Mike peeked at me through the corner of his eyes. "I would've been happy to sit next to you."
I smiled. "You're a lot friendlier," I settled on saying.
He shrugged and as we approached a pair of metal doors, pulled one open for me. I smiled in thanks and went in. "Girls' dressing room is there," he said, pointing towards a door halfway down the hall. I could hear the squeaking of sneakers beyond, further down the hall where I supposed the gymnasium must be.
"Thanks," I said, giving a little wave as I wandered past.
"See you in a bit."
I looked over my shoulder and nodded.
Nice and cute as he'd been, my thoughts seemed dragged back to Cullen. Changing into shorts and a loose t-shirt, my brow furrowed as I remembered the look in his eyes. It was something I recognized all too well from various hunts. Hatred. Anger.
Hunger.
Shutting my locker with a clang, my instincts were all screaming at me. Something was off about Edward Cullen.
What it might have been haunted me like a poltergeist all through P.E. We were playing volleyball, and more than one spiked ball sailed by me as my thoughts remained stuck on the pale, bronze-haired boy. I managed a few decent returns and my serves were alright, but I'd played no where near as good as I should have.
Luckily, gym was the last class of the day. I changed back into my normal jeans, shirt, hoodie, and jacket and made my way back out towards the truck. Sam was waiting in the passenger seat by the time I made it across the lot.
I pulled the door open and was about to climb in when he glanced over. "We still have to hand in our sheets."
"Crap," I sighed, stepping up and in. "I'll stop by the office."
Sam shrugged and slouched back in the seat, staring out the window.
I shut the door and sniffed against the humidity. "How was your day."
He shrugged again. "Fine."
I nodded and started the engine. Unlike the bulk of the class that was heading back towards the street, I swung around to the front building. Parking up by the doors, Sam and I unbuckled and hopped down.
We had to stop back at the truck bed to fish our slips from our bags before heading back into the office. Sam was having trouble finding his, apparently having forgotten which folder he'd put it in. The wind had picked up, and the cold convinced me to wait for him where it was warm.
Hurrying inside, I looked up and frowned. The back of a familiar tousled head of bronze hair was at the counter. Edwards low, attractive voice was easy to hear. He was trying to convince the woman to switch him out of Biology to another class.
My brows raised in surprise. Could he really hate me so much on sight that he wanted to switch because of it? I'd never stuck around anywhere long enough for anyone to loathe me that much. Something seriously strange was going on.
The door opened and Sam stepped inside, chased the whole way by a gust of freezing wind. It rustled the papers in a bin at the counter.
Edward Cullen's back stiffened. He turned at the waist, just enough to see me lingering by the door.
Those black eyes chilled my blood. My fingers flexed, and I wished I had the comforting, cool weight of my gun in hand.
Turning back around, he told the receptionist, "Never mind. I can see it's impossible." After thanking her for her help, he whipped around and disappeared out the door without another glance at me.
I watched his back until it passed out of my line of sight.
"Sarah." I caught a glimpse of Sam's irritated expression before I stepped up and handed my paper to the woman.
"How was your day?" she asked.
I forced another smile. "Great. Everyone's been really nice." Almost, anyway.
She seemed pleased at this. Sam and I wandered back out to the truck. I glanced back down the sidewalk that led to the parking lot, but there was no hint of that distinctive bronze head of mused hair.
I jumped back in the truck and started it up. My mind was still on Cullen as I turned out onto the main street and headed in the direction of the place we were staying at for the time being.
I took the turn to the neighborhood and got another odd look from my brother. "Aren't we getting groceries?"
I sighed. "Yeah. Sorry."
His brows pinched together. "You okay?"
I thought about those black eyes in a handsome face. I couldn't think of a way to explain what I'd felt at that dark stare. I forced a grin. "Sure."
Sam aimed a disbelieving look my way but dropped it.
I pulled into the lot of the first store we found, some regional chain. Sam and I were quiet as we walked beneath the bright fluorescent lights down one linoleum aisle after another. We grabbed a week's worth of microwave meals, some cereal, lunchmeat, and peanut butter and jelly. I paid with one of a dozen fake credit cards I kept on me, along with some fake ids.
Loading everything back in the truck, I finally headed back to the house. Sam went to do homework while I made a ham sandwich and turned on the television. No matter what was on, nothing could pull my thoughts away from those dark eyes.
It stayed that way the rest of the day, all the way to ten, when I finally decided to try and get some sleep.
≿━━━━༺ 𝑾𝒂𝒚𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 ༻━━━━≾
A creak near the window jolted me out of my sleep. My hand pulled my gun out from under my pillow without having to consciously reach for it. Long afternoons spent shooting with my dad had it steady in my grip even as my sleep-crusted eyes scanned the room.
Something wasn't right. I wasn't alone.
The same cloud cover that had hidden the sun now hid the moon. There was just the softest of glows from a streetlight two houses down that lightened the darkness in the room, keeping it from being absolute.
The curtains waved, ever so slightly.
I had shut the window.
Any remnants of sleep were swept away. I strained my sights, trying to see into the darkness that lay heavily around me. The shadows were deep and dark, but some were darker than others. Eventually I could make out their shapes as I mentally thought of the room's layout. The dresser against the wall. My duffle laying on the floor. A glass on the bedside table. Something tall standing by the closet.
And then I realized there shouldn't have been anything in that corner.
My gun aimed almost without thought, and my finger squeezed the trigger. In the momentary flash, I saw someone. Something. But then it was at the window, and I had the impression of a human-shaped figure diving out head-first.
I scrambled against the blanket covering me and nearly fell to the floor. I caught myself before I could go down, hurrying across to the same window I'd seen it disappear out of. I pressed myself against the wall beside it, forcing my breath to stay even despite the flurry of panicked thoughts racing through my head. Eventually, when I didn't hear anything, I whirled to the side and stuck my gun outside–the screen had been taken off—and aimed it towards the dark lawn below.
I couldn't see anything moving. That didn't mean nothing was there.
I was still scanning the yard when the door to my room banged open.
I whirled, gun out, when Sam asked, "What's going on?!"
A moment later, the light came on. One of Sam's hands dropped from the switch. The other held a sawed-off shotgun pointing towards the floor.
"Something was in my room."
Sam frowned and gave the now fully lit bedroom a slower, thorough once-over. He adjusted his hold on the shotgun, lifting it higher. "Where?"
I nodded to the now brightly lit and empty corner. "There." I shook my head before looking to the window. "It jumped out the window after I shot it."
Sam joined me on the other side of the window frame. "Salt line's broken," Sam observed, nodding towards the grains of salt I'd laid across the windowsill before turning in for the night. It was a mess. The two of us peered down at the yard.
"C'mon," I said, moving away and back towards the open door. Sam followed as I led him out into the hall and down the stairs, flicking on lights and checking corners with our guns raised along the way. By the time we made it to the backdoor, I was fairly sure whatever had been in my room was long gone. Still, Sam and I took up the defensive side-by-side position our Dad had taught us and checked our corners before moving outside.
With the porchlight, we could see all the way to the trees lining the property. But the lawn stretched all the way to the beginnings of the woods, and anything could have gotten away through the trees. A glance told me Sam was thinking the same thing, but we still made a sweep of the yard, first with our eyes, and then sticking together.
When a neighbor switched a light on we decided to go back indoors.
Sam and I stood in the kitchen, feet damp and covered in blades of grass from walking the lawn without shoes. "What do you think it was?" he asked, eyes bright and alert despite the hour.
I shook my head. "Don't know. It looked human. I think."
Sam's brows furrowed. "Sure it wasn't a burglar or something?"
"I shot it. It didn't even pause before diving headlong out the window." I frowned. "I didn't see any blood upstairs. And a dive out a second story window would've hurt like hell."
"Yeah," Sam agreed, a thoughtful frown on his face. He met my stare. "Think we ought to call Dad?"
I sighed and set my gun on the counter. "Suppose so."
Dad didn't pick up, so I ended up leaving a message. The rest of the night we spent downstairs, watching the doors and windows more than the television. We didn't sleep a wink. Not even after the sun rose.