Chapter 2

"What do you mean?" Alivia asked with furrowed eyebrows as we walked down the hallway to our next class.

"I mean," I said as I stopped walking, standing right in front of her so she wouldn't leave. "He knew things about me that I didn't tell him, or even hint," I hissed out quietly, looking around the hallway to make sure the guys weren't there.

"Are you serious?" she asked in disbelief and shock, making me look at her with a blank expression.

"Why would I joke about something like this?" I asked her in a monotoned voice, not caring if someone heard that.

"Okay... Okay I believe you," she said slowly after a minute, making me sigh in relief. She was the closest friend I had out of all my friends, so if she didn't believe me I don't know who would.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that she is the only person that would believe me.

"I don't even know how he could've done it," I said as I moved out of her path and we started walking again. "I mean I've never met him before this, he didn't ask any of my friends- if he did that's pretty creepy-, he sounded really sure of himself when he said the stuff, and he asked if I got scared easily right before we went up. Like, seriously, who asks that and doesn't have something up their sleeves?"

"Michelle I don't know about this... I think you need to stay away from him and his friends," Alivia murmured to me as we walked, almost to the classroom.

"No," I said automatically, my mouth moving without my brains orders. My eyes widened after I said that, noticing that my voice even sounded a little too low.

"... Are you okay? I'm serious," she asked with concern as she put a hand to my forehead, checking my temperature. "You haven't been acting like yourself today."

"I went to sleep late," I easily replied, noticing from the corner of my eyes that she was staring at me with narrowed eyes. "What?" I asked trying to sound offended by her distrust.

"Stop with the bullshit," she started this time stepping in front of me, her blonde hair nearly slapping my face. "You kept me up till four in the morning once on a school night and came to school the next day looking fine. You're lying to me."

"No! I just..." I trailed off, not really knowing the reason why I was acting like this either. "I just... I don't know. I woke up and just felt... weird."

"Maybe it has something to do with the guys," she whispered, making me stop walking. Could they actually be the reason I'm different today? "Think about it. The guys have been around you all day, and all day you've been acting weird. Then you I see you jump slightly when that one guy grabbed your arm at lunch like he shocked you or something. And to add to the cake, you also just said some guy is basically going mega-stalker on you. It's the guys."

"But how can they do anything? They're just guys," I stated as I looked at the clock in the hallway.

Two minutes till class started.

"I don't know the details yet, your highness," she said sarcastically, making me smile at the fact that I was finally rubbing off on her "but I have a gut feeling that something isn't right about th-"

As I was listening to her talk I made the mistake of not being aware of my surroundings and didn't notice that Ivory was walking in my direction.

Big mistake.

In the middle of Alivia's sentence Ivory sauntered over and tripped me- a.k.a. kicking both of my ankles with her rock hard Valentino's heels. I hissed in pain, holding in a cry, as I fell to the floor- feeling like my ankles just got ripped off.

But before I could fall all the way to the floor a pair of arms caught me with a firm grip, making my breath hitch a little as I closed my eyes, trying to get rid of the pain.

"Are you okay, love?" an enchanting voice whispered in my ear making me hold in a shiver. This was not Rahab. Rahab's voice sounded more firm and cynical than this man's, but I was sure that the guy holding me was one of the new guys. I could tell by the intense feeling of security and the sudden loss of pain I got in my ankles as he leveled me to a stand still.

When I was balancing on the floor correctly with my feet I nodded and looked up at his face to say thank you, but as soon as I looked at him my breath got caught in my throat. His teeth are so white, his hair looks so perfect, and his eyes are so mesmeriz-

'Stop it!' a voice in my head scolded sharply, making me reluctantly snap out of the weird trance I was in. I couldn't even remember how long I was staring at him...

"Yeah... I'm fine, thank you," I said, my voice sounding different. Something was definitely off about these boys. They're so abnormal, appearance wise because of their beauty and physically because of the things they can... Do. Knowing about my past, saving me out of nowhere, putting me in a weird trance, and magically erasing all the pain in my ankles.

I'm going to find out what they are, even if it kills me.

"Uh... Where the hell did you come from?" Alivia asked bluntly with wide eyes, her jaw slightly dropped. I looked at his nose instead of his eyes this time, too cautious to look at his eyes again.

"From there," he answered with a little chuckle, pointing at the door of a classroom we were next to. "When I was coming out I saw... Whatever that girl's name is... Trip you. No one was trying to help you, so I decided to step in," he said with a smile, showing his pearly white teeth again.

I looked over to Alivia, looking to see if she looked like she trusted that statement- which I somehow knew was a lie-, but what I saw instead was her looking at me with a guilty expression. "I'm sorry, Michelle," she murmured, making me look at her with wide eyes.

"Why are you sorry?" I asked her, shocked by her apology that came out of nowhere.

"I should've done something. Yelled at her, stopped you from falling, nudged us away from her..." She trailed off, looking like she was going to cry. My eyes bulged out of my head when I saw her in that state, not knowing what to do.

I was never good at comforting people.

"Um... It's okay, Alivia. I didn't really expect you too," I said in an uncomfortable way, making a tear come out of her eye.

"I'm such a bad friend. I should've helped you or protected you somehow. Now you look like you don't even want to be by me," Alivia sobbed out, quickly wiping her eyes to prevent mascara smears.

"What? What, I- no, that's not why I'm-... What?" I asked in a really confused voice, not understanding her weird switch of emotion. Is she on her period?

I looked over to the guy, just to see him staring at Alivia with angry eyes. Looking back over to Alivia and her tears, something clicked and I looked back over to the boy.

"Well, thank you for protecting my face from getting smashed into a gravel floor, but could you... Give us some time alone?" I asked, looking at him with my own calculating eyes. If my predictions are correct...

"Um..." he trailed off, looking from Alivia to me, and then back a couple times. "Sure..." he finished, giving Alivia and me one last long stare before walking away.

I quickly looked back at her to see if she would stop crying, but she did more then stop crying.

"I don't know the details yet, your highness," she repeated from what she said a couple minutes ago as she suddenly started to move towards our class again "but I have a gut feeling that something isn- hey, why aren't you coming?"

I couldn't move from the amazement of what just happened. She completely forgot about what just happened. Tear stains weren't even on her eyes anymore.

"I just um..." I said, looking down to the floor. Seeing a pencil on the floor, I took the opportunity to mentally sigh in relief as I said, "Dropped my pencil. Sorry." As I bent down to grab the pencil the gears started to turn in my head at an irregular speed, thoughts overlapping thoughts about what just happened in the past two minutes.

Putting a couple pieces of the puzzle together, I remembered him giving us a long stare before leaving. Right after the stare Alivia was completely ablivious to the crying she did a little bit ago, but what about me? Why didn't it work on me?

I'm getting paranoid.

She probably dried off her tears while I stared at the guy, the guy was probably still trying to piece what the hell was going on with us- hence the weird stares- before he left, and Alivia probably didn't want to be asked about the crying so she said what she said before all the chaos happened again.

There. That sounds more logical and senseful.

'But.... What about the classroom thing?' a voice in my head countered, making my gears turn violently again.

No, stop! He just took lucky guesses! None of that fiction "He's a vampire!" stuff happens in real life! I'm just really tired and going crazy. I'm sleep deprived and drawing up weird conclusions just because I'm too stubborn to sleep at the right time.

There.

By the time I caught up to Alivia we were basically right by the door to our next class. Alivia went inside without a problem, but I stayed back, reluctantly deciding wether or not I should go in. I didn't want to go in there for some weird reason. I felt like going in there would be useless for me.

'Worthless. That class is worthless,' the voice in my head corrected, making me want to nod to myself. It's not I learn anything new in that class. Always basically the same thing again and again.

Worthless.

"Michelle?" I heard someone say, which made me jump a little and turn to the direction of the sound quickly. When I saw Alivia I loosened up my stance and looked at her with questioning eyes. "Aren't you going to come in?" she asked curiously, if not then a little suspiciously. I nodded slowly, hating the feeling in my stomach that I was getting as I got closer to the door. Just as we stepped into class the bell rang, making everyone in the class look at us.

But I only noticed the stare that a man with pale, silvery hair and hazel eyes was giving me.

His amazing, hazel eyes looked strangely empty. As if he was broken down to the point where he had nothing left to care about.

"Ladies! Have a seat, please!" The teacher boomed out, making me break eye contact with him. I shook my head, telling myself not to think into it too much, as I walked with Alivia to where we normally sat. "Now!" the math teacher said, clapping his hands together. "Calculus."

"I'm going to kill myself," I mumbled under my breath as I plopped down into my seat.

"Kill me first, would you?" Alivia whispered to me as she took out her homework with a huff.

"Now, we're going to do things a little differently today. Because we usually are working by ourselves, today we will have a partner-" he started, but was cut off when everyone started to talk in the classroom. He sighed as he looked around the classroom, looking like he was regretting his decision. "The partners will be a boy and girl group. You aren't allowed to be with your friends," he finally stated, making me snort as I looked at everyone's upset faces. "Find a partner and have a seat next to them. If you don't have one by two minutes I'm putting you with a random person," he said with a sigh that showed defeat.

Automatically people got up and started running to others, arguing about who would be with who. Alivia smiled at me sadly and walked away from the seat next to me, trying to find a guy to partners with. I sat there, not bothering with it. If he tried to partner me up with a group I would shake my head and tell him I wanted to work alone, like I normally do anyway.

Not that I care.

"Hey, cutie," a guy said, making me slowly look up from the empty table in front of me. When I looked all the way up I saw it was one of the jocks that normally hit on random girls.

Oh hell no, no way am I going to be doing all the work.

"What do you want?" I asked in a bored voice, giving the guy a once over. He looked a little offended by my comment, but his shocked face quickly turned into a smirk as he put his hands on my desk, making my eyebrow raise.

"What do you think about us being partners?" He asked with a persuasive voice, making me hold back a snort.

"Sorry, I'm-"

"Partners with me," the guy with silver hair said, making me hold my breath and think about wether I should be thankful or cautious.

"Oh, really?" the jock asked in a possessive voice, looking from the new guy to me. I shrugged at the jock and looked over to the silver haired guy that was already having a seat next to me.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find someone else to be partners with," the new guy said with a sly smile, making the jock glare at him before walking away. "Your welcome," the guy said after a minute of us staying in silence.

"I never said thank you," I said with a smirk as I looked up from the table. When I looked over to him I saw he was holding in a laugh, his eyes twinkling a little bit.

"Are you trying to tell me that you would rather I leave so you could be stuck with that man whore?" he asked me, making my dull and emotionless eyes brighten as I started to chuckle.

"Yes," I joked as I stuck my tongue out a little, making him grin a big, toothy grin.

"Really?" The guy asked in an amused voice, making me nod and turn to face the front of the room. "Well, then. I guess I'll be goi-"

"Now, hold up," I said as I grabbed his arm while he slowly started to stand up. His face was away from me, but I saw his cheeks lift up slightly, making me take that as a good sign. "No need for that, buddy."

"Buddy?" He repeated to me, making me smile and shake my head at him.

"What? Are you trying to tell me you rather have me be your enemy?" I mocked in his cute accent, hearing a small chuckle in return.

"Yes," he mimicked me, making me snort and hold in a chuckle.

"Okay, then. I guess we-"

"Time's up!" the teacher announced loudly, silence overtaking the classroom quickly. "Now I'm going to pass out a worksheet, that has everything you learned, from algebra one to now. Hopefully you irresponsible twelfth graders actually did your homework, because that homework and this worksheet are due by the end of the day. Let's see if I can actually trust this class with partner work," he deadpanned, grabbing papers from his desk. I looked at him with a blank face, following his movements as he walked over to us, counting papers for the rows as he went.

He is such a jerk of a teacher. Why does he always treat everyone in this class like we are little five-year-olds kids beginning for attention? It probably has to do with the fact that when we grow up we will be having better jobs then him, a teacher.

But, to be honest, I'm surprised teachers get paid so little.

As he passed papers around people either groaned or muttered out a "thank you" in a very ungrateful way, automatically starting their work. I myself was also one of those people, taking the paper while mumbling a sorrowful, "thank you" before working automatically, not sparing the guy next to me a glance.

He was doing the same with me, working silently, not talking to others, trying to get finished as soon as possible. After what felt like hours of work I finally got to the last question, slamming the pencil down on my desk and sighing in relief when I finally finished it. When I turned my head to look at the guy I saw he was staring at me already, making me feel really self-conscious and defensive. Was something on my face?

"No, nothing's on your face," he said with a smile, making me blush and look towards the front.

'So far this one seems like a normal guy...' I thought to myself as I started twirling my pencil around in my fingers, trying to rid the embarrassment of saying that out loud.

Wait a minute... I didn't say that out loud.

"So, um..." I said uncomfortably, scooting away from him a little. "Where did you come from?"

"Rome," he said, noticing my change in voice.

"Rahab said he's from Greece," I stated with a raised eyebrow, making the guy look at me with a blank look for a couple minutes.

"Well, we are from different countries. We met each other online, became bestfriends, and decided it would be cool to move here," he said casually, making me slowly nod and look away.

I'm on to these guys.

No doubt about it.

"So, what power do you have, huh?" I asked causually as I turned to him, just to see him looking at me with a straight face that looked slightly confused. "One can read my past, one can heal an injury and hypnotise someone, what can you do? Read minds? Persuade people? Turn invisible? Tell me," I commanded, making him look taken aback.

"What are you talking about?" he asked in a confused voice, making me narrow my eyes at him.

"Quit playing games with me. I had three hours of sleep last night," I groweled with venom in my voice, making his eyes widen a little in surprise.

"I'm not playing any games with you. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. You need to get more sleep during the night time, I think it's screwing with your brain functions," he replied a little uncomfortably, making me look away from him.

He was lying. I've known enough liers to be able to tell the basic things people do when they lie. He looked to the right, bit his lip and didn't keep eye contact when he talked with me. All of those are things other liers have done to me when they lied.

We didn't talk to each other for the rest of the time- which was about two minutes- until finally the teacher spoke up, in front of the loud crowd of students. "Alright, listen up! I want pencils down and papers going my way. If I see you didn't finish or the answers aren't correct, no more partner work for this class ever again, til the day I die," he commanded, making all of us look at him with offended expressions.

'Worthless,' my mind said to me, making my eye twitch. 'That teacher is worthless. This class isn't worth your effort. No one here is worth your air. They're all nothing. Nobodies.'

"Start passing 'em forward," the teacher demanded, making the class pass their papers to the person in front of them, a pattern starting. Out of the corner of my eyes I looked over to Belial, just to see him looking towards the front- that empty, broken looking expression on his face again.

'He's the only one that isn't worthless,' my brain excused, suddenly feeling like a snake was slithering up my body and into my brain. 'You should worship the ground he walks on.'

"Michelle, pass me your fucking paper," a guy I either didn't know or forgot the name of hissed, making me slowly snap out of my thoughts.

Only... I couldn't move. I was paralyzed.

'DON'T LOOK AWAY FROM HIM, WHEN HE HASN'T TOLD YOU TO YET!' a foreign voice screamed in my head, making me want to scream in horror. Screaming wasn't an option though, since the only parts of my body that were able to move were my eyelids, heart, and lungs.

"Michelle," the guy hissed, probably thinking I was just day dreaming. When he saw I wasn't going to move he sighed and turned all the way around in his desk, grabbing the paper with a huff, and sitting back down in his chair forcefully.

Meanwhile, my brain wasn't functioning and the only thing I could do in my own control was breathe and blink. I needed help. Something obviously wasn't right here.

'Doesn't he look worthy? Doesn't he look precious?' the voice in my head said softly to me, making me feel mixed emotions.

Fear. Bewilderment. Lust. Curiosity. Anger.

All of these emotions started swirling through my head at the same time, crossing paths and driving me towards insanity. I didn't understand what was going on with me. It was like my brain was a computer program and someone was hacking into the system, corrupting it with viruses and ads for things that I would have to exit out of one million times.

"Now. Class is going to end in three minutes, so I'm going to pass out the homework for this weekend. Get what you can done, so you don't have to do it over the weekend," the teacher said gruffly, giving little stacks of paper to us so we could pass them down and start them.

'You don't need to do that homework. It's not even worth doing. You'll just be wasting your life away,' the voice in my head said, my arms throwing the papers passed to me to the next desk without my permission- feeling like my body was a puppet being controlled-, coincidentally missing one piece of paper. 'Get that away! GET THAT WORTHLESS THING AWAY!' it screeched, making me want to cover my ears and scream in my head.

'GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY MIND!' I cried out to the voice in agony, making whatever it was scream. A lone tear started to drip down my eye, my eyes feeling really heavy and hurting.

"Michelle?" Belial said, making the voice in my head calm down.

'HE SPOKE TO US! HE SPOKE TO US!' it screeched in happiness, while I still tried to fight back control of my body.

'GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HEAD AND LET ME CONTROL MY FUCKING BODY!' I yelled in anger, my voice in my head booming with venomous, dark anger- my voice frightening myself from how scary I sounded. The thing inside my head whimpered after I spoke and I heard a faint sound of a hiss that snakes make, before I felt like something was slithering off my shoulders, making me free to move my body.

Only, I was paralyzed again. This time from shock.

What was going on with me?

The bell rang just as the shock wore off, giving me no time to pack up my stuff. So, as I was walking out of the classroom I was putting things in my binder together and in the right places so that papers wouldn't fall out.

I was also out of that room faster than you can say "bye", giving me no time to wait for Alivia either.

"Michelle!" Alivia yelled from somewhere behind me as I speed walked down the hallway, wanting to keep as much distance from that classroom as possible. "Michelle!" she yelled again, this time right next to me, finally caught up to where I was.

"Yes?" I said in a cut voice, not wanting to talk and risk the chance of a voice crack.

"What the hell was that? You left me back there with those... weird people," she said, looking over to where students were just now exiting the classroom.

"Sorry," I said quickly again, walking a tiny bit faster.

'Breathe. Just breathe and it'll all be better, Michelle,' I said in my head as I hitched a breath in and un easily let it out. 'Yep. Can't even breathe right. That's great. What's next?'

"Are you okay?" Alivia asked for possibly the thousanth time today. Now, I know she was just looking out for me, but I really just needed to be alone right now. Alone and far away from here.

"Yeah, Alivia. I'm fine," I murmured, a headache starting to form in my head.

"Michelle, if you don't feel we-" Alivia started, but I cut her off by covering her mouth with my hand. Alivia's voice was making my headache twice as worst in a matter of seconds, and I didn't need a migraine for the rest of the day.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Calm down," I answered, making her narrow her eyes at me.

"Bullshit," she commented, making we wince from the throbbing in my head. When I looked up everything moving around was going slower then normal. People's mouth, blinks, and steps were sluggish; doors were opening at a snail's pace, and everything seems to be a little bit harder for me.

"Maybe I should just take a nap, yeah? I like that idea," I murmured as I stumbled over to the left slightly.

"You can sleep when you get home. Right now I'm going to bring you to the nurse," Alivia said, just as the bell rang. Her eyes widened and she looked from her classroom right next to her then to me repeatedly, not knowing what to do.

"Leave. I can walk there by myself," I said in a monotone voice, feeling a little hurt on the inside.

"Are you sure?" she asked nervously as she started walking towards her class, trying to look casual as she speed-walked there.

"Yeah, just go," I said, not letting my hurt show in my voice.

"If you need me then text me," she said quickly before running into the classroom and scurrying towards the back where no one could see she just came in.

I sighed and shook my head as I kept walking down the hallway, my steps getting unbalanced and wobbly the more I walked. "You can do this by yourself. You've been doing everything by yourself since you were born. Do one more thing and prove you don't need anyone," I muttered to myself harshly, giving myself a pep talk so I wouldn't just give up and face plant on the floor.

While I was walking I heard echoing footsteps behind me. I furrowed my eyes at the thought of someone besides me being in the hallways when class already started. My steps turned into stumbling limps the closer the footsteps got, and eventually- by the time one of the people were right behind me- I fell for the second time today, falling into a pair of arms.

Familiar arms.

"Michelle? Are you okay?" the one guy that caught me the same way an hour ago said, eyes holding concern.

"Do I look okay?" I groaned as I winced, my head throbbing in pain.

"Not really," he said softly, his voice making me calm down a little bit- the pain fading slightly.

"I'm fine. I just have a headache," I commented in a firm tone, trying to stand myself up. By the time I stood up and gestured for him to get his hands off of me all I had was a minor headache, the throbbing and pain almost completely gone.

"You look pale. Do you need me to walk you to the nurse?" the same guy said, his eyes showing a protective look, but I shook my head at his proposal.

"No, I can take care of myself," I responded, making him frown a little bit.

"Are you sur-"

"Yes, I am sure," I said calmly, not wanting to make an enemy. I was fine- now, at least- and all I needed was some aspirin and an ice-pack. Nothing major happened to me, like my leg getting blown off.

"Something happened," the guy I didn't formally meet yet stated, making me get caught off guard. "That's not just a headache."

"And, how would you know?" I asked a little bit too aggressively then I meant to, making Rahab and the guy with dark brown hair and blue eyes look amused.

"Look out, guys. We've got a spitfire on our hands," Rahab commented, making me glare at him.

"Shut up," I commanded, making him raise his hands up in surrender and grin. "Answer my question," I said firmly, not harshly, to the blonde boy- his eyes staring into my eyes intensely.

"You don't almost fall over and stumble all around the hallway because of a little headache," he stated with a raised eyebrow, making me purse my lips.

"Valid point," I started, crossing my arms across my chest "but I'm perfectly fine. So, you guys don't need to touch me."

"I think we're all getting off at the wrong foot, here," said a smooth voice coming from the right side of me. "Let's forget this whole day happened and just re-introduce ourselves."

I sighed in a frustrated way and looked at all the boys, not wanting to be by them anymore. "Okay, fine," I replied, straightening up and giving them a fake smile. "I'm Michelle. Michelle Antoinette."

"I'm Cassiel," the boy with dark brown hair said, grabbing my hand and kissing it. I forced a blush down at the weird type of introduction, looking over to the rest of the guys.

"I'm Rahab," Rahab said with a knowing smile- as if he knew I was taken back by Cassiel's strange introduction.

"Belial," he said with those empty eyes and a barely-there smile.

"Ioael," the blonde guy said with that intense stare, making me feel uncomfortable and turn to the last person.

"I'm Ariel," the guy that caught me said, making me smile. That name is like Ariel from the Little Mermaid, but pronounced differently.

"My favorite disney princess when I was little was Ariel," I accidently said out loud, making all the guys  laugh at me, my blush becoming a dark red. "Forget you heard that," I mumbled, scratching the back of my head.

"You're really cute," Ariel laughed out, making me duck my head and quickly turn the opposite direction of them.

"Nice to meet you... bye!" I said as fast as I could as I scurried away from them, not noticing that the headache I had was gone.

Or that Ariel's green eyes turned a lighter shade of green when he responded to me.