I didn't ask to be stuck in this game. Or rather I didn't want to be abducted along with my two best friends and the Queen bitch of Greenhill senior highschool. I never wished for any of this to happen. I didn't want to be in this hell of a lab, being treated as an experiment. It would all have been fine if there weren't any casualties, but unfortunately like in all life-or-death situation, there was.
I was.
I didn't ask to be a glitch, but I was.
°°°°
I wake up to the sound of birds chirping, water running, footsteps drawling and muffled voices. My head is pounding heavily, I feel like I took a hit to the head before sleeping last night. I would rather do anything but get up right now, but I know I have to go to school.
I groan as I lift the cover off of me and bend it in half. Definitely not a morning person. What's more? Those annoying jerks didn't wait for me this morning! I have all the reasons in the world to be mad, I think.
A pillow whacks my face the moment I step out of my bedroom, by instinct I suspect the only person it could be, "Ace!!! I'm gonna fričkin kill you."
Suppressed giggles and multiple talking comes from my right side. Ace and Alexander are working together, not a good sign. These two have been at each other's throats for as long as I can remember, that is the moment they were born. This is definitely a bad omen.
Alexander and Ace are twins. Both boys, and my little brothers that I'm other than with eight years. Yeah I know, what were my parents thinking? Well only my mom would be able to answer that. My Dad, as at the moment they were born, was dead.
"Bye Carmine! Get going, move it!" Alexander yells. I'm going to lose it if one of these kids say another fričkin word to me. I storm into the cubicle where I take off my clothes and have a very abrupt bath. My hair is a rat's nest so I sit myself down with the little ounce of patience I have left and begin to untangle it, by the end of this I look slightly presentable and not likely to scare little children away looking like the boogey-woman.
The realisation that I have to chase the bus down becomes a real thing suddenly. Five minutes more till the bus is completely out of my street and when that happens, I won't have a chance of getting to school early today.
"Breakfast?" My mom shows up as I am running out of the house, with a plastic bag containing God-knows-what. She had better not be trying to sneak grass (healthy food as she likes to call it) into my breakfast again.
"Thanks mom." I grab the bag and flee out of the house as fast as I can, trying to flag down the school bus.
Of course it wasn't always like this. At least one out of eight times, I'd make it on time to school. Today isn't just one of those seven times.
Eventually the overweight driver stops driving and sights me panting, ready to give up on trying to catch the bus. I see him stop so I pick up my pace. I finally enter sweaty, panting and tired. I suppress the urge to shove him my middle finger, after seeing that smirk on his face. Like I wanted to run a 400 meter sprint this morning.
I sit down beside my 'best friend' or should I say the guy that refused to stop the bus when it got to my house this morning and was making out with his girlfriend, Monica instead. "Hey bestie..."
"Don't you dare. After ditching me this morning for your girlfriend making me run a whole 400 meter sprint, don't even open your mouth around me!" I hiss at him. His usually arranged golden blonde hair is now scattered, his lips are plump and swollen.
I look behind me to see Monica glaring at me from the last row of seats. Kyle must have ditched her and sat here waiting for me instead. Ha! Take that.
"I'm sorry," he runs a hand through his hair, tugging it. "I got carried away."
You don't say! "I think that's quite obvious." I examine the lipstick mark on his cheekbones. He's quite the PDA type, I wasn't expecting Kyle of all people to be like that. His large and pale green eyes stared into my hazel ones. "Where's Peyton?"
"Oh you mean Peepee?" He grins. He calls my other best friend Peepee to annoy her, and I'm going to bet it works 10 out of 9 times.
I roll my eyes. "Yes Peepee, pray she doesn't hear you calling her that. I'd have no objection to her ripping your head off."
He places a hand on his chest. "So violent. Why are you both abnormals of the female specie?"
"Why are you such an annoying spoilt little brat?" I shove my finger into his face. "And what makes you think the female specie is hopeless and waiting for some sort of Prince charming to save us all the time?"
"Monica is exactly that way." He mumbles the rest under his throat.
"Right," I tilt my head towards where she's seated with my arms folded. "You mean the girl you twist tongues together with and call your girlfriend? Yeah, I thought as much." Okay honestly, I'm pissed now and by the look on his face I can tell he's pissed too. "And whatever happened to Peyton? You never answered me."
"You make her sound like what she's not. Peyton took another ride to school. Alex Brandon to be specific." He says the last part putting more emphasis. I know he said it for me to snap and I hate that it's working.
Alex Brandon would have to be the most popular guy in the senior class. Popular for no particular reason if you ask me, the guy's IQ equals to that of a peanut. And he isn't too well off in the looks department either. Whatever do people see in him??
"Stop playing. I don't know what you mean by that but I don't care. I'd rather hear from her." I shut him off. The last thing I need right now is doubting Peyton and pointing fingers at each other. I really need to cool my head off, but sitting here with Kyle, glaring at him is not helping.
I turn my face forward. Ignoring the puppy dog eyes Kyle is giving me. I would probably forgive him sooner or later, shame on me for being too loving. Did I just say loving? Oh, I'm not the half of it.
The bus stops one more time to pick up a student, five miles away from Greenhill high-school. He enters, an aura trailing behind him. He has a scent I couldn't help but notice, a calming one and that's what makes me turn around. His beautifully sculpted body saunters towards the back seat. His muscles contract during every movement. I oggle him and I'm sure every girl on the bus is too.
He finally sits in a seat farther from mine when he suddenly turns to look at me. His keen but serene bluish-grey eyes hold my gaze for a second and his thickly curled lustrous dark hair accentuating his oval shaped face brushes against the tips of his fingers, compared to me, he looks like a Greek god, while I think I'd look better than garden gnomes at least. Like nothing ever happened he's staring out the window again, making me wonder if that was all my imagination.
"Carmine, answer me!" Kyle cries out and I turn to smack him. He smiles sheepishly, he knows what he's doing.
"What???" I shriek, red hot steams rolling off my back. Someone get this bus to stop moving before I kill him. Before I regret my decision. Before I choose to bury his body in a far-off land.
"Peepee said to apologize on her behalf and convince you that it isn't what it looks like and you shouldn't judge a book by its cover." Kyle says with an innocent smile. He looks so pure and child-like saying that, I can't help but feel bubbly and putty inside. Why do I even try staying mad at this boy? Right, cause he's annoying.
"Sure. I just don't understand why - him. And stop bothering me." I glare at his index finger angled to poke my right cheek. If I didn't know better I'd say Kyle has a fetish for people's cheeks. But I don't know better so it remains a fact.
"C'mon you like me pulling your cheeks don't you?" He holds back his laugh. I bet I look like an overdue tomato about to explode. I swear all this boy ever does is make life miserable for me. He adds to his blabbering, "So is your name Carmine like the colour or like a song?"
At this I just can't hold it any longer. I spring for his neck and I feel a presence behind me, watching my every move. It unnerves me. His bluish-grey eyes find their way back to my lucid steely hazel ones. His face as hard as granite. His etched low cheekbones and diamond jawline. His eyebrows sketch freely along the lines above his eyes as a darker shade of brown. His nose is straight and delicate, centered just right. His lips are firm, full and pink. Scrêw what I said earlier, he is a Greek God.
Just like before he drifted towards the sea of people alighting and there he disappears. Poof! No trace of him. Our eyes have met twice now!! Did that mean something or I'm just reading too much into pointless, meaningless things? Or was he looking at everything but me?
I scan the situation at hand. Peyton coming over at my 3'o clock with an apologetic look on her face, Monica stomping in our direction from my 10'o clock, Kyle by my right, getting ready to use me as a shield against his crazy possessive girlfriend.
All ready to happen in 5,
4
3
2...
Except it never happens. Immediately they all reach equal footing, I get jerked away from them all. The last thing I remember is my friends being shoved in the back of a black van with a logo on it, which was too blurry to make anything out of it at the moment. Kyle in a fist fight with a buff, mountain of a man before he gets punched across the face and like the rest of them, he's in the van too. Then me blindfolded and gagged in another crowded van.
That was the first day of the kidnapping. My last day as a normal girl living in the real world. My last days of seeing Bluish-grey eyes because he drops dead due to a gunshot to the head.