Blowing a tuft of inky hair out of my hooded eyes as the strands caught in my mascara laden lashes, I gazed out into the crowded halls, sighing in relief as I spotted familiar friendly faces.

I was usually shy and reserved, held back from the rest of the student body especially before Holden had become my boyfriend, but after that relationship and subsequent breakup, I had grown bolder, mainly due to Lachlan's personal vendetta against me and my friends.

I had been close with more girls than just Vera before I left but she was my only best friend, and the other girls had fallen out of touch with me after I moved. I passed a few of them on my way to Vera and her girlfriend and they gave me a few friendly nods, but there was no trace of our old camaraderie and united front that we'd put in place when Lachlan and his friends, mainly Taylor, would tease us all.

Since I was sitting at the 'popular' table once more, however, I could tell the interest was piqued with every member of the student body.

The dull droning chatter of gossip fluttered past topic after topic and I was on the main menu, as I heard my name being whispered multiple times as I walked past crowds of students.

Bayfield was notorious for having less than kind students, as the majority of the kids were all from ridiculously wealthy families and had been spoon fed privilege their entire lives.

I wasn't picked on because of my adopted status until Lachlan, however, which proved they had some decency, and proved that Lachlan had none.

"Hey girly," Vera began as I joined her at her locker, the ancient wooden cubicles remnants of the history the school exuded.

"Hey, I'm sorry about your sister, everyone's been talking about it today," Blythe added.  Of course it was the talk of the school, because apparently in my absence, Vera and Jenna had somehow become Queen bees of the school, and I had just kicked the hive.

"It's fine, really. I shouldn't have gone after her like that in public."

"Yeah, and it doesn't help that Lachlan overheard everything. He was the main fuel for the rumors."

My eyes narrowed of their own accord at Vera's words as I took in my surroundings, mainly the alteration of our school uniform to fit her style.

Usually a green, black and white checkered skirt, a crisp white button up linen shirt, and knee high socks or stockings with black shoes, our uniform suited most girls, but not Vera.

A green mini scarf was tied around her neck, most likely to hide a hickey, and her shirt was unbuttoned a few inches to display her black criss crossed tank top straps across her chest. Her skirt was about an inch above dress code, and her feet were donned in black stiletto booties, sans stockings or knee high socks.

The handbook didn't say what kind of black shoes, so long as they weren't open toed...

"Well, it is what it is. I knew coming back would subject me to seeing him again. Sorry, Blythe, I know he's your brother..."

She dismissed me with a wave of her hand, her long blonde spiral curls bouncing around her face as she did so.

"Don't even worry about it. The two of us are completely on the 'hating Lachlan' train, and would be honored if you'd join us on it."

We shared a laugh and I suddenly became self conscious of my outfit while looking over the two dazzling beauties in front of me.

I was dressed more traditionally as I didn't feel like being reprimanded on my first day back, the knee high black socks brushing the tips of my thighs and my feet comfortably resting in my black combat boots. My buttons were undone almost to Vera's length only hinting at the small crest of cleavage that swelled beneath the collar and I tugged my skirt a bit higher as I noticed I was the only one with it almost to my knee socks.

My unnaturally auburn tresses were straightened and hung down almost to my midsection as I smiled when I realized that Vera had continued with her parental rebellion, her natural chocolate curls up in an intricate updo with the corkscrew locks spread out across her forehead.

Her makeup was impeccable and natural as always, while Blythe opted for a glam look and even though she didn't need a stitch to complement her features, Vera had mentioned that she practiced on herself considering she was hoping to apply to a beauty school after graduation to become a makeup artist.

"Well then I am honored to be invited to the 'hating Lachlan train'. I'm just trying to stay out of his way for now honestly, to say I have way more things to worry about than your arrogant brother would be an understatement," I replied, the way I had said the word 'brother' almost as if it were battery acid and I had to spit to get it off of my tongue, oblivious to the wide eyed stared Vera and Blythe were giving me.

"Ouch, Kat, how you wound me."

His dark voice caused a shudder to explode across my spine, my body tensing up as I realized too late just exactly who had snuck up on our conversation.

I turned just in time to widen my eyes at how many people had listened in on our exchange, which was...everyone in our friend group excluding Sloane and Holden who were probably off somewhere planning how to color coordinate every day for the rest of their lives.

"Gosh, Lachlan, I am so sorry I hurt your feelings. How ever can I make it up to you?"

The sarcasm was dripping from my mouth but Lachlan's eyes narrowed as a cocky smile draped across his lips, just like I'd fallen into his trap.

"I can think of a few things, but most of them involve you on your knees."

The barks of laughter and hollering of the boys in the group reached my ears and my face immediately heated as I felt the embarrassment rain down on me. I really had walked into that one. I said the first thing that popped into my head absentmindedly as I couldn't think of anything else to say as a comeback as my phone buzzed in my pocket.

His dark brown eyes met mine in a fierce battle of power as I responded.

"I'd rather swim in a pool of battery acid, but thanks for the suggestion," I broke out, my voice occupied as I ignored him by checking my phone.

I had blocked everything out though, as I checked my notifications and I realized it was a text from a friend in California, asking her to call me immediately, but on a FaceTime call specifically.

Frowning, I dialed their number while edging out of our friend group, Evan's concerned eyes on my worry drawn face.

"Kate?"

"Hey Alyssa, what's up?"

The girl who had set me up with Ian back in California sighed on the other end of the line, and I focused on her profile while watching her chew on her dark lip, contemplating her words carefully as she always did before speaking.

"I don't know how to tell you this. I wish I could be with you in person..."

"Tell me what?"

My voice cracked.

I could physically sense the eyes on me as I turned the volume down a bit on my phone but since I was on FaceTime with Alyssa in the hall I didn't have a way to hide from the words she was about to announce to my entire friend group that suddenly had their full attention on me.

"Yesterday, Ian was driving with a...new friend. I know you guys had broken up but honestly she looked just like you so I don't think he was even over you anyway, but that's not the point..."

Her words were rushed and unthinking, something so completely unlike Alyssa's usually calculated dialogue.

Snickering from my friend group caught my attention and I realized Taylor and Jenna were joking about the situation amongst themselves, probably making fun of how my ex had moved on so quickly, but the dire look on my friend's face on the other side of my phone had me edging even further away from their inquisitive looks, only Vera, Blythe and Evan watching me with concern, and as if the universe hated me even more, Holden and Sloane showed up at the most inopportune moment.

"So, they were driving down the interstate, but there are witnesses that say they were being chased."

"Witnesses?" I asked, confused at where this tale was going.

"Yeah...they were in an accident."

"Well how bad was it? Is Ian okay?"

I could have sworn that I could hear a pin drop, no one joking amongst my friend group any longer.

"He's...he's in the ICU at the hospital, but his new friend, Leah...she died."

Her features pulled into a grimace as she tried to find a way to say the next thing that she had to get out. My mind, however, was blank.

"Kate...they don't expect him to make it. There was major brain damage, he wasn't wearing a seatbelt."

Ian had never worn a seatbelt, not when I had constantly begged him to on our countless star gazing trips out to the desert in California. The only times I'd ever felt truly unburdened.

Guilt tugged at my chest as I remembered how I'd used him to forget my familial problems.

"How...how did it happen?"

My back against the wall of lockers for support, Vera's arm latched around my waist as if to keep me from sliding down, but also from escaping like I so wanted to do.

"Apparently this car that was chasing them...they got close to the passenger side and swerved into them which was what caused the wreck in the first place. He lost control of his car and they flipped seven times. He flew out of the car and landed a few feet away."

I tried to imagine the scene in my mind, the blood and gore gushing out of Ian as he laid there waiting for emergency services. Was he conscious when it happened? And the girl...Alyssa had said that she looked like me, did she scream? Did she say anything before she died?

"Kate? Did you hear me? They're going to have a service for her, and a living wake for Ian tomorrow. Do you think you can make it?"

"I...um, I don't-"

I couldn't speak, my throat closing up completely, but I was too distressed to claw at it in panic, my brain working too quickly.

All I could see was black, the dots invading my vision as I forgot to breathe, my brain unable to process the information being given to me.

"Kate?"

A coil in my stomach tightened, the pain blossoming out from my middle and spreading out like a poison to reach every orifice of my body. I always found it strange how mental pain manifested itself in the body, transforming into something physical and tangible, like the mind couldn't hold in all the hurt that was being brandished upon it.

Invisible connections and strings tied themselves together as I pulled my phone screen down, a silenced notification popping up at the top of the screen hiding Alyssa's face, and I yanked the phone from Vera's view so I could fully read the message.

I read it, and my veins turned to shards of ice.

It was like I was a fatal magnet that attracted pain, danger, trauma, strife...damage.

He had been the one following Ian and this girl, Leah. He was looking for me, and because she looked like me...

Nausea boiled up inside of me and I didn't waste a second as I tore myself from Vera's grip and dashed out of the crowded hallway, everyone watching me go in a state of half shock and hesitant concern rooted to the spot, like they didn't know what to do.

Only Evan followed after me and found me kneeling on the steps off to the side of the building, hurling my guts up onto the frosted dew sprinkled grass.

He held my hair to the side and rubbed my back in soothing circles, though the action only made me want to recoil from him even further. I ruined everything I touched.

I had killed that girl. He was after me, unaware that I'd already moved halfway across the country and had broken up with Ian.

He wanted me, and when upon discovering she wasn't me, he ran them off the road.

I had blood on my hands, my biological father a monster sent from the bowels of hell itself, intent on finding me.

I hadn't realized I was crying until Vera stepped in front of me, wiping my cheeks with her hands. I could hear Sloane on the phone behind me speaking with our mother. Our 'mother', the woman who'd adopted me.

My real mother, who had given me life and flesh, was dead. Killed. Slaughtered by that very same monster who was trying so desperately to find me.

Could I go on doing this by myself? What if he came to New York, following the bread crumb trail as he realized that I was no longer in California, would I be able to save myself alone?

The warning bell sounded for class as panic slithered down my spine, the tears clouding my vision as I hugged my knees to my chest, charcoal clouds imbued with swollen arcs and peaks finally emptying their contents upon those who had followed me outside.

Biting water and sharp sleet cascaded down on my body, the slap of frigid, half frozen rain cutting into my scalp.

"Our mom's coming to pick her up and take her home," Sloane's voice said as it carried to my ears, seemingly disembodied as it floated around in the air almost completely washed out by the weather pelting me with its ferocity.

I relished it, though, the feeling of punishment.

It was all my fault and I knew it, but no one else did. The world faded away as I imagined sweet, happy Ian laying in a hospital bed draped in bandages and clothed in cuts and bruises, all at my expense.

Because I couldn't curb my curiosity, because I had been the one to reach out, because I had put myself on his radar.

An evil, malevolent, sadistic human, that was my heritage, that was what I was to inherit. Was it already there, boiling and swimming around inside of me, mixing with the nausea that refused to subside?

Was it written on my body?

"Kate, we have to get you out of the rain, can you stand up?"

I didn't register Evan's voice as he stood in front of me, waving his hands in front of my catatonic state. How could I answer him when I could hardly breathe, drowning in my misery and guilt...

"We can't just let her sit outside and get sick! Just pick her up."

"No, she's in shock. You're not supposed to move them or something when they're in shock, I read it in an article one time," Vera said in response to Sloane's prickly tone.

"Fuck this," a voice said and I couldn't even bring myself to tense and flinch at his touch on my body. But it wasn't Evan who'd picked me up and cradled me to his chest, no, it was the one who was supposed to not give a shit about me, but I didn't have a moment to analyze the moving parts around me, my brain stuck in an endless cycle of blame and anguish.

Ian, Leah, my biological father...

Leah. It seemed like such an innocent name. And Alyssa had said that she looked like me, so I was sure that it only confused that monster more when he saw that it wasn't really me in that car with Ian.

Ian. So filled with light and happiness, so pure. And I had taken that brightness from within him and smashed it, just like I did with every single thing that I touched.

I was the monster of this story.

I was mumbling incoherent sentences against a hard chest that was trying its best to warm the icy pit inside of me, the steps jarring my head enough to make me lay it against that strong, heated body.

myfaultmyfaultmyfault it was all my damn fault.

It was an endless cycle of self blame and I couldn't pull myself out of it.

Tensing, the sob was about to tear free out of me, and as if he instinctively knew the dam was about to break, he placed a tentative hand against the side of my head as if to hide me from the countless eyes that I knew must have been pausing to watch the show, to watch Kate Randolph dissolve into a puddle of tears and pain right before their very eyes.  I was surprised they didn't pull their phones out to record.

"Almost there," he murmured quietly against the soft skin of my forehead and then suddenly the fluorescent lights were exchanged for the dimmed light of the sky. He'd brought me inside through the building only to deposit me at the other end where my mother's BMW was waiting almost impatiently.

How had she arrived so fast? Was I really sitting outside long enough for her to get ready and leave her house and make it to the school?

I was soaked to the bone, the clothes dripping melted snowflakes and rainwater that mixed with my tears.

The door was opened and I was placed gingerly inside, my face never moving from its blank mask of unseeing indifference, not even when my mother waved a hand in front of my eyes to try and get me to respond to her.

Was this what shock felt like?

I hardly noticed the glare Lachlan threw my mother as she shook my shoulder slightly, the growling of words that slipped past his lips in explanation of what happened.

"How ironic," I mused out loud. The two of them stared at me in confusion but I did not elaborate on my one liner.

How ironic indeed.

"Katrina if you don't snap out of this you're going to the hospital."

"Like that would do any good."

My voice was as icy as the sleet pounding down on us.

Lachlan shook his head in half concern and half indifference.

"Thank you Lachlan."

He didn't answer my mother's grateful words as he shut me inside her car, effectively cutting me off from the outside world and damp air that beckoned me to swirl my anguish with its frozen tendrils of precipitation.

His eyes locked on mine through the rain drop speckled window, though, and the crumpled stare that I pinned him with could hardly compare with the smoldering, all knowing gaze that he threw right back at me, those dark eyebrows drawn down over those dark eyes, the grey skies reflected back in them to make them seem even more haunting.

How ironic...

How ironic, indeed, that my loudest opposition had become my savior, if only for a moment.