"Are you sure this is legal?" Laurel yelled over the roaring thunder. Her sopping brown curls whipped across her face as the violent wind raged on.

Twyla and Alix groaned and flashed their friend a murderous look. That was the fifth time she had asked that question and their answer was still the same. No, Laurel, it's not illegal. They said that while conveniently leaving out the- as long as you don't get caught- part. For the past five years it had became a sort of tradition for Laurel and Twyla to wander outside of the town's perimeters, on the last day of summer, and find something mildly dangerous to do. Laurel, being the perfect honors student, and president of student council always inadvertently acted like a wet blanket. She had her reputation at the nursing home to uphold, after all. Twyla had a reputation to uphold as well- at the county jail- and she couldn't disappoint those poor officers who were waiting for a worried phone call from some innocent standbyer. Alix, didn't have a reputation like her friends, she was new to the group. She had been exiled from her lavish New York City parties and swanky penthouse to dreary Covington, Louisiana. It was just one of many things Twyla and Alix shared in common- being exiled.

"It's just that, that doesn't look very safe," Laurel mumbled, pointing at the monstrous building that loomed in front of them.

The girls had climbed through the town's expansive forest, tripping over tree stumps and slipping through mud all the while carrying heavy backpacks filled with Jack Daniels. Neither Alix or Laurel knew where Twyla was leading them. They followed her blindly into the deepest part of the forest, where all light had been concealed by the thick green canopy above their heads. Laurel remembered in vivid detail how terrified she had been when Twyla first led them into the forest. Out of the three girls, she was the only one who had lived in Covington her whole life, she had grown up perched on the lap of her grandfather, listening to the local stories of monsters hiding in the forest. She didn't believe the stories, they were just a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo. But as the girls continued weave in between trees, images of bloodsucking demons and rabid wolves ran through her head.

When they reached the treeline Laurel couldn't tell if she was relieved or devastated. Sure, they had escaped the woods without hearing a snarling beast or seeing two blood red eyes but the place they stumbled upon was way more terrifying. Covington Manor had once been a proud establishment of Louisiana, but that was before termites and two hundred years worth of decay settled in. What once had been a glamorous manor, owned by the social of elites of a new world, was now a worthy destination for a new horror movie. Alix and Twyla weren't phased by the fact that the ceiling might cave in on their heads or that they could die from breathing in all that asbestos, that's what they liked about it. Danger compelled them like a moth to a flame.

"It'll be fine," Alix rolled her eyes, "But if we die, I'll let you kick my ass in heaven."

"As if you'd go to heaven," Laurel muttered under her breath.

Alix didn't say anything.

"Come on Laurel, don't tell me your scared? Remember last year, at the Barrywood swamp, when we found an actual corpse. Now that was scary," Twyla taunted, a wicked smile toyed on her ebony painted lips.

"I distinctly remember telling you that I was never going on one of these trips again, after that. You should be glad I even came," Laurel retorted.

Neither Twyla, Laurel or the entire population of Covington knew exactly why the two girls were friends or how it had even happened. One second, Laurel was being coerced into showing the new punk kid around school and the next they were skipping classes and planning great escapades together. Life worked in strange ways. Mrs. Jameson, Laurel's mother, was still in denial about their friendship. She just couldn't see why her perfect child would spend time with Twyla and nobody could honestly blame her. Twyla looked like one of Hell's Angels, in her studded leather jacket and knee-high combat boots. And Laurel was the princess of pep in her pastel dresses and pearls. For this one special occasion, Laurel managed to ditch the pearls and dresses for a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and pair of jeans. None of the girls, except for Alix, anticipated the storm, so they were all trying to squeeze underneath Alix's small umbrella.

Stepping out from under the protection of the umbrella, Twyla ignored the raindrops pelting her head and walked up the manor's massive front door. A squawking bird soared above her. It circled around the house until it found a comfortable spire to settle on. The nearly bare willow trees, swung their dragging branches from side to side. Every once in awhile the branches would scratch against the manor's tall glass windows, causing Laurel to flinch. Twyla paid no attention to the world around her. Glancing back at her trembling friend, she watched to make sure Laurel wasn't watching her. Her eyes came in contact with Alix's emerald gaze. It was strange, Twyla thought, how a girl like Alix- with her silky auburn locks and supermodel looks- could also be one of the weirdest people she had ever met. Alix and Twyla never truly admitted out loud just how similar they both were but they both knew without saying a thing.

Alix inclined her head ever so slightly, as if to say the coast was clear. Twyla swung back around, trusting her friend, and focused her stare and the brass knob in front of her. The rusted lock resisted for a few seconds before the mechanisms made a series of clicking sounds. She took a step back and smiled mischievously at Laurel who was now paying attention.

"How are you going to open the door, Twy?" Laurel asked, a smirk tugged at the edge of her lips. She was completely ignorant to her best friend's extra abilities.

Twyla just shrugged, her smile still intact. Reaching back for the doorknob, her smile stretched into a full blown grin as the knob twisted underneath her palm and the door swung open. Laurel stared at the open door with her jaw slightly unhinged. Not waiting for the other two, Twyla ventured into the dark manor without any inhibitions.

"Why is it that nothing is ever locked when you touch it?" Laurel asked, reluctantly following behind Twyla.

"It's not like people in this town need to worry about people breaking into their houses," Alix said.

"Not until Twyla came here, they didn't," Laurel muttered.

The three girls piled into the dark entryway. They could vaguely make out certain large shapes but couldn't tell what those large shapes actually were. Fumbling with the side pocket of her backpack, Alix grabbed the flashlight she packed and quickly turned it on. A massive grand staircase took up most of the room, it was divided in the middle by a wide hallway. Dust covered carpets covered the worn hardwood floor. Gossamer, gold chandeliers hung from the high vaulted ceilings, they would have been beautiful if they weren't draped in spider webs.

Alix let out a low whistle, as she ran her flashlight against the length of red wallpaper covered walls. The manor was definitely old, but underneath the dust and grime, the manor was still an enchanting piece of architecture. Laurel watched her two friends marvel at the manor, while she stayed in the doorway, afraid to walk into the decrypt threshold. She tried to run out the door when a stampede of tiny insects crawled out from under a rug, but Twyla grabbed her arm and pulled her back inside.

"Stop being a baby," Twyla hissed.

Laurel pulled her arm free from Twyla's iron tight grip and rubbed the throbbing red spot. "I'm not being a baby," she hissed back, "I just don't want to die."

"You're not going to die. There's nothing in this house that could kill you," Twyla chuckled.

"Yes there is!" Laurel insisted, "I could be allergic to dust for all you know or I could have severe arachnophobia and get a heart attack. Don't even get me started on the asbestos- we're probably halfway in grave already just from breathing."

Twyla ran a shaking hand through her ebony locks. She quietly counted to ten in her head, and forced herself to calm down. Aunt Nyx and Nana had been engraving that technique into her head since she came to Covington. They reminded her on a daily basis that if she wanted to survive out in the real world, she was going to need to control her anger. No one could know. No one could know what she was, what she could do. And most of all, no one could know what she had done. In order to keep her secrets safe, locked away in her mental vault, she needed to remember that lashing out at Laurel would accomplish nothing. Laurel was naturally skittish, if Twyla were to relinquish a sliver of her control, and send one of the rugs flying into the air, there was a good chance her best friend would end up having a full blown panic attack and pass out.

"Come on, Laurel," Alix jumped in between the two friends and latched onto Laurel's arm.

She pulled her into the middle of the room and dropped her backpack on the floor. Releasing the zipper on her pack, a myriad of items poured onto the floor. Laurel cocked her head to the side and bent down to get a closer look. Half of the items were batteries or other small flashlights, the others were first aid packages and the larger, much more abundant items were the chilled bottles of Jack Daniels. Laurel, also had a pack, but it contained less of the important items, like flashlights and band aids, and more of Twyla's highly requested booze. She did remember to bring a compact speaker, for their iPhones. Plugging her phone into the compact speaker, the first few chords of Nirvana's classic song- Teen Spirit, echoed throughout the hollow manor. Dumping her backpack onto the floor, Twyla grabbed one of the glass bottles and sank to her knees. She flicked off the bottle cap with the pad of her thumb and took a long swig. Her eyes dilated as the sinful poison slithered down her throat.

"See I told you we weren't going to die," Twyla said as Laurel sat beside her.

Shaking her head, Laurel took a sip from the bottle and winced. She hated whisky. The odd oaky, flavor burned her tongue as it journeyed down her throat, to destroy her liver. Laurel only drank because she found it was harder to deal with Twyla while sober.

"We've only been here for five minutes. Dying takes time," Laurel said.

"For someone who's wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt, you're awfully pessimistic," Alix grabbed a bottle from the pile on the floor but refused to sit.

She was practically vibrating with nervous energy. Something bad was going to happen, she didn't know exactly what but there was a bad feeling settling in her gut and her gut was never wrong. Laurel mistook her pacing for a strange dance, and stuck her tongue out.

"Should you even be drinking you're only fifteen?" Laurel asked.

"None of us should be drinking, Laurel. Seventeen is still under the legal drinking range."

Rolling her eyes, as Twyla continued to drink the beer, Laurel looked back to Alix. She noticed the bottle was trembling in her hands and misread her fear.

"If you're afraid," she said, "Then don't drink it. At least if the cops come you won't get in as much trouble."

"Ah!" Twyla stood up, swaying on her feet, "But that's the fun part."

The windows rattled as the wind raged on. Thunder roared above their heads but it was drowned out by the Kurt Cobain's raspy voice as he shouted the chorus. Entertain us, Entertain us! In the late hours of night, in the abandoned manor, the song sounded like a list of demands made by an enraged ghost. Twyla herself, noted the eerie mood settled between the three girls as a wicked smirk toyed on the edge of her lips. Lightning cracked, illuminating the cobweb infested room for half a second before they were returned to darkness.

"Can I have your flashlight, Alix?" Twyla asked, causing Laurel to raise a brow.

Twyla never asked for things. She had this idea in her head that if you never asked for anything, people couldn't say no- therefore making everything just in her mind. It was on those extremely rare occasions, when Twyla was planning something terrible, did she break that philosophy. Hesitating for a fraction of a second, Alix closed her eyes, her breath turned shallow, and then before Twyla or Laurel could really notice the disturbance within in her, she handed the over the flashlight. The girls situated themselves into a triangle formation, Twyla, of course, sat in front of them. She tilted the flashlight up, illuminating the sharp planes of her face, and shot the girls a devious look.

"What are you doing Twy?" Laurel asked in a shaky voice.

"You don't want to know," Alix whispered.

Schooling her features, Twyla's face became completely stoic. Her strange silvery gray eyes looked practically colorless in the low light. "Shh! It's Alix's last day with us-have fun at that boarding school by the way," She had to swallow at that thought, "I am going to tell you two a story. One that everyone from my hometown grows up with."

An audible gasp escaped Laurel's lips. It was one of the first times Twyla willingly brought up her life before she moved.

"It doesn't have an official name but I like to call it-"

Both Alix and Twyla spoke in synchronization, "-The girl in the attic."

"You see, my hometown, New Brooks, was a small place- even smaller than Covington. We had one grocery store, one diner, and dinky little movie theater that was frequented regularly even though they always showed the same three movies. It was at least an hour drive to get to any real civilization and because people tended to be cheap, nobody ever left. Everyone grew up together. It was one of those places where the kid that stole your crayons in second was probably going to your husband. So it shouldn't surprise you when I say that news traveled fast around there. By the time the gossip gurus got together for tea at three, any secret you might have held close to your heart, was now public knowledge. September 14th, twelve years ago was no exception. That was the day a poor, little girl became the single biggest terror in all of New Brooks history."

"What was she? Like the kid from the shining?" Laurel snorted, even though she could feel palms growing sweaty.

"Some would say yes. You see, for weeks the kids had been complaining about that little girl, they would say that she could move things without touching them, that objects started to shake when she walked by but the parents didn't believe them. Kids, afterall, say the darnedest things. And then one day, September 14th, all of the students were sent home early. Teachers frantically called parents, telling them not to worry that everything would be solved. But the administrators had no idea how to solve the problem. You see, all of the windows in the elementary school had been blown out. It looked like a hurricane had tore through the building but there was barely any wind that day. After that, parents started listening to the stories their kids were telling them. Rumors spread through the town like a wildfire. No one knew exactly what happened but they were all certain that that little girl was the devil child."

"So when the school managed to replace all their windows and allowed the students to return to school, there were a few- or alot- of people who were afraid about sending their kid to school with the devil child. Their fears were quickly calmed though, on that first day back all of the students returned to their classes- apart from her. It was like she disappeared. After the window incident nobody saw her. The rest of the family was seen about occasionally but she was never brought with them. Many people wondered what had happened to her. They continuously theorized whether she was dead or had been sent away, especially since the parents avoided talking about her at all costs. And then came the day when all those rumors stopped- the day her father was killed. Now the coroner said he died from a heart attack but nobody believed him. It was obvious what had happened, the devil child had killed him."

Twyla paused, and looked at her two friends, gauging their expressions. Laurel looked like a gaping fish, with her jaw unhinged and wide eyes. Alix, on the other hand, was giving Twyla the 'pity stare'. She hated that look but didn't expect anything else. Though they had only been friends for three months, Twyla considered Alix one of her best friends and since there was a good chance they might never see each other again she thought it was only for Alix to know a piece of her story.

"What happened then?" Laurel asked.

"Nothing. The funeral came and passed, it was the first time anyone had seen the girl outside in four years. And she would spend another two years confined indoors until the next September 14th- otherwise known as the night before Tommy York, disappeared."

"Did she make Tommy 'disappear'?" Laurel interrupted.

"Nobody really knows, you see, because that was the night she disappeared as well. The two of them were never seen again."

Twyla ended the story on that note, letting the silence settle over them. Teen Spirit had stopped playing halfway into the story but none of them noticed. They were to enthralled by the story of that poor, unfortunate girl.

"That wasn't a scary story," Laurel cleared her throat, interrupting the eerie silence.

"All depends on your perspective."

Shrugging her shoulders, Twyla placed the flashlight on the floor and stood up.She could never stay in one place for long, she always had to be moving. It was quirk that Laurel had long ago learned to accept but something seemed off. There was a strange tension in Twyla's shoulders and her silver eyes were misty. Laurel opened her mouth to ask if she was alright when a crash sounded above them. Jumping to her feet, Laurel's eyes were glued to the giant staircase that led to the rest of the house.

"W-what was that?" She asked.

"I think we should go," Alix said, purposefully not answering Laurel's question.

"Pssh," Twyla's face screwed into a sneer, "It's nothing but the wind."

As if validate her point, she walked over to the staircase. Alix sucked in a deep breath as Laurel grappled onto her arm. Her nails dug into Alix's skin, creating crescent-shaped indents and purplish-blue bruises the size of a fingertip. They watched with wide eyes as Twyla reached the top of the stairs and peered down the hall. Narrowing her eyes, Twyla tried to see through the dark, but all she could see was the outline of furniture in the shadows. A triumphant smirk wormed its way onto her face as she took a step back. She knew she was right. There was nothing in the dark, Alix and Laurel were just being pansies.

Thunder roared above their heads once again, as a lightning bolt sliced the sky in half. For a sliver of a second, the mansion was flood with a bright white light and the hall of shadows was illuminated. It happened very fast, Twyla wasn't exactly sure what she saw in that moment but it looked a lot like a figure standing at the end of the hall with glowing, red eyes. Swallowing a gasp that tried to escape her mouth, she carefully backed away from the hall and descended the stairs.

"There's nothing there," She lied through her teeth, "But if you're scared we can go."

Laurel opened her mouth to agree when the sound of creaking floorboards echoed throughout the mansion. Twyla froze, silently praying that the noise came from her but the creaking continued on. Paying extra attention to the sound, she picked up on the hard, stomping of a man's footsteps. The red eyed figure flashed before her mind. Could what she saw be true? Twyla didn't want to stick around and find out.

"Yeah, I'm scared," Alix said, "Let's go."

She grabbed Laurel's arm and pulled her out of the mansion. Twyla followed in suit. Not breaking her stride, she picked up her half finished bottle of whisky and Laurel's iPhone. A low growl echoed throughout the mansion, as the door slammed shut behind her. The same wickedly haunting phrase her aunt and grandma would say all the time when she was little popped into her head.

They were coming.

**Now the fun has officially begun. Please tell me what you guys've thought of Twyla and her friendship with Alix. In the Dark Witch, Alix said that when she would get in a lot of trouble, her mother would send her to the swamps. Well, the summer before she went to Nox Haven she was shipped back to the swamps to stay with her uncle where she met Laurel and Twyla. In chapter 2 I'll be introducing Luna and I'm hoping you'll be able to spot the differences between the two twins right away.

I hope you guys are liking the story so far!
XOXO,
Ro.**