CHAPTER NINETEEN

School is quiet today. Not quiet as in no one speaks, but quiet as in nothing is happening.

For me at least.

My first too classes take their time to end, and I find myself actually doing my work for the first time in a while just to make the time pass faster. I'm not too sure why I want the day to end, though. It's not like I have places I'd rather be or things I'd prefer to be doing. In fact, at the moment, school is a welcome break from everything else in my life. At school, I can slip back into normalcy as easily as falling asleep, and since I don't tend to see much of Caden, there's no one here to wake me up.

Of course, Caden isn't the only person, or thing, that can pull me out of my state of normalcy.

At lunch, I'm under my tree on the lawn, wondering why my disease – or the effects of being swapped – creates clouds and rain. Sure, I make the temperature cold, but cold and clouds, while often come at the same time, do not actually have anything to do with each other. It gets cloudy because of water vapour and it gets cold because of lack of light and seasons.

Why, if I take the heat out of the air, does it get cloudy and rain all the time? Where does all the rain come from anyway if there's no sun to evaporate the water and form clouds? It's just another thing in my life that doesn't make any sense.

It's then that I'm woken up – pulled from the normal – and for the first time, I see the ghost before I feel the cold it brings with it.

He stands barely a meter to my right, appearing in a spot that just seconds before was only filled with air. At first, as the cold creeps over my skin, I'm afraid. He's never come this close to me before, and while he isn't looking at me, it's enough to make my heart pound so hard against my rib cage that it feels as though it's trying to beat its way out of my chest.

But then, as I realise he's paying me no mind, I see what he's looking at.

Caden sits quietly with his group of friends at the edge of the lawn. He soon starts shivering and looks up, his eyes locking onto mine before skipping over to the ghost to my right. It's barely been a second when he looks back at me, eyes filled with worry.

I just shake my head and hope he understands. No, he shouldn't be worried about me; he should be worried about himself.

I turn my own head now to look at the ghost, feeling less afraid then before, and I try something Rand taught me the day I found out the truth.

Leave, I think. Leave Caden alone and don't come back.

The ghost snaps his head to the right, his eyes meeting with mine, and I see emotion fall over his face like a veil. The only problem is I can't tell what kind of emotion. It looks like a mixture of worry, surprise, anger, defeat and realisation.

And then he's gone.

I did it! I think, and start smiling like a child on Christmas morning. I look over at Caden and when he sees my expression, he cocks his head slightly to one side, frowning. This just causes me to smile more, until slowly, a small grin spread across his face and he shakes his head before looking away and returning to his group's conversation.

After lunch, I have science, and I take a seat in my usual spot, right next to the window I smashed. Of course, they've boarded it up with wood to keep out the cold until it gets fixed, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a constant reminder that my life is not, and never will be, normal.

Science passes without any smashed windows or strange trips to the nurse. My peers are awfully quiet too. No one whispers or stares at me or makes any indication that they've noticed my presence. Everyone focuses on the board or at their books with the odd few staring at the wall, their minds far away.

I feel oddly sad when class ends, wishing that I could just stay in science forever, but I still collect my stuff and leave for maths. The hallways are busy, but easy to traverse with my invisible one metre barrier surrounding me that no one dares to cross. Caden walks right past me, and we both pretend that the other doesn't exist.

I reach my classroom and take a seat in the second row from the back, near a window. My teacher is already here, and has started putting the work up on the board. I open up my books, grab a pen, and start.

I'm on the second question when my hand goes limp and I drop my pen. Suddenly, I've lost control of my entire body and my head lolls forward as the world goes dark. Like at the hospital, it takes a few seconds before I'm snatched up by the vision – a few seconds in which I can still feel the heated air blowing against my skin and the sound of my peers voices.

This vision is different to my first.

I float in a room that looks like a study, and although I'm not physically present, like before, I can watch as if I'm watching a television screen.

There are two men in front of me. One has brown hair and stands behind a desk, but since he's facing away from me, I can't see his face, and the other faces the desk. I recognise his dull blue eyes first and immediately realise who he is: the man who caused my parent's car crash and who tried to strangle me while they were still in hospital.

"What are you saying? That she got away both times?"

The young man nods weakly in response to the voice of the man behind the desk. "She wasn't in the car when I crashed it, and she knocked me out when I found her alone in her house."

"Melissa, a teenage girl, knocked you out?" His voice is full of disbelief, but has qualities that sound strangely familiar, and I feel that if he just spoke a certain word in a certain way, I'd recognise who he is.

It's strange to listen in while people talk about me and I soon come to the conclusion that this a vision of the present. Somewhere, at this very moment, these two men are actually talking about me. The thought sends chills down my spine even though I'm not actually conscious of my body. Having a vision is a lot like having a dream while sleeping, except I'm fully aware of what's happening.

"She used her abilities. The air pushed me backwards and I hit my head so hard on the floor that everything went dark."

The man I can't see sighs. "Why didn't you just kill her with your own abilities? You could have had that house crashing down on top of her before she even had a chance to shout for help."

"Isn't that a bit too, I don't know, noticeable and loud? I thought everything was meant to be low key?"

"And that car crash wasn't?"

"To anyone on the road, it could have been anything. The driver could have been drunk, or sleepy or they could have popped a tire. Anything. A house falling down all of a sudden is a bit harder to explain away as an accident."

The man behind the desk shrugs. "Anyway, enough of this. We need to put Melissa out of the picture, and next time, I want you to do whatever you can to accomplish that. I don't care if you have to murder her in cold blood, just get rid of her. She's the one person who can stop us – who will stop us – and we can't let that happen."

He steps out from around the desk and suddenly I can see his face, and can recognise his voice. It's slightly sweet, like honey, and I've heard it before only three times. Twice in my dreams, and once at Rand's doorstep.

I stare at Patrick's face in the small study, and even though I can't exactly say I'm surprised, my heart starts to pound in my chest, as if in revolt at the betrayal. He didn't betray me – hell, I hardly know him – but he did betray Rand. Rand trusted him and made me even believe that Patrick wasn't the guy from my dreams.

And now I know for sure just how wrong he is.

The young man nods. "I'll do that now." Then he leaves the room and slowly I come to consciousness in maths class, minutes before the bell.

My heart is still pounding as I return to my work and I take in deep breaths until my pulse reverts to normal.

No one seems to have noticed that I've been out for nearly the whole class, and if they had, they probably would have just thought I was sleeping. Nearly everyone sleeps in maths.

The bell goes. I'm about to leave when the teacher approaches and hands me a detention slip. I frown. "What is this for?"

"For skipping classes yesterday without permission or signing out with a valid reason. Your homeroom teacher forgot to give it to you, so I am."

I look down at it. It's an after school detention for today, which means I'll have to stay back for an hour. I have to fight to contain my frustration and anger. I can't stay at school! I have a guy coming to kill me at this very moment and I have to warn Rand about Patrick.

When I look back up at my teacher, my face is covered by a mask of nonchalance. "I'll head there now," I say, and leave to grab my stuff from my locker.

I don't plan on going to detention, but I end up there anyway because my math teacher sees me trying to exit the school.

The people in detention look at me in surprise when I walk through the door since I've never had a detention before, but no one seems to care too much about my being there. In fact, I would say that some of them even look happy that I'm there and smile up at me. I don't know what kind of game their playing, so I ignore them and sit in an available seat in the second row. I know jokers when I see them and there's no way I'm getting fooled by anyone.

But five minutes later, I realise why they were happy about me being here.

The teacher – who has never taught me before – walks into the room and scans the class. The moment her eyes land on me, she goes rigid before scurrying out of the classroom a moment later. 

Half a minute after she's gone, the boy in front of me turns around and smiles. "She has an irrational fear of you. We annoy her about it all the time and threaten to bring you with us to the next detention if she doesn't let us out early. It works every time." He laughs and I sit silently, shocked that he's even talking to me. His deep blue eyes look light with laughter and his light brown hair is a neat mess. I don't recognise him, and I take a guess that he must be in the year above.

After a minute of my silence, he says, "Well? Do you know how to speak, or what?"

The shock wears off enough for me to find words. "No, I'm just – you're speaking to me?"

He raises an eyebrow. "What? Don't people talk to you? I mean, you make the air cold and that's it. What's the big deal?"

I shrug. "I don't know. They hate me, I guess."

He looks amused. "For what? Ruining their lovely autumn weather? They need to put on their big boy pants and suck it up."

I smile. I like the way he speaks about my disease as if it's not even a big deal – as if it's partly normal.

"I'm Harrison," he says.

"I'm–"

"Melissa, I know."

The girl to my right – she's in my year, and while her name has slipped my mind, I know it starts with an L – leans over and, with a big smile, says, "Everyone knows who you are. You're famous."

I look at her soft light brown curls and big blue eyes and think, What's happening to me? Am I making friends in detention?

"I wish I wasn't," I say.

"Are you kidding me? I'd do anything to get on television!" She smiles a second time. "You might recognise me from class, but in case you haven't, I'm Lauren, Harrison's sister."

I look back at Harrison and quickly spot the resemblance. They must only be a year apart in age.

"So I'm guessing you don't hate or fear me?"

"Are you joking?! You have, like, superpowers!" She laughs, and I think, If only you knew. "Don't worry, like Harrison over here, I'm not really bothered by the cold. We're going into Winter now anyway, so it's not like it's a problem or anything."

"So how come you haven't spoken to me before?"

"Because my friends are retarded. Kira started a rumour that you're a demon in a false body, and even though no one really believes it, my friends like to pretend they do. They tell me to stay away from you or you'll kill me like you killed that gir–" She cuts her sentence short, obviously realising that it was the wrong thing to say.

Thankfully, Harrison says, "She's back," and Lauren's sentence is forgotten. I look up to see the teacher standing in front of the class, shaking.

"Y-you can all go home early if you...promise not to bring h-her again."

It's strange, but I don't really care that she's afraid of me when usually I'd feel a pang of hurt. Maybe it's because Harrison and Lauren have dumbed down my disease or whatever it's called – damn, it really needs a new name – so much that it doesn't seem like a big deal anymore.

Harrison starts laughing. "Actually Miss, we didn't bring her. She got detention all on her own."

Her eyes meet mine and I smile. "I skipped class yesterday and was sent here."

I don't know if my words lessen her fear or increase it, because she grabs her stuff and leaves without saying another word. The class cheers, and for a moment, I'm the hero instead of the villain.

Everyone starts collecting their things, and I'm stepping away from my desk when Lauren says, "You busy this afternoon? Cause Harri and I are grabbing some ice-cream and you can tag along if you like."

"Don't call me that," Harrison says, punching her on the arm.

I laugh. "You're buying ice-cream even though it's freezing outside? Wouldn't you prefer hot chips or soup?"

"Sometimes," Harrison says, "but ice-cream is easier to eat in Winter because it doesn't melt, so when it gets really cold, we go to the parlour near our house and have some. It's kind of like a tradition."

"We've been having ice-cream a lot lately, so thanks for that," Lauren adds.

I smile slightly. "Okay, sure, I'll come."

"Great!" she says, and I step out of the classroom, feeling both shocked by what's happening and undeniably happy.