The echoing swoop of my marker glazing over the smooth surface of paper soothed me as I traced around my previous markings with precision, narrowing my eyes in focus-  the colors bled together with ease when I quickly blended the wet ink. 

This was all that my world consisted of now: the slick surface of paper held nimbly between my fingers, the brilliant splash of blues, greens, and greys, and the dull, wet smell of markers. 

“That’s a cool picture,” My sister chimed when she casually strolled through my bedroom door, “What’s it for?”

Tilting my head sideways to analyze the picture and held it at arm's length, I bit my tongue while looking for any flaws. “Some fan art.” My focus overshadowed the conversation and reduced my words to light mumbles.

Autumn, though, managed to hear me just fine- probably used to my incoherent babbles.

“Fan art?” My sister asked baffled. “I thought you didn’t do that kind of stuff.”

“No. Not usually.” I replied casually while reaching across the table to grab my phone. “But I have been reading this really good book. It inspired me to draw this.” I pursed my lip into a dissatisfied scowl when the cracked phone screen obstructed the picture of my drawing.

I knew that when I sent the cover it wouldn’t look cracked, but it bothered me. Really needed to replace the phone screen.

“Must have really inspired you then.” Autumn quickly plucked the paper from my hands to take a closer look at my final piece. Since I couldn’t sleep last night, I was able to finish sketching, coloring, and shading the rest of it. Drawing was the only thing that was keeping me sane and had successfully taken my mind off yesterday’s events. 

My sister’s mouth dropped in surprise. “It’s a whole professional cover, Matt. Damn. You must have really liked it. Seems you spent a lot of time on it.” She held my drawing up against my bedroom light, to catch a look at the closer details, but I snatched my drawing back.

“It took a decent amount of time.” I could never tell Autumn that I actually did it all last night because she would nag at me for not sleeping. 

“Who’s the author? Are you getting paid?” A common trait in the Descartes family to fire a million questions per minute.

Safely tucking my drawing away in a portfolio, I replied quickly to her questions. “No, I wanted to do this for an author that posts his material online. Doesn’t really have his name, just John. He should be published soon; he is incredibly talented. He doesn't just write. He creates stellar graphics on top of that-”

My sister tilted her head while the gears in her mind churned, to pursue traveling down her rabbit hole of endless questions.

“If you aren’t getting paid, why are you doing this?” She interrupted me in the midst of my fan boy rampage. Probably best she did or else I wouldn't have stopped blabbering about the author and all the things he did.

But I thought I made the answer clear earlier. Sighing, I gave her a deadpan stare while lightly tapping my portfolio against my desk to settle the papers inside. “It’s fan art, Autumn. Fan. Art.” 

Her brown eyes rolled in annoyance at my overly corrective tone, but she moved on to pick at the other drawings on my desk- frantic and rough drawings of the orb, the shadows, and the blue energy of light that spun from my fingertips when I attacked Julian. The paranoia of my crazed sketches seemed to transfer to Autumn when she glanced over them.

Autumn uncomfortably sifted the three papers in her hand. “It’s unnerving how well you drew these.” But clearing her throat, she rested the papers on my desk and looked back at me expectantly. “You ready to go to school?”

With one click to turn my desk lamp off and throwing ten pounds worth of books and homework on my back, I gave her a grumble of agreement and grabbed a few granola bars on my way out the door, gnawing on them on our way to school. 

It was an odd morning.

Usually Autumn and I would talk during our walks, but the silence hung around our necks like the low overcast skies that blurred the path ahead and dampened the brown clutter of leaves clinging to the trees. The spirits of everything around us, including ourselves, were downcast, tired, and sullen, and the atmosphere at school was no different.

The news of Arthur Chang’s murder seemed to have made its way to every student, especially now that the police were in the gym questioning students who were in his classes for information.

The usual drive of laughter and bubbling conversations that powered the crowds of bustling students through the front doors of our high school was non-existent, and every lip was sealed in silent mourning and confusion. No one truly knew who he was because he was a kid who kept to himself and worked hard for his grades, but in this small messed up moment we all knew his name.

It would be dropped, whispered, and muttered through every inch of the hall; empty sympathies were exchanged between students who hardly knew him- his name merely a subject of shocking conversation and gossip. 

Gritting my teeth and hiding my darkening face in my jacket, I closed my school locker and headed to the gym to start my first period class, where I was met, again, with Arthur’s name. But this time, it was the cops, who pulled me in for questioning because we supposedly had first period gym together.

Never knew that we were in the same class, and guilt pinched me in the gut for not knowing.

They asked the usual. 

“Are you Matthew Descartes?”

“Yes.” I replied quietly in order to silence the paranoia of assassins and other things from my tone.

“Did you know Arthur Chang?”

“No.” I replied grimly. I wish I did, so that I had some idea whether he was Spring or some innocent bystander. Any idea would relieve the odd concoction of paranoia, fear, and frustration eating me alive.

“Your teacher tells me that you had a fight with one of the other students in your class.”

I curved my eyebrows at that random assertion, stared past the wire swirl binding of the notebook where all my words were being documented, and squarely looked at the interrogator eye to eye. “Yes, I did. Julian and I don’t get along.”

“Julian Hernandez?” The man asked with pen held steadily above his pad and eyes digging for any signs. 

“Yes.”  I confirmed with a slight nod of my head.

The interrogator sighed, no doubt tired from questioning many students before me, and laid his notebook down against the table after looking at me one more time. “Do you think there is anything you can tell us about Arthur, anyone whom you may think would harm Arthur, or any suspicious activity that happened Tuesday afternoon?”

Tuesday afternoon. 

Everything that day had felt quite normal to me, but it was at night when Autumn got attacked, when the shadows were released.

Possibly, could a few of the shadows have been after Arthur, knowing that he was Spring, and killed him instead? With a thousand questions resparking and mulling at my mind to solve a mystery the police couldn’t, I gazed up at them with wondering eyes. I know Mandell said that only the people who were involved with Ethel would be able to see anything that involved Ethel, our powers, and the shadows, but what if there was some secret government organization that knew about Ethel somehow and could help us in ways more than Mandell could?

We could finally have some form of protection or guidance, and we wouldn’t have to worry about fending off the assassins on our own.

But he was suffocated to death. If Arthur was attacked by the shadows, there would have surely been deep scrapes and cuts littered across his body. The nightmarishly long fingers with sides like razors would be unable to avoid

Voice halted mid-way up my throat, I shook my head- closing my mouth to silence any foolish words of insanity to tumble off my tongue. There was a chance they wouldn’t know and think I’m insane.

We were alone.

“No.” I finally responded. “I wish I did.” 

Curse my second of wishful thinking. An expert interrogator, like the one in front of me, would easily spot my moment of hesitation, but hopefully he didn’t misinterpret my actions with anything involving the impossible case of Arthur Chang. I had to hold my breath and deal with the feeling of my stomach churning and twisting when his eyes constricted in analysis, but he pushed his notebook away and flicked his fingers dismissively as to call in the next subject.

“Thank you, Matthew. That will be all.”

And with that I was kicked out and sent on my merry way to my next class, history, where, surprise, the teacher hated me as well.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have the smart mouth I did. It was always getting me in trouble, especially when I was in a school where all the teachers were so self-conscious, wound up, and too damn sensitive. Honest to god, the first few times I was joking around with my history teacher, but then I got in trouble because he took it way too seriously.

But then again, I was stupid as hell as a freshman. 

Oh well.

Trudging into class and not feeling into it because of the intimidating interview, I slipped into my desk and pulled out my nearly empty history binder, the book I hardly read, and a pen- holding it upright and ready to scribble whenever the lights dimmed and he would rattle away with that deathly monotone voice of his.

But instead, he strolled up to the center of the class with a stack of papers in hand and appeased grin that only meant he didn’t have to speak for the hour.

Shit.

My face paled and my skin tingled ice cold when I realized today was test day.

“Make sure all materials are off your desk except for a pen. You will be testing your knowledge on the first few events of World War II. Testing will begin promptly in two minutes, so rid of any other materials besides a pen and put them under your seat.”

Because I was in the hospital two days with my sister, I missed out on the last part of the lecture and any review of the test. There had to be a way I could take this test later.

“Mr. Dun,” I called out while hopping out of my seat and walking frantically to his desk, “I was gone for the last three days of school. I didn’t know we had a test today and I don’t have the latest notes, so is there a way I could retake this test on a later date.”

Staring past me with his solemn grey eyes, he folded his hands on top of the test papers, “The test date is on your syllabus, and the last two days we reviewed. Whatever you missed in lectures should have been what you have read in your book on the weekend to catch up for what you have missed in class. So, no, Matthew, you will not retake the test on a later date. You have had more than enough time to prepare. You will take the test with the others.”

This man.

Anger fed the already festered frustration within, but I kept calm enough to clench my pen in my hand and speak calmly. “Mr. Dun, please, understand my situation. My sister, Autumn, was unwell so I-”

“My decision is final.” He answered roughly while standing up from his chair and heading to his podium to begin testing, “Please, go back to your seat, Matthew. Class is starting.”

This was absolutely ridiculous that a man would be so immature and sore over what I did as a freshman and say from time to time. As a teacher, it was his responsibility to treat all students the same and give them the equal opportunity to succeed. If this was Autumn, I’m sure she would get a full blown pass to take the test a week later if she wanted.

Grumbling on my way to my seat and roughly falling down into it, I swiped my things off my desk and watched, with a scowl, when he laid the test down on my desk in front of me.

Screw all of this. This really wasn’t fair.

Perhaps I could have studied more and do my homework like any good student should, but I wasn’t like that. Academics isn’t a priority for me, but that doesn’t mean I try to fail it. Usually before the test, I would cram for it.

But I had no idea.

Panic. Just glancing at the first answer, I didn’t know it, and with all that was going on with Arthur, our powers, Mandell, and monsters I just wanted to throw up. It was ironic how with all these life of death imminent threats a history test managed to cap it all off for me. 

“Just screw this.” I lightly complained under my breath while running my hands through my hair and running quickly over the questions.

Instead of focusing on my paper, I could hear every slight noise, the snuffles of someone catching a borderline cold, the person coughing who gave the other person a cold, and the busy tapping of a pen from the genius who knew all the answers. Then, there was a slight clatter of plastic that skidded under my chair. 

Thankful to have any distraction, I looked under and found that it was a pen, which belonged to the girl who was staring down at me expectantly. Must have been here and she honestly could have gotten it herself, but it wouldn't have killed me to get it for her.

So nonchalantly I reached down to grab it, but when I looked up she lightly coughed under her breath and shoved her test paper to the side so that I could see.

All the answers were in plain sight, and the smirk on her face was suggestive that I take the answers. Cocking my head to the side I'm slight puzzlement, she continued or silent form of communication by nodding her head over to my paper, to copy the answers down.

A grateful sigh of relief and a smile escaped my lips when I nodded back and occasionally peered at her paper to mark the right answers.

A saint. I ran across a saint.

Her long brunette hair shook when she lightly laughed to herself at my abundant signals of unspoken gratitude, but before I could thank her after the test was over she left. Gone. Got up out of her seat without speaking a word after that whole exchange of saving my ass.

I laughed myself, and grinned to myself when I walked back to my locker. She was in my class before, quiet, always sat in the same spot to my left, but that was the first time I had ever talked to her. Don't think she was in my other classes, so there was no way I could thank her today, but I wish we did.

It was so odd how she just left before I could really properly introduce myself and thank her.

Switching out my books and throwing my backpack around my shoulders, I grinned and thought of how I could get her attention tomorrow, but then to my luck she was there. A little ways off in the other hall, but she was switching out her books.

The next class was the other way down the hall, but pushing against the crowd of incoming students and snaking my way between groups, I pushed myself up next to her locker and did my best to not smile and not make things awkward.

“Hey!” I grinned when she turned her head and smiled back at me. That was a good sign.

“I just wanted to say thanks for the help back there. I'm Matthew by the way.”

She chuckled again and smirked while she shuffled a few books into locker. “I know.”

Once again stricken with an intrigued confusion, I slowly smiled and laughed it off- it was all I could do at the moment. “You do?” I asked like a blundering fool.

She laughed with me and nodded. “Yes. I think everyone in Mr. Dun’s class does with the amount of times he calls you out for falling asleep.”

I winced at the thought and awkwardly pulled my hand to my neck. Unfortunately, that was true. How embarrassing, but I still managed to laugh along with her. “Good point. I guess I should pay attention more.”

A devious smile flickered on her lips. “You think so?” She teased while closing her locker, “You might not be needing my help if you kept awake.”

Her dark grey eyes glittered mischievously with her words and quick wit, and they pulled me in to stay longer to investigate, so I leaned up against the locker next to her and crossed my arms, “I’ll try, but why did you help me in the first place?”

“Well,” she started off while ruffling mindlessly through a binder, “I first thought it was unfair that Mr. Dun wouldn't let you retake the test later, and you’re cute, so I thought why not.”

Then not even leaving me a chance to reply, she gave me one last smile and pulled away. While she was ready to move to her next class, I was still stuck on the minute when she told me her second point. Mouth slightly agape in shock, not used to being a girl being so open and so casual about her thoughts, I turned around and called to her.

“Wait, did you just say you thought I was cute?” There was no need for clarification, but I was still so taken aback.

I never met a girl like her before. She speaks what she wants and then just leaves before I could say anything else.

She turned around and shook her long brunette hair with a light cunning grin. “Don't flatter yourself by making me say it again.” And again, she turned to leave, but I wove through the crowd to catch up to her, walking farther and farther away from my next class.

“Wait, I didn't catch your name.” I asked above the conversations of other people. I couldn't keep up and she was a ways up ahead.

Turning around with another smirk of hers, she looked above the heads of other people passing by and smiled. “Rachel! See you later, Matt!”

A/N:

I just dont have much to say but....
Jothew
And...
Build up chapter. Dont know if you guys enjoyed it, but I do
And....
More exciting stuff to come <3

Thanks for all the support guys <3 I dont know what I would do without you all <3