During breakfast Susan had informed she'd drop Chantel off to school. But as soon as they sat inside the car, her mother said. "Pennsylmania huh?"

How the hell did her mother even found out about it? Chantel gave a little nod.

Susan puffed, "renting out an entire amusement park so that you don't have to wait in line, is not cool...it's mindless."

"It wasn't like that mom," Chantel defended Roman.

"It's exactly like that," her mother said.

Susan wasn't a fan of Chantel's friendship with Roman Godfrey because she was concerned about him and his reputation with the ladies. And Susan keeps on reminding her: that he was a Godfrey after all, that family was so rich but fucked up because after the closing of the Godfrey steel mill many years earlier caused many to lose their jobs—leading some families into extreme poverty. Some workers had even died at the mill and some took their own lives after they lost their jobs. And ever since, some kind of curse befell on the Godfrey's.

Chantel didn't believe in curses and all that shit but her mother did somehow and whenever the topic was brought up, they'd end up in a quarrel. It was the first day of a new school year and Chantel had no intentions to start her day quarrelling with Susan, so she kept her thoughts to herself.

As she was adjusting her headband glancing up at the stairs above. "Good morning," Peter wished. Peter Rumancek was 5'10 but slouched a bit, his hair was shaggy brown and his eyes blue. He had unusual long fingernails for a guy and unkept facial hair.

The boy had just moved into town with his single mother over the summer. They lived at the old trailer by the creek, where a man named Vince lived before he tragically died out of alcohol poisoning. Chantel and Peter crossed paths when Susan had stopped by the trailer to get some herbal teas from Lynda Rumancek. Peter's mother knew her way around herbs like her late brother Vince did.

Then a rumour started to circulate that Peter Rumancek was a werewolf. Chantel had heard it from Brooke Bluebell during one of their cheerleading practices. It was the dumbest thing she'd heard so far. The theory came from Christina Wendall, the nerdy girl of Hemlock Grove. Her theory was; Peter's index and middle fingers were the same length, and he was hairier than most teenage boys and that made him a werewolf.

Someone has been watching Teen Wolf a little too much, over the summer.

A silly theory of course, but there's one thing about rumours—it spreads like wildfire consuming everything in its way and by now the entire Hemlock Grove high school knew about the new kid in town. They say any publicity is a good publicity but this wasn't one of them.

"Morning Pete." She wished him back, over the summer they'd developed a sort of companionship.

All eyes were on them, Chantel knew exactly what's on the mind of these teenagers: how is the gypsy guy even talking to a cheerleader?

"Morning Sweetheart." She heard Roman's smooth voice from behind.

She turned, "morning."

Then besides him was his fifteen year old sister Shelley Godfrey. She stood seven feet tall, a gentle giant who's hard to miss. She dresses in dark colors and always hides a misshapen portion of her face from others. Her arms and hands are charred and blistered so she wraps them up with bandages. She had difficulty in speaking so a talking tablet always hang around her neck.

"Morning princess." Chantel beamed as she saw Shelley. Of all his shortcomings Roman was an incredible brother to his only sister and that always gets Chantel. The way he's with his sister. It always melts her heart.

Shelley smiled at Chantel shyly giving a luminous glow as she typed something on her tablet. "Good morning." The voice responded. Whenever Shelley feels strong emotions, her face or body begins to glow.

"Shall we?" Roman said to Chantel but his eyes were pinned on Peter like the tip of a dagger.

Peter was ignoring the devilish boy. Why won't he? Roman was typically stabbing him with his eyes.

"I have bio," She looked at Roman, who's eyes were still pinned on Peter. "And you don't take bio." She gestured Peter to follow her. "Come on."

"I'll see you at lunch then," Roman planted his hands on his hips, clearly upset she was leaving with the new guy.

"Sure." She nodded as she and Peter headed towards biology class.

Before class could even began a notification popped up and everyone was checking their phones. Except for Peter Rumancek who even in the 21st century used a qwerty phone—which doesn't support the internet. He was living a true gypsy life.

A young student was found killed and partially disembowelled earlier this morning at Kilberry park of south Hemlock Grove. The coroner had tentatively identified the victim as Brooke Bluebell, 17, a student attending Hemlock Grove high school. Bluebell was last seen leaving home yesterday afternoon, and her car was reportedly discovered near the crime scene. Officers are refusing to speculate on the cause of death, but eyewitness suggest the ferocity of the attack suggest an animal may have been responsible. Officials are asking for anyone who may have seen any suspicious behaviour in the park area to contact the sheriff's office.

Students had flooded the hallways in tears, hugging and embracing each other. Chantel didn't know how to react as she picked up her bag and walked out of the class with Peter. Christina and the Sworn twins were standing by their lockers, Christina looked away as soon as she saw Peter.

Chantel had met Christina at Peter's trailer one afternoon, and they seemed to be friendly with each other so it came to Chantel as a shock that by the end of summer. The young girl started spreading rumours about Peter. And now, they were not even in speaking terms.

"Bet he knows something about it. Gypsy creep!" Alyssa taunted as soon as they saw Peter.

"What did you say?" Chantel advanced towards the three girls.

The fraternal twins had bleached blonde hair and light blue eyes. But Alyssa's face was rounder than her sister. Even though good-looking, they were very manipulative and bullies. Chantel had brawled with them time and again over their behaviours.

As for their best friend Christina Wendall who was an inch shorter than Chantel and the twins: she had long brown wavy hair, and brown eyes.

"Excuse me?" Alyssa scoffed.

"You can't go on blaming someone of a crime for a stupid theory your friend came up with," Chantel crossed her arms.

"What?" Alexa puffed.

"Bimbos!" Chantel snapped. "Come on Pete," she called the boy.

"What the fuck!" The twins said in unison as Chantel walked down the hallway, a finger on the air.

"You didn't have to do that, you know?" Peter said as they walked out of the building.

"I hate bullies," she said over her shoulder as she walked away from him.

The cheerleaders had assembled at the bleachers. Everyone, giving their own theories of what might have happened to Brooke. It felt so unreal, Brooke had posted a photo of the cheerleaders #squadgoals on her social around 6pm last evening. Chantel had liked the picture on her way to school, this morning. Now the comment section was flooded with #ripbrookebluebell #willmissyou etc.

Brooke's car was smashed up in a pretty bad shape. Something didn't feel right. Why would anyone, run out of their car and into the open when a wild animal attacked them? There was something more to the story here.

Now that Chantel wasn't annoyed with the twins anymore, she felt her tears brimming up. She sat alone wiping the occasional tears that dropped from her eyes, Brooke was her friend after all and this isn't how it was supposed to be. She recalled the time, they were in the backseat of Brooke's blue Honda Civic sedan talking about boys and shits—sharing a bottle of wine. Brooke wasn't the typical head cheerleader people thought she'd be, in fact, she was kind and funny. She lived her life to the fullest, like there's no tomorrow.

Chantel swiped through Brooke's social feed, she posted pictures almost every other day. She'd uploaded a picture giving Chantel a piggyback five days ago. Who knew she'd lose her, this soon. There was a picture of Roman and her as well, where Roman lips were pressed on a beer bottle. Chantel had never given much thought to the picture, until Brooke had told her about their one night stand.

Chantel checked the photo once again, Brooke hadn't tagged Roman on it. Then she realised they were not even friends on social. Roman only followed a handful of people but he had thousands of followers making him the most followed person in Hemlock Grove. She dived into his profile, he hardly use his social. He just made it to flash his wealth or to stalk girls, Chantel supposed.

He had only five photos all together: An image of the striking Godfrey tower. A collection of the Godfrey's sweet rides. A picture of him and Shelley. A view of Hemlock Grove from the White Tower and a picture he took of them, from the reflection of mirror while they went to grab ice-creams. Chantel was holding his arm with her right hand and a vanilla cone ice-cream with her left. He'd captioned it 'brain freeze tonight?' with the smirk face emoji.

When he'd tagged her and she saw the caption, she'd nearly exploded. She'd told him remove the caption as it sounds wrong on so many levels but it was still out there for everyone to see and now it had exceeded a thousand comments.

"Hey," Gia approached. "You okay?"

"Yes," she sniffed putting her phone away.

"The vigil is at seven," the girl informed.

"Yeah?" Chantel looked up at the brown girl, who looked weary. Brooke was her friend too.

"Come on," she offered her hand. "I'll drive you home."

Chantel took her hand.

Before they left, they all had a group hug and decided to get the biggest wreath they could find in the market for Brooke. On their drive back home Chantel was texting her mother to and fro about Brooke as Susan was clearly mortified about the incident. Roman had called her asking about her whereabouts so she'd informed she with Gia and told him she'll see him at the vigil.

Almost everyone in town was present at the vigil. But there was no sight of Roman, she'd tried texting him but there was no response so she gave up. The drive back home was silent as both mother and daughter didn't want to talk about the incident anymore. As her mother pulled up at the driveway, Chantel got out of the car and peered at her reflection on her mother's all black BMW X1. This wasn't the first funeral she'd been to, but this had been the hardest. A teenage girl had died brutally.

That night she put her earpiece on listening to 'I kissed a girl' by Katy Perry, in honour of Brooke Bluebell as it was her favourite song.