• Grace Stilinski •

„Don't be afraid to start all over again.
You may like your new story better."

Indecisive, Grace had her blue eyes set out of the side window of Stiles' Jeep, gazing at the front of her new school. Her brother had already turned off the engine and was now looking at her curiously, "Are you ready for your first day at Beacon Hills High School?" he asked, seeming to want to make his voice sound enthusiastic, but she merely gave an unapologetic, "Hmpff."

That her heart was beating hard against her chest and that she was kneading her hands nervously under her corduroy jacket was something he couldn't suspect, nor should he, "Let's get this over with," she murmured half-heartedly, hopping onto the sun-drenched gray asphalt. Her eyes darted over the students streaming through the double doors, and unconsciously she watched for a face she could remember. But no one seemed familiar to her.

With a sigh, the brunette shouldered her red backpack and stepped into the noisy hallway of the school with Stiles. With a depressing feeling in her chest, she clung to the straps of the backpack and again let her eyes roam over her new classmates as they approached her or fiddled with their lockers.

"Want me to walk you to the office?" asked Stiles, but she could see his dark eyes already darting longingly to Scott, who was leaning against his locker, his hands buried in the inside pockets of his dark green sweater, looking back expectantly.

Grace hesitated, actually wanting nothing more than to accept his offer, especially since she had the sense of direction of a peanut. Suddenly she felt like she was back in the body of a small dependent child. But she didn't want to be a drag on her big brother either, so she replied with an attempted confident smile, "I'm sure I can find it on my own."

"Well, see you later," with a fleeting farewell hand gesture, the dark-haired boy had already joined his best friend and left his little sister to her fate. Once again Grace had to shake her head at herself; she was just too dramatic.

In fact, she had found the secretary's office on the first try. Inside, it smelled like filter coffee and, oddly enough, mothballs. A somewhat portly woman behind the bulky counter instructed her to sit down on one of the light blue chairs until someone would come to take care of her. Which, fortunately, was merely a few minutes later.

"How nice to see you again, Grace! You don't know how pleased Noah was," she was greeted with a smile by a red-haired woman she eventually identified as Mrs. Martin. A little taken off guard by the fact that her father and Lydia's mother seemed to be in close contact, she finally smiled back awkwardly.

At that moment, the rickety door opened another time and a stocky but rather short boy with a note in his hand pushed his way into the room. His dark blond hair stood a little tangled off his head, while his light blue eyes wandered restlessly around the room. Before he could head for the secretary behind the counters, however, Mrs. Martin beat him to it, stopping him gently by the upper arm, "You must be Liam, right?"

He nodded and for a split second his eyes met Grace's. The teacher looked pleased, "How nice, I'm Mrs. Martin and I teach biology. I'm also a guidance counselor at the moment, so if there's a problem, you don't have to be afraid to come to me," she explained kindly, now including Grace in the conversation, "You'll both be in the same grade, and the first class today you'll even have together. That's where we'll go right then to introduce you to your classmates."

The brunette tried to feign enthusiasm in her smile, but the corners of her mouth twitched suspiciously with insincerity. After Mrs. Martin thrust their new class schedules into the hands of the two students, they made their way down the empty hallways. Much to her displeasure, classes seemed to have already begun.

Grace cautiously glanced at her fellow student, who seemed rather relaxed with his hands in his pockets. But perhaps this was just a facade.

Uncertainly, she finally entered the classroom to which they were led. All eyes were on the two new students, who stood a little indecisively in front of the teacher's desk in the wide room. The teacher who introduced them turned out to be a friendly-looking man named Mr. Yukimura, "As Mrs. Martin has just informed me, two new students will be joining this class starting today. This is Grazyna and Liam, please find a seat so we can continue with the class..."

"Grace," the new student interrupted him, feeling an uncomfortable blush rise in her cheeks at the same moment as the numerous pairs of eyes focused on her. This she tried to cover by staring at the floor, "I wish to be called Grace please."

"Very well, Grace," he said with a smile, making a welcoming gesture with his hand in the direction of his students, ordering her to finally take a seat. While Liam settled down at one of the front tables, Grace let her eyes wander over her new classmates and decided to sit in the second to last row. Because she knew the face of her new seatneighbor.

Tracy Stewart had been her best friend in elementary school, but when she took her seat next to her, she didn't dignify Grace with a glance. Her dark eyes with even darker circles under them were fixed forward and if she wasn't mistaken, she was grinding her jaw.

The smile froze on her face and hastily she averted her eyes from her former friend to turn them forward to Mr. Yukimura. Embarrassed, she placed her hands in her lap and tried unsuccessfully to follow the lesson. Maybe it was because she had been through the subject of World War II often enough at her old school, or maybe it was because of the hostile expression on Tracy's face that she just couldn't concentrate.

When the discussion finally turned to partner work, Grace would have liked to disappear into thin air. Sullenly, she watched as her new classmates squeakily pushed their chairs aside, jumped up from their seats, and smilingly formed pairs with their friends. To her displeasure, even the other new student, Liam was his name, seemed to have made connections.

She bit her lip and dared another glance at Tracy, who, much like her, hadn't moved from the spot. Just about to open her mouth, Grace heard a bright voice to her right, "Would you like to work together with me?" a girl with dark tangled curls asked kindly, leaning over the empty space between them.

"I'd love to," she replied with relief, making her way awkwardly through the pushed-back chairs to her classmate's table in the far corner of the room.

"I'm Faye, by the way," she introduced herself in her high sweet voice, extending her freckle-covered arm to her. Smiling, Grace grabbed her hand, wondering involuntarily if the almost-black that permeated her curls was her natural hair color, "Don't mind her," she quietly restated, nodding in Tracy's direction, who still seemed to want to work on the task alone, "She prefers to be by herself."

"Oh," Grace merely made and tried to place her notebook, along with the textbook, on the small open space on Faye's desk. As she did so, she unobtrusively pushed aside a stack of fantasy and mystery novels that took up nearly all the space. In the top book, whose title she couldn't decipher, was an orange bookmark with strange characters scrawled on it and a colorful cord.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Faye murmured, looking at it apologetically with her amber eyes. Her already long lashes were coated with lots of mascara, making her eyes look almost as big as a manga girl's. Hastily, she grabbed the covers of the three thick tomes in total with her delicate pale hands and stowed them ponderously in her bag, with numerous charms of various franchises dangling from its clasp.

Grace could only shake her head inwardly. Before the two girls got down to business, the brunette glanced over her shoulders at her former friend. She had stared ahead, almost bored, as if she had long since finished her lesson. Slowly but surely, the sheriff's daughter got the feeling that something was wrong with the air in Beacon Hills, because its inhabitants definitely seemed to be breathing in something they shouldn't be.