What if I'm meant for something more?

Those seven words were scribbled across the top of the desk in my AP biology class. The inquiring nature of the question held my focus even while Mr. Nielsen, my teacher, prattled on about an upcoming quiz on amino acids. I probably should have been paying attention but why bother?

Especially since I already knew the answers.

There wasn't a way to explain how I knew them exactly—just that I did. My grandmother Idal claimed it was a gift, this "inherent intelligence" as she described it. She was right. With as many schools I'd attended, never once had I cracked open a textbook to study. Still, I touted over a 4.0 GPA.

Mr. Nielsen cleared his throat. "The chemical bond between two amino acids is called?"

His question was met with crickets. Now with most teachers, I'd ignore them and let them flounder. For some strange reason, my conscious tugged at my insides, begging me to play nice today. Plus, it wouldn't hurt for at least one teacher to bear witness that I knew the answers and wasn't in fact cheating as they all probably assumed.

My shoulders slumped, and I glanced around the small classroom. Glass beakers lined shelves with postered diagrams of cells and human skeletons affixed to the beige walls. Mr. Nielsen stood at his makeshift podium near the front of the room, holding his wire-rimmed glasses to the light and checking for smudges.

A few more seconds passed when finally, I took it upon myself and rose my hand high.

Mr. Nielsen smiled so big that his crooked teeth peeked past his thin lips. "Yes, Mira?"

"Umm... a peptide," I answered with a slight shrug.

He enthusiastically pointed at me. "Correct."

Before he had the chance to stare down at his notes and form another question, everyone's phones began buzzing and ringing. I dug mine out from the pocket of my hoodie and read the Amber Alert displayed across the screen.

Missing: Seventeen-year-old, Lexi Grayson. Brown hair, blue eyes, 5'7", 125 lbs. Last seen vicinity of 6th St., Springfield.

Claudia Peterson, a stuck-up girl that I had the unfortunate privilege of sitting behind, twisted in her seat to face me. "Wow, from this description, it sounds like it could have been you, Mira."

A few of her minions clustered around her chuckled. If I'd learned anything from all the schools I had attended over the years was each one had a Claudia at every one of them. Maybe her name was Jenna or Jordan or even Isabelle, but regardless, there were each a different form of a Queen Bee. The kind that thought she owned the school and all her subjects in it.

I forced a smirk in her direction and avoided giving her a meaningless response since Claudia was too small-minded to comprehend the gravity of the situation. In the span of last two weeks, four girls had been abducted with that same description. The first, Hailey Grey was only sixteen and lived in the next town over. Madison Greighton was a junior at this high school. The third girl, Carly Grayson, a home-school kid, went missing while she was on her first date.

Now with Lexi kidnapped, I couldn't discount the coincidence any longer. Each had brown hair, varying colored eyes, and were about my similar build and age. But the biggest similarity was all of them had a variation of my last name. Greyson.

The shrill school bell ringing pulled me from my morose thoughts as everyone rushed to gather their belongings and vacate the room as fast as possible.

"Remember, quiz this Thursday. Make sure you study," Mr. Nielsen called out as everyone exited into the hallway, ignoring what he said.

I steered my way through the crowded hallway, spotting my best friend Zoe Reyes. She leaned against my locker, twirling the ends of her black hair and flashed a brilliant white smile once she caught sight of me. With as many times that I had to switch schools, I never had the chance to make any lasting friendships. So this friendship with Zoe was still a little weird to me.

"What are you smiling about?" A quick opening of my locker, I placed my biology book on the shelf with the others to keep up appearances.

"Nothing much." Zoe peered around me, looking inside my locker. "I don't even know how you can take all those classes, Mira." She pulled out my French textbook and my anatomy and physiology workbook as examples. "If I had to study all this shit, my head would explode."

"It's not that bad, Zo," I said dryly. "You just have to study." Or know all the answers, but that was a secret I only shared with my grandmother.

Turning my head just a fraction, Nick Miller, the football captain, who I made the regrettable mistake of going to junior prom with last year, came into view and strode past with none other than Claudia Peterson hanging on his arm. He threw me a sidelong smirk, showing off where I could have been.

Zoe leaned close, her eyes fixed on the show in front of us. "When did that happen?" The words left her lips and she gave me a glance to gauge my reaction.

Jaw clenched and eyes narrowed, I slammed the locker door shut. "Don't know and don't care." And care I didn't. That asshole had the audacity to leave me stranded after prom was over. I had explained to him, multiple times that night, that he wouldn't be on the receiving end of anything other than a kiss from me. Apparently he had other plans. Only I wasn't giving my virginity away to an asshole like Nick. I had standards and he did not meet them.

"Are you ready?" I tilted my head toward the lunchroom.

A secret smile twitched on Zoe's lips as she dangled a set of car keys before my eyes. "How about we do lunch somewhere else today?"

I groaned. The last time Zoe and I skipped a couple of classes, Principal Jenkins called my grandmother. I ended up grounded for almost two months. Zoe's parents could have cared less, and she only lost her driving privileges for a week at most.

"I can't." If I was caught again, I'd be stuck at home every weekend for three months at least. Maybe I would be free by my birthday, which was on the winter solstice. Only I wasn't quite willing to chance celebrating my eighteenth birthday with only my dear old grandma, holed up in my bedroom.

"Come on, Mira." Zoe placed the full weight of her puppy dog brown eyes on me. "We can even go to La Bistro. My treat."

My stomach growled at her words. The thought of La Bistro's deep fried ravioli and the chance to escape from these shallow hallways for a while trumped over logic and reason. "Fine. But I'm telling you right now if I get in trouble over this..."

"You won't." Zoe pulled out her phone to message someone. Her fingers furiously worked their magic before she added, "Okay, let's go."

Carefully, we sneaked past the teacher's lounge and made our way to the parking lot by way of the broken fire escape that was off limits to students. I jumped from the lowest rung and spotted a few other kids congregating near their vehicles.

Zoe and I hurried across the parking lot, and found Drew, Zoe's fraternal twin brother, leaning against her car.

"Why hello, Mira." He gave me a two-finger salute and dropped a half-smoked cigarette to the asphalt, grounding the butt with the heel of his black military boots. He removed his baseball hat, smoothing his wavy dark hair in place.

"Hi, Drew. Joining us for lunch today, I see."

"Anything's better than the shit they serve here." He shrugged and flashed me a standard Drew smile. "And like I would miss the chance to spend the afternoon with you."

Always the charmer, Drew Reyes had a crush on me that I acted completely oblivious about. I found that much easier than trying to force something that I didn't feel. Let alone him being my best friend's little brother, by a few minutes, made him off limits and I planned on keeping it that way.

Zoe clicked the car doors unlocked. "I thought you told Mom you quit smoking?"

"As far as she knows I have. All right?" Drew said sternly. His russet brown eyes darkened as he narrowed them at Zoe.

I opened the door and took my usual place in the passenger's seat of Zoe's red Mustang. Drew always conceded the spot to me to stay on my good side. That could have been part of it, although I think he just liked being chauffeured around so he could sleep off whatever mayhem he ingested for the day. Be it hungover or high, I could count on two hands the number of days that Drew actually came to school completely sober.

After a quick lunch of ravioli and bread sticks, we exited the Italian restaurant and headed into the mall to waste away the rest of the afternoon. From store to store we went, perusing sales racks and trying on outrageously expensive outfits that I'd never afford. Zoe spent a small fortune and left Macy's with two bags full. Drew bought a pair of hiking boots from the sporting goods store.

We walked toward the entrance of Victoria's Secret, and Zoe said, "Ooh... let's go in there." She turned, bags held toward her twin. "You can either look like a complete perv and go in there with us, or you can stay out here and hold there. Your choice."

Drew rolled his eyes and yanked the items from her. "Fine. I'll be over here." He motioned toward a wooden bench. It sat in front of a large fountain that doubled as a wishing well filled with tons of coins from everyone's misspent hopes and dreams.

"Good choice." Zoe feigned a grin. She threaded her arm through mine and lead me into the store.

A dark shadowy figure in the reflection of the front display window caught my attention. I glanced back at Drew and did a double take. For a second, I could have sworn there was a man standing over Drew's shoulder, holding a sword at his side. But when I looked again, the stranger was gone.

Shrugging off my overactive imagination, I followed along after Zoe, who had an armful of items she wanted to buy within minutes. I played the part of devoted best friend, scrunching my nose at the "noes" and smiling at the "yeses."

"So how are things going at home?" I watched as she started destroying one of the tables of underwear toward the front of the store. Zoe's parents were going through a separation that was caused by her father cheating with his secretary.

"Ugh... my dad stopped by last night, wanting to talk to my mom about going to counseling and working things out. I bet he's only trying to do that to keep her from divorcing his ass."

"Wow... and what did Regina have to say about that?" I asked, and something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. Shifting my head to the side, I looked in a nearby mirror, and in its reflection, I saw that strange man with the sword again.

This time, at least I was able to take a better look at him. He was dressed up in some stupid costume like it was Halloween, only a couple of months too soon. He had on tight black pants and boots and a short dark overcoat that had medals adorning the front of it. The way he continued staring at me with his dark beady eyes made every fine hair on the back of my neck stand up. My breathing hitched in my throat, and the bitter taste of fear settled on my tongue. Time to flee.

While keeping him in my sights, I backed up toward the front entrance. "Umm... Zoe?" I said nervously.

"Yeah?" She glanced up from the rack of robes that stood in the middle of the store. Zoe held a bright red garment up against her body and twisted herself to the side to get a better view of her reflection in the mirror. The man strode up behind her and held the sword up toward her neck before vanishing again like a gust of wind.

"Can we go now?" My body kept moving, and everything went silent as I accidentally bumped into a scantily dressed mannequin behind me, causing it to fall over and crash to the floor. The head detached and rolled into the aisle.

Zoe plopped everything that she held in her arms onto the table and rushed over to me. "Mira, are you okay?" Her brows furrowed. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

My heart now racing, I turned and chanced a peek at my reflection in the set of the mirrors that lined the walls of the store. Not even ten feet away, the man charged toward Zoe and me with his weapon in his hand, ready to strike.

Without even giving it a second thought, I grasped Zoe by the arm, tugging her short frame behind me as I hurried out of the store and yelled, "Drew, come on." I jogged down the corridor of the mall with his sister in tow.

Drew caught up with us, bags in hand and flanked me on my left side. With each store window we passed, I saw by the reflection that the man wasn't too far behind. But when I looked back over my shoulder, he wasn't there. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that we had to get the hell out of here.

Near the middle of the mall, a janitor and his cart exited from a side service door that failed to close completely.

"What is going on, Mira?" Zoe frantically asked as I yanked opened the door for the three of us to enter.

My plan was that we would lose the creep back here in one of the service hallways, or maybe we'd be able to find another way out of the mall. No matter what, being here was better than out there with him. After pulling the door all the way shut, I peeked through the small window near the top to make sure we were safe.

"Mira, are you on something?" Drew felt at my cheeks and chuckled to himself.

"No," I snapped while slapping away his hand. "Just trust me, all right. There's some creepy-ass guy following me... us... I don't know. But we need to get out of here."

Zoe pushed me back away from the door and stood on her tippy-toes to take a look herself. She shook her head as she turned to face me. "There's nothing there, Mira."

"I know what I..." A loud thunk at the metal door interrupted me.

Then there was another. And another. And another. The force of the repeated pounding caused the metal to dent inward. The air temperature dropped suddenly, with my quick breaths turning to fog every time I exhaled.

I stepped backward and held my now clammy hand against the concrete wall for support. The light bulbs hanging from the exposed rafters above broke one by one in succession, and the glass from each rained down on us before crashing to the floor. Now in almost complete darkness, the three of us ran the length of the hall, our footsteps pounding against the hard floor. The door behind us opened and then slammed shut. The cold air in the hallway began swirling around in a huge gusts of wind.  Almost like we were stuck in some vacuum.

"Did I drop some acid? What is going on?" Drew yelled over the cacophony of noise.

"I don't know, and I don't want to find out," I said as my right hand struck against a nail on the wall. "Shit." I winced, clutching my hand closed as the feeling of blood pooled in the surface of my palm like a heartbeat. Breathing in deep, I became suddenly aware of the metallic scent mixed with salt.

"Look," Zoe said loud enough for me to hear as she twisted me. "The door."

At the end of the long hallway,  a set of double doors outlined with a bright light was our only escape.

"That must be to get outside." Drew took hold of my uninjured hand,and I locked arms with his sister.

The three of us rushed toward that door. Each step we took forward, the pull of being sucked backward with whatever worked against us. Still struggling onward, I stretched my arm as far as it would reach, grabbing the knob. Our bodies stayed connected to one another, our feet lifting off the ground. The door was the only thing that kept us from meeting whatever caused all this chaos. The door swung inward and the heavy pull of Drew and Zoe weighted on my arm and shoulder; then it was gone. For a second, I floated on air and weightless.

"Mira, don't!" I heard Zoe scream at what sounded across a long distance.

The strong pull became a push, and the force threw me through the door. A blinding light hit me like an explosion where every part of my body, down to the molecules, separated and smashed back together.

An endless fall lingered with my body slamming into a green, hard surface face and chest first. Alone.

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Phew.... Okay so what did you think? I already have this story competed so chapters will be three times a week at least! 

Please vote, comment, and share! Thanks. XoXo