NEW KIDS [part one]-

Today was going to be a good day. I could feel it. And the fact that it was Thursday and there were only two more days until Spring Break almost guaranteed it. There was defi-nitely nothing that could put me in a bad mood today.
Well at least I thought there wasn’t until Violet, my younger sister, got in my car so we could head off to school. I usually don’t mind driving her to and from school, but today she was in such a terrible mood that I was afraid it would ruin mine.
The drive to school was short, but the silence made it so much longer. Of course Vi’s unhappy thoughts also added to the lengthened feel of the drive. They were very hard to ignore. I mean, she was practically screaming them in her head. I wish she would just bother to at least try and block them from me.
Ugh, sometimes being a telepathically gifted Blackwater was really annoying. Why couldn’t I be a Biddle with super-smarts instead? Or maybe even a fire-wielding Simon-son? I often think that either one of those options would be much more bearable and easier to live with than mind-reading.
I imagine, however, that my gift will become easier to handle as I get older. After all, I am only seventeen.
Finally—we’re here. Violet thought with a sigh, bringing me back to reality.

I could tell that something was wrong the instant I walked into my first period Art class. I was already expecting there to be a new student, but I was also expecting to be able to hear his thoughts. And I knew as soon as I saw him sitting in the seat in front of mine why I couldn’t.
The first unusual thing I noticed about him was his eyes; they were black. That con-firmed to be either a vampire or a werewolf. But his unnaturally pale skin and amazingly good looks made him, without a doubt, a vampire.
I already knew that his name was Jess Newbury, but I hadn’t really bothered to notice the last name until now.
The Newburys were one of the few vampiric families that hunted only animals and not humans. I suppose this made his presence a little less threatening, but it was still gross that he was a vampire.
I walked by Jess and took my usual seat next to my best friend, Zoe.
Zoe had been my best friend for almost ten years now. She’s also a Regular (un-gifted human). Two years ago I told her about my world and my family’s gift. Once I had ma-naged to prove to her that it was all true, she had decided that it was “pretty damn awe-some” that I could read minds. I eventually taught her how to block her thoughts and protect her mind so that my family and I wouldn’t be able to probe around in her mind anymore. This is a skill she has told me many times that she greatly appreciates having.
She also knows about the only two kinds of minds that I can never, under any circumstances, read; werewolves’ and vampires’.
“Hey Evie.” She said when I sat down beside her.
“Hi.” I said.
She picked up on my suddenly sour mood immediately.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Oh I just can’t fully use my abilities this morning.” I explained, hoping she would catch my meaning.
“Oh I see. Is it . . . something new?” apparently she did, and I knew immediately that by “something new” she meant Jess Newbury.
“Yes.” I said.
The new kids? She thought, pulling down her mental barriers so that I could “hear” what she was thinking.
I nodded.
Are they vampires?
I nodded again and her eyes widened.
Are they dangerous?
“Well no, and yes.”
I mean; do they hunt humans?
“Okay, no.” she sighed in relief just as the bell rang, making us both jump slightly.

I had two of Jess’s “siblings” in my next class; a couple of girls named Ginny and Tan-sy. And then there was one more in the class after that; a boy named Xavier. Luckily, none of them ever tried to talk to me.
It’s not that I hate vampires—okay, well maybe I do—it’s just that I find the whole idea of them to be rather disgusting. Mostly it’s their diets that bother me. That and their im-mortality, which I think is just plain wrong.

The five vampire “siblings” (I didn’t have any classes with one named Emilia) all sat together at lunch. No one dared approach them.
While most everyone found them to be somehow mysterious and interesting, humans are just naturally instinctively afraid of them. This is probably for the best.
Zoe wasn’t very talkative today. I noticed this mostly because she normally couldn’t shut up at lunch. Usually in the rare case that she hardly spoke, something was bothering her. I meant to ask her about this and see if she was alright, but one of my brothers came over and sat down beside me before I could.
Kai had been sitting at one of the tables closest to the Newburys, and had therefore been sadly avoided by anyone who might’ve wanted to sit with him. Of course it’s not really as if anyone made of point of sitting with him anyway. Most people just saw him as some sort of freak. This was mainly due to the fact that his hair was naturally light blue in color and his eyes had a certain aquatic feel to them that always made you think you were looking into the two most beautiful pools of water when you saw them.
Technically Kai was my cousin, but my mother had adopted him when he was two and I was three after his parents were killed brutally by a group of newborn vamps. His blue hair and aquatic eyes came from his father, who had been a water-wielder. His mother had been my mother’s cousin, and also telepathically gifted. And as it went with multiple gifted parents, the telepathic abilities of his mother had been dominant over that of his father’s water-wielding, and he could only read minds.
“So any luck on them yet? I think they’re vampires.” Kai said in a quiet, conspiratorial voice as he leaned towards me. It was quite obvious who he was referring to so I simply opened my mind to him and let him see for himself that he was right. I don’t know why I rarely actually spoke to Kai, I just didn’t. Telepathy always just seemed to be a more comfortable mode of communication with him.
“Thanks a million, Evie!” he said happily and removed himself from the table. I watched him go, tossing his food into the trash as he went. Secretly I was always a bit worried about Kai and his regular lack of appetite, but I never mentioned anything around him. He seemed healthy enough, so I figured he just wasn’t a big eater like the rest of my family.
I had almost forgotten about Zoe when Kai had walked up, but now that he was gone, I suddenly remembered that she seemed a little out of sorts. Looking back to my best friend, I noticed, however, that she was also gone. This confused me, as I hadn’t even noticed her leave and usually she waited until the bell rang to do so, even on bad days.
I did a quick visual sweep of the cafeteria and spotted her just as she slipped out of one of the many doors in the back of the building.

NEW KIDS [part two]-

The only other class that I had with any of the Newburys was my fifth period French class. And that was with Jess.
Of course Mrs. Babineaux just had to put in the normally empty seat next to mine. I felt disgusted throughout the entire period, but also grateful that he wasn’t trying to strike up any sort of conversation.
My gratitude vanished the instant he opened his mouth and introduced himself during the last few minutes of class, however.
“Hi, I’m Jess.” He said and stuck out his hand for me to shake.
I just stared at that pale perfect hand of his until he finally got the message and pulled it back into his lap. “We have art together?” he prompted.
“I know.” I said shortly. Why did he have to talk to me?
“Have I done something to offend you, um . . .?” he obviously didn’t know my name.
“I’m Evie.” I said, not even looking at him but staring anxiously at the analog clock above the door.
“Oh. Good.” He paused before adding; “Is that short for something?”
“What?”
“Is Evie short for something?”
“Oh. Yeah; Evangeline.”
“Pretty.”
“Um, thanks.” The bell finally rang then, allowing me to walk quickly to my vampire-free English class.
When that was class was over, I headed straight to my car. I hadn’t so much as opened the door before remembering that Vi was thankfully getting a ride with one of her other friends to “study” and I would mercifully get silence for a short while before arriving home. I smiled and, for some reason, looked up.
The spot I always parked in was almost directly in front of the bike racks, and I noticed when I looked up that Kai’s bike was chained up in the one of the many spaces the contraption had. Kai has always loved that bike and has always insisted on riding it wherever he needed to go if it was close enough. But I knew that this was only because he didn’t have a car nor the money to purchase one and insisted on making it look like he preferred things that way.
I don’t know why I did it, but at that moment I walked suddenly up to Kai’s bike and bent down beside it. It was a combination lock, and I had picked up the combo in his thoughts on more than one occasion. I unlocked his bike and walked it back to my car, popping the trunk when I arrived and carefully fitting the bike inside.
It didn’t take me long to locate Kai standing on the other side of the parking lot and walking in the direction of the bike racks. I pulled up beside him and rolled the passen-ger side window down, telling him to get in.

I sat in my car for a few minutes when we got home. I sort of knew that Desmond, my nineteen-year-old brother, would be ridiculously curious about my day and the New-burys, and I was putting off the interrogation I would get as long as I could. But since I couldn’t just sit my car forever, I eventually got out and walked up to the front door. Kai had long since left and gone inside, and I wondered briefly if Des had interrogated him.
I turned the door knob slowly and entered as quietly as I could. Unluckily enough, Des had been waiting in the foyer for me to finally get inside and jumped up from his perch on the stairs as soon as the door opened.
“Evie!” he exclaimed and walked up to me. I hadn’t expected such an excited reaction to my presence, so I was momentarily frozen when he stopped inches from me, grin-ning.
“Um, hi.” I said after a moment.
“So I hear there are some new kids at school?” he prompted immediately, obviously having heard either my thoughts or Kai’s.
“Yes there are.” I tried to step past him, but he moved with me, blocking my path to the stairs. Clearly I wasn’t going to get out of this without first giving him some answers. I sighed.
“And are they vampires, then?” Well at least he was being direct about it. Maybe this wouldn’t take too long after all.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Damn. And what family are they from, do you know?”
“They’re Newburys.”
“Oh that’s good; animal-hunters.”
“Mhm.” I tried to step past him again but he just continued to block my path. Des’s grin had now turned into more of a mockingly serious expression and I was beginning to wonder why he’d even been grinning in the first place.
“Did you talk to any of them?” he asked me. I’m not sure what the point of this question was, but if it would help me get out of his presence and up to my room, there was no harm in humoring him and answering.
“Yes, just one.”
“Who?”
“His name is Jess.” Again, I made an attempt to escape, but again he kept me from doing so. I was starting to lose my patience, which in turn meant I was losing my tem-per.
“What did you guys say?” Yep, that did it. I don’t know why, but that one question, which seemed amazingly irrelevant to anything Desmond would ever need to know, just made me snap. I’ve always been known for having an almost ridiculously short temper, and anxiety or even the slightest bit of annoyance never did anything but cut my fuse shorter.
“Nothing important, okay? He introduced himself and I introduced myself. Now if you don’t mind, I would like to get to my room now!” my voice stayed fairly normal in volume until that last sentence, which I couldn’t help yelling in his face.
Desmond was visibly startled by my slight outburst, and stepped aside to allow me access to the stairs almost immediately after I yelled at him. I stormed up the stairs quickly and angrily and had to remind myself not to slam my bedroom door when I shut it.
After dropping my backpack on my bed, I went straight to my radio and turned it on to my favorite station. I sighed and took a deep breath, sitting down slowly on my bed and putting my head in my hands. This was my way of calming down, and it nearly always worked to pull me away from my anger.
However my calming process was interrupted only seconds in by the ringing of my cell phone, which was still in my backpack. I nearly jumped and screamed in surprise, but regained control of myself quickly and reached across the bed to pull my backpack closer to me. It was easy to locate my phone in the first pocket, and I only glanced quickly at the little screen before flipping it open and holding it up to my hear.
“Hey Zoe.” I said in as friendly a voice as I could manage just then.
“Evie, hey! How’re you?” she sounded very excited about something and I suddenly wanted to know what.
“Fine. And you?”
“I’m super! Guess where I am.” Oh no . . . don’t tell me she was coming here . . .
“Where are you?”
“On the way to your house!” Damn. I was so not in the mood to go out right now. I still hadn’t even calmed down all the way.
“Oh. Why?”
“We’re going out! But I can’t tell you where, ‘cause it’s a surprise. It’ll be fun, though.” Oh great. The last time it was a surprise we ended up getting lost at midnight two hours from home. She never did tell me where we were supposed to end up, but sometimes I think she just wanted to go for a drive and that getting lost was her intention. It happened about a month after I told her my secret. She had just gotten her license and I think she thought I could do more than just read minds. But if that was the case then I must’ve been quite a disappointment when we ended up out there, stuck until someone was finally nice enough to point us in the right direction. So, I was a little suspicious that she didn’t want to tell me where we were going.
I sighed and decided it would be pointless to argue this with her. “Fine. Where are you?”
“I’m pulling into your driveway as we speak.” I snapped my phone shut and jumped up, grabbing my purse and jacket as I did so. I tried to smooth out my hair a little in the mirror on my way out, but was fairly unsuccessful and could only hope we weren’t going anywhere too formal and that my slightly messy hair would be just fine.

“That was quick.” Zoe said when I slid into the passenger seat of her car.
“Where are we going?” I asked as she backed out into the road and started driving away. She was doing a good job of blocking her thoughts from me, because I couldn’t hear a thing.
“Somewhere new.”
“Seriously Zoe; where are we going?” I guess it probably wasn’t all to smart of me to just go with her without knowing where exactly we were going, but it was, in a strange sort of way, kind of fun.
“You’ll see.” She paused before saying, “but I’m warning you now; you probably won’t like it.” Then she turned right down a road labeled ‘Private.’
“Who lives here?” I asked as soon as the gorgeous, three-and-a-half story, brick mini-mansion was in view. It was far enough back from the main road that you couldn’t see it until you were right in the driveway. It was also surrounded by all sorts of trees and other greenery. The road we’d turned on to get here had been gravel and very bumpy.
“Please don’t be mad at me. I didn’t want to come by myself. But I wanted to come. Please stay and be nice.”
“Zoe, whose house is this?”
*****