Young Writers Society

Chapter One

“Are you excited for school?” My father, otherwise known as Leo, asks me as we sit down to the breakfast table. This is rare for us, because dad usually leaves for work before I even wake up for school. I’ve never been sure what his profession is, and highly doubt I’ll ever know. We’ve never been very close, but we still love each other, of course.

“Yep, I’m ready to get out for the summer. Tonight is Emily Domicko’s party, may I go?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not. Just don’t stay out to late.” He says while getting up and stretching.

“Okay, thanks. Bye,” I reply as he heads for the four car garage.

“Bye sweetie,” He says before shutting the door.

“Oh my god, Ana, your outfit is to die for!” My best friend, Aria, says as I climb out of my white Camaro in the high school parking lot. I’m wearing a white with small pink flowers, peep-toe wedges, denim short-shorts and a pink and white striped tank top. My long, wavy blonde hair is hanging loose and free with a simple, white flower clip holding two side braids at the back of my head. Around my neck is my dead mother’s favorite necklace, a braided gold chain with her family’s crest, which is an L, for Luck. Since my parents had never married, I have my mother’s maiden name.

“Thanks, it’s new.” I say as I bend over into the backseat of my car to retrieve my purse and messenger bag. As I’m doing this I feel a familiar pair of hands grab my hips. I smile and shake my head as I straighten up and turn around to see my boyfriend, Emmet Cunningham. He’s six feet four inches tall of blonde, football jock hotness. His honey blonde hair was gelled into the usual ridge and his blue, collared Aeropostale shirt made his blue eyes stand out even more than usual. I notice that’s he’s wearing the dark denim jeans that I picked out for him and a new pair of white Adidas tennis shoes.

“Hey babe,” He says with a bright white smile before kissing me another hello.

“Hey, what’s up?” I ask, leaning against my car for support. These wedges really hurt my feet.

“Just got here in my new Mustang, it’s got the same white and black interior as yours.” He says tilting his heads towards the car parked next to me.

“Cool, so are you going to Emily’s party tonight?” I ask, wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling him a little closer to me.

“I f you want me to. Are you gonna wear the new bikini I bought you?” He asks, giving me a devilish smile.

“If you want, but only if you wear the matching trunks.”

“Of course I will. So are you gonna give me another kiss before the bell for first hour rings?”

During last hour, which is my only class with Emmet, our teacher lectured us on making good choices this summer and being safe. And when she actually passes out condoms, Emmet looks at me from the corner of his eye and winks, making me giggle.

“Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” The teacher asks, turning towards us.

“No ma’am,” I reply, trying to hold in another giggle. She scowls at Emmet and me for a few seconds before turning on her heel and retreating back to her desk.

“So, are we gonna be using this anytime soon?” Emmet whispers, waging his eyebrows at me.

“Maybe, if you’re lucky tonight.” I whisper back, winking.

“Oh, I always have Luck.” He says, poking my side making me squeal slightly. I’m way too ticklish for my taste. I gather all my stuff and throw it in my pink and white striped messenger bag and grab my light beige, leather Vera Wang purse right as the end of the day bell rings.

“See you tonight babe, you want me to pick you up?” He asks, slipping his arms around my waist.

“That’s okay; I’m gonna be a little late anyways cause I have to work late.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there, bye Ally.” He says, kissing me before running out of the classroom. As I watch him run down the hall I accidently run into some freshman. Since I’d knocked the books out of his hands, I bent over and helped pick up the many old-looking books. He murmurs a sorry and helps me pick them up.

“No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking and ran into you.” I say, while grabbing book after book about the supernatural and even a few books about weaponry. When I glance at him I notice he’s really hot and really familiar. Nothing compared to Emmet, but he’s almost there. He’s got curly brown hair cut real short and pretty brown eyes.

“Its fine, I was just taking these to my mom.”

“Would you like some help?” I ask, standing up.

“Sure, if you want.” He says, giving me a drop dead gorgeous crooked smile.

“Totally, but first I have a question. What’s your name?”

“Tony, and yours?”

“Annalisa, but most of my friends call me Ana. But you can call me whatever you want. I have about a thousand nicknames.”

“Cool, I’ll just call you Ana.”

“Fine by me. So are you going to Emily Domicko’s party tonight?”

“Kinda, I’m her little brother so I’ll already be there I guess. I don’t really have any other plans.” He says as we turn around the corner leading to the English wing. He looks down a row of lockers, and sighs at the empty sight and mutters a soft curse.

“Oh, well that’s cool. So what’s wrong?”

“Emily’s already gone. So now I have to wait forever with mom to go home.”

“Well, I can give you a ride home if you want.” I ask as we walk into Mrs. Domicko’s empty classroom.

“Sure, that’d great.” He says, placing his pile of books on the nearest desk. I do the same.

“Alright, well my cars in the student council parking.”

“Yeah, I kind of expected that.”

“Yeah, so what’s up with all these weird books anyways?” I ask as we walk out the door leading to student parking.

“My mom’s just doing research for a book and I’m helping her.” He says, obviously hiding something.

“That’s cool; I don’t think I’d ever have the patience to write a book.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

As we drive to his house and I let him off, the whole time I wonder about what he was really doing with those books. I go home, go to my room and change my tank top to my Rose Petal Coffee House tee-shirt. I gather my hair and braid it over my shoulder. It’s so long that when it’s braided the tip reaches my belly button. And as I’m trying to find my gray and teal New Balance tennis shoes my phone tings with a text message. I open the text and it’s from Emily.

“Did you give my brother a ride home today?” I text her back, yes and throw my phone on the bed. When I finally find my tennis shoes my phone tings again.

“Why?” I just text her back, I don’t know. I grab a pair of white, knee-high socks with pink rings at the top and pull them before the next ting.

“Okay, are you coming tonight?” I reply, ya. I pull my shoes on and sigh in relief at the comfort. I stand up and hear another ting.

“Cool, see ya tonight then.” I reply, see ya.

Work was such a rush. While usually I only get a few customers an hour, tonight I got like 15 per hour. It’s crazy! Luckily my co-worker, Jack Billos, worked with me. I took orders, he made them. He’s much faster than me. And he served them. But we switched every hour.

When the nights through, I close up, then go back home and grab my bathing suit and sandals. I put them on and quickly and throw my shorts and pink and white striped tank top over them. After upgrading my make-up to water-proof and styling my hair into a cute, messy bun I leave and head over to Emily’s party.

The clock in the dashboard says 10:30 as I pull up in front of Emily’s house. It’s pounding with music and hormones. I could hear people laughing and screaming from the backyard. When I get out of my car I see Emmet’s a few down from me. I can make out someone shuffling around in his car. I walk up and scream at the sight. Emmet was fighting with someone in all black, and losing. The doors open and the person in black flies out with a knife in his right hand. Then he comes after me, with red eyes filled with bloodlust. He charges on me and I duck him as he tries to fling himself upon me. This is guy is really good, I decide in my head. I’ve really known how to fight, but somehow it always felt natural when I was boxing in the gym or kicking someone’s ass in any of my martial arts classes. For some reason my father has always thought it necessary for me to take these classes. But when I was eight I put my foot down and said no more. It was just too dangerous for me.

When my opponent comes back for seconds I jump and perform a perfect flying kick to his chest. This knocks the breath from his chest and has to catch his breath. This gives me an advantage and I kick the knife from his hand and crush his wrist with my foot, he cries out in pain, his cry becoming a howl. But not a howl of pain, but more like a wolf’s howl. I jump back and bump into Emmet. He grabs me by the arm and we make a run for it. We run into the house and when we look back our attacker was gone.

“Who the hell was that?” I gasp, grabbing Emmet and hugging him close. That’s when I smell all the blood on him and see all of the already forming bruises and cuts all over him. I rip his shirt off of him and look at his chest and his back. He isn’t hurt bad, but it’s going to hurt in the morning.

“I don’t know.” He says, obviously lying to me.

“Damnit, don’t lie to me. I know when you are, and you can’t fool me. Now tell me who the hell that was or I’m going home and going to bed.” I say, looking him straight in the eye and trying to look as tough as I could.

“You can’t know. It’s not your world I don’t ever want it to be. Maybe one day I’ll tell you exactly why he was here, but for now all I can tell you is that he was here to kill. Who exactly I’m not sure, but I’m going to find out.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Just spit it out.” I say, stepping back from his embrace. He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. I’m not allowed to. Please, just don’t go there. But I’ll tell you this. He’s not going to be the only one tonight. Once an order is placed they have to fulfill it or die. So we better get out of here.” He grabs my arm and tries to pull me to the door. I yank my arm back with strength I didn’t know I had. I got the part that he was trying to protect me from something, but Tony and now him? What in the hell are they trying to hide from me?

“First I have to see Tony; I need to ask him something.” I lie smoothly. But it’s not a total lie. I just had to ask him a few questions.

“Okay baby, you just wanna go back to my place or something and hang out?”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you there.”

“Can I just ride with you? Marissa needs a way home and I don’t want it to be that dumbass boyfriend of hers.”

“Sure, just go back to my car and I’ll be there in a minute.” I say, walking up the stairs to the second floor. I’ve been here before, but I never knew that Tony was here. I guess his room is the one that says Tony on the door. I knock on the door and have to wait a minute before a disgruntled looking Tony comes to the door. At first he looks at me like, what the hell? Then he shakes it off and smiles.

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

“I told you I was coming. But the reason I’m at your room is because I have to ask you a few questions. It’s really important.”

“Alright, come in to the Cleanest Boys Room on Earth!” He says with a sweep of his hand across the very neat bedroom. He had tons of pictures and posters all over the walls and his bed was actually made, even though it’s looked like he’d been sleeping.

“Wow, this is really clean. How do you do it?” I ask, sitting in a computer chair near the window.

“I’m just really OCD about organization and cleanliness. So what are these questions that are so important?” He asks, sitting on his bed while opening a can of Monster. I guess there are some things that every boy has in common.

“Well, today when you said that the books where for your mom to write a book, were you telling the truth or just giving me a cover-up story? Because a lot of people today have been doing this shit and just now, outside, I was attacked! And Emmet said that he couldn’t tell me why it was here or why it was trying to kill me, he just said that once they have a target they won’t stop unless it’s killed. So please tell me something, I need to know.” I pleaded, practically begging. If I had to I’d get on my knees and beg, but that even sounded wrong in my head.

“Look, I really want to tell. Believe me, I do. But I’d get in a lot of trouble. And I don’t know why they were here, maybe someone of particular importance was here that needed to be assassinated. But I can tell you this. What you saw out there, they were probably the ones who killed your mom.”

“What do you mean? That’s impossible! My mom died in a house fire when I was two!”

“No she didn’t, why would I lie about something like that?”

“I don’t know, it feels like everyone’s been lying to me today. Even my own boyfriend!” I yell, bursting into tears. I can be strong when I want, but sometimes it gets the best of me. He sits next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulder, comforting me. I lean into him and try to dry them out. But they just kept on coming. He hands me a tissue and I take it gratefully.

“Look, if you want to know more you’ll have to hear it from your father.”

“Okay, thank you for telling me this much, even though I still need to know more.”

“No you don’t, it’s complicated and very secret. Your dad is the one that tells us not to tell.”