Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,12

to her, sharp and familiar like grief or loneliness.

When I'm about five or six feet away from her, the figure starts to walk forward. Away from me through the fog. Frustrated, I pick up the pace—and so does she.

The more I run towards her, the faster she runs away.

Fear claws through me. I don't want to be alone in the fog. I don't know who I am when I'm alone.

I've never been good at sitting in silence with my own thoughts. When we were little, I used to follow Xavier around, demanding his attention with jokes and pranks, yanking books out of his hands to make him look at me. He always assumed it was because I was the extrovert, the goofball, and that I was making fun of him when I hid his puzzles or stole his video games. Really I was just afraid of being alone.

Of sitting by myself in the silence and realizing just how little I have to offer the world.

"Hey!" I shout at the retreating figure, shifting my pace into a full-out run. "C'mon, turn around. Let me see your face."

But the faster I run, the further away from me she gets, without even going faster than a stroll. Frustrated, I give up and pause, leaning over to put my palms on my knees and catch my breath.

She stops too.

And for a brief moment, twitches a little, nearly looking over her shoulder towards me.

Which is when I know who she is, recognition going through me all at once, and I realize why I so desperately want to catch up with her.

"Mom."

Once I've caught my breath, I run towards her again, pulling my full panther shifter nature into it and going as fast as I can.

No matter what, I can't catch her.

She's always just out of reach.

Xavier

Suddenly I'm alone in the old school. Whirling around, I search the shadows with my panther eyes, but there's no sign of where anyone has gone. They just up and vanished between one breath in the next.

And there's a heaviness in the air like danger is coming.

"Okay. Well, this is Hell." I force myself not to panic, taking deep breaths in through my nose and slowly releasing them from my mouth. "It's reasonable that sooner or later we would be caught somewhere in some kind of mind game. After all, we weren't expecting a picnic. So... time to figure out what this place has in store for me."

As I stroll through the long hallway of the school, glancing carefully in every classroom, I feel a more and more foreboding. The space between my shoulder blades itches, but I force myself not to constantly look over my shoulder. I'm a shifter; if something is following me, I'll hear it or smell it. There's no reason to jump at every sensation.

Especially because it's likely all just a trick of my mind.

If I just remind myself it isn't real, maybe it won't be. Maybe the fear and foreboding will go away, and I'll find myself back with the group. I'll be part of them again.

At least, for the most part.

The truth is, without Reggie and David, I don't really know that I'd be with Ari at all.

Even with them around I always feel a little bit like the outsider. The piece that doesn't quite fit into the puzzle. I'm not like my brother, and though David and I will always be close, we're different too. A girl like Ari probably wouldn't even look at a geek like me twice if I were alone.

That thought propels me towards the back of the school, where two doors stand inexplicably wide open. As I stroll through them, searching for the others, I wonder if I'm truly alone now.

Then I see a cabin out behind the woods.

It's dilapidated and strange, the roof patched over, the siding rotted. But there's a light on inside. Signs of life.

Demonic life, for all I know.

But somehow I doubt demons in Hell spend most of their time in strange cabins nestled among evergreen trees and growing ivy.

As I walk towards the scene, I feel the school recede behind me, until it's miles away and I'm all alone.

Alone. As I've always been. As I'll always be. Even when I'm with others, I feel like I don't belong. Nothing makes that clearer than the way my brother, who looks so much like me, moves effortlessly through the school making friends and being loved. Whatever deficit I have, it's one all my own.

Something about the