One Story, Four Lives, and the Thing that Changed Them All

My turn then..? Alright. I guess I'll give you a little background on the mythical-being world. First of all, Vampires, Pixies, and Shifters are what's called the Alpha Species. Everything else is a sub-species.

The sub-species of a vampire is a vetala. They're pretty much vampires, except they're all female, they travel in pairs, and they lay their eggs in the bodies of their victims. But they're either extinct or under close watch by the Vampiric Government because they're so dangerous.

There are a couple of sub-species from shifters. The most common would be the werewolf. Another is skinwalkers. Like vetalas, they're kept under careful watch by the Council of Shape-Shifters because they must gain sustenance from human hearts. They are only allowed to breed minimally and their food supply is more regulated than parents giving their children sugar. Because of the dangerous nature of all types of shifters, many people hunt them and so there are very few left. The Council has taken it upon themselves to keep a careful eye on all shifters and require them to register like you would register to vote. And, unlike every other race, to be a legitimate shifter, it isn't passed down genetically (though wereism and skinwalkerism can be). It's like a one in one-thousand chance you will be a shifter, and any normal person can be one. Two humans can have a shifter baby, though having at least one shifter parent does make your chances go up a tiny bit.

You may have guessed, but the pixie sub-species are elves. They're pretty much pixie, except pixie dust doesn't randomly explode from orifices in their body and they can't 'teleport' I guess you would call it. You pretty much just go from one place to another super fast in a fiery explosion of pixie dust. Because we're all so good and nice, the Queen doesn't really feel the need to watch too closely over us, unless it comes to making Hybrids.

Hybrids are illegal, though nobody really knows why. You cannot be one of the things mentioned above and get it on with a human, nor can you be a vampire and a shifter, a pixie and a werewolf, or a vetala and an elf (that one wouldn't work anyways since vetalas lay eggs). If you violate the Anti-Hybridization law, you are immediately put to death and your offspring is either aborted if not born yet or put under quarantine for its entire life. Needless to say, known hybridizations are rarely heard of.

So I guess That's it for now. If you're confused, it will make more sense later. Don't give up. We're only just getting interesting(;

I've always been one to be really into socializing with everyone. I talked a huge amount in the shortest time spans ever. It's really, super ridiculous but that's how things went in my life. So it wasn't much of a surprise that when all of our friends got there I was instantly dragged into everybody's conversations.

Right after Scott and Aryah arrived, Scott ran off to go talk to the men of the house. Of course being Spencer, Aiden and Vinny as my dad wasn't ever at my house as much as them. Pretty much as a rule, they all hung out in the game room whenever we got together like this. 'Guy time' or some bullshit like that.

"So Ames how's your summer been? I haven't seen you since July." Aryah said coming up to me.

"Good I guess. I got the whole, 'You're in an arranged marriage' bomb dropped on me by my dad." I said while rolling my eyes.

"Arranged what?" Emery said joining in.

"Marriage," I replied.

"To whom?"

"Aiden..." Both girls looked at me kind of shocked, I think. Then they seemed to verbally shrug. "What?" They looked at each other.

"Well," Aryah started, "I mean, we all kind of knew there was something there."

"What?" I demanded.

"It's sort of obvious," Emery said.

"How obvious?" I was a teensy bit horrified with how unsurprised they were turning out to be.

"Well, not at first," Lance said, a smile playing at his glossed lips. "Avery kind of pointed it out. In a sort of beat-around-the-bush way. I don't think she even knew she was pointing it out."

"What the- Where is Avery?" I asked.

Freshman jumped up from her seat beside Grace, who never usually joined the conversation, and scuttled into the kitchen. She returned a second later with another tray of cupcakes looking sheepish. She always looked so nervous.

"Omigosh you would not believe how terribly I had to pee," Avery laughed, coming through the hallway that led to the stairs to upstairs and grabbing another cupcake and plopping down on the floor at my feet. I took a second to wonder why she had gone to the bathroom so far away when there was one down the hallway on the other side of the room.

"Obviously. You were gone for years. How are you still eating those?" I asked.

She looked at the chocolate cupcake in her had thoughtfully, then licked some of the frosting off. "They're just so amazing."

"I had two and I'm feeling nauseous already," Emery said, looking at the tray.

"How does he have so many?" Grace asked, inspecting her own.

"I dunno," Avery said, mouth full of cupcake, "but I think I'm in love with the man in the kitchen."

**
Joyous first day of school. First period was Government and Econ with the dynamic duo and Emery. I took a seat beside Aryah towards the back. I only wanted to kill myself the whole entire time as the boring teacher explained the syllabus and even started us on lecture before the hour and a half was up.

Luckily, the next two periods I had off. But last period I had to return to school for English which I shared with my brother and Aiden. Thank God Spence was there to sit between us or it would have been a terrible year. Well, period.

The next day I, thankfully, had classes with Avery. I was only there for two periods that day, too, and they were the Senior Seminar class, the class that all seniors had to take to do the senior research paper, the senior project, a sort of advanced Sex Ed and other stuff for life out in the world such as how to balance a checkbook; and the second class was chemistry, the last class I needed to be eligible for a four-year without community in between. I had both of them with Avery and they were the last classes of the day, so i got to sleep in.

Are you confused yet? Let me explain: We're on something called a block schedule. Basically we have eight periods spread out over two days that are 90+ minutes long with 15 minutes in between and a super long lunch. 45 minutes maybe? I forget. I just follow the bells. Anywho, so, since I took so many awesome classed my first three years, I get four whole periods off, as does Avery and Vinny and Spencer and I think Aiden and pretty much the whole group except for Grace who willingly filled all eight periods. I like the girl, but she's waaay too nerdy for me. Sometimes I'm kinda glad she never talks. Because when she does, it's like real-life Spencer Reid status.

Confusing.

So turns out not only do I have those classes with Avery, but I also have them Spencer, Aiden, Vinny, Aryah and Scott, Lance, Emery and Grace, and then Tom, a Junior, TA's for ChemCom, and Freshman TA's for Senior Seminar. Because she's a sophomore now. I think Avery said something about that. Maybe not. I should probably read what she wrote...

Back to school, so we all sat together at our huge table on Senior Hill. A few juniors, new to being upperclassmen, were standing around out table trying to get into our conversations. Avery had established yesterday that we would only let people who impressed her become new members to the group. Sounds mean, right? Yea well Avery had this way about her that made everything sound nice. If she wasn't so nice at heart, she could probably be an awesome tyrant.

So Juniors were crowding the table, trying to impress us. It was times like these that me and Avery liked to sit on either side of Freshman and make huge efforts to include her in our conversations. She would get all red and stuttery and it was pretty cute. Like a puppy.

The bell rang so we all started dispersing for last period. Jake grabbed my hand and we walked to class, juniors and a few sophomores still tried to get our attention as we entered the chem lab. We were among the first there, so we took a seat at one of the four person stations. The rest of our group slowly filed in around us, Spencer sitting at the table with me and Jake. Avery and Vinny arrived last, Vinny looking slightly flustered but Avery as collected as always. Avery took Spencer's seat beside me, making him take the one on the end. Vinny went and sat next to Scott.

I looked between the two of them as the teacher started talking. But then, we were interrupted by Aiden and Tom walking into class, both coughing and laughing. They stopped as they realized just how late they were for class. Tom slunk to the TA desk and Aiden sat next to Vinny.

"Well then. Now that we have all of our students here, let us begin officially. Here is the course summarized," he handed out some papers, " and here-" he pulled out a poster board "-is the seating arrangements." A groan went up all over the class. "Don't worry kiddies. We'll change next semester. All of you to the front of the classroom and bring your stuff."

The class got up and gathered around the teacher's desk. Looking around now, there was only about fifteen students in this class, the majority of them my friends. He started calling out names. "Okay at this table one we have Jayden Harrison, Max Yung, James Johnson, and Lance Fearse. Over here we have Conrad Parker, Vincent Thomas, Aryah Mason and Spencer Waltz. Amelia Waltz, Avery Taylor, Aiden Adams, and Scott Pilgrim." My heart sank and I drowned him out as he placed the rest of the students. At least I had Avery. Thank god that there was always someone separating me and Aiden. It was enough we had to be forced together by our families. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to take it at school.

As soon as we took our seats, Aiden made some snide comment. I was about to reply rudely, but Avery came to my aid and very soon they were bickering like elementary schoolers.

"Shut up, Aiden."

"No you shut up. No one was talking to you."

"Bite me."

"I would, but I know someone who would have something to say about it." Aiden grinned.

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"Maybe I will."

"Children," the teacher said, commanding the attention of the whole class. "Let us begin..."

Begin a horrible year.

**

We all decided to meet up at Starbucks after school. And by we all I mean me, Jake, Avery, Vinny, Aiden, Spencer, and the Freshman. So not all. But most.

"What do you want, Ames?" Avery asked me, pulling out a Starbucks gift card one of the sophomores gave her today. The younger ones felt the need for bribery. None of us took their gifts into account, but we certainly didn't turn them down, either.

"Mocha frap, my Dear Pond."

Avery giggled. "Coming up, Doctor."

"And you, Rory?" I asked the Freshman in a British accent.

"Oh, uhm, I'll have a vanilla latte."

"Very good, Stupid Face," Avery said, skipping up to the counter, waving her card in front of the barista, and ordering in a british accent.

"I think Vinny needs to be Rory, not Freshman." Aiden said once Avery had ran off. I gave him an odd look, scooting closer to Jake.

"No, Vinny is obviously the TARDIS," Avery said, sitting down.

"No, the TARDIS is a girl," I told her, a British accent snaking in there on accident.

"No, the TARDIS is a badass." She ruffled his hair. I looked between them, and then went to go get our drinks.

"So you think Vinny is a badass?" Aiden asked.

"And you don't?" Avery shot back, sitting next to Vinny.

"I'm just pointing out how badassy you think Vinny is."

"I only point it out because it's true. Unfortunately you wouldn't know what it's like to be such a badass."

"Why are you two fighting about this?" I asked.

"No reason," Aiden said.

"Aiden's just jealous," Avery told me, patting my arm.

**

"Well, Spence, I guess we should go home," I said. It had been two hours and Freshman, Jake, and Aiden had already left. It was just me, Avery, Vinny and Spencer.

"You coming, Avery?" Spencer asked.

"No, I gotta make sure my mom is still breathing," she said quietly. Us four were the only ones who knew just how terrible her home life was.

"Do you need a ride?" Vinny asked.

She grinned. "I would love one."

Me and Spencer said our goodbyes and left Vinny and Avery, both finishing their third drinks.