I thought about calling my parents but they were going to be unavailable for the week. In my last conversation with them, my father had told me they would be staying in a remote city where there wasn't cell phone reception. It had been a last-minute romantic getaway. He assured me they would call me as soon as they were able to.

Bored and needing something to do, I decided to start with supper. I decided to make some pasta. I took all the ingredients out and tried to keep my mind focused on the task of cooking. While I chopped up the onions, my thoughts wandered back to my previous thoughts, and my hand slipped and I cut my finger.

Ouch! The cut was quite deep. I got a paper towel and held it on the cut while I looked for a Band-Aid.

Once the bleeding stopped, I put a bandage over the cut and threw the bloodied paper towel into the trashcan. That is what happened when I didn't concentrate on what I was doing. Ignoring the slight throb of the cut under the bandage, I finished preparing supper.

Anne made it home at the same time she usually did. She would always give me a quick rundown of her day and then she would ask how my day went. We chatted while we ate.

It was hard pulling myself out of my heavy and chaotic thoughts to appear as my usual self in front of my grandmother. After we'd finished eating and I was in the kitchen, Anne hollered that she was going to go and have a bubble bath.

I quickly did the dishes and went upstairs.

In the shower I noticed the bandage I'd wrapped around my finger a couple of hours earlier had fallen off. The cut was gone. I studied the skin carefully for any evidence of the cut but my skin held no evidence of my slip-up with the knife in the kitchen. There was no evidence that my finger had been cut a couple of hours before. Jared had told me that they healed faster than humans.

That's when the reality hit me. I was definitely not just human anymore.

It was my first concrete evidence that I was changing. Any doubts that I'd had before disappeared. I just wasn't sure exactly what I was changing into. And that thought scared me.

I lay down in bed, thinking about all of this. Unable to sleep, I tossed and turned for most of the night.

Just after one in the morning, I began to sweat. A slow ache began to creep over my body, and everything hurt. I couldn't help but wonder if this was part of the change.

I was too scared to go to Anne. How would I explain this? What if she wanted to take me to the doctor? Would they find out something they shouldn't? Going to Jared at the moment wasn't an option. If I was becoming a Hue, I would be their enemy and what did that entail for me?

In that moment, I realized I had no one I could turn to for help. I was alone. With that thought, tears silently fell down my face as I quietly endured the pain, closing my eyes when the pain spasmed through me.

****************

The next morning I woke up, feeling better. I glanced over at my clock and it was nearly time to get up. Although I still ached a little it was nowhere near what I'd endured earlier, and it was manageable. Slowly I sat up and tried to get out of bed but when I tried to stand up I swayed as a dizzy spell hit me, so I sat back down. Staying home wasn't an option. Jared would come to check on me and he would know there was something going on. I had to go to school.

For a few minutes I sat on my bed, taking a few deep breaths and trying to ease the fear I was feeling. This time I stood up and I could walk without my world tilting. I decided to go downstairs and get something to eat, hoping it would help me feel a little better. Downstairs, still dressed in my pajamas, I made myself some cereal.

I ate it quickly and began to feel better. Back upstairs, I got ready for school. Jared would be waiting downstairs for me soon, so I pulled a brush through my hair and brushed my teeth.

When I opened the front door, Jared's Jeep wasn't parked in front of my house, but instead there was a black SUV. I hesitated until I saw Tyler jump out of the driver's side and walk around the vehicle to open the passenger door for me.

"Hi," he greeted me with a genuine smile, which caught me off guard. It had been the first time he'd ever smiled at me. "Jared had some stuff to take care of so I'm going to give you a lift to school."

"Oh...okay," I replied nervously, tightening my hand around the strap of my bag. I hadn't really spent any time around the other Archaic. The only ones I'd really felt comfortable with were Jared and Catherine. The others were strangers and they made me nervous. It was only when I climbed into the passenger seat that I realized that Neve was seated in the back.

"Hi," she greeted me with a friendly smile that reached her eyes.

"Hi," I greeted back.

I was even more nervous now that I was in a car with two Archaics. I fidgeted with my hands as Tyler got into the driver's seat. He started the car up and pulled away from my house.

Their mom, Jennifer, didn't like me very much, but they were very friendly and I was pleasantly surprised by this. They acted like any brother and sister would: they spent most of the ride arguing about who was going to be driving the SUV back home after school. Apparently they had to share the SUV so they took turns driving it.

"Do you have siblings?" Neve asked me.

"No."

"You're so lucky!" she exclaimed. "You don't have to share with anyone." She threw her brother a glare. He just laughed it off as he shook his head at her.

As an only child, I'd always wondered what it would have been like to have a sibling. By the end of the short ride to school, seeing Tyler and Neve interact, I had a glimpse into what it would have been like to have a brother.

Maybe it was a good thing I was on my own. As Tyler pulled into the school parking lot, he'd crowned himself the winner of their argument.

"Why do you win?" Neve asked as she glared at her brother.

She looked like she wanted nothing better than to wrap her hands around his neck and throttle him. He switched the car off as he turned to face her.

"Because I'm older than you," he replied smugly and I had a feeling he used that reasoning on a regular basis.

"That's so unfair," she said. "You're only ten months older than me."

Ten months. That was close, for siblings.

I got out of the car and when I saw Felicity walking toward the car with a scowl on her face, I had an urge to get back in the car and hide. Tyler had walked around the car and stood beside me. Neve stepped forward and pushed Felicity toward the school, but not before Felicity turned back to me and threw me one more look that said, I wish I could make you disappear. They walked into the school entrance.

"Don't worry about her," he said. I pulled my gaze away from the school to look up at him.

"Easier said than done," I muttered back. He smiled.

"Her bark is worse than her bite."

I didn't believe that for one second.

"Give me your phone," he said. I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my jeans and gave it to him.

"Jared isn't going to be at school today so I'm going to be keeping an eye on you," he explained as he keyed his number into my phone.

"I'm giving you my number so if anything happens you can call me, okay?" he asked as he handed my phone back to me. I nodded.

I wondered what rumors would be going around school today when the rest of the students saw Tyler following me around. I was going to get a serious reputation as an easy girl. One day I was with one boy and the next I was with another. It wasn't true—they were only protecting me, not dating me—but that is what they would probably think. I couldn't control what people said behind my back, though.

As always Stacy was the first to ask, "Why is Tyler walking you to class today?"

"Jared isn't at school today so he asked Tyler to keep an eye on me."

"So there is something going on between you and Jared?" Kennedy asked. I shrugged. It was no use trying to deny it because my friends would think what they wanted. I thought it was better they thought that something was going on between Jared and myself than me being the type of girl who went through boys like underwear.

Tyler followed me around for the rest of the day. I missed Jared. I knew I was nothing more than a responsibility to him, but I couldn't help missing having him around. On the other hand, it was maybe better that he wasn't around, because I was scared he was going to figure out what I was hiding.