“Hey. Hey, come on, you need to wake up. HEY!”

I let out a small squeak of shock and bolted upright, looking around frantically to try and find what the source of trouble was. As I looked around, as it happened, I noticed that a few things were completely out of the ordinary.

For one, I was wearing a pair of jeans, a pretty blue blouse, and a dark jacket I distinctly remember wearing a few weeks ago.

Two, I happened to be slumped awkwardly over at a table in the corner of some small, family owned Chinese restaurant that seemed to be completely empty of customers, save for myself.

And lastly, there was a tall, imposing figure leaning over towards me across the table with a rather weirded out, concerned look in his intensely colored eyes, his lips twisted down in an unpleasant frown.

That last thing was probably the most surprisingly, freakish one of all. Because you know why?

Archer Morales was the one who was standing in front me. And he was most certainly not dead. On the contrary, he looked very much alive. Well, rather annoyed, but still alive all the same.

“Uhm…I’m sorry,” I started babbling out of embarrassment. “I didn’t even know I fell asleep, and – “

“Fine, whatever,” Archer Morales cut me off in a deep, rich voice I hadn’t expected to hear. “Look, you can’t stay here. You need to go.”

I was slightly taken aback by the sharp, annoyed tone he used. Sure, I’d heard him speak about one time before, but that had been years ago. It shouldn’t have felt as if I’d just gotten slapped in the face or something with the way he was talking to me.

I couldn’t help the fact that I was staring up at him with an awed expression on my face, sort of like I was seeing Jesus Christ in the flesh or something.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

“Me?” Archer repeated in a sarcastic voice. “I happen to work here, and we’re closing. So you really need to leave.”

The last place I expected Archer Morales to ever work at was a tiny Chinese restaurant, but I suppose there were firsts for everything, right?

This sure as hell was.

“Closing?” I repeated in a high pitched voice once the word finally sunk in. “What time is it?”

“Quarter past eleven,” Archer deadpanned in a bored voice.

“Oh, shit,” I yelped, scrambling my way to my feet. “My parents are going to be so pissed! How the hell did I let this – “

“Jesus Christ, Hadley, would you shut up?”

I immediately stopped my frantic pacing and hurried mutterings to stare at Archer in amazement, trying to keep my mouth from falling open in surprise.

“You know who I am?” I couldn’t help but ask him in shock.

“Hadley Jamison, junior at JFK High, daughter of that famous hotshot lawyer and his businesswoman wife,” Archer drawled as he grabbed dirty dishes off a nearby table, dropping them into a Tupperware bin. “We had English together freshman year.”

Okay, that was a little unusual.

“You remember that?” I said aloud in a duped voice.

“How could I forget?” he said, like it should’ve been plainly obvious. “You blushed like a freaking lobster anytime I looked at you.”

“Well, that wasn’t my fault,” I fired back without thinking. “What was I supposed to do, just stare at you or something?”

“You and everybody else at that hell they call a school,” he muttered, rolling his dark hazel eyes.

I could not believe this was happening. This had to be some sort of cruel, cruel trick that my mind was playing on myself. The last time I’d seen Archer Morales, he’d been tightly encased in a freaking casket in some cathedral a few blocks over.

Yet now he was standing in front of me, actually having a conversation with me, and he wasn’t dead?

What fresh hell was this?

“I’m dreaming,” I finally all but shouted, tossing my hands up in the air. “I’ve got to be dreaming.”

Archer stared at me like I’d just started speaking gibberish or something.

“Excuse me?” he said in a flat voice, arching an eyebrow.

I convinced myself not to care about that one.

“This has got to be some horrible nightmare that I’m having,” I continued on ranting and raving, starting my pacing again. “And when I wake up again, I’ll just be back in my bedroom, ready to start another boring day at our idiotic school.”

“I figured you were a bit weird, Hadley, but I didn’t know you were this – did you just pinch yourself?”

Archer was now staring at me with a completely baffled look on his face, watching me as I pretty much had a complete and total breakdown in front of him. And yeah, I had just pinched myself.

“So?” I muttered defiantly, trying to keep the blush back that was working its way into my cheeks.

He just continued to stare at me with a weird look on his face, like I was some alien or something. Normally that would have pissed me off, because I mean, I’m not some freak show. But right then I really didn’t care because I was just glad to see him alive.

Even if, you know, this all turned out to be a dream.

“God, you’re weird,” he finally muttered, rolling his eyes again.

At that moment I was torn between slapping him in the face for being so mean or tackling him in a furiously tight hug. I couldn’t really decide which one would have been more satisfying.

Now, don’t get me wrong - I was more than embarrassed by the fact that the guy I was supposed to be “saving” and I hadn’t really gotten off on the right foot. He thought I was a lunatic and now I was beginning to think he was a jerk.

But it wasn’t as if I could just throw my hands up in the air already and give up. No way in hell was I going to do that. Somehow by the grace of God…or, well, whoever ruled the universe out there, I was going to do this the right way.

I was going to do this.

So, taking a deep breath, I tried to force a somewhat pleasant look on my face and act as polite as possible before saying, “Help me catch a cab?”

Archer looked duped there. “Uh…excuse me?”

Now it was my turn to stare at him like he had something sticking out of his head.

“Help me catch a cab?” I repeated, a little more slowly this time.

Archer let out a low, impressed whistle, dropping his Tupperware bin down on nearby table before slouching his way to the tiny door of the restaurant.

“Who would have thought…” he was muttering annoyingly as he walked. “A girl finally talks to me and it just so happens to be a psychotic whack job who likes to pinch herself.”

I stared after him in open mouthed horror.

What a jerk!

“Asshole,” I muttered back under my breath, trying to keep from feeling too offended.

God, I needed to toughen up.

If this was how it was going to be being around Archer Morales, clearly I was going to need to get a thicker skin. I already felt like bursting into tears from his little snippy, snide comments he’d thrown at me so far. How was I going to take it if he actually insulted me to the third degree?

One could only hope that I wouldn’t cry in front of him.

Forcing a determined look on my face, I stomped my way out of the restaurant and into the brisk night air after Archer, who was now standing off to the side of the curb, looking for a taxi.

“Thanks,” I told him as I stood beside him, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

He glanced back over his shoulder at me with a wry look on his face.

“Yeah,” he agreed sarcastically. “I can tell you’re real thrilled, Hadley.”

“Why are being so rude to me, Archer Morales?” I demanded in a high pitched voice before I could stop myself. “I haven’t done anything to you and yet you’re acting like a complete and total jerk!”

“Oh, ho. Now who’s acting all high and mighty?” Archer snorted derisively, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m not!” I squeaked in response. “I just asked you an honest question, and there you go again, throwing it back in my face!”

“I don’t even know you, you stupid woman,” he replied in a rather snarky voice a beat later. “So why on Earth should I be polite to you?”

“Uh, it’s common courtesy, duh,” I said, like it should’ve been plainly obvious. “I be nice to you, you be nice to me. That’s kinda the way it works. And I’m not stupid!”

“You really sure about that one?” Archer asked in a coy manner, arching an eyebrow.

“Shut up!”

Wow, I bet Death was sure proud of me.

I hadn’t even been around the guy for half an hour and already we were biting each other’s heads off. I could only imagine with cheery joy how the rest of these twenty seven days were going to go.

“You’re making this surprisingly difficult, Archer Morales,” I huffed out distractedly, going hands on hips. “Here I am, trying to be nice to you, and you’re hardly returning the favor.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me, Hadley, so I don’t think you’re really in a position to tell me what to do,” Archer fired back in a surprisingly heated voice.

“I know that you’re going to – “

I stopped speaking abruptly, realizing the severity of my words and just what I was about to blurt out. Death hadn’t exactly elaborated on the entire thing, but I figured it was an unspoken agreement that I wasn’t going to tell Archer I knew he was planning on killing himself.

I had to fight back a shudder at the thought of how detrimental that would be.

“That I’m going to what, exactly?”

Archer’s voice was dangerously low, extremely deep and husky sounding.

“N-N-Nothing,” I stammered out, fighting the urge to put distance between us.

“Yeah, right,” he said, his amazing eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, Hadley Jamison, but I’m not a fan of it.”

I stood up, straightening myself up to my pathetic height of 5’3’’, and tossed my dark hair over my shoulder, my chin jutting out defiantly.

“I’m not playing at anything, Archer Morales,” I sneered, my lips curling. “I think you’re the one who’s socially inept. Clearly you can’t tell the difference between a death threat and somebody trying to be nice to you.”

Those rather harsh words had an effect on Archer that I hadn’t been expecting. The look that came over his face was almost akin to me slapping him across the face. His wavy, tangled hair was rustling in the slight breeze that blew down the bustling streets of New York City, and his eyes were narrowed, giving him this sort of untamed look.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want people to be nice to me? Has it ever occurred to you that I want to be left alone?” Archer suddenly asked me, sounding just the slightest bit unstable.

It was safe to say that I was now staring at him like he had a spatula sticking out of his head or something.

Sure, he had a point there. Everybody had the right to be left alone and everybody had the right to claim their independence. Of course they did.

But when a person knew the things I did, did those same rules still apply?

“But why?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

And I honestly wanted to know the answer to that question. From what I was beginning to see, how could anyone have the attitude that Archer had and still be okay with the way they were?

“None of your damn business, that’s why.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t really care.”

“I have a feeling you don’t really care about a lot of things.”

“You’d be right to assume that.”

“Of course I would.”

“Say, Hadley?”Archer said slowly, dumbly, as if he were trying to piece something together. “Why do you care about anything that has to do with me, huh?”

Because I don’t want you to kill yourself, that’s why.

“You…seem like an interesting person,” I trailed off hopelessly, trying to come up with a good answer.

I, of course, failed miserably at it.

“Yeah, right,” he snorted, rolling his eyes.

“It’s the truth!”

“If that’s the truth, than I’m an – “

My phone started ringing loudly in my pocket, making me jump about a foot in the air from its vibrating. It didn’t come as a surprise when I grabbed my phone out of my pocket to see that the caller ID clearly read “Mom”.

Making a quick sign of the cross, I pressed the answer call button.

“Hey, Mom, I’m – “

“Hadley Ann Jamison! Where the hell are you? Do you know how worried your father and I have been? We live in New York City, for Christ’s sake, and you’re off gallivanting God only knows where, and – “

“Mom, Mom, please calm down,” I cut her off, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “I’m with a friend. I’m okay. Everything’s fine.”

“It’s nearly eleven o’clock in the evening, Hadley! On a school night!” Mom babbled frantically over the line, obviously reaching near hysterics.

This honestly would have been insanely funny had I not been about to get grounded to within an inch of my life.

“I’m getting a cab home right now, Mom, I should back at the apartment in, like, fifteen minutes,” I quickly reassured her, not wanting her to keep on babbling.

I hung up before she could say anything else, tucking my phone back into my pocket.

“So we’re friends now, are we?”

I glared up at Archer, my eyes narrowed. “Clearly you don’t want to be friends, but I do.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that one. I don’t want to be your friend.”

“That’s hardly fair.”

“Life’s not fair, Hadley.”

I snorted out a laugh in agreement. He’d hit the nail on the head with that one.

Life sure as hell wasn’t fair. The sad thing was is that I was barely beginning to realize that.

Yesterday I had thought I was just an ordinary, average sixteen year old girl whose ambition in life was to get through high school unnoticed and unscathed. But now that was entirely thrown up into the air. Now I was suddenly an ordinary, average sixteen year old girl who also happened to have the task of saving another person’s life resting upon her shoulders.

Life was definitely fair, wasn’t it?

“Look, Archer,” I sighed heavily, shifting awkwardly on my feet. “This is stupid. We don’t even know each other and we’re fighting? It doesn’t even make sense. Can we start over?”

“Start over?” Archer repeated, his eyebrows pulling down in to a quizzical expression. “Do you want me to smack you awake this time?”

“Archer! Please! I’m trying to be serious here!”

“So am I.”

Bloody hell, he wasn’t making this easy at all.

So, taking a deep breath, I tried to start over on my start over.

“Hi,” I said brightly, holding out a hand for him to shake. “I’m Hadley.”

“I already know who you are. You don’t need to tell me.”

“I’m Hadley,” I repeated forcefully. “It’s nice to meet you. And you are?”

Archer was giving me a look like I was the weirdest thing he’d ever seen in his life, but he gave up half a second later, rolling his eyes.

“I’m Archer. Can you leave me alone now?” he said in a mockingly polite voice, vigorously shaking my hand.

“Pleasure, Archer,” I returned through stiff lips, trying super hard to keep smiling.

I made to drop my hand, wanting him to let go of me and trying hard not to focus on how it felt like I was being electrocuted or something with him touching me, but he grabbed my forearm and shoved up the sleeve of my jacket, a curious look coming over his face.

I followed his gaze with a horrified look, wondering what on Earth he was staring at.

Etched onto the smooth skin beneath my palm in an eerie style, smooth and pale like a perfectly constructed yet entirely grisly scar, was the number 27.

When the hell had that gotten there?

“And what, pray tell, is the significance of the number 27?” Archer asked, sounding as if he were trying to undermine his curiosity.

“L-Like I’d tell you,” I stammered pathetically, wrenching my wrist back. “I have to go now.”

He let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Finally.”

I shot him a nasty look, yanking my jacket sleeve back down. “Very funny, Morales.”

“I’m never funny.”

Clearly.

“So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” I asked awkwardly as I stepped backwards off the curb with the intent on catching a taxi.

“God, I hope not,” Archer muttered, although I had a feeling he hadn’t meant for me to hear that.

I stared at him in open-mouthed horror.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a sissy – you can’t really be a sissy when you live in a place like New York City – but all of his cracks and insults, even though I’d been around him for barely half an hour, were sort of starting to get to me.

“Oh, hell,” he blurted out, his eyes widening as he caught sight of the look on my face. “Don’t look like that, Jamison. If we’re going to be friends, then you’re going to have to get a thicker skin. Because if the opportunity to mock you presents itself, I’m going to take it, no holds barred.”

There was only one thing I really got out of that sentence.

“You mean we’re friends now?” I babbled excitedly, rocking back on my heels.

Archer resembled a deer caught in the headlights with that one.

“No,” he fired back immediately. “We’re not friends.”

“Ah, but you just said we were going to be friends,” I pointed out in a self-satisfied voice. “I’m wearing you down, aren’t I, Archer Morales?”

“Yeah, keep on dreaming,” he said, exasperated. “It’s going to take a lot before we’re ever friends, Hadley.”

“Like what?”

To be honest, I was sort of expecting Archer to go hands on hips and give me a nasty, girlish like look.

“Just go home,” Archer sighed, waving a hand towards one of the many taxis on the streets. “You’re annoying me.”

“And you’re frustrating the hell out of me,” I griped under my breath.

“Get used to it.”

Damn. With the luck that I seemed to be having, Archer probably had supersonic bat hearing or something.

“Goodnight, Archer Morales,” I sang in a cheery voice after I’d flagged down a cab. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

“If you sing like that to me tomorrow, I’m seriously going to hit you,” he groaned in response, a hand at his forehead.

I snickered, my hand grasping the cab door as I leaned against the car.

“Not a morning person, are we, Archer?” I asked sweetly.

The language that Archer used to respond with was entirely vulgar, which more than made his point clear. I went to high school and heard disgusting language every day, but even I wasn’t really comfortable with the language he used.

Honestly, he would’ve put even the toughest of sailors to shame.

I quickly waved goodbye to him and clambered into the cab, slamming the door shut after me.

I slunk down in my seat after giving the gruff looking cab driver my address and sighed heavily.

So far, this had been the most I’d ever done in a day before.