Arizona just finished entering her last night's entry in her journal. She closed the fat, glittery binds of paper with mixed emotions playing in her mind as she sat on her bed with her legs crossed, slurping instant noodles.

She looked outside her mediocre dorm window. The sun was just starting to rise but the whole neighborhood was already up and high on their earthly works.

By earthly works,

Ain't that music to my ears

Arizona neared the window with her instant noodles-slash-popcorn for the daily soap. Her eyes were not blessed with scenic sun rays giving her an artistic sun-kissed vibe or some dank hunks jogging down the street like that chick flicks that she had always envisioned herself in. It was smokey outside with two drunk dudes waltzing with their fists on each other. They were fluently exchanging loving words at the top of their lungs which would even make the devil bleed out of his ears and from what she could guess, it was over who slept in who's a spot the previous night without the other dude's permission. Everyone else on the street seemed to be either high from their previous day's dinner a.k.a weed or too comfortable jamming to this background music to care to stop them.

Arizona sipped the remaining noodles stock as she noted new cursed words in her mind for future reference and enjoyed the energized wrestle mania. Not bad for a morning shake-off. Her bet was on the small guy though. He might be a bit skinny but sure as hell was fast on his legs. The tall baldy was missing almost all of his hits.

Shrugging after a while, she got inside and grabbed the shocking pink 'Fruity People' uniform from her dresser with the words flowing like a natural spring in her background. Their level of creativity with the colorful words was mind-boggling. It was not the most ideal setting for passing her last two teen years, she knew. But anything was better than Annexa to her. Arizona earned every bit of it. By herself. For herself. And she was proud.

True, she got the worst dorm in Wilmore High and maybe the worst neighborhood in whole Kallier. And yes the people here gave more respect to their local fowls than anyone with the Annexa accent. But this had been her dream life for the longest she knew. And...

Mwah! You're just too exotic for them

Arizona told herself as she inspected her reflection in the mirror. She was here just for her earning herself a certificate and preferably a little amount of savings for her next big dream - graduating from a university in Harlin. She would kiss this place goodbye for good. And maybe the queen bees here too, who looked at her like she was some sort of contagious infection and poked her every now than in the name of pest control. Arizona was good in taking beatings and retaliation from time to time. She figured she could take it for a few years more.

Putting on a brown cardigan to downsize the evil-eyed pumpkin embroidered on her chest, Woods took out her phone and clicked.

64th selfie for celebrating her 64th day here.

You slay it gurllll!!!

Ok enough motivation for now

Popping the phone in her bag, she headed out of her dorm.

She poked her head out of the main gate before stepping out. Other than both the guys passed out hugging each other, everything else seemed normal.

Kallier level normal that is

She bewildered, heading out as the thought that she had been suppressing all these while just kept getting persistent.

I'll see those bastards again

They might haunt me. Again

She kept her head held high with the best poker face she could master but inside, her heart threatened to rip out of her cage with each step she took. The nasty yellow teeth and his buddies were her regular neighborhood homeless junkies. They had been eyeing her for the last two months but last night they just broke the last strand of decency when they realized she was from Annexa from her accent and now

there's no turning back

Arizona saw them across the street and exhaled carefully. And they saw her. She looked away and kept walking at her usual pace, pretending not to notice. But she noticed them, clenching their jaws and balling their fists. Only, they did not show any sign of crossing the street.

After 10 seconds of nerve-wracking tension on both sides of the streets, Arizona carefully let out a sigh of relief as she passed them and broke into a stride towards the vibrant neon pumpkin welcoming everyone to 'Fruity People'.

Here God! Check today's 500 m off the list

That's all for now gurllll!" Miss Queen said as they were done loading the last crate of orange on the shelves. Arizona gave her a wide smile and she headed to the counter. Her shift ended 15 minutes ago but she stayed back because - for one, her classes would not start before the next one hour and two, Miss Queen was an absolute queen. In attitude and heart and Arizona was always happy to help her every chance she got. She was a 60-ish black woman with the heart of a 20-ish sassy girl. One could easily tell looking at her that she had to go through storms to set up this vibrant fruit shop in this messed-up neighborhood and given minutes with her, would be able to tell that she stared down those storms in their eyes. Miss Queen was the reason Arizona could convince herself that she could survive here if she gave it her all. Because if anything got beyond her threshold, she knew Miss Queen would protect her like a momma bear protects her babies.

But the main reason that Arizona was staying longer that, she did not know how to put in words, was to ask Miss Queen about the guy who saved her last night without lifting a finger. And the desire to know has been rocking in her head more after that thrilling countdown she had that morning.

Arizona ran the conversation in her mind again. She was sure Miss Queen would know him in an instant because there were not many white-haired shady dudes in the neighborhood. But what she did not want was having to explain why she wanted to know of him. If there was one thing that Arizona hated that was to be looked at with pity whether she deserved it or not and last night, she was pretty pitiful. Even to herself.

"So, Miss Queen," Arizona blurted being tired of figuring out how to put it, " do you by any chance know a tall white-haired guy with blue eyes in"

"Jesus, Mary and rosemary!!!! Don't you DARE take that devil's name here lady!"

Arizona was taken aback by this sudden descend of holiness. She was at a loss of words but that did not last for long because Queen clasped her cheeks tight and whispered, even though it was just the two of them there,

" Listen you sugar pie. You see that two-horned devil, you turn the other way around and run. Do you hear me? Run! No compromise. Aaa!"

" Bud by?" Arizona somehow spilled as her cheeks started burning.

" Cuz he's the spawn of Satan that's why. Did you see him? Huh? Did he drink your soul? Tell me!"

" No, " Arizona said giving a nervous chuckle as she politely freed her cheeks from her grasp, " it's just I... heard of him you know. around and all."

Queen was barely listening. She shut the blinds of her shop chanting something under her breath as she spilled water from a humongous bottle which Arizona was surprised how it materialized so fast out of nowhere.

She came and spilled some on Arizona as well and pulled her close, " Listen. Two things I asked you to stay away from while being here. What are they? "

"People"

Miss Queen gave her red eyes.

" I mean Boys and Girls."

" Yes. Make that three. Add that white-haired devil to the list. He's a no-go. Are we clear?"

Arizona was confused. She knew Miss Queen was a bit superstitious. But it felt weird when she would call someone in three different synonyms of the devil in less than three minutes in this era when she had a smartphone in her pocket. But Arizona could tell she was dead serious.

"You don't believe me, girl?"

"No, it's.."

"Listen. That devil came here five months and ago ok? And right after he placed his cursed feet on this place, more than 7 people dropped dead just like that. No fights. No nothing. Just plain out a heart attack. The dogs don't even roam the street alone anymore."

" Ok but-"

" Oh, sweet baby Jesus! Didn't you hear? All of them were frozen and their hearts stopped beating."

" But why would you say it's him?" Arizona softened her tone as she saw her turn all shades of purple, " I mean, if so, why didn't the police arrest him?"

"Oh, they did! He even confessed that he froze them because they were trying to kill him but you know, lack of evidence and all, they had to let him go."

" By froze, you mean petrified them to death?"

" Na gurllll. Iced. Literally. I mean who freezes like that just in this much temperature. Wilmore has seen lower than this.

Then you should see me doing my homework. I freeze every 5 minutes in every 5 lines.

But Arizona revered Miss Queen too much to tell reply like an arse. She rather let her go on as she poured her heart out.

Queen lowered her voice even further, "If you ask me he froze them. Don't tell anyone this but he comes here every night just at the devil's hour to buy exactly 13 cartoons of ice cream and one day my fingers brushed his while exchanging cash and ooooh were they cold! 50 bucks say he uses those ice creams to keep freshly killed bodies from rotting in his basement which he devours later. Maybe marinate them for different flavors. Do you see? Otherwise what wretched man eats that much ice cream in one day. But I ain't saying that to the police na. Aa a. He knows where I live and his eyes, they seem like he can see your soul. He's gonna come after me oh. But I ain't taking no chances. I always carry this baby with me and sprinkle the shop whenever I see him coming. But girl don't you ever utter a word about that spawn of Satan again. You hear me?"

Arizona gave the most convincing nod that she had. Somehow it started to make sense to her why those born-high asses did not approach her this morning. His mere name was making Miss Queen shudder and she was the most feared person in the whole neighborhood.

Well, second to our very own prince charming here.

Nodding to herself, Arizona walked to the changing room to change into her school uniform. She somehow felt bad for this guy. Last night the only one who did not cross his line was he. Even if there was anything close to misappropriation that he did, that was touching her lips without her consent.

He even kissed his thumbs to fake kiss me

and she knew he would not even have done that if it was not necessary to convince them enough to not try stuff with her even when he was not around. She would have had nothing to prevent him if he has decided to abuse this opportunity in saving her from her other to be abusers. And all that this town had to do was color him a villain.

Arizona sighed. She did not blame Miss Queen. She was living amidst a mass that most probably believed that tooth fairy was real. She knew most of this nonsense was cooked up because the small-minded people of this small town had nothing more colorful to gossip about in between the shades of their grey life and people who seemed different are always the juicy ones to be picked. If anything she was grateful for what he did and her curiosity was rising alarmingly in her mind to see this so-called real-life Jack Frost again.

And the sweetheart that Arizona believed karma to be, presented her with her knight in shining armor right at the counter. In flesh. Buying 13 cartoons of ice cream in broad daylight. Arizona smirked.

So much for the devil's hour