CHAPTER ONE.
━━━━━━━━━
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.
━━━━━━━━

SHE LEAVES THE WINDOWS OPEN when she dresses that morning. It will be cold, Jean knows, though it is still only October, but she doesn't mind it. It makes her feel alive. And sometimes she needs to feel something — anything.

The wind rustles through her dark hair and goosebumps appear on her pale skin within seconds.

     She hears a knock and then Jamie stands in the door. He smiles lightly and she tries to smile back but it comes out as a grimace instead. "I know that you don't want to go, honey," he says and after making sure that David is not around to hear he adds, "If it were up to me I would tuck you in my bag and take you everywhere I go."

She laughs at that — a true, genuine smile — because she knows that to be true. Jamie likes her within his sight, peppering her with lots of hugs and sweetened black tea. There is not much that she would love more than that but unfortunately, vacations had ended the day before.

     "You should close the window, otherwise you are going to catch a cold," he suggest with a wink and then he's gone. She had gotten used to the fact that she doesn't look like either one of them pretty quickly even though the rest of Hawkins hadn't. The town is a place where everything is perfectly normal and a child that doesn't resemble her parents at all doesn't fit in.

Even less when her parents are two dads.

After all, she is adopted. David Weston and Jamie Clarke had adopted her when she was eleven years old and had moved back to Indiana a year ago, something Jean didn't approve of. But how could she ever complain? They had given her a good life. They had given her a safe life. They had given her everything and more and so she had shut her mouth when the decision had been made.

But still, this is the place where it had all started, where she had been given a name that hadn't been hers. She shakes those thoughts off and banishes them from her head. They will only darken her mood.

     When she jumps down the stairs with her blue backpack already on her back she is met with a frown. "How many times have I asked you not to do that? One day, you will harm yourself," the man scoffs but his eyes glimmer with good humour so she doesn't really take him seriously. David Weston differs greatly from his partner when it comes to everything — except Jean herself. None of them can ever truly be angry with her and so she lightly kisses his cheek.

     "And how many times have I asked you to let me drive with one of the cars?" she grimaces. While they lived in a fancy neighbourhood with a fancy house and two — not one, but two — fancy cars, she had to drive to school every single morning with her rusty, old bike. "What do I have my driver's license for?"

     "Yet again something you could harm yourself with," dad number two replies swiftly. "I made you lunch. But you know what that means."

      A slow smile starts to grow on her face. He hands over the huge box and she already knows what's in it. An apple, two sandwiches and a big, fat caramel candy bar. The candy bar is something Jamie would never approve of, so both Jean and David try to hide it for as long as they can because should dad number one ever find out there would be hell to pay.

     Jamie had started a strict diet a month ago under which his family had to suffer. While he himself can of course do whatever he wishes with his body, the other two hadn't even considered to quit eating family-sized pizzas and cherry ice cream with chocolate sauce and every single unhealthy dish the world — more specifically, their nearest supermarket — has to offer.

     "I will carry our secret to the grave." When she takes a look at her golden watch, she grimaces. "Time to go. See you later!" With these words Jean is out of the door and on her bike within a minute, slipping her arms through her denim jacket on the way.

     The cold wind is blowing through her hair and it makes the trees rustle like living things. David always tells her that she is touched by fire, for the way she loves the cold. But she knows better; she knows the truth.

She is kissed by hell.

HAWKINS, INDIANA IS A QUIET PLACE. Drama doesn't exist and neither does fun. If New York is the city that never sleeps, Hawkins is locked in eternal slumber. The same goes for Hawkins High if you don't count in petty fights and jealousy and Jean doesn't count that in. And so, in her mind, drama and fun do not exist.

     High School in a town like this is either the the best or worst of scenarios for teenagers. It is small — so ridiculously small, that when she had first moved here, she had winced at the lack of everything. Jean had lived in London and once been a girl who walked to the mall after school, who went out to eat at Korean restaurants, and studied on a grassy lawn amidst a jungle of concrete buildings, watching the world go by. Hawkins' closest thing to a mall is the local sears, there isn't any type of restaurant in the town that doesn't serve mashed-potatoes, and the tallest building is four stories, maybe. The kids that live in Hawkins don't know any better — they grow up with a collective of twenty-something other kids who all look and act vaguely like them, and they know absolutely nothing else of the world.

     Her hair, some of which is now pulled into a ponytail, fans in front of her face, occasionally causing her to huff large breaths out in hopes of forcing the strands out of her eyes. She of course doesn't know who she has to thank for her thick hair. When she had been younger she had sometimes imagined the facial features of her parents in the middle of the night, when everyone else had already been asleep. Jean had believed that her dark eyebrows and bright green eyes are her father's and her delicately shaped nose and pale skin are her mother's. In the end it had been a harsh truth to accept that she would probably never know whether that is true.

The first faces she passes on her way to the lockers are the ones that think heavy smoking and lots of drinking beer makes them better than everyone else. And while it's not in her nature to truly hate anybody, they'd probably be the first she'd throw to the sharks should her life depend on it. Yet, she still shows them a friendly smile and wishes them a good morning because while others might think it pointless, her parents had raised her that way. It's when they return the greeting that she spots someone that she had never seen before. And with a face like that, she's sure she would've remembered him. Hard lines set in his face from one too many scowls and piercing blue eyes.

He is attractive in the most obvious kind of way and as the corner of his mouth turns up in a smirk as he lifts a cigarette to his lips, it's crystal clear that he knows it, too.

"Who's the new kid?" she asks no one in particular and sees him frown immediately, as if offended that she doesn't already know him at least by reputation.

"Billy," he answers himself. His voice has an edge to it she doesn't quite like.

     "Well Billy, I'm Jean. Welcome to what might be the most boring town on this continent," she smiles mockingly. "It sucks. You'll love it." With a small wave she walks right on and when she finally spots her friends, the face of the handsome new boy is almost forgotten.

"Jean! My personal hero has finally arrived," Steve dramatically shouts and while she rolls her eyes, her lips turn into a bright smile. "You must save me from the wrath of Clarissa!"

     She arrives in a storm of brown hair and curious eyes, hands on her hips.

Clarissa Tudor is a tiny version of a girl with a short blonde bob and a sloppy smile and Jean loves her with all her heart, just the way she does the girl that stands closely behind her. Meryn Sinclair is the exact opposite of Clarissa, with chocolate skin and dark eyes, that roam over Jean with a wide smirk. "A wrath he deserves!" she exclaims loudly. "Harrington tried stealing her history homework."

Steve Harrington stands tall and proud with hair that just doesn't quit. He is something of class royalty among the seniors, and every single girl has been crushing on him since about the fourth grade.

With a pout she pokes the boy in front of her in the side. "It's the first day of school and already you are being a piece of crap. I really don't know what to do with you anymore," she says, sighing sadly. "In return for the homework you could pick Clarissa up every morning for a week and bring her to school. 'Cause unlike us, you have a fucking car."

Shrugging, Jean makes her way over to open her locker, which has polaroids of her friends pinned to the door and is filled to the brim with heavy school books. She can hear Meryn's quiet snicker and Steve's annoyed huff and smiles to herself. She doesn't like Hawkins very much — in fact, she despises it — but these are the people that she adores and they make her life a little less miserable and erase some of the pain that is stored up in her heart.

     And just like that, it's worth it.