"And remember to take it out of the oven when the timer goes off," I reminded my dad before setting the timer and walking to the door of the kitchen.

I had helped my dad prepare tonight's dinner and just put the chicken into the oven to let it cook.

I had to do most of the work since my dad wasn't exactly the world's best chef.

Before I could walk out of the kitchen, my dad called me back.

"K.C," he started.

"Yeah?" I replied, raising an eyebrow.

He gave me a look and I rolled my eyes.

"I mean, yes?"

"Would you please change into something else?" he told me, eyeing my jeans and top warily. "Maybe a nice dress or a pretty skirt with a blouse. These people are very fancy and I want to make a good impression."

I gave him a sweet and sarcastic smile. "But of course, father. We wouldn't want anybody to think that girl's are allowed to wear pants in this house."

I stalked up the stairs and rolled my eyes.

I did not want to wear a skirt. Much less a dress. But I knew that there was no way I was getting around this. In the end, I was going to wear what my dad wanted.

Sighing, I opened the door to my closet and looked at me options of clothes.

I realised that I didn't even own a skirt, so a dress it was.

In total, I had four dresses. All of them were bought by either my dad or my dad's grandparents as gifts. I would never buy myself something that doesn't have a zipper and back pockets under some belt loops.

I took out one of the dresses that was hanging in my closet.

This one was actually from one of my friends back in my old city. It was black and lay tight against your body, stopping at the middle of your thigh and swooping in a low neckline. She had bought it for me to go clubbing. I never actually wore it though.

I definitely wasn't going to be able to wear this tonight. My dad didn't even know that I owned this dress and I definitely didn't plan on him finding out either.

The next dress was a princess pink, which honestly made my eyes kind of hurt. It was knee-length and ruffled out at the bottom. It even had puffy shoulder sleeves. This dress was basically a fashion disaster. I would not even be caught dead in it.

I also put that one back in the closet and studied the next on.

It was an ugly mix of a green and brown colour. I have no idea why my dad though it would be a good idea to buy it.

Hopefully this last one was somewhat okay because right now my options weren't the best.

I put the green and brown dress back into my closet, deep deep in the back and got the last one.

It was a black dress with a white collar. It stopped just above my knees and the sleeve went to my elbows.

I didn't even remember that I had this dress.

Since this was as good as it was gonna get, I changed into it and then wrestled my hair into a bun on top of my head, leaving out a few strands of hair in the front.

No way was I going to redo my make up for these people. I already got dressed and did my hair, that's all they were going to get.

Sometime in the late afternoon, as I was about to put on some socks, the doorbell rang.

"K.C. can you get that?" my dad shouted from the kitchen.

With the banging of pots and clattering of utensils you could tell he was kind of tied up at the moment.

Forgetting the socks, I walked down the stairs barefoot and opened the front door.

In front of me was a woman about my dad's age. She wore a pastel pink dress and had on a lavender hat with some type of flowers tucked into the ribbon that went around it. Standing next to her was a guy who I hazily recognised.

It was Max. The guy who Hayden had fought at the lot last night. Even though I knew him, I didn't think he knew me.

"Um, hi." I awkwardly greeted them after standing there for a few seconds, just staring at them. "I'm K.C." I extended my hand out to the woman who shook it and then at Max who grabbed it and held it a little too long for my liking.

"I'm Clarissa," the woman said. "And this is Maximilian," she finished, pointing to the boy next to her.

"Max," he corrected and sent a charming smile my way.

"Uh, come on in," I told them and stepped to the side so that they could walk through the door.

As Clarissa walked inside, her gaze wandered down to my bare feet. After a short disapproving look, she went back to her normal sunny self.

I pretended not to notice and helped them with taking off their jackets.

"This way. My father is in the kitchen," I said to them and led them to the kitchen where my dad was currently placing plates on the table.

"Clarissa!" he exclaimed. "I'm so glad you could make it."

He walked over to her and the two of them hugged.

Max and I stood their awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

"Sit, sit," my dad said after releasing Clarissa and pulled out a chair for her.

"Oh, such a gentleman," Clarissa fawned and blushed slightly.

Next to me, Max started looking uncomfortable.

I wonder what was up with him.

"Children, come sit down," Clarissa ordered.

Max went to sit across from his mother, who was sitting next to my dad. I decided to sit at the end of the table next to my dad since it could fit six people.

"Kimberly, why don't you sit next to Maximilian so that we can all talk together," my dad suggested, even though I didn't even have a choice.

Kimberly? Since when does he call me Kimberly?

Even though I did not feel like striking up a conversation with anybody, a got up and sat in the spot across from my dad, next to Max.

"So, tell me Kimberly," Clarissa said. "What do you like to do for fun? Maximilian here likes to play tennis and golf. He's won a bunch of trophies and competitions in the past few years. He's amazing," she told me.

"That's enough, mother," he cut in.

I just nodded and smiled politely, even though inside I was banging my head against the table. "I'm sure he is."

"So what do you like to do?" she repeated.

Well, I have a very big passion of getting myself in trouble and not listening to what people tell me to do.

But of course I didn't say that. Instead I just said: "I really like to read books in my free time."

This used to be true. I used to read all the time when I was younger. But a few years ago my favourite way to pass time was to go outside and stir upside trouble or explore some new places. Whichever came first.

"Oh how lovely," Clarissa cooed.

That was the last bit of attention that she gave me for the rest of the evening. The whole time I just sat there quietly and watched as my dad, Clarissa and Max spoke about anything and everything.

I was bored out of my mind and just itching to get up and leave.

Very slowly, an orange glow cast over the town because the sun had started going down. And I still needed to go to Hayden.

I'm sure it wouldn't be long until people realise that it was none of them who had been seen with Hayden and the only girl left was me.

After we had finished dinner and cleaned the dishes, Clarissa and my dad went into the living room to look at some books that my dad had collected.

Max and I were told to go up to my room and do something.

Sighing, I had walked up the steps with Max right behind me.

The chances of me being able to go see Hayden were getting slimmer and slimmer.

So now, Max was sitting on the foot of my bed and I leaned against the wall next to me window, watching the sun get lower and lower to the horizon with a worried look.

"So," Max began, wanting to start a conversation and just stop this awkward silence. "How have you been adjusting here?"

"Pretty good," I replied, not really paying attention to him.

Instead, I tried to remember how long it had taken me to get to the house where Hayden was standing yesterday.

If it was even his house.

"How do you like our school?" Max asked me another question.

"It's good," I replied once again.

I chewed nervously on my thumbnail, debating whether I should go see Hayden today or not.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Max sigh and run his hand over his face.

I felt a little bad. I was completely ignoring him while he was trying to be nice and start a conversation.

So I stepped away from my window and sat down on my chair by my desk.

Since I didn't know what to talk about, I tried to use this opportunity to get some information about the whole separation thing going on in this town.

I'd have to be smooth about it though. Or else he'd get suspicious as to why I wanted to know so much about it.

Let's see. How do I say this...

"So," I began. "What's up with this whole separation thing that's going on?"

Wow, K.C. Nice job. Real smooth and discrete.

Max gave me a confused look. "What?"

Don't tell me this boy was actually this stupid.

"You know," I tried to explain. "With the whole Elites and Bandits thing."

"Ohhh, that. I don't know. We just don't really like them and they don't like us."

Great. Thanks, Sherlock. It's not like I didn't know that already.

"I heard there way a fight yesterday or something," I hinted, wanting to know what he thought about Hayden.

He chuckled and looked down to the floor before looking back up at me. "Yeah, I was in it."

"You were?!" I asked, pretending to be shocked.

When wanting to find out information, always pretend to be the little oblivious and innocent girl.

"Yeah," he replied.

"With who did you fight?" I asked him, pretending to be really interested in this, even though I already knew the answer.

"This kid named Hayden Warren. He's a Bandit and I can't stand him," he told me.

"Why not?" I asked Max, now actually being interested.

"He's just a douche," Max explained, not telling me anything else.

"Well there must be more to it," I said to him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you can't possibly hate someone so much, enough to fight with them just to get beat up because they're a douche."

"Okay, first of all, I didn't get beat up," Max said, holding up one finger. "And second, yes you can. He's an overall asshole," he finished, holding up a second finger

I rolled my eyes at Max's attempt to seem like a big and strong guy. "You did not beat up Hayden. He knocked you to the ground. Twice."

Max raised a suspicious eyebrow at me. "How would you know that if you weren't even there?" he asked me.

Oops.

"So I've heard," I told him.

He nodded but didn't seem to quite believe me.

I stood up abruptly, wanting to get away before I let anything else accidentally slip. As I stood, I saw the last rays of sunshine disappear and the town getting dark.

If I was gonna see Hayden tonight, I'd have to leave soon.

"You know what?" I asked Max and walked over to where he was still sitting on my bed.

"What?" he replied and followed me with his eyes.

"I...uh...really need to go...pee!" I said. "So if you could just step out of my room really quickly that would be great," I told him and grabbed his arm, pulling him up and pushing him out of my room and slamming the door shut in his face.

I cringed at myself for being so rude but it had to be done.

Clarissa and Max were obviously not going to leave for another while. So I had to go see Hayden while they were here.

Since I was still barefoot, I looked around for my converse until I realised that I had left them downstairs.

Damn it! Now what shoes was I going to wear?

I dug through my closet until I found a small box marked with the letters 'K.C. Shoes'.

I took the box out and opened it before dumping the contents out on my floor.

I had two choices to choose from. One was a pair off fuzzy bunny slippers which I definitely wasn't going to wear. The other pair were some big brown hiking boots that I've only used once before in my life and were definitely too small for me now.

I slumped down on the floor and groaned in annoyance.

Why did I only have three pairs of shoes?

As I stuffed the shoes back into he box and put it into the closet, my eyes wandered under my bed where I saw my converse.

Thank the lord!

Quickly, I ran to my bed and put them on.

Who knew how long I've been keeping Max waiting. It wouldn't be long before he would walk into my room because I was taking so long.

I strode across my room to my window and slid it open. The cool yet warm air hit my skin.

I looked down to see how far the ground was from my window. I definitely wouldn't be able to jump without breaking several bones.

I searched the wall under my window for anything that I could grab onto.

The only thing that I could grab were my windowsill and the windowsill of the window that was right under mine.

Since being risky was my speciality, I climbed out of my window and slowly lowered myself, while grabbing tightly onto my windowsill.

As I was about to drop onto the other windowsill, I heard my bedroom door open and Max's voice calling my name.

Beginning to panic, I quickly let go of my windowsill and prayed to god that I would land on the other windowsill.

Luckily, my feet landed right where they were suppose to, but then my foot slipped and I began to lose my balance.

As luck would have it, my foot slipped completely and I fell to the ground. Thankfully though, I wasn't too far from the ground and would probably only walk away with a bruise on my hip bone.

When I stood back up and brushed any dirt off of me, I heard Max's voice loud and clear.

I looked up to my window and saw him leaning out of it with his upper body, looking out into the distance. I pressed myself to the wall to keep out of his sight,

After not being able to find me, Max ducked back inside and I made my way around the house so that I could walk the way I had yesterday.

Carefully, I ran down the street until the pretty flowers started to disappear and the streets got darker and darker.

Even though it was nighttime and the sky was completely dark, I wasn't as jumpy as I thought it would be. I guess I was already getting used to going out when it was dark. And telling from previous experiences, I'm sure it would be a couple more times that I would have to do this.

I made my way down the streets that I had last night, until I got to the house where I had seen Hayden.

The paint was still peeling off and the grass was a weird mix of yellow and green.

This time, there was nobody standing outside but the lights were on inside.

I made my way up the slightly creaking steps and was about to knock on the door when I heard voices shouting from inside.

Quickly, I stepped aside and stood against the wall of the house just as the door opened and the guy from last night stepped outside.

I held my breath, hoping he won't looking in my direction.

"You're fucking hiding something and I now it!" he yelled, pointing at whoever was standing in the doorway.

"Just piss off," a voice that sounded like Hayden's replied calmly.

The guy sneered at him before pounding down the creaky steps and walking down the streets.

I sighed a huge sigh of relief that he hadn't seen me.

Which got Hayden's attention who then stepped onto the front porch to see who made that sound.

Once he saw me he shot me a disapproving look.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me.

"Nice to see you too."

_____________________

Hey, guys!!!

I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Thank you for all the love I've been getting on this book!! I appreciate every single piece of it!

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Love you loads!!

Emili