"Sit down." A loud voice enters the room, in my shocked state I instantly sit down along with everyone else in the room beside Lucian and the strange snake-like boy. Instead, they both stand there glaring at each other as I watch the pair their eyes slowly lose their heat and as one they take a small step away from each other.

I look away from the boys and my eyes find the fuming Annie staring at the boys in disappointment. I don't know how it happened but seeing Annie in the doorway she seems to have grown in her anger, the students closest to her seem to me cringing away. If someone had told me just an hour ago that anyone would be afraid of my small sweet grandmother I would have laughed at them but now a cold sweat trickles down the small of my back just from the way she glares into the room. She doesn't take her eyes off of the boys watching them as they turn to her, heads bowed at her.

They remind me of children waiting to be scolded for doing something they know they're not allowed to do.

Annie's eyes are so focused on the boys that I think she doesn't even notice me sitting there but someone else does just over her shoulder. Nathaniel is standing there and while Annie and the rest of the teachers are watching the boys his eyes are solely on me.

His eyes are shifting uneasily but when he catches me watching he rips his head away and takes a step closer to Annie, bending low to whisper in her ear, and while I shouldn't have been able to hear his hushed words I do.

"Morgan is sitting to your left."

Her head instantly swirls on me and with a tense look that I've never seen on her face, she sends me a fake smile calling me over.

"Morgan darling," her voice is calm and soft but there's an undercurrent to it that I pick up instantly, pain, "why don't you meet me in my office? I'll be with you shortly."

I don't want to follow her instructions like normally I want to fight against them, to demand answers but Annie's eyes have me sitting there confused staring up at her. I know all eyes are on me but I can't seem to move as I watch her.

She's keeping something from me. They all are.

"Nathaniel will lead the way, Love." She nods at me, waiting for me to get up and leave.

As she dismisses me I can't help but feel like all the other students' hushed gossip had been true, I don't belong here and right now they're all getting firsthand just how different I am from them. Annie is the one drawing the line between me and them.

I stand up on shaky legs as a tense silence follows me out of the room, all the students sitting there watching me. When I pass Lucian he doesn't even make eye contact with me and a pain lurch happens in my chest. I swallow painfully as I continue on my way.

I come face to face with Annie and I see her looking over every inch of my face, seeing the sadness burning under the surface, and just like that my normal fire burns into my stomach.

"I want answers." My words are curt, filled with hurt and I expect Annie to get annoyed as my mother used to, to send me away with an eye roll, telling me not to be so dramatic all the time. Instead, she surprises me once again.

"You will." I don't know what happens to me at her words, I suddenly feel so lost that I start to feel numb to my surroundings. Annie's eyes dismiss me and suddenly the cold pain of Nathaniel's hand grabs me and pulls me out of the cafeteria, no anger in the movement, just someone doing what they're told. What Annie told him.

He closes the door quickly behind him and it's like a spark lights in the room, suddenly a deep powerful hum starts behind the door. Nathaniel doesn't let me stay and overhear anything, instead, he keeps his hand on me pulling me a little gentler down the hallway. I let him pull me along because it feels like a life jacket in the middle of an ocean. Everything around me seems to be crashing down worse than when my mother kicked me out because now like everyone else I see that I don't belong but this is my last place, without Annie, without this school I'm all alone.

He takes us down two hallways and up a set of stairs before I finally pull my arm out of hand, stopping us in the middle of an empty hallway. He looks over at me and for a second his eyes are filled with the same pain I saw briefly in Annie's eyes but then that burns away to a look of disdain, annoyance.

"What?" His voice is so filled with dislike that for a second a fire burns hotly in my stomach before burning away again.

He doesn't look at me anymore, his eyes shifting away to the corner we had just come around, and I have no idea if it's because he can't even look at me or because he's waiting for someone to come around the corner to us.

"I want to know what's happening." My voice starts off hollow and unsure but slowly builds and suddenly that fire in my belly is burning brightly. I'm so sick of secrets and being in the dark, my mother had secrets all my life, my grandmother and now this school is all keeping something from me. Forcing me to become an outsider just like every other school."What are you all keeping from me and why am I the only one being kept in the dark?"

He looks at me, rolling his eyes.

"Overdramatic teenager." He mutters under his breath and instantly I'm not in the hallway but in my mother's house, she's standing in front of me glaring at me with so much hate and dislike, their voices merge into one as Nathaniel continues talking. "I know this might be shocking to you but not everything in this world is about you."

I feel sick as I snap back into the school, back into my own body and I have to look away from Nathaniel's disgust in his eyes. He doesn't notice the change in me and instead continues on his rant.

"Annie isn't keeping secrets to hurt you, she's trying to protect you. She said she will give you answers, she said to meet her in her office but you think you deserve answers now?" He shakes his head and takes a step away from me, pointing towards the way we had just come from. "Fine, go back to Annie. Demand answers and sees where that gets you."

He looks at me now, seeing the loss of fight in my eyes.

"Or we can continue on our way to Annie's office, wait for her to de-escalate the threat, and come give you some answers."

I feel out of it like my soul has left my body, and as Nathaniel continues to glare at me the feeling of losing myself comes back in full force. He shakes his head, turns on his heels, and continues his march down the hallway.

I feel shaky and unsure as I follow behind him, worried he will turn around and send me back down memory lane with my mother.

Nathaniel walks through the hallways until he finds the door he was looking for, inside a spiral staircase, he doesn't slow his fast walk as we walk up and up until we reach the highest point of the school and a simple wooden door stands in our way.

He opens the door, stepping away to allow me to walk ahead. As I walk past him I cringe away and I don't miss the way his eyes twitch, noticing it just as much as I had in the small distance between us.

I rush into the room and look away from his glaring eyes. I'm shocked by what I come into, it's not like any office I've ever seen before, and just like Nathaniel had said this is my seventh school in about two years, I've been in a lot of principal's offices. On every wall, a tower of thick tomes covers the walls, each one looking older than the last. The room only has one window, opposite the door that offers a wonderful view of the treetops in the distance behind the school, the peaks that have named the town standing tall behind them.

In the middle of the room, a desk completely covered in books, paper, and ink as if the walk up here had transported us back in time. Two soft red velvet armchairs sit in front of the desk and a tall red chair sits behind it. Nathaniel comes into the room, letting the door softly close behind him, and immediately took one of the velvet seats as I continue looking around the room.

He doesn't look over at me but when I walk past him, to sit on the other armchair I see the way his eyes follow behind me. I feel worried at how I had flinched away from him, he must think it was because of him and his reaction but it wasn't. I was just afraid of more memories surfacing, knowing that my past with my mother isn't the best place to be sent back to right now.

With a sigh I sink into the soft cushions, letting my eyes close the stress of the day coming down hard on my body. I want to curl up in a little ball but instead, I work slowly at relaxing every inch of my body one limb at a time. With my eyes closed and body as relaxed as possible, my other senses seem to open up the world around me, I can hear the wind whispering past the window, can smell the scent of old books and ink, and the small scent that seems enriched around the room. The smell of Annie, the nature, and the wet soil smell that follows her around everywhere. More than that though I feel the eyes of Nathaniel watching me.

"I'm sorry" I don't open my eyes as I cut through the silent room. I don't want to see the disgust in his eyes again. I hear him suck in a dry breath of air and sigh. "I know sometimes I make the world about myself, I'm overdramatic and up myself. Just ask my mother."

The last part has no air to it and I don't think anyone could have heard it but Nathaniel doesn't react, instead, I hear him moving around in his chair, sitting up.

"I'm sorry." His words shook me enough that I open my eyes, I find him sitting as close to me as possible. His eyes are wide and I can see the hint of honey in the darkness, his mouth is set in a frown as he continues talking, watching my reaction. I don't flinch away from him this time. "The cafeteria had me tense and I might have let my anger out on you. I know this is all confusing for you, you feel like you're alone right now but I promise you everything will be answered with time."

"Time?" My voice is cold but he doesn't move away from it. I sit up straighter, never letting my eyes leave his. "You want me gone, remember? How are things meant to be answered in time when everyone here likes to remind me that I don't belong here?"

He doesn't answer and I shake my head finally ripping my eyes away from him and back to the dark tomes on the other side of the room. Trying to read some of the spines from this distance as a distraction but their all too well-used words are practically gone.

"I think me and the rest of the school might have judged you too early, we didn't see what Annie sees in you. We aren't sure if we can trust you." I don't look over at him, unsure if I can trust myself either.

"But?" My voice cracks but we both ignore it.

"But Annie trusts you. Annie believes in you so we will all follow her."

I sigh, his words kind and nice make me feel even more alone. To trust someone as completely as he trusts Annie.

He doesn't wait for my answer and I don't think there is an answer to his words. He continues speaking, watching my every reaction as he does.

"I'm sure when Annie comes up here she's going to tell you as much truth as she can and I have something to ask of you."

My eyes turn to his, seeing the desperation in his eyes for me to agree.

"What?" I whisper, something inside of me wanting to promise this man everything I possibly can.

"I want you to accept Annies words, don't try to fight her, just accept it. Annie has a lot of pressure on her shoulders right now, people don't want this school to work out, they're trying to rip apart the world that Annie and this school are trying to create."

My mind turns back to Lucian about the two groups of the school and the fact that they hate each other. It's not surprising that people might want to stop this after so many generations of hatred.

"Just let this go easily for Annie, give her something she can check off of her list of things to do. Please."

His eyes turn sad and I want to promise this to him, surely it will be an easy thing for me to do. For once in my life putting myself in Annie's shoes and trying to help in the only way I can. My eyes brush away from him as I think though and without his dark eyes trained into my own, my own doubts start sprouting once again.

I don't have time to answer but I'm not sure I ever would have. There's just no way to promise that because I'm unstable, just like my mother loved to tell me, never knowing which side of me you might get. Footsteps in the stairs outside the door have Nathaniel sitting straight and I follow his example.

"I'm sorry." I whisper to him once again but he looks towards the door and not at me.