The jingling of keys opening the front door jolt me awake. I look at my alarm clock and see that it's 3:30 a.m, and my mother just got home. Drinking again I suppose. I roll my eyes at her irresponsible behavior but then laugh to myself. Because really, when has she ever been responsible?

"RAIN!!!!!!!" She screeches, stumbling through the hallway, bumping into the wall a couple times. I stifle a irritated groan at her high pitched voice. Seriously, it's the middle of the night! I don't have time for her shit.

I hear her giggle and then a creepy, masculine chuckle follow. My lips curl up in disgust as I realize that she has yet again brought home a filthy, perverted man to do heaven knows what with. Just thinking about it made me want to puke.

"Rain!" She calls again. " Come meet your new daddy!" Followed by more high pitched giggling.

Ugh. I have to live with this piece of trash, and she's my mother. Has she no morals? Bringing a stranger over to our home in the middle to be her fuck buddy is one thing. Asking me to speak to one of those perverts is pushing it. What the hell does she think this is? She pisses me the fuck off.

When I hear her feet shuffling towards my door, I feel an immense amount of relief that I put a deadbolt on my door the other day. Too many times my drunk ass mother has wobbled into my room and interrupted my sleep. Not happening again. I wrap my pillow around my head, trying to ignore the banging of the door and wishing it was morning already.

Wishing I had a better mother who didn't get drunk every night, drowning away reality.

Wishing I didn't live in a shitty rotten house.

Wishing my father hadn't left me alone with the train wreck outside my door.

Wishing I wasn't a member of the most notorious, ruthless gang.

We humans wish a lot don't we?

The thing with wishes though is that they're all just that. Wishes. Hopes of what could be, dreams of what could have been. A goal that we'll never achieve.

.

.

.

Adam meets me at the front of the abandoned building, concealing what I know our drugs beneath his black leather jacket. I give him a nod as I reach him, and he returns it. I hold out my hand, and tap my foot impatiently.

"Geez, you could at least wait a fucking second, you addict," he teases, giving me a sly smile. I grin back, nudging him with my shoulder.

"Oh shut it, Mr. Crackhead, we all know who the real addict here is, now hand me my damn cigarette."

"I do not do crack!" He says mock offended, holding a hand over his heart. Sniffing with his nose in the air, he says hautily, "I only accept the highest quality." I laugh. "Not this crack you speak of."

"You're fucking ridiculous! Now give me my cigarette before I shoot you," I say coldly. He seems bewildered by my sudden change of tone, until I can't hold my stern gaze any more and bust out laughing. He pouts.

"I really thought you were going to fucking shoot me! Damn, woman, here's your poison," he tosses me a pack of cigarettes and I snatch them out of the air. Quickly pulling out my lighter, I light one up and sigh in relief when I get it in my mouth. One smoke a day, keeps reality away. I scoff internally, my mantra sucked.

"Calm down, you act as if that's your lifeline," Adam condescends me. I give him a stern glare.

"Go fuck yourself, don't you have better things to do than bother me?"

"But baby, I love you!" Adam laughs.

"If y'all are done flirting, we can get this show on the road," Snake snaps, appearing out of nowhere. He was always an asshat, but he was the boss, so we dealt with it.

"Snake, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous!" Adam just doesn't know when to shut up, I groan internally. Quick as lightning, Snake has a five inch steel blade pointed at Adam's neck.

"Speak to me like that again, and this knife will be the last thing you see. Got it?" He threatens menacingly, pushing the tip of the blade deeper into his throat, drawing blood. Adam does his best to say yes, kind of hard to do with a knife against your throat.

"That's what I thought," Snake pushes Adam away and spins towards me. "If I catch y'all ever goofing off on the job again, you're fucking dead. This is one of the most important trades and you can't even stay focused? Fucking kids," he sneers. I gulp, my hard exterior never dropping, I nod once.

"Won't happen again," I promise him. Snake is not someone to piss off.

"Forget it, both of you get the fuck out of my sight, you're not doing the trade. I'll call Samuel for better backup," he says, a motions for Adam to hand him the product. I almost protest, but think better of it, I do not want to be shot. Adam hands it over, an I nod tersely at Snake. I grab Adam and hastily walk away.

When were about 5 blocks away, I snuff my cigarette beneath my combat boot clad foot, then spin around to face him.

"Why the hell would you joke around with him? You know he's a deranged pyschopath! He'll kill you, you fucking idiot!" I yell at him. He looks at me somberly, opens his mouth to say something, but I'm not finished. "You cost us the trade! Our ranking probably just dropped a spot, do you want to go back to selling drugs on the street corner, doing petty little jobs? If you do, that's fine. But I sure as hell don't!" I'm huffing by the time I finish. He gives me a lazy glance.

"Are you done?"

"No-"

"Look, I get it, I screwed up. It won't happen again." He swears. I point a finger in his face.

"It better fucking not." He rolls his blue electric eyes, and swats away my finger.

"Don't you have school to go to?"

"It's called highschool, smart one, you should give it a try." I say sarcastically. Speaking of school, he's right, it starts in about... 10 minutes!

"Shit, I'm going to be late!" I yelp. I cannot afford to make any violations to my parole, after I got caught in a raid, the cops put me on parole. Assholes.

I grab Adams hand and drag him behind me, jogging to our high school about 3 more blocks away. Adam immediately starts to whine.

"Do I have to go? You're the one on parole not me."

"Stop you're whining, what happened to being a badass?" He stops whining. I grin. Rain-1. Adam-0.

"What's so bad about it anyway? Sure, the teachers are annoying, and the kids are obnoxious, but don't you want to learn? I mean it's our last year too," I ask. He snorts.

"Learning is for nerds."

"Being stupid is for losers," I quip back. He playfully shoves me.

"Stop being such a smart ass all the time."

"Can't help it, it's in my description, besides nerds are alright. There's tha-" he gives me a dubious look, cutting off my sentence.

"Nerds aren't 'alright', they're annoying."

"They're not that bad," I protest. We finally reach the school with five minutes to spare. Teenagers are still loitering around on school grounds. You can see each group segregated from each other. The jocks and cheerleaders, the preps, the druggies, the emos, the geeks, the nerds, the list goes on.

Adam wraps his arm around my shoulder, bringing me closer to him. Everyone turns to stare at us as we stroll through the gates to school. We probably looked like a dangerous pair, decked out in all black. Our reputation proceeds us, and the groups part to let us through. Every one too scared to even look at us as we pass. I loved the feeling, loved how everyone respected us and were scared. They knew who we were.

Who we were apart of.

I smirked, glancing around at my lesser peers. I snarled at one girl who had the nerve to be eyeing Adam. She quickly drops her gaze, blushing furiously. Sure, Adam and I weren't together, but still- she didn't know that. This girl had no right to be eye fucking him. Yeah, he was hot with his chiseled jaw and ink black hair, but he was mine.

My badass friend.

Adam squeezed my shoulder, smirking.

"Jealous much, Rain?"

"I'm not jealous, that bitch needs to learn her place." I say bitterly. He laughs loudly, making everyone who wasn't already looking, look at us. I relish the attention. Geez, Rain, attention freak much?

We walk inside, then separate to go to our classes. School drags on, boringly at times, but interesting the rest. I get to Chemistry, and stop abruptly in the doorway. Sitting in the front of the room, scribbling in a notebook, is the most gorgeous boy ever. Sharp jaw, brown messy hair, and geeky glasses. So yeah, not your average hottie. But to me, he was breathtaking.

Oh god, what's wrong with me? I'm turning into one of those little, hyperventalting-when-I-see-a-hot-guy-girls. Get it together Rain.

Putting on my sexiest smile, I slide into the empty seat next to him. He doesn't even acknowledge my presence, so absorbed with writing. I lean in.

"Hey."

He nearly jumps out of his seat. How adorable. His cheeks flush and he adjusts his glasses.

"Sorry, I -uh, I didn't see you there," he stutters. Oh gosh he was just too cute. He wouldn't even look at me! I stifle a laugh.

"My name's Rain, what's yours?" I ask.

"I know, and Chasm," he sits up straighter. "Not the most common name, I know," he says.

"And Rain is common?" I smile at him.

"I guess not," he shrugs and gets back to writing. I blankly stare at him. Okay...? That's it? No, nice to meet you, no, what's up? Anything? Was he socially impaired?

"You can stop staring at me like I'm crazy, not everyone bows down to you, you know." He says, finally looking at me with a certain kind of fire to his beautiful brown eyes. I scoff at his "insult".

"Sweetie, 99% of this school does," I correct him. "You, apparently, are apart of the lonely 1%."

He looks at me, annoyed.

"Can't you go sit somewhere else, like somewhere far away? I don't want to get a disease."

I smirk, amused.

"I think I'm quite comfortable here, actually."

"Go bother someone else who cares."

"Ooh. Burn. That was a good one. Go again," I slouch back into the hard chair, waving at him to go on. Chasm groans and runs a hand through his already disheveled hair, making it stick out in different directions.

"Why do you even want to sit here? Don't you have other friends to go be delinquents with?"

"Actually I don't, besides I like you," I wink at Chasm. He rolls his eyes and huffs.

"Just leave me alone and be quiet," he demands. I smile wickedly.

"Not a chance."

A/N: GOD that felt like a really long chapter. So if you liked it comment, vote, and follow! :D thanks for reading. Ignore any typos.