***Veronica***

I watch the boy with the blue truck as he kisses on the blonde and reluctantly lets her leave. This one...I like this one. It would be better for him if I didn't. The coven sisters have charged me to find the one we would take. I am right that the ridiculous football practice would show me a number of potential sacrifices - every boy and girl who walks out of the school is more worthless and disposable than the last. But only one catches my interest. Our chosen victim must have a pure heart, a hero's soul and would be irrevocably chained to my destiny.

Now that I have found him, I despise that destiny even more than before.

He is walking towards me. Whatever for?

"Hey, are you all right?"

I jump and start to back away.

Vessa hisses in my ear from behind. "Stay put."

"I said, are you all right?" the boy asks again.

"I am fine. Are you all right?" I ask him. I hold a hand up to slow his approach. He shouldn't get too close for his own health.

"Yeah. I'm good. You just surprised me standing in the woods and all. I don't usually see girls just hanging with the trees and crows. Do you go to school here? I don't think I've ever seen you. I'm sure I would have noticed you."

"Are you so very sure?" I ask. So chatty for a boy, or for anyone. No one ever rambles on like that around me.

"Pretty sure, yeah. So do you? Go to school here?"

"No. I do not attend your school." I can feel Vessa's growing hunger as if it were my own. I am trapped between her waves of undulating, disgusting desires and the boy's naïve small talk. How I wish I could fly from there.

"I didn't think so. Like I said, I would have noticed you," he continues.

I show him my teeth in a fake smile. Let him think what he wants. "Your kind never sees mine. Go back to your happy little world and forget you saw me here."

"Okay," he says. He doesn't leave, though. "I'm not sure what that means, but I don't think you know the first thing about me or who I am or what I'm about to forget. I think you might need help, but I'm not sure I'm the one to do it. If you want to talk to someone friendly, though, give me a call." He pulls out his wallet from his ripped jeans and finds a card. He holds it towards me. I ignore his offer.

He flicks it to the ground. "My number's on it. I do yard work, but you can call me for other stuff, not just to mow the grass."

I think he's trying to joke. "We would never be friends, you and I. Why are giving me your...phone number?" The word feels strange on my tongue. Phones might have been around for a century, but in all my seventeen years I have never used one.

"Don't be so sure about that. If there was a zombie apocalypse, you and I would definitely survive by fighting together and becoming total besties. You'd be rockin' with an axe and you should see what I can do with a baseball bat."

A half-smile contorts my face before I can stop it. "Besties? What is that?"

"Best friends. We could try and get you a katana instead of an axe if you prefer. You would be badass."

"You think so?" I ask as much about being best friends as me being a badass. This is the first time I've encountered someone using these words for me.

"Totally. We'd both be badass survivors in an alternate universe. So give me a call if you want to talk or catch up on our alternate lives. All right? Cool." He waves and returns slowly to his truck. I wait for him to go before collecting his card from off the fallen leaves. I'm amazed by his strangeness.

Vessa is smiling and gnawing a finger. "He's perfect, my little Veronica. For once, you've accomplished something praise worthy."