To Love A Beast

The Persuasion

"Come-on Lex, it's like, the party of the year!"
Ashley whined across the cafeteria table at me, her already thin lips disappearing as she pursed them together and frowned. I stopped myself from screaming at her, instead I took a deep breath and stared at her blankly, we'd already been through this many times this morning. Her non-stop whining since I picked her up from school was starting to give me a headache.

"Of course it will be the party of the year, this is quite literally the first party of the year." Isaac quipped. Ashley's face looked like thunder as she glared at him. Isaac chuckled quietly before poking his tongue out at her childishly.

"Ash, I've told you, I'm not going. You know for a fact that I hate costume parties and just because it's Halloween won't change that." I sighed in exasperation. I was adamant that I was not going to this stupid party. Why wont she accept that I don't want to go. Ash removed her gaze from Isaac and continued to look at me in full puppy dog mode: pale blue eyes stretched as wide as they could go, bottom lip trembling as it jutted out, covered in that shimmery lipgloss she wore. Ash had long ago mastered the You-can't-resist-me-give-me-what-I-want look, but it had no effect on me. We grew up together for gods sake!
Noting my indifference to her attempt at changing my mind, she turned to the rest of our group. "A little help here?"
Our friends had been listening in on our argument for the last ten minutes. I was a very strong willed person, and more or less nothing short of a miracle could get me to change my mind once it was set. Ash was similar to me in that way; if she wanted something, she did everything in her power to get it, and nine times out of ten she succeeded. This time she was trying to get me to go to that ridiculous party. I wasn't going to budge.

I turned to the rest of our group, shooting them all warning glares. Fletcher, Stefan and Isaac knew as well as Ash did that I hated dressing up, so if they knew what was good for them, they would keep their pretty mouths shut.

Fletcher was the one who spoke first. His eyes glanced at me before rapidly shaking his head at Ash as he replied, "Uh-uh. Nope, not getting involved. This is your argument Ash, and Lexi looks like she will bite my head off if I go against her. Frankly, she's more scarier than you when she wants to be." I mouthed a silent thank you to Fletcher, and he winked at me as he went back to shoving a sandwich into his mouth. School hadn't even started yet and he was already eating his lunch, complaining dramatically that he was being starved at home. I turned back to Ashley, a triumphant grin stretching across my face. But she simply dismissed Fletcher's statement with a wave of her hand, and my hopes of her finally letting it go were squashed. "Wuss." She muttered under her breath, flipping her white blonde hair over one shoulder. She smiled slyly at Fletchers bowed head before slightly jerking in her seat. I knew what she had done just as fletcher's loud yell filled the cafeteria. "Ow! That hurt!"

Ash ignored the daggers being thrown her way as Fletcher rubbed at his ankle where she had kicked him. Instead, she narrowed her gaze onto Fletcher's brother, Stefan, who looked up apprehensively.  

Stefan was Fletcher's identical twin brother and they were alike in every way. They both stood at a mighty 6"1, and had the same deep, sapphire blue eyes that made any girl in this school, hell in this universe, want to melt when they looked at you. Fletcher was on the football team and Stefan was on the Lacrosse team, so they both had mountains of chiselled muscles piled everywhere on their bodies; another swoon worthy feature for the girls to admire. They both looked exactly the same, from their sharp, defined jawlines, all the way down to their feet. Yes, as weird as it sounds, even their toes looked the same. Not that I make a habit of looking at their toes all the time... I don't have a feet fetish, thank you.
Anyway, the only way to tell them apart was that their hair colour was different. Fletcher's hair was golden, like the colour of sand, whereas Stefan's was a rich brown, like chocolate. It was a little longer on the top of their heads and styled to perfection. In short, the Twins looked like Gods and were two of the most popular guys in school. Everyone knew who they were and wanted to hang out with them, ever since we were kids.