Storm

Storm (Chap. 2)

Chapter 2

"Ana!"

"Evie," I greeted her. "Evie, you know that I hate the name Anastasia, so why do you insist on calling me Ana t remind me of it?"

"Because Storm sounds so... dangerous... and I always see you smiling and laughing, it just doesn't seem to fit."

I smiled. "Mhm." She grabbed my hand as led me through the stores, eager for our planned day at the mall.

I truly lived a double life. I pretended to laugh, to smile, to be carefree, to be good. That just isn't how I am though. I smile, but I rarely ever laughed, I am always looking over my shoulder, and I have a dark side, truthfully, I am not good.

As Evie was pulling my through the crowd from the mall, I past Cali surrounded by her group of friends. We exchanged glances, but made no other sign that notice was given.

Cali, LeAnn, and I all had gone to the same elementary, middle, and now high school. At school, we were different people there, lived in different crowds. Cali could be considered popular, but she was so nice that you couldn't even dream of calling her one of the 'mean girls'. LeAnn was more of a...loner, yeah she had friends, but she was quiet and preferred to be alone. I was lost somewhere in the middle.

At school, we didn't really didn't know each other, yeah we knew each other's name, but we rarely talked. At home, we were the best of friends; we would constantly be sleeping over at one another's house or just hanging out. We did this so that if one of us was figured out, the others would still be safe.

A hand was suddenly in front of my face. I flinched back into a defensive position. "Ana, hello Ann?" My eyes flickered towards the voice, still in my ridged stance. "Wow Ana," Evie said, "you are acting weird. I asked you a question."

I relaxed seeing that there was no danger. "I am so sorry, I was just daydreaming, what did you ask?"

"What's up with you? You're so weird today." She smiled, and with that, I slipped back into my perfect façade.

"Storm?" LeAnn asked at my house that afternoon, "You look sick, everything alright?"

I blanked my face and shoved the nauseous feeling that I had in my stomach to the back of my mind. "I am fine," I lied. I had perfected the art of deception, even my team, who knew me better than anyone else, couldn't see through my lying pretense, couldn't what I was really feeling.

LeAnn was the only one that has even the slightest chance of catching me in my lie this time though. She wanted to be a doctor, so normally, she could tell if someone was really sick or hurt or just plain faking it.

But luckily for me, she just shrugged and let it go, she believed me.

The girls went back to their sparing with on another while I was shifting through the files that I had picked up from our last mission. I was putting the data through one of the programs that I had created that would both separate it and look for key words that I had set it to look for. I was sitting on my bed with my laptop when the girls sat down next to me, finally done with their workout.

"You need to take a break Storm; you do too much work for us already." Cali then looked at LeAnn to finish her thought, "We should find her a boyfriend, she-"

"No!" I shouted cutting her off. "I don't need a man, there is not use for boyfriends except for them getting into your pants and I defiantly don't want that."

"That is not the only reason for a beau, love-"

"Love is weakness." This was my motto, what I lived by, and a phrase that was pounded- literally- into me since I had discovered that I had powers at the age of eleven.