PROLOGUE
We've all heard stories. Angels and demons. Vampires. Werewolves. Fairies and magical creatures. Witches. Ghosts. Elves and aliens. Superheroes. Some of these stories we even wish were true.
But trust me. The truth is not some fairy tale. It's something we would wish never to know.
One race with the extraordinary ability to become anything.
Two sides fighting to destroy each other.
Four caught in the crossfire: a man who is trapped by his promise to defend humanity against the child he raised; a friend who must betray the one he loves to protect her; a girl who uncovers a secret that will change her life; and a boy who discovers he is not what he believes.
Reality is not so far from fantasy. Only this time, it is closer to our nightmares than our dreams.
PART ONE
Dare ran her fingers through her hair one last time, admiring the bright blue and yellow highlights that stood out against the shimmering blue black of her hair.
"Vicious," she grinned at her reflection, smearing dark red lip gloss over her lips while letting her nerves about the first day back to school settle a little. She scribbled herself a note to send the hairdresser Marylou a thank you card. Another brilliant job Marylou, she congratulated silently as she glanced through the photos stuck over her mirror showcasing various stages of her hair evolution from an ice-blonde bob to a fiery red, orange and yellow emo cut.
"Dare! It's 7:40!" her mother hollered upstairs, thrusting Dare's anxiety back into the forefront of her mind. Dare grabbed her cell to call Raph one last time. Pick up, pick up, she prayed, her hand tightening on the slim blue cell as Raph's house line continued to ring. And get a damn cell phone, she grumbled, ending the call and shoving her cell into a patched leather messenger bag already full of books and notebooks.
Raph had been gone all summer, the first time they were separated since they began high school together. It had left Dare feeling abandoned and a little resentful towards her best friend. The misfit twins, they had called themselves. Or at least Dare had. They had been drawn together as both of them were outside the norm of the teen world: Dare with her wild hair and even wilder ideas, creating the world she missed with her art. She had moved from the big city she had grown up into the smaller, more conservative town of Ravenwood. Art was Dare's way of coping with what felt like the complete devastation of her life as she knew it, a way to connect her past to her present.
Raph was the product of a broken home and neighborhood gossip: his mother left when he was three and his father was absent except for sleeping off his alcohol binges. Raph, who had stayed behind a year in middle school, had barely passed the first two years high school and didn't seem to really care that he had; the achievement was mostly credited to Dare's encouragement and occasional threats. Dare was afraid of losing Raph more than she cared about his academic future. Her own was less than admirable and had only brightened in trying to inspire Raph to do the same. Raph was uninterested in school, focused instead on fixing cars and working with the tools that filled his empty house, creating a mechanical genius to which Dare had to bow. If Raph was interested, he could do anything. If not, well, that was the biggest challenge. For Dare.
But while Dare gained some acceptance at school for being different in an artsy sort of way, Raph was cast off as a loner and by default, loser. Raph didn't fit in with any of the cliques at school. He wasn't a jock although he was lean and had muscle and could probably outrun most of the track team. He wasn't a stoner or a skateboarder. He didn't wear trendy clothes or anything with a visible logo. He didn't care what anyone thought of him. But he didn't judge others despite their judgment of him. It was this strange strength that drew Dare to him the first day of high school. He was taking art to fill an elective as he had signed up late for classes. Dare thought he didn't even know what the class was until the teacher handed out the course syllabus. She had signed up as she loved art but couldn't qualify for something beyond the basic level until she filled this prerequisite. So they sat at the same table across from each other, Dare trying to separate herself from classmates who wanted to pigeonhole her or turn her into version of themselves. And Raph with his desire not to be a part of anything. Dare was friendly, talkative and had a quirky sense of humor that endeared her to others, all except Raph. Her classmates knew the secret she tried to hide, she wanted to belong too. She just didn't know where yet. And Raph, he didn't care about belonging. About needing others which Dare later attributed to his lack of anyone caring about him. She knew he wouldn't ask her to be anything. She could make up her own mind about what she wanted to be.
