Undertow by K.R. Conway (1st book in trilogy)

Chapter 5

My new town, though small  by many standards, has a frustratingly enormous high school. You could hide a small army inside and never know it. So I was very proud that I had finally learned the labyrinth of halls by the end of my first week (well, almost) and how to avoid collisions, planned and accidental. Occasionally, Nikki would see me in the hall, but I would manage to tuck in next to someone else and avoid further confrontation.

I also avoided The Crimson Moon like the plague.

Dalca was nice and all, but the vial on her neck kept me far away, like a talisman conspiring against me. I knew I was just being paranoid . . . I hoped.

Crap, what if she HAD murdered somebody? What if the gray stuff really WAS a dead person's ashes? Did cremated people even stink? Good grief, I sounded like a crazy person. This is Cape Cod for crying out loud; no one is murdering ANYBODY.

Well, except maybe Nikki, who wants to kill me.

On the plus side, I had found my little niche in school in which I felt comfortable. And the students, for the most part, were very welcoming. Jesse talked with me everyday in English, and I had met a nice girl in gym class – a redhead named Cara. She talked a mile a minute to the point that I was unsure how she didn't pass out from lack of oxygen.

I even managed to swap out Chemistry for Ecology, accomplished with no small amount of begging in the guidance office. Kids had begun to say "hi" to me in the halls and though I was terrible at remembering names, I was good with faces and always returned the greeting.  Nikki and her cronies, however, never smiled at anyone who was not on her 'A' list.  Or anyone who remotely said "hello" to me for that matter.

She made no attempt to hide her distaste for me, a fact that was undoubtedly accentuated by Raef. That girl loathed me and I knew it.  Most of the school knew it too. On the plus side, most of the school didn't like her either, but they sucked up to her in order to avoid her wrath.

It wasn't that she scared me – I simply didn't want the drama that followed Nikki everywhere. And drama was Nikki's middle name. She lived it, breathed it, damn near held court with it.

I did have one thing going for me when it came to Nikki . . . I wasn't her only target. Everyone was on Nikki's radar and if you were anything less than a perfect, adoring fan, life could be plagued with high school misery.  For the large majority of Barnstable High, it seemed that students fell into one of four categories in regards to Nikki:

1.     You actually worshiped her, in which case you were part of her "in crowd."

2.     You feared her like an ancient deity and therefore sacrificed your dignity to appease her.

3.     You were enough of a geek that your existence was of insignificance.

And lastly . . .

4.     You were a most-loathed heathen and would be crushed like a bug.

I fell into fun category 4. Raef, I suspected, was on his way there as well, given his strange desire to be my friend. Why the most handsome boy in school seemed to enjoy my company was a fabulous surprise, but completely stumped my average self. 

We would talk briefly after English and he would often wave to me in the hall. He had even started to "eat" lunch regularly with MJ, Ana, and me, though technically he only drank protein shakes (no doubt a huge asset to his stunning physique). 

I did feel bad for Ana and MJ, whom I suspected had enjoyed the anonymity of category 3 until I descended on the school. Being my friend meant you were fair game in Nikki's eyes. It was a fact that I apologized for profusely many times, though they all said that pissing her off was completely worth every moment of pain.