Natalie Abernathy was born into a world where the lines on your skin tell everyone who you are. They appear like tattoos and change with every choice you make, every person you meet. Only one line remains constant. Your love line. The only colored line on the human's skin, a blood red mixed in with the black. Natalie's world is consumed with The Sickness, the next stage in human evolution that can strike you when you are fourteen. Or doesn't. If you survive The Sickness, you become one of the Elite, faster, stronger, smarter than the humans who don't get The Sickness. The Elite's lines are colorful, beautiful in their own way. A mixture of deepest purples, the darkest blues, and dominate greens. They cover the black lines the Elite were given at birth, rewriting their destinies forever. As Natalie comes to find, the Elite aren't what they seem. The Sickness is not what it seems. Her heart is broken by the loss of her best friend Cecil McCourt, who succumbed to The Sickness days before their shared fifteenth birthday. Her friends surround her, trying to fill the void left by Cecil. Time moved on, carrying Natalie along with it. Now it's three years later, everyone's senior year. Days before school starts, Natalie befriends the new boy in town, Union Davidson. Cecil (now known as Cyrus) is quick to warn her away from him. At first she thinks it's a trick but as things start to happen, Natalie finds herself trapped between the thing she wants most in the world and something else quite darker than she imagined. © SCCourtney ~ * ~ Finalist in the Watty's 2012

An emotional poem about the sad reality of today's society.

Katerina Herald has something to hide, something very real. Facing an absent mother and an especially angry father- she's become used to cowering. However, when the new student Cain Masters rolls in, he becomes intrigued by the struggle Kat faces. With his insistent prodding and her looming graduation from high school, can she really get by with a little help from her friends? Is survival possible in a house of hatred?

Cora Markings is a freak, according to her classmates. After an accident claims her father's life and Cora's voice, she Stuck On Mute. At 12 she was considered like a dog, no opinion. Now 17 she has gotten over the loss of her voice, so she claims. Her twin siblings, Kaylah and Luke, feel her pain and try not to add to it. Though when their family suddenly has to move, Cora is thrown into a new town, ready to be ridiculed. But, can Leo, A jock who takes notice to Cora, make her feel whole again? Cora pushes him away because after all, Who could love a mute girl?