It was the last week of school and the first day was dragging along as if it'd never end. The clocks counted down the day in slow time; tick, tick, tick. The noise was both exciting as well as irritating. Teachers droned on about subjects that didn’t matter, students texted smiley faces to their friends, rebels slept. It was a truly useless week. Nothing should have happened in the last days of the year. Everything had been normal up until the new student arrived the week before. It was odd for someone to join so late in the year but nobody put much thought into it. He was handsome and mysterious; a senior amongst the juniors. Girls batted their eyelashes at him while guys huffed and puffed, but never managed to blow him down. Even the teachers seemed drawn to him. Students who passed him in the hallway paused to watch him as he strolled. He was the center of attention; if he was even aware of it, however, nobody knew.

Everyone was interested in him in one way or another. Everyone except Allie October. She kept her pretty face buried in her books, ears trained on only the words of the teachers. He was just another student to her. She had no intent to even welcome him. It wasn’t because she was jealous of all the attention he was getting. If anything, it was the exact opposite. The attention that she so hated had suddenly been turned onto him and she was grateful for that. So many eyes on her made her uncomfortable, yet now they were all on him. She should have never met him. He was a force that she needn’t reckon with. But in this last week of school, things were changing. And October, as she liked to be called, didn’t like the way they were going.

It happened in the last period of the day. What made Mr. Sinco (her American History teacher) change up the seating arrangement was beyond her ability to comprehend. But it happened all the same. October stood awkwardly in the front of the classroom amongst the others of her classmates. Ever so slowly they were given new seats. Friends were put with friends, enemies were kept apart. It seemed that he was doing everyone a favor.

“Hey, babe, you ok?”

Her set of deep russet eyes flickered over to the face of Charlie. For as long as she remembered he had been her best friend – gay, best friend, that is. They were nearly inseparable and everyone, including the teachers, were aware of that. But today Mr. Sinco would do something that nobody had expected.

“October, grab the desk in the back beside Michael. Charlie, go ahead and take a seat between Markus and Vanessa.”

It took the brunette several moments to realize what had just occurred. She turned to the teacher, eyes desperate, but his mind had been made up. The gazes of her peers watched her as she reluctantly made her way to the back desk. October placed her books to the table and sat quietly in her seat. Mr. Sinco had no idea what he’d just done – nobody did. But the boy who now sat beside her was well aware of the situation.

It was no twist of fate or simple case of dumb luck that Michael Chandler; mysterious, debonair new kid, had gotten a seat next to Allie. It was no coincidence that he'd just appeared from nowhere to transfer into her school, either, although in hindsight he could have timed it much, much better. No, this was a planned affair from the moment he broke into that display with the Book of Enoch, the book of secrets, the book of life. He'd spent weeks upon weeks tracking this one person, this target, this 'Allie', who was now well within his grip.

He'd been waiting for this moment for so long, but he figured he could wait a little longer. Chandler stood at the front of the room a few people down from Allie, and - at Chandler's mental insistence - Mister Sinco sat Allie down next to him. The collective female population sent up one large groan, and Chandler couldn't help but smile a bit. Refuge in Audacity was the best phrase here; instead of his handsomeness serving as a defining trait, something making him easy to pick out of a group, here Chandler was untouchable, someone that people would fall over trying to protect. They would do practically anything for him if he were to ask, and he wouldn't even need to stretch his brain out to them to do so.

Chandler pulled his chair out, eased himself into it with unintentional grace. He gave Allie a pleasant smile, stacking his own books beside him with a certain degree of obsessive compulsion. "Hello," he said, putting on a pleasant smile.

October had no intention of speaking to him. Instead of watching his graceful figure like all the other girls in the room, she kept herself engrossed in the book she now held. It was a rather pathetic story of a girl falling in love with a vampire. Same old same old. The story wasn't even appealing to her, but with this intense character beside her, there was no choice but to pretend that he didn't exist. All the attention was on him. Every girl swooned as he past and every guy gritted their teeth as they put on friendly, fake smiles. What a character. Already she didn't like him. But in the near future, although she didn't know it, their fates would be intertwined.

It all started with his "Hello" and the matching perfect smile.

She shouldn't have turned her attention to him. But she did. She shouldn't have, but she did. October's chocolate gaze looked up from the words of the book -- and were immediately captivated. He was handsome. The smile upon his lips only made this more prominent. This altogether irritated her more than anything. It was unlike her to be attracted to a guy at her school, especially the cocky hot-stuff types.

Face impassive but eyes searchy, she tilted her head to the left and examined him. "Hello," she replied. It was one word. It was only one word. And it was the start of everything.