Chapter 2

I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do
About you now

- Wonderwall,Oasis

Diesel decided she didn't like the polished school after all. It reminded her of perfection, a quality which had always eluded her and she felt bitterly, the need to smash one of the windows in the huge brick building.

"If you are done staring, we could go inside," Louise remarked flatly.

Diesel ignored her and walked ahead. She was hating the school already and she had hardly been inside. She thought of Dayne and how everything had come crashing down. If she had been here, she would have loved the place.

"Mum finished up the administrative stuff yesterday so you can go straight toyour homeroom," Louise handed her a sheath of papers, and turned towards a group of approaching girls.

Diesel stood in the middle of the hallway feeling alone in this new place. Her lips curled up bitterly. It wasn't a feeling she was unfamiliar with. She slung her backpack over her shoulder, and went in search of her homeroom.

She hardly felt angry at Louise. Maybe if things had been different, she would have been vastly annoyed. Now she just felt strangely empty. After all, Louise Daniels was just the daughter of the foster home she had begged Aunt Blake to let her stay in. They had fabricated a story about how she was a distant cousin and how she needed a place to stay for the summer.

They had to oblige of course. Requests by the Blakes had to be followed.

Not that she wouldn't know. She had been Diesel fucking Blake all her life. Soaking up the money, the lime light while trying to keep herself unaffected by all the shit which went on around her. She had despised being a Blake for half her life and being proud it for the rest. Everything had been bearable until Dayne Blake had been murdered.

Her perfect twin sister.

The twin sister whom she tried to hate so much because she was everything their father had wanted in them. Beauty. Sophistication. Perfection.

Dayne and Jose had been the ideal heirs. Diesel had just been the misfit. The silent, sarcastic Blake who moped around, dressed like a sloth and got good grades. She would have probably shipped herself off to boarding school when she was ten if Dayne had not persuaded her to stay.

Dayne with her large blue eyes and stereotypical blonde hair. She had took one look at her trembling lips and agreed to stay. Dayne just had that effect on people. She twisted you around your little finger and made everything alright.

After Dayne had died, everything had changed. She couldn't bear to stay in their old highschool anymore amidst all the sympathetic stares and pitying looks. Her Dad had shut himself up in an office and Jose was off in self-pity. Everything had been so fucked up .

And she had been angry. It was a cold anger and hatred which pulsed through her body for the people who had deprived her of her sister. She had sworn to find every single bastard who had taken part in killing Dayne and putting a bullet through each one of their heads. It had taken a while to pack up, switch schools, run away from home, and change her name, but she had done it.

She bit her lip, feeling the metallic taste of blood and blinked twice to remember where she was. Redwood High. She took a detour into a toilet and splashed water onto her face and pinched her cheeks till the color returned to it.

She stepped into her homeroom tentatively, taking in all the new faces though not quite registering them. The lighting was too harsh, spilling through the large windows and she closed her eyes tiredly after dropping into the first empty seat she could find.

Someone must have called her name because she distinctively heard a Desiree Clarkson, the name of her alias, being announced. She subtly shifted her body and hoped that was noticeable enough for the teacher.

"Weirdo," a girl muttered from behind her, and she stiffened again.

She would be damned if she had to make friends.

The painting was not perfect. The strokes were sloppy and repeated. It looked like something a pre-school kid would do for play time when messing about with colors. But it wasn't the technique which made her stop – it was the raw emotion behind it.

The artist was frustrated. The strokes were harsh and forceful. She stood staring it and feeling the emotion seep into her.

"Its not bad isn't it,"

Anthony was standing behind her, his hands tucked into his pocket. His head was tilted as though observing the painting. She remembered what she had heard about him and watched him carefully. He was good looking but not someone she would lose her sleep over.

"You painted it?" she asked.

He straightened up and grinned. "I hope that isn't an insult to my painting prowess,"

Diesel frowned. "Its not a masterpiece but there's something raw about it," She kept her eyes on the painting and remembered the cold frustration she had felt when she had been unable to find Dayne when she had gone missing. "It feels real,"

Anthony was looking at her. She held his stare till he broke it off with an offhanded smile.

"Anthony Barter," he extended his hand and grinned again.

The old Diesel would have smirked at him and put him off for trying too hard. But the old Diesel was dead. She evaporated the day Dayne had shown up in a body bag with her body torn up and her blank eyes reflecting the desperation she had felt in the last minutes of her life.

The new Diesel smiled stiffly and walked out of the room, trying to hold the tears in and her head up high.

Louise caught up with her during once school was over. She cornered her as she was trying to reach her locker and grabbed her arm, "Anthony Barter spoke to you?"

Diesel yanked her arm away sharply. "I talked to fifteen different people. I couldn't possibly remember everyone of them,"

She didn't flinch when Louise tightened her grip on her arm instead and pulled her closer. "You are a Nobody, got it. You have nothing to do with them,"

Diesel smiled coldly. "Release my hand,"

She was everything Dayne had stood for. Fucking perfection. She didn't feel angry like she had been feeling all day. It was a sour resentment that rose up her throat like bile and she fought to keep it down.

Dawn eyed her once over, her gaze lingering on the her scruffy trousers and oversized shirt. "Anthony isn't within your social rung," she observed.

"You are a Blake. We are meant to rule the school,"

Diesel chuckled at the way her sister tensed up easily. Her facial muscles always clenched and she had a thoroughly exasperated look about her.

"I am satisfied with my friends. Drop it," she muttered.

"Your friends are not fit for you to socialize with. God, sometimes you just don't think,"

It had killed her. She had fought all her life to fit into what had been expected of her and she had ended up dead in a back alley. She felt the old Diesel emerge, wanting to scream at Dayne, ask her to shut up before she got herself raped and mutilated.

"I need to leave," she shut her locker with a snap and dodged her way around Dawn's groupies. She walked steadily, blocking her emotions out and keeping her mind clear.

Find the killer

The Daniels' mansion was empty when she reached it. She didn't attempt to refurbish her room. It didn't feel right to neaten things up when inside her everything seemed to be a mess. As she unpacked her toiletry, she held her shaving blade to the light and contemplated it.

She wanted to feel.

She hadn't cried during Dayne's funeral. She sat beside her body, numb and unaware. There must have been a thousand people at the funeral and she hated all the strangers whom had thought they knew the Dayne – the Dayne whom had smiled at everyone and tried to make everybody happy. All she remembered was how empty she felt. Like a piece of her had been ripped out.

The blade touched her skin and she pulled it across. The pain was sharp and acute. Blood trickled out slowly, rolling down her arm and down the sink. It splashed into the cool porcelain. She held the stink and stared at the blood as it dripped one after another, swirling till it was consumed into the sink.

Seeing the blood. It reminded her that was alive.

Blood pounded in her head and she rubbed her forehead tiredly, her fingers moving in steady circles. Her mind flickered steadily with images – her sister and herlaughing, the loud sirens and flashing lights, the green body bag.

She shot up abruptly, her head throbbing and her eyes clammed shut. She stumbled to the bathroom again and grabbed the blade, pulling it across her skin till crimson stained her hand and smeared the sink.

I am alive, I am alive She chanted like a mantra.

The next morning dragged by sluggishly. She daydreamed and doodled over her notebooks. It didn't take her long to realize that her school was filled with spoilt, arrogant nitwits who seemed to consider sex, relationships and status their prime priorities. It was so shallow and pointless she didn't feel like she could fit in at all.

Then again, she reminded herself, she hadn't come here to make friends. She had gotten over the stupidity of mankind ages ago. Dayne had always berated her on being too critical.

"Just because you have the IQ of a genius doesn't mean you classify everyone else otherwise,"

Yet she had. Because it had been the one thing in which she had been better than Dayne. It had been the one thing that had kept her father from telling her she wasn't worth being a Blake. Her eyes stung suddenly, and she slipped into her next class and collapsed into the first seat she saw.

"Hello," Someone said tentatively.

She was sitting next to a girl who could have danced naked around the bleachers and no one would have noticed her. The girl squinted her eyes and looked at her as Diesel pointedly looked straight ahead.

The teacher, Mr Slatter came in right after the bell rang. He smiled kindly at her, and she stared right back feeling her hackles rise. Invisible Girl nudged her and she turned to look at her, in a mood for a confrontation as old Diesel slipped into control.

"No shit. You wanna fight?" Invisible Girl broke out into a grin.

Diesel felt awkward with her reaction. "You just got me at a wrong time," she muttered, shifting her eyes back to the front where the teacher was writing notes on the board.

"Heard you challenged the holy social grail. I think I need to perform afternoon prayers for you." She winked and clasped her hands in a mock prayer and bobbed her head.

Diesel covered her smile with her hand. There was a refreshing sense about her which reminded her about her friends back at home. Now, looking at the girl who beamed at her, she decided she hated her as much as she hated this school.

She was so fucking happy. Everyone seemed so happy. Except for her

Diesel skipped the last two periods. She didn't have the capacity to withstand anymore people who were eager to find fodder for the rumor mill. After all, Anthony Barter had talked to her, heaven forbid.

She retreated to the art room for the second time in two days, trying to quiet her mind amidst painting. Her hands moved swiftly over paper and her eyes bore ahead, reining in all the emotions which she kept on a tight leash.

Old Diesel boiled under her surface, reckless and eager. The spirit which she had represented simmered below the numbness of the past. Her breath hitched in her throat as she reached for her palette. Old Diesel was dead. She repeated it under her breath until the cold she felt in her heart filled her body.

"Hah Reagan, you should be honored that an artist of such caliber should think your scribble is a worthwhile piece,"

Her hand stilled. She didn't have to turn around to know Anthony Barter and Reagan Kent were right behind her. Hell if they thought she was going to give any of them the time of the day.

"You know I never caught your name yesterday," Anthony moved forward into her line of sight.

She continued painting, feeling the tension drain out of her, and the strokes becoming reflex like they always did when painting absorbed her.

Her silence didn't seem to daunt him for he continued, "I am having a party tomorrow. How about dropping by?"

"Its just a party, honestly. The way you and Jose react, you would think a serial killer is after me or something."

Jose stared at Diesel warily who sighed and waved her sister away. "Fine. Just don't get drunk and come home before twelve,"

Dayne squealed and pulled both her siblings' into a hug. "Gosh, I love you both,"

She never came back home later that night.

She sneered contemptuously at Anthony, keeping her expression passive. "No,"

He blinked, surprised. "Its an exclusive party," he reiterated.

Diesel reached for her backpack, shoving her brushes into a clear plastic pocket. She would wash them later. Now she had to get out of here before she got suffocated by the Populars and their lifestyle. The very lifestyle which had killed her sister. She turned around, prepared to walk out on the two supposed God of the school and halted as she came face to face with Reagan Kent.

He was staring at her, as one might study a particularly interesting lab specimen. She felt oddly disconcerted, as though someone was peeling away the layers she had shrunk into and left her exposed. She raised her eyebrows tentatively, old Diesel surging up again.

"I will send a memo when I offer my body up to a pornographic museum,"

Reagan's stare hardened but he didn't speak. She held his gaze like she had held Anthony's yesterday and felt herself immersed in a staring match. She felt herself faltering but old Diesel who was always up for a challenge, met him heads on.

"I have a fucking class man. Give it up," she heard Anthony from behind. He sounded oddly distant. She kept her eyes on Reagan, even as Anthony stepped forward with a disgruntled snort and pulled him out of the Art Room.

A/N; Please review if you want me to continue the story! 150 hits for the first chapter, 5 favorites and 8 alerts, but just 2 reviews! Well, on a serious note, for an update sloth like me, reviews make the WORLD GO ROUND. Or to be more specific, they motivate me to update stories which could otherwise become sad, potential one-shots wallowing in the reminder of the story they could be – like those cluttered in my profile rather.