I began writing this story a while ago on the other writing website I'm a member of, and I decided it was high time I published it on here. It's definitely not one of my best stories, but it's still an enjoyable read (or so I like to think). The writing style grows better the further into the story you go. It's rated M for violence, profanity, and sexual content. Consider yourself warned.

Chapter One: Extraordinary Girl

I was born on Halloween, hence the name Hallow. I know, it's not exactly the most common name in the world, but that's exactly why I like it. It's different, just like me. It also has special significance for me, since it was what my birth mother named me. She gave me up for adoption on Halloween night almost eighteen years ago, also handing over a note that read: Call her Hallow. Seriously. That was it. No Take good care of her; no I don't want to give her away, but I don't have any choice. Just Call her Hallow. So my adoptive parents, despite their reservations about the peculiarity of the name, complied. I was Hallow Katherine Gardner.

I was found new parents, George and Naomi Gardner, who couldn't have children of their own and had almost given up hope of having any children at all, adopted or otherwise. They always said what a blessing I was.

Of course, I didn't know any of this. I grew up believing I was their biological daughter. Why would I think otherwise? We all had brown hair and blue eyes, although that was pretty much as far as the similarities went. I'm more slender than Mum, not to mention five inches taller, at five foot ten.

It wasn't until I was thirteen, and my English class was given the task of writing our autobiography (although really, who has much to tell after only thirteen years of living?), that I found out I wasn't biologically related to my parents. I was rummaging through a folder full of all my baby stuff, trying to find my birth certificate so that I could photocopy it and stick it in my book, when my life crumbled.

My birth certificate read that my mother's name was Rachel Scott, and my father was unknown. I had stared at the unfamiliar name for a moment, unable to believe what I was really seeing. Hoping vainly that there was a simple explanation, I had confronted my parents. Their faces had crumpled, and that was answer enough for me.

I was adopted.

After that, my life would never be the same again.

Another school year, but nothing's changed.

That was my first thought after I stepped off the bus on my first day back at Oakchurch School after the summer holidays. It looked exactly the same as it had every year for the past six years, when I'd started there in Year Seven. The same three-storey red-brick building with several other buildings hidden from view behind it, the same eclectic mix of students - the popular ones, the nerdy ones, the sporty ones, the weird ones, the I-don't-give-a-shit ones - and the same dull teachers.

"God, I hate this place," my best - and, if I'm completely honest, only - friend, Laura Matthews, sighed. Her long, dark blonde hair hung in a loose ponytail, her warm brown eyes took in her surroundings with distaste. Laura was five foot six, and today she was wearing a pair of faded Levi's, a pale blue T-shirt with the words Where's a knight in shining armour when you need one? on it, and a cream-coloured wool-blend coat. She was cute as a button but hadn't had many boyfriends due to the fact that she was kind of a geek. Boys are fussy. "Don't you hate this place?"

"Only in an all-consuming way," I replied. I spied the I-don't-give-a-shit group of students, mostly guys, and purposely turned my back on them. I hadn't acknowledged them for more than three years and I wasn't about to start now.

"At least this time next year it will all be over. Goodbye, Oakchurch; hello, Oxford!" Laura had known pretty much forever that she was going to go to Oxford University. Her grades were perfect and her teachers loved her. She was like Einstein compared to me. Only with better hair than Einstein.

"Let's go get our timetables," said Laura, grabbing the sleeve of my black, V-neck T-shirt and tugging me in the direction of the school hall. I had a hoodie tied around my waist but I wasn't wearing it; it was surprisingly warm for mid-September. Besides, I didn't feel the cold easily. My black jeans hung low on my hips, and my boring brown hair fell around my shoulders. I was quite average-looking. Much to my chagrin.

"Do you think we'll be in the same classes?" I asked Laura as I fell into step beside her.

She shrugged. "Why not? We're taking two out of three of the same subjects. I hope I'm with you. But, knowing my luck, I'll be stuck with a bunch of losers." We were both taking History and Geography, but I was taking Psychology while she did Sociology. "Oooh, look!" Laura stopped suddenly and poked me with one of her long nails. I winced and rubbed my arm. "Lover boy approacheth."

I gave her an odd look at her archaic language and then realised who she was talking about. "Shut up. He is not my - Hi, Alex." I smiled at Alex Celluci, whom I knew from work. Although we were in the same year, we did different subjects, so I usually only saw him at work. I was a checkout girl in a Marks & Spencer Simply Food supermarket - not exactly glamorous, but it paid quite well. I did sixteen hours a week: Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and Saturday mornings. I worked with Alex on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings. I'd had a crush on him pretty much since I'd begun working there, not that he had any idea. I was always careful to act normal around him - or whatever passed as normal with me.

"Hi Hallow," said Alex cheerfully. He ran a hand through his wavy, dark brown hair and fixed me with his dark brown eyes. As his surname suggested, he was part Italian on his mother's side, so his skin was a lovely olive colour. "Have you got your timetable yet?"

I swallowed and tried my best to appear calm and collected. While Alex seemed to buy it, Laura clearly didn't. She was looking at me with raised eyebrows. "We're just about to," I managed to say eventually. "You?"

"Yeah, I just got it. It's great - I have both Monday mornings and Friday afternoons off."

I smiled, trying to ignore Laura, who was now making kissy faces behind Alex's back. She thought it was hilarious that I couldn't admit to Alex how I felt about him, when I wasn't exactly what you would call shy. I narrowed my eyes at her. "That's great. I'll, um, see you around."

"Sure."

"You are so weird," said Laura once Alex was out of earshot. She linked arms with me, which she instantly regretted since I was four inches taller than her and so had a much larger stride. She had to practically jog to keep up. "Why don't you just ask him out?"

"Because I can't. I'm not exactly considered cool, remember? Alex would fall several rungs on the social ladder if he dated me, and I don't even know if he likes me in that way. Besides, my parents would probably be apoplectic if they found out I'd even looked at him." My parents were overly protective of me and basically freaked out at the idea of me having a social life. Unfortunately, they had a good reason for acting this way. After I'd found out I was adopted, I'd got a little...well, the words out of control didn't even begin to cover it. It had been a hard couple of years for my parents, not just me. Once I'd got over myself, I tried to be a good girl and not act out against my parents again. Ever.

"So? You wouldn't tell the parental units the truth, for crying out loud! You'd say we were going to see a film or something. And then, you know, go somewhere with Alex instead." She gave me a You-complete-moron look as we entered the school hall and got into the G to M queue.

I gave her a mock shocked look and exclaimed, "And this coming from a good little Church of England girl!"

She made a face. "Shut up. And you can't talk."

This was true. My parents, dedicated Church of England Christians, went to church every Sunday, dragging me along with them. I didn't believe in God. Too much shit had happened to me, not to mention the world at large, for me to believe in Him. But I respected my parents' beliefs. Most of the time.

I was saved from having to respond as we reached the front of the queue. "Hallow Gardner," I told the woman handing out the timetables. She ruffled through the sheets of paper until she came to my name and gave me my timetable. I scanned it as Laura received hers.

Not bad. I had two mornings and three afternoons free each week. There were definitely benefits to being in the Upper Sixth and having only seventeen hours of lessons a week. There was a load of other random information beneath the timetable itself, including who my teachers were for each subject. I had two teachers for each one, and I studied different stuff with them. For example, with one History teacher I would be learning about the Tudors, and with the other we would be taught 'The Golden Age of Spain, 1474-1598'.

"Oh cool, we have History together," said Laura brightly, looking over my shoulder and causing me to jump. "That's good. What about Geography? Nope. Damn. Oh well, at least I have a nicer teacher than you. No Mrs Clarke this year." Mrs Clarke taught the Human half of the Geography syllabus, and she was a total bitch. I couldn't stand her, and I was annoyed that she would be teaching me for another year.

The bell rang for break at that point, meaning the time was 10:45. On the first day of school, lessons didn't start until after break, which meant that I had missed Form. Not that I was particularly disappointed about that.

"Come on, let's get something to eat. I'm so hungry I could eat a...a mammoth or something." She tugged at my T-shirt sleeve again. At this rate it would be hopelessly stretched by the end of the day.

Laura, who loved to eat but somehow never seemed to gain any weight, bought a cheeseburger from the school canteen, while I just got some chips. I was a vegetarian, so my choice of food at school was somewhat limited. I'd probably have some more chips at lunchtime, but I was hungry and I wasn't the sort of person who cared about the amount of calories I consumed. Well, not usually, at any rate.

Break was half an hour long so when it ended Laura and I traipsed up to our History classroom. It was in the building where humanities such as Archaeology and Geography were done, as well as the languages. Laura was pulling me along by my sleeve again. This was really beginning to piss me off.

"Laura, let go of me," I said in an imperious tone. "You're ruining my T-shirt."

"Whatever," she said, but let go.

History was extremely dull. Dull, dull, dull. We were learning about the reign of Edward VI, Henry's VIII's son, but the way the teacher taught made it seem like he was recounting something as boring as what he'd had for breakfast that morning, not posing the question of whether the rule of a minor had caused problems. I yawned and glanced around the classroom at the other students. About half of them I recognised from my class last year, but the other half were only vaguely familiar.

I felt a chill go down my back when I recognised two of them.

One was a guy called Carl Adams. As much as I hated to admit it, I had a serious history with him. We'd once been closer than close. But that had been in my Bad Girl days, and I had sworn to myself that I would never return to that dark place again. Carl was a lot taller than he'd been when I'd known him - he was now six feet tall and muscular, with dark blond hair cut close to his head and hazel eyes. He was totally hot, and totally irresistible.

And totally bad.

Remember the I-don't-give-a-shit group I mentioned earlier? Carl was the leader of them. They spent their time smoking - not just normal cigarettes - and drinking, rarely showed up to lessons, and generally made a nuisance of themselves. Almost everyone in the school was terrified of them, and with good reason. I had, to my eternal shame, once been part of their group. When I'd first learned I was adopted, I'd gone off the deep end. For more than a year I hung around with the bad crowd and was not a very nice person. I did some things back then that I wasn't proud of. But then, one day, I'd overheard my parents talking about my behaviour, and they'd sounded so upset and disappointed that it had shocked me out of my craziness. Since then, I'd tried to be a model daughter. Granted, I wasn't always successful, but at least I tried.

Anyway, although Carl was the leader of the group, but he wasn't the most feared. No, the guy who scared the shit out of almost everyone at Oakchurch School, including the teachers, was Spark Hamilton. He was currently sitting beside Carl and flicking scrunched up pieces of paper at a poor fat girl in front of him whose name I couldn't remember.

No one knew why Spark was called Spark. He'd moved to Oakchurch about a year after I left the bad crowd, so I'd never actually talked to him. He'd basically demanded that everyone called him Spark, and so everyone did. He had that effect on people a lot. It helped that Spark was so gorgeous it was almost painful to look at him. His hair was a medium brown and had that I-just-got-out-of-bed look. His eyes were an incredibly clear green, the colour of oak leaves or something, not the muddy green most people had. His cheekbones were nicely sculpted, but he didn't look even vaguely effeminate due to his strong jaw. A pen dangled from his mouth, drawing attention to his perfect, full lips.

He was wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black jeans, emphasising his lean but muscular physique. There was a tattoo on his left upper arm, but I had never been close enough to him to see what it was of. He was an inch or two taller than Carl.

Yeah. He had the looks of a god, but the personality of the devil. He was not someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of. Even in a crowded classroom, several people were shooting him nervous looks. There was a rumour that he'd been expelled from his last two schools before Oakchurch because he'd burned them down. Like I said, it was just a rumour, but he definitely looked like the arsonist type.

To my horror and disgust, History turned out to be not the only lesson I had with him this year. As I stumbled into the Geography classroom after lunch five minutes late, I found him sitting in a chair at the very back of the classroom. I considered walking straight out again when I realised that the only spare seat was beside him.

Shit. Double shit.

Unlike most people, I wasn't afraid of Spark. I wasn't afraid of much, actually. I just felt an all-consuming irritation when I sat down in the chair to his left. As I took my pencil case and some paper from my bag, I peeked at his tattoo. It was of a skull with a knife through its head, and the words Death Before Dishonour above and below it.

I gave an involuntary snort.

Spark glanced at me as the teacher, Mrs Clarke, began taking the register. "What's your problem?" he asked mildly. His voice was smooth as silk, but deep at the same time. It wrapped around me like a warm blanket, and I couldn't help shivering with delight. Bugger.

I nodded at his tattoo. "So you think you're honourable, do you?"

His green eyes held my blue ones unwaveringly. Neither of us blinked. "Yeah, I do," he said evenly. "Do you have anything that proves otherwise?"

"Only your reputation. Yeah," I added in response to Mrs Clarke calling my name out on the register. We didn't have to say "here" or anything like that. Just "yeah".

Spark grinned at me suddenly, a wild and disarming grin. It made him look dangerous and disreputable, and a couple of people nearby edged their chairs away from him. "I like you," he informed me. "You're honest. But I should have expected nothing less from you...Hallow." At my surprised look that he actually knew who I, Miss Freak of the Year, was, his smile broadened and he explained, "Carl has told me all about you."

Had he, indeed? I wondered what, exactly, Spark had been told. Probably nothing very flattering, but probably all true. Carl hadn't exactly been pleased when I'd left his gang, to put it mildly. I believe his exact words were: "If you leave, I will tear you apart limb by limb and paint a picture in your blood, you fucking whore!" to which I'd replied, "How very artistic of you," before turning and walking away. "That's nice," I said, in reply to Spark's comment.

"Will the two people at the back interrupting my class please shut up!" Mrs Clarke's voice demanded suddenly. Either she was stupid or ignorant for yelling at Spark - probably the former. Although he hadn't been in her class last year, she had to have had Spark pointed out to her by one of the other teachers. He was pretty notorious.

Spark mockingly saluted Mrs Clarke before resuming the conversation with me. Much to my chagrin. "So why did you leave Carl?"

I tried to concentrate on what Mrs Clarke was saying about tourism in National Parks, but Spark's face was about an inch from mine, and I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. It was very distracting. "I didn't leave him. I left the gang. We were never technically together."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him raise an eyebrow. "That's not what he says." He scribbled a note on National Parks on his pad of paper, and I noticed a second tattoo on the wrist of his right hand. It was of a Chinese symbol with what looked like a dragon either side. I have to admit, it looked pretty cool.

"Carl likes to embellish. A lot."

"Oh, so you didn't really break into the bowling alley one time and give the floors a little wax, if you know what I mean." He grinned at me, as if I would find his metaphor amusing.

I turned my head to glare at him, and found his mouth inches from mine. Disconcerted, I jerked my head backwards. "Look, will you just shut up?! I don't really know you, and to be perfectly honest I don't actually like you very much. You're rude and annoying and kind of mean. So shut the hell up and let me do what I came here to do: Learn."

Spark blinked at me for a moment, taken aback that I would speak to him so brazenly. Then a slow smile appeared on his face. He chuckled, and the boy on the other side of him gave him a terrified look before dragging his chair as far away as he could. "You," he said, pointing his pen in my direction, "are really something."

My annoyance levels had been slowly building since I'd been forced by circumstances to sit beside him, and I guess they got so high that I couldn't control them anymore. Only I didn't let out a string of expletives, which was what I'd meant to do. I did something much worse.

The projector in the Geography classroom hung from the ceiling, attached by wires inside the walls that connected it to a laptop on Mrs Clarke's desk. It meant that she could show us things on the Internet, and we could also watch DVDs of boring Geography stuff. The school had spent thousands of pounds updating all the classrooms in this way.

Without warning, the projector came loose from the ceiling and began to fall, directly above some hapless students. I stared in horror as it descended, wires being pulled free as it did so. Time seemed to go into slow-motion for a moment, as the students looked up at their potential deaths, and I did the only thing I could think of to do. I focused my mind on the projector and sort of pushed.

The projector went flying forwards as if it had been struck, hitting the whiteboard so hard it cracked it, before crashing to the floor in a heap of broken metal and tangled wires.

There was complete silence in the classroom for a moment.

Then someone screamed, and chaos broke out.

That was practically a stampede to the door as my fellow students thought...well, what exactly they thought I didn't know, but nothing good. Maybe they thought the school was collapsing. Whatever the reason, they were extremely to get the hell out of there. I, on the other hand, felt like I was stuck to my seat. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to.

"STOP!" a commanding voice bellowed, and everyone froze suddenly in a way that was almost comical. As one, heads swivelled to look at Mrs Clarke, who looked shaken but took control of the situation. I was actually mildly impressed. "Everyone, stay calm. There is nothing to worry about. The projector fell, that is all. Accidents happen."

Accident. Yeah, right. I felt tremendously guilty as, slowly, everyone's panic levels reduced. It was my fault the projector had fallen and several people had almost been injured, if not killed.

You see, I'm telekinetic.

Seriously. You know, like Carrie. Only not nearly so insane. My powers weren't as immense, either. I could move small things with my mind - pencils, books, lamps...Things like that. Usually accidentally. Only when I was really pissed off my powers seemed to grow, and suddenly big things moved without me even wanting them to.

My powers had first manifested when I was thirteen, around the time I'd discovered I was adopted. As if discovering that my parents had lied to me my entire life wasn't bad enough, I found out I could literally kill someone with a look. I had been terrified and desperate for a way out, so I'd left my previous group - the popular ones, believe it or not - and become bad. It was better than facing what was going on.

I didn't know why I had these weird powers. I thought perhaps I was a witch like in Charmed, or an alien like in Roswell, or a mutant like in X-Men. (My life tended to revolve around television.) Basically, I had no idea why I was different. I just was. Lucky me.

My telekinesis had caused some accidents before, but never one like this. I didn't understand why it had been so bad. Yes, Spark had been pissing me off, but so much that I'd inadvertently caused this to happen? I didn't get it.

And I couldn't believe I'd just used my power in front of people. Granted, by accident, but I had to be careful not to slip up like that again. If people found out what I could do...well, they'd think I was even weirder than I was now. Then it really would be like something out of Roswell - I'd be shut in a white room faster than you can say "freak". The only person who knew what I could do was Laura, and I intended for it to stay that way.

I glanced around the classroom, wondering whether anyone had even the slightest clue that I was responsible for the accident. Fortunately, they appeared oblivious to the fact that a witch/alien/mutant/whatever had just used her unpredictable powers.

Mrs Clarke instructed everyone to gather their things and get out of the classroom, since no one could guarantee that it was safe. Basically, it meant that we were able to go home an hour and a half early. Cheers erupted from several people. I packed my bag and slung it over my shoulder as I walked to the door. Only then, for some reason, I looked back at Spark.

He was staring at me. I frowned at him, but he continued to just look at me with those amazing green eyes of his, his face expressionless. The intensity of his gaze made my face flush, and I'm not the sort of person who blushes easily. But that wasn't the strangest thing. I got the feeling that he knew exactly what I'd done - that he knew it was my fault. But that was impossible.

Wasn't it?