A/N: Hey, guys. Welcome to the prologue of my new story. This was my NaNoWriMo novel for 2008. I'm editing it (with the help of my lovely beta, Miss Sandra) and putting it out here for the world to see. Hopefully, someone will find it enjoyable. =)

Warning: The prologue gets a little gory. The rest of the story, however, is not. So, while I would rate this chapter a little higher than PG-13, the rest of the story is PG-13 or lower.

Prologue
Valentine's Day 2009

The lights reflect off of the tarnished floor of the gym of Richardson High School, throwing rays of pink and red around a room which already—in Michael Mackin’s opinion—contains far too much pink and red.

Michael, a dark haired senior, looks around the room, taking in the streamers, balloons, and glitter that cover the tables and the make-shift dance floor. His expression twists into a grimace before smoothing over again. He leans over to the girl at his side and murmurs, “We really have to do this, Miranda?”

Miranda Bailey looks up at him, smiling brightly. “It’s a dance, Michael, not a death sentence,” she laughs.

Michael spares a glance at the line of guys standing at the refreshment table that had been set up by the free-throw line. The vast majority of the guys are clutching at their glasses of punch like it’s their last meal. “Not a death sentence,” he repeats, raising his eyebrows at her. “Right.”

She rolls her dark eyes, but she’s smiling. He can see that, for whatever reason, she’s excited about his. Honestly, he’d rather be anywhere but this gym—but if it makes Miranda happy, he’ll suck it up. It’s the least he could do for her.

She stands on her toes—still not quite at eye-level with Michael—and peers over the people in the crowd. Michael watches as her eyes light up and she waves—he doesn’t have to look to know that she’s waving to Rita Emerson, her best friend. “I’ll be right back,” she says to Michael, kissing him on the cheek before disappearing into the crowd.

Michael smiles to himself as she goes.

“Dude,” a low voice says from behind him. Michael doesn’t even jump at the sudden and silent appearance. “I’d say that you’re whipped, but I think we covered that one.”

He turns to face the lanky, green-eyed kid who had spoken. “Dude, you haven’t had a girlfriend in a year,” Michael notes, not meanly.

“Point taken,” Asher Haywood says, grinning easily. His attire differs greatly from Michael’s own black button-down—he’s wearing ratty jeans and a worn t-shirt that bears the name of some underground punk band that Michael’s only vaguely heard of.

“Shouldn’t you be at the sound booth picking out, uh, music?” He uses the term “music” loosely, given the Disney pop currently blaring through the crackling speakers.

“Aaron’s got it covered,” Asher shrugs, not looking too concerned. Michael turns to the music booth just in time to see Aaron Barker fumble with the CD case in his hands and drop it, a mortified expression crossing his pale features. “I’ll go back after I get ear plugs,” Asher corrects slowly, and Michael realizes that he’s been watching the same display. “Man, I hope that wasn’t mine,” he says, wincing.

Michael lets out a loose laugh at this. “You brought your CDs?”

“God, yeah,” Asher responds, eyes widening as they always do when he starts talking about music. “You think I want to listen to this Disney crap?” He shakes his head, grimace back in place. “No way. But nobody’s requesting anything I brought.” He looks mildly offended by this. “And I can’t play anything that isn’t requested.”

“They picked you for your taste and then didn’t let you pick the music,” Michael sums up, a hint of irony in his tone.

Asher claps him on the shoulder and says, “Dude, sarcasm is not your thing.” His eyes go over Michael’s head, toward the sound booth. He flinches at whatever he sees before distractedly saying, “I gotta go.”

Michael watches Asher push through the crowd, heading over to the sound booth. A small group of people were now leaning against the booth, talking to a stammering Aaron. Asher intercepts, saving Aaron from his worst nightmare—forcible social interaction. Michael catches Miranda’s eye from across the room and nods to the sound booth before following Asher.

“I don’t, uh, I don’t think we have that,” Aaron is saying helplessly to one of the girls in the group. He flips through the CD case, glasses slipping down his nose. Upon seeing Asher returning, Aaron’s whole body seems to sag with relief. “Asher? She’s looking for, uh, for…” He glances at the girl, pushing his glasses back up.

“Green Day,” the girl fills in. Michael follows Asher up into the sound booth, smirking as he waits for Asher’s reaction. “Like, the good stuff. ‘Basket Case’ or ‘Coming Clean’ or something.” Asher gives her a huge grin and takes the CD case from Aaron. He flips to a section completely dominated by Green Day and starts helping her pick out a song. Michael, knowing that any conversation involving Asher and Green Day is gonna take a while, goes to stand by Aaron, who has moved back to the reason he’s in the sound booth to begin with—his camera.

“Hey,” he says. “How’s the video going?”

Aaron adjusts the angle of the camera, looking out over the crowd. Apparently pleased with it, he straightens up and answers Michael. “Same, I guess. Nobody’s agreed to do any interviews.” He frowns at this. “I’ve got to have this done in a few months, and you’re the only one who would do an interview.”

“Maybe you need a new topic,” Michael suggests, shrugging. Aaron’s broadcasting class had him scrambling to film a two-hour documentary on a pre-approved topic. Aaron had gotten landed with a documentary on the senior class, effectively cutting out the majority of the people he’d planned on interviewing. “I mean, if you think up something good, she’ll let you switch, right?”

“Yeah, she might,” Aaron says. The look in his eyes gives away the fact that he doesn’t really believe this. From what Michael’s heard, the broadcasting teacher is pretty strict like that.

“Well, uh, if you can’t switch, I’ll try and get some people to interview,” Michael says. “Like this idiot,” he says, nodding to Asher. He dodges the subdued punch that comes from Asher, laughing. “But seriously, man, don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks,” Aaron says, giving Michael a smile.

“Hey! Can we come up there? Cuz it looks a lot more fun than down here—like, for serious.” Michael looks down over the sound booth and sees a small blonde girl in a black dress looking up at him with a wide smile. Standing on either side of her are Miranda and a blonde guy with grey eyes.

Michael looks to Asher, who promptly says, “Miranda, yes. You two, no.”

Michael rolls his eyes and looks down at Rita Emerson and Riley Craig with an apologetic shrug. Riley rolls his eyes in return before sullenly saying, “I was gonna get a drink anyway. You guys want anything?” He says this to the girls, but looks up to include the rest.

“Do they have Coke?” Miranda asks, chewing on her bottom lip. Michael tries to hide his smile, but doesn’t completely succeed. Miranda’s got a little bit of a problem with Coke. Enough of a problem that for her last birthday, Michael had jokingly offered to pay her way through rehab.

“Uh.” Riley cranes his neck to see over to the refreshment table. He looks back to her, shrugging. “I think it’s just punch.”

“Oh,” Miranda says, looking a little put out. “Well, uh, no thanks.”

“I’ll have punch,” Rita says. “But you know, it would be even better if it were alcoholic.”

“Rita,” Miranda says sharply, staring at her friend, as Michael laughs and Asher says, “Here, here.” Miranda sends both of them a look that makes them both look away, reproached.

“Well, it’s true,” Rita says, tone bordering on a whine. “And come on, a high school dance without spiked punch? That’s insane. Kind of like that girl’s dress,” she comments, nodding toward a girl with a rather unfortunate orange dress. She cringes and then amends, “Actually, that’s not insane. That’s just tragic.”

“I’ll take some punch, Craig,” Asher says, knowing that Riley will play good cop even if he doesn’t want to. Riley has a bitch-face that could theoretically freeze over hellfire, and he turns it on Asher. “Just don’t poison it.” Riley blanches momentarily. “What, I figure out your master plan or something?” Asher asks, laughing.

“No,” Riley responds coolly. “Just wondering where you come up with this morbid crap.”

“I’m not morbid,” Asher says, giving a nod to the Green Day girl and switching out the CD. “I’m a realist. There’s a difference.”

“Whatever you say, man,” Riley says. “Michael, you want somethin’?”

“Uh. Yeah, but I can get it,” he says. He walks down the steps and back onto the ground level, ending right next to Miranda. He wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her closer.

“Don’t worry about it—the table’s right by where we’re sitting,” Riley says, already moving to go over to the refreshment table. “I’ll meet you guys there.” His eyes linger on Rita for a moment before he turns and walks away.

“So you’re here with the jackass?” Asher questions. The group of kids making requests has dwindled, leaving only their group. Asher leans over the top of the sound booth, propping himself up with his arms.

“Why, you jealous?” Rita asks chirpily. “Seriously, Ash, you should’ve just asked me. I totally would’ve gone with you if, you know, you had the balls to ask.”

“One, it’s Asher, not Ash,” Asher corrects, ignoring the snicker that Michael gives. “And two…uh, no. Jealousy is not in my dictionary.”

“Neither is anything else,” Rita retorts, not loud enough for Asher to hear. Michael throws her a dark look and she shrugs. “What? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Want to go find that table?” Michael says to Miranda, slowly looking back to her. He’d rather not stick around for the inevitable explosion once Asher realizes what Rita had said.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Miranda says, obviously sympathizing with this, judging by the way she half-drags him across the room, Rita in tow.

“You really shouldn’t talk to him like that,” Michael says to Rita, still not happy about her comment. “Especially about…I mean, he doesn’t deserve that.”

“Doesn’t deserve it?” Miranda scoffs and Michael looks at her incredulously. “Come on, Michael. I know he’s your best friend, but he’s a douchebag to Rita and Riley all the time. He shouldn’t dish it out if he can’t take it.”

“Then mess with him about something else,” Michael says, an edge entering his voice. He doesn’t like fighting with Miranda, but he can’t just let the girls trash Asher. He’s known Asher since they were kids, and yeah, maybe he’s a little protective. But it’s not Asher’s fault.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Miranda snaps, shrugging his arm off of her. Michael lets go easily, hands up in a sign of surrender.

“We really have to do this now?” he asks, voice strained. He hadn’t even wanted to come to this stupid dance, and now she’s freaking out on him? He’s starting to wonder how the night could possibly get worse.

“I’m going to get some air,” Miranda says, turning her gaze away from him. “You coming, Rita?”

“Yep,” Rita chirps brightly, as if she hadn’t been paying attention to the argument—which, honestly, she probably hadn’t been. Rita has a habit of tuning out the things that she doesn’t want to hear. “Hey, Michael, can you tell Riley that I’m not feelin’ too good?”

“Are you really not feeling good?” Michael asks doubtfully. He flat-out refuses to be a part of the hoes-before-bros movement.

“Nah, I think I’m gonna go home,” she says, smiling and looking altogether healthy. “We didn’t really come together anyway, except for he drove me, but y’know, my house isn’t too far, so I think I’m just gonna walk home.”

Michael just shakes his head. Miranda shoots him a look and leaves, Rita following after her, still chattering animatedly. Shoving his hands into his pockets, Michael makes his way over to the table where Riley has brought the drinks—four red plastic glasses of punch.

“Where’d everybody go?” Riley asks, noticing that Michael’s alone. Michael shakes his head in a wide-eyed look of you don’t want to know and then crashes into the chair closest to him. From where he’s sitting, his photographer’s eye can see the red punch reflected onto the white table cloth. “That bad, huh?” Riley offers a half-smile, knowing how Miranda and Rita worked.

“Yeah,” Michael says, frowning. He picks up one of the plastic champagne flutes and offers it like a toast. Riley picks up another one, mimicking the motion, and both boys down their punch like shots. Michael wipes his mouth on his sleeve and sets the glass back onto the table. “Rita’s going home,” he says, breaking the news fast.

Riley frowns. “What’s she gonna do, walk?” He shakes his head, not needing an answer. “Man, that’s stupid. I’m gonna go see if she wants a ride.” He pushes the chair back with a screech, flinching at the harsh noise. “See you later, man.”

Michael nods a goodbye. He turns his attention toward the sound booth, noting with a sigh that Asher and Aaron are both swamped with work. There’s nothing Michael can do but sit here and wait for Miranda to calm down and come back. There’s no use going after her when she’s like this. They don’t fight much, but they’ve gotten into it often enough that Michael knows when to take a few steps back and let her blow a couple of fuses to Rita.

Not seeing much in the way of entertainment, Michael turns to the two remaining drinks on the table and picks one up. Might as well.

His eyelids are getting heavier by the minute, and Michael doesn’t know what was in that punch, but whatever it was, it was strong. As strong as…as… Man, the lights are bright, he thinks dully. He stands up, hoping to find—find someone, anyone—and suddenly, the front of his shirt is dripping wet. He blinks slowly, looking up in confusion. He sees a girl—a redhead, he can’t place her otherwise—gaping at him. “I—sorry,” she gasps, switching her gaze to her now empty cup of punch.

He rearranges his expression into what he hopes is a smile, and then pushes through the crowd, heading toward the doors that lead into the hallway of the school. He needs air. He needs air, and then he can find Miranda, and then they can go home, because he’s pretty sure that he’s really, really sick right now. But he’s having a hard time concentrating, and the gym is too hot, and too bright, and too loud, and he just really needs some air.

He pushes the door open, surprised at how heavy it seems. He slips out of the gym, virtually unnoticed, and into the darkened hallway of the school. The only source of light here is what filters in through the windows—white light from the moon, yellow light from the streetlights. The only noise is the now-muffled music from in the gym. The air is colder, making it a lot easier to breathe.

Michael looks down the hallway, wondering what to do—find Miranda? Wait for whatever’s going on with him to pass? He starts walking down the hall, toward the double doors that lead to the parking lot. Outside. He can figure out what to do…outside…

And then there’s a hand over his mouth and something sharp against his neck. In his haze, it takes him a moment to put together what’s happening, and by that point, it’s too late. He struggles as the knife—it’s got to be a knife, right?—digs through the flesh of his neck. He can feel the blood pouring out of his arteries, running down his neck and his shirt. It runs faster as his heart-rate speeds up with panic.

The hand lets go, and Michael finds that he can’t stand on his own. He hits his knees. He puts one hand to his throat, trying in vain to do something, to do anything to stop the bleeding. He tries to yell out for help, but the noise comes out a blood-soaked gurgle. He sees his attacker run past him, and he reaches out, trying to stop him. The sudden shift in weight causes Michael to fall to the ground.

He’s losing consciousness, and all he can think is, I am going to die. He fights it. He struggles to stay awake, tries to drag himself forward…but the blood loss finally gets to him. He goes limp—unconscious, but not quite dead yet—and bleeds out on the floor. The whole thing takes less than thirty seconds.

“C’mon, Casey,” Tom whispers, pulling his girlfriend along behind him. The hall is quiet other than the muffled pounding of pop music coming from the gym that they had just escaped.

Casey, a tall girl with red hair, giggles, following him. “Are you sure we’re not gonna get caught?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at the doors to the gym.

“Nah—all the teachers are in there,” Tom assures her. “Besides, you could always tell ‘em that you just needed to go clean up.” He nods toward her pink dress, which is lightly spattered with punch.

“Tom! I already feel bad about that,” she whispers. She really hadn’t meant to spill her punch on that dude—she tripped at the same time that he was standing up. It was an accident. But she knows that she’s not ever going to hear the end of it from Tom.

He laughs and gently presses her against the wall. He leans in and kisses her on the cheek, causing her to squirm away and laugh. “Okay, okay—let’s go!” The two hurry along the hallway, laughing and giggling, hoping to make it to Tom’s car before getting caught sneaking around the school.

Casey slips on the floor—they must have waxed it—and falls with a shriek, almost taking Tom down with her. She reaches a hand down to feel her ankle, and is surprised to feel it covered with a thick, sticky liquid. “Ow,” she says, mostly out of shock. The fall hadn’t hurt too bad—definitely not bad enough to acquire that amount of blood. “Ow, Tom, I think I’m bleeding!”

“What?” Tom kneels down beside her, sounding surprised, and looks at her ankle in the moonlight. A car passes in the parking lot, momentarily lighting up the hallway, and Tom freezes. His eyes darken with horror and Casey knows that something isn’t right.

“What? Tom, what is it?” Casey looks over her shoulder and sees what he’s been staring at. She screams—a blood curdling, terrified cry that stabs at her throat, at her chest, at her lungs. She scrambles toward Tom, who is frozen, in total shock.

She notices the blood first. It’s pooled on the floor—dark and thick, with a trail leading from the main pool to her ankle, to her dress, forever connecting her to this spot. It’s more blood than she thought that one body could hold. She sees how the blood stains the skin and clothes of the boy lying on the ground.

His head is resting on one of his arms, propping it up just above the ground. The fingers of that hand are covered in blood, pressed loosely against his neck. His eyes are open just enough for Casey to feel like he’s watching her, like he’s accusing her of doing this, of doing something she would never, ever do. His other arm is stretched forward, like he had tried to crawl away from his attacker.

His throat is slit.

Dead and reaching. That’s how they found Michael Mackin, the poor bastard who went to a Valentine’s Day Dance at a school he never really even liked. That’s how they found Michael Mackin, who had already been accepted into his dream school and planned to leave Richardson, Tennessee right after graduation. That’s how they found Michael Mackin, boyfriend, son, friend, photographer, student.

That’s how they found Michael Mackin. That’s how they found me.

Red and blue lights flash over the faces of two juniors—Tom and Casey something—who are standing outside of the school, retelling the night’s events to a police officer. Mascara runs down Casey’s cheeks as she stumbles through her description. Tom looks ashen and doesn’t say a word. All of the students who were in the gym when the cops came are stuck there—most of them without a clue as to what happened.

The kids who had left the building for some reason or another are locked out, being kept in the parking lot under the stern eye of a sheriff.

Leaning against one of the cop cars, Asher thinks that he has not been properly prepared for the situation before him. After all, he’d signed up to play sidekick, and no sidekick expects the hero to be killed off in the prologue. (I promise that’s not my way of saying that I’m the hero, here. Just go with it.) There’s a barely repressed sense of panic in his eyes and he knows it. He stares down at the wet asphalt under the soles of his beat up Converse so that no one can see the blatant fear that is going through him, controlling his every thought.

Miranda is leaning against the same car as Asher, but is at least two feet away from him. Her lips are pressed into a thin line. Miranda is the type of person to look at things logically. In her mind, Michael having a bunch of douchebag friends is perfectly plausible. Michael having his throat slit and being left to bleed out in the hallway of their high school, on the other hand, is most definitely not logical. She refuses to believe what is happening. Something in her mind shut down when one of the cops grabbed her and Asher from the courtyard and forced them into the parking lot.

Asher, on the other hand, does believe it. Asher is the type of person to be a pessimist about any situation that pops up. (He calls it “being a realist”.) So, of course, somebody getting murdered in a school during a Valentine’s Day dance is completely possible. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s going over signs, trying to figure out how he could have predicted how this would happen. He’s struggling to keep himself from vomiting again, though he knows that there’s nothing left in his stomach. The fact that the cop had given them a description of the murdered kid had taken care of that.

One of the cops—a guy in his mid-twenties with short blonde hair—walks over to them. He’s holding a small notepad in one hand and a pen in the other. “What were you guys doing out here?” he asks, eyeing Asher. He’s seeing the ungrateful little punk that his parents see. The tall kid with crossed arms and a bored, sleepy expression, staring down at the ground.

“I just went to get some air,” Miranda says, voice steady. This isn’t real. “It was getting a little…” She glances at Asher, who hasn’t said a word. “…tense in there.”

The officer jots this down, the scratching of pen on paper sounding loud—so much louder than it should. He stops writing and then looks to Asher. “And you?”

Asher pauses for a moment, wondering whether it would get him into deeper trouble if he lied. He sighs and reluctantly pulls a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans and shakes it. “Like she said…it was getting tense.”

The officer frowns at him, but writes it down. “Mom’s gonna kill you for that, Ash,” he says.

“Bite me, Eric,” Asher replies eloquently. “And it’s Asher.” He flips the pack of cigarettes over in his hands, itching to pull one out, before shoving it back into his pocket.

Asher’s older brother rolls his eyes and flips the notepad shut. Asher finally looks up at him. Seeing the look in his brother’s eyes, he passes a hand over his face. His tone softens when he speaks next. “Listen. I’m not gonna tell her. With Mike…” He trails off, not wanting to say the words. He’s pale, maybe even a little green. Eric had been the first one to respond to the call, the first cop on the scene. He’d already cased the crime scene. “You’ve had a bad enough day. Just don’t let her catch you smoking, all right?”

Asher shrugs at him and turns his attention back to Tom and Casey. He swallows hard and then forces his vocal chords to work. “When did it happen?” he asks. It’s a sick, twisting feeling in his gut, this need for information.

“According to the coroner…about forty five minutes ago,” Eric replies, sticking his notepad into the pocket of his jacket. He watches Asher for a moment before finally continuing, “He, uh, he said that it would’ve been almost immediate. Michael probably wouldn’t have had time to feel it.” He means this to be comforting, but the fact is that he doesn’t know. And, for the record, he’s wrong. I sure as hell felt it.

“Anybody call Sam and Claire yet?” Asher’s voice lacks tone, but not in the normal way—instead of saying things dryly, these words sound empty, like he’s reading tonelessly from a teleprompter that only he can see.

“Ah…no, no, no one’s called them,” Eric says. He cringes. “And I really wouldn’t want to be the one to have to.”

Sam and Claire Mackin are my parents. And to be honest, I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell my dad that his only child got ganked right under the noses of the entire school either. He can be a little trigger happy, to put it lightly.

Asher closes his eyes briefly, expression tightening, and then just keeps watching Tom and Casey. Tom’s slumped down against the wall, looking sick to his stomach. Casey’s expensive pink dress is stained with drying blood. The EMTs that came with the ambulance bring blankets over. At least there’s some use for the ambulance—it obviously doesn’t do me any good.

“I’m sorry, Asher,” Eric says quietly. When Asher doesn’t reply, Eric turns and walks back toward the school, needing to report their statements to the sheriff.

They still haven’t moved my body when Eric forces Asher and Miranda into a car and drives them home. Asher stares out the window of the police cruiser, trying not to just lose it. He’s thinking that if it’d been immediate, there was nothing he could’ve done, but—but if Eric was wrong, then he could’ve done something to stop this from happening.

Miranda still doesn’t believe it to be any more than vicious lies or a disgusting prank. She watches Asher without faltering, waiting for any sign—a sudden twitch of the lips, a glint in his eyes—that would give him away as an accomplice to this joke. She doesn’t turn away, even when he turns from the window and meets her eyes.

The two most important people in my life stare at each other in total silence. Asher doesn’t understand the hardened edge in Miranda’s eyes. Miranda doesn’t understand the fear in his. They only stop when Eric’s car pulls up in front of Miranda’s house. Eric, wanting to get Asher home before whatever shock he’s expecting sets in, tactfully kicks her out by telling her that she needs to be with her family, not knowing that there wouldn’t be anyone there. Miranda stands in her driveway in her black dress, eyes following Asher until the car disappears from sight.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Leave a comment and let me know what you did and didn't like, please! The next chapter should be up soon.