Chapter 1

A loud alarm rang through the room, announcing it was time to get out of bed. Sam knew that she should, but she was tired, and reached over to hit the snooze button for a few more blissfull minutes of sleep before the day, as she routinely did. Today though, the alarm clock had been placed a foot or two farther away, and while stretching to try to reach it, fell out of bed.

Her bed was a lofted bed with a small bookshelf stocked with fantasy books and a scoop chair underneath, and when she fell, she hit the ground with a sickening thunk. Sam groaned in pain. She got up and stood on a chair to reach the alarm clock on the little ledge on her wall.

"What a great way to start you're 16th birthday." She grumbled to herself.

She walked over to her dresser and pulled out some clothes. She picked a nicer pair of her jeans and her favorite shirt that was a beautiful shade of blue somewhere between baby-blue and teal. She also put on her shoes, simple grey Converse with skydiver-blue trim.

Her hair was composed of many shades of gold, all natural. It looked like some faint type of camoflauge, although it wouldn't help if she were trying to hide. She tied her slightly wavy shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and headed downstairs.

She reached the kitchen to find her adoptive mother cooking breakfast at the stove. It was something she didn't normaly do, but she always cooked breakfast on someones birthday. She had long dark brown hair that reminded sam of chocolate and went down to her lower back.

"Morning birthday girl." She said to Sam with a bright smile on her face. She scrapped some scrambled eggs onto a plate.

"Morning, mom." Sam replied sleepily as she grabbed the plate off of the counter. She ate quickly and grabbed her lighter jacket and her last piece of toast and headed out the door.

Sam took her usual route to school, following a few quiet streets and passing by a beautiful pond. The only downside to this way was that she had to pass by a construction sight.

As she was passing by this site, zoning out and daydreaming, she heard someone yell for someone else to get out of the way. She then realized they were yelling at her and looked up to see danger.

An I-beam was falling from the construction site straight down at her. As a scream filled the air, a scream the didn't belong to her, Sam closed her eyes as not to see the world as she died. She would have moved, but terror had frozen her stiff. She felt the impact and then the cold concrete beneath her back, heard the crunch of metal as the beam landed. She felt the pain in her back from skidding across the ground.

She opened her eyes to see hair. It was light brown and it tickled her nose. The boy who had tackled her out of the way had his head over her shoulder. He slowly lifted his head and looked at her with eyes that seemed to be every shade of blue at the same time.

'I wonder if this is just a coincidence.' A boys voice said in her head, though the boy who saved her hadn't moved his mouth.

"Thanks for saving me." She said to him.

"Sure, any time." He replied with a smile. 'She's cuter then I thought she'd be.' The voice said again, and she could tell it belonged to the boy, though he still hadn't said anything. He didn't make any move to get up.

"Um, can I get up now?" She asked to boy with a slight blush, this seemed to startle him.

"Oh, right, sorry." He said, with a light pink coloring his cheeks as he got up.

Sam looked over to where she had been standing, and where the concrete was now a small crater. She then looked around and realized she had dropped her book bag when she first saw the steal beam falling.

She walked over to the edge of the crater and peered over. Under the steal, she spotted her bag, destroyed, and remnants of her books. She sighed dejectedly, this wasn't going to be a good day for her.

She turned back to the boy who had saved her. "Hey, what time is it?" She asked seeing the watch on his wrist.

"It's . . ." He said looking at his watch "about five till." He said looking back up at her.

"Crap," She said under her breath "sorry, I have to go, or I'll be late." She said then turned around and jogged off to school.

As she arrived to the door of her first class, the bell rang 'Just in time, that was close.' She thought as she sat down at her desk. Her first class of the day was English, and it was a rather small class with only about 12 students, most of which were girls. This was rare in the large school, but Sam was glad.

The teacher was Mr. Katawaru, the type of teacher most of the girls were obsessed with He was what most would call handsome. To Sam he seemed more like a father then a potential crush. Mr. Katawaru was also infatuated with samurai, that and fantasy stuff like dragons, elves, and magic, although most students didn't know.

"Happy birthday, Miss Allen." He said to Sam as he walked in the room. She had had him as a teacher for the past few years, since he used to work in her elementary school as well, and he had never once forgotten her birthday.

"Thank you Mister Katawaru." She replied to the man.

Her friend Lily leaned back from the seat in front of Sam "You know you're his favorite, Sam," She whispered to her friend, "you're so lucky."

Lily was one of the girls who had a crush on Mr. K, which Sam couldn't understand.

"We've been through this, I'm not his favorite, I've just known him for a while." Sam replied, she just wanted this conversation to be over, how could she be someone's favorite? She was just Sam, nothing special to make her stand out.

Lily opened her mouth to reply, but the class phone rang and the room went silent. Mister Katawaru picked it up "Hello, room 206. This is Mr. Katawaru speaking, what can I do for you?" He asked the caller, it seemed as though the entire class was holding it's breath. Hardly anybody ever called, and it usually wasn't good news. "Sure, can do, I'll be down in a minute." He calmly said and hung up the phone before turning to face the students.

"I'll be back in a minute, if anybody gets out of their seats the entire class gets detention." He said and calmly left the room.

Lily turned around to face Sam "I wonder what it could be." She said, wide-eyed, to her friend.

"Probably another one of his students got in trouble and he needs to punish them." Another classmate, Zack, said.

"We'll find out, whatever it is, soon." Replied Jane, from a few rows over. The room was silent for a few moments.

The door slid open and instantly every head in the room turned toward it, anxious to find out why the teacher was called down. "I'm back." He said while looking around the room as if to see the past and weather or not anyone got up. "I'm glad to see you all where I left you," He said with a smile. "Now, I'd like to introduce a new student. My nephew, Jason, he'll be starting school here as of now." He said gesturing to a boy standing a few feet away by the door.

Sam looked over to see a familiar boy around her age, with soft brown hair, and blue eyes. He was scanning the room with his eyes, like he was looking for someone, until he saw her and he stared. "Hey, nice to meet everyone." He seemed to be staring at her, as if he were talking directly to her.

"He's so dreamy." Lily said to Sam, as if hypnotized by the sight of a cute boy.

"Um, sure, whatever you say, Lily." Sam replied, not taking her eyes off of the boy.

"Jason, you may pick any available seat in the room." Mr. Katawaru said to the new boy. There were many available seats in the room, and Sam could see the slightest smirk on his face as he strolled over with purpose to the seat directly behind her.

He leaned forward to Sam "Sorry about this morning," he said quietly "is your back okay? You seem to be bleeding a bit." Sam reached around and felt her own back to be surprised with a slight sting just below her shoulder blades.

She pulled her hand back to her front and looked at her palm, to find that it was tinged with blood. She was bleeding, 'How come I didn't notice this before? She thought to herself. 'Oh well, mind as well go see how bad it is.' Sam raised her hand, the one without the blood, and the teacher looked slightly surprised, but called on her anyways. "Excuse me, I seem to have scraped my back and it's bleeding, may I go take care of it?" She asked and received confused glanced from her classmates.

"Sure, but do be quick about it." Mr. K replied sounding slightly surprised, and Sam quickly stood up and walked out the door. On her way out, she heard the class murmuring behind her. Instead of heading to the nurse, she decided to head to the bathroom and clean up by herself.

When she arrived at the bathroom, she pulled off her shirt, for she had a tank top underneath, so she could look at the rip on the back. It was larger than she expected, and bloodier too. It looked like someone had stabbed her, right where her heart was, then dragged the blade down her back. Although that wasn't at all what had happened, it still disturbed her.

Then she noticed something inside her shirt, it was a single feather. Plastered to the fabric, as if glued there, by blood. It must have been a lighter color, because it was completely dyed red by the blood that covered it.

Sam washed off the blood and cleaned up her back then headed back toward class. She was confused though, how did the feather get there? Why hadn't she noticed her back was bleeding? And why would that boy, Jason, show up in the middle of the year?