Page 13 of Phoenix Academy: Mayhem

Which is when I know who she is, recognition going through me all at once, and I realize why I so desperately want to catch up with her.

"Mom."

Once I've caught my breath, I run towards her again, pulling my full panther shifter nature into it and going as fast as I can.

No matter what, I can't catch her.

She's always just out of reach.

* * *

Xavier

Suddenly I'm alone in the old school. Whirling around, I search the shadows with my panther eyes, but there's no sign of where anyone has gone. They just up and vanished between one breath in the next.

And there's a heaviness in the air like danger is coming.

"Okay. Well, this is Hell." I force myself not to panic, taking deep breaths in through my nose and slowly releasing them from my mouth. "It's reasonable that sooner or later we would be caught somewhere in some kind of mind game. After all, we weren't expecting a picnic. So... time to figure out what this place has in store for me."

As I stroll through the long hallway of the school, glancing carefully in every classroom, I feel a more and more foreboding. The space between my shoulder blades itches, but I force myself not to constantly look over my shoulder. I'm a shifter; if something is following me, I'll hear it or smell it. There's no reason to jump at every sensation.

Especially because it's likely all just a trick of my mind.

If I just remind myself it isn't real, maybe it won't be. Maybe the fear and foreboding will go away, and I'll find myself back with the group. I'll be part of them again.

At least, for the most part.

The truth is, without Reggie and David, I don't really know that I'd be with Ari at all.

Even with them around I always feel a little bit like the outsider. The piece that doesn't quite fit into the puzzle. I'm not like my brother, and though David and I will always be close, we're different too. A girl like Ari probably wouldn't even look at a geek like me twice if I were alone.

That thought propels me towards the back of the school, where two doors stand inexplicably wide open. As I stroll through them, searching for the others, I wonder if I'm truly alone now.

Then I see a cabin out behind the woods.

It's dilapidated and strange, the roof patched over, the siding rotted. But there's a light on inside. Signs of life.

Demonic life, for all I know.

But somehow I doubt demons in Hell spend most of their time in strange cabins nestled among evergreen trees and growing ivy.

As I walk towards the scene, I feel the school recede behind me, until it's miles away and I'm all alone.

Alone. As I've always been. As I'll always be. Even when I'm with others, I feel like I don't belong. Nothing makes that clearer than the way my brother, who looks so much like me, moves effortlessly through the school making friends and being loved. Whatever deficit I have, it's one all my own.

Something about the cabin calls to me.

I try to shake it off, but my reasonable, cool head is gone now. All I feel is longing. So I stride towards the cabin's front door and push it open on its creaky hinges.

Inside is dust. Cobwebs. A mess of books on the floor, on dilapidated shelves, a tilting dining room table, a sofa no one has ever sat on. The smell of rot and ruin hits my nose.

In a chair near the back of a cabin sits a skeleton with tattered clothes and rotting bits of flesh clinging to yellowed bones.

I know in my heart of hearts that the skeleton is me.

Dying as I lived: alone.

* * *

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