Though it was almost nine, there was still a large crowd gathered around B’s and S’s. The front of the burger place was bright against the dark night. An old wooden sign hung from the side of the building, the name Burger’s and Shake’s was spelled out in bright red lettering. Burger’s and Shake’s wasn’t a very original name, but it was the two things the restaurant did best. It was also the two things that most people stuck to, as the rest of the menu was a little iffy at times. That was the main reason why B’s and S’s had been designated the teen hang out for the past twenty years, as people over the age of twenty one rarely ate there again.
“What do you guys want?” Chris asked, removing his arms from their shoulders.
“Strawberry shake and fries,” Cassie answered.
“Garden salad, but make sure that it is freshly washed, and no dressing,” Melissa told him.
Chris and Cassie rolled their eyes. Chris was still shaking his head as he wound his way swiftly through the crowd gathered around the outdoor picnic tables. It wouldn’t be long before the tables were taken in, and the outdoor area was closed for the winter. Until then, everyone was enjoying the last bit of good weather that September had to offer.
Cassie and Melissa made their way to one of the few empty tables in the back. Eager greetings followed their every step as people turned toward them. They returned them politely, but neither of them stopped to talk. Cassie barely got her butt on the seat before Marcy Hodgins, the class president, was standing beside her.
“Hey Cassie, I was wondering if you had started planning for the homecoming dance.”
Cassie fought the urge to groan and roll her eyes. She had been head of the dance committee since freshman year, but every year it became harder and harder to find the time to dedicate to planning the dances. And this year she simply didn’t feel like doing it at all. She had not planned on running for the dance committee again, but earlier this year she had been automatically voted in.
“Homecoming isn’t for another two months Marcy,” she gently reminded the girl.
Marcy fidgeted slightly, her hands clasped and unclasped before her as Cassie’s answer obviously irked her. “Yes, but it will need a theme, decorations, fliers.”
Cassie sighed heavily. “Maybe you should just find someone else this year…”
“But you’re the best!” Marcy interrupted loudly. “You did a great job last year, and now that we’re seniors don’t you think we deserve the best memories possible!”
Cassie shot Melissa, a just shoot me now, look. Melissa smiled brightly, annoyingly, in return. “Of course I do Marcy, but I’m really busy this year…”
“I’ll get you more help!”
Cassie didn’t know if she wanted to scream in frustration, rip her hair out, or throttle the obtuse girl. Instead, she shoved all of her irritation aside, and forced a bright smile. “I’ll work on it Marcy.”
“Let me know if you need anything, anything at all.”
“I will.”
“Also, I do have a few ideas for themes that I would love to run by you. Maybe we can get together after school tomorrow to discuss them.”
Cassie’s hands clenched as she tried hard to keep a tight hold on her patience. Marcy meant well, but sometimes her OCD was enough to drive a saint to murder, and Cassie was far from a saint. She glanced at Melissa again, silently pleading for some sort of reprieve, but it came in the form of Chris as he dumped their food on the table.
“Hey Marcy,” he muttered absently, his mind on the food he was rapidly dolling out.
Marcy’s pretty face flooded with color as she ducked her head shyly. Cassie lifted an eyebrow, she turned to Melissa who grinned brightly back at her. “Well… I uh… I have to go, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow, ok Cass?” Marcy stammered out.
“Of course,” Cassie replied happily, glad to be free of the girl and amused by her obvious crush on Chris.
Marcy made a hasty retreat back to the table of girls she had been sitting with. Cassie turned eagerly back to Chris. He looked as if he was trying to solve the problems of the world, his eyebrows drawn tightly together in concentration. His attention was focused upon the shakes as he lifted the lid on one before plopping it down in front of her.
“I think someone has a crush on you,” she teased lightly.
“Huh, what?” He glanced up, a handful of fries, her fries, already halfway to his mouth. Before he could eat them all, Cassie surreptitiously slid her plate away from him as he scanned the dwindling crowd. “Who?” he demanded.
“Marcy.” Chris’s frown deepened as he looked toward the girl who was determinedly not looking their way again. “Short brunette just speaking to me,” Cassie reminded him.
Chris snapped out of his food trance as he grinned down at her. “No way, Marcy’s to prim and proper, likes the more refined guys.”
“Well you are definitely not refined, but she does have a crush on you,” Melissa insisted.
“Why, did you see something in my future?” he asked eagerly.
Melissa rolled her eyes as she shook her head. “I am not your crystal ball Chris.”
He rolled his eyes at her as he propped his leg on the bench. Striking a pose, he rested his arm on his leg, and gazed intent at Marcy. “Very sexy with the mouthful of fries,” Cassie teased.
“You know it.” He flashed a bright grin as he popped more fries in his mouth and sucked noisily on his shake.
“Don’t you think she’s a little much?”
His blue eyes twinkled merrily as he shook back his disheveled hair. “I’m a teenage boy Cassandra, there is no such thing as a little much to me. All girls are acceptable.”
“Ugh!” Melissa and Cassie both groaned as Cassie threw a fry at him.
He dodged it easily, catching it before it hit the ground and popping it into his mouth. “You’re gross,” she told him laughingly.
“But you love me.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Turning away from him, she focused her attention on her greasy fries, and delicious shake. Cassie glanced across the table; Melissa had a distant look on her face as she poked absently at a cucumber. To any passersby it simply appeared as if Melissa wasn’t hungry, but Cassie knew that Melissa’s concentration was actually fixed upon something that no one else could see.
This was not one of her fleeting glimpses of the future either, but a full premonition of something to come. It was one of the premonitions that took Melissa over, and held her hostage until it was done. A chill ran down Cassie’s spine, she hated these moments. They always left Melissa drained, and with an old, knowing look in her eyes that went far past her seventeen years.
Chris leaned slightly forward, his handful of french-fries forgotten as he studied Melissa intently, worry etched his brow. Melissa shook her head, she broke free of the claws hooked into her as her onyx eyes snapped into focus again. She did not seem as beat down by this vision as she was by many of the others, but a secret look lingered in her dark eyes.
“Did you see my death?” Chris inquired like he always did when one of these premonitions seized hold of her in his presence.
She smiled at him, shaking back her black hair as she popped a cucumber in her mouth. “Not this time.”
Chris shrugged as he ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Just remember, if you ever do see it, you had better tell me.”
“You wouldn’t want to know,” Cassie and Melissa replied simultaneously.
They grinned at each other across the table. “You owe me a Coke,” Melissa quipped.
“You don’t drink Coke.”
“You owe me something then.”
Melissa chewed on her cucumber before grabbing a tomato. Cassie studied her questioningly, wondering what Melissa had seen, but she didn’t really want to know. The thought of knowing scared her. Besides, Melissa would not tell them, not unless their lives were on the line. And even then, Cassie didn’t want to know what Melissa saw, not unless there was a way to stop it.
And most of the time, there wasn’t.
It was very rare that Melissa ever saw anything she wanted to, but she had no choice as her “gift” overtook her whenever it wanted.
Although, to be fair, Cassie had to admit she was a little disappointed she hadn’t inherited a “gift” like Chris and Melissa had. Apparently they ran rampant through The Hunter line, but for some reason Cassie had come up short. She definitely would not want the ability to see the future, like Melissa, for she didn’t want to bare that cross, and she wasn’t sure that she could handle it. But she wouldn’t have minded Chris’s talent of being able to read people, to know what they were feeling, and to know who and what they were, good or bad, upon meeting them. And unlike Melissa, Chris was able to keep people blocked out, and control his ability if he wanted to.
But then, any ability would have been better than the nothing she had been given. Well, unless she counted her ability to fight, and fight well, as a gift. And she was a good fighter, she was even better than Chris and Melissa. But, to her, that was not a gift. She didn’t care if the people she killed were no longer human, it bothered her to kill at all, and it bothered her even more that she was outstanding at it.
It was a fact that wore at her every day, slowly eating at her spirit. She sometimes wondered if that was where the growing hole inside of her had come from; if that was the reason she had been feeling less and less like herself lately. Maybe all of the death and murder that surrounded her had started to take away bits of her soul. Whatever it was that was missing, or off in her, she desperately needed to find it, and fix it.
She could not keep living like this. She could not keep going on without knowing why she was so lost, and why she couldn’t shake her misery. She needed to drown out the feverish need for something more that had encompassed her. She needed something to ease the pain that suffused her. She had been living with the emptiness for the last few months, but over the past two weeks it had gotten worse. The hole had become a chasm within her soul, ripping her open, leaving her raw and exposed.
She was greatly afraid that if she didn’t mend it soon, it would swallow her whole.
Cassie shoved aside her morose thoughts, sick of them. Sick of herself even. Wallowing in her misery, and loneliness, was not going to ease it.
“Are you going to tell us what you saw?” Chris demanded, leaning forward on his knee.
Melissa shook her head as she sat back in her seat, shoving the remains of her salad aside. “Nope, it doesn’t involve you so there’s no need for you to know about it.”
Chris groaned in disappointment, but his frustration did not affect his appetite as he took a big bite of his bacon cheeseburger. Grease dropped onto his paper plate but he paid it little mind as his attention focused on Marcy again. “She is cute.”
Cassie glanced over at Marcy, tilting her head as she studied the petite brunette. Despite her over exuberance, she was a pretty girl. “Does it matter?”
Chris grinned down at her as he shook back his mop of blond hair. “Not at all.”
Cassie couldn’t help but laugh at him, loving the bright sparkle in his sapphire eyes, and the cocky grin that flashed across his handsome face. She leaned against his leg, relishing in the easy comfort, strength, and reassurance he gave her. He had been her best friend, her rock, since she was born. Though many people thought they were a couple, or soon would be, there had never been anything other than sibling-like feelings between them.
Chris patted her back for a brief moment before turning his attention back to his cheeseburger, and Marcy. The hair on the back of Cassie’s neck suddenly stood up, a tingle swept down her spine that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. With sudden certainty she knew that someone was staring at her, watching her. Straightening away from Chris, she frowned as her gaze rapidly scanned the forest, but she could see nothing, and no one, within its dark depths.
Turning slowly, Cassie was surprised to realize that her throat had gone dry, and her heart was trip hammering with excitement. She didn’t know what was causing the strange reaction inside her body, but she couldn’t stop it either. She was certain that there was something out there, and that it was waiting for her.
She froze, her gaze latched onto a man standing at the edge of the building closest to the road. He was highlighted by the splash of light pouring out of B’s and S’s, his features indiscernible in the shadows that played over him. He was completely still, his hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket. Even though the shadows kept him half hidden, she could see the startling, brilliant, emerald green of his eyes. Those eyes were oddly alight in the dark surrounding him, a dark that caressed his hard, unmoving body.