Haunted || Leo Valdez

1 - A Manticore Ruins Our Lives

The last thing Rebecca di Angelo had wanted to do was go to the school dance. But Nico, her little brother, had dragged along Bianca, her older sister, who'd dragged along Rebecca.

The reason she hadn't wanted to go was that she didn't like large crowds. She preferred to be shut up in her dorm with Bianca, talking about all kinds of things and spending time with her. She wanted to stay out of the limelight and in the shadows, where it was safer and more secure.

Besides, she hadn't even dressed up much for this dance. She was wearing a dark green hoodie over her school uniform, hood up to hide her messy ebony hair and part of her face. Nico and Bianca weren't dressed up much either, both had their uniforms on, too, and Bianca had her green cap on her head, which also hid part of her face as well.

As they sat, Nico played Mythomagic, his favorite trading card game. Neither Bianca nor Rebecca liked it much, but Nico loved it and the sisters figured the kid needed something to distract them from their difficult life. That was for Bianca and Rebecca to worry about.

"C'mon, Nico, I need this card!" A kid named Gavin pleaded.

"Neeks," Rebecca sighed. "You have five or six of that card." It was true. He had duplicates of nearly everything. Nico decided to ignore her, however.

"Make me an offer I can't refuse," He said like he was some big shot executive. The sisters shared an exasperated look.

"How about a Zeus statue?" Gavin offered hopefully. Nico finally looked interested. Zeus was one of the only two figurines he didn't have. He took the Zeus figurine for the card he had several copies of.

"Great," Rebecca said with fake peppiness. "Can we go back to our dorms now, please?"

"I wanna stay, Becca," Nico said, starting to shuffle his cards. "I might be able to make a few more trades. Maybe someone will have a Hades statue. It's the only one I don't have now."

Rebecca sighed. Great. Spending more time in the loud, crowded room. She didn't like being around people. Large crowds made her uneasy.

Then again, that was being a little unfair. She made people nervous, too. They treated her and her siblings like they were a bomb that was about to go off. Once in the halls, she bumped into a kid who walked funny and had a goatee growing. She figured he was a sophomore or a junior since their school went from kindergarten to senior year of high school. Rebecca had helped the kid up, but when he raised his head, probably to thank her or tell her to be more careful, he let out some sort of panicked bleat and rushed off.

"Besides," Bianca said. "Dr. Thorn probably won't let us leave the dance now that we've been here for a while."

"Yeah," Nico piped up. "He'll probably dee-ject us!" he imitated Thorn's French accent. Rebecca smiled at him. She loved this kid. He always knew how to make her and Bianca smile.

"Fine," she relented. "How about I get us some punch?" The other two agreed, and Rebecca stood up and began picking her way through the crowd. She got three of the recyclable plastic cups and filled them with the dark pink liquid. She heard loud laughter and looked up to see a group of kids laughing at a strange dance move a boy was doing. She smiled softly to herself, wishing she could make others laugh like that. She noticed the doors open and four kids come in. She recognized one of them to be the kid she'd run into in the halls, but she'd never seen the blonde girl, the girl with punk-style clothes and spiky hair, nor the green-eyed boy who was holding what appeared to be a ball-point pen.

The Hall Kid pointed at Nico and Bianca. Rebecca narrowed her eyes. What did they want with her siblings? Rebecca decided to go back to her siblings. Maybe she could convince them to go back up to their dorms and avoid these strange kids. She left the punch and booked it back to her siblings.