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Chapter Fifteen: Rosie

"Rosie," Cassidy whispered, shaking me awake.

"I'm up, Dad!" I accidentally blurted out as my head shot up. A couple of giggles rose up from behind me, one of which I think was Cassidy's.

"We have a new teacher," she said, trying not to stare at the small puddle of drool on my desk. "Are you alright? This is the third class you've slept through today!"

"Yeah," I lied. Ever since yesterday, when David had tried to kill me, I had been having nightmares of him. It started out on a nice day with my dad, my mom, and I walking through the park. Then we meet up with Cassidy, David, and Brandon for some weird reason. I guess Brandon and I were okay friends. We all ate ice cream and cracked jokes. And just when everything seemed perfect, my mother dropped down dead followed by everyone but David who was then swallowed into the darkness along with everything else around. After running around screaming for a while, a pair of hands came up out of nowhere and choked me. I took one last glance up to see David and then died.

"What's our new teacher's name?" I whispered to Cassidy, staring at the man smiling at our Reading class.

"No clue," she replied with a sigh.

I wondered if there was something on her mind. She seemed in a daze, but then again I had been too busy sleeping to tell what was wrong.

"Hello, kiddos!" The man with brown hair greeted us. He pushed up his glasses so they met his small brown eyes. "Your former Reading teacher, Mrs. Price decided to take a vacation for the rest of the year. So I'll be filling in for her." He moved over towards the black board to write something but his feet hit each other, causing him to land right onto the floor. "Sorry!" He exclaimed as he used his desk to help himself up, only to hit the large stack of books seated on top and cause them to go toppling over.

"Anyway, my name is Mr. Zeeman," he told us, obviously trying to act like nothing had happened.

"This is going to be a long rest of the year," I whispered to my best friend and she nodded in agreement.

"Well let's get started, shall we?" The clumsy man continued. "Let's start with roll call. David Werepick?"

The room grew silent. Actually, I hadn't seen David since yesterday when he had been trying to kill me. Please tell me he didn't blackout again.

"I think I saw him in the library," Cassidy fibbed. She was a really good liar, one of the best had ever seen. But after years of friendship I could tell by the way her eyes darted from one end of the room to the other that she was lying.

"I saw him too" I said, shooting Mr. Zeeman a fake smile.

"Well why don't you go find him? I don't want any students missing on my first day of work," he replied cheerfully.

We both nodded and once out the door, sprinted down the hall.

"Nice lie," I said to Cassidy.

"Thanks. But what if the new teacher goes to the library and sees that we're not there?"

"There's a set of stairs in between here and the library. We're okay."

"This is worse than that note from Z," she mumbled, peeking into a classroom. "Who knows what he could do next?"

My head snapped up to look at her. "You got one too!" I shouted, already knowing the answer. The heavy sound of footsteps nearby stopped me from asking my next question.

"One what?" Brandon's voice asked. He stared at me blankly, his gym bag rubbing up against his side.

"A note," Cassidy answered as I made an 'X' with my hands. She clearly couldn't read hand signals. "From someone who wants to kill us."

His eyebrows shot up.

"Listen, we don't have time to talk about this," I said to him. "My friend who's a hybrid is out there somewhere doing who knows what, and we have to find him."

"What type of hybrid?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I don't have time for this. I'll explain later."

Cassidy pointed at the clock. Looks like reading is about to be over. "Rosie, I have Science next and I can't miss it. I worked all week on my paper and it's due today."

"Then you go to Science. I'll keep looking for David. It's not like him to miss classes," I told her.

She bit her lip in hesitation. "Fine, but if you run into trouble call me, okay? He's dangerous."

"Sure thing," I told her and then jerked a thumb at Brandon. "And you! If anything happens you better protect her. Make sure she gets to Science. If you do that you have my trust."

The small tug at his lip grew into a wide smile. "Sure thing. But do you mind explaining what's going on?"

I didn't even stop to look at his face before dashing down the hallway.