I'm not broken

Chapter 3

No one knows how Crazy Chad became Crazy Chad. Some say he was born like that. Others say it was because of Post Traumatic Stress from his time at Afghanistan. But there are few who know the truth, me included.

It runs in the family.

It started when Crazy Chad's grandpa was born. His family came from a country that not even the people who lived there knew how to pronounce it. It was tradition there to feed the newborn baby of the family a drink that had the same substances in the poison Aconite, and if the baby doesn't die, then it means the baby is strong enough for the family. But Aconite is almost always lethal, and if it doesn't kill you, it makes you insane. Crazy Chad's gramps survived, and he did the same to Crazy Chad's dad. Crazy Chad's dad lived, so he did the same to Crazy Chad himself.

But Crazy Chad never had a wife, so now he lives alone in aa old house near Seven eleven, except not a lot of drug dealers go by his house, since he has like five hundred different guns and explosives in there along with a fence completely guarded by Pit-bulls and Rottweilers.

And I was headed there.

Now, don't think I was stupid, of course I knew I had to park a bit further away from his house. So I did.

It was already well past 7:50, and almost everyone from the graduation party was there, some still in their swimsuits and almost all of them obviously drunk. I spotted Ella talking with Ricky and prayed she wouldn't loose her virginity today(if she already hadn't.) I was looking around to see if Carter had showed up and found more than I bargained for.

There he was, blond hair styled perfectly, icy blue eyes shining underneath the street light with his arm around ~gag~ was that Trinity Young?! My throat closed up. Of course Carter would dump me for Trinity. What guy wouldn't? She was perfect, with strawberry colored hair and sleepy green eyes and the perfect body, with a pretty laugh and long lashes. I felt tears begin to swim around, and my shoulder was poked by someone.

"Hey Natalie." Ashton spoke from behind me. I wiped my eyes and turned to look at him. Ashton was shorter than me, with short black emo hair and tan skin that I would die for. He was the youngest in our graduate class, and he was the smarter than everyone combined(naturally. Even a nine year old would be smarter than anyone here.) He was dressed in a white T-shirt and black skinny jeans with Jordan's, which I thought was extremely weird, since the most expensive shoes I owned was a pair of Adidas I got for my birthday last year that Ray had to work his butt off by working at the gas station along with working at stocking shelfs at Home Depot.

"Hey Ashton, what's up?" I said, trying to smile. I noticed he looked nervous, and when he got nervous, he started chewing his lip.

"What's wrong?"

"I want you to join the challenges." he said, face solemn. I blinked at his words. Why would anyone want me to join the challenges?! And Ashton out of all of them?!

"Oh, I, uh, huh?" I stammered, shoving my hands in Ray's sweater. Ashton stared at me.

"Yeah. You would be the best person to participate. You don't show pain or emotion, which would throw people off their scent." I was troubled by his words. He thought I didn't have feelings.

Maybe I don't.

"Plus, you have the brains for it. And the strength. And everything else." he gazed at me with excited brown eyes. I shook my head.

"Thanks, but I work solo." I turned around and began to walk away, but he turned me around.

"I'm not saying I want you to be my partner, I'm saying that if you join, I will help you as much as I can." I almost rolled my eyes. Why would he want to help me for crying out loud?!

"Look, I appreciate you trying to help me, but I think I can do it myself." I gave him one more smile, then shouldered my way towards the front of the crowd. Donald Logan was already there, trying to get people's attention.

"OKAY PEOPLE! THE CHALLENGES ARE STARTING. WHOEVER IS JOINING PLEASE STEP UP."

This was it.

I stepped up, along with twenty other people. I spotted Carter among them, and I felt my heart surge upwards from within me.

"Okay, so, here's the first challenge that will decide whether or not you with be allowed to join." Donald said, face serious.

"I need one object from Crazy Chad's house: the shotgun that is nailed to his bedroom wall." my chest felt like it was being squeezed tight. How in the world would I be able to do that?

But I had to, or else I would spend the rest of my life in Brook.