Dodge never pretended to understand the way Kynan’s mind worked. With most other people she’d listen and understand them better for it. Kynan though, well, listening to his mind was more like listening to a sitcom. His thoughts moved with as little grace and tact as the boy himself. She knew this and had been subject to his ways for quite some time, so the accusation that she was secretly a boy wasn’t a surprise. She had heard it all before and she had retorted with various reasons for his path of thinking. Obviously he didn’t like the thought that one of his best friends was a girl and demanded as much respect as, say, Baeddan did. She reckoned Ky also didn’t want to think of her as a girl because that would nullify every time he had accused his brother of being in the closet. It was a long time trait that the highest compliment she ever got from him these days was ‘she’s cute’, ever since that night he barged his way in on her in the bathroom.

That thought had her snickering at her own silent joke, and she didn’t say another word as Kynan hugged her back. She didn’t want to hear the thoughts that followed then, about the fire, about her and her losses. She heard them every day from everyone else. It seemed that Kynan was one of the very few people that could completely forget about her problems whenever he wished and generally he didn’t like thinking about it either. It was probably why over the last few months their friendship had grown so much stronger even than it had been before; it was difficult to ignore someone when they hung around you so much and seemed to just enjoy your presence, after all.

What she hadn’t expected though, was for Kynan to as her how she was. Sure he had asked before, but generally he left that up to Baeddan. Talking about feelings, especially ones so deep and serious, wasn’t exactly Kynan’s forte. She wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or if she appreciated it. It was difficult to be anything but grateful though and while it was smack in the middle of the courtyard and she could still feel a dozen pairs of eyes on them, she didn’t mind.

“I’m ok,” she answered, Kynan’s words feeling warm close to her ear. She sighed and rolled her eyes, pulling her face away from the strange comfort of his blazer to look up at him. This close it was remarkable how much he looked like Baeddan; it was from a decent distance that she could really easily tell them apart from their mannerisms and physical ways, but close like she was now it was near impossible to pick out differences. Except, of course, for the voices playing in her mind. “Charming,” she answered his ‘rat’ comment. She sighed softly again. She knew he was right, that she looked like she had better days, and that whatever friends and alliances she’d make at this school would help, but part of her didn’t want more people penetrating the shell she had created for herself - a shell that included the boy she still clung to and his brother.

“What do I need more friends for when I have you and Bae?” she trailed off for a moment before twisting her face into a troubled little frown, fast ignoring the thoughts of Eric and Kynan‘s deep set dislike for him. “Do you think its going to change for us then? I don’t know if I want it to change…” She finally let go of him, stepping back and for the first time in a few minutes she took a look at the people around them. Sure enough, many were staring. She half glared back, and then turned a gentle smile on her friend.

“I guess that was cramping your style,” she nodded, life slowly seeping back into her eyes as she tried a smile. “Where’s Baeddan? Should we go to reception and get our room assignments? See how many floors and rooms we’re going to have to cross to not get caught at night? You could probably check where Baeddan is too.”

The bag that had been slung over one shoulder crashed to the flagstone ground a second before Kynan reached her…
Over the weeks she has spent alone (though not always by herself) she had discovered something that would have taken most kids her age by storm. For the past year Dodge had heard voices. Not the worrying kind, but the kind that told her she had a gift. Before everything ‘happened’ she had to force it to work, to do anything substantial at all. After the accident she couldn’t shut it off. It had taken her weeks to get used to the constant voices in her mind, the thoughts of everyone nearby loud enough in her brain that she could hear them as though they were talking into her ear. At first it scared her, horrified her, to the point that she’d sleep in the day to avoid living thoughts and stay awake at night so that all she could listen to were traces of more active dreams and the occasional ‘active’ nights in one of the Hathaway’s bedrooms. It was why she couldn’t hang around with Aidan so much any more - the thoughts in his mind ran so fast and jumbled when she was around that she had a hard time thinking for herself let alone trying to listen to what he didn’t say. His thoughts zoomed so chaotically that she only ever could pick out the more prevalent pieces… she knew she was in there herself, Aidan too, and Blaize more often than not. She felt bad about how her presence forced he man to think about her brother - his best friend - and she refused to inflict that kind of pain on him unnecessarily. She was just thankful that she couldn’t Hear over the telephone or the computer.

Hathaway’s though were a different story. Hathaway’s tended to have one-track minds half the time, and while it was refreshing to not have to fight for sense in the voices, there were definitely a lot of things she didn’t need to Hear. For starters, Kynan never was bluffing when he used to say that girls were what life was all about. They were all he really thought about. Baeddan would think about girls, think about Dodge, realise she could Hear him when he thought about her, and then start thinking about room assignments or whatever distractions he could find; Baeddan had taken to playing a lot of Playstation when she was around. The younger Hathaway’s were always so carefree and playful that being in their presence was almost as much of a release as being awake when they all slept was. Brody and by default, Ten, were a different story. Those two actually scared her. The speed at which their thoughts and moods changed when they were together was extraordinary, and just how raging mad either could get often had the hairs on Dodge’s neck standing on end when she couldn’t sleep at night. Then there were their ‘confusing feelings’ that always made her laugh and walk away, leaving them both glaring daggers when they realised what she Heard.

So, Kynan’s approach wasn’t a surprise. She had heard his wandering mind amongst the throngs of voices she had been barely ignoring. She heard clips of him between others. She looks down…. Shucks…. why does she have to look so pathetic… can’t walk away from that… There was a smile on her face before she felt his arms wrap around her and the ground vanish from under her feet.

What’s that guy… That poor girl… That’s so shameless… How revolting… Huh, he’s cute… Gross… Ugh, noobs… Wow he‘s hot…Crap, she has a boyfriend… I‘d say bulimic… I hate this sweater…

The dizziness from the spinning counteracted the whirlwind of thoughts directed straight at them and she felt light-headed when Kynan sat her back down again. His words may have been more harsh and cutting if she didn’t know Kynan as well as she did. She had known him for 4 years at least (or was it closer to 5 now?) and if there was anything she knew about his sharp tongue it was that it wasn’t nearly as sharp as he wanted it to be. The fact was, Dodge had barely eaten anything that wasn’t forced down her throat by a Hathaway over the past week or two, and her clothes were starting to feel loose.

She turned when she could and thumped him solidly in the chest, knowing that all he would really notice would be the hollow sound echoing in his head. The aggression passed in a flash though and she instead wrapped her arms round him and gave him a tight hug. Three months ago a hug like that would have earned her a week’s worth of comments of suspicion and ‘I knew you always liked me better’, but she had clung to Kynan (and Baeddan) so often in the past weeks that the teasing had become redundant. She just hoped the hugs weren’t about to follow the same suit.

“I feel sick,” she muttered, sighing and whining in one breath. Her pout though was sincere. “I think I need a doctor… or a drink.”

Its amazing how much things can change in a few months. Just half a year. Months can fly you by, you barely notice them as days turn into weeks and weeks to months. Months can also creep past as slow as sap draining from a tree, bleeding time and life from you without you even noticing.

It had been almost two months since Blaize, their dad, and little Jules died. Dodge hadn’t seen her mother in just as long. It felt like minutes rather than days after the tragedy that Rose Jacobs took off back to the place she grew up in; Kent, England. Dodge was offered to go with her, but it was something she never even considered, and she refused. She left her money to get her by, but that was about it. Dodge had gone for this long mooching off her friends, spending her days and nights shunted between those she could trust to never give her the cold shoulder. There were the Hathaway’s whose entire family had felt more like her own than she could have hoped for. There was Aidan who moved out of house from Brandon so that Dodge could feel comfortable when she stayed over. Jared too shared his life with her from time to time, but that in itself often seemed a burden; there were only so many times you could excuse a seventeen year old girl for spending the night at a twenty-something year old man’s apartment without suspicions being raised. It was for those reasons that she hadn’t seen Jared in a long while.

Before the summer, before the accident, there had been more people in her life she could have counted on. Life, it seemed, crawled up on them too. Selene, Gin and Eric all moved away shortly after the last school term ended and Dodge, Kynan and Baeddan haven’t heard from them since. Their parents didn’t like the idea of the semi-private IBS in Marseille and took their leave.

Even with the Hathaway’s, and to some extent Aidan and Jared, looking after Dodge, the past weeks had been the darkest she had ever faced. She couldn’t walk past the old Inn any more and it lay still blackened by the fire. She spent more time out at parties, getting drunk, finding trouble, testing the patience of everyone that cared for her. She couldn’t see it at the time and only recently she started to notice just how horrid a creature she was being. There were some things she couldn’t change - like the tongue and nose piercing and the new tattoo on her twist of an ivy vine - but there were issues she was dealing with that she would eventually overcome. Being dependant on alcohol before you even graduate high school wasn’t exactly where she had seen herself when she was a straight A student the previous school year. It was going to be difficult, and she knew that she was going to have a very rough road ahead of her. She just hoped that Baeddan and Kynan especially could deal with her until she sobered up, so to speak.

Almost two months later and there she stood, small and lost, right in the middle of the oversized courtyard of the IBS in Marseille, dressed head to toe in the less-than-exciting uniform (black skirt and jumper, white shirt and scarlet red tie). There were about fifty other students in the yard too, all walking one way or the other and non stationary as she was. They all looked like they had been here their whole schooling lives and the chances were, they had been. She had no idea where to go to find the reception where she’d get the keys to her dorm, or whether Bae and Ky were already there or not. She doubted it though. Chances were, the twins were going to have their mother and half their family leaving them off, helping them move into the rooms that were going to be their homes for the next school year. She doubted she’d get roomed with either of them since the chances were they would be packed together like usual; their own package deal, there for each other whether the other wanted it or not…

She missed her brother.

She clenched her hands loosely silently wishing she had someone there to hold her hand for comfort and guidance. A small bag sat by her feet, full of the clothes and shoes she had managed to save from the Inn before everything perished. The bag on her back was heavy with all of the books she’d need for the following year, her final year of secondary school.

Room Assignments

Palas Athena Building

Floor	Room No.	A	B
6th	649	Maisha Taye	-

The Proteus Building

Floor

Room No.

A

B

The Helios Building

Floor

Room No.

A

B

Code:

Name: Floor: Room:

Room Assignments

The Leonardo Building

Floor	Room No.	A	B
5th	596	Shaelan Scott	-

The Michaelangelo Building

Floor	Room No.	A	B
9th	934	Peyton Sparrow	-

Code:

Name: Floor: Room: