Chapter 1

                                    

                                          
Time is a strange thing. In the short time it takes for you to read a sentence, somewhere, a life begins. At the same time, a life ends. In one second, a life can change for the better while at the same time, a life takes a terrible turn. It's kind of a nice thought. As terrible as you're feeling right now, statistically, somewhere, someone has to be smiling. And if you're doing something stupid, statistically, somewhere, someone has to be doing something stupider.
                          
I wish that my mother would understand that. It wasn't like it was a bad idea to punch Ellis Chen in the first place, and even if it was, someone was doing something worse somewhere.
                          
She isn't even talking to me right now. She's on the phone with Aunt Thea, ranting about me as if I'm not sitting right here. I've mostly tuned her out. She's mostly saying the same thing over and over - she can't believe that I would do something like this again, how much I'm a burden to her, that I would let down my father like this. All things that I've heard before.  I walk a few steps behind her like a shadow, my hood pulled up to cover my hair.
                          
The instant I pull my phone out of my pocket, she turns around. Honestly, she's like a freaking bat. I have no idea how the hell she heard me move.
                          
She holds out her hand. "Nope," she says. "You've been suspended, Daniel. That means no phone." She refuses to call me Red, refuses to even acknowledge the nickname. 
                          
"I'm asking Adam to bring me the work I'm going to miss," I say, still focused on my text. 
                          
She pulls the phone out of my hands, and I scowl. "Don't look at me like that," she says, turning back around. "You can email your teachers when you get home, then you're going to spend the next three days thinking about what you did."
                          
I nod. "Sure. I'll think about how fu- I mean, how messed up it is that Ellis was shouting slurs at kids in the hallway. I'll think about how it was completely justified -"
                          
My mother's sigh drown out the rest of my words. "You need to stop with the excuses, Daniel." When I attempt to speak again, she holds up her hand, cutting me off. "Please. Can we just have some silence? For just a few minutes?" I roll my eyes. She pretends not to notice.
                          
I go the fire escape as soon as we get back to the apartment. I need to be alone. I need someplace familiar.
                          
I need to be invisible.
                          
As soon as the thought crosses my mind, a change ripples through my skin. It starts with my hands - pale brown getting paler, and then translucent. Then up my arms, down my chest, my legs. My face is the last to fade away, blending in with the bricks behind me. 
                          
I don't know why I can do this, I barely even know how to control it. It pisses off Mother, though. Anything that she thinks isn't 'normal' pisses her off. At this point, I might as well make a checklist - Unnaturally colored hair? Check! Mysterious powers? Check! Bisexuality? Check! 
                          
I sit down on the stairs, leaning back and looking up. Its's especially bright out today, the sky looking like something out of a picture book with the puffy clouds against the clear blue. No one lives in the apartment directly above ours; it's been empty since news about Father's death got out. People don't want to live near Mother and I, as if murder is contagious, or something. Father didn't die here, he didn't die anywhere near here. He died in the forest. Alone. Abandoned.
                          
The sound of a voice rips me out of my thoughts. I first turn to the window, thinking that Mother is calling me, but no. The voice came from above. I stand, hoping that my camouflage holds, and look up, up to the apartment that's been vacant for four years. And I see a boy, a boy staring straight at me.
                          
I freeze instantly. He can't see me, I tell myself. It's impossible. But his eyes, piercing, electric blue, seem to lock directly on me, looking straight into me, seeing everything that I'm trying to keep hidden. And then the boy speaks.
                          
"I've been wondering when I would see you."
                          
I don't recognize the boy. He looks about twelve or thirteen, small and thin, with dark hair that falls into his face. His expression is blank, so blank that it sends a chill down my spine. "Who..." I begin to say, my voice hoarse, so quiet that I can barely hear myself.
                          
The boy tilts his head. "Come up here."
                          
I don't know why I obey, but I'm halfway up the ladder before I can even think about refusing. The boy doesn't move. I'm six steps away. Five. Four. Three.
                          
And then his window crashes open. He whirls around, annoyance flashing in his eyes. "Tobias," says the boy leaning out the window. He looks around my age. Brown hair, green eyes. Ordinary. "Come back in and help me."
                          
"But it's starting," says the younger boy - Tobias. "We have to be here for it, Flynn."
                          
The other boy sighs, and I peer around him, looking into the room he leans out of. I know that it's the same size as the living room in my apartment, but it looks smaller. He seems to be in the process of unpacking, boxes strewn throughout the room. I can hear music playing from inside, some band that I don't know the name of.
                          
"What's starting?" Flynn asks.
                          
Tobias turns around again, fixing his eyes on mine. I grasp the ladder tighter to keep my hand from shaking, my knuckles white. "The story," says Tobias. "The beginning of the end."