I stare up at the high school with new eyes. I mean, yeah, I’d passed it on my way to the middle school for the past three or four years, but now that I’m a freshman it seems different. My best friend, Taylor, links arms with me and she pulls me through the door. Cold air rushes at us and we laugh like a couple of third graders.

“Can you believe it, Saph? We’re officially high schoolers!” Taylor walks with a confidence I can only wish that I had and pulls me to our homeroom class. Surprisingly, a lot of people are already there, sitting on desk tops and laughing really loud.

“Taylor! Sapphire!” My other, smarter best friend is waving at us from the very front of the classroom. Sighing, we walk up to Lizzie and she immediately throws her arms around us in a bone-crushing bear hug.

“Lizzie, why did you have to save us the three seats right in front of the teacher’s desk?” Taylor asks, acting calm when I can tell she just wants to scream at Lizzie. Lizzie freezes, knowing Taylor’s temper just as well as me.

“Tay, I thought that we should make a good im-im-impresion on the teacher because it’s the first day and all,” she says, hugging her books to her chest as if they will protect her from Taylor’s wrath.

“I swear, sometimes Lizzie is even geekier than I thought!” I hear Taylor say the words but her lips didn’t move and Lizzie doesn’t look insulted at all. Weird.

“Great. Another day with idiot kids that don’t know anything,” I hear a new voice. This one is adult and I can’t figure out who said it or how why I seem to be the only one who can actually hear them say these things. The doorknob turns and everyone scrambles to find their seats.

“Good morning, class,” My head whips to the speaker, who I recognize as Mr. Dunbar, and I realize that he was the voice I heard in my head. I wonder if anyone else heard his rude comment just a few seconds ago. If they had, they weren’t showing it at all.

Mr. Dunbar starts to take attendance and I start pulling out my class schedule. I have Mr. Dunbar for next mod, too. Great, just what I need, a teacher who hates kids! Maybe high school isn’t so great after all. I put my schedule away and look at the desktop waiting for this class to be over. As soon as I let my concentration wander to random thoughts, I’m assaulted by different voices, all speaking at the same time and saying different things. I look up from my desk, startled and look around the class, expecting to see everyone talking to their neighbors.

Instead, everyone, including the teacher, is sitting silently reading, writing, or just staring off into space. The voices get louder and louder every minute that goes by and soon I can’t take it anymore. I clap my hands over my ears, but that doesn’t stop the voices from invading my mind.

“Stop!” I scream. The voices stop for a split second and then retaliate with stuff like what’s her problem? Or is she crazy or something? I even hear Taylor and Lizzie’s voices saying worried things that just make me want to scream louder. Mr. Dunbar picks up the phone on his desk and dials a number. The voices still don’t stop; no matter what I do they only get louder! What’s happening to me?

A new voice is added to the mix as the high school nurse walks through the door. I gasp as I recognize the nurse as my aunt, Ms. Quarella (she insists that everyone call her Ms. Quarella, even her kids!) Mr. Dunbar points at me and she raises her eyebrows at the sight of me with my hands covering my ears and tears streaming down my face. She taps my shoulder and motions for me to follow her. Hesitating for only a second, I remove my hands from my ears and stand up. Ms. Quarella walks out the door and the voices start to fade with every step away from the classroom.

“Can you tell me what was going on back there that had you all upset?” she asks, leaning against the lockers. This is one of the few times when she’s actually looked like she’s care about what I say. Most of the time, she’s buried in paperwork, always writing notes.

“I…I can’t really explain it. One minute I was just sitting in my classroom and the next I was hearing voices when no one was talking!” I wince as Ms. Quarella’s voice enters my mind, even though her lips aren’t moving.

“Can you hear me now?” I nod, confused. How can I hear her if she’s not talking?

“You have a rare…condition. Have you ever heard of telepathy?” she asks. I nod again, still not understanding what she’s trying to say. “The reason you could hear me when I’m not talking is because you are a telepath. The voices you were hearing were people’s thoughts and I do want to tell you that it won’t always be this frustrating when you’re around groups of people,”

“Wha-what?” I ask. Ms. Quarella motions at my head.
“Your mind is more advanced than most of the world’s population. There are a lot of people who can read minds on Earth, sweetie,” she says, smiling brightly at me.

“Are you one?” I ask, nervously. Has my aunt been lying to me for as long as I can remember?

“Nope. But I am special. I’m a Fae,” Ms. Quarella replies. So she has been lying to me?

“Fae?” I ask, confused at the new word.

“Basically a fairy,” she replies. I hear a high pitched whistle coming from Ms. Quarella and suddenly another person is standing in front of me. He has brown colored hair, vibrant blue eyes, and taller than I am smiles at Ms. Quarella.

“Ravastina, who’s your friend?” the guy laughs, and shakes his hair out of his eyes.

“Jamie, this is Sapphire, a telepath. I was hoping that you could take her toWagoner’s and have her talk to Damon. Maybe he can help her acclimate to being who she is?” Ms. Quarella motions for me to take Jamie’s hand and I take a step away from both of them.

“Are you two crazy or something? Telepaths? Fairies?” I laugh nervously and take another step back. “And Damon? As in my cousin, Damon?”

“First of all, we’re not crazy,” Ms. Quarella begins, but is interrupted by Jamie.

“Well…” he says, earning a look from Ms. Quarella. Jamie looks me up and down and in a second he’s gone. There’s like a blur of motion that’s impossible to focus on and then I wheel around trying to find him. “Hiya,” I hear from behind me. I spin on my heel to see Jamie standing only an inch away from me, his eyes glowing a dark, almost black, red shade. His canines are elongated to the point of hanging over his lower lip.

I start to scream and in another blur of motion, Jamie’s hand is clamped over my mouth. He shakes his head no at me and slowly removes his hand. I stumble away from Jamie, scared to death of his fangs that seem so deadly and menacing. My back slams against the lockers lining the wall behind me and I realize that I had just cornered myself. Jamie doesn’t advance on me though. His eyes bleed back to the startling blue and his canines shrink back to size.

“You forgot about vampires when you were calling us crazy,” Jamie says innocently. I slide down to the floor and bury my face in my hands. Oh gosh, what did I get myself into?

“Why can’t I hear your thoughts? If I’m a telepath, shouldn’t I be able to hear them?” I ask, hoping that this was all just an elaborate prank that Jamie wasn’t completely clued into. Those dreams are crushed when Jamie shakes his head and smiles.

“I’m best friends with a telepath. I’ve learned how to hide my thoughts,” Jamie replies and smiles wide.

“How would you like to meet the strongest telepath that I’ve ever met?” Ms. Quarella asks. I shake my head, not trusting any of them. “Well, I can’t force you to go to Wagoner’s and talk to Damon—and yes, your cousin Damon—but I can send you home to think about it. At least promise me that you’ll consider it?”

I nod, but at this point, I’d say just about anything to get away from them. I mean, really? Faeries that are school nurses and vampires that looks so…human? What happened to the perfectly normal, perfectly rational world that I used to live in? My aunt pulls a notebook out of her pocket and scribbles on it for a few seconds and then rips the paper off.
“We really only want to help you get used to what you are, Saph,” she says as she passes me the note. I head down to the office, my legs shaking uncontrollably.

“Leaving so soon, Sapphire?” the office secretary asks. How she knew my name, I have no clue. I nod and walk out the door of the school and quickly decide that I can’t go home. My mom and dad (who work at home) would flip if they heard that I got to leave school early. So I head down to the park that’s not far from the school and sit down on a bench. Within seconds, my brain is assaulted by the thoughts of people walking by. I cradle my head in my hands and beg it to stop. The voices only get louder.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Damon says, suddenly sitting beside me. Did I hallucinate him?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, carefully. That’s when I realize how silent he is. His thoughts aren’t shouting at me like so many other people’s.

“I think you do, Sapphire. If it makes you feel better, I’m a telepath, too,” he says, smiling. I hate how calm everyone is when my world is falling apart!

“Wait! I’m not going to hurt you!” he says. Damon holds out his hand and I reluctantly take it and sit back down.

“Can you tell me more about where they want to take me?” I ask.

“Well, it’s called the Wagoner’s School for the Exceptional. That’s basically a subtle way of saying it’s a school for the supernatural. They teach you normal stuff like math and English, but they also teach you supernatural history, self-defense, and how to control your abilities. It’s really a cool place. You’d love it there,” Damon says. I give him a skeptical look and he smiles.

“I don’t know. My parents would never agree to a boarding school!” I say, trying to get out of it without him knowing how much I really didn’t want to go to the school.

“First, if you don’t want to go to the school, just say so. Second, if you do want to go to Wagoner’s just say so and your parents will understand,” Damon says. I look down at my hands that are resting in my lap, too embarrassed to look Damon in the eyes.

“I just don’t know if I can do it! Go to a new school and all,” I mumble.

“I get that, but you’ll at least know three upperclassmen who’ll help you out!” Damon says.

“Three? I thought Ms. Quarella was like 35!” I say.

“She is, but I was talking about my ride back to the school. And yours if you want to go,” Damon replies. His eyes shift to a spot behind me and I turn around in my seat to see a girl standing behind me.

Her blond hair matches her bright yellow eyes. She smiles down at me, and I can’t help but feel intimidated by her. Damon motions for me to stand. I listen to him and the girl holds out her hand.

“Name’s Cam,” she says.

“Sapphire,” I reply, shaking her hand.

“So, you wanna go to Wagoner’s school? We could really use another telepath!” Cam says, laughing. I bite my lower lip and consider the offer seriously for the first time since it was offered. Finally, I smile and nod my head. The two cheer like crazy people and I laugh hard.

“Okay, Sapphire! To get there, Cam has to teleport us there. Grab her and my hands and don’t let go no matter what. Got it?” Damon asks, holding out his hand to me. I nod and take their hands. Immediately, darkness surrounds us and wind rushes by. I look to my left and see Damon looking at me carefully.

“You okay?” he shouts over the rushing of the wind. Before I have time to answer, we arrive at the school. Jamie is standing in front of us and his smiling at us all.

“Welcome to Wagoner’s!” he says.