chapter one

LUCI'S POV

Blood trickled loosely like a faucet onto the tiled floor. I pinched my nose while tilting my head back and groaned.

"I am tired of seeing you in here Miss Black," the school nurse said. She lifted my hand off my nose and placed a cold compress on the bridge.

"It's not right for a young lady like yourself to be in all of these fights. It is very distasteful."

She shook her head and turned around to begin writing me a pass. | rolled my eyes and saw my reflection in the mirror behind her.

My hair, which is usually adorned on my back in tight auburn coils was pulled apart and tangled. The left frame of my glasses was cracked. My right eye was bruised and scratches scattered across my face.

"I look fucked up..." I whispered to myself.

"What was that?" she asked, handing me a yellow slip of paper.

"Nothing," I smiled. I grabbed the paper from her hand and clenched the ice pack harder against my nose.

"I don't want to see you back here, this is the second time this week!" The nurse called out.

I ignored her warning and headed straight to the exit.

Pushing the double doors, I quickly headed back to the hallway when a tall figure bumped into me.

"Now where do you think you're going, Luci?"

I kept my eyes on the floor not daring to look up and face the eyes of the boy who put me in this condition. I clenched the ice pack closer to my nose and took a deep breath.

"I-I'm just trying to get back to class," I stammered. I stared at his black shoes refusing to make eye contact.

"You know," he began, "it's considered rude to not look someone in the eyes when they are speaking to you."

He lowered his face directly to my level and gently grabbed ahold of my chin. His hands were unusually cold and I flinched at the touch.

"You wouldn't want to be considered rude, right Luci?"

He gripped my chin harder and forced my face closer to his. Slowly but surely he lifted my chin up so that my face could meet his.

"Look at me, Luci," he whispered in a soft but demanding voice. Unwillingly my eyes met his.

The boy I met eyes with, the one who has made my life a living hell, was completely and utterly beautiful. He was art in its purest form. Sinful perfection and flawless beauty. His eyes were a brilliant emerald—but were dark and brooding with no sign of brightness. His face held a sharp jaw and high cheekbones. And also carried one dimple on his left cheek that went unnoticed by many. His lips were not large but they were plump and his skin was fair. His once golden locks of wavy hair now dyed black, illuminated under the fluorescent lights.

He was a walking contradiction of his name. Saint Jones, was Adonis in human form but possessed the heart of Hades.

I stopped breathing for a moment. My hands began to heat up and the ice pack against my nose began to melt.

"Calm down," I told myself.

He brought the hand that was holding my ice pack down and glanced around at my face.

"They really did a number on you," He smiled at me showing off his straight white teeth.

I kept silent and watched him examine my face with a smile as if he was proud of what he had done to me.

"I would've done this to you myself, but you know I would never hit a woman." He placed a hand on top of my cheek and caressed it.

I mentally rolled my eyes and shifted my cheek away from his hand.

"Aww don't be like that," he cooed. He snatched the ice pack from my hands and chucked it into the nearby trash can.

"None of this would have happened to you if you weren't such a terrible person" he sneered. He wiped the wet residue of water from the ice pack off on his black jacket.

"So having your girl best friends attack me for doing absolutely nothing, doesn't make you a terrible person?" I retorted.

"No, it doesn't," He replied. "You shouldn't have pushed Emma into the lockers like that."

"She threw all my stuff into the school's pool! She deserved it." I huffed out. "And that doesn't give you the warrant to have her and her friends jump me."

He cocked his head to the side and smirked at me. "You know I see past this little front you put up."

"What front?"

He stepped closer to me and pulled one of my knotted coils through his fingers. "You, always pretending to be good."

"What do you-"

"You don't think I can tell?" he interrupted, "you walk around here with a pretty little smile on your face when everyone around here Hates you. You let everyone walk all over you and you barely snap."

He drops his head lower to look me dead in the eyes. He grabbed my fractured glasses off my face and crumbled them in his hands. The glass from the frame scraped against his palms, and he dropped the remnants onto the ground.

"And ever so often when you start to get angry," he came closer to my ear and said in a whisper, "your eyes start to glow a little red."

I stopped breathing for a moment. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.

I clenched my knuckles hard and felt them turning white. I gritted my teeth in an effort to remain silent. My stoic form exuded an animosity that was like acid-burning, slicing, potent.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I lied, "now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to class."

I pushed past him and started walking further down the hallway-my vision obscured until I felt a hand grab my palm and pull me back.

"Not so fast," he seethed. "You leave when I tell you to."

My eyes shot to his hands gripping mine. Immediately internal alarms went off throughout my body and my head started to excrete.

"Not this again," I said. I could feel my hands starting to heat up and the fire in the pit of my stomach started to grow. I attempted to snatch my hand away from his but he tightened his grip.

"Saint," I said lowly, "let go."

"Not you trying to command me. That's not how this works." He yanked my hand towards his body, closing the arm's length gap between us. "Don't forget who you are talking to."

My hands increased in temperature. Sooner or later they would become hot enough to burn through objects. I attempt to push his hand off mine again when he grips my other hand in response.

"Getting feisty are we," he began, "stop resisting, I'm not going to hurt you."

Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.

"Haven't had you this up close before," Saint said in a whisper. He examined my face starting with my cheeks all around to the rest of the surface. "Your face is pudgier than I remember."

I could feel a sting in my chest and I tried my best to ignore the insult.

"Not to mention the rest of your body is bigger too." He dropped his gaze down to my stomach and the outline of my hips. "Your thighs are huge. What are you a size 12 now?"

"And your hips are so wide." He stared at them for a second longer before meeting my eyes again.

"You know I read a study recently," he began, "something about girls with absent fathers living in low-income neighbours tends to be on the heavier side."

The anger in my stomach started to enlarge and the fire coursing throughout my body began to turn into sadness.

"It was something about how single moms can't provide nutritious food for their kids so they resort to eating junk and stuff."

Once again I tried to escape his grasp on my hands. "Not so fast. Don't you want to hear the rest of the study?"

I looked away from his eyes and gave no response.

"Silence huh? Okay well let me explain it to you in simple terms," he brought his mouth to my ear and whispered, "you should blame your absent father for the way your body looks."

Before I could think rationally, the fire in the pit of my stomach exploded throughout my entire body-first starting with my hands.

The fire crept up to the start of my fingertips and surge out.

Within a second Saint dropped my hands and I could see the tips of his fingertips stained black and the smell of burning flesh infiltrating my nostrils.

He held his hands in agony and backed away from me. "What the fuck, did you do!" He screamed.

I held my hands to my mouth to cover my disbelief and slowly backed away from him. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to"

"What the fuck are you... you... FREAK." He looked down at his burned hands and

I could see patches of flesh sticking out and pools of blood. "Please calm down and lower your voice, Saint. Please."

Tears began to pool in my eyes and I looked down into my hands in terror.

"Your eyes..." Saint stated in shock. His pupils went wide and his mouth gaped open. Before he could say anything further the door on the furthest end of the hallway swung open and the vice principal followed out from it.

"What's going on down there?" She shouted. Saint turned around to meet her eyes and before he could say anything

I quickly ran down my side of the hall and made a sharp left into the girls' restroom.

Opening the door, I checked under the stalls and found myself alone.

Taking a deep breath I stared deeply at my reflection in the mirror. My face was littered with dry blood and scratches. My hair was sticking up and the coils stretched out.

My eyes which usually mimicked a dark brown reflected a deep red crimson and tears stained my cheeks.

I looked down and my hands and felt that they were still hot. I quickly ran them under the cold water in the sink and steam followed soon after.

The one reason I put up a facade. The one thing I had to hide my secret. It was out to the one person I knew would not keep it.