1 - Consider us dead

Lyra:

Beep—beep—beep—

I slam my hand down onto the night stand beside me, shutting off the alarm immediately. Oh, how I've dreaded for this day to come. My vacation seemed so short.

Almost too short. 

I grab my phone and check the date to make sure that this isn't a mistake. And it isn't. Sadly.

My phone buzzes in my hand and I receive a notifiction signaling a text from Elena, my best friend.

Elena: I KNOW you're about to go back to sleep but  your ass better be up and ready when I pick you up or else

You know, for such a kind and motivational girl, Elena can be down right terrifying when she really wants to. Nobody ever wants to get on her bad side. And I know for a fact that I would really hate to this early in the morning.

I get up and out of bed, doing my morning routine of brushing my teeth and washing my face, and the basic necessities. I brush out my straight, waist-length, dark brown hair, slightly flinching from the tugs of the brush.

I stand before my closet and grab a simple white crop top and a red denim skirt. Then I shove some vans onto my feet and leave my room, but not before grabbing my bag and phone. I can't leave without my bag—that'd just be stupid—and I can't go anywhere without my phone. I'm that one girl in school who is always attached to her phone. Actually, I don't think it's healthy. I should really get some sort of life to distract me from it.

As soon as I get to the bottom floor, the overwhelming smell of something burning smacks me in the face and then the next thing I know, the fire alarm is going off.

I rush into the kitchen to see my mother and father desperately trying to put out a fire that has erupted on the stove while my older brother, Isaac, aggressively throws a pot at the fire alarm. I don't know why he thinks that that would work. Because it obviously won't.

The pot smashes to the ground, shattering into hundreds of pieces. Isaac is one special person. I pull out a chair from under the table and hop onto it, yanking the fire alarm out of the wall. I'm pure muscle I tell you.

"Water, Helen, water!" my father shouts as my mother tosses a bowl of water onto the stove. The fire immediately disperses into hot steam.

We all just sort of stand staring and frozen, catching our breaths. It's not really like this is an odd scene, just exhausting. In the Miracle household, this is your typical morning.

"Hey, what's going–" Maggie, my eight-year-old little sister, walks into the kitchen and then immediately gags, "It smells like a dead body!"

I scrunch my nose in disgust. "Ew. I think I've lost my appetite."

"Sorry about that, guys," my mother laughs nervously. "I was just trying to cook a nice breakfast for us to all have together and well . . ."

"It did not go well," Captain Obvious, otherwise known as the idiot Isaac, laughs.

I smack his neck. "Yeah, and like throwing a pot would help! Now it's broken!"

"Hey! I didn't know that the pot would just break," protests Isaac.

My dad sighs before chuckling and bending down to pick up the broken shards of the pot. I don't even get how a pot shatters. There's something magical going on here.

My mother, Helen Miracle, can't cook for the life of her. Like, imagine if her whole family was in risk of dying and she had to cook something—anything—to save us. Consider us dead.

My phone buzzes and I see that Elena has texted me that she's here. "Well, I've got to go. Elena is here to pick me up. Guess you're driving to school alone, Isaac."

He sighs in relief, "Oh thank God."

I wave goodbye to my family and hug Maggie before exiting the house and walking up to Elena's parked car, sliding into the passenger seat.

"You look . . . excited. For lack of a better term. What happened?" Elena studies me for a second before returning her gaze to the road and speeding off.

"My mom tried cooking," I state and Elena's eyes visibly widen. Everyone knows how bad of a cook my mom is. Everyone. And by everyone, I mean every single living thing in the town, well, the western part, at least.

"And you're still alive?" she asks in a hushed tone, obviously surprised. 

"Barely. One, I almost died because of my idiot for a brother. And then the fire jeez it was real," I explain, adding a small shudder for effect.

"I was going to say that my mom and I got into a pretty scary fight where I thought she was going to disown me, but I think you seeing your mom cook is definitely worse," Elena interrupts.

"Definitely. But what were you and your mother arguing about?"

Elena shrugs, parking the car in the school parking lot. "Nothing much. Just about how I'm a 'failure' and such. The normal."

Elena isn't a failure. But the thing is that her mom usually isn't always of sound mind.

She gets out and I follow her, both of us walking to the front doors. "Is she still sore over . . . ?" I drawl, not wanting to say it. Last time I said "it" Elena just about ran me over with her car. Yeah, that was a scary day.

Elena nods, holding the door open for a few other students. Awe. My best friend is a sweetie. I mean, she isn't really deep down, but on the very outer shell of her essence, I guess she is.

"I honestly don't get her. Like at all," Elena complains. "She has these weird mood swings like she's still a teenager. And then sometimes she goes all Ursula on me."

"Well, can you blame her?" I ask, inadvertently referring to the fact that her mom has solid reason to be the way she is.

Elena frowns before sighing and shaking her head. "Not really, no."

I scan the crowd of students, my eyes passing by people hugging, catching up with one another, getting to know the latest gossip, and even more. It's just your typical view when you see everyone back at school.

I ignore all of them and look for a certain person. Elena nudges me, pointing to a boy striding over to us. His wild, untame, ash-blond hair bounces as he takes his steps—wait, what conditioner does he use? I need it—and his blue eyes gleam with happiness. The crowd literally parts for him, because this, ladies and gentlemen, is Reese Sultan. The school's very own golden boy.

I mean, being the football captain and having some of the best grades in school really puts him up there. And don't forget, him and his girlfriend are the "it" couple around here. And almost everyone envies them. Everyone wants what they have: an undeniable love that is just so obvious and so . . . powerful. It's something only few would ever experience in a lifetime.

I don't necessarily envy their love, unlike everyone else, I just envy his girlfriend. And I have no shame in admitting that fact.

He walks past Elena and I—okay, so he wasn't walking towards us but it certainly seemed like it—and engulfs his girlfriend, Brenda Sommers, into a big hug, earning some wistful sighs from the girls around us. Me included.

Brenda Sommers. She's basically the queen bee of our school. But she isn't cliché and mean for no reason. She's actually very nice, but can be mean when someone does something wrong to her. Which nobody ever does because she is terrifying when she needs to be. But then again, any normal person is like that, right? Also, nobody wants to end up like Alice Cohen. The ex-best friend of Brenda herself. Come to think of it, her and Elena are actually very similar.

Brenda and I are mutual friends. Like, we wave to each other and smile but we don't talk talk. Just simple small talk here and there. There's also the whole point with her saving my life and me having a crush on her boyfriend and yadda yadda but we needn't get into that.

I sigh dreamily, wishing I could be Brenda Sommers. Because Heaven and Hell know that I've had a big, fat crush on Reese Sultan since the end of last year. Why? Because he's absolutely perfect. And you don't find guys like him anymore.

Elena pulls me out of my trance. "Let's go get our schedules."

We step into the line, which isn't very long, and wait for our turn. As we are waiting I feel someone pull me into a hug. I turn slowly, readying myself to punch someone, but end up laughing when I see Jackson behind me. Elena smacks Max as he pokes her sides.

"Jackson! Max! We haven't seen each other in so long!" I exclaim happily, returning the hug that Jackson gave me.

"Yeah, well, Jackson went to California to visit family, and I went to Germany," Max grins, "so couldn't exactly walk over to your house and hang out."

"How was it? Fun?" Jackson asks Max. Jackson has been obsessed with any country that is not the U.S. since, like, the fourth grade when we took that world bee. He won, I was eliminated in the first round.

Max nods eagerly, going into depth about how much fun he had and how it was the best thing he had ever experienced. Needless to say, I stopped listening immediately. Deep in depth talks about anything really just aren't interesting enough to hold my attention. Unless of course it's really serious. Like, life or death serious.

When we reach the front I smile at the receptionist and she smiles back, waiting for our names. "Lyra Mae Miracle, Elena Cobalt, Jackson Carter, and Maxwell Imlay." She smiles once more and hands us our schedules. Immediately, Elena grabs everyone's and her face brightens.

"We all have English together!" she exclaims.

"All of us?" I ask, surprised. That doesn't ever happen. Like, ever. This is rigged. Something is pulling at the strings.

She nods. "And then Lyra and I also have gym and calculus 2 together."

Then it's my turn to grab all of the schedules. "Hmm . . . I have physics with Jackson and theatre extensions with Max." I frown, "I just wished we had more classes together."

"It's okay! At least we all get to be together in one classroom right?" Elena chirps. 

Just then, girls around us start to swoon and whisper. I turn and spot Isaac walking in with his group of buddies. I'm so glad I didn't end up driving with him. He catches my eye and I stick my tongue out at him while he does so back. Girls stare at me, bewildered, before remembering that Isaac is my twin brother. Older by twenty minutes. Unfortunately.

"Oh . . . My . . . God," Elena whispers, staring at Zeke, her jaw practically on the floor. 

Zeke Colts. One my brother's best friends. I would personally describe him as a complete and utter idiot who is seriously so annoying. He's been over to our house multiple times and on every single one of those times I either wanted to murder him or kill myself. He isn't per se rude or anything, but he's just annoying. Like, you know how you have that one sibling you love but can't stand? Yeah, that's Zeke. Except I don't like him. I just tolerate him. Most of the time, anyway. I don't know why Elena has such a huge crush on him.

I spot Wyatt and immediately scowl. Wyatt Matthews. He's my brother's best friend, too. You know how I said that Zeke was annoying? Well, Wyatt is that multiplied by a million. He thinks he's all that when he really isn't and it gets on my nerves because how can someone's ego possibly be that big? Also, there's the fact that he's slept with like, half the girls in school. And as a proud feminist, that is such a horrible thing to do and it makes me just want to smack him all the way to Pluto.

Isaac is obviously my idiot of a brother. He is nice but only at home and only to his family and friends. To everyone else he's kind of an asshole, but I mean, aren't they all? And that's what you get when you're the designated "bad boy" of the school. But surprisingly, he isn't as much of a player as Wyatt. I mean, of course he's a player, but it's not like he brings girls home on a daily basis. He said he "doesn't want Maggie to see him with a new girl every other day" so he usually just does hookups at parties or something. It's still bad, but at least he has some human decency towards our sister.

Ashton Nord is the last one. And he's my favorite out of my brother's whole posse, if I'm being honest. He's pretty sweet, has morals and is kinda handsome, not gonna lie. Although, he basically is a walking god like the rest of them, but he doesn't take advantage of that by using it to lure girls in. No, like I said, Ashton is the only one with morals. But he's also really quiet and quite scary. I would make the argument to say that he can be the scariest out of all of them.

"Lyra, do you think I would have any chance with Zeke?" Elena asks, still staring wide eyed at Zeke. I shrug, it's not like Zeke and I are actually friends so I can't really say anything.

He catches her stare and winks at her before walking off. "I think I'm gonna faint," she squeals, waving her hand in front of her face. I roll my eyes. She's totally head over heels for Zeke which is kind of sad because I don't want her getting hurt by the asshole.

The bell rings and we all walk together to our first period class, English. As soon as I step through the door I feel my heart drop. 

We have Isaac and his buddies in this class as well. First of all, who puts twin siblings in a class together? That's a recipe for disaster. And second of all, why is my luck so bad? I swear, my life is rigged.