I woke up to the sun shining on my face. I couldn't remember falling asleep or having had any dreams. At least it was still early, not even nine yet. I could sneak out of the house.

I wanted to enjoy the sunny morning before I had to work the lunch shift, so I got ready as fast as I could and jumped in my rusty Ford. With weather like this, I headed straight for the lake. It wasn't big, but it was peaceful. I sat on a bench, soaking in the warm sun and enjoying the sights and sounds. It was so relaxing, and it never lasted long enough.

This was no exception.

"Alexis, what are you doing here?"

I turned around to see my childhood friend who had moved across town and went to the other high school.

My mouth gaped. "Brooke."

She sat next to me. "It's great to see you. How's everything?"

"Just studying most of the time."

"That's how I feel, too. I'm taking fashion courses outside of school."

I looked her up and down. She looked like she'd just stepped out from a photo shoot. For the first time in my life, I felt self-conscious about my boring clothes and no makeup. "You look great."

She leaned back. "Thanks. I'll never be as pretty as you, though."

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. "Yeah, right."

"No joke. You're gorgeous, but you've never seen it."

I laughed. "I don't know what you're on, but I appreciate it. Especially after yesterday."

"What happened?" she asked.

"Natalie's birthday. Once again, my parents threw their favoritism in my face."

Brooke frowned.

"They completely outdid themselves this time."

"Why don't you spend the night tonight? You can get away from them, and we can catch up. It'll be fun."

The corners of my lips curved up. "That does sound like fun. My shift at the deli is over at four, so that gives me plenty of time."

"Perfect. I'll see you then."

As she walked away, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warm sun and the sounds of the lake lapping up on the shore.

After just a little while, a strange whirring noise sounded. It grew louder.

Chills ran through me. I opened my eyes.

Over a hundred crows flew in a massive circle directly above me. I jumped off the bench and gasped for air.

As soon as one crow made eye contact with me, it cawed. The rest followed suit and dozens of crows orbited around over me, and all of them shrieked at me.

I grabbed my purse and inched away from the bench without breathing. I couldn't take my eyes off of them, and I noticed that as I inched along, the whole circle inched right along with me in the air above me. I stopped for a moment and finally took a breath.

As soon as I breathed again, every single creepy bird in the circling, cawing flock turned its eyes toward me. Each one looked down at me while whirling above my head.

I tiptoed a couple feet. Each one kept its eyes fixed on me. They circled, cawing, and stayed directly above me. Exactly as I moved, the circle moved.

I made a split second decision and ran to my car without looking up or back. Once safely locked in my car, I looked outside to see if they had followed me. I didn't see them, so I inched myself forward so that I could see above the car without getting out.

There they were, flying right above in their massive whirl.

I started the car and floored it out of the parking lot. I decided to go to work early.

When I arrived at the strip mall, I ran inside, noticing again that everything went by in a blur.

After my shift, I went straight to my room and packed for the sleepover. Just as I put the last item in my bag, there was a knock on my door.

"Come in."

My dad entered and pointed to the bag. "Moving out?"

"I'm going to sleepover at Brooke's."

"Next time you should probably ask first," he said, "but I'll overlook it this once. Since it's Brooke."

"Okay. I'm in kind of a hurry."

"Your mom and I decided to take over your car insurance payments. We'll cover your gas, too."

"What?" I stared at him.

"We know how hard you work. I'd also like to get you something nice for your birthday coming up."

My mouth dropped.

"Honey, I hope you know how proud I am of you. You want something and go after it until you get it," he said. "You'd already worked for and bought your car before you turned sixteen. You didn't even give us a chance to give you a car."

I gave him a hug. "I have to go. I don't want to keep Brooke waiting."

"Have fun, honey."

As I walked through the kitchen, my mom stepped in front of me. "Where do you think you are going?"

"I'm going to spend the night at Brooke's house. Dad said I could."

She frowned. "What are you wearing, anyway?"

"Clothes."

"I don't get it. You don't care about style. That's why I never buy you nice things—you'd never appreciate them. You're happy with boring." She looked disgusted.

"So?" I headed for my car. Everything passed in a blur again.

When I got to Brooke's house, her family swarmed me. It felt like they'd never moved away, and they still felt more like family than my own. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed all of them until then. I'd was like a piece of me had been missing, only I hadn't noticed.

After dinner, Brooke dragged me to her room. We sat on her huge bed and caught up with each other's lives.

She leaned against a pillow. "Are you going to your homecoming dance? It's only a couple of weeks away. Mine's on that Friday night and yours is the next night."

I groaned. "I'm trying to ignore it. Natalie will be crowned princess, and I don't want to deal with that. I have to endure her being a princess at home as it is."

"You know why you really aren't looking forward to it?" she asked.

I raised my eyebrows.

"Because you've never gotten dressed up. You don't even know your potential."

"Well, I don't have a date and no one's interested in me, so I guess I we'll never know." I folded my arms, daring her to continue the conversation.

Her face lit up. "My cousin's coming into town. You can go to your homecoming with him. He's super hot—everyone will be jealous."

"How long did it take you to cook this up? Is that why you went to the lake?"

"For real, Lexi? Come on, say yes." She pleaded with her eyes.

"Okay, fine. But you're going to have to do all of the work. I'm just going to stand there while you do my makeup. I don't even know how to put on mascara."

She squealed. "Let me measure you and I'll design a dress just for you."

"What? Isn't that going to be expensive? Or time-consuming?"

"Nope. Cheaper, and besides, I need to design a gown for one of my classes. You're helping me out."

The rest of the evening was a blast. I hadn't expected to like being measured or looking at fabrics, but I really had fun.

The next morning, I woke before Brooke and peeked through the blinds.

A crow flew past the window and cawed.

I yelled out. My heart nearly jumped from chest. I backed away from the window.

Brooke rubbed her eyes. "What's going on?"

I tried to force my breathing back to normal. "Just a crow."

"A crow?"

"Yeah, they've really been freaking me out. Yesterday, a bunch of them were flying around me, and it really freaked me out. Now this." I frowned.

"Weird. Is anything else strange happening?"

"Now that you mention it, lights have been exploding around me," I said.

Brooke didn't even flinch. She nodded for me to go on.

"A bunch of light bulbs shattered at home and then some exploded at Natalie's practice in the gym. That was was right after her smoothie exploded all over her face. Oh, and then more lights shattered at home later, too."

"What was happening when the lights exploded?"

I thought for a moment. "The first lights blew up when my parents gave Natalie the new BMW. Then some exploded in my room after they told me that I had to go to her practice to cheer her on. The ones at the gym were after I gave her a smoothie. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. So, you were pretty mad about her new car?"

"Mad? I'm furious! What's worse is that they can't even see the blatant favoritism." My blood boiled just thinking about it.

"Obviously not much has changed." Brooke ran her fingers through her hair. "Except now they're buying her more expensive stuff."

"It won't change. Never has, never will." My anger was morphing into rage.

"I can't imagine living with that, and also having her so popular at school." Brooke studied me.

I took a deep breath. "It's horrible. Everywhere I go, I hear about how great and wonderful she is. Great, she can hit a ball over a net, but does that mean that she needs to have everything handed to her on a silver platter?"

Brooke rested her chin on her palm. "Exactly. You get better grades and you work harder. You should have nicer things than she does."

POP!

A light bulb in Brooke's room shattered.

"Why does this keep happening?" I exclaimed.

"When you get mad something explodes?" Brooke didn't move to clean the mess.

"Are you actually suggesting that I'm at fault?"

"It makes sense if you think about it," she said.

"It makes no sense. Light bulbs and smoothies don't explode because someone's mad."

"Then why is everything blowing up when you're angry?" she asked.

"You're really going to blame this on me? You sound like my mother." I folded my arms.

Brooke laughed. "I'm not blaming you. You didn't plant explosives. I just said that things are exploding when you're mad. It's a simple correlation. I'd think that the girl everyone used to call 'the scientist' could see that much."

I narrowed my eyes. "The crows showed up when I felt relaxed and happy."

"What do you make of it?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Well, let's forget about it. Why don't you get in the shower and I'll make my special omelets? You'll love them."

"Okay," I said, sighing.

"See you downstairs." She jumped up and ran out of the room.

As I was getting my stuff out of my bag, I heard Brooke talking to her brother.

"We were right, Steve. The lights bursting at the gym were because of Alexis."

"So it's starting," he said.

What was starting? I opened the bedroom door, expecting them to be right outside, but they weren't. I tip-toed around the entire floor, but didn't see them.

I went down the stairs quietly and crept around until I spied them in the office at the far end of the house. There was no way that I could have heard them from Brooke's bedroom. That would've been impossible.

I snuck back up to Brooke's bedroom and looked for a vent or some other way I could have heard them. There was nothing that would have allowed me to hear them. She had an old-style heater without vents.

Maybe I had imagined the conversation. It was probably stress causing me to hear voices. I was upset when I heard Natalie speaking without moving her mouth. My emotional state had to be triggering this. Whatever this was.