Untrustworthy - Chapter 1/Elysa

I ran down a snowy sidewalk, hard on the heels of my best friend. One hand on my backpack, the other brushing away the remains of a snowball she'd thrown in my face. Elysa raced in front of me, her curly blonde hair swishing back and forth in the swirling snow. She looked back laughing, all caramel skin and wide smile. She had a beautiful curving forehead and dark eyebrows curving over a sparkling, hazel green eye and an eyepatch. It stood out in her angelic face, the black patch under her left eyebrow, covering an empty socket. She'd told me about the infection that claimed that eye, but no one at school ever said anything about it. She'd been lived in that town since elementary school and they were all used to it.

Her rippling laughter changed into a muffled scream as I tackled her and she fell face down in snow. We grappled for a moment, squealing, laughing and punching each other. I stood up, my lust for revenge satisfied and my pants wet from the snow. Elysa rolled over on her backpack, gasping for breath. Her mom was part black, and so besides the blonde hair and uncertain eyes, she had her mom's facial structure and light caramel skin. I had straight, dark hair, dark eyes, and was short. We were close to her house, which sat equidistance between the bus stop and my house.

"Wanna come over?" ELysa asked, several inches taller, stood up beside me. She looked down into my face with that beautiful brown-green eye. She looked a little bit like a piratical Leona Lewis with that eyepatch.
I loved her house. It was a three and a half story Victorian building, with mahogany trim, high ceilings and even an ancient chandelier in her room! It was the best sleepover house ever. If I slept over we’d hang out on her bed and giggle while her cousin, her only surviving family member, hung out with his friends on the first floor. Besides tossing out the perfunctory greeting Mayor usually ignored us and we did the same.

He had taken Elysa in when her parents orphaned her two years ago, dying in a plane crash. Just in case anything happened to them, they'd wanted her to go to family and convinced their slightly estranged nephew, Mayor Volmquist, to sign as her guardian. So she'd moved from her cookie-cutter, boring, beige house to an awesome dark red, steeple roofed, Victorian mansion. Mayor's dad had been rich, and that wealth had all gone to his son when Mayor’s parents died five years before Elysa's. Mr. Volmquist died in a car crash, and his wife followed a few months later with an intentional drug overdose.

"Piano lessons. Can’t come over." I said regretfully. Elysa's face fell. Even though I'd only lived in town five months, we'd become fast friends. I put my arm around her shoulders and we walked to her lawn, where she waved goodbye and walked away from me. I bent over, digging my cold hands in the wet snow.

"Hey Elysa." As she turned I straightened and beamed her in the face with a loose-packed snowball.

"FOOL!" She shrieked, pawing at her face. "You got it in my eye!" She meant her left one and awash with regret I
ran over, scared.

"Elysa! I'm so sorry, I-" She brought her head up grinning and smashed my face in the snow. A few minutes later we're sitting by the steps of her house, totally soaked and giggling. A car door slammed and we watched as three people from our school got out of a blue sedan. They were two Seniors, Gage and Royal, and a boy in our grade.

"Hey. Isn't that Jacob?" I remembered someone telling me he was bad news, stay away, moments before I also discovered his locker was by mine.

He took an instant disliking to me, calling me a stuck up bitch and sticking pencil stubbies in my locker latch. It was probably because we were so different, he liked to run with the ghetto crowd and talk trash, and I was straight laced and clean. I'm also not afraid to tell on people who bother me. I told the principal and he took care of it. I've never physically hit anyone and generally avoid unimportant confrontation, especially if I can get the bigger guns to do my fighting for me. Unlike my older brother, who had been in wrestling and ground people's faces into the sidewalk if they messed with him. He and my older sister, both living out of the house now, had always handled their own battles. I wasn't like that, because I didn’t see the point.

I watched with interest as the other two came up the sidewalk. I’d had a crush on Royal since day one. He was tall with long legs and broad shoulders, curling brown hair, freckles and blue eyes...and of course a Senior girlfriend. Damn. Not that I could have approached him anyway, I was shy where attractive boys were concerned.
The other one, his name was actually Andrew Gage Brown, but since there were a dozen other Andrews at school he went by Gage. I didn’t know Jacob hung out with Seniors.

Gage and Royal weren’t like the kids he normally hung out with anyway. They were athletes, popular, and definitely in their own clique. They mouthed 'hi' without really looking at us. Mayor opened the door and I glimpsed a man standing behind him. Just before he goes inside Royal glances back catches me staring. His eyes slide over my face and he smirks before going inside.
I flush and turn to my best friend, but my words die on my lips. She sat with her hands tightly clasped, the knuckles turning white.

"What are they doing here?" She whispered. With a jolt I realized she was afraid.