The World I Knew Isn't The Same Anymore

Chapter 7 Into the Shimmering Orb

Bree swallows down a ball of saliva right before Chase swings the door open. And to both their surprise Francine is standing at the very front of the room next to the other professor, Stan, engaging in what looks like flirty chit chat.

There's supposed to be 12 students now, but Bree only counts 5 so far sitting in seats. She recognizes Izabel and Ethan, obviously sitting next to each other, and then Zach who's sitting on the out skirts. There's a girl sitting by Izabel, and judging from her bright blonde beach like hair, pale skin with freckles covering her face, and pale blue eyes, she's assuming that's Lacey. And there's another guy with narrowed dark eyes and black slick hair sitting closer to the top staring right at them.

"That's my friend, Justin, he's a warlock and loves to be high," Chase nods over towards Justin after leaning in close to her to tell her that. "Sit behind Izzy or something, I'm gonna talk to Francine."

She feels her heart literally pound against the ribs in her chest, but finds courage to make her way up the steps and through the seats until she finds the chair behind her friend. Thank God she turns around immediately and starts talking to her.

Then Izabel turns to the blonde girl on her side and she turns around too and gives Bree the most beautiful, warm hearted smile. "Lacey, this is Bree, Bree Lacey," and does hand gestures to introduce them.

"Hey, nice to finally meet you. Izzy's been talking about you all last week," and extends her hand to shake hers. "It's nice to have someone new here."

"Nice to meet you too," Bree matches the warmth from Lacey's voice and shakes her hand, she senses a surge of welcomeness radiating from her. "She's talked about you too," then gives her a small chuckle.

The doors to the lecture hall swing open again, and in comes two boys. One with dirty fluffy blonde hair and extremely dark teal eyes, the other has brownish hair with highlighted blonde streaks and chocolate colored eyes. Both of them immediately land on Bree as well and to her surprise sit on either end of her.

Before she can say anything, the boy on her right speaks. "Hi I'm Aiden," and then takes her hand and literally places a kiss on top of it. She's utterly flabbergasted and just stays still staring at him. He's attractive - but so is everyone else she's seen - and has freckles all over his face. "It's nice to finally see you in person," and his voice is covered in a seductive tone and eyes trail down her body. His lips are thin and he has small smile wrinkles when they turn into a grin.

"Does everyone here seem to know who I am?" She says the first words that pop into her head, then pulls her hand back into her lap.

"Yes," everyone around her, including the two boys, Lacey, Izabel, Ethan and the Justin guy say unanimously. She even notices Justin has moved his seat behind Aiden.

"You've grown to be quite popular in the past week," Justin's voice pipes up now from behind her. "I'm Justin by the way, if you ever need anything, and I mean anything, I am your guy."

Bree bites her lip to withhold laughing in his face. Then the guy to her left takes her attention. "And I'm Cade," he waves almost obnoxiously but the red in his face is hiding some sort of embarrassment or shyness. "I can stop time and shit."

"Wow, that's actually pretty cool," she offers a wave back to try and diminish some unwanted tension. "I can create fire and shit," she matches his response almost conditionally.

Chase comes skipping up the steps and enters the seat next to Justin directly behind Bree. He looks at the boys around her and nearly rolls his eyes. "Jesus, you guys are like birds flocking to a piece of bread," and then teases his friends before leaning way back into his chair.