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stay away from you, Hadie.”
    My breath caught in my throat, and I swallowed. “W-why?”
    Lincoln tilted his head to the side. “Because you’re…” He trailed off, the words hanging in the air.
    “I’m what?” I squeaked.
    It was amazing the affect Lincoln was having on me. I’d been adamant that I would stay away from him, that I wouldn’t get close to him, but he was making that increasingly difficult for me. The boy was definitely attractive and now I knew how Mariah had felt earlier on.
    A smile lurked around his mouth. “Because you’re my buddy for the week.”
    The spell between us broke instantly, and I took another step back and glared at him. “I’d rather stab myself in the eye repeatedly with a hot poker.”
    Lincoln laughed, raising his hands in front of him. “Whoa, settle down there, Hades. No need to get your panties in a bunch.”
    My mouth fell open and I pushed him back with a hand. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy. “You are so gauche!”
    Lincoln raised an eyebrow. “I’m a what now?”
    “Look it up in the dictionary!” I snapped and stormed back the way I’d come. I wanted to get as far away from Lincoln Bracks as humanly possible. The boy grated on my nerves. All he was was a pretty face. There was no substance or depth there at all. Just good looks and a body that filled out his clothes well.
    Okay, that last part wasn’t necessary. I didn’t care how well his body filled out clothes. I didn’t care about him at all.
    “Nice to see you too, Hades!” Lincoln’s voice followed me around the corner, and I gritted my teeth, refusing to turn around.

Chapter Six
     
    Lincoln
     
    Hadie Swinton’s angry brown eyes haunted me all the way back home.
    I couldn’t figure out why she hated me so much. What had I done to her that was so bad? What could possibly make her act that way towards me?
    When I’d watched her with her friends today, she’d seemed happy enough, albeit a little quiet. There was this sadness about her along with a lot of anger too. Even though she seemed to hate me, I’d seen sincerity in her eyes. And I liked that.
    As I hurried back home, I took in the surrounding houses that were almost identical. Statlen was so different to New York City. For starters, the buildings there towered over you, and New York was noisy. There was noise from traffic and from the millions of people who lived there, always in a hurry, on their way to work or home or some super important business. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere.
    Statlen couldn’t be more different from my old home. The people here didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all. They took their time, they helped their neighbors take the groceries inside, and the air was clean and peaceful. If I closed my eyes and stood in the middle of the street, it was so quiet that it felt like I was alone in the world.
    The funny thing was that even though New York was a concrete jungle—vast, expansive, like a labyrinth—I’d never once gotten lost there, but in Statlen the streets were so unfamiliar that I’d gotten lost twice already. It was bizarre walking the streets and not really knowing where I was going or where anything was.
    Statlen seemed to be made up of a large network of houses and then basically forests and large, empty fields for miles. It was beautiful and frightening at the same time to be in such isolation.
    I finally found my way back to my own street, which was actually only two blocks away from where I’d run into Hadie. Our house was the largest one on the entire street and I think Mom was somewhat proud of that fact.
    She had what I liked to call “Big City Syndrome” where she thought that she was better than people from small towns, which was weird because Dad had been born in Verdana, which was the town next to Statlen. His family had moved to New York when he’d been quite young, so he was right at home here and was already mingling with the neighbors and reconnecting with old