He snapped. The thin layer of raw buffalo hide that compounded all the words back into the emotions of the heartless b*****ds of Flomish High School, had snapped. All of it, into two pieces of remorse and anger. As knuckle met flesh, he was shot back two weeks ago, when the sun still shone upon the his back. It began.



Chapter One: the leader and the follower. The hunter and the prey.


As his father had explained to him before, Quinn realized the two types of people in the world. The leader was at the top of the cycle of popularity, while being a follower put you in the middle or bottom. Though Quinn wondered. If you were a leader with no followers, where the heck are you? If a school food chain is the supposedly easy place to get along in that his father had told him it was, you just have to lead instead of follow, right?

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“Quinton Johnson, get out of bed NOW!” Quinn’s mother was not understanding of the fact that a 15-year-old boy preferably sleeps the whole day through, and that kindness is the best policy when it comes to teens, but she had never raised a child before. Quinton did not blame his mother for not reading the parenting books that covered the city library, or for not attending the absolutely free talks with guest speakers at his high school, or occasionally forgetting about dinner, leaving Quinn to fend for himself. The way he looked at it, she obviously had bigger issues on her mind.

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Ryles wrapped his fingers around the red beer cup that had been left on his friend’s sofa, probably by one of the party animals that had made the party so intense last night. He stretched out his arms, barrels of muscle and flesh that had been developed by 12 years of organized football, and groaned as he rolled onto the gray carpet that was most likely installed in the early 1880s, by the amount of abuse that had been done on it. Pizza crust crumbs, dog pee, everything from dust bunnies to clumps of dirt that would kill a vacuum cleaner in no time. Its musty smell, although revolting, was pleasing in a weird way to Riles. It reminded him of his dad’s house. “Get up, man.” Riles’ friend Jake said. “We’re going to be late for school.” Riles laughed. “It wouldn’t be the first time, now would it Jake?” The friends were part of a crew, almost like a high school frat, which meant that they spent a lot of time trying to get invited to college parties. A lot of them were during school, but hey, a party was a party, to Riles and his friends. Nevertheless, he pulled on a pair of jeans that probably hadn’t been washed since late September (it was May) and a Dave Matthews Band t-shirt. They kicked past the pile of pizza boxes by the brown door and walked onto the street.
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