The Transformed Box Set: Books 1, 2, 3, 3.5

by Stacy Claflin

  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 tip-toed 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 as fast as I could without looking up or back. Once I was 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 looked at the clock and decided to go to work early. The deli would still have the last of the breakfast crowd and the late risers grabbing some coffee. It would be crowded, and best of all, indoors away from creepy birds.

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

  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 at my door.

  "Come in," I said, sighing.

  My dad walked in. He pointed to the bag. "Moving out?"

  "I ran into Brooke and we're going to have a sleepover at her house."

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

  "So do you need something? I'm in kind of a hurry."

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

  "What?" I pinched myself.

  "Of course. We know how hard you work. I'd also like to get you something nice for your birthday coming up. Is there anything that you want?"

  I shrugged. "I'll have to think about it."

  "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."

  "Thanks," I said, squirming. I wasn't used to this type of conversation. I grabbed my bag. "I have to go. I don't want to keep Brooke waiting."

  He gave me an awkward hug before I walked out of my room.

  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."

  "You don't deserve it after the way that you behaved yesterday. What are you wearing, anyway?"

  "Clothes."

  "I don't get you," she said. "You don't care about what's stylish. That's why I never buy you nice things. You wouldn't appreciate them. You're happy with plain things." She looked disgusted.

  I shook my head and then ran to my car. Everything passed in a blur again.

  When I got to Brooke's house, her mom, Rachel, gave me a big hug. Her dad, Charles, and brother, Stephen, remarked on how good it was to see me again. 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.

  After dinner, Brooke dragged me to her room. We sat on her huge, king-sized bed and talked about our lives.

  "I'm glad you're still planning on going to an Ivy League school." she said. "You've been working hard on your grades for so long."

  "And I can't believe that you went from wanting to be a teacher to a fashion designer."

  She leaned back. "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 probably be crowned 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."

  Her face lit up. "My cousin's coming into town in a week. You can go to your homecoming with him. You'll be so stunning that everyone will forget all about Natalie. Also, he's super good looking—all the girls will be jealous."

  "You've got it all planned, don't you?" I asked. "How long did it take you to cook this up?"

  "Come on. What do you say?" Her eyes were begging me to say yes.

  I sighed loudly. "Okay, fine. But you're going to have to do all of the work."

  "That's the fun part," she squealed. "Let me measure you and I'll create a dress just for you. I've been dying to work on a project like."

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

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

  "I guess if it'll help you." I stood up to get measured.

  The rest of the evening was fun, girly time and I actually enjoyed myself. I didn't think that I would like being measured or looking at fabrics and colors.

  The next morning, I woke up before Brooke and peeked through the blinds. It was fall and the weather was sure to turn cold soon. I wanted to enjoy each warm sunny day that we had left.

  Before I could even tell what the weather was, a crow flew past the window and cawed loudly in front of the window.

  I yelled out, my heart pounding. I jumped away from the window, covering my chest.

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

  I tried to force my breathing back to normal. "I was looking out the window and a crow flew by and scared me."

  "A crow?"

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

  "Is anything else weird going on?" she asked.

  "Now that you mention it, lights have been exploding around me," I said. "On Natalie's birthday, a bunch of light bulbs shattered at home. Then some exploded at Natalie's practice in the gym, which was right after her smoothie erupted all over her face." I couldn't help giggling at that last part.

  "That's odd. What was going on 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. Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

  "You know me. I have to know all the details about everything. So you were pretty mad about the BMW?"

  "Mad? I'm furious! What's worse is that they can't even see the blatant favoritism. There's nothing that's more special about her. I don't get it. They buy her the nicest of everything and make me work for everything. My mom even blames me for that, saying that I wouldn't appreciate nice things if I had them."

  "Obviously not much has changed," she said. "Except that they're buying her even more expensive things now."

  "It'll never change. That's why I'm going to college far, far away from Delphic Cove." I could feel the rage trying to surface again.

  "I can only imagine how awful it is to live with that and to have her be so popular at school too." Brooke looked at me as though she expected something.

  "It's worse than awful. Everywhere I go, I hear about how great and wonderful Natalie is. She can hit a ball over a net but does that mean that she needs to have everything handed to her?"

  "It's not right at all. You get better grades, you work hard, you should have nicer things than she does," Brooke said.

  "You're right."

  POP!

  A light bulb in Brooke's room shattered.

  "Why does this keep happening?"

  "It seems like every time you get mad something explodes," Brooke said, not moving to clean the mess.

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

  "It makes se
nse 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.

  THREE

  On Monday at lunch, I sat next to Amanda at our regular table with Emma, her boyfriend, and some of his friends. Amanda looked lost in her thoughts and everyone else was talking with each other.

  "Is everything okay?" I asked Amanda.

  She looked up. "I'm just going over my history facts for my test next period."

  "Want some help?" I offered.

  "Nah," she said. "I'd rather hear what you've been up to. I didn't hear from you all weekend. Some best friend. Last I saw you, everyone was running from those freakish lights."

  "Don't remind me," I mumbled. I changed the subject. "On Saturday, I ran into Brooke and spent the night at her house."

  "I forgot about her," Amanda said. "They up and moved pretty suddenly, didn't they?"

  "I guess it was sudden," I said, shrugging my shoulders.

  "They did move unexpectedly, I remember. I've never seen anyone move so fast. It was weird."

  "They're fine now. She's taking classes on fashion design and she wants to create a homecoming dress for me."

  "What? Does this mean that you're going to a dance?" Amanda smiled and adjusted her glasses.

  "Yeah. She talked me into it. I'm probably going to make a complete fool of myself."

  "This is going to be so much fun. Do you have any ideas on who to go with?"

  "I'm going with her cousin. He's going to be in town then. No one else would be interested in me anyway."

  "Oh…is he cute?" Amanda smiled wide.

  "She says he is. It doesn't matter, because he won't want to see me again after the dance. Guys never give me a second glance."

  "Oh, this is so exciting. You're finally going to a dance." Amanda danced in her seat.

  "Who are you going with?" I asked, trying to get into the excitement. I couldn't understand spending hours in the bathroom just to get attention from boys. I was much more interested in preparing myself for a solid career. I wanted to have a job in a field that would allow me to take part in putting the bad guys away. It would be fun to use my science knowledge to uncover evidence at crime scenes. Or even to be a lawyer or judge would be exciting.

  The entire process of fighting for justice was alluring. I was even a member of the CSI Club after school, which met once a week. Much to the disappointment of my hormone-driven friends, I wasn't even interested in any of the smart, geeky guys in the club. Amanda and Emma seemed to think that I was missing out on something special.

  No thank you. I would much rather have spent my time pushing through classes so I could get those A's and eventually get into a prestigious school which could earn me the career of my dreams.

  Everyone saw me as boring, myself included if I was honest.

  I realized that Amanda was still talking about the dance while I was daydreaming about my future career. I tried to focus on what she was saying, because it was obviously important to her.

  "We're going to talk our dates into renting a limo and going to dinner before the dance. Want to go with us?" She nodded her head, clearly trying to get me to agree.

  "That could be fun," I said. "I need to talk with Brooke first and see what's going on with her cousin. I don't want to set any plans just yet."

  "Okay, just make sure that you talk to her soon."

  The bell rang and we all went our separate ways.

  The afternoon breezed by as I went through my afternoon classes and to my CSI club. Once the meeting was over, the halls were mostly empty since everyone else had already gone home or was practicing their sports.

  As I walked to my car in the parking lot, I heard the familiar whirring noise overhead and my heart sank.

  I looked up. Sure enough, there was a flock (I didn't even want to think of the other name for a group of crows—a murder!) flying in the air. This time there were even more than before.

  They were between my car and me. I would have to risk running directly underneath them to get to my car.

  I had to decide what to do–-and fast. I ran towards the school and away from my car as fast as I could. I had a bad feeling about going back into the school, so at the last second, I darted away from the doors and ran around the school to the back side where the sport fields were.

  Once I got near the football field, I dared to look behind me to see if the crows were still chasing me. I couldn't see any. They must not have wanted the attention from all the people around.

  I leaned against a pole to catch my breath and calm my nerves.

  "Where's the fire?" came a voice.

  I looked up and saw a senior named Tanner Monroe standing near me. He was popular, and I braced myself for what he might say next. I was sure that he was going to make fun of me because he was known for being a jerk.

  "There's no fire." I didn't owe him an explanation.

  "I can't believe how fast you were running," he said, actually sounding impressed.

  "Yeah, that's why they call it running, because it's fast."

  "No, seriously," he said. "Our girls' track team could use you this year. All of our fastest runners graduated last year. You're faster than the ones that are left, by a long shot."

  "I don't have much of an interest in sports," I told him.

  "You're Natalie's sister, aren't you?" he asked.

  "I have a name. It's Alexis."

  "You should think about the track team, Alexis. You might even be the fastest in the school."

  "I'm more of a brain than a jock," I said. "I wouldn't want my grades to suffer."

  "If you're so smart, you should know that exercise is good for the mind." He grinned.

  "Of course I know that. I also know that being involved in a sport takes a lot of time. I see how much time Natalie spends with volleyball."

  "She does a lot more than just practice volleyball."

  I raised an eyebrow. "What are you saying?"

  "Obviously you and your sister aren't that close."

  "You must be a brain surgeon to figure out that one."

  He gave me a funny look. "I have to get back to football. Let me know if you want to try out for the track team
. I'm one of the team managers."

  "I'll keep that in mind," I said.

  He turned around and jogged to the football field. I walked past the building and peeked around the corner to see if the nasty crows were waiting for me.

  They were.

  I walked the whole way around to the other side of the school, and saw the crows were still waiting for me on the other side of the building. I got my car key ready and ran as fast as I could to my car. By the time they saw me and had made their way toward me, I was already locked inside my car. I peeled out of the parking lot.

  I had time before my shift at the deli, so I decided to go to the library. When I had settled into a chair, someone sat down in the chair next to me. "Hi Lexi."

  It was Stephen, Brooke's brother. "Stephen, what are you doing here? All the way across town, I mean. I wasn't trying to imply that you shouldn't be at the library."

  He laughed. "It's great to see you too." He fake-punched my arm. "I was at the sports store down the road and decided to get some homework done and wait out the traffic."

  "Makes sense."

  "What are you studying?" He peeked over my shoulder at the book.

  "Honors Lit. We have to read a book a week. It can be a bit much, but it's good prep for college," I said.

  "What are you going to major in? I bet you already have it figured out."

  I smiled. "I want to do something to do with justice."

  "The justice field, huh?" he asked. "That's amazing."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Oh. I…uh, it just seems…uh… Hey, your school has that CSI Club, right? Are you part of that?"

  "Yeah. I love it. The science behind solving the crimes is phenomenal. I think I'd really love being a part of that. Last year we got to go on a walk through with some real CSI's and it was even better than I'd thought," I said, practically gushing.

  "Is it like the TV show?" Stephen asked.

  "That's what everyone asks. It's not full of such melodrama, but it's exciting because of how they are able take seemingly insignificant clues to prove someone's innocence or guilt."

  "That's interesting. Not that I could do it, but I'm glad that there are people like you who want to."