Sori watched as the six boys stumbled onto the bus, one after the other. They were new, clearly. The uneasy expressions on their faces were looks she’d seen many times when a new kid came onto the bus headed for Dark Lake Academy. She’d probably of had the same expression herself if she thought the school was for troubled teens.

In truth, the school was for supernatural teens. Sori was a shape shifter.

Clearly, these six boys were in the dark about that. The tallest – and probably the youngest since he addressed the others as hyung – looked like he was being taken away to the gallows as he hugged the arm of one of the other boys. The boy he was hugging didn’t look much better come to think of it. A couple of the boys flashed smiles at the other teens on the bus, but no one returned the smile.

Glancing to the seat across from her, Sori shared a small smirk with one of her best friends, Xi Luhan. No doubt the cold response would make the six even more unnerved about the place they were headed. When they found out just what they were……. Sori figured the news wouldn’t sit too well.

“Everyone on?” the bus driver called, “we need to leave soon so I can drop you off in time.”

“Just two more,” Sori called, trying her best to sound polite since the driver was a kind woman, “the Kim boys are running across the parking lot now.”

Everyone looked out the passenger side windows in time to see two boys running towards the bus, the duffle bags on their backs bouncing with every step.

“Made it,” the younger of the bothers, Kim Jongin, sighed happily before turning to glare at his older brother, “it’s your fault, hyung. Why’d you have to take so long getting ready.”

“Excuse me?” the older, Kim Jongdae, snarled, “I’m the one who took too long?”

“Yes,” Jongin replied before rushing to the back of the bus where Sori and Luhan were sitting. He brushed past the six newbies, trying not to knock into them too much since they were partly in the aisle on account of sitting three to a seat. With a scoff, Jongdae followed, knocking into the boys without even trying to avoid them. A couple of the boys glared at him, but he ignored it.

Silently, both boys took the seats in front of their friends, throwing their bags into the seats in front of them where Sori and Luhan had placed their own bags to create a wall between the four of them and everyone else. No sooner had they sat down then the bus started moving. Sori watched as the six newbies looked out the windows as the parking lot, and their families, faded into the distance. Even the ones who had smiled before looked pained, like they were silently pleading for their parents to come chasing after the bus, yelling that they’d changed their mind.

Too bad that wasn’t going to happen.

Sori glanced from one boy to another, wondering what kind of supernaturals they were. All supernaturals had the ability to detect other supernaturals, like a built in radar system or something. All supernaturals could detect type too. Humans had the same skill once, but time and evolution had taken it away from them.

Sori’s dark eyes locked onto the youngest as she tried to figure out what he was. She also decided to use her telepathy to dig a little into minds of the boys. The school’s owner was always on her about using her telepathy gift anyway. Why not take this chance to use it?

Her telepathy wasn’t that strong, only allowing her to glimpse at the thoughts at the forefront of a person’s mind. Her friend Yuri was a much stronger telepath and could dive deep into the depths of a person’s mind whenever she wanted. However, Yuri’s power was always on, always there to pick up on people’s thoughts even when she didn’t want to hear them, and Sori could turn it on and off at will.

Sori focused her attention on the tallest of the group and got ready to read his thoughts.

Soon, Sori had found out that the youngest – Hyuk – was a werewolf. The shape shifter blinked in surprise.  From the looks of things, he already knew what he was, but he’d been keeping it a secret from everyone. She felt a flash of pity for the poor boy; growing up around humans was hard on supernatural children, especially when your supernatural heritage involved changing forms. When they arrived and he was told what he was – and what the school was – he’d probably be relieved to finally have a place where he didn’t have to hide it.

The next boy was a little harder to read, taking a few minutes longer than Hyuk. Hongbin was a fae, otherwise known as a fairy. By the looks of the thoughts currently floating around surface if his mind, he was a healing fae. Now she could understand why this boy didn’t know what he was. Unless he healed a broken arm or an incurable illness, he’d go through life thinking that everything healed by his power was coincidence. Many other fae had gone through life never knowing what they were because of similar reasons.

Next was the boy called Leo. His mind was even harder to enter and Sori almost gave up, nearly deciding to wait until they got to the academy to find out what Leo was. With one last push, however, she got the answer she was looking for. Leo was a nightmare, a supernatural creature that invaded the dreams of others and fed on their bad dreams. Like with Hongbin, it was easy to understand why he didn’t already known what he was.

When nightmares were in close proximity to someone who was sleeping, they fell asleep, too. Many would call this coincidence, only those who knew what they were knew the truth. Additionally, when a nightmare woke up feeling fully energized that wasn’t anything abnormal. The only clue that something was wrong were the visions of a black horse with a mane of fire that could happen at any time, awake or asleep.

Sori’s next target was the boy Ravi. Thankfully for her, his mind was just as easy to raid as Hyuk’s had been. Sori smiled to herself when she realized that Ravi was a shape shifter like her. It wasn’t like she was going to befriend him just because of that, she just liked the idea of having one more shape shifter around school. She closed her eyes, trying to probe a little more and found that Ravi hadn’t experienced his first full shift yet. His eyes had changed colours a bit and he’d felt tremors through his body when it attempted to force a shift, but nothing else. Just enough to cause his family concern when they noticed these things.

Sori was tempted to rest after Ravi, feeling a bit drained after using so much of her energy. But there were two more boys to go and she felt too curious for her own good.

Ken was the fifth target and Sori had even less trouble reading him then the others. As it turned out, Ken was a witch – although she assumed that the preferred term was warlock. Until recently, he’d never cast a spell, but the one he had cast kept going through his mind. Sori had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at his magical blunder once she learned what it was. Why would you turn your own friend into a frog over who ate the lost box of cookies anyway?

Finally, there was the last boy. Sori focused her mind and found nothing. She blinked, clearly confused as to why she was being blocked. Could it be she was just tried? Trying again, she got the same result. Sori looked at the back of his head for a few minutes before sinking down in her seat.

She couldn’t get any read on him at all, not even to tell if he was a supernatural or not. The boy was like a black hole. Even humans gave of some type of signal, but this boy gave off nothing. Her telepathy not working could be chalked up to her energy being too drained, but she should still be able to read his pattern or aura or whatever you called it to know if he was supernatural or human. That didn’t take any energy.

Sori was tempted to ask Luhan if he could get a read on the kid – N by the looks of the other’s thoughts – but thought better of it. If she asked, people could overhear. People like the six new kids who might ask questions with answers they weren’t ready to hear. Answers they should hear from her.

“Have any of you been here before?” Ken suddenly asked, looking around the bus.

“Yeah,” Jongdae smirked, “you aren’t going to last a week.” Sori rolled her eyes at Jongdae’s childishness. Was scaring the new kids really necessary?

“What do you mean?” Ken replied, his voice betraying the insecurity he felt.

“What do you think he means?” Sori replied with a shrug, “Because I think Jongdae was pretty straight forward.” Ken and his friends turned their attention to her, some glaring and others looking scared.

“Little girl sounds tough,” laughed Seunghyun, another returning camper, “good thing I like them that way.”

“Shut up, Seunghyun,” Jongdae growled, “like Sori would ever go out with you.”

“Cut it out, Jongdae,” Sori rolled her eyes, “he’s just playing around. Seunghyun’s harmless.” The six newbies turned back to face her and looked surprised to find that her eyes had changed from dark brown to bright blue.

That, Sori had learned, was a sign of power with shape shifters. The more your eyes changed on their own, the more power coursed through your veins. Personally she thought it was stupid, that eyes changing colour against your will should be a sign of no control, but who was she to argue with what generations of shape shifters before her had decreed?

“We’re making a pit stop,” the bus driver yelled as they pulled into a parking lot of a small truck stop, “if you need anything, I suggest you do it now because I’m not stopping again.”

Sori led her friends – Luhan, Jongdae, and Jongin – off the bus, passing by the newbies. She tried once more to get a read on the last one but came up blank. She glanced at Luhan, silently asking if he could read the boy any better, but he shook his head.

A/N: chapter 1 for all of you! hope you like it. Thank you to everyone who’s subscribed. I’m more than thrilled to have so many subscribers already. Hopefully you’ll all stick with me to the end of this story.