Author's Note: So... I recently finished reading Hunger by Michael Grant, the second book in the Gone series. I've also recently become a Drake Merwin fan since he appears a lot more in Hunger. Anyways, I decided to have a bit of fun with this and you'll see a bit more... Drake versus Lex later on. Review if possible please (: And yes, I do have many, many emo OC's. There's a reason for that.

Lex Caro looks out her window darkly. She's made a point of crossing her arms and sitting with one leg up in her dad's new Porsche, leaving a now-dried footprint on the once-perfect crème leather. He doesn't notice, or rather, doesn't want to. Nobody needs to explain how Lex felt in the past two weeks living with her dad who she'd grown up without. How he and his wife had welcomed her into their home, both very friendly, but she'd still felt all alone in their huge mansion, even with a king-sized canopy bed and a personal washroom and a butler. It was suffocating.

Even now, her stepmother was trying to play optimistic. "Oh, look! Coates Academy is huge! You're going to have such a fun time here, hun!"

You'll meet such nice girls here! This is sorority preparation, Alex! Being in a sorority is such fun! Like me, I was in… Me, me, me. Whatever.

Nobody calls her Alex.

Dave—Dad—starts to open the door. "Do you need me to walk you in, sport?"

Lex yanks her door open and slams it shut, grabs her luggage from the back trunk—a half-deflated duffel bag and a suitcase—and then looks at her father in exasperation. "I've been walking into schools without a dad since I was seven. Do I need someone to walk me in? No."

He sighs again. In the old days, he would have yelled at anyone going against him. Exploded like a volcano. Guess he went to anger management classes, because now, he sighs, which is much, much worse in many ways.

Number one being that you can't get angry at him.

"Let me rephrase that." He leans against his door. "Do you want me to walk you in?"

"No."

"Okay then, have a good time. Call home if you need anything."

Lex looks around to see other kids being dropped off. Their parents are hugging them, getting teary. There are a select few who just storm out of cars and march off without another word. Nice. She wouldn't want this scum to hug her anyways.

Moving her suitcases up the front steps of the main building, someone growls, "Move it!" and pushes past Lex. She stops for a moment. It's a boy, Caucasian, a couple of inches taller than her. Not scary, really, but for the hard glint in his eyes. Would have been cute too, if not for the stupid smirk stretched on his face. It hadn't even been there a moment ago. It was like he figured Lex would challenge him and started laughing.

Her voice comes out low and dry. "Back off."

"Oh, so the new girl wants to mess?"

A small group has gathered around them: a good-looking guy with a certain… expression of superiority, a gorgeous girl with an equally smug grin, and a slightly overweight, nerdy guy who didn't fit in with the other two.

"Huh?" The boy in front of Lex growls before grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her roughly back into the handrail.

Lex's head slumps forward.

"Idiot. What did you do?" The superior guy steps forward haphazardly.

Lex tilts her head up again and runs a hand through her hair in annoyance. Easily nonchalant, she lifts her leg in a front snap kick that the bully clearly wasn't expecting. The female observer lets out a laugh as the bully doubles over, eyes wide with shock and pain. "Drake's not going to be able to have kids anymore."

Even the nerd grins. Lex swallows and leaves before Drake can recover.

"Hey. You must be Alexis Caro." Lex enters her room to see a cute blond with a fairly friendly grin. "Yeah. Taylor?"

Taylor smiles. "The one and only. Pick your bed?"

"I don't really care."

"So where are you from?" Taylor shrugs and plops down on the bed with a window view.

"Canada. I just got accepted into an art school too." Lex wrings her left hand around her right wrist wistfully, a personal habit along with lip-biting. "Then I had to move here." Generally speaking, Lex's thoughts were her own. But if someone seemed nice like Taylor, she didn't mind sharing.

"What's your issue?"

Lex raises an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

Taylor laughs again. "No, I mean Coates Academy is known for kids who get in trouble. What happened to you?"

"Nothing really. You?"

"I'm not really a bad person. I'm just at Coates." Taylor swings her feet and looks at the ground nonchalantly.

"Okay then." Lex wrings her wrist again. Could she really say?

Pink tallies down her arms. Like the devil had been keeping track of everything bad that happened to her. The biggest scar—deepest one—was from three months ago. Hit an artery with that one. Severe bleeding. The wound was squirting blood for what seemed like too long. That was how Katie had found her, bleeding all over the kitchen.

Truth be told, however, Lex's 'problems' weren't really the reason she was at Coates. She was at Coates because her dad had to take her in and he didn't want her around. And Lex Caro didn't care.