Chapter 1 The Survivor
“What is normal to one person is not normal to another person.”
The Yellow Bus.
The bus looked like a dystopian war relic ripped straight out of an alternate Avengers reality. Some students nicknamed this bus “Demon Baby,” while others swore they had seen it lurking as a prop in a Stephen King film. Its most recognizable feature was its sickly, puke-yellow paint, now faded and scarred by years of hard use, carrying the battle wounds of countless school days.
Inside this antique bus, the ugly green plastic seats looked violently slashed, creating the perfect backdrop straight out of a slasher movie. The windows were not only cloudy but had a grimy film on them, and some of them refused to move at all. They seemed to be permanently stuck, trapping everyone inside during the hottest summer days and the coldest winter mornings.
Daisy Ellen Wolfstein always sat in the back of the bus, where the noise was quieter, and she could disappear in the background. Today marked her last day in the human school system. After this, there would be no more pretending she belonged among them.
As a hybrid daughter of a Wolf King and a vampire mother, Daisy exists between two powerful and dangerous worlds. She knew her mother was dead, but her father remained a mystery she had never been able to solve, even though she had tried. The Wolf King had never entered her life, never claimed her as a daughter, and never made her feel welcomed in the world he ruled.
The bus finally stopped at the Meadows Field Park drop-off point, which was Daisy’s destination. This was the part she hated the most: stepping off the bus and hearing every cruel name the other students could think of. Most of the children did it just to provoke her, hoping to get a reaction from her.
Monday was only three days away, and it would completely change Daisy’s life. Everything was to be different: a brand-new school system, and an end to the human taunts she had endured for years. The massive change made her secretly nervous, but she refused to let even the smallest trace of fear show on her face as she stood there. Instead, she cracked her knuckles, smirking at the bus reflection and muttering, “Let them try.”
Daisy stood up the moment the bus came to a grinding halt, slinging her black-and -brown backpack over one shoulder. She marched down the aisle, her boots pressing into the heavily worn black floor mat that had already started ripping apart. She wore a purple-black T-shirt that boldly read Girls Rock because, in her eyes, they absolutely did.
Two seats ahead of her, Daniel, a young boy with a mini-mohawk that resembled a porcupine’s black quills, whipped around his seat, blocking her path with a nasty sneer and a mocking laugh. “Nerd.”
Roxy didn’t even blink. She marched right up to his knees, locked her arms across her chest, and glared down at the top of his head.
“Nice quills, Daniel.”
She didn't wait for him to look up. “Did you get style advice from recent roadkill, or are you just trying to see how fast you can get stuck to a windshield?”
Daniel’s face flushed a deep, ugly red, and he looked around to see if anyone was laughing. Everyone seemed to stay quiet, not helping but not laughing either.
Daisy blinked at him, her voice dropping into a dangerously cold tone. “If you know what is good for you, that head of yours will be moved within seconds.” Daniel gulped, his tough-guy act evaporating instantly, and moved out of her way.
“Nice choice,” Roxy muttered from her seat. She watched him scurry backwards like a kicked dog. “I hate having to scrape porcupine quills off the floor mats anyway.”
Then, there was Marie, whose family influence in town made her the most arrogant girl in school. Sitting in the middle row, she always believed she was superior to everyone else. She could not resist adding a comment of her own. “Trailer Trash!” She sneered and tossed a smug look at her friends.
Roxy didn’t even bother to turn around. She just tilted her head back and let out a loud, exaggerated yawn.
“Aw, look,” she said, her voice dripping with mock pity. “The local princess learned how to string two words together. Let’s clap for her, guys, before her brain short-circuits from all that heavy thinking.”
A wave of snickers and cruel laughter rippled throughout the entire bus, maybe towards Daisy, maybe towards Daniel and Marie now. Not a single person other than Roxy today was willing to step up and stop this nonsense, he said. To them, Daisy was just weird, an outsider who deliberately chose to stand out from the crowd.
Up in the front row sat Bridget, a blonde cheerleader who hated Daisy with a fierce, unearned passion. Half the time, Bridget was so clumsy that she could barely walk a straight line, and she certainly could not tell you a single thing she ever learned in class. She simply snorted as Daisy passed, muttering. “Bitch.”
Roxy stopped dead right by Bridget’s desk. She leaned down, her eyes tracking slow and critical from Bridget's shoes to her face.
“Careful, Bridget,” Roxy purred. “Shouting your own name in public is just embarrassing. Try to keep the inner monologue in your head before you trip over your own pom-poms.”
Large patches of corrosion and rust ate away at the front door of the bus. As it forced itself open, the door let out a deafening screech. Sometimes Daisy wondered if it would one day get stuck that way.
At seventeen, Daisy knew she was completely on her own, dependent on herself. The only person she had learned to trust was her grandfather Theois, her mother’s father, a vampire. He showed her a rare kindness that was precious to her.
As she stepped off, the bus roared to life with a deafening rattle, spewing a choking cloud of black, toxic exhaust into the air as it lunged toward its next stop. She watched it go, feeling entirely abandoned.
Even Doug, the driver, had never offered an ounce of help when the bullies targeted her. Day after day, he had simply tuned them out, staring blankly at the road ahead and pretending he couldn’t hear a single word of their cruelty.
“Watch your step, kid,” the driver muttered, not even daring to look up.
