You know what? I hate Mondays. It's not just me being bitter about it being the first day of the school week, either. Everyone hates Monday. At no point in their life does a normal person go "Hey wait, I actually like Monday!" You know why? Because they suck.

And after a particularly bad weekend, today was going to be no different.

It was somewhere between dawn-thirty and early o'clock as I hobbled as quickly as possible out of my brother's car and into the crowd of students funneling into the breezeway. A sea of numbers marched through the hall along with the students; all 2s, 3s, and 4s. Nothing out of the ordinary. Looks like the day is going to be pretty boring.

The walk to my first period class is pretty far, and a trip to the lockers to drop off my bag will probably take too long, so I joined the flow of students in the trek to first period classes, albeit at a bit slower pace than most. A couple of freshman girls passed by me, the number 3 shining above both their heads. Noticing my gait, they slow down and fall into stride with me.

"Hey Evan! How's your ankle?" The shorter of the two, Laura, looked at me with concern. The 3 above her strawberry blonde ponytail turned into a 2 as she looked down to my foot. "Coach Kelly said you had a pretty good fall at the meet on Saturday."

Any other day and chatting with a cute girl in the morning would have been fine, but today I was struggling. A mix of pain in my leg and a mess of stress from this weekend just made me feel not up to the task. Still though, have to keep up appearances.

I stopped walking and stood normally, taking some care not to look out of sorts. “It hurts, but it's not that bad." I put some weight on it and grinned at the two. "A couple weeks of going easy and I'll be back up and running no problem."

But really, it hurts. It hurts so damn bad. Holy moly does it hurt. Please, Laura. Please take your friend and keep walking to class.

She stares at my face for the longest couple seconds of my life, seemingly studying it for any trace of pain or discomfort. Not gonna happen!

The look of concern fades, quickly being replaced by a smile. "Great! I was worried you might have to sit out for the rest of the semester." She laughs and turns to the other girl. "This is the guy I was telling you about, the one from our cross country team who runs in the low 15s." Her face is beaming. “I knew a small injury like that wouldn't be a problem for you, Evan!”

Her smile could calm a storm. Sure, I felt a little bad for letting her have this high of an opinion of me, but getting to see that smile was worth it. It totally lifted my mood!

…That said, every second that goes by is pure agony on my leg. There's no good way to break up this conversation, either, so it looks like the act is going to stay up for a while.

*DING DING* Saved by the bell, I guess. 5 minutes until class starts, and we're still in the breezeway.

"Ah." All three of us have the same reaction. The surrounding crowd has a noticeable shift in pace as well.

"Crap! See you at lunch!" Laura grabs her friend and darts toward the freshman classrooms, the number above her head changing to a 4. What a strange person.

I shift my weight back onto my good leg. The breath I didn't realize I had been holding slowly escapes through my lips as the pain in my leg weakens into a dull throb. Hobbling along again, my journey towards the classroom continues a little slower and more painful than it started. Just a guess, but I think a week just got added onto my recovery time.

That's fine though. It's totally worth a little bit of extra healing time if I was able to reassure one of my underclassmen. After all, that is the entire reason I just did that. Yep. No other reason at all, and no one will ever be able to say any different.

"Man, already hitting on freshman girls this early in the morning?" A deep, mocking voice comes from the doorway to the main building.

...

Shit. There's only two people in the entire school that I wouldn't want to have seen the little stunt I just pulled. This dark-skinned, 5'5 Thai kid wearing mirrored sunglasses in the shade was one of them.

"I mean, I totally get the 'cool upperclassman' shtick you're going for..."

Dude, don't say it out loud.

"But they're just freshman, Ev. Have some sort of decency; at least wait until a dance or something." His shit-eating grin and gelled hair makes him look like very punchable right now. At the same time, though, the bright 6 shining above his head makes that seem like a pretty poor idea.

And regardless of punchable face and douchebag sunglasses, this prick is my best friend, Jason Chau.

I smiled at him and chuckled. "Yo It's not like that, I swear. I was just giving a little bit of reassurance to one of the freshman on the cross country team."

"Really?" He strolled over and took my backpack from me, making it much easier to walk. See? Best friend.

"Yeah, really. Just some confidence-boosting words."

"Mmm. I believe you." He held the door to the stairs for me and we climbed up, quickly approaching our first period classroom.

Just a few feet from the door, he takes his sunglasses off and looks at me with a smirk that reaches his eyes, the 6 above his head flashing bright red. "So it's cool if I tell Rachael about it, right?"

"..."

"...?"

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"No, I'm sorry for lying." I gave him a stupid thumbs up. "I was hitting on freshman girls."

The 6 above his head returned to it's normal yellow color and he let out a dumb, high pitched chuckle. "What an upstanding gentleman!" He pokes fun at me and walks through the doorway into the classroom.

With a leg full of pain and a heart devoid of pride, I follow him in.

**

Pre-cal went by pretty easy this morning. To be fair, Jason and I are both pretty good at math, so when Mr. Deckar gave us a pop quiz, it wasn't too big of a deal. It was pretty funny to see everyone's numbers flash red as soon as he announced it, though.

Ah, there's that. I guess I should explain the whole number thing at some point. For as long as I can remember, little numbers have existed over people's heads. They're usually pretty small, yellow, and hover a couple inches away, but sometimes they change size and color. I've never really figured out what the size means, but after years of observation I do have a pretty good idea about the number and color.

The number is a representation of how dangerous someone is. Color seems to be a scale within each number, with green on the low end, yellow in the middle, and red at the top. Sort of like school plus-minus grading scale being a B-, B and B+.

Normal, active, athletic adult men clock in at around a green or yellow 5. Most adult women are yellow or red 4's, some hitting green 5s. Having a weapon or something else dangerous raises the number depending on what it is, with bats and knives raising a little bit while guns can cause quite a jump. At a demonstration here at school, I watched a police officer walk into the room as a yellow 5 but turn into a red 6 when another officer handed him his pistol case.

The scale doesn't make a lot of sense to me though. The highest I've ever seen was a yellow 8 over the head of a Blue Angels' pilot at an airshow. A trained Navy pilot in a Hornet clocks in only 2 numbers above a cop with a pistol? The danger seems worlds apart when I think about it, but the number difference seems low. The only thing I can come up with is that the scale doesn't rise 1:1, but can't really quantify it past that. I don't really want to, either. What kind of person would a 9 be? Bin Laden? Mengele?

It used to really bother me. When you can tell who is a threat with just a glance, it definitely changes how you act around people. For a while, the number over someone's head had a strong effect on how I would interact with them. Low numbers I was normal around. Higher numbers got special treatment, and I did everything possible to not set them off. It made me feel awkward and uncomfortable, and I'm pretty sure everyone saw me as a weird, moody kid. The stress of constantly being aware and on edge caught up with me and I had to take a break from school in the last half of 8th grade.

It was around that time that I met Jason, and it was thanks to him that my life got back on track.

Jason Chau. The story of how we met can be saved for another time, but the circumstances of his number are worth mentioning now. At fourteen years old, standing with his mom at the grocery store checkout, his number was 6. I was blown away- how could a kid even smaller than I am be as dangerous as an adult with a gun? It didn't make sense.

Two years later, and it still doesn't make sense. A quick glance over to that idiot packing up his math notes shows the bright yellow 6 hovering mockingly over his head. I've long since given up trying to figure this one out.

“What's up?” he noticed me staring, I guess.

I shrugged in response and slung my bag onto my shoulder. “Let's go.” We had the same schedule until lunch, and headed to Humanities together.

**

People were still slowly filing into the classroom when my phone buzzed. It was from Rachael in our group text.

'There was a new transfer guy in my French class this morning!'

Huh, looks like we have a new student in our class.

'What's he like?' I sent back.

'Pretty quiet lol. Speaks French super well though.'

'Maybe he can teach Jason to not suck at it then =D' The stupid grin on my face didn't go unnoticed by the person in question as Jason took out his phone to read the conversation.

One look from him as he stared at his screen and I knew I had screwed up. The coldest smile I'd ever seen flashed across his face, and the 6 above his head flashed red for just a second as he locked his phone and put it in his pocket.

Mine buzzed again. The screen lit up. Right in the middle was the most betrayal-filled text I've ever seen.

'And maybe you can teach me how to hit on freshman girls B)'

You dick.

I turned my phone completely off. Dealing with that witch of a girl can be put off until later. The class bell rang and the last few people trickled into the room, one of which I'd never seen before.

He was about average height, with buzzed, clean-cut black hair and a very slight build. Looks-wise, he was a little above average, but nothing special. It was obvious he pays good attention to his appearance, though, as he was able to pull off looking stylish in our school uniform polo. That said, he wasn't exactly eye-catching; the only thing really standing out about him was a braided hemp bracelet with a metal charm on it wrapped around his left wrist.

Well, that and the bright yellow 10 above his head.