Annika Darling felt ready to die by the time the final bell rang at the end of the day. She had gotten about two hours of sleep the night before and was looking forward to taking a quick nap in the library before going to see a movie with her friends.

She trudged out of her class, hunching in on herself as she dragged her feet along the floor. All she had to do was get to the library and then everything would be okay. Don't think about the fact that she had to descend stairs to get there, which was dangerous even when she wasn't feeling like the walking dead.

Her eyes drooped and her vision became blurry as she walked. Luckily, thanks to nearly a month and a half of walking this path, she was fairly confident in being able to get where she wanted on pure memory alone. And besides, Kayla's locker was right next to the steps so she might be able to help her.

But she had gone without seeing the brunette by the time she reached the stairs and concluded that she could probably do it herself. So she grabbed onto the handle with as much strength as she could muster and began her slow descent. Her feet shook as she did so and she could feel her depth reception slipping but she held on as best she could. Only a few more feet....

She reached the bottom and made a sharp left, where the library door sat just out of arm's reach. She yanked it open and slid over to the shelf that sat a few feet away, using the last of her strength to drop her stuff on it.

"Jesus, Nini," a voice came to her left. "You look like the walking dead. I told you you should've taken a nap at lunch."

Annika lifted her head to see a girl with wild black hair and tanned skin staring over at her with her arms crossed and a dark brow raised. "Thank you." she grumbled. "I'm going to sleep right now."

"There's no bed here, though." Liana pointed out.

"Oh, how naive you are." Annika chuckled weakly. "All I need is Parker McColloch's lap."

She was facing away from the dark haired girl then, but she could almost feel her rolling her eyes. "Couples."

Instead of dignifying that with a response, Annika merely kept her gaze souly on the lap that sat in its usually spot. She moved toward it with purpose, mustering up enough energy to just get that far.

"Uh, Annika-" a new voice called, "That isn't-"

But Annika wasn't listening as she had reached her destination and without a moment to think it over, she climbed over the padded chair that sat next to her pillow and plopped her head into the lap. It took her a second to realize that it felt different then usual. Due to four years of being the star football player, Parker's legs were muscly and seemed to instinctively flex every once in a while. While these legs were by no mean fat, they were definitely more giving than what she was used to.

She cracked an eye open to see a boy with shaggy blonde hair and bright blue eyes, an amused look on his face. Definitely not Parker.

"Oh, hi, Xavier." her words came out slightly slurred in her bliss, but she was fairly certain he could understand her. "I thought you were Parker."

"I know." Xavier chuckled.

Annika yawned before closing her eyes and snuggling in closer to his leg. "Well, I hope you don't mind this. Because I'm not moving."

"I figured." Xavier sighed.

Annika smiled faintly. They had barely known Xavier for a month, now due to the fact that he was two years younger than them as a Sophomore and had only begun hanging out in the library this year but it didn't take long for any one of them to get comfortable enough to use his lap as a make-shift pillow. Then again, it never took them long to do that. The whole reason they were friends with Jackson was because Anneliese had recruited him one day for her own lap pillow.

She had almost completely fallen into the bliss that was sleep when suddenly a shadow loomed over her. Not that she had been particularily pleased with the tiny bit of light that had been escaping through her lids, but still. Curiosity ran out ever so slightly especially when she felt lips cover her own.

Her eyes flew open to find herself surrounded by curly red hair. Annika smiled, her right hand snaking behind the perpetrator's head to pull his face closer to hers as she responded to the kiss hungrily.

Parker pulled back after a second with a smirk. He was behind the chairs her and Xavier were sitting-or laying-on, leaning over the back. "Couldn't wait for me?"

"You saw me sixth period." she murmured. "You should've known to get here faster."

Parker sighed and shook his head. "Even after I went out of my way to get you this?" he dangled a large mocha frappe in front of her face.

Annika gasped and clutched the drink with a laugh. "That deserves another kiss."

"Thought so." Parker leaned forward to give her just what she had said his prize would be.

"Okay, guys," they were stopped by a hand shoved between their faces. "Seriously. If you're going to make out, could you please do it on someone else's lap?"

"Fine," Parker ruffled his hair. "But you're the one who has to get her to sit up long enough for us to switch places."

Annika shook her head. "Not on your life, muscle boy. Baby-fat boy here has the most comfortable lap I've ever felt."

"Baby-fat?" Xavier raised an eyebrow down at her as Parker chuckled and said; "How many laps have you lain on?"

"Mmm..." Annika pursed her lips in mock thought. "Fifty or sixty?"

"You lap whore." Parker snorted.

"Yupp, yupp," Annika nodded and closed her eyes again. "Now all of you go the hell away while I get some good sleep."

"Mm, maybe you should make sure your boyfriend is okay with you sleeping on another man." Liana offered up. Annika could almost hear her smirking.

That was because unlike everyone else, Liana was on of the only our people who knew about their secret. Annika and Parker weren't actually boyfriend and girlfriend. They were friends with benefits.

They had come to this agreement two years ago when they first met. Parker needed a girl to have on his arm so that the others would quit annoying him by trying become that girl and Annika needed a man to lose her virginity to before she left for college. So it seemed their relationship benefited them both, especially since they both knew that nothing could come between them. Parker found girls annoying and she refused to have any sort of romantic relationship, wanting to have the real college experience.

So two years and numerous beds-and the occasional closet, car, and public restroom-later they had everyone already calling them high school sweethearts. It seemed they were supposed to marry when they were older, and there was even the occasional rumor that he had already proposed.

"Just keep your face and his zipper up." Annika listened as Parker's voice traveled around her until it was on the other side, where he was presumably sitting down across from her.

"But what if he wants a blow job?" Annika asked. "After all, he's allowing me to lay on him, don't you think I owe him that much."

"The only cock you should be touching is mine."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind." she swatted her hand at nothing in particular. "Now let me get some sleep. It may be Friday but I don't have time to rest."

"Big plans?" Xavier asked but she refused to answer him, deciding that one of her friends could do it for her. The only thing she wanted to focus on was getting to sleep already.

"We're going to see a movie tonight." Liana answered.

"We as in..."

"Just me and her. Some alone time if you understand." from her tone, Annika could tell that she had winked at the younger boy. "Besides, Parker works and Anneliese has family time tonight." there was a moment of silence before she asked; "Do you wanna join?"

Xavier laughed. "Unfortunately for you, I work as well."

"Mmm," Annika imagined her pouting. "That's too bad."

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The road stretched out before her, long and dark, but strangely inviting. She wanted nothing but to drop Liana off so that she could drive down it on her own, despite how stupid she knew it was. Doing that would just be asking for someone to kill her or haunt her.

"Isn't this amazing?" Liana mused, somehow reading her thoughts like only she could.

"I know." Annika replied, feeling as if her breath had been taken out of her throat. "On Halloween we're going to have to drag Anneliese and the others here."

"Without a doubt."

Annika sighed and eased up on the gas just a bit so that they were going the speed limit instead of ten miles over it. "I don't wanna go home."

Liana raised an eyebrow. "Isn't this the weekend your parents are gone?"

Annika nodded. "One of them. They're going to be coming back next Wednesday."

"Yeah, so why are you so worried?" Liana raised an eyebrow. "Everyone is old enough to take care of themselves. Hell, the twins are older than you."

Annika rolled her eyes. "Tell that to my mother. She sent in the second line of defense."

"Really?" Liana gasped. "They brought back Mike just because they caught you and Parker making out a month ago?"

"Ding ding ding, you got it!" Annika twirled a finger in the air.

Liana shrugged. "Funny how they're not stupid like that."

Annika shot her a glare out of the corner of her eye, highly unamused. "Have I ever told you how funny you are compared to how funny you think you are?"

"All the time. But I'm always willing to hear it again."

"Hmm... well too bad for you." Annika turned the car back onto a street that was lined with buildings and houses. All of a sudden the mystery was done and they were just back in civilization, having a normal conversation with no chance of something supernatural happening to them and getting to meet Dean and Sam Winchester.

"So did you have a good nap today?" 

"The best." 

Five minutes after she'd resigned herself to quit talking, Annika had fallen into a beautifully deep slumber, not to be disturbed until an hour and a half later when she woke up to Xavier trying to haul her ass out to her car. Apparently Liana was going to drive them back to her house even though she only had her learner's permit. Needless to say, Annika nicked that plan right in the butt. It didn't matter that they had been best friends for eight years, nobody was going to destroy her precious pun'kin.

"Y'know," Liana reached down to grab her bag and began digging around for something. "You should stop leading that kid around like you do."

Annika raised an eyebrow as Liana found what she was looking for-one of the bite sized kit kats she had bought at the gas station before they went to the theater. "What do you mean?"

Liana rolled her eyes and popped the piece of candy in her mouth. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

"Enlighten me."

The look Liana shot her from purposely using a line from Fifty Shades of Grey-she was sore about the fact that she wouldn't be old enough to be able to see it when it came out where as Annika would-almost made her bust out laughing. "Never mind." she sighed. "You'll find out soon enough."

Annika shrugged, not worrying too much about not finding out.

The chatter between the two of them was meaningless after that, the type of talk that you could have while only half paying attention which was just what Annika did.

She only went the speed limit on the way home, a first for her, after dropping Liana off. At first she considered running right to Anneliese's house. Dealing with her mother's lectures and yelling couldn't be half as bad as going home to face her oldest brother.

But in the end, she still found herself running right back home, knowing she wouldn't be able to avoid it for long. They would just come looking for her and then she would be in even deeper shit then she already was-because when was she never in trouble with Mike? In his eyes she couldn't do anything right.

So she drove home and dragged herself up to the front door, mentally preparing herself for whatever crap that would be thrown her way.

The door opened to reveal a decent sized living room with a long, tan, L-shaped couch with a blue recliner shoved to one end , two lamps and a flat screen television set.

Oh, and seven pissed off boys who all turned toward her as if she were the reason for all of their troubles.