North closed his eyes and exhaled. Why couldn't he stop thinking about her?

Tiny and brave, she was beautiful. When she first saw him she didn't jump, she didn't flinch, she didn't show a single sign of fear. Sang looked him in the eye and smiled. Not just any smile, though. Her smile was the kind that songs were written about. It lit up the room, magnified her beauty, and made you feel the need to smile back. Sang had an innocence to her that made North want to protect her from the world. North knew all too well the horrors of the world.

He rubbed his eyes furiously. ****, he felt like such a sap. North pulled up the excessively long driveway and for our of his car. He opened the door to the team's safe house. It was a large house, more of a mansion, it had to be to fit all fourteen of them.

North walked briskly to the living room where they all sat.

"****ing finally!" Gabe shouted.

"What took so long?" Kota asked curious as always and readjusting his glasses.

They all stared expectantly at him, but North just grunted in response and took a seat in one of the fourteen spots available. He knew that there was no way he was going to tell them that he had tried and failed to clear his head of Sang.

"Thank you for that elegant explanation," Axel scoffed.

Mr. Blackbourne cleared his throat to start the meeting.

"I think it is safe to say we all are curious to hear about Sang. We will go around the room and state our findings on her, all of except Brandon who has yet to attend school. Let's start with Nathan."

Nathan said, "Well, she is very... Interesting. Sang appears to be highly lacking in social skills. When I met her, she thanked me for saving her from the zombies, and that she didn't really need my help. Sang is hellbent on insisting that my name is Paprika. She believes that I am lying when I try to correct her. Sang also doesn't appear to notice how pretty she is, but it could be false modesty."

Snickers ran through the room about the comment about his name.

Gabriel wanted to scoff at his last sentence. Pretty? Sang Sorenson was the most gorgeous and glorious person he had ever laid eyes on. Maybe he would paint her later... Hopefully, she isn't a fake and pretending to be all innocent and perfect.

North furrowed his brows. Lacking in social skills sounded like she would need protection.

Marc went next.

"She is exceptionally brilliant. In my advanced mathematics class, she didn't pay attention at all, and took less than three minutes to complete the quiz including the extra credit and that also includes however long it took her to make her name all fancy like it was a vine. Sang received a perfect score."

Eyebrows were raised around the room. A perfect score that quickly? She must have studied hard.

North instantly felt bad. He had assumed that she hadn't done the work or tried and called her out on something she didn't do and she couldn't even correct him and set him straight.

Gabriel declared, "Her hair is driving me nuts. She is an amazing artist. Sang makes me ashamed to call my work art."

Protests sounded throughout the room. Everyone but Gabriel himself knew how great his work was. He could make a living by selling paintings and pieces if he wished.

Mr.Blackbourne cleared his throat to settle the room.

"Please begin, Silas."

Silas shifted and said, "She wasn't intimidated by me and my size at all. It didn't seem to phase her. Seeing her fight in the video footage, I am wondering if it is because she thinks she can take me down. At lunch, I believe we were all startled by her appetite. She ate a lunch that was twice the size of ours in just a couple minutes."

An alarmed Sean interrupted, "Do you think she has an eating disorder? To be so skinny and eat so much?"

Silas contemplated this, but Kota spoke up first, "No, I don't believe so. How would she be able to get the food from the cafeteria in the first place? Surely the cafeteria workers wouldn't feed into a disorder. It is more likely that food is uncommon at home. Which brings us to abuse. While the lack of food could be due to poverty, her clothes suggest otherwise and her throat is burned. Sang claims that she burned it with sour candies, but Sean has proved that to be wrong and we could tell she was lying."

Mr.Blackbourne was grateful for his blank mask. He has used it often today seeing as Sang was messing with him. No one, including Sean, was able to see an ounce of emotion with it on.

Luke pulled out the paper unicorn, "Sang seems to daydream as often as I do, if not more. In the middle of first period, this appeared on my desk in the span of less than two seconds. She was too far to set it there, and I have no clue how she got it there because I didn't see a thing."

The unicorn more was passed around the group. Sean examined the origami unicorn impressed with the paper and the fact that she wasted it on a simple note.

Corey spoke up, "I believe I met her first. She seems kind and childishly innocent. Her behavior with assignment and quizzes seems consistent —she fills them without paying attention to the lesson and from a conversation we had with Luke, she seems to hate school. I don't know how she is able to fill them out and receive a perfect score."

They skipped Brandon and went to Victor who kept it short saying, "I don't know her well enough. Her fighting technique in the video seemed correct, but I was more impressed with the fact that she noticed the cameras. She has made no advances in me or my money, but we all know that can change in an instant."

"Sang could tell from my calluses and a small grease stain that I am a mechanic. She appears to be highly observant," North grunted out.

Raven said, "She is mine. She is beautiful, athletic, and knows Russian."

Sean raised his eyebrows. "No, she is the future Mrs.Green. She even knows Japanese and isn't some wimp complaining about how painful a sore is."

Sean was already done with how often students visited him claiming to be injured or sick. At least he had two periods for Japanese where a part time nurse came in. The nurse had been working there for years and Sean's knowledge of Japanese worked out so that they both for paid.

Mr.Blackbourne cleared his throat. "I believe that is a topic for another time when we are not all in a meeting."

Axel stated, "I have to agree that she appears socially awkward. I don't know much else."

Mr.Blackbourne reported all that he had learned about her in the music class.

Gabriel was happy to learn that she didn't die her hair, but they all, including Brandon, had to agree that she was strange and interesting. They all knew that their mission was to find recruits, but the thirteen were all hooked on Sang.

Brandon hadn't even met her. He was interested but resigned. She most likely was a fraud or like their last bird who couldn't tell Corey and him apart and left the Toma team for someone else.

They discussed the incident with Greg and Gabriel and decided to keep an eye on Greg and Sang in the future. The fourteen slowly left to do their own thing, but one thing remained in all their minds.

Sang.

*

*

*