1

'I hate it here already,' Freida thought.

She squinted in the sunlight, standing outside the backdoor of her new home. Using her hand as a visor to shield her eyes from the sun, she scanned the rubbish dump that was supposed to be 'the garden.'

Piles of rusting appliances, old paint cans and general litter sat by a fence that looked one good gust of wind away from collapsing.

She felt her mouth drop as someone on the other side of the fence threw an empty cola can over onto her side. It ricocheted off the broken microwave and rolled over to her foot.

"Excuse me," she uttered, unable to disguise the sheer outrage in her voice. "What the actual hell?"

Instead of any answer, she heard the sound of footsteps retreating and the slamming of a door.

"Oh, no, no, no," she muttered to herself. She wasn't having any of this.

Mum had asked her to clean up the garden, but there was little point if the rude neighbour was using it as their personal dumping ground.

Without putting any more thought into it, she stormed through her house, out of the front door and turned to the neighbour's house. The grass lining their front garden was overgrown, full of weeds and patchy. No car sat in the driveway, and no curtains adorned the windows.

'Maybe nobody lives there,' she figured. 'Maybe it's a squatter.'

"Great," she muttered as she banged on the door to get the fly-tipper's attention.

When the door pulled inward and he stepped out, she almost regretted her life choices. Her previous annoyance melted away, replaced by fear.

Freida swallowed.

He was absolutely huge. The guy had to be at least six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and muscular arms crossing his chest.

And he looked angry.

"What do you want?" he growled, eyes glowering as he scowled down at her.

"I want you to not throw your rubbish into my garden," she blurted in a squeaky little voice before she could edit herself.

"Excuse me?" he asked. The scowl on his face became more confused than angry. "What you talking about?"

"Are you stupid?" she asked before her brain could fully engage.

He took a step forward, forcing her backwards. She almost tripped over her own leg as she scampered away from him.

"You knock on my door throwing accusations about... and now you're calling me stupid?"

"If the shoe fits," Freida blurted, yet again letting her mouth run without stopping to think about what she was saying.

Somewhere, deep inside her gut, her instincts were screaming at her to shut up. That making an enemy of this huge and angry-looking neighbour was only going to end badly for her.

But the other part of her brain refused to listen. The other part of her brain was complacent in the knowledge she had the high ground. He was in the wrong and he deserved to be told about it.

"Ugh." He looked up, spotted the removal van and facepalmed. "Great. Another new neighbour."

Freida frowned, seeing a creepy smile appear behind his splayed fingers.

He chuckled quietly. "I wonder how long you will last. Personally, knowing how it's going to be for you from now on, I'd give you weeks. Months tops."

"Do your worst, asshole," Frieda challenged, unable to contain the anger bubbling up from her core.

"Asshole?" he asked, taking another step forward. His eyes were wide in a mixture of amusement and outrage. "Asshole?"

Frieda thought he was going to hit her when someone yanked her from behind.

"Ouch," she hissed.

She turned to see it was her little brother who had dragged her away from the awful neighbour.

"Oh my God, what have you done?" he uttered. The panic in his voice made her blood run cold. "What the hell have you done? Oh, no. Oh, no no no. Don't you know who that is? Are you utterly insane?!"

He pulled Freida through the front door, casing a fearful glance over his shoulder before pulling it shut behind him.

"Oh, God, he saw me," Nathan moaned. He burst into tears as he fell to the floor. "My life is over. It's over. I'm so dead."

"What are you talking about?" Freida asked. She peeked through the spyhole to see the neighbour standing out there with a huge grin on his face.

"That's Damon Crosswell," Nathan stated as if this name should mean anything to her. "You must have heard of him."

Freida swallowed as she shook her head.

"He terrorises the school. The teachers and the students. He's... a monster. I'm not in any of his classes so I've managed to avoid him... until now." Nathan looked down but Freida could tell he was still crying because of the steam on his glasses. "I'm dead."

"I'm sure he's not going to blame you for what I said," Freida offered, trying to sound convincing.

"Oh yeah, because he seems like a totally reasonable guy, right?" Nathan said, becoming annoyed with her. "What the heck is wrong with you? I can't believe you did that."

With that, he barged past her and ran up to his room, slamming the door behind him.

Freida hadn't felt this bad since the time she accidentally squashed her pet hamster.

She was clinging to the vague hope that this Damon guy wouldn't get revenge on her brother, despite knowing the truth.

School life had never been easy for her brother. For the first few years, he was picked on for being a 'skinny nerd', as he put it. One kid, in particular, had made his life a misery. But in recent years, he had joined clubs and made lots of nerdy friends. Everything was kinda going okay for him.

Until now.

Her mum burst through the door with an arm full of shopping, almost knocking her off her feet.

"Why are you dithering in the hallway like a creeper?" her mother asked, tutting.

"Did you sort that garden out?" she asked without waiting for an answer to her first question.

"I bet you didn't," she correctly assumed with a tut, still not giving her daughter a chance to respond. As usual, her mother was speaking at a mile a minute.

'That's where I get my big mouth,' she thought, ready to blame her mother for the entire situation. 'Damn genetics.'

"Erm... Mum... t--the guy next door--" Freida started.

"Psychopath," her mum declared with no uncertainly in her voice. This was nothing new. Mum thought everyone was a psychopath. "Stay away. Be polite. Do. Not. Engage."

Freida nodded, knowing it was too late to take any of that advice.

She had well and truly engaged.

'Now I just have to hope he won't hurt my brother because of me.'