Leesburgh, statistically speaking, in the year of our Lord 2010 A.D., would have been divided religiously as follows. Roughly 45 percent of the population would have been Protestant, with an above-average smattering of Quakers in the mix. A little over a fifth of the town would have been Catholic, a hearty 8 percent a mish-mash of non-denominational Christians. The Jewish members of town comprise a humble 2 percent, as do the Mormons. Others too splintered and scattered are lumped into the 5 whose god is listed as Miscellaneous, and 14 percent hold no god at all. I will leave it to you to calculate how many of the inhabitants of Leesburgh, powered or otherwise, recognize a God, or many, or none at all.

There is something that nationwide and Pennslyvania-specific surveys of faith are unable to account for, however. Had they surveyed, they would have found something curious in the town of Leesburgh as far as these statistics go.

Regardless of religious leanings, 100% of the 13,000 citizens of Leesburgh believe in the devil.

She was presently sitting in the back row of Mr. Algorizzo's study hall, chewing gum that she was not allowed to chew and swiping through Facebook, on a phone she was not allowed to swipe through. Evelyn Noblezada could have told you in precise detail information on the students in the class, or the teacher, or the rumors about the classroom itself (Jack Marsen and Kelly B. hooked up in it last Homecoming, because Mr. Algorizzo always left the windows open and forgot to shut them that Friday). Likely nothing that would have been really grounded in hard fact, or anything that they may have considered important, like genetic predispositions for heart conditions or the likelihood of their family needing to file for bankruptcy that year. She could, however, tell you other things.

When Vice Principal Withers took a moment to giggle at her own voice, Evelyn said to the girl beside her - one of the interchangeable crowd of disciples that curried favor with the premier information and shit-talk broker of Leesburgh - "You know she had a miscarriage last year?" Evelyn did not look up to see the girl's response, much in the same way Christ did not bother to poll the audience for their reactions to the Sermon on the Mount. As the announcements rolled past, Evelyn's mind chewed over each piece of information and swallowed it whole even as her eyes never left her phone. The Klefts? Doing a fundraiser? [i]There's no way they could raise the money for good enough singing lessons to win state.[/i] Evelyn had done glee club one year, but been asked to leave by the teacher given certain elements of her personality that were considered less than gleeful. In a rare moment of mercy, Evelyn conceded this was pretty much fair. Picture Day next Tuesday. Evelyn idly recalled a handful of girls throwing up in the bathroom stalls after lunch. That tracked. She liked a post by someone who had just posted what song they were listening to and nothing else. Evelyn cheated off the girl in 3rd period, and needed to keep the gasoline away from that bridge until finals. Detention on a Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend? Must have been Mason Kirby. His parents may have bankrolled the school, or whatever, but they couldn't have raised more of a fuckup if the asteroid had hit him in his big ass forehead right in the natal ward.

The bell rang, and Evelyn stood up a few seconds after everyone else had, slinging her (designer) bag over her shoulder. There was no rush. "I'll see you this weekend," she said to Interchangeable Kissass 3. Her name is Becky. What a name. "Are you going to Chad's party?" she asked, giving Becky a hug and a smile.

Becky's own smile faltered. She looked for a moment almost punch-drunk. It was a look Evelyn was used to - she had been focused on her schoolwork, because Becky had about as much at work in her boobs as she did her brains, and she was just hit with the aura. Were Evelyn particularly intrigued, she would've noticed Becky's eyes dilate just a touch, her stance shift with a subtle wave of relaxation, the hint of the sort of glow that pregnant women (not VP Withers!) had. Her grip on Evelyn loosened with surprise, at the news or the dizzying rush, but in a more spiritual sense, it could not have been tighter. She looked like a drowning man reaching for the raft. "What party?"

"Oh, you hadn't heard?" Becky had been trying to fuck Chad for a good three months now. Becky had also, Evelyn had gathered, been the one to get Evelyn detention for parking in the senior lot in retaliation for not being invited to her spa weekend a few months back. "I'm sure he'll tell you. See you on Sunday!" Evelyn broke away from the embrace and meandered through the hall, offering no less than sixteen smiles, eight proclamations of "I love you!!", four bold-faced lies regarding the beauty of someone's current outfit, and one double-take at a football player who was honestly just fine as hell.

She emerged into the sunlight through the school doors. The sunshine rushed to her like a dog to the backdoor when his owner comes home. The air turned sweet, the crisp September smell of falling leaves sharpened and spread. The sunlight's glare seemed less harsh on the cars of the parking lot [i](Which I cannot help but notice, Becky, does not include *my* car)[/i], the air around her a pocket of warmth in the beginning of the autumn chill. Though she did not notice, a keen observer may have noted that the bushes outside the doors seemed to bend slightly toward Evelyn as she passed, like compasses pulled to true north, or crack addicts to an exposed copper wiring. The beauty of the analogies used to describe Evelyn Noblezada's effect on the world around her, metahuman or otherwise, varied wildly in their sweetness.

She spared a glance at a car rolling past. Evelyn had no concern for cars beyond which ones were sexy and which ones were not. This constituted the latter. She thought she spotted Willow in the shotgun seat, and Evelyn believed that car to be Helen's. In a town of literal superhuman freaks, those two somehow managed to not even fit in with the people who were literally not human. 

Evelyn shook her head (her hair quite literally billowed as she did, and a butterfly settled on her shoulder as she pushed it back behind her ears) and took a moment to breathe, idling down the sidewalk as her phone buzzed and buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. They could wait, invitations to dinner, coffee, thirsty boys, the occasional thirsty girl. 

You had to make them wait.