The first time I encountered Xander was a week before school was supposed to start. I was just leaving the teachers office when I thought I saw my brother Claudius out the corner of my eye. I hadn’t told Claudius that I was in town, so I thought it was strange that he already knew where to find me. However, when I looked at my brother, I realised something was wrong.

“Claudius?” I called.

The carbon copy of Claudius grinned at me and said, “try again, Atty-boy.”

There was only one person who called me Atty-boy. “Xander,” I groaned in frustration.

I had encountered Xander a few times in the past, and every single time he managed to screw me over either by wearing my face or someone else’s. Nothing good ever came from encountering this guy.

“Please, call me Claude. I’d hate to cause any confusion.” Xander teased.

“Can you please get out of my brothers skin. It’s creepy.” I spat.

“And here I thought we could go on a brother bonding trip.” The carbon copy feigns disappointment.

“We’re not brother, and the only trip you’re going on, is an outta-this-town trip.”

“Well if not a brother bonding trip, then how about we revisit our time in France?” Xander suggested as he changed shape into that of a familiar woman. Do even get me started on the time I encountered him in France.

“Hell no! What is wrong with you?!” I growled with frustration.

“Ouch, you wound my feelings,” the carbon copy placed a hand on his heart. Then right before my eyes, he turned into a tall, dark and handsome man. Xander turned into me.

“I really thought we had a connection in France.”

“You pretended to be my girlfriend.”

“Was I? Or was I Angeline the entire time?”

“No, don’t you do your little mind thingy to me. It’s your fault Angeline was killed.”

“I was doing you a favour,” Xander defended himself.

“No you weren’t, you were doing what you wanted. You don’t care about other people.”

“Oh come now Atticus, she was going to eat you for the rest of your immortal lives.”

“Maybe that’s what I wanted,” I snapped back, “did you ever think about that? Of course not! You’re too busy pretending you’re the hero so you could feel good about your shitty choices.”

“You’re not the kind who thrives in captivity, Atticus.”

“Shut up Xander, and get the hell out of here.” I waved him off like I was swatting a fly.

Xander smiled and said, “oh, actually I’m staying.”

“Why are you doing this?” I groaned.

Then Xander said, “because your brother has found a very interesting anaticula, and I want to keep an eye on it.”

So I asked, “what are you talking about? What did my brother find?”

Xander said, “anaticula.”

“Ana-what?” I retorted.

Xander grinned, clearly enjoying my torment, and said “for someone who’s supposed to teach ancient history, you don’t know a lot of latin, do you?”

“You’re insufferable!” I spat.

“A side effect of living as long as I have. Give it another two-hundred years, you’ll get there.”

“Get out of town Xander, I won’t let you ruin my life again.”

“Your temporary life, you mean.” Xander smirked as I narrowed my eyes at him. “How many years do you think you can continue teaching here before someone realises that you don’t age? How long do you think it will be until someone realises that for a teacher with so much experience, you’re awfully young.”

“It’s a one year contract, I’m just filling the vacancy since the last History teacher went missing.”

“Do you find it strange?”

“I do find arguing with myself strange, yes. Thank you for asking. Now can you please turn into literally anyone else?”

“The amount of people that go missing in this town. You’re one of six, no, seven new teachers starting this year?”

“Well, we are living in Australia. If anything that’s a relatively low number.”

“I’ll tell you what. If you find out what’s causing all these people to go missing, and stop it, I will leave.” Xander bartered.

“Why do you care so much about people going missing?” I asked. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know a lot about Xander, but what I do know is that he doesn’t care about anything. Why he was so interested in missing people was beyond me. Xander was the reason people went missing without a trace. Maybe he was jealous someone was doing a better job than him.

“I told you, your brother has come across something I’m rather interested in. It would be incredibly inconvenient if it were to go missing.”

“Why don’t you just take it and leave?”

“Apparently it’s illegal,” Xander shrugged innocently, “and it’s current company is going to keep it safe. So why endanger it by taking it for myself?”

“I would ask what it is that your talking about, but I’m guessing you aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

Xander smirked my handsome smirk with my stupid face and then shook his- my?- head.

“Okay can you just change into something else? It’s getting really annoying!”

“But your face is so handsome, Atty-boy. Plus you have better hair than your brother.” Xander replied. For the record, I still do have better hair than my brother.

“You can’t just live here wearing my face.”

“Oh don’t worry, I no longer plan to. I think I’m starting to really like it here in this school, starting to feel at home here. Do you think I would suit a stern math teacher?” Xander struck a thoughtful pose, “or how about a peppy phys-ed teacher?”

“This isn’t funny Xander, you can’t just take over other peoples lives.”

“I wouldn’t be taking over their lives, don’t worry your pretty little face. One of them is bound to go missing sooner or later.”

“If you make any of them go missing, I will find you and I will kill you Xander.” I threatened.

“So you are going to take my offer, good. I promise I won’t be the cause of their disappearance. I’ll just fill in the opening with the least amount of fuss.” Xander winked at me. “I’ll see you real soon, Atty-boy.”

Then I watched as he sauntered off around the corner in my body. Honestly it was kind of horrifying to watch, it was like I was having an out of body experience. Like, I had been possessed by a demon and I was watching them move me in ways I wasn’t meant to. That’s when I first encountered Xander in that death pit called a town.