Eddie Munson was repeating his senior year of high school for the third time, and he was tired of it. Sitting in the cafeteria with a bunch of kids and being called a freak by them.

But if being a freak meant liking metal music, playing D&D, and dealing drugs, then yes, he was a proud freak.

He came from a trailer park and lived in a tin box with his uncle. When he wasn't playing with his band, Corroded Coffin, or playing D&D with the Hellfire Club, he was high and listening to music. He had long since written off the idea of love.

Then he saw her.

He was sitting with his friends at the Hellfire Club table, eating lunch, when the prettiest girl he had ever seen entered the cafeteria. She was new; at least, he had never seen her before, and he would have remembered a face like that.

She looked like she should sit with the cheerleaders—the popular ones—but she came up to him and the other outcasts.

She smiled at him—the most beautiful smile he had ever seen—and asked, "Is this seat free?"