Chapter One

I groan and open my eyes. My head is against the steering wheel, and I have a cut on my lip that's bleeding; I taste blood in my mouth and feel it on my chin. My Cadillac is definitely not level. When I can see again, I look out my windows, and when I can move again, I shakily ease my way out the door. I walk around the car, see that the only problem is a dented front bumper, and that I'm not stuck. At least, it doesn't look like it. I shut the hood, and it takes 2 good slams before it finally latches. I get into the car, and memorize the exact location of the emergency brake. I see the keys dangling from the ignition.

DUH! I think. Next time, I'll be ready. Maybe I should have bought an automatic. I'm hoping to God this doesn't happen while I'm in the car again, especially on the highway, when three sharp raps on my window startle me. I look over, my eyes wide.

When my eyes adjust to the darkness outside, I see a cute- no, hot- boy about my age, 15 or 16, with black, shaggy hair that comes down to his eyebrows- it is a blueish kind of black, with many different shades of black. He has piercing blue eyes, and lips that seem to flow in their own pink, plump grace. His chin is a simple curve, nothing fancy, but not boring, either. His face makes you want to listen to every word that comes out of his mouth. As he shifts nervously, I see a nose and lip piercing glint in the light of the headlights that reflect off of the light blue house- his house? He's wearing a black Avenged Sevenfold tee-shirt, and he's wearing gray sweatpants that are backwards, making me wonder if he got dressed in a hurry to come out here.

"Hey, are you okay? You just went off the road, and into my mailbox. You woke me up." He asks. His voice sounds rich, and velvet,and not angered in the slightest.

Taking a closer look at the mailbox through the windshield, I notice that it was bent. It has a metal post, not a wooden one like I had thought, and I had bent it, to about a 20 degree angle.

"Oh, crap, I'm so sorry about that. Here, take this, it's all the money I have with me-" I let my voice fade as I reach into my purse to find that I only have a few quarters and a dollar bill in it. "Crap. Um, do you want me to go back to my house and get some money and come back? Here, you can come with me..." I reach over to unlock the passenger-side door, but his hand stops me by gently holding on to my arm.

"No, don't worry about the mailbox- I have an extra one in the shed that I was going to throw away anyway. I'm just going to use those. I don't want money. Or anything of the sort." He sounds genuinely concerned, and it pulled at my heart-strings a little bit. I mean, I had just wrecked this guy's mailbox, and he didn't mind, and he was making sure I was ok, and he wanted to make sure I could make it out of the ditch after I woke him up at midnight?

Struck speechless by his act of kindness, I smile at him and stutter, "T-thank you. So much."

"It's no problem at all. But... What was it that made you go off the road anyway?"

I choke up. Obviously, I can't tell him the real reason, so I make something up. "I thought I saw something and swerved. I overcompensated. No biggie."

Suddenly my cell phone rings from my pocket, emitting a high-pitched wail that's the ringtone I have set for my father. My blood runs cold for a second. My father only calls if there's an emergency.

"Sorry, I have to take this... It's my father." I cringe internally as I thumb the TALK button.

"Hi, Dad..." I hesitantly murmur into the phone.

"Where the hell are you?! You should have been home a long while ago!" His furious voice is so loud I have to pull the phone away from my ear. The boy outside the window looks concerned, even more than before. I'm sure he, being only about a foot away, can hear it.

"Dad, I'm sorry, some jerk ran me off the road. I'm getting my car out of the ditch now. I'll be home soon." I feel like not telling him what really happened is the smartest option because if I told him what I had told the boy outside the window, he would be pissed.

He's quiet for a moment, and I can hear his heavy breathing. He breathes heavily when he gets mad. "You had better not have damaged the car I bought you." The truth was, he had lent me, like, $100 while I paid the rest, and I had already paid him back.

I stammer, "O- of course not. I did a run-around of the car and it's totally fine. Not a scratch." Being the smartass I am, I note in my head that there in fact was not a scratch, instead being a dent in the front bumper. I laugh in my head.

"Okay. Good. Get home quick honey, I need to talk to you, okay? I love you." His voice sounds nicer now, because he had calmed down. I know he only yelled because he was worried.

I'm quiet, waiting for him to hang up like he usually does, saving me from saying those three words. But this time, he was waiting.

"Love you too, Dad." As I say them I know they're true, no matter how much I dislike him, I still love him. "I'll hurry home."

That's when I hear the satisfying click.

There's an awkward silence between the boy and me, so I choke out, "I'm Raven."

Smiling at my discomfort, he replies, "I'm Varen. Nice tah meechah," with a fake, exaggerated redneck accent. I laugh, wincing at my slit lip. Immediately the look of humor on his face dissipates and is replaced by a look of concern, which I was seeing a lot of. "Let me take you inside and take care of that."

Smiling slightly, not enough to hurt, I nod and slide out of the seat, following him across the grass and onto a walkway, leading up to a small porch, before entering the house.

 

The front door opens to a small space, immediately in front of it being a steep flight of stairs. To the right is a dining room with hardwood floors, a table tucked into the corner with a matching chair on it's short length, three matching chairs on the long length, 2 of it's sides against the wall. Hooks hung along the wall that was on the side of the room as the stairs are. A bar separates the dining room and kitchen, and a hallway is leading out of the kitchen. The dining room floor is hardwood, while that of the kitchen is tile. Papers lay all over the bar, and the table has lots of picture frames on it, all with the same girl. She was young, about 10 years old, and had black hair. In one of the pictures she has a slight black eye, but her vibrant smile outweighed how much it must have hurt at the time she got it. She is in a pink bathing suit, standing barefooted on a beach with white sand, the water bright blue behind her, almost as bright as Varen's eyes, but not as grey.

If I turn to the right, there's a living room a fireplace on a wall, a TV in the corner and a couch against the wall opposite the fireplace. Two armchairs sat on either side of the couch, turned slightly towards the TV. In front of the couch sits a coffee table, with a single, unlit candle in the middle. The walls are a myted blue-gray color, a couple white shelves here and there, with wolf figures arranged in little packs. A couple picture frames sit on the mantle of the fireplace, of the same girl as those on the table. Two hung on the wall, wolves staring intensely at me from within them.

I turn to Varen, about to compliment him on his house, when I stop short. He's staring at the pictures on the table, specifically one of the same girl sitting on a swing, her black hair in pigtails, wearing a bright yellow sundress and no shoes, on a giant, green lawn. She's smiling a gap-toothed smile, her blue eyes seeming to glow as the sun shined into them. Looking a few years younger than now, Varen stood next to her, an arm draped over her back protectively.

"You're close to her, aren't you," I murmur, almost hurting almost hurting for him, knowing that it made him sad.

"Was," he sighs sadly.

"Was?" I repeated in slight confusion.

"Was. She died a few years ago. She was kidnapped... They killed her and raped her corpse before dumping her body in the river." A flash of anger crossed his features, making his eyes blaze blaze as he glanced at me.

I gasp. "So that's Sara Rogerson. She was in the news and everything... I'm so sorry." Being a touchy person, I make a move to hug him, but stop when he flinched at my movement.

"She was my neighbor's daughter... We grew close. I was a father figure to her, since her mother was a single mom... She was like my daughter. I loved her so much."

I make a sympathetic cooing sound, sitting on the bottom stair. He He sits next to me. He looks at me, studying my face fully for the first time. I know what he sees; dark brown, almost black hair, green eyes. My nose is kind of small, squashed into my face a little bit. Usually, I have my hair down, of in a high ponytail, but because of the hairnet I have to wear at the coffeeshop I just left, I have it in a bun right now, a few stray wisps tickling my face and ears. I have a small mole right at the bottom of my skin, and I had a farmer's tan from working outside mowing lawns over the summer.

I smile shyly at him, my cut lip stretching and I winice, bringing my hand to my mouth. He gently takes my hand away, using it to help me off the stair, his muscles rippling as he braces his arm for me to pull myself up on. He leads me through the dining room and into the kitchen, turning into the hallway that leads off the ktchen. It's a relatively short hallway, about 10 feet long at most. On the left is a brown wood door, closed, but it leads under the stairs so I assume it leads to a closet or something of the sort. On the right is a half-open door. As we pass I glance inside, revealing a large bathroom with a stand-up shower.

A door across from the shower leads into the room that's at the end of the hallway.

As we reach the door that marks the end of the hallway, Varen opens the door and immediately I'm by the smell of incense. A bed lays against the wall opposite the door. A nightstand sits at each side at the head-end of the bed, each with a lamp sitting on it like it is meant to be there. The nightstand closest to the door also has an alarm clock on it, the green glowing numbers showing that it is almost 1 in the morning. To the immediate right of the door is dresser, the top covered in random items, including a burning incense stick, the source of the woodsy campfire smell. At the other end of the room is another dresser, a basket of clothes on top. A closet is in the wall next to the dresser. A simple ceiling light and fan are attached to the ceiling. The floor is hardwood, the walls a deep brown. It feels very homey, with the bed un-made and the smell of campfire in the air. It reminds me of the cabin my mom and I used to visit for the holidays, before she left.

Varen quickly spreads the dark purple-red comforter over the mattress, sitting me on the edge of the bed, my legs hanging off the side. He makes a stay here look with his eyes his eyes, walking out the the door and clicking it softly shut behind him. Taking a second look around, I notice the door that leads from the bedroom into this room. Next to it is a painting, a minimalistic one with a few spots filled with muted colors; dark green, a blue-gray, maroon, on a black background.

I lay back on the bed, planning to relax my aching back for a minute or two before Varen returned, but I feel my eyes closing and my mind relaxing, unable to stop my mind from slipping into unconsciousness.