Quinn and Adeline

Chapter Two

Adeline was cooking. Mashed potatoes, simple as it gets. Peel the potatoes. Boil them. Add salt, pepper, butter and some other odds and ends. Mash them. Done.

Everything was expected of Adeline Erla Aphelion.

She was supposed to be rich, well-dressed, and slightly snotty. Her dad was from Livadia, Greece. Because of that, she spoke Greek. French was supposed to be the language of the rich – well, apart from money anyway – so she studied that. Spanish was a commonly spoken language, so she knew Spanish too.

That was just the tip of the iceberg of what was expected from her.

She had to be perfect. She had to know the different types of spoons and forks. She could never be allowed to wear anything less than expensive as fuck. She had to be perfect in her studies, dazzle everyone with her piano – the instrument of the rich – learn to keep the house spotless, pray to God whenever the slightest thing went wrong – or, the opposite, to suck it up and stop being the prissy princess they'd raised her to be.

She had to be perfect? She played perfect.

It was a role she excelled at. She never let her guard down. Her defenses were always up, never letting anyone get in, not truly.

The girl in the hall, though... She'd caught Adeline unaware.

She still thought something was off about her, but she couldn't quite understand what. It was driving her internally crazy. Adeline needed to understand – she had to be able to expect everything.

The knife slipped, and blood welled up on the side of her thumb. Adeline quickly set the potato down onto the pristine kitchen counter, and ran some ice-cold water over it to stop the bleeding.

Ugh, she thought. Cuts on your fingers are the worst.

She flicked the water off just as another drop of blood splattered on the inside of the sink. Adeline washed it away before it had a chance to dry up and stain the sink.

Ah! The stains. Of course.

The girl in the hallway had had reddish-brown marks all over her clothes. Blood, if Adeline was correct, and she usually was.

From where, though? Maybe she had abusive parents or a sibling. But Adeline didn't think that was it. More likely, it was the same as her.

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Quinn wasn't doing anything anyway. Still, lugging entire boxes wasn't how she imagined she'd be spending the day.

Steel, her adoptive father-not-father (yes, that was really his name), had asked her to help him out with something at work, and get her useless ass to do at least something. Quinn just hadn't expected this to be the something.

It wasn't so bad, though. She just had to carry boxes and she would be ignored. So she zoned out, the only thing marking the time being every trip carrying a box, then going back for yet another heavy cardboard container.

She hummed some tune absentmindedly. She wasn't really paying attention, so when she got to the floor she had no memory of it. The stuff inside the box had spilled – she'd probably tripped, judging from the way she was sprawled on the floor and the way her toe hurt.

She stood up carefully, stooping to pick up the papers on the floor. Just some random programming sheets. Packets with information on events long passed. Articles somebody had evidently found interesting, but had forgotten all about them, shoving them into some long-lost corner only to end up in this box, headed for the archives.