Starborn Legacy (A Starborn Series prequel)

Chapter one

On the day she turned sixteen, Audrey Wildes found a note in her locker. 

She had actually been excited when it tumbled to her feet, because she assumed it was from her girlfriend, Hedy. Sure enough, as she plucked the tightly folded square of looseleaf off the floor, she spotted her name written in Hedy's loopy handwriting. Audrey smiled, expecting the note to be a message wishing her a happy birthday, or maybe even one of the sappy love letters the pair of them had been writing each other since they first started dating a few months earlier.

But as Audrey's golden eyes scanned the page, the smile faded from her lips. Her heart plummeted, crashing into the pit of her stomach like a chunk of ice.

"This has to be a joke," she muttered to herself as she shouldered her backpack and took off down the hall. She clutched the note in a death grip as she ran, weaving around her fellow students and narrowly missing a few collisions on the way to her girlfriend's locker. When she arrived, red-faced and breathless, Audrey found Hedy standing in the midst of a group of their friends. One of the girls, Miriam, noticed Audrey first. Her eyebrows shot up in alarm, disappearing beneath her bangs.

"Hedy, it's her," Miriam whispered to Hedy, who was facing away from the oncoming storm that was Audrey. As if the group shared one mind, every pair of eyes swiveled toward Audrey in unison.

Perturbed, Audrey stopped in her tracks.

"What's going on?" she asked as she took in the looks on everyone's faces. Their expressions spanned everything from uncomfortable to inquisitive, and none of it boded well to Audrey. When no one answered, Audrey zeroed in on her girlfriend. "Hedy, can I talk to you for a sec?"

Hedy licked her lips and glanced back at her friends, who responded with encouraging nods and sickly sweet smiles that ignited a spark of fury at Audrey's core.

"Actually, Audrey," Hedy said. There was a stilted rigidity to her words that gave Audrey the impression that she'd rehearsed them ahead of time. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Audrey gaped. For a moment, she was too stunned to speak. Hedy took the opportunity to elaborate.

"I put everything in the letter." Hedy nodded at the note, now crumpled beyond recognition in Audrey's clenched fist. "I don't think there's anything else to say."

"Well, I do!" Audrey cried. She shook the note between them, making Hedy and the others flinch away from her. "According to this you're breaking up with me because I—and I quote— 'scare you'. What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's not just her, Audrey," Miriam said.

Something about knowing that all of their friends had been talking about her made Audrey feel like someone had dumped kerosene on that angry little spark inside of her. "Shut up, Miriam," she snapped before she could think better of it. "I didn't ask you."

"You know what I mean!" Hedy cried, gesturing at Audrey like she was an exhibit on display. "And I'm sorry, Dree, but I just can't deal with it anymore."

A sense of betrayal sliced through Audrey like a knife. "Hedy, we've talked about this." Her cheeks burned hot. She was embarrassed to be talking about something so personal out in the open, and mortified by the realization that Hedy had likely already told their friends things she'd shared with her in confidence.

Hedy shook her head and crossed her arms. "Listen, I'm sorry that you're going through some stuff right now, Audrey. I mean it — I know things are hard for you and I know you're trying to figure it all out, but..." she hesitated, and Miriam wrapped an arm around her shoulders — a gesture of support that no one seemed to be willing to offer Audrey. Hedy took a deep breath to compose herself. "I don't think I can fix it."