𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂 𝓞𝓯 𝓤𝓼

01 | Never Be Too Sure, It Always Ends In Murder

Its crazy how uninteresting looking uninterested is. I mean seriously, I spent the last four years of my life being bored out of my mind and here we are again!

Lily. Lily Carpenter.

23 years old and working as an undercover security guard at a tiny thrift store somewhere in LA.

And no, it wasn't my life's desire to become a security guard and no I don't have some heartwarming story of how my father did the same thing.

It's just a job and surprisingly, I don't suck at it.

Back in college, I majored in criminology mainly because I spent most of my childhood watching true crime documentaries in slightly disturbing fascination.

I could probably be a serial killer by now, with all the murder shows I've seen.

But alas, I took the legal route and wound up here in the city of angels as my mom always called it.

I grew up in Louisiana, and luckily for me the accent's finally starting to fade after five years of living here.

Kinda hard to fit in when you sound like the farmgirl I used to.

I'm supposed to be acting like a regular customer though it's really winding up to be more of a creepy stalker look.

Not that it matters anyway; nothing interesting's happened around here since two years ago when some kid was shot through our window.

I guess that's why they hired me.

There's also the factor that I look nothing like the security guards literally anywhere else.

I'm young, thin and pretty with strawberry blonde hair that's far too long for my liking.

Most of the time it's held back in a ponytail but today I decided on a sleek black headband.

And yeah, I am strong.

I can haul a 300 pound guy out of here if I have to, but lets just say its not exactly high on my bucket list.

The door swung open and I craned my neck to see who the customer was.

Two teenage girls and a little boy they appeared to be babysitting.

Real trouble there, I thought sarcastically.

The store is filled with junk.

Ancient, useless junk.

Unless of course, you're in the market for decorative turtles with three heads or a twelve book collection on the history of cereal.

My mother would love it here; it was almost as messy as her house.

She's not a hoarder, she just collects stuff.

A lot of stuff.

But the house is livable anyhow, not that I've been there since sophomore year of college.

Both my parents still live in Louisiana, and the only reason I moved was because my old best friend Stella and I had always planned to attend UCLA together.

And we did.

But the best friends part didn't last long, especially after she decided to join some underground sorority that seemed a whole lot like a cult.

My dad always joked that I had moved from one LA to another but the one I was in currently wasn't much of a step up from my hometown.

The job paid well enough.

There was enough money for me to pay the bills, rent and buy food each week, but it still wasn't exactly ideal.

I lived in a small apartment about ten minutes away from the thrift store and all in all life was fine.