Love Finds You - Even If You're On the Run

Chapter 1 (New!)

Thanks for reading the new chapter 1! This will make a lot more sense... Its kind of a pre-chapter to the old chapter 1 that helps explain things... its also in first person! :o I'm changing the whole story to be in first person... so uhm... please ignore the annoying switch from first to third person during these chapters... I'll fix this... hopefully... >.>

Anyways thanks for reading and for the reviews! :D 

People say dreams are a wonderful gift; a sort of escape from reality into a secluded world of your creation. Who ever had said that hadn’t experienced my dreams… or more accurately… my twisted nightmares.

Rivers of blood puddled around my feet. The tang of the iron liquid coated my tongue. Lifeless eyes gazed accusingly at me.  All that surrounded me was a wasteland littered with the dead. A deep knowledge pressed against me. I had killed them. Why? Why had I killed these people?  My chest felt as if it had been carved out and left hollow. Guilt and horror mingled, creating an unbearable wave that drowned out all other emotions… except one. Pride. I felt proud of what I had done… and it scared me.

A slick hand wrapped around my ankle, causing me to look down into a set of flat eyes. A man was crumpled by my feet, with streams of red blood running from a massive hole in his stomach. He opened his mouth to speak, blood trickling from his mouth. He spoke a single, raspy sentence.

“You’re just like your father.”

I screamed.

“Ash, get up!”

My eyes flew open and I sat up, panic swamping my senses.  I felt a hand on my shoulder and tensed, but I wasn’t standing in puddles of blood. It had been a dream…Another horrible dream. Gradually my heartbeat calmed and I took in the details of my surroundings. A hotel room… Yes that was right. I was in a hotel in Orlando… for vacation. My shoulders slumped as the last of the tension left my body, leaving me shaking.

“Did it happen again, Ash? Did you have the dream again?” The hand resting on my shoulder vanished and my best friend’s face came into view. Vienna wore a concerned expression; her head tilted causing her dark bangs to cascade over her eyes.  She tossed her head, casting the bangs away from her eyes again.

I shifted uncomfortably. “No,” I lied, summoning an unconvincing smile to my lips. “I just felt really weird… you know waking up in a hotel instead of at home.  I don’t think I’ve stayed in a hotel before so this is really new and I just was scared for a minute but I’m fine now.”

Vienna raised an eye brow and I cursed at myself. I babbled when I lied... a terrible habit. My eyes darted to Vienna. By the skeptical expression on her face, I guessed she didn’t buy my hasty speech. 

I looked down at my hands. I hated to worry Vienna with my dreams. It made me nervous doing anything that displeased or worried the family that had literally saved me.  Vienna’s family had taken me in three years ago, and I owed them everything.

Three years ago… the memories made me shutter involuntarily. Or rather… the lack of memories. I remembered very little of my past before Vienna’s family had adopted me. I’d been sleeping on a park bench, eating food from a nearby trashcan with no idea who I was, or why I was living at the park.

“Come on, Ash; don’t look so skittish! We’re in Disney! It’s the most magical place on earth!” Vi pulled me up from the couch I had woken up on.  “Let’s go out into Orlando! We can meet up with Sammie, Brooke, Bryan and Jacob and go party!”

I wrinkled my nose at Bryan’s name. “Bryan? Do we have to take him along?” I disliked Vienna’s annoying cousin.

“You know what mom an…” Vienna broke off awkwardly. “My parents said.” Although Vienna’s parents had insisted I call them “mom” and “dad,” I couldn’t bring myself to do it…not when my real mom and dad might still be living somewhere…searching for me… I shook my head, breaking away from those thoughts. One I descended into thoughts about my parents, I usually couldn’t stop thinking about them.  Thinking of all the reasons why they had never searched for me or contacted me consumed my attention. Even now I struggled to focus on what Vi was saying.