The Styles Brothers

Chapter One: Fit In

I awoke with a shriek.

It was the same dream. It haunted me behind my closed lids, recurring every time I fell asleep. Every night since that night.

I glanced at my alarm clock. 5:05am, the cool blue letters flashed back at me.

I let out an exasperated breath. I didn't need to be awake for at least another hour, but there was no way in Hell I was going back to sleep. My fear of the nightmare outweighed my need for sleep, resulting in a very unhealthy case of constant exhaustion.

Flipping off my alarm, I slid out of bed, padding silently downstairs and into the kitchen.

"Up early?" A voice behind me asked. I jumped, the spoon in my hand clattering loudly to the tile floor.

"Shit," I mumbled. I snatched up the wiggling metal utensil, turning to face Stefan.

Stefan, my bustling young mother's beau, was a decent guy. They weren't married, they were simply lovers. Mom enjoyed introducing the rugged Stefan as her boyfriend too much to marry him.

When my biological father ran out on us when I was three and my mother twenty, Stefan was there to help piece together our shattered home life.

Now that I was eighteen, I considered Stefan my father, blood or not.

"You know," Stefan commented, pouring himself some coffee, shoveling in cream and sugar. "Your mother doesn't care much for your cursing."

I snorted. "Do you?"

He shrugged. Stefan, at thirty-five, didn't have a gray hair on his head or a wrinkle on his handsome face. He could pass as a thirty-year-old, and my mother, at thirty-four, didn't look a day over twenty-five.

My parents were the hip, trendy folks that most teens longed for. Often, it was an advantage. But sometimes I found myself wishing they would care just a little more.

I grabbed a box of cereal from the pantry, bid adieu to Stefan and retuned to my room.

Stefan was a airman, constantly being relocated. I was born in the United States, living in San Francisco with Mom until I was six. Then Stefan joined the Air Force, and we became vaguely nomadic. I didn't mind the lifestyle, it allowed me to see the world with the people I loved most. We were in Hawaii when Serra was born.

The past five years we had spent at a grand house on an Air Force base in London. Our family had adored it there, I had developed many friendships and finally settled into the life of a normal teenager.

Then just last month, on the eve of my eighteenth birthday, our world was rocked with tragedy.

The house burnt down. Serra- my six year old sister, my world- burnt with it.

She had been trapped in the wreckage of her room, and the firemen were unable to save her. No one had noticed she was still inside until it was too late.

"Where's Serra? Where's Serra?" Stefan grabbed my shoulders as the house began to cave in on itself. I was still in shock: the heat had woken me in the middle of the night. "Where is she?"

I didn't answer him. Stefan roared, letting go of me and turning to charge back into the burning building. But as he reached the steps, the house collapsed completely, flames shooting towards the sky.

Firefighters grabbed Stefan, restraining him as he screamed for his daughter. Behind me, I heard Mom start to weep.

The heat from the fire turned the tears on my own cheeks into steam.