Red Star

Prologue

Laurie walked quickly down the sidewalk, pulling her black peacoat tighter around her slim frame. Her jean patterned flats slapped the cement, sending the clicks that normally made her feel like a badass echo around in a far too conspicuous manner. She was starting to regret volunteering for the graveyard shift at 7 Eleven; all sorts of crazies came out after dark, even in her small town Greenwind.

A breeze assaulted her long oak hair, but Laurie just turned her shoulder to the wind and tightened her coat. Fall was always gusty, and normally Laurie loved it, but right now she just wished the weather would work with her a bit. Truth be told, she had barely worked that shift, but it still left her exhausted. It was mostly spent vacantly helping out customers while being enraptured by the news report on SHIELD falling and Hydra taking over, not to mention the ghost story assassin The Winter Soldier. Hey, worrying about assassins running around the country took a lot of energy! Personally, Laurie had never heard of him, but damn that guy was badass. Metal arm? Proficient in multiple weapons? As Laurie liked to say, Cheezus. Wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley...or a dark walk home....

Shaking herself out of her meandering minded state, she noticed that she was nearing the turn off to her street. She lived just outside of town, in Greenwind Area B. That meant no street lights, no garbage pick up, but the upside was that a lot of the houses had stretches of forest separating the yards instead of fences, and properties tended to be large. She would hate to live in a city like Washington, or anywhere near DC for that matter. Too many people!

Laurie's breath caught when she tripped over a rock on her driveway. Due to the potholes, she had recently poured gravel in them all to even it out, but that just gave her bruised knees so far. What was she thinking? It wasn't like she had a car, just a Honda motorbike. Since she lived on her own and had little to no friends, she didn't see the point of a car.

Pushing open the gate, Laurie suddenly noticed that it had been ajar. She left it locked. Always.

Laurie's heart speed tripled. She cursed under her breath, and carefully trod up the path to her door. All her senses were in high alert.

Just as she was about to put a hand on the doorknob, a strong arm wrapped itself around her chest and covered her mouth, stopping the shocked scream before it even started. It came out more like, "AH-hhhhhuuuuurhhhuhhhhuh!"

Since her arms weren't pinned, she attempted to scratch at the face of whoever was manhandling her. When she felt the breath on her hair and the hand grabbing her wrists tightly enough to all but snap them, she went limp, her chest heaving. Her fear built up until it practically blinded everything but the alarm bells ringing in her skull, and finally her hysterical mind shut down and went black.