Allegro (The Alicante chronicles)

Prologue

“No! I am not going there!!!”My ignorant step sister, Jenn yells at our doorman for the hundredth time. “I’m sorry, please take care of the house while we’re gone.” I apologize to him and with that I pull Jenn inside of the car. “Tell me why we have to do this?” Jenn asks angrily. “Because, it’s not safe here.” I explain tiredly. “And it’s safe there?!We don’t know anyone!” I just sigh and stare out the window, hoping this won’t the last time I’ll be seeing New York.

We arrive at a big, white building, with vines crawling up the walls and reaching into the windows .It has a sign saying ‘Mrs. Dark’s orphanage for children’ .I shudder at the sight of it. I knock on the door twice and in a few seconds a lady with long, black hair, a wrinkled face and pit-dark eyes greets us.

“Good Afternoon. I am Mrs. Dark, manager of the orphanage.” She says in her English accent. She stares at me deeply for a second, as if she were trying to reach in and grab my soul with her eyes. Then, still staring at me says, “You must be Annabeth, Annabeth Reyes.” I nod slowly. She glances at Jenn for a second and walks away. ”Come, come!” She yells and we pick up our bags and scurry after her.

I lay on the hard bed staring at the ceiling. Just four days ago, Kevin married my mother, Nicole. Then two days later, they went missing. I woke up in the middle night to go to get a drink. I checked on them but they were gone. I searched everywhere, I asked everyone. But no one knew anything. An orphanage in England rang up, and we accepted, not caring how it knew about us.

“Ugh!” Jenn yells, snapping me back to reality. “This place is hideous!” She scoffs. “Jenn, we’ve been over this, you’ll get used to it, okay?” I sigh as I cup my hands around my face. “You’re right, I will get used to-who am I kidding, I will never!” She yells in fury. ”Jenn-“I start. “Don’t Jenn me! If it weren’t for you-“The sound of a doorbell cuts her off. I hear someone open the door and Mrs. Dark yells “Get out of here!!!” and then the door slamming. We both laugh and I look out the window. There’s a young boy, about my age with fine brown hair that sweeps across his face. He’s walking away from the door. “Excuse me, sir.” I say. He turns around and stares at me with wide eyes. “You know it’s rude to stare” I say gruffly. “You are, you are Annabeth Reyes?” He stammers. “Yes…” I say uneasily. He whispers “I need to talk to you…in private…”