Blood Ties

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

            Star gently scrubbed at her tired eyes with the warm, dampened towel, allowing the heat to seep into her face. Her mouth gaped open wide as she yawned noisily, stretching like a kitten. She felt lethargic and heavy, but forced herself to finish her preparations for school. She never seemed to get enough sleep at night; nightmares and vivid dreams kept her awake. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember the dream she had just woken up from, but to no avail. Distractedly, she stared down at her trembling hands, wondering why she always felt so weak. Her aunt insisted in was nothing, and yet, coupled with the nightmares, it was torture.

            The day was beautiful, though, and despite her tiredness she admired it from her window.

            “Huh, what’s going on over there?” She murmured in interest, narrowing her eyes at an unfamiliar car pulling in to the house across from hers. Was someone at last moving into the vacant house that had, as far as Star knew, always been empty? No, that couldn’t be right; where was the moving truck? Perhaps someone was renting the place, then. That seemed much more likely, and Star was relieved; she didn’t exactly desire more neighbors when the ones she had were annoying as it is.

            The driver of the mysterious car slid out of the door, interrupting her silent musings. Her breath caught and her eyes widened as her heart gave a lurch of recognition.

            It was a mere girl, no more than sixteen years of age, and very unnoticeable in attire and appearance. And yet, her eyes…they were green-gray, nothing out of the ordinary color-wise, but the authority and cold intelligence shining from them was beyond the girl’s years.

            Those eyes looked up, and both pairs of eyes met each other.

            Star had seen those eyes somewhere before.

            “You’re right, I don’t have to do this… I want to.”

            “What-?” Star snapped her eyes away from the window, glancing down at her hands in confusion. She shook her head, attempting to clear it, and turned away from the window. Then she gave a tiny moan and put her face in her hands, all but forgetting the echoing voice in her head as she remembered something else. Today was the first day of summer vacation.

            She just woke up at 6AM on the first day of summer vacation.

            All life was over.

            Star wallowed in her devastation of a wasted morning for a few minutes, before pulling herself together and decidedly changing into more comfortable wear. In light of her new revelation, she completely forgot about the mysterious new neighbor.

                                                             ***

            Layla slid out of her car, making sure she had put it in park this time. The last few times were near disasters, because though Layla was clever in all other aspects, driving a vehicle was beyond her. She took a deep breath and jogged across the pavement towards the passenger door. She swung it open and jerked her head, indicating that the passenger should disembark. If she thought about it, she would upset herself, because wasn’t he supposed to be serving her? But his wide, frightened brown eyes were her only weakness, and the scar across his throat pained her whenever she wasn’t in one of her tantrums. Bruises lined his arms and legs, but despite all this, he was ever loyal to her and looked upon her with utter adoration.