The Consequence of Falling - THE PREQUEL

Chapter One

Presley

Maybe I was being an over dramatic and petty, but I was having the worst day imaginable. First, I'd lost the photography contest to Morgan, which meant she was going on an all-expenses paid trip to China while I spent my summer at home pretending to breeze through my summer reading list, when in fact I'd just go buy the cliff-notes and pay someone to do my report for me. Then, my parents told me they were getting a divorce. Actually, the word they use was getting separated, but everyone knew that was a nice way of saying they hated each other and wanted to eventually divorce – eventually, meaning, when dad figured out a way to keep mom from taking all of his money. Lastly, I was getting soaked while I waited for one of them to pick me up from cheerleading practice. It was ridiculous, really. They'd picked me up from school, took me to an early bird dinner, laid the news on me before dropping me back off at school and now they were late to pick me up.

This was why kids were traumatized by divorce. It meant splitting up their time between two houses and being forgotten all the time because if their parents couldn't be trusted to make something as big as marriage work, how could they figure out how to schedule their lives around their child? I was already seething, but that thought made me rage. How could they just decide to not be together? It was May. We were only a month away from our annual family trip to Europe. Dad had chosen San Sebastian as this year's excursion. I'd recently traced our genealogy back there to the Basques and connected with second cousins. We couldn't not go. We'd been looking forward to it all year. Instead of going back inside of trying to find cover from the rain, I walked forward and sat on the steps, letting the storm consume me. I wanted them to feel bad for forgetting to pick me up. I wanted them to see the effects of their selfishness. Hell, if I got sick it would be a bonus at this point. Maybe I could skip the stupid end of the school year dance this weekend and the field day performance while I was at it. Suddenly, being captain of the cheerleading squad just seemed stupid. All of this seemed stupid.

The sound of a car approaching made me snap my head up. It was dad's tinted black Mercedes. I ground my teeth together as I stood up, pulling my now soaked backpack with me. I hoped everything in it had water damage. My entire body shook as I stomped to the car and pulled the door open, letting the backpack drop in the feet compartment of the passenger seat and sitting down as heavily as my body allowed. That was when I saw the person in the driver's seat was not my father and all of my anger was replaced by panic.

"Who the hell are you?" I reached for the door handle.

I'd seen enough suspense movies to know a kidnapper when I saw one, and even though this guy was younger than I would've imagined a kidnapper being, and a hell of a lot hotter, I needed to get out and ask questions later, so I did. I jumped out of the car and ran back to the front of the school.

"Presley." He called my name out as I tried to open the front door, which was locked. Of course they fucking locked it.

"I need to go back inside." I pulled the handles with both hands and shook the door.

"Your dad sent me."

"Yeah right. I've heard that one before." I slapped my hand on the glass as I looked inside. "Help!"

I heard his footsteps behind me and froze, grabbing the handles even tighter. I wasn't going down without a fight, that was for sure.

"Your father sent me to pick you up," he said. He was literally right behind me. Panic crept into my throat, blocking out the yell I wanted to produce.

"Stay the fuck away from me."

"I'm not going to hurt you." He chuckled, then that chuckle turned into a full-out laugh. "You look crazy, you know that?"