The girl who saved my life (Red Queen fanfic)

Chapter 1

The story is set in modern day, where there is no blood divide or abilities. Mare is still poor and struggling to save her family. While Cal and Maven have everything they could desire, as they are the heirs to a huge corporation.

Mare
People say that one moment can change a person's life in an infinite amount of ways. I didn't choose to believe that until I met Cal...

I woke suddenly to the sound of my stomach growling. I sighed as I thought back to last night when I decided to skip dinner so my family would have enough to eat. My parents didn't approve of my lack of eating but I reassured them I had dinner with Kilorn to stop them fussing. When in truth I hadn't eaten since the day before but I didn't want them to worry. My dad needed to build up his strength after the accident, which left him in a wheelchair.

I pushed myself off my bed trying to distract my brain from the spiral of negative thoughts my dad's accident usually created. Life was depressing enough without reliving the previous horrors my family experienced. Kilorn has promised that he would buy breakfast because he owed me after he bet that I couldn't steal a watch from the police officer who usually patrolled our estate (affectionately named the stilts because of the high rise flats in which we lived). It was foolish of him to question my talent as everyone knew I was the best pickpocket on the estate. Least the bet ensured I would eat today.

I made my way down the many stairs in our flat block, cursing the fact that the lift was never fixed after it was vandalised 2 years ago. Why was is so difficult to fix a lift? Oh yeah I know why, it is because the rich people in the city refuse to acknowledge the poor people that live in the outskirts. They let us live in slums just so they can become richer by keeping profits for themselves, instead of funding welfare schemes to improve our quality of life. Calore industries had a lot to answer for. It was their fault that people in the stilts are kept poor. My bother Shade said that it is a way to control the workforce and stop resistance, as many people in the stilts work for their company. If we are kept poor then we are too busy trying to survive than fight for our freedom.

By the time I made it to the city I was already 15 minutes late. Kilorn was not going to be happy because he only had a half an hour break before he was meant to return to the docks. He had been working since 4am and it was now 10am so he would be exhausted and even more grumpy than usual. I guess he'll lecture me for my tardiness and use my short height to tease me yet again as he'll hold my breakfast out of reach until I apologise. Sometimes I wonder why I am friends with him. For as long as I've known him he's always teased me by making fun of me and my height. I suppose that's when you know you are truly friends though, when you can be bluntly honest with a person and they still love you regardless. Due to my stubbornness and apparently rude attitude Kilorn is my only friend but I like it that way as they're very few people I trust. My bad luck in life has caused me to be wary of people's intentions and sceptical of everyone. It is a blessing and a curse.

My daydreaming was cut short when I saw a car swerve off the road towards the pavement, where a tall guy was walking oblivious to his fate. With out thinking I ran towards the stranger and pushed him as hard as I could out of the way of the oncoming vehicle. Miss judging the speed of the car though, I didn't allow myself enough time to move out of the way.

My legs were swept out from underneath me and my body made contact with the navy blue car. The impact sent me over the bonnet of the car until I finally lay in the middle of the road unable to move and blackness creeping at the sides of my vision. I looked up thinking this was it, my dull life had met it's end. The last thing I saw before surrendering to the darkness were a pair of amber eyes staring at me with a look of sadness as I drifted from this world.