Aria stood on the curb, looking up at
the old house in guarded horror. She imagined most who saw it appreciated the
romance of the old Victorian style home. Painted gray with differing shades of
purple from lavender to violet on the trim, it had a large wrap around porch
and a three-story turret to the right side of the house, another in the back
and a dormered attic space.
This had been the house she’d spent much
of her childhood in, but when she and her mother had left the house and the
island eleven years ago, she always assumed that would be the last she would
ever see of the place. She couldn’t believe her mother had allowed the new husband
to move them back here.
She’d been almost happy in Orlando, but
her mother never cared about Aria’s happiness, only her own. So here she was,
new stepdad, new stepsister, isolated and torn away from her few friends. Back
in the place, she hated beyond all reason.
She squinted against the early morning
sun, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. The façade wasn’t
as creepy in the daytime. Its old shingle roof, turrets and peeling paint gave
it a more of a gothic look, which just lent itself to all manner of ideas for
her fertile imagination.
She shook away the thought.
This wasn’t about a fertile imagination
run amok. This house haunted her worst nightmares. She just couldn’t entirely
remember why. What she knew for certain, was that she hated being back
here. She hated Starlight Key. She felt trapped. It was hard to breathe on the
small island.
“Aria, stop staring and grab something!”
Her mother barked out orders as she flounced passed with nothing more than a
garment bag in her hand.
She sighed.
In just three more weeks, she’d be
seventeen. After that, she had only one more year before she earned her
freedom. Though never in her worst fears had she expected to spend her last
year of captivity on the Key. This turn of events only made her life more of a
living hell then it had been the last eleven years.
She shivered as a hand suddenly caressed
her back.
“Moving day brings out the worst in
people, so don’t take Nadine’s mood personally.”
The deep voice spread its soft tendrils
around her heart.
She turned and looked up into the dreamy
dark eyes of Remi Townsend, the only good thing, to ever happen to her.
“You don’t know her well enough yet.
This is her usual mood.” She stared up at him, hoping how she felt about
him wasn’t written all over her face.
“Ah, well…” He clearly had nothing else.
Remi was both her savior and her
torture. He was perhaps the only person, besides her father to ever be
kind to her, but he was also the boyfriend of her exceptional new stepsister.
“Remi!”
Speak of the devil.
Aria tried not to pout, but Tatiana
Tarasios was by far the most
