Sneak up on Me

Chapter 1

1

They snuffed out the lives of people like a candle, only to be relit as they set the city afire and watched as the elegant smoke spiraled into the clear, blue sky, and Harry Potter danced across the field...? In a frilly, pink tutu? Beside..... No...... Its not, it can't be... I'm not crazy!!! I'm not-

"You're crazy!"

I hear a thump and a moan coming from the floor beside my bed as I shoot out from under the covers after being awakened from my sweet, peaceful, somewhat insane dreams, at the tender hour of... 11 am? Oh well. I peer over the side of the bed only to start laughing uncontrollably. On the floor rubbing his nose and muttering death threats, is my best friend Ashton Birch.

'What are you on the floor for?" I ask him between fits of giggles and gasps for air.

"Haha, you're so funny London, you're killing me with your amazing wit and goddesslike good looks."

Pffft. "Hey, don't go easy on the sincerity. Keep it coming." Note the sarcasm.

As I get out of bed I see Ash get up from the floor, stumble across the room and lean his head against the wall. As I stretch, I look around my lovely, spacious, one-room, rundown apartment. "There's no place like home," I chant. Maybe if I say it over and over enough, it'll come true. It worked for Dorothy. "There's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like-"

"The breakfast café across the street," interrupts Ash. I sigh in agreement.

"Yes, I would love that. Now get your lazy ass out of my room before I carve out your eyes with a rusty spoon and donate your balls to the sketchy Chinese restaurant down the street." I watch as my best friend's eyes widen in fear and shock at my threat, and his legs carry him as fast as they can out the door.

Throwing off the covers and walking over to my closet, I begin sorting through the rack of clothes. As I sort through the shirts, I can't help but wonder how my life came to this, how I ended up living in this crappy apartment all on my own. Easy answer. 

My name is London Lacevine, I am 19 years old, I have fairly long red hair, grey eyes, and a forgettable face, my best friend is an idiotic jackass, I live in the crappiest neighborhood in all of Canada, I have no boyfriend, no proper job, and I am a self-proclaimed loser. Nice to meet you. No one takes the time to get to know the real me, so the only interesting things about me pretty much no one knows about.

There’s only so much information you can trust with people. Some people might not enjoy knowing that when I was just 6 years old, my dad started to train me to become a spy like him, my mum, my cousins, and everyone else that dared to keep the Lacevine family name. Even if they did enjoy knowing that, then they would most definitely enjoy exposing us to the world.

Sure, being a spy was great for a while. A big house, fancy car, loads of cash from all the jobs. Sure, it sucked with all the sneaking around and constant moving from city to city to keep the rumours down, but the pros outweighed the cons, until about a year ago when my entire family went to Italy for the job of their lives, while I went to L.A with my friends.

I was trying to get out of the whole “family business”, because with all the moving from city to city, I didn’t get a chance to connect with anyone.  The idea of constantly looking over your shoulder and the probability of dying before my time wasn’t all that appealing either. So, I took a week off. I went on a trip with my friends, and tried to forget about my unwanted occupation.

When I got home, I found an eviction notice on the door and a message on the answering machine from a contact that said my entire family had died in an explosion while on a group mission in the Vatican. I'll never forgive myself for the fact that while my parents were risking their lives and worrying about whether or not they would survive; I was sitting on a beach worrying about whether or not my tan lines looked weird.