Rogue Princess

1

This story starts out pretty light-hearted and innocent, but as the story and characters develop, things get a lot more mature and fast-paced. I have no idea how many chapters there will be, all I know is that after writing 15 chapters I'm not even half-way done, so once things get rolling it will be more fast-paced and it'll probably be because I get impatient to see where my characters end up haha and I know this chapter is a little boring, but please bear with me, I promise it gets better!

Copyright 2016. All Rights Reserved.

Write your own story. Don't steal other people's hard work.

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Friday 15th August 2014

The drive from Santa Monica in California to Serenity Falls in Virginia is a hell of a long car trip. I think Mom is super thankful I had my license already, so we could take turns driving. I can tell she's exhausted underneath her carefully applied makeup, and I've tried my hardest not to annoy her.

Skylah spent most of the time in the car texting and listening to her iPod. She's already made it quite clear that she isn't happy about this whole thing, and honestly I think Mom and I are both glad that she's staying mute.

At fourteen, she had been the center of a large group of friends and had just discovered that some guys were actually worth the time it took to speak to them. So naturally she wasn't pleased with Mom for moving us on such short notice, or with me for supporting Mom. And self-entitled teenage girls would have to be the worst of the breed.

"We're almost there girls," Mom says to us, turning down yet another road. This one was dirt, and the way the trees seem to press in on us on both sides is a little disconcerting. Our car bumps steadily over the grooves in the road, the trailer we're towing rattling loudly and swaying with every turn.

"So what does the house look like?" Sky asks in a bored voice, surprising us both with her question. She'd made it a point up until now to show no interested whatsoever in anything to do with Serenity Falls. But, to maintain some of her aloof-ness, her fingers are speeding busily over the screen of her iPhone and she barely looks up when Mom replies.

"It's very old, and quite big, and has a wonderful garden. Your grandmother says it hasn't changed one bit since it was built in the early 1900s."

I cringe slightly. A girl like my sister - pretty, somewhat vain and self-centred, lover of all things trendy or 'cool' - does not want to be hearing anything like 'old' or '1900s'. It would be just like Mom to be too excited by Sky's lapse in resolve that she would say the very things to scare her off again.

As I expected, Sky makes a vaguely disgusted sound and doesn't say anything else, just to make it quite plain that she isn't impressed.

Trying to comfort Mom, and jump back into my obsessive need to know everything I can about our new environment, I ask, "So, where's the closest town? Like, for shopping and stuff." We had passed plenty of towns in the last few hours, but nothing that seemed to be a desirable shopping destination.

"Well there's Marion, or Chilhowie, which is probably the one that most people do the bulk of their shopping. Though there are a lot more stores in the Falls now then there was when I lived there, or so your grandmother tells me."

I think that over. It would be interesting to see what kinds of stores would open up in a town that I haven't even been able to find on a map, but from the sounds of it I would need to borrow the car if I ever felt the urge for deep fried chicken.

"What about school?"

Mom glances at me before returning her gaze to the bumpy road. "There's the town high school, but... That's something we still need to discuss." And that was that.