Freya Snow: Book One - Hunt

Chapter One

AN: So, the chapters here will actually be more like scenes, with the chapters being lumped together in the final book, much like in the original version. This'll mean more uploads. Possibly more than one in a day *gasp* like now. You may notice that there's no cover yet. I'm still away on holiday, so I don't have the cover file to hand. Plus, if I'm relaunching, I really will try new covers.

Freya awoke to the familiar sound of her sister screaming.

"Alice!" Freya called as she threw her duvet off herself, clambering up the side of the bunk bed. No one could ever accuse Freya of being graceful or dexterous, but she made it to the top bunk regardless.

Freya pulled Alice's duvet from her, the cold air of the northern night air enough to wake her sister without touching her.

Alice bolted upright, gasping.

Freya simply waiting. There was no point in saying anything until Alice had galvanised herself; it would simply cause her to expend brain power she didn't have on pushing through her auditory processing issues.

Touching her would only distress her further.

So that just left waiting.

"Sorry," Alice eventually said, as she always did, brushing her awkwardly cropped, jet-black hair from her deep brown eyes. The hair and eyes were the majority of what she'd received from her Japanese mother, with the rest of her features fairly Northern European.

"What was the nightmare this time?" Freya asked her.

"You died."

Freya no longer flinched at that. Alice regularly saw her dying in her nightmares.

"What happened to me?" Freya asked.

"A man stabbed you."

"What, like a mugging?"

Alice shook her head. "He stabbed you with a sword. And he had long teeth and bright red eyes."

"Well, that seems one of your more outlandish nightmares."

Alice nodded, seemingly recovered enough to smile. "I suppose it was. I'm sorry again for waking you. Especially on today of all days."

Freya smirked at that. "I don't know, getting fostered kind of loses its 'special day' status once you get past the tenth time."

Alice gave the barest quirk of her lip, but Freya knew that it was her equivalent of a sympathetic smile.

The mental health system for kids might suck, but even the most oblivious, jaded examiner couldn't deny Alice's autism. Or her PTSD. Usually kids didn't end up in foster care for happy reasons...

Freya, on the other hand, was a different matter. She was quiet, bright, and didn't cause trouble for those looking after her. That was enough for everyone to overlook her trouble making friends, her obsessive nature, and her feeling faint in crowded spaces as just 'quirks'. It was only because of Alice that Freya recognised a lot of her behaviour as stemming from autistic traits.

Not that anyone had believed her. Janet, the woman who ran the foster home, simply scolded her for daring to compare herself to someone as troubled as Alice when she had last brought it up.

"Are you going to go back to sleep?" Alice asked her.

Freya sighed, shaking her head. "I don't think I'd manage it." Freya didn't have nightmares - in fact, she didn't dream at all - but she had trouble getting to sleep sometimes. "I think I'll just have a shower and get ready."