Chapter One - Cass
I never was one for openings. But I'm sure there isn't a worse one out there. I'm here to tell you to stop reading this right now. If you read to far into this story, you won't be safe anymore. They'll come for you. They will hunt you down and they will find you. There's no hiding from them. I doubt I can say anything to stop you, but I can at least try. If you do read on, you'll see why I had to warn you. Never used to able to warn them in time. Always too little too late. Too little too late. Too late. Always.
This wasn't how it was meant to go, but life rarely does that. Life rarely goes how you want it to. And I suppose that's why we keep on trying. If I can save just one person from reading on, I suppose that'll be my kind of redemption. Though there is no coming back to the light after what I did. Maybe I'll, at least, get a spot in hell where you can see heaven. Or would that just be it's own form of torture?
My name is Cassidy Starling.
I won't tell you more than that. It might just put you in more danger. Trust me, knowing who I am won't make you feel any better. I won't tell you what I'm like or what I look like, or any of the boring stuff that gets in the way. I have to be quick with this. Not much time. Not much time. Always running, always moving, always hiding, always afraid. That's my life. But it wasn't always like that. Which is why I'm going to start before it all went wrong. I'm going to take you back to a time when I was happy. I'm going to relive all my pain, just to put it on paper.
Now this is where any of you with sense would see that I'm delusional and stop reading. Or maybe you'd just realise that what I'm writing isn't something anyone normal should read. That's right, I'm not normal. I used to be. Then they took him away...
Don't say I didn't warn you. Because I did. Didn't I?
A long time ago, when I was a little girl, I lived with my family in a cottage in the woods. Just my mother, my father, my twin brother, and myself. It was a nice house, before they got to it. My parents wanted a daughter who would sit in the sunshine on a swing in the garden, laughing, always smiling. A daughter who would wear pretty dresses, host tea parties, be a lady. A little girl who would play in their garden, be happy and make the whole world seem brighter. Instead, they got me. I wear ripped, black jeans, faded grey t-shirts, baggy hoodies and a black baseball cap. I sit on the swing, in the rain, crying over what could've been. I never smile, I never laugh. I used to, but not anymore. I was once the daughter they'd asked for. A sweet little sister for my twin brother. I guess they didn't plan for the inevitable. Or maybe they just didn't know.
My brother, however, is the kind of son you'd want to have. He looks like me, and dresses the same way, but he is polite and kind. He helps out whenever he can. He's near on self-less. Always looking out for me when we take out trips into town. He used to play with me down by the stream, until it stopped flowing. I think my parents would give me up if they could have a copy of him. But the thing is, and this may sound crazy, but without him, I'm nothing. And without me, he's just a shell of who he used to be. We complete each-other in the way only soulmates usually do. I couldn't imagine a world without him.
My parents are the kind of people who stay home all day. Maybe go and garden for a bit, chop a tree down for fire wood. Mother would happily sit knitting by the fire her entire life. Father would read a paper, drink his tea, tend the fire and the animals outside for the rest of his days, if he could. That's the thing about them, they like not doing much. We get our money from selling the eggs our chickens lay and the shawls and scarves our mother knits.
Our life was a simple one, in our little five-room cottage in the woods. We didn't have much, but it was enough to be together. Me and Matt shared a room, growing up. And when we had nightmares, the other was there to soothe us back to sleep.
