The Queen Of Hearts

Chapter 1

Kara wasn't exactly exceptional in any way, although a lot of exceptional things had happened to her over the short span of her life, she was rather ordinary as far as teenagers went. Her parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was thirteen - it was still debatable as to whether it was an intentional hit or a complete accident - and she'd been adopted by the Danvers not too long after. She had a cousin in Smallville that she never saw, and an aunt overseas who sent her birthday and Christmas gifts every year but never visited. Her adoptive father had died from a heart attack a year after she'd joined the family, leaving her with her new adoptive mother, and a sister who couldn't stand to be around her. 

She'd been sent to boarding school - the most prestigious British school in America - alongside her new sister, where she'd been on the debate and rowing teams for the past two years. Science and math were her best subjects, she was terrible at home economics, and she wanted to be a corporate lawyer when she was older, and take over the multi-billion-dollar company her parents had left behind for her to inherit. But for the most part, she went unnoticed. Her navy uniform blended in with everyone else's, her new mom was one of the best neurosurgeons in the world so she wasn't a scholarship kid either, and she mostly kept to herself. Nothing interesting ever happened to Kara - only bad things.

So as she checked her pigeonhole in the post room, pulling out a thin manila envelope, she looked puzzled. She was already carrying a small parcel off Eliza, no doubt filled with cookies and an assortment of other treats to tide her over until the next package, and it was unusual for her to ordinarily receive any other mail, let alone at the end of the first week of the new school year, and definitely not from any students. 

It was clearly from another student though, because there was no stamp or address on the envelope - not even her name - and Kara frowned as she tucked the parcel under one arm and tore open the envelope. The post room was empty except for her and a small girl in her first year, looking extremely short for an eleven-year-old, by Kara's standards, and she decided to go back to her room and find out what she'd been sent. Walking through the old hallways, the mahogany floor creaking and the smell of expensive wood and dust permeating the entire building, she made her way up to the west wing of the huge building. It was the girl's dormitory, full of comfortably sized rooms spread across five floors, and Kara was grateful for the fact that St. Rao's was prestigious enough to allow them the courtesy of their own rooms.

Hers was on the south side of the fourth floor, tucked away in the corner and overlooking the lush rolling grasslands, covered in waving lilac stalks of lavender and butter yellow daisies, giving way to the woodlands crowding around the foothills of the mountains, the leaves ranging from burnt orange to a deep maroon as autumn set in. The snow-capped mountains in the distance were little more than blue smudges on the horizon, and Kara opened her window a crack to let in the fresh air blowing in from the plains. A bed was pushed up against one wall, a handmade quilt her mother made her when she was born draped over the end of it, a worn teddy bear with a missing eye resting against the pillows, a tall dark wood armoire stood beside the door, holding Kara's neatly pressed uniforms and weekend clothes, and a small desk and chair were crammed in, with a row of battered paperbacks held on shelves above it. 

She had a few posters and a calendar pinned to the walls to try and make the place look a little more homely, but it was a miserable effort, and Kara couldn't even bring herself to try and liven up the place with her large income like most of the students did here. One thing about being in a school filled with rich, prissy, spoilt kids was the constant competitions of who had the latest and most expensive new things, and Kara was loathsome to join in with their bragging and peacocking. She was more content to hole herself up in her room and try and stay away from the bitchy girls who gave her cool looks as they sized her up, and the pampered boys who thought their money made them more attractive.