Prologue - Andy (Part 1)

Andy's mother used to say that kindness was more powerful than any kind of brute force. However, the truth was that since she was a child, and even today, at the age of 15, Andy suspected the veracity of that sentence since, apparently, it was because of her mother's thinking that she had spent so many years suffering from her husband's betrayals and contempt, only having managed to break free of it through a divorce that was barely a year old. Not that Andy had ever dared question Imogen about that because, well, she was her mother and the best person she knew, so there had to be some truth to that.

But at that moment, as she tried unsuccessfully to free herself from the grasp of the hands of the two boys who were dragging her by the arms along the Ferrars' country house, Andy could not believe more than ever that kindness was a cure for anything.

“Let me go!” she screamed again, eagerly trying to kick one of their legs, but the boys just laughed and held her even higher, making her arms ache.

“The cow is worth quite a fight, huh?” Mark Ferrars, who was walking ahead, chuckled and looked at her out of the corner of his eye, clearly enjoying the vision.

“Fuck that.” Gabriel Ferrars, Mark's cousin and the responsible for Andy being in that situation, growled, furious as he always was when he got close to her “She knew she shouldn't have agreed to come to my house! And much less daring to be near me! Now, I'm going to teach her the lesson she deserves, to learn to never chase and piss me off again!"

“I wasn't chasing you…” Andy gasped, horrified “I was going to my room and you guys happened to be in the hallway! It was an accident..."

But her sentence was interrupted when the boys stopped in front of a door and, after Gabriel opened it, revealing a very small closet full of brooms and other cleaning items, Andy was flung inside, painfully scraping her back against the rough wooden floor.

“So…” Mark started to ask, very casually “What are we going to do with her, exactly?” he licked his lips as he looked at her, making Andy's stomach sink in dread.

Gabriel, however, did not answer. He just turned and gave his cousin a dark look, as if the deep, meaningless hatred he felt applied to everyone around him, though he only seemed to take it out on Andy. Then, finally, he elbowed Mark violently, knocking him to the side, and took a step forward towards Andy, making her shiver, barely able to imagine why he had made his henchmen drag her there. 

“Please…” she stammered, cringing until her back touched the bottom of the tiny closet.

"Screw this." he growled once more and, with a bang, closed the door, leaving her alone inside that dark place, but Andy's relief only lasted until the second she heard a click come from outside, very similar to a key locking a lock...

"Hey!" in a panic, Andy stumbled to the door, feeling his blood run cold as he turned the knob and realized that they really had locked it in there “Open that door! You can't leave me here...!"

“Shut up, you fat cow!” Gabriel growled and kicked the door hard, making Andy flinch again, out of pure instinct “Let's see if being locked in there you learn your place! Fucking idiot!”

“So… If we're done with that part of today's fun…” Mark spoke, with a clear smile on his face “What do you say we go swimming? The river is always much more fun at this time of year...”

“Fuck what we’re going to do!” Gabriel grumbled and even from behind the door Andy could hear the other boys gulping, intimidated by his anger "I'll go anywhere that's far away from that pile of lard!"

“You can't leave me here!” Andy tried the doorknob again, this time with tears streaming from her eyes "Please!"

The way she was pleading, however, was completely ignored by the boys, whose snorting snorts and Gabriel's furious snarls drifted down the hall until Andy could hear nothing but the sound of her own sobs and the metal of the doorknob, it didn't give any sign that it would open even after she moved it in every possible direction.

With her throat choking and crying shaking her body, Andy's trembling legs were no longer able to support her and she ended up sliding to the floor of the broom closet, barely able to move properly in that small space, while hugging her knees, bitterly regretting the moment she had chosen not to be candid with her mother and brother about why she didn't want to come on that school field trip to the Ferrars' country house. But, her mom had been going through so much lately, with increasingly strong sessions of chemotherapy... It seemed so selfish to bother her by telling that Gabriel and his cronies had spent that entire school year cursing her, putting trash in her locker, and tripping her down the hall...

Andy might be young, but she was well aware that the Ferrars had as much money and influence as her family, the Vamcaps. Otherwise, her grandmother wouldn't be so close to Gabriel's mother. So Andy knew she could say whatever she wanted to her mother and worry Imogen to the max, but still Gabriel would get away with it and the bullying he was doing to her would get even worse... Even though it got worse anyway, even that she always tried to avoid him as much as possible and pretend he didn't exist inside the school they both attended...

Yet, here she was, alone and locked inside that closet, without any possibility of when someone would show up to help her.

Like always.

Through a tear-blurred vision, Andy watched her own hand curl around the doorknob, hating how easy it seemed to get out of there, but even so she would have to wait for someone's good will, only to crawl pathetically out of there to the first hole to hide, as she had during every second of that last year, when suddenly Gabriel had gone from being a kind and handsome classmate to be her executioner.

But for the first time since Gabriel's dark blue eyes had looked at her with hatred and this whole nightmare had begun, Andy felt neither fear nor pity for herself.

She felt angry.

Angry that she wasn't as strong as he was, that she hadn't had the courage to face him until now and, mainly, angry that all her attempts to avoid that situation had led her to this point. And, it was feeling all that accumulation of anger and revolt that she got back to her feet, gripping the doorknob tightly, while she started hitting her own shoulder against the wood of the door, over and over again.

Her shoulder hurt, making it very clear that the biggest and most painful bruise of her life was forming, but still Andy didn't stop, keeping the lock moving the entire time, until the latch was almost vibrating. That effort, however, caused the handle's slightly sharp corners, which had probably been done just to make the design more elegant and modern, dig into the skin of her hand, coming very close to grazing her palm and fingers.

But, even as she felt her hand grow wet and hot, as a drop of blood fell to the floor, Andy kept throwing herself fiercely against the door, hearing the latch and the wood creak and scream, until, with one last blow that made her hand slip particularly painfully on the handle, Andy suddenly slammed forward, along with the now slightly crooked door, landing face down on the floor outside.

With the same bloody hands and shoulder throbbing with pain, Andy shakily got to her feet, sitting on the floor just to breathe for a second and enjoy the feeling of being free of that closet.

And, no matter what she had to do, Andy was determined to be free of Gabriel Ferrars too, after that day.