Chapter One

And they lived happily ever after…

I stared dreamily at the last line of my secret romance novel, hidden between the beer tap and ice bucket. Reading on a slow night was the only solution for bartending at the Red Rabbit, a strip club that was classy enough to have a cereal vending machine, for those early morning munchies.

“Aria, someone puked in the men’s room. It’s your turn,” a voice snapped beside me. It was Mona, my manager, and pain in my ass. 

This was real life, and endings like those only existed between the pages of a book. Real-life was 24/7 strip clubs at truck stops, mopping the men’s room floor and taking home barely enough to cover rent and bills. Well, it might not be real life for everyone, but I never did have even one shred of good luck, and like always, seemed to have gotten the short straw when it came to picking destinies.

“On it,” I muttered, pushing myself to my feet and trying to wiggle my tiny black shorts down an inch or two. They were a centimeter away from panties, which is just how Gus, the asshole manager of the Red Rabbit, liked it. He’d have all his staff naked if he could get away with it. The thin belly tank top was just as useless. 

As I turned, my hand brushed the book, perched on the edge of the counter, and with a plop, it fell into the slushy remains of the nearly empty ice bucket. Several of the leering drinkers propping at the bar cheered and clapped drunkenly.

“Oops, guess you should have changed that bucket an hour ago like I told you to,” Mona said sweetly in my ear, before sauntering off. 

The shift dragged. This week, I was on nights. That meant I started at ten, worked through the small hours, and staggered back to my trailer on the outskirts of town at about seven, and fell into a dead sleep, usually until I had to drag myself back in.

As I walked to my car, I felt an eerie sense of awareness, like eyes tracking my moves, or icy fingers walking slowly down my spine.

I stopped and turned, looking into the shadows sitting around the parking lot. 

"Hello?" I called. No one answered. Fear crawled over my skin, and I hurried for the car. 

I headed west along country roads, passing signs for the smallish town I’d grown up in. Happenstance was one of those dead-end, middle of nowhere kind of places that was truly depressing. 

The trailer park was at the edge of town, and I pulled in, and slowed right down, passing kids playing ball on the dirt track that ran through the middle, and their mothers, who were standing in the way, gossiping, maybe even about me. I rolled past, and they stared at me. Wherever I went, I never seemed to belong. Maybe it wasn’t just bad luck. Maybe I was cursed? The trailer I’d lived in for the best part of ten years sat right at the end of the park, looking out to the river and fields behind. I liked to sit and look out the back, and stare at the dark forest that was only about a twenty-minute walk, after you crossed the river. Heldon Woods was my secret sanctuary. I loved to wander under the trees, bare feet in the dirt, sitting on the mossy ground.

Inside the trailer, I checked the fridge for something to eat. A lone banana sat on the top shelf. I took it as well as the end of a jar of peanut butter and went out back.  A slice of banana, a smear of peanut butter, and it was a healthy enough dinner.

I stared at the woods; my mind fixed on the past. Bugs sang in the long grass, and there’d be plenty of snakes hiding in the field, ready to be stepped on.

I miss you, Billy.

I always thought of my godfather when I sat out here. It had been our spot, ever since we moved here. My thoughts returned to my first memories of the town, and the trailer park. The strangest thing of all about that time was those memories weren’t just the first of the town.

They were my first memories, period.

I couldn’t remember a single thing before I arrived in Happenstance. Seeing as I’d been ten years old, that was odd.

Odd indeed.

I must have had a mother and father once, but Billy never told me about it, and I never asked. Fear, I supposed, held me back. I guessed my parents were dead or didn't want me.  I was an orphan, and Billy, a well-meaning friend of the family, had taken on the burden of me and died just when I got old enough to help him out.

Fate had a fucked-up sense of humor.  

A movement in the long grass caught my eye, and I stared. A deer stood tall in the waving green, his antlers looking like raw bones in the morning light.

A truck backfired in the distance, the sound sending a flock of birds up from the trees of Heldon Woods, and the deer jolted. It turned and ran towards the pines. “Take me with you,” I muttered to its departing back. It never stopped or turned again. I couldn’t blame it. I wouldn’t want to take me either.

I ate my last piece of banana and headed inside. I had to sleep a bit before starting my new diner shift. Making enough money to get the hell out of here was my only goal, and I’d do it, one day. I’d promised Billy that I would, after all.

The dream only came when I was super tired. Maybe when I wasn’t too exhausted, my subconscious was able to bat it away, but this morning, with the sun shining on my bed, and my alarm set for only two hours from now, it came.

It always started the same. Darkness and fire, the sound of screaming. I never had shoes on in this dark world. I didn’t know exactly why I was sure that there, wasn’t here, but I was always certain. A hand gripped mine and pulled me. A man tugging me along. I couldn’t see his face. Cold water rushed over me, like falling into an icy fjord, and then light.

Billy’s voice speaking to me, as familiar as my own. “Open your eyes, Aria.”

I blinked awake just as my alarm started to beep. Slamming it off in a practiced motion, I swung my feet out of bed. Crap, I felt terrible.

I forced myself up and got ready. Uniform on and ballet flats, the kind without any support or padding. Long, blonde hair scraped into a bun.

I was twenty-one now, but my face seemed to insist on remaining as childish looking as a teen. Round apple cheeks and a button nose with far more freckles than anyone had a right to met my critical gaze. The only thing of any kind of exception about my face was my eyes. Green and dark as pine needles. 

I left the trailer, hurrying for my shift, and reached for my car door. As I unlocked the old car, I felt that same crawling sensation over my skin, like I was being watched. It wasn't like the feeling of being stared at by the deer. No, it was different. It felt more like being watched by a wolf. 

I shivered and got into the car. I tried to ignore the feeling, but it never went away. The feeling of being watched by dangerous eyes followed me all the way to work.