Chapter 1

I should be used to this. I should be used to moving all the time. I guess in a way, I was. I was just growing tired of it. My dad was a US Ambassador so we'd been nearly everywhere. Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and even Syria for a time before it got really bad there. The last place we lived was Australia. It was my favorite. It was also the longest we stayed in one place: three years. I almost made it all the way through high school, but of course, with my luck, we moved just in time for my senior year. My dad personally picked this one and it was a little odd... Virginia. It was only odd because it was home for my father. It was where he grew up.

It was just me and my father. My mother died in a car accident when I was a preteen. I didn't miss her though. I actually despised the woman. If I didn't do something exactly the way she wanted, I got strips of leather against my back or some other form of torture. I don't miss it at all, but I still have the scars to prove it.

Our new house was huge, but they all were. They were embassies for ambassadors with diplomatic immunity and loads of security. The security got old really fast. I had at least two on me everywhere I went, if not more. The sketchier the country, the more security followed me around.

"So what do you think?" he asked nervously. To be honest, I hadn't really been paying much attention. My father and I weren't alike at all. He loved adventure and seeing new things, and I was content being in my room, listening to music, and reading a good book. We didn't look anything alike either. In fact, I didn't look like either of my parents. My mother, before she died, had copper red hair, a narrow face, tan skin, and soulless brown eyes. She was tall and thin and beautiful. My father was more of a free spirit. Although his spirit grew weaker after my mother died. He had dirty blonde hair, a square face, and warm, brown eyes. Compared to them, I was sure I was adopted. I had jet black hair that was thick and slightly curly, unlike my parents' straight hair. My eyes were silver, almost eerily. My face was heart-shaped, I had dimples, and my skin was almost translucent, I was so pale.

I looked at the house; really looked at it. Every embassy had the same structure and setup in every country... except this one. It was made primarily of red brick that was darker and lighter in spots due to age and weather. There was a roundabout in front of the house with a water fountain in the middle. There was a set of white double doors and windows lined the front of the house like giant soldiers. The top of the house had the typical American dark paneling on angled roofs that pierced the sky at different heights. Thick trees lined both sides of the house. I didn't see any concrete walls or watch towers. This wasn't an embassy at all. My face scrunched in confusion as I looked to my father.

"What's going on?" I asked, knowing immediately that something was wrong with this picture. Ambassadors didn't do stations inside the states, and this wasn't a secure building. I knew he'd already shipped most of my stuff here, but where was here exactly?

"I know you're tired of moving all the time, and you're almost 18 years old now, so... you're not going with me to my next station. You're not going to a private school either. You're going to live with your grandparents here, and go to the local school. My next station isn't here, but you place is," he tried to explain.

"So what? You're just... dropping me off with grandparents I've never met before, in a place I don't know and you're just telling me this now... in front of their house?" I asked, my voice rising with every word. I had a tendency to talk faster, louder and higher the more upset I got, and this was one of those times. My blood was boiling and I knew my face was red with anger. For the majority of my life, it'd just been us. Yes, we were different, but my father was my rock. He was my best friend. He was the only one I relied on to be there for me, and he was just leaving me behind. I felt betrayed.

"I'm sorry. I tried to tell you, but I just... I couldn't. It kills me, not being able to take you with me. But you can't go where I'm going. I made a deal with your mother. I promised her that you would be here when you turned 18, and it's that time. Patrick and Nora Wilders, your mother's parents," he explained with his head hung and shoulders hunched. I still felt like he wasn't telling me everything.