STAR WALKER

CHAPTER ONE

NOW – JUNE 13th

 

So this is how it ends.

Huh. I thought it’d be different.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I expected to go down in a blaze of glory or anything. But this?

I shouldn’t be here.

No, I don’t mean I shouldn’t be here. About to die, alone and forgotten. Because after the week I’ve had, this is actually kind of fitting.

I mean, I shouldn’t be here. As in me.

I am not the girl who finds herself in predicaments like this; chained to a chair in the middle of a white room, preparing to have the life drained from her. No. Those girls are go getters. Those girls are the heroines whole books are written around.

Those girls are not me.

Sheila Winters is one of those girls. The one you’d find chained to a chair, or a missile. Sure, her bangs look like a walrus’ ‘stache but she’s tough. Hardy. The only girl on an all-boys wrestling team. Sheila could bust out of this place no problem. Sheila could make this place her bitch.

Even Ali Reed, who has the personality of a golden retriever, could finagle her way out of this pickle. Because she’s pretty, and let’s be honest, pretty girls always get rescued.

Yet, here I am. Wishing one of those girls would burst through the door, dressed in a bad ass leather one piece wielding a battle axe. I get my clothes from estate sales.

I’m a nobody.

I’m the girl in the back of the room, the one with the glasses too big for her face. The one you pass by every day and never really see. I’m background, and I like it. I dye my hair often in colors sounding like indie rock bands from Portland; Atomic Turquoise and Deep Purple Dream. Not for the hope of being noticed but for the idea of giving the cultural norm the middle finger salute.

I’ll die with it Ice Storm Blue.

There’s music coming from somewhere. Not good music either. Grocery store music. Like Phil Collins or Michael Bolton. Great, they’re going to Bolton me to death.

So how did I get here?

How did I, Skylar Voss, nobody in a world of nobodies, end up here? Waiting to die.

I could say it’s all a result of really bad decisions. That one by one, I decided my way into this shit storm. And it’d be true. Sort of. Or maybe I had a severe invincibility complex and this is my smack to the face. Or a death wish? Yes, I definitely could have had one of those. But those are boring. Predictable.

We could blame it all on him. Him, with his stupid blue eyes and annoying dimple.

But I won’t say I’m about to die over a boy. Because that’d be stupid. A pathetic beginning to one of those really bad young adult novels.

No, I’m not dying for someone else. I’m here because someone already died for me. And I just couldn’t let it go. No matter how easy Frozen made it sound.

But I can’t start here. At the end.

No, this is my story. And I’ll tell it my way. Not with the once upon a time bullshit we all hate, but with, well—

You’re never going to believe this…

Read CHAPTER TWO