This is my last introduction of my main characters which means after her chapters are done I will not be posting anything else from this book. I'm currently working on my next book which will be in the science fiction section. You can see that in a few weeks.
Annie Small
It was one of those hot summer days, common in Los Angeles California. One of those bright days where everyone went out to enjoy the sunshine, be it shopping or getting a tan or just playing outside.
The movie theaters were packed and Annie was swamped at the food counter. A line of customers stretched back as far as she could see, trying to scoop popcorn up as fast as possible. She noticed her line was longer than the others and it didn’t escape her attention that there were mostly guys in her line.
Some of them even had the nerve to flirt with her as she tried to take their orders, adding to the chaotic process of trying to shorten her line. When she got rid of one love sick teen, three more came in his place. She had seen this coming, and knew she should not have come to work today.
“Hogging all the customers Annie?” Her friend Nicole teased.
“It’s not funny! I’m swamped! Please get some of them to come in your line.” Annie hadn’t got much sleep the previous night after a nightmare woke her and she couldn’t get back to sleep. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t even remember what happened to scare her so badly. She had waken up screaming.
“Just tell them to move,” Nicole said.
“I can’t. That would be rude,” Annie replied, blowing a strand of her long blond hair from her face. It was getting in the way of her filling the popcorn machine. She finally tied up her hair so it wouldn’t be a further bother.
“You wouldn’t want to do that.” Nicole shook her head in disbelief.
“Please.” She pulled together the best puppy dog eyes and pout she could muster. Nicole was a sucker for people in need. Annie felt bad about exploiting her friend’s weakness, but it had to be done.
Nicole sighed. “Hey you ten in the back, she screamed over the roar of the crowd come to my line it’s shorter.” They shook their heads. “That wasn’t an offer it was a demand now get in my line.” This time they moved, and looked down at their feet in embarrassment.
“See, that was rude,” Annie gave a vague smile at the next customer who started flirting big time.
“It worked did it not.”
Annie couldn’t argue with that. The display of obedience was proof of it. She hated confrontations and she wouldn’t have been able to do it herself.
“I’m still not going to be rude.” She sighed this was going to be a long shift.
The rush died down as everyone settled into their selected movie. Annie took this time to clean the floor of popcorn that a little kid had spilled during a temper tantrum. She wasn’t glad about being at work but she was glad to be away from home.
Her real mom died in a car crash when she was six years old. Her father got remarried to Abigail Summers. It was two years later that he died. From a heart attack leaving Annie with Abigail. She could only describe it as a modern day Cinderella. Abigail had taken the money left to Annie and used it for her personal comforts, leaving Annie to get a job at twelve if she was to get anything she wanted. Although Annie was popular, and had plenty of friends, a few boyfriends, and awesome grades, she wasn’t allowed to really have a social life outside of school. So even though work was bad, home was much worse.
At least she had some one to talk to at work.
She dumped the trash into the can and was about to clean the counter when it hit her it her the world spun around her colors blending together until they stopped abruptly but she wasn’t in the movie theater lobby anymore, instead she was in her house and on the floor was Abigail sprawled on the ground her body scorched as if by fire but it was in only in one place her heart and it had made a hole. She suppressed a scream as the world spun again and she woke on the ground in the theater Samantha helping her up.
“What happened you just kind of fainted?” Nicole looked at her as if she suspected her to die.
“It’s nothing I just got a little lightheaded. It’s probably just a twenty- four hour bug. I’d better get home and get some rest.” She took off her vest. “Can you cover for me?”
“Of course, but….”
Annie didn’t stay to hear what her friend said. She ran out the door at a full sprint.
This wasn’t the first time she had a vision. Her first experience was when she was six and she saw her mother’s death. She wrote it off as a bad dream and the next day it happened. After that it was a bunch of small stuff a pop quiz or some small mistake she would have. She had another big vision when she was eight and this time it was her fathers death she predicted and she tried to save him but that particular death was impossible to stop because he had a heart attack. For years she used this power to save a life here or there. She had prevented two suicides at her school which made her a celebrity among the town.
“Annie didn’t like Abigail much but she was her last bit of family. Also if she didn’t try to save her that would be the same as killing her herself.
She sprinted faster and got to the bus just as the doors were about to close.
“You lucky girl.” He ignored the bus driver’s statement as she paid and sat down in the back seat. She pulled out her phone and quickly dialed her home phone.
“Come on Come on,” she pleaded into the phone each ring heightened her anxiety. The answering machine picked up. “Darn it she shut the phone knowing Abigail never checked messages.
She tapped her foot trying to come up with a plan she decide it could be murder that caused her step-moms death which meant she would half to enter the secret door so she could surprise the attacker.
