I

Dusk was approaching. Leaning into the bars that blocked her window Chloe sighed with realization that once again she was captive and the moon would shortly start its rise from the horizon. The breeze tickled her skin as it blew her hair about her face. Oh how she longed to be free to run through the trees in the moonlight. It had been so long. Her room behind her, though it had been provided out of love, was nothing more than a prison, a cage where she was locked in as the night crept near.

If only she could pull herself away from the window but alas the night was upon her and the smell of freedom wafted through the window torturing her with its scent. As the light faded and the black blue of night transcended she finally pulled her self from the window. Sitting on her bed, which was but a mattress on the floor, she wrapped her self in the rough woolen blanket that has been a constant in her life these past few years. Her mother had refused to give her other bedding saying why bother when it would just get ruined anyway.

Chloe sat with her back against the wall with her eyes closed and waited. Waited for the moon to rise and to trickle it's freeing light in through the window. She longed for it, could taste the freedom that it would bring. True because of the bars she couldn't run free but she could be free. Experience the freedom that only the moon could give her. Then with sudden clarity the room filled with light but alas not moonlight but the flash of lightening. Rain began to fall through the open window as the smell of damp earth filled the room. Fate, torturous fate, there would be no moon this night. Freedom, ever-elusive freedom had fled from her sight once more as she curled onto her side hugging the offensive blanket. Had the moon came she would have not needed the warmth of a blanket, as it was by morning the chill from the open window would find her stiff and achy but she didn't care.

"Chloe... time to wake up... breakfast is ready." No it couldn't possibly be morning already, Chloe thought. Along with the voice, she also heard the click of the dead bolt sliding and creak of the door as it slid partway open. Sure enough it was morning, her mother would have never unlocked the door otherwise. Chloe stretched and shook the chill of dawn from her body. From the still open window she could smell the fragrance of early summer in bloom. The short summer nights were finally here and with it she traded one freedom for another.

After showering and donning clean clothes, Chloe made her way to the kitchen. Her father, Patrick Lane, was a kind man and loved her as best he could. He was pouring syrup on to a high stack of pancakes as she sat at the table. "Did you enjoy the summer storm last night, Chloe?"

Chloe sat down across from him giving him the smile he obviously wanted. "Oh I love the smell of rain." Her mother said as she laid a plate of pancakes in front of Chloe almost as high as her father's. Cathy Lane offered up a fake smile, she didn't really love Chloe as she always professed. She had never even wanted children, but Patrick had. So they had taken the little girl with the big blue eyes and long flowing dark hair into their home. Patrick loved her as if she were his own; Cathy merely tolerated her.

When puberty had come, as it was destined to do the change came with it. Cathy had tried to send her away when it happened but Patrick had interceded saying that if his daughter went so would he. Now nearly six years later, Chloe often wished that Cathy had been successful in her attempt to exile her back to the orphanage where they had gotten her. At least there escape might have been possible.

"What are you going to do today, Chloe?" Patrick's eyes gleamed with love, "There is this nice little place my boss told me about... I think you would like it."

"Really, Daddy, what kind of place?" It was so easy to get pulled into his smile.

"Oh it's kind of a combination coffee house/book store and music store... they even have computers with internet access at every table... the place is called dot com," Patrick took out his credit card and pressed it into her hands, "Here baby, go buy yourself some CD's."

Chloe could feel her mother's glare boring into the back of her head. If she had her way then Chloe would never even leave the house. "Oh thank you, Daddy, you're the best." Chloe glared back at her mother as she made her way out of the kitchen, she was going to leave before her mother found an excuse for her not to go.

"Why did you do that?" Patrick just rolled his eyes and continued to read his morning paper. "Answer me, Patrick, why did you do that? Why did you give her your credit card and just let her walk out like that? You know she shouldn't be out by herself... what if she just decides not to come back?"

Frustration bloomed across Patrick's face, "Would you just shut up, Catherine! It's daylight out, the moon is nowhere in sight, she will be just fine."

"But... but..."

"But what, Catherine?" Patrick said crumpling his paper with all the anger he felt in his heart for fate. "What? What if she doesn't come back? I think that would make you very happy wouldn't it? Don't try to deny it... you wish we had never brought her home. Well I love her... she is my daughter in all ways that count and I love her and you just can't stand it." With that Patrick left his wife standing in the kitchen with her mouth gaping. He was right she didn't care if she returned and actually wished that she wouldn't.

Dot Com was a teen magnet or so it seemed to Chloe as she walked through the door. The smells that assaulted her keen senses were wondrous. She tried her best to pick them all out. There was the sweet smell of coffee, multitudes of different types, and their flavors wafting from the back of the store. There were new book smells and the fragrance of clean plastic riding the air from the right side of the building. Then crashing into it all from every nook and cranny was the onslaught of odor that was human. So many different human smells that it made her almost faint. Clean fresh showered human, dirty sweaty human; the smell of sex both unfulfilled and sated also permeated the room. All of these scents meshed together making her head spin as she approached the CD section.

A flash of blond from the corner of her eye was the only warning she had as she crashed to the floor. CD's that she had been looking at as well as many others fell to the floor around her bouncing off her head in the process. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry..." screeched the petite blond grabbing the CD's from the ground around her. "Here let me help you up... I'm such a klutz."

Chloe let the girl who had the perma-smile plastered to her face help her up, "Don't worry about it, I'm alright..."

"Hey," the blond said, "come join me and my friend at our table... it's just right over there, we are just having coffee and talking about my boyfriend, I love to talk about my boyfriend, he is so cute, but he's mine so don't even think about trying to steal him..." The petite little blond continued to talk as she drug Chloe back to her table not letting her get even a single word in. Chloe had never known that one could talk so much and not pass out from lack of air. "So where are you from cause I know you're new cause I know everyone... Hey Meems look I found someone new. I'm going to go get us some more coffee." As if she needed anymore coffee.

The world was finally starting to slow back to a normal pace as the wind from the petite blond had finally stopped. And now Chloe was being again assaulted by uninhibited friendship that was beaming at her via shining green eyes and a smile as wide as the day is long. "Hi my name is Mimi and I can tell by your face that Belle, yeah that's the name of the caffeine freak that just left, she drug you over and didn't tell you her name did she?"

"Umm... yeah she did," Chloe said taking a seat. "My name is Chloe, my family and I just moved to town."

"Glad to meet ya, Chloe... look you have already made two new friends and let me tell you, Belle, she is definitely a friend worth having."

Suddenly three coffees were set on the table in front of them. "Don't you be telling all my secrets Meems." Belle slid into the seat next to Mimi and stuck out her hand. "Please forgive, before I ran off to get more coffee, I forgot all about introducing myself... I'm Belle, Belle Black and this is my friend Meems or Mimi or Miriam or..."

Chloe could sense another wind building and firmly grasped Belles hand interrupting her, "I'm Chloe, Chloe Lane, and I'm no longer new in town cause now you know me."

"You're right!"

The three new friends laughed and took the rest of the morning getting to know each other. Chloe had never been so immediately accepted by anyone, except for her father. The concept was new for her but somehow felt right. Belle had decided the moment she saw Chloe that she was a beauty getting ready to blossom. Outwardly she wasn't anything special. Chloe wore dark worn clothes and no make up. Her inner light, however, burned through the dark facade, she was special and she reminded her of someone but who, realization nagged at her from the back of her mind, it would come to her just not yet.

Belle slammed the door as she entered her family's penthouse. Sure she knew that her mother hated when she slammed the door but her mother wasn't here and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. As she trudged up the staircase lugging her purchases that she had made while out shopping with her new friend she couldn't help but feel someone was watching her. She knew that was impossible though cause her parents were out of town on a trip.

"Hey Tink!" No it couldn't be. Belle rushed to the banister and looked down. Sure enough there standing in the middle of the living room was a tall blond lug with a sandwich in one hand a soda in the other and a broad grin beaming from his face.

"Brady!" she yelled dropping her bags and flying down the stair. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm eating a sandwich..." he said as she almost knocked him over in a vice-like hug. "I guess you're glad to see me."

"How long are you going to visit?"

"I'm not visiting, I'm here to stay..."