"Are they still following me?"

Adrianna risked a glance over her shoulder as she ran.

"No car. Good."

A blonde girl in a white over shirt and jeans ran past a perfume ad with her face splashed across it. She scampered up the last few steps to the school when she heard a scream of tires and an all too familiar voice.

"Adrianna Agreste! Please, you know your father expressly forbad this!" Natalie was already shouting as she exited the still moving vehicle. Adrianna turned to face the severe woman and the hulking figure that shadowed her.

"Natalie, please! I want to live my life, not stay locked away in an ivory tower like a damsel in distr-" a cough interrupted Adrianna's plea. An old man reached for his cane from where he had fallen, wincing as his frail body protested the movement.

All thoughts of school ceased as she rushed to help the man before he was run over by a pedestrian staring at his cellphone. The kindly teen grabbed his cane and handed it to him as she gingerly eased him to his feet.

"Thank you, my child." He wheezed. He was dressed like a tourist. Hawaiian shirt with khaki capris, but with a jade bracelet and a goatee that gave him a dignity that was incongruous with his casual attire.

The old man apprised her, as if searching for something. Adrianna was used to professional appraisals of her face and body, with photographers searching for the right way to get the image they wanted from her. She was also used to the much less professional leers from some of the people she worked with. Adrianna was lucky however, as her father was a very famous designer who had clout enough to keep all hands at bay; she knew of many girls who didn't have such protection. It was part and parcel of the whole modeling career that her father has pushed her into.

This was different. He wasn't looking at her, so much as he was looking into her. It was as if he was trying to get a feeling for the kind of person she was. In that moment he seemed much older and wiser than his frail and goofy appearance would suggest.

He stood up and smiled, the curious look in his eyes gone. The old man leaned on his cane. Satisfied that he was okay, Adrianna turned, smiling. The smile slid from her face when faced with the rigid stance of the two adults charged with her keeping.

"All I want," she argued in a defiant tone, "is to go to school like everyone else. What's wrong with that?" Nathalie's eyes hardened.

Adrianna felt the excitement that had filled her ever since she had registered for the small public high school leave her; cold reality settling in its wake. She had researched this school. She had dreamed that she would find friends there. She would finally have a life of her own. She would be able to do things her way even if she was shackled to the perfection which came with the name Agreste. She could've spend time with Chloe and her friends, and could've been loved for who she was, not what she was. She could go to a place where her father didn't matter, where she could just be a regular teenager.

But this airy fantasy of acceptance and peace died as she gazed into the hard glare of the woman who was the closest thing to an actual parent she had anymore. She slumped, and looked away from the piercing ice-blue gaze of her father's secretary.

"Of course I can't.

Adrianna felt like she was only an asset to her father. A porcelain doll to dress up and pose. Too expensive to let others close to her. Sure, her room was decked out in anything that money could buy, but a prison- no matter how beautiful- is still a prison. She was never allowed to leave the house unless it was for business. Heck, she was barely allowed out of her room most of the time.

"Please don't tell my father." the young girl sighed. Anger would come later; she was too numb to make a scene. The Ape-like giant that Adrianna had always thought of as "The Gorilla" guided her to the car. The door shut with a slam like that of a coffin lid. She saw the cream-colored brick of the Dupont high school slip away, the familiar feeling of isolation suffocating her once more.

Unseen by the car's occupants, the old man in a Hawaiian print shirt leaned leisurely on his cane, his tremor and frailty gone. He gave a knowing nod before slinging the cane over his shoulder, heading to his newfound destination.