Dedication: To Pine, for convincing me to post this.

The Girl in Argyle

Book One: The End of My World (As I Know it)

Author's Foreword

Hello. My name is... well, call me Rage. Everybody does.

… I knew it. The minute I mention my nickname, people would know it was me. I hate that.

Some of you lucky folks... well, you may not actually know me. Maybe you've heard my name once or twice, or maybe you've never heard of me at all. For those people, feel glad. For once, be delighted in being left out of the loop and skip out of the room now. Close the book. Turn off the eReader. Shut down the computer – this book isn't for you.

Who, exactly, is this book for, then? I'll tell you to whom it is written: the people who love me.

Yeah. Am I your hero? Do you love or respect me in any way? Awesome! That's terror-ific! Read on; allow me to crush your opinion of me.

This book – and the ones that accompany it, if I ever get those out – are my memoirs. That means it's a story on my travels, adventures, and, of course, myself.

You see, my adventures were SO AMAZING that people felt the need to... exaggerate them. They make my "victories" - if you could call them that – seem so... so... amazing, that even I want to believe them.

But I was there. And that's not how it happened.

So, long story short, I'm writing my memoirs to ruin your opinion of me. It's going to be hard to make you guys accept the truth – I mean, come on, that story about how I sprouted wings and gained the ability to breathe fire just to escape the Vespers was pretty convincing – but I ask you to have an open mind.

It's for your own good.

Regina "Rage" Still

INSERT TITLE HERE

- I -

by Regina Still

Now, one would normally expect the home life of a hero to be one of two things: Really good, or really bad. Either the person was loved by all and wanted to spread the love by saving the world, or the person was hated and had a poor self-image and wanted to feel accomplished for one reason or another. Also, a close family member probably died. Father, grandfather, wife, children, recalcitrant nephew... You know, Spiderman stuff.

I, however, didn't have any of that. My father wasn't home much, and I was constantly with my mother. I had no friends. I loved writing, listening to music, movies, reading, and horseback riding. I had two dogs and, aside from pretending now and then, had no life. No real life, anyway. I never did anything exciting.

So, yeah. You want to talk about a hero with humble beginnings, look over here! I did just about nothing all day, every day, with no real break between the "doing nothing" and the "being nobody." I guess you could say I was "normal," except I didn't even have school to look forward to, being homeschooled and all. I almost never got out of the house. Bor-ing.

But enough about that. That's not why you're here! You're here to learn about how much you should hate me. So, let the story begin!

…

Okay, yeah, you caught me. I'm not really sure where my story should start. I have a few ideas, but nothing good...

You know, thinking of how to begin a story is quite important. It's supposed to give your readers some sort of hook, so they keep coming back, begging for more. Only it's a little harder for me, because while I really want people to read this, I only want certain people to read this. The ones who love me. Not the people who've never heard of me, or don't think I'm all that great. So I have to keep it entertaining enough so the right people will read it, and boring enough that the wrong people will finally turn off the computer like I told them to do in the first place (even though I knew darn well that they wouldn't do that because all you bookworms are the same – someone in a book says "don't" and you shout "NO!" like a two-year-old and stubbornly keep reading or otherwise doing the opposite of the direct order that was given to you.)

Hmm... That said, I think I know where to start this. Which is good. Because now I can finally start the chapter all official-like.

FOODBORNE ILLNESS

- I -

by Regina Still

It's funny how things stick out at you. Like how your waiter is acting way too nice, or your cashier's hair is so blonde that it's yellow (which kind of creeps you out even though you don't say anything and try your darnedest to look anywhere but his hair but it's just so darn BRIGHT and UNNATURAL that you JUST CAN'T HELP IT and instead you have to busy yourself reading the sign on the wall about how there's a sale on coconut cream pies to keep from looking dumb), or how the glass partition in between these two tables is gone because there's a group of guests celebrating what might be a birthday, or how this whole paragraph is pretty much just a giant sentence strung together unintelligibly. You know. Stuff like that.

And those are exactly the weird things I noticed as my family and I were led to a table dead-center in the middle of a semi-dead restaurant, where all the food was (thankfully) dead as well.

I'm going to be honest right now: our table was too small for us. We were sitting at a four-person table, but there were five of us, and two of the occupants of said table were grabby toddlers. (My younger sister and brother, not to mention any names...) Every single dish that wasn't in use was pretty much thrust as far away from them as possible, which meant I, the poor responsible one, was crowded by empty bowls of soup and half-eaten plates of crackers. But I was used to it, so I really didn't mind all that much.

"Hello, and how are we doing tonight? My name is Craig, and I'll be your waiter this fine evening!"

Fine evening? I thought, stifling a laugh. If this is a fine evening to you, dude, then I feel sorry for you and your home life. It must be terrible. Or you're just too dang happy.

And before you ask, no, I'm not a pessimist. But I wasn't in my greatest mood that day.

"Can I start you off with something to drink?" Craig asked, whipping out his little waiters' notepad and a pen. He had short reddish-brown hair, and some weird goatee-like thing on his face, but I wasn't quite sure whether it had a name or not, and I wasn't sure how you Google something like that, so I still don't know what it's called, even though I've talked to Craig probably a dozen times since that day. It's hard to work up the courage to ask something like that. Also, he was tall. Like, six-foot-three kind of tall. I looked down at my menu, waiting to order last, as I always did.

Finally, after taking everybody else's orders, he came to me. "And what would you like, miss?"

"I'll have white milk, please, and the eggs, hash browns and toast breakfast," I replied politely.

"All right." He asked me a few questions about how I wanted my eggs made and what kind of bread I wanted and he was gone.

Nothing exciting really happened during the dinner, so I'll save you the long, boring description of how many baby wipes it took to clean up my siblings after their "wipe-food-all-over-your-body" party. I'll also spare you the uninteresting conversations I was sometimes dragged into but mostly stayed out of, and the quality of the food which was, at that time, subpar. It's been better, but I understood that the cook was probably busy – the restaurant's dinner rush had come in while we were waiting on our drinks. Figures.

So, after we finished eating, we packed up our circus and left... or started to. Obviously my mother had to pay the bill. So she did. But remember that cashier with the yellow hair we were talking about? Yup. He was still there. I didn't get a good look at his face (just enough to know it was slightly tanner than I was used to seeing and had black eyebrows) because I was much too busy trying to get a look at his name tag – because a guy with hair like that, you just have to learn his name.

Personally, I thought he looked like a Sean, but his name was actually Robert. I was too busy looking at the sign about coconut cream pie in an effort to look nonchalant to listen to his smalltalk with my mother, but I probably hadn't missed anything good, anyway.

I mean, the guy was just a cashier.

The nausea began an hour after my siblings were laid down for the night. Nobody was really doing anything. My mother was talking to my father (who was, per usual, slouched on the couch with a laptop on his legs) who may or may not have been listening, but it really didn't matter because I was doing all the listening for him. And I hardly cared about what my mother had to say, because she only talks about five different subjects and they're rarely updated. But at least I can pat myself on the back and say I'm a good daughter.

Nonchalantly, I stood up and gave a little stretch. "Well, I think I'm gonna go to bed now," I said. I walked into the kitchen and quickly took the vitamins I take every night, with the added bonus of a swig of raw apple cider vinegar – that stuff cures everything. I'm serious. Just look it up if you don't believe me. That night, I took it to help with my heartburn (which I get quite frequently), which I probably got from the grease on the hash browns. I hate eating out.

"'Night, honey," my mother said, giving me a hug. "See you in the morning, bright and early, as usual."

I chuckled, even though I really didn't feel like it. "Yeah. All right. See you at seven – PM."

She laughed. "You're letting me sleep in? That's so nice of you."

I chuckled again and walked over to my father and gave him a hug, too. "'Night, Daddy!"

"Night, Regina," he mumbled in his usual manner. "Sleep well."

"You, too," I replied, and turned, jogging up the stairs and whispering, "Perry!"

Oh, Perry is my Shih Tzu, by the way. He often helps me with my stories. (Especially the ones that turn out well.) He's always with me when I write. Like, at the moment, he's sitting under my chair, sleeping, since this is one of the few times when I'm writing at home. Isn't he helpful?

Perry zipped up the stairs after me, and when I finally reached my bedroom at the end of the hallway, I closed the door before turning around and collapsing on my bed with a moan.

"My stomach hurts," I murmured to Perry, careful to keep quiet so as not to wake up my siblings, who sleep next door and across the hall.

The apple cider vinegar was slowly kicking in, and I was already beginning to feel a bit better, though I still felt pretty miserable. But that was okay... I guess.

I laid on my bed and closed my eyes, not bothering to get up to go through my nightly ritual. It really wasn't that important. I'm all for breaking routine. I like to think of myself as spontaneous, anyway.

So I closed my eyes and let myself slip into a restful sleep...

...Only to be woken up by the sound of someone tripping in the hallway.

My senses on high alert, my self-trained stealth skills kicking in, I made sure to stay still. I rolled over in my bed, my back facing the door to my bedroom, and tried to look dead to the world.

My mother is a much lighter sleeper than I am, but she also knew that I had been having trouble sleeping, being an insomniac and all. I glanced over my shoulder, at the clock on my bedside table, and felt my heart speed up ever so slightly.

3:42 AM.

Dang it. This is around the time I usually woke up at night. I didn't normally go to the bathroom when I woke up, but sometimes I did... My mother might think that this person in the hallway was me. But it wasn't. Because I was lying in my bed trying to look small and asleep, and probably failing since I was trying my best not to hyperventilate. Or, at least, not hyperventilate loudly.

I was trying to figure out what to do, mentally going through everything in my room looking for a suitable weapon/whacking stick, when my door knob jiggled and the door swung open silently.

Darn my door's greased hinges and gaudy decorations. Anybody with such bad taste must have something worth stealing. I really need to take that stupid picture I drew of zebras standing in the African savanna off my bedroom door. It's not even that good.

I took deep breaths, which actually served two purposes: One, calming me down; two, making me look asleep.

Too bad it didn't matter.

Now, you're probably wondering how I knew the guy was a burglar. After all, my mother got up many times at night to soothe my siblings; how did I know it wasn't her? Well, simple: my mother doesn't creep around or try to be quiet, because my father and I are both heavy sleepers.

Oh, and she also doesn't come into my room unless she knows I'm awake. Which I had shown no indication of prior to when the idiot tried to kidnap me.

I figured the guy was just going to creep around my minefield – erm, room – to find something to steal, but instead he walked right up to my bed and gingerly grabbed my arm. I sat up, wide-eyed, praying it was my mother.

The dude in front of me was sooo not my mother.

I opened my mouth to let out a wail, but the man clamped his hand over my mouth before I could get it out. He used his strength full on my face to shove me back down onto my pillow, and started pressing on my windpipe with his free hand, removing the one from my mouth – no way I could scream now, regardless.

This all happened in less than ten seconds, and as I later learned, this guy knew what I suspected he did: that I had practiced screaming into a pillow just for a moment like this, so nobody could (easily) kidnap me by just covering my mouth. Just in case something like this ever happens to you, I'll give you my secret: it's all in the throat. If you want to make your voice heard when shouting into a pillow, scream from the throat instead of the mouth. It's louder that way. Or you could just try not getting into that situation, but as I learned, you just can't plan these things.

The man reached up with his hand that wasn't trying to strangle me and pressed on a bluetooth device that was sitting in his ear (although I couldn't see it because it was covered by his mask), saying, "I've got her. You better have the car ready when I get down there."

"Who... Get off..." I choked.

He chuckled, and whispered, "No – to both, in case you were wondering."

Now, I would LOVE to be able to say that I broke out into some epic kung fu moves and whipped this guy to the ground like a spoonful of mashed potatoes, but this is a memoir, not a fiction novel. And while I could easily change it, the whole point of this is to tell you the truth and, by extension, ruin your opinion of me. And since kung fu is rather counterproductive, I'll tell you what really happened.

I flailed, and managed to land a couple decent (and rather savage) kicks to my adversary's stomach and leg before he pressed on my throat harder to make me stop. He hissed in pain. "You'd better be worth it," he grumbled.

… I didn't like the sound of that.

He pulled out a gun that had obviously been tucked into the back of his black jeans and pointed it right at my head. He whispered, "Look. I'm going to remove my hand. And I need you to not scream, or I shoot you right between the eyes." I nodded, deciding it was better to cooperate until I could get a better angle on him... and maybe some air in my lungs.

He let go and I took a deep, quiet breath, panting slightly. "Who are you?" I whispered, looking up fearfully.

I assumed he glared at me. I really couldn't be sure. "Did I say you could ask questions?"

I considered a witty remark, like, "You didn't say I couldn't ask questions, so technically I'm not in the wrong," but I thought better of throwing a quirk at the guy with the gun that could quite possibly be loaded. So instead I said, "No..."

"Then shut up."

Well then! I thought, but didn't say. To be honest, I'm surprised I wasn't scared stiff.

The man turned back to me. He had been listening to something on his bluetooth earpiece, and had replied with whatever had been said with, "Okay, see you in five." He gave me a look that seemed a bit disdained if you asked me. "Follow me," he said. "No noise, no calling for help, no funny business at all. You try anything, and you'll eat a bullet. Understand?"

I nodded, once again feeling some really good comebacks coming to me. Such as, "I already ate" and "Do or do not, there is no try, remember?" However, I am as wise as I am witty, and my mouth moved not a centimeter.

"Good. Now move." He motioned toward the door with his gun.

I decided not to tell him to take his finger off the trigger so he wouldn't accidentally shoot my sister sleeping peacefully on the other side of the hallway while he waves his gun around like an A-plus report card. He probably wouldn't do it, anyway.

I crept out of my room, remembering I had no socks on, had on only my pajamas, and that my useless dog was still sitting on my bed. Some guard, even though I already knew he wasn't one.

Perry jumped off my bed to follow us.

"Shh," I said to him. His dog tags were jangling like bells on Bob's tail. "Come here." I bent down to pick him up, but he skittered away, being a naturally skittish dog.

"Just go," hissed the man. "Forget the mutt."

I wanted to tell him off, but one look at the gun and I turned and continued down the hall.

When we hit the bottom of the staircase, I glanced around a bit, wondering where he got in, how he got past my other dog, a Husky/Labrador mix named AJ, how we were going to leave, and if there was anything in the immediate vicinity with which I could hit him over the head. Nothing jumped out at me.

"By the way," he whispered, as if reading my mind, "your dog is very nice. Amazing what a few treats could do."

I can't believe my fourteen-year-old dog, who had been vicious to anybody he didn't know when he was younger, had become bribe-ible in his old age.

I swallowed. AJ, despite being an old man, was pretty much the closest thing we had to a decent security system. I wasn't at all comforted by the sight of him lying by the front door like nothing strange was happening.

"Front window," the man said, poking me with the gun's cold barrel. "Now."

"Which one?" I asked, since we had two.

"The right one."

More witty remarks that I didn't say ("I know the right one, but I'm asking you which one the right one is!") ran through my head as I walked toward the window, pulling up the blinds quietly. The window was open, the screen pushed up as well.

I hesitated. I didn't want to leave. Sure, my life was hectic, but it was my life; I hardly knew anything different. I knew stories of people who had gotten kidnapped and never saw their family again, or hadn't seen them until they were decades older. What if that was me? I didn't want that. Ever. I would rather eat a bullet.

Thinking along this line of thought empowered me. Maybe I could get away. Maybe I could take this guy. Maybe I could steal his gun. Maybe I could hit him over the head with it, call the police, and make a cup of tea, since I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, for sure. Maybe, maybe, maybe. All these "maybe I coulds" sounded fantastic... and fantastical. There was nothing substantial in it. It was my imagination, once again giving me some whimsy in my time of need. But it couldn't help me. Not now.

I looked up, out into the coolness of the night... and stepped through the window, out onto the front porch, and away from my old life as I knew it... even if I hadn't known it at the time.