Look, you better listen. Because I'm only going to say this once.

The view from the bridge that day was rather nice. Nice golden sunsets are always a plus side to a day, but this one honestly seemed like a rope that was a bit too short to pull me out of the hole I dug myself into. The wind was fierce and flew in gusts around me as I stood on the 776 feet tall Golden Gate Bridge. Well, it was 776 feet if one went from water to top, rather than road to top. They never really paid that much attention to that measurement – sort of like how nobody paid attention to me when I was hurting from neglect and an abusive father. They would have probably pay attention to both if I committed suicide, probably to write some sob story of a news article that no one was going to read because they didn't care about me – some 17 year old girl named Eve Bain.

Sweet Jesus, with how I saw the world before I got moved to Wildeden, it's no wonder I wanted to die.

Quite honestly, I think the police and people that were below me were there more because they were scared to watch someone die than because they cared about me individually. Sure they spurted some "You deserve to live" nonsense up at me through boom-phones, which only made me angrier at the world. Looking back, I don't even know the reason why it made me angry. I was a directionless ball of angry, topped with dirty blonde hair and armed with what I liked to think were the sharpest pair of brown eyes the world had seen. But all that didn't matter up there. I could just jump and everything wouldn't matter anymore. Afterlife, Heaven, Hell – to me, it didn't matter.

But I never got my chance to die. At least, not die that day.

A police officer, some hotshot who didn't follow his superiors' orders very well, stripped a nearby jet-punk of his jetpack and started to fly up. I had closed my eyes and let the world around me blur with the speed I was falling at. Every little worry I had slipped through my mind and soul like little grains of sand, lost in the wind gusting around me. It was bliss, letting go of everything.

Then it all came back to me when that brave asshole caught me. He held me bridal style, like I was some damsel he'd just saved from a particularly nasty dragon. Too bad that those two were one and the same in this case.

"What the fuck?! You asshole, I was done. I was finished. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SAVE ME?!" I snarled, squirming in his hold. He didn't answer me though. Just held me and smiled to the cameras. He kept doing the show-dog routine until he handed me to the paramedics, who gave me a shock blanket. It was a nice red color, like that of a slowly burning sunrise. I still have the damn thing in my room, spread out on my bed. The paramedics drove me down to the hospital where they checked me over like I had bullet wounds in my stomach. All I did was jump from a 776 foot bridge support, not get shot in a war.

Then he came. He being Samuel Prince, owner of Black Stone Enterprises (a leading weapons company, in case you didn't know. Prince is worth at least a few battleships' weight in precious metals/chemicals). He made me sick to my stomach, the way he carried himself. He didn't own this hospital – maybe the 40,000 or so other ones across the country, but not this one. His hair was gelled back, looking a bit like demonic horns. But maybe that was me being negative again. His eyes, yellow like an empty beer bottle, held the same look that a little kid got when he found some trading card that could trump his friends' pieces of paper. "I suppose it would be stupid to ask if you're feeling alright, Ms. Bain," he replied in this accent. Sounded old, maybe European. Maybe the disgusting lovechild of a British accent and an African one.

"Bull's eye, sir," I replied quietly, turning to look at him as he interrupted my glare to God via the ceiling. That's when I got a good look at him to get his looks all described in my brain, put down to memory. Scumbag or not, Prince was a money-naire – you know what I'm saying?

He hummed, stroking that stupid little goatee he had – made him look like the Devil in those old, cheesy cartoons. His demon horn hair didn't help any. "Perhaps a change of scenery would help you…the doctors are already making arrangements to send you to a little asylum down in Florida for you to be properly monitored and cared for. But we both know that's not what you want."

"Sir, with all due respect," I replied, "We just met. I don't think you even know what I want."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. You see, I was once like you – angry at the world, no use for the anger. But I can give you that use…if you'll let me. I'll pay for you to get away from your father, to get away from all the little children at your school who don't understand. All you have to do is one thing."

"There's always a catch."

"It's business, dear, that's how business works. Now, you see, my four stepchildren went missing some time ago. However, I recently found them in Wildeden, Iowa. If you could keep an eye on them for me and my wife, I would so appreciate it."

God, his voice made his sickening aura worse. Guy wasn't bad looking – not attractive, but not ugly either. Just…something about him felt wrong. But…I didn't see any other option. If I didn't go through with his, I probably would've been driven nuts in an environment where I never got a choice for anything that truly mattered.

I sighed, looking back at the ceiling, "I'll do it. You arrange everything – a house, furniture, all the necessities I'll need to fit in – and I'll do it, Mr. Prince."