Prologue
She would never call herself a child-prodigy. She was too modest for that. And she never saw herself that smart or talented as others portrayed her. She just wanted her father to be happy, to be proud of his little girl. That's why she studied in every single subject as hard as she could. She even took interest in his work and hobbies… All so she could see a smile on his face, and not the hurt look, whenever he looked at her… The same look he looks at her mother's picture…
"Samara!" she flinched hearing her name yelled out and turned away from the fireplace, where most of her family photos were held, and looked at the door, like waiting for the caller to come in. Though, she perfectly knew, she was supposed to come over… Giving a light sigh, Samara put the picture she was holding back on the fireplace, next to the others. She once more looked at the photo she was holding before. There was a young couple. Male was about twenty-five years old, tall, dark-haired, muscular, really good-looking, and a woman, she was pretty short, compared to the male, but her blonde hair and green eyes made her not less beautiful than her husband was. And then there was a baby, which the woman was holding. It seemed that it was somewhere around a month old, and puny little hair showed, that the baby was also going to be blonde. That was Samara, and the couple – they were her parents. But the only one she had a chance to know was her father. Her mother died from blood cancer, when she was only one year old. She always wanted to meet her, but that just wasn't meant to be. And the older she got, the better she understood that – you won't change the past…
"Sam!" she flinched again, when her father called her once more and soon she was by his side at his bedroom, where he was packing his luggage. Though, there was almost twenty years difference between the picture and present, the male didn't look very different. Sure, he got a bit fat with the age, but that wasn't really seen, considering he was still over 6 feet and 5 inches tall. His face was filled with wrinkles, but they weren't so bad, not in Sam's eyes, at least. The most noticeable thing was probably his hair – there were some silver strands, showing in his short dark-brown hair, but it suit him pretty well, especially, when he would put on a suit for his work. "You called?" Sam asked, while standing next to him, checking silently what he was putting in the luggage and what leaving behind. "Yeah, sweaty, could you go downstairs and help Stella prepare the breakfast?" She lifted one eyebrow, not really understanding, why would he ask this, but then the male stepped away from his luggage and just put his hands up. "She wanted to make the breakfast today, so all of us could sit nicely together, since we won't be able to do that for quite a while now…" Samara just rolled her eyes with a strange smile. "Shouldn't she be packing too?" The male just shrugged and locked his suitcase. "She was already done with it yesterday's evening…" She gave a faint laugh and shook her head a bit. "And you always said that women are always late… Look at yourself now…" Father took another, quite small, case and started packing his electronics – phone, iPad, ect. "I know, I know, I'm being Slowpoke right now… But if we both know Stella, we'll be late to the plane, just because she started to cook, now go help her, or so God help me, if this trip starts with being late…" Sam laughed again and patted his back. "Alright, alright. Don't get stressed now…" She said and soon went downstairs and towards the kitchen.
When father first introduced Stella to her, Sam was far from happy. Her father was over fourty, and he brought a woman, who could be a sister to her. Besides, they were total opposites. In, like, everything. At first, Sam couldn't stand the sheer sight of her. Stella was short compared to her, 5 feet and 2 inches, while Samara wasn't far from 6 feet, and that's when she wasn't wearing high-heels. Sam loved the fact, that she was tall, and sometimes she wanted to be even taller, so she just didn't feel comfortable being around someone as small as Stella. Another physical difference between them, which Sam really disliked at first, was the hair. Samara always was ivory blonde, with long, waist-length hair, that in the summer almost looked pure white and Stella… She had short, tom-boyish ebony black hair. Few times she mixed her for a guy… A very short guy… But that was the physical difference that Samara learned to ignore few months after Stella started living with them. The other things were more difficult. Sam took really big interest in her father's main hobby – hunting, and she would go anywhere with him to hunt. And Stella tried to stop this, saying, that it's not appropriate for a girl to go hunting. (Says the one with tom-boyish haircut…) But she never succeeded in stopping her hunting, because father enjoyed her company… And there were some few more similar situations, when Stella tried to be a 'mother' for Sam. But you can't really be a mother for a kid, who's already twenty years old. Finally, Stella just gave up. She didn't try to change Samara, nor her dad anymore, seeing, that it would only make things worse between the women. And when she stopped this, Sam finally started to like her. She was quite nice and understanding… And though Sam still thought about her more of a sister, than a mother, she put up with the thought that her father is going to marry this woman… And so he did… Last week, they finally exchanged rings, and now they were going on a honey moon.
"Hey, Samara…" Stella purred like a kitten, while mixing pancake batter. "How's Lucas? Did he finish packing?" She asked about her father and his struggle to put everything in the suitcases. "Nah, he's still packing all of the devices…" She answered and went over to the stove, where the pan was. It was already hot, so she assumed that the breakfast will be done shortly. "Oh, could you help me with the breakfast? I'm afraid I won't be able to finish everything on time…" Stella asked and Sam nodded. "That's why I'm here for…" And so they made breakfast together. It wasn't very hard to do so on your own, but still, some things went faster than the others, when they worked together. The pancakes were done by the time when Lucas brought down the last suitcase downstairs and put it next to the front door. He then entered the kitchen with a big smile on his face. "Ok, we have exactly half an hour to eat, and then we're off to the airport" He said, as he sat at the table and put some pancakes into his plate. "You sure you don't want me to drive you there, instead of a taxi?" Samara asked, while pouring some orange juice into the glass, to which Lucas just shook his head. "No, you save your gas for your own trips, we'll be fine…" Stella nodded in agreement and Sam didn't say a word about it, just enjoyed Stella's cooking. She didn't cook much, but when she did… God, she was awesome at it…
"Ok, now be good. Don't destroy the house. And write us something once or twice, while we're gone, ok?" Lucas put his hands on Samaras shoulders and looked at her with a sad look. It was hard for him to say goodbye to his little girl for whole two months. But Samara just laughed. "Dad, I'll be fine, don't worry… You two just go and have the time of your life, forget everything, that's left here…" She glanced at Stella that was standing behind her father. "Just make sure, he doesn't eat too much junk food, or his cholesterol will rise again" she gave a wink and Stella laughed a bit. "I'll make sure of it…" By saying 'junk food' she meant 'alcohol', that was like a code for Stella to not let him drink too much, or he will have liver problems. Sam looked back at the man and gave him a big hug. When she stepped back, she pushed him towards the taxi. "Ok, now go, or you'll be late…" He, together with Stella, sat inside the taxi and after final goodbyes, they were gone… Sam gave a light sigh and looked around. Their house was in the outskirts of the town, so they didn't have many neighbors, which meant peace and quiet for whole two months… How will she be able to survive that? She shook her head, while getting back inside, with a strange smile on her face. She went straight to the balcony, which led to the backyard and took out a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray from the little cabinet near the door. Both, her father and Stella, knew about her smoking, but since she did it quite rarely, they didn't say much about it. Sometimes even Lucas would come out with her for a quick smoke. After all, she was a grown up, and if she chose to spend her money on cigarettes, it was her own problem. For the past few years she was working at a car service as a mechanic. A strange job for a woman, you'd say? Yes, it was strange, but she was one of the best mechanics in the service, so the owner didn't want to let her go after the first month she worked there, so she stayed. And though her studies were completely different from her job (she was studying economics), Sam was still thinking in working more with engineering and technology, and so car service was something like that… She sometimes thought that it was her father's influence on her, why she was working with cars. He was crazy for his BMW, which was now standing in the garage. He managed to buy a brand new one, when she was fifteen and she was always there, when he did some modifications or simply repaired it. That's how she managed to re-build her pick-up truck, because compared to it, a metal can had more worth than that old vehicle. But Sam managed to fix it, and now all that was left was to re-paint it. She loved her car, but it wasn't for a show, like the BMW. She usually drove with it, when they would go hunting in the nearby forest. It was easier to bring back the animals in the back of the truck and she was never afraid of cleaning the blood stains.
Samara let out a puff of smoke, while staring at her backyard, though she wasn't looking at anything, just thinking. 'Maybe I should go hunting? Or invite some friends over?' she thought, while turning her head to the right a bit. As it was said, they didn't have many neighbors, but there were some houses in the street they were living. There were two more, while going from the town, towards them, but they were built further away from each other, than normally. Then there was a huge park, something like New York's Central and few more houses. The forest was a bit over a mile after the last house. If you would go for a simple walk, it's not that far, but when you have to drag like five rabbits and a roe-deer back home, you can feel the distance… Though, it's been a while since they hunted bucks. There was a shortage of them these past few years, and since her father was the head hunter in these outskirts, he also had the duty to save the wild life that had troubles in surviving in these woods. Sometimes it would be rabbits, sometimes bucks, sometimes even wolves. Yeah, they had wolves, and it was forbidden to hunt them, because there were only few packs and only in the northern territories, so there weren't many encounters. But one year few other packs came across and they started to run around in the middle of the woods, and people didn't really like that, especially when few hunters were attacked. Then Lucas called the animal service to get a permission to hunt down the packs, but when the service declined, saying, that wolves are endangered in these areas, he thought of another way. He called the same animal service, suggesting hunting down the new packs, that been terrorizing the forest with sleeping darts and drive them somewhere further, to another forest, where there weren't any hunters. The idea was good enough for animal service to accept and after a week the new packs were transferred to a new place. Samara was there, with her father, and when they found a nest with wolf pups, she almost managed to persuade him to take one home. Good thing he didn't let her keep the pup… No one would have time to take care of him now…
Samara extinguished the cigarette and closed her eyes, leaning in the chair. Yeah, maybe she'll go hunting in a few days, and maybe she'll even invite over some friends the day after, serving some rabbit meat… Oh, her friends loved the fresh wild meat that she hunted… Except one. The girl was vegetarian, but she would never get angry if someone next to her was eating meat. Everyone always thought that she wasn't eating any for health problems, but the real reason was unknown. If she wants to tell them the reason, she will eventually. Sam stood up and stretched her arms up, giving a light sigh. 'Yeah, that plan sounds good… But today, I'll just relax…' she thought and walked back inside to watch a movie, or do something else not productive. She could let herself do that now… After all, it was summer, and summer meant vacations, even though she'll have only one month of it. In July she will get back to work and in August's last week – back to studies. So, this whole month she will pay attention only to her needs and nothing more…
