Chapter 1


Never was anything great achieved without danger. - Niccolo Machiavelli


*THREE YEARS LATER*

"So, how do you feel you've come to terms with it?"

I sighed heavily through my nose. "Spectacularly."

"Anna, this is not a joke." My therapist snapped at me for the thousandth time. "I realize that trying for humor is a defense mechanism of yours, but-"

"What do you want me to say?" I cut her off, my glare turning from annoyed to pissed. "I've told you everything. It was the shittiest of shitty nights. I lost my two best friends to a psychotic kidnapper, ninja.." I waved my hand wildly for more descriptive terms. " ..thing! I apparently went crazy enough to 'not remember it the right way. I did hit my head after all.'" I cut her a sharp grin, my words cold and harsh, mocking the hundreds of sympathetically smiling doctors who weren't supposed to tell me that there was something wrong with me. "And my cousin convinced me that I should see a shrink, so I'm seeing you. Obviously you aren't good enough to fix me, huh doc? Better luck with your next lunatic," I spit the word. "and I'll see you later."

I roughly pulled my bag over my shoulder and stormed out of her office, slamming her door shut behind me. The patients in the waiting room jumped at the loud noise, but I paid them no attention; slamming my hand into the elevator button, but eventually taking the stairs, too impatient to wait.

The session had been a long one.

They always seemed long to me, but especially with this new woman.

I've had a few therapists over the years; it always ends the same way. They "recommend" me for someone "better suited to help me". No one is suited to help me, it seems. I've had a couple that almost helped, that almost got me to believe them, almost convinced me I might really have imagined the whole thing.

But I always come to my senses in the end.

Because I am not crazy. I know I'm not.

I know exactly what I saw.

Just because nobody believes me doesn't mean that it isn't true.

Not that I can really blame them for their doubt. I mean, it is pretty impossible; nobody can fly, or make it colder, or have weird ice powers, or keep these supernatural, unexplained powers from their best friend. Best friends don't just leave you behind, bleeding on the ground, and disappear off the face of the Earth.

Except that's kind of exactly what my best friends did to me.

But I've forgiven them, because I'm just that great of a person.

Talking to those therapists wasn't helping me. I did what everyone said; I went in with an open mind and held nothing back. I always started at the beginning.

I met Elsa and Kristoff late in my sophomore year of high school.

I hadn't really had a lot of friends before. I mean, I guess if I'm being honest I didn't really have any friends. I was kind of weird.

I am kind of weird.

But that's beside the point.

Anyway, I met them when I was 15 years old. They were new; new kids kind of get a hard time pretty often. Especially when the new kids are.. off.

Not to say that there was anything wrong with Elsa or Kristoff. They were just kind of closed off, to themselves. They gave off a strange feeling. The same kind of feeling you get when you see a caged predator: temporarily controlled, but unfriendly. Dangerous. A feeling that screamed others were not welcome.

However, you should never underestimate the fool with a cause.

On the first week of their arrival we were in the lunchroom; I was sitting at a table with a collection of other people that didn't have friends, and thus always banded together in the common standing of loneliness. Elsa and Kristoff, not knowing the ways of Warren Public High School, decided to sit at the long lunch table in the back of the cafeteria, which is, unfortunately, right where many of the basketball players normally sit.

This is going to sound cliché, but at Warren, basketball players were untouchable. Our school was too small to have football, and didn't really have any support for baseball or soccer or any other sport or activity, so our basketball players were kings, and mutiny was intolerable. Not to mention the fact that most of them were seniors, and the fact that the two freaky new sophomores had the audacity to sit at their table was apparently galling. Now, if Jamie Bell (point guard, and previously stated fool with a cause) had decided to deviate from the norm, and not be a complete dick, he would have noticed that two people sitting on the farthest possible edge of his table would not have been an inconvenience in the slightest, considering no one even needed those seats in the first place.

But his dickishness, if anything, only seemed to increase when confronted with the twins.

I was a two tables down, too far away to hear clearly, but I sure as hell could see it, and Elsa filled in the blanks for me after a few days when I got up the nerve to ask.

Apparently Jamie said something along the lines of "The fat guy has to leave, but if blondie wants to chill with me then that's fine, as long as she recognizes the privilege." to the uproarious laughter of his fellow team members. There was a pause of complete silence. I remember Elsa putting a hand on Kristoff's shoulder. (I later learned it was to stop him from bashing Jamie's head against the table.) Then Elsa spun on her heel and drove her fist directly into Jamie's weak chin.

There was a lot of confusion after that, the lunchroom promptly descended into chaos.

Somewhere during the pushing and shouting I found myself beside Jamie where he had fallen on the ground.

I kicked him in the groin.

Before you judge me, you have to understand that Jamie Bell had given me crap since sixth grade, when I moved to this school. I will not apologize for not being an angel. I just took an opportunity where I saw it.

The problem was that other people had seen it as well.

I ended up sitting on the small benches outside of the principal's office, waiting for a punishment that, I felt, was completely undeserved.

I felt the bench shift as a small, thin figure sank down regally beside me.

I looked into the biggest, coldest blue eyes I had ever seen in my life. It felt exactly like looking at a frozen ocean. Massive, powerful, and bitingly cold.

"Hi."

The small word had popped out unheeded, and, on instinct, I slapped a hand over my mouth. Then, realizing how ridiculous I must look, quickly shoved my hand under my leg, in order to keep it from doing anything else stupid.

"I, uh-" I cleared my throat. The blonde girl cocked her head to the side curiously, looking very much like a puppy trying to decide if the doorbell came from the TV or the door.

Well, that was really fucking cute.

"Um I- I'm Anna Hart." I stuck my hand out to shake.

The girl dropped her gaze to my hand and studied it, but did not shake. After a moment I curled my hand into a fist and dropped it to my knee. The fact that there was only one bench outside of the office meant that the blonde girl and I had to sit uncomfortably close for complete strangers, unless one of us offered to sit on the floor. It was made worse that the girl would not stop staring at me. I felt the need to fill the tense silence, which was a big mistake on my part.

"So, um, you're new here, right? I mean, I guess that's kind of obvious, being a small school and everything. We don't get a surplus of new kids. It's not so bad here, honestly, you just have to avoid Jamie Bell, Dillon Marks, and Stephanie Ramirez; those three are bad news. I mean, you obviously know that already with Jamie. I just thought I should give you a head's up about the others- not that you need it or anything. Like, I'm sure you and your brother can look after yourselves. You both seem nice by the way. I mean, from what I've seen. Not that I've seen a lot- obviously, I mean, I-"

"I'm Elsa Wolf."

The girl's voice was as clear and sweet as a bell, smoothly cutting off my humiliation with a small, polite smile.

"It is nice to meet you, Anna."

I had to suppress a small shiver at the sound of my name coming from her. She sounded better than anyone else when they said it. Maybe it was something with the way she pronounced it, with a small upward inflection on the second syllable, or the fact that there was something slightly strange about the way she spoke, almost as if she was struggling against an accent or something (though Elsa assured me that she was born in the Midwestern US, and did not know any other languages); either way it was great. I had to consciously stop myself from asking her to say it again.

"Uh, yea." I cleared my throat again. "Elsa." She smiled when I said it. "That's a pretty name."

She laughed a little bit, covering her mouth with her fingers. "Thank you."

"You're gorgeous."

There was a silence so profound I could have suffocated in it, had I been able to breathe at all.

"W-wait- what?!" My voice squeaked out about three octaves too high. "I mean- I- I did not mean to say that!"

My face promptly drained of all blood when her eyebrows drew up in what I swear was the slightest amount of hurt.

"No, no, no, no!" I waved my hands wildly in front of my face, startling Elsa into the back of the bench. "Not- That came out wrong! I- I just mean- I didn't mean to say that out loud. I- I had every intention of thinking it-"

There was another beat of silence. Elsa looked like she was fighting a smile.

I smacked a hand over my eyes and leaned into the back of the bench. "Never mind. Please ignore me."

There was a long minute where I thought Elsa probably would take my advice; it definitely made sense for her to. However, after a long pause, I felt thin, cool fingers barely gripping my wrist, holding it almost as if it was a dirty tissue, and pulling my hand away from my face.

Elsa pulled away the very second she was able to stop touching me (I tried not to let that hurt my feelings) but then she grinned at me. A large, lopsided grin that spoke of mischief and sent a small shiver down my spine. It completely obliterated the proper and regal image she had previously put off.

She just smiled wider when I finally met her gaze. "No."

"What?"

She shook her head, her grin never faltering. "I think that my brother would be very amused by you, Anna."

I rolled my eyes, grudgingly smiling back at her. "Happy to be of service."

From that point on Elsa, Kristoff and I were practically inseparable. I stayed at their house constantly, we had nearly every class together, every activity we took up was one we could all participate in; eventually people started referring to us as 'The Triplets', instead of 'Anna and the Twins', though I looked nothing like the blondes. It did take a few weeks for all of us to completely be comfortable with one another. Well, if I'm being honest, Kristoff was completely fine with me the second he heard what I had been sent to the office for. It was Elsa and I that had some adjusting to do.

I'm nearly positive she knew about my crush on her. I was never exactly subtle about it, and Elsa was exceptionally bright, but she never acknowledged it besides rare occasions where a different Elsa would emerge for brief moments; an Elsa that was confident, seductive, alluring, regal and superior in a way that was the single sexiest thing I've ever encountered. It was these moments where I realized just how devastatingly attracted I was to her; there was no helping it. These were the moments where she teased me with small bursts on random skin to skin contact that would make my breath catch and cause her to smirk at me, where she whispered much closer to my ear than necessary, where she'd verbally stake her claim over me, joking in a faux dramatic declaration about how I was to be "Hers, and hers alone for as long as we live" but leaving enough genuine possessiveness in her gaze that it made me to blush all the way to the tips of my ears.

But Elsa was strange; every time something along those lines would happen she would draw into herself, sometimes even going so far as to give me the cold shoulder for a few days. The first time it happened it scared me enough to back way off. I was perfectly content with being her friend; ecstatic actually. But it seemed that the only thing weaker then my physical strength was my strength of will; I just couldn't stop myself from liking Elsa, it was like asking me to stop breathing.

I sighed.

I miss them so much, sometimes. All the time.

I was abruptly brought back to the present by a rather large rain drop hitting me square in the eye, and found myself on the familiar street, seven flights down from my therapist's office. I often did that, space out for a while and let my body go on autopilot, get lost in memories that I had no business thinking about. That's what therapy always did; pretended that it was going to help me; somehow make me forget, and then brings up the past more than any other goddamn thing in my life. I can forget much more easily if I don't go to therapy, that's what I tell my cousin, and my doctors, and pretty much everyone. I can pretend it never happened, and slowly it kind of seems like I'm right, maybe it didn't happen, maybe I imagined the twins, and that basketball game, and the entire messy event; I can almost make myself believe that. I just need more time.

While I walked along, my mind a mess of angry insults still aimed mostly at my therapist, I felt a strange sensation run up my spine. The same feeling you get when you're playing hide and seek as a kid; when you know they're about to find you, and you can't move, can't breathe, can only be silent with undeniable fear and excitement.

I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was following me.

One thing you should know, I'm about the farthest thing from paranoid you can find. It was always one part of my psychiatric evaluation that seemed to baffle my therapists; every one of them expected me to be nearly incapacitated with fear of the shooter, always on guard unless he came back. When I tried to explain to them how I knew he was dead, how I saw him die, I always greeted with sympathetic glances, and gentle reminders that "We have to try and keep reality separated from the trauma, okay?"

But I knew the truth, I didn't have anything to worry about. If I was sure of one single thing that happened that day, it's that Elsa killed that man. She was glowing with the intention of it, she had wanted to. And I don't doubt for a second that if Elsa wanted someone dead, they'd be that way. So, when I get a strange feeling, the kind of instinct that whispers something is wrong, I normally shrug it off.

The only thing was it had been happening kind of often lately.

Seeing that man stare at me while I walked out of the grocery store, that woman casually following me to my apartment building after I got off work, her eyes following my every movement, a tall man leering at my car when I leave my cousin's house. All during the last couple of months this had been happening. I hadn't told anyone, I didn't want to come off as crazy and worry my cousin even more about me, but I wasn't stupid. I can tell when people are paying just a little bit too much attention to me, and the fact that these watchers seemed to know my schedule frightened me more than I wanted to admit. Last week I got scared enough that I called the police and told them I thought I was being stalked; the lackluster response I got was all the incentive I needed to give up in that endeavor.

I stopped in my tracks and studied the nearly empty street I was walking down. The only people were two homeless men in the alcove of a closed up shop, and a harrowed looking woman walking briskly down the opposite side of the street, muttering loudly to herself. Just as I was about to dismiss my fears and continue on my way home something caught my eye.

In the alleyway directly to my left someone was leaning casually against the brick wall, smoking a cigarette, and staring intensely at me. I made eye contact with the gaze underneath the hood of the jacket. There was a small puff of smoke and the figure dropped the cigarette, stomping it under the heel of their boot, and shrugged their shoulder off the wall, slowly making their way out of the ally toward me. When the figure stepped out into the street light I could clearly see that it was a man, with the stature of an ox and a mean glare to accompany it.

I froze, staring at him, trying to figure out whether or not I should be as scared as I was.

Then he grinned at me.

I quickly ducked my head and continued walking, albeit faster than normal. The man never sped up, but did continue after me, like he had all the time in the world.

"Okay, calm down, calm down, it's okay. You'll be okay." I muttered quietly and gripped my hand around the pepper spray bottle hanging from my lanyard. The inside of my stomach felt like it was coated in ice, dread slowly flowing all the way to my fingertips. "You've got this, be prepared, you're safe."

Those stupid tips from that Personal Safety class my cousin made me go to buzzed around my head, dinging off parts of my brain that made it impossible to actually remember any of it, just enough to let me know how useless I was when filled with panic. My apartment complex was two blocks farther south, and then one street over; I could make it, I could definitely make it.

I chanced a quick glance behind me. The man was still walking, somehow even closer to me than he was before. I had about seven different instincts telling me to forget my pride and just take off in a dead sprint. I was in varsity track; no way he would catch me.

But a larger part of me (a much stupider part) adamantly refused to take off running just because some dude was walking behind me, in the same general direction.

You're fine. I took a deep breath. You're overreacting.

I tried to look back again, but my coordination had been all used up for the day, and my spectacular ability for tripping over literally nothing returned to me with a vengeance.

I rocketed up from the wet sidewalk, my head whipping from side to side, fists raised and ready, sure that by now the man must be nearly right on top of me.

Except he wasn't.

My heartbeat drummed loudly against my ears, my muscles tensed, coiling to into tight springs, ready to release every pent up drop of adrenaline, waiting for the man to step out from the dark corner he was hiding in. I searched both sides of the street feverishly, even going so far as to run down three different alleys, checking behind dumpsters and old piled up boxes and crates, which is really really dumb because I was ready to run for my life not five minutes ago, so actively looking for the man was probably not a very good idea, but it ended up being pointless anyway.

He had vanished.

"You ain't gonna find what you lookin' for, sugar." I jumped at the quiet voice, not having seen the elderly homeless woman sleeping in an old refrigerator box that I hadn't thought to look inside of. "See, whatchu's chasin is The Boogeyman."

She paused to grin at me, showing several missing teeth. "And ain't no soul from Heaven or Hell gonna catch that sumbitch. He leaves with the smoke. 'Till you learn to see whatchu lookin' for, yous wastin' your time."

She cackled loudly as I huffed and stomped down the alleyway, back to the street. I wanted to go home; I needed some chocolate.

"Betta' watch that pretty backside, girl!" The woman called after me down the street, her wheezing cackle not letting up in the slightest. "Children ain't got no business chasin' ghosts!"

"Stupid woman." I muttered to myself while stomping heavily down the street in anger, probably looking a bit deranged to passersby.

When I finally made it to my shitty apartment complex and hauled myself up the four flights of stairs (The elevator hadn't worked since long before I moved in.) I nearly collapsed against my door in gratitude, quickly unlocking it and falling heavily onto my kitchen floor. After a moment of deliberation I decided that it was just as nice as anywhere else, and curled up in the middle of the floor, taking deep, heavy breaths for a few moments.

I was rattled. I would never admit it out loud because the last thing I needed was for a therapist or friend to have one more thing to watch me for, but it was true. It had been a long day, and now all I wanted with to watch a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy and eat some of my emergency chocolate in the back of my fridge.

I yanked myself up, using the kitchen counter as leverage, and just grinned for a second, looking around my little home, trying my best to leave all the stress and fear from the last few hours right outside my front door.

When I say my apartment is tiny, I mean tiny. Like, except for the bathroom, everything is in one room. I have a big sliding wooden door that's pocketed with random, small glass portions (kind of making the door itself a bit useless given it's intended purpose of blocking me from sight) on the far side of my living/dining room that my friend/neighbor Olaf help me set up. It blocks my bed, and that's literally it, but I lovingly call it my bedroom. The far wall that faces the street has a massive window that leads out to my fire escape where I have a bunch of potted flowers and a bean bag chair (The landlord stopped asking me to keep it clear when I walked through the entrance with my fourth small cactus). I've donned the fire escape my "chill zone" and if I ever had to use it to escape an actual fire I still feel like it would be my favorite place in the world. In other words, I've completely embraced the romanticized shitty-New-York-hovel, and I refuse to apologize for it. I love my apartment, I appreciate it's shittiness; and often times I will come home and just sit for a minute, reveling in my ownership of this place, and loving every strange quirk I find here. Many people would probably disagree with me, but what do they know?

I took two steps into my living room before it hit me.

My lights were on.

So was my TV.

And there was a large blond head poking up from the top of my couch, barely visible over the plush cushions.

"Hey, princess."

My breath caught in my throat, my palms started to sweat, my heartbeat drummed in my ears a violent symbol crash, shattering any possible cognitive ability I had previously held because I couldn't think.

"Impossible." I breathed.

The head shifted, turned to face me, and the weight of an anvil crashed against my rib cage, immediately bringing tears to my eyes, because this could not be happening.

"K-Kristoff?" My voice cracked. He grinned widely at me.

"Anna." He lifted a tube in his hands a waved it a little over his head. "You're out of Pringles."


Author's Note: Hi, to anyone that might be reading this! At this point, it's probably kinda clear that I don't really know how to work this website very well, as well as this being my first attempt at writing any sort of fanfiction, but I'm trying to muddle through. Anyway, I've got some pretty cool plans for this story, I think it might turn out good in the end, so anyone who might be reading this and enjoying it, thank you so much! Also, I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors that y'all might see, it's kind of hard for me to find them after I've read over it like a thousand times, my bad, I'll try to get better at not leaving so many. Also, to people who have been on here for a long ass time, and know how to maneuver this site, please be patient with me, I'm trying to figure it out as fast as I can haha

Tips are super helpful if y'all wanna tell me where I can improve or things I'm doing wrong, that would be awesome! Just please be nice to me, as I said this is my first one, and it might get better with time, we'll just have to wait and see. Thank you guys!

-AJ