A/N- Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Really wasn't expecting five reviews for the first chapter, what fun surprise! Anyways it didn't take me that long to update, did it? Heehee. Please review my brilliant readers :)

~Rose

I ran down a dimly litted street to where a car was parked on the corner of the street. The sound of the music could still be heard echoing from the high school I happened to be running away from. It had to be nearing eleven o'clock and a feeling of dread had been growing in me ever since I realised my friends had suddenly disappeared from around me.

"Hey!" I called to the car resting next to the sidewalk, "Emma!"

Emma was my friend. I mean, we weren't best friends but I knew her since last year. The thing with her though was she was forgetful, she must have forgot I needed a ride. She must have forgotten I was still on the dance floor when she walked out.

A girl poked her head from the window laughing to the person in the driver's seat. I frowned crossing my arms standing next to her.

"I need a ride Emma, don't you remember? You drove me here."

She only laughed more and mumbled something slurred to the point of incomprehensibility.

I rolled my eyes, "You're drunk."

"You see, that'sactly why you can't come wit us, you're too… boring!" she spat mangling the Enlgish language.

I was outraged, she was out of her mind, past the point of buzzed. She was someone else, a sloppy, hideous, drunk.

"But you're my only ride home!" I practically yelled hoping that somehow the real person under the spiked punch could hear me.

"Then walk!" she screamed back before the car sped off into the chill night leaving me standing there alone and cold.

That's exactly how I got to the position I am in at the present; riding in the back of a police car being escorted home by my legitimately creepy uncle who insists I'm a failure at life and a delinquent that should be kept off the streets like some psycho murderer or serial rapist. Perhaps I'm getting far too ahead of myself.

"You know Evangeline," he begins in that long sort of drawn out way he has about him, like every word is hard to pronounce or something. "When I was a kid I stayed home every night, I had homework to do, sports to participate in."

Here we go agian I think to myself.

"I wasn't out on the streets alone at half past midnight!"

I looked to his face in the mirror of the car, if only he knew the true reason why I was wandering the streets. It was pointless to try to explain anything to him though when he was in one of these moods. I also didn't want to waste my breath. I was almost home and didn't feel like repeating myself two more times to my parents.

"Sorry Allen, you just caught me on a bad night."

"Well then every other night must be a bad one for you! Honestly Evangaleine, if I were like any other cop we would be on the way to the station."

I sighed, after being repeated nearly one hundred times, threats tend to lose their edge.

"I just don't understand Evangeline, your sister was never this… difficult."

I could handle the whole full name deal, but comparing me to my goodie older sister? It was a new tactic for the old copper. It probably wouldn't have affected a normal kid, too bad I'm living with a family that I was adopted into for no apparent reason. It is this circumstance that makes me too sensitive for my own good.

My silence alerted him that I was upset, "Look Evang, you're not the worst I've seen… but you know the agreement we had."

My heat dropped to the pit of my stomach and my head snapped back to meet his gaze in the rear view mirror.

"But Allen, you can't tell my parents, not tonight! Give me just one more chance!" I pleaded pressing against the back of his chair as we pulled into the driveway to my house. I knew he would have to bring this up, but tonight of all nights? I wasn't in the mood.

"Please, I promise I'll never do this again, just don't tell my parents" I swear I sounded so convincing I should have won an Academy Award then and there. He wasn't convinced (that bastard) and walked by me straight to the door. I cursed to myself, I knew I should have gone for the tears.

I watched in inclusive horror as my mom opened the door and her half asleep face dropped into an unmistakable frown as she saw me next to Allen. I couldn't move under her barring gaze.

"Oh what now, Allen?" she groaned her palm covering most of her face. "Not your Spanish teacher's car again?"

I almost smiled at that but thought better of it. That particular incident had been at least two years ago, the spray paint hadn't even been my idea, the eggs on the other hand… it wasn't the jackass didn't deserve it.

"I found her down the street partaking in some dubious acts, she's also out past curfew."

Dubious, really?

My mother looked from me to Allen then back at me, "Eva, I thought you were at the school dance?" she asked as she ushered me in.

"I was," I protested as I tried to make my escape past the both of them.

"Hold on," started Allen, "As you know Lora, we had this little agreement between us."

This just had to be the worst day of my life.

"If it is our last choice…?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"With all the felonies she's committed, you'd be lucky if any school would accept her."

I rolled my eyes, "Felonies? I'm clean, you've got nothing on me!"

"The way you are headed Evangeline, prison isn't that farfetched."

"Thank you Allen," my mother broke in between us possibly preventing a future offence as she opened the door signally him to take his leave.

Allen quickly said goodnight before she shut the door on him and looked back to me as I was halfway up the stairs.

"What were you doing out there tonight, Eva?"

I hesitated to answer, "I was with Emma… and Collin, but I don't know they sorta left…"

I knew my pathetic mumbled excuse wouldn't please her.

"Must I call your father down here? if I do you know the sort of mood he'll be in—"

"Mom, shut up! I'm sorry, I was walking home—that's it—just then that asshole comes out of no—"

"Language Eva!" she exclaimed.

"You know he is! He wants me to leave! Everybody wants me to leave. I'm sick of everyone wishing I'd go away."

She was quiet for a moment, what could I do? This wasn't the first time we were at each other's throats going on about the never ending argument.

"He wants what's best for you, we all do."

"That's funny mom, I'm dying here. Like anyone in this place knows me!" I said with much sarcasm as if one couldn't tell.

"Did Collin hurt you tonight?" she asked sternly out of nowhere. I blinked a few times processing her words, she never liked Collin, my boyfriend of two months, he was much older and had more then a night of wrecking a teacher's car to brag about.

"No," I said quietly, "Not like that."

"You said that he left."

"Yeah, along with Emma," I said under my breath.

Ugh, Emma, I heard myself groaning in my head, you think someone is your best friend then they stab you in the back.

"She didn't…?"

"Oh gee I don't know mom, he's my boyfriend, she's my best friend, they left together in her car and are probably going back to her house. Try to connect the dots here."

So I've finally caught up to myself here. This whole awful affair stared at ten o'clock with homecoming and ended with me in tears screaming to my mother waking up the whole town at one am. With nothing more to say, I excused myself back to my room, unable to make it to the last stair before crying, melting into a mess of running eyeliner and miserably sore feet from walking near to a mile in brand new heels. Pathetic as this all may sound it gets worse, I opened my bedroom door to find a pile of cards on my cluttered desk. It had been my seventeenth birthday, but who really cares about those sorts of things after you turn around the age of ten?

I wiped my eyes removing half of my makeup on the back of my hand. They'd probably be filled with cheap marked down Hallmark cards, the type that doesn't even have a cheesy saying, only a picture of a cat in a party hat or something of similar pointlessness.

To continue my rambling, said card could possibly contain one of the following;

A check if someone happened to be feeling generous, a ten dollar bill, or if I was extra lucky, it would sing when I opened it.

I was not in the mood for this to say the least.

I was snapped from my thoughts with a knock on my door followed by my mom's head poking through.

"Did you find your birthday cards?" she asked.

I creased my brow, "Yeah… I don't feel like opening them yet though."

She nodded before looking down, something wasn't right, I could tell.

"That it? I want to sleep."

She looked to me as I turned to sit on my bed, my back turned to her.

"Eva… this may be a bit hard for you to hear but I need to tell you now, I put it off for too long as it is."

"What is it?" I asked not very interested as I turned on my television and began to flip through channels.

"Please, listen. This is very important, it's something me and Allen have come up with—"

"You can't actually take him seriously, mom, are you sure he's even a real cop?" I asked with a humorless laugh.

"No Evangeline, I do take him seriously. That's the problem with you—you don't take a single thing in your life seriously! Not school, not me or the police. You're not always right, in fact, this time you are dead wrong. I am taking Allen's advice. Come Monday, you'll be attending Ms Porter's Private School in Connecticut."

I choked on a deep breath I had sucked in too quickly, my mind was racing for a way out of it, "You can't just ship me off to some shit school! I'm not just some sort of mistake you can ignore!"

"I'm sorry that's how you see it Eva, nothing's changing my mind," with that she slipped back out of my room, without guilt, without a worry or a qualm as I stood and starred dumbfounded for the second time that night.

This wasn't right, it wasn't even moral. Sure I could understand her reasoning if I had actually done wrong, but that was just it, I hadn't. I was being punished for having the worst luck on this planet and I was about to lose everything because of it.

Tears where inevitable and I didn't bother hiding a cry of frustration as I threw my shoes across the room hitting the wall.

I knew it was completely childish but one thought just kept repeating in my mind; "No one cares, no one ever listened and now they're finally getting rid of me. Why did they wait so fucking long?"

I searched across the room for something else to toss when I saw the pile of cards. I grabbed them savagely and threw them against the wall across my room.

There was no use to this I finally realized collapsing onto my bed staring to the ceiling. I was about to pull my blankets completely over my head and stay there for the rest of fall to hibernate when a letter next to my head caught my attention. Not caring, I grabbed it readying another throw when I got a better look at it in the dim light my television casted.

This letter in particular looked so much older than the others, it was stained, the envelope looked like it had fallen in water at one point since the writing had been smudged.

Someone must have been in a festive mood, I thought to myself continuing to examine it. The oddest part of it was that there wasn't a single stamp on it, only my first name written neatly, and extravagantly, across the front. Not being able to make heads or tails of it, I decided on opening it, what could the harm be? Maybe it was one of those singing cards…

I carefully ripped open the envelope sitting up in my bed, and even more carefully extracted the thin piece of parchment from inside. This was no Hallmark card, it wasn't one you could eve buy at a store, it was a hand written document, and to be honest, it looked as if it had been done perfectly with a quill. Finally, after a moment of staring in awe, I decided to actually read it, it wasn't that long.

Dear Evangeline Katrina… I squinted as hard as I could at the last name, Hook..?

I am presently awaiting your arrival, your mother I trust has raised you to… again I had to look harder to truly comprehend what I was reading… raised you to assist me in the demise of Pan and Neverland.

I looked up from the letter. What that hell? Demise? Pan? Neverland? I laughed dryly out loud, I finally got the joke! So what is this some weird way to tell me I'm going to Disney World? I continued reading for the hell of it.

Neverland is where I shall take you, your home awaits you! After years of sleepless nights and restless dreams, finally we shall kill Peter Pan together. I cringed, this sure was a sick way of inviting someone to the happiest place on earth…

You loving fa—no it couldn't say that...

Captain James Hook

Captain… Hook?

I looked closer to the second to last line, it couldn't have said father, do they think I'm turning ten here? As if I would believe any of this childish scribble, but then agian it was... odd. I looked back to my name. Katrina? How many people could know that?

As I concentrated on the paper a shadow slowly moved over my source of light covering the letter in darkness. Slowly, I lifted my head and was met with a tall, dark figure standing there in the center of my room.

If only the letter had been a cheap Hallmark…