AUTHOR NOTE: The suspense is killing me, I have to post the first chapter or I'll kill myself. Please R&R because if I don't get any feedback I won't continue with the story :) It's kind of irrelevant towards the whole spy side of things, but it's just Alice's life before she gets told she's a spy legacy.
- Amy

DISCLAIMER: I am not Ally Carter, nor am I affiliated with her or the Gallagher Girls franchise in any way, shape or form :)

My heels clipped against the tiled floor of the lobby at the front of Seaview Prepatory as I made my way through the school, en route to the cafeteria. The air was moist and dewy, clinging to my skin like the plague but it was days like these that suited me best. Wet. Cold. Foreboding.

I smiled casually to the receptionists and teacher aids on one side of the expansive room and glared at the opposite - the students who sat in the waiting chairs or stood at the payment desk. They knew me. They knew what family I came from. They knew they couldn't touch me. I was their leader. All packs needed a leader.

As I broke free of the lobby and into the halls, a voice called out to me and a body broke free from the crowd. "Alice!" I whipped my head around to see Stephanie Armstrong hurdle towards me, her arms pinwheeling through the air, an obvious attempt to slow herself down but needless to say, nothing was ever going to stop Steph when she was on a mission.

"Ali, you'll never guess who just broke up!" she gushed, loosely swinging her arm through mine and waited till our legs fell into the same pace as I rolled my eyes. It was acutely obvious who she was talking about, so I didn't bother answering. We passed the stainless steel lockers perched on the wall with ease, though acquiring a few stolen glances from the passer bys. This was normal. This was casual. This was Alice Kingston's daily life.

"Five dollars on Kendall Reeve and Justin Thomas."

Heidi Thomas fell into place on my left, those words serving as her announcement.

"You always say Justin Thomas like you aren't related. We know your brother Heidi. You don't need to say his surname. And, that's not fair, you'd already know. Twins have that special bond or whatever." Stephanie chimed and the two started bantering about the way Heidi basically disowned her twin brother after the tenth grade food fight three months ago.

"Steph. You're forgetting something." I said nonchalantly.

"Oh. Right." she nodded curtly before extending her arm and digging through her handbag and finally retrieving her phone. "Well, here's the thing…I don't actually know…Lottie is meant to be texting me the video in like ten minutes." She held out the phone for me to take but before I turned it on, I let a smirk fall upon my lips.

My father's smirk.

"So what are the bets again?" I said.

"I was five bucks on my bother and Kendall."

I looked expectantly to Stephanie who in turn replied, "I put my money on Kendall and Justin too, then. You can't go past freaky sibling bonds as far as I'm concerned."

"So the bet's no fun with only me and Ali!" whined Heidi and with a sudden jolt she steered us in the direction of Beth Dawson, a look of sheer terror rising on her face.

The thing about us three - Stephanie Armstrong, Heidi Thomas and I - is that we're feared, loved and despised all at the same time. Which by some stroke of luck makes us the three most popular girls in the tenth grade at Seaview Prep. Not that I'm complaining.

So it was no surprise that Beth Dawson looked about ready to tear herself in two and disappear into a very dark, very black hole when we strolled up to her.

"Betty." Heidi said her name wrongly, but I wasn't entirely sure if that was because of her higher social ranking and her need to seem better than everyone else, or if it was because she honestly didn't know. Regardless, Beth didn't correct her. "You don't seem like the kind of girl who gets mixed up in all that shitty relationship drama. Who said, she said type of thing, right?" Heidi sealed the deal with a wink, "But you do keep up with the odds and ends of who is dating and all? Do you know who just broke up like, ten seconds ago?"

Beth shook her head and Heidi steam rolled ahead. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble for just a game of betting, "Place a bet on who just called it quits. Can't be Kendall Reeve and Justin Thomas, I already claimed them."

"Vienna Schuster and Michael Warnock." she stuttered, clutching her textbook tighter, "Am—am I right?"

"We don't know yet. Lottie's texting me, she's like, there now." One thing about Stephanie Armstrong is that you can count on her to say 'like' at least once in every sentence she'll say. "Speaking of…" she murmured a few seconds before her phone started to vibrate in my hands. Another thing to know: she has a freaky attachment to her mobile phone. If it were a human, they'd be twins - conjoined twins. "That's her now." she snatched the phone out of my hands and flipped in open, pressing a few buttons before the video came up on the screen.

Just before she hit play, I held a single finger up and cocked my head to the side. "I haven't placed my bet, Steph." Of course I already knew, of course I already had the upper hand. How could I not? "Caleb Andersen," I closed my eyes, "and Alice Kingston."

Alice Kingston.
Me.

I turned on my heel again, the sharp tone of my heel on the tiles floating through the air. My vintage messenger bag rocked against my lower hip and my thigh, a constant rhythm as I walked through the halls. They all looked at me with new eyes. Alice Kingston, they'd whisper, broke up with Caleb Andersen. Another little clip of a conversation made its way to my ears: It was a big thing—people videoed it.

Of course they videoed it.

Alice Kingston, the most popular girl in school, had just dumped Caleb Andersen, the prom king to her prom queen.

I was Alice.
I was 15 years old, almost 16.
I was green eyed and had waist long blonde hair.
I was 5"2" and weighed approximately 140 pounds.
I was adopted.
I was normal.
I was living in a mansion with my doting 'parents'.
I was the most popular girl in my grade.
I was on the brink of self-destruction.

I was born to die.

AUTHOR NOTE: Just drop me a line as to whether or not you like it :) The chapters get longer, I just had to get this out of the way first and next chapter is her being told about her parents (if it isn't already insanely obvious, her mother and father are Zach and Cammie) R&R!