Chapter One

Rachel was dreaming.

        The first reason that she knew she was dreaming because she was hovering above the ground and, while she certainly had her share of weird quirks, the ability to fly wasn’t on that list – as far as she knew. There was also no ground beneath her feet, only darkness that seemed to stretch on and on into eternity. The yawning abyss she faced didn’t seem to faze her, instead, the energy she felt radiating off of her body felt calming. The air around her was still, and she could not hear anything aside from her own soft breath.

        After a few moments, another shape began to materialize in front of her. This was the second reason she knew she was dreaming. She had had this dream before. The human shape was about her size, but all of the features were blurred. Rachel had seen this figure in her dreams before, always blurry, always just out of reach. Always silent. So, naturally, Rachel was more than surprised when, this time, the figure began to speak.

        “Everything here is wrong.” The voice was distorted, unrecognizable, although Rachel got the impression that it was a female voice. She stepped forward, cocking her head to one side.

        “Excuse me?” she asked, not rudely. The figure repeated the same statement again, louder this time. Rachel blinked, hoping the figure would come more into focus, but it was to no avail. She stepped forward again, but the figure remained the same distance from her – no closer, no farther. She stopped walking and straightened up.

        “Okay,” she spoke tentatively. “Everything here is wrong. Got it. Thanks.” That was a lie. She didn’t get it. She had no idea what this figure was talking about. Where was ‘here’? Was it this empty dream world? Or did the figure mean the actual, real-life, waking world? She wanted to ask the figure to clarify what they meant, but she had a very strong feeling that she was going to get the exact same response.

        “Rachel…” That voice wasn’t coming from the figure, who seemed not to notice it – or if they did, they were very good at ignoring it. Rachel turned frantically, trying to see who else was speaking, but there was nothing except darkness surrounding her.

        “Rachel...Rachel…RACHEL!”

        Rachel shot up in bed. Daylight streamed in from the window, and she rubbed her eyes tiredly. She sighed. The darkness, the figure, and the mysterious warning were all gone. A young girl sat on the edge of the bed – she had enough of Rachel’s features that their relation was apparent – this was her younger sister.

        “Bailey,” Rachel yawned. “Morning.”

        “Afternoon!” Bailey replied cheerily. “It’s one-o-clock! I let you sleep in.” Rachel yawned again and swung both legs over the side of the bed, standing up. She walked slowly to the dresser that stood on the opposite side of the room; next to her, Bailey’s bed was already neatly made. She grabbed a pair of shorts and a t-shirt out of one drawer, and new underwear out of another.

        “I had eggs for breakfast earlier, do you want some?” Bailey called after her as she closed the bathroom door. Rachel gave her a thumbs up as the door closed, and she could hear her sister running down the hall to the kitchen.

        Splashing water on her face, Rachel stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. A thin, lanky eighteen-year-old stared back at her. Auburn hair fell past her shoulders, and her brown eyes looked old, as though their owners had seen too much for their age. There was a growing pimple on her chin. She touched it and winced.         

        She reached across the counter and grabbed her hairbrush, dragging it through her hair. It was slightly matted, and she debated washing it for a second. It seemed too much work though, and besides, it wasn’t unmanageable yet.

        The shirt she has grabbed was a size too big for her – it had been her mother’s, and that was the only reason she had held onto it. It was only now getting to be an appropriate size for her to wear. She wore it whenever she didn’t have anywhere important to be; she had had enough of the awkward questions about it to learn to not wear it anywhere else.

        Rachel had only known her mother for two years – and they were two years that she barely remembered. She had died giving birth to Bailey – not her sister’s fault, things just went wrong, as happens sometimes. Rachel knew that Bailey felt some form of guilt though, every year on her birthday, she would get distant, and she had refused to have a party since she was old enough to do so.

        If losing a mother that young was bad, losing her father at an age where she could very clearly remember every detail was worse. Their father had worked for the government – right in the heart of the nation’s capital in downtown Manhattan. One day, he had gone out of town to meet with a client of a new project and never came home. The police who investigated the case deemed it murder – shot once and left to die – but they had dropped the case after three months of finding nothing. It left Rachel and Bailey extremely shaken to know that their father’s murderer was most likely still walking the streets somewhere.

        Luckily for the two of them, their father had had several strong connections within his field, and when news of his death spread, Rachel and Bailey were offered several places to stay. No one had taken the extra leap and actually adopted them however, and so the two were bounced from home to home over the next six years. While some would have been broken down by this system, it only strengthened the bond between the two sisters. Now that she was eighteen – almost nineteen, actually – Rachel was legally an adult, and so she and Bailey had found a small, run-down one bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town. It was dirty, smelly, cramped, and probably more expensive than it should have been, but it was theirs. It was home.

        Rachel shook herself out of her mind, took one step back and examined herself in the mirror. She rarely thought about her parents – not because she didn’t feel attached to them, but because thinking about them often sparked memories of days she’d rather not remember.

Her hair was now brushed, she was wearing clothes that weren’t pajamas – she had already achieved more than she had in the last couple of days. Her younger sister also took note of this, and wasted no time in pointing it out as she walked into the kitchen.

        “Look who decided to join the real world!” Bailey taunted, setting a plate down on the table for her. It wasn’t much – just two eggs cooked over-easy, the way Rachel liked them. That was one thing about living together – they didn’t have much money to begin with, and most of what they made through odd jobs went straight to paying rent to the landlord, so their diet consisted mainly of non-perishable snacks and a lot of pasta. Things like eggs, or even milk, were a treat – saved for special occasions. A very special occasion was fast approaching: Rachel was turning nineteen in just under a week. Not only was it her birthday, but it also marked the one-year anniversary of Rachel and Bailey being able to live on their own. To celebrate, the two had gone and bought a carton of two dozen eggs, which they had been downing over the last few days.

        “What do you want to do for your birthday?” Speaking of the special day, Bailey was now leaning on her, staring at her face intently. Rachel shoved her off lovingly.

        “I don’t know. Movie night at home?”

        “No!” Bailey retorted. “We should do something! Go out on the town –,”

        “We’re underage, Bailey. What are we gonna do?” Bailey thought for a moment.

        “There’s free stuff around, right? We could find some museum or…a gallery or something….”

        Rachel looked up from her plate and stared at her younger sister. She knew, really, that what Bailey really wanted was a chance to actually get out of the house and do something fun – even if it was free. Museums weren’t that bad anyways, and she might actually enjoy learning something new.

        “Actually, going to a museum sounds really fun,” she said sincerely, and she meant it. “We could go to the American History one – you know, the one on 56th Street? I haven’t been to that one yet.” Bailey was practically beaming, and nodded vigorously. Rachel grinned back. She didn’t mind that she was taking her special day to do something that Bailey wanted to do – her sister was hardly ever this excited about anything. It was a nice relief to see her smiling.

        “Also,” Bailey continued, and Rachel noticed that her voice was more serious now, “the landlord stopped by around nine this morning. Something about the water bill –,” Bailey said.

        “Water bill?” Rachel stared at her sister for a second. “I thought I paid that. Shit. I’ll go talk to him, I guess. Thanks, kid.” She finished her food and stood up, ruffling her sister’s hair as she passed her on the way to the kitchen sink.

        “Is what I’m wearing okay?” She asked, half talking to herself, half asking the other person in the room. Bailey shook her head.

        “It’s Saturday. You’re walking twenty feet out the door to the office.” That was her sister, always the voice of reason. She nodded, acknowledging the answer, and slipped on a pair of sandals that were thrown haphazardly near the front door.

        “I’ll be back soon!” she called over her shoulder as she stepped outside. The summer heat immediately beat down on her, and she shielded her eyes from the blinding sun. Taking a second to let her eyes adjust to the bright light, she turned and locked the door behind her.

        When her eyes finally adjusted, and the sun’s heat started to become more bearable, she took another moment to breathe in the fresh – well, almost fresh – air. Cars honked on the street below her – they were on the tenth floor – and Rachel remembered that there was some political event happening at the Capitol this weekend.

        Note to self, she thought. Avoid going anywhere this weekend if you can. That was one of the downsides to living in New York – it seemed like every weekend there was some sort of political something-or-other going on. It was fun, at times, to be able to walk outside and be right in the middle of so many important events – but most of the time it was just an inconvenience – especially since they didn’t have their own car, and had to rely on public transportation to get around. If the subway was closed or broken down – forget going anywhere. She was grateful then, that their apartment had ended up being so close to the main office – it made running over there for stuff easy.

        Her muscles felt stiff as she made her way down the stairs, and it took her a second to remember why – she had gone to the gym in their apartment complex the day before. It hadn’t been any sort of ridiculous workout – just some leg stuff and a run on the treadmill – but it was the most she had worked out in months. She had started, recently, because in her mind she needed to have at least some muscles on her body, since it was just her and her sister living in the apartment. Rachel really didn’t like asking people for help.

        She had also bought a gun – a pistol, which she kept locked in a safe in a closet. She hoped she would never have to open that safe.

        The door to the office was being propped open by a stack of unopened boxes. Rachel knocked tentatively as she pushed the door fully open, stepping around the pile and making sure to not knock anything over.

        “Hello?” she called out. No response. She called again, and this time she heard movement from one of the back rooms in the office. A couple of seconds later, and a thin, balding man emerged, carrying a clipboard, which he was looking at intently. It wasn’t until Rachel coughed indiscreetly that he finally looked up and noticed her. Rachel had seen him before, and had conversations with him, but couldn’t remember his name. She felt kind of bad. Kind of.

        “Ah, yes – Miss….”

        “Lauren. Rachel Lauren.” The man blinked slowly, and Rachel wanted to add on that “Yes, I have two first names. Lucky me.” But she didn’t. She had almost gone by Lauren as a child, but her mother had been against it.

        The man blinked again. “How can I help you, Miss Lauren?”

        Rachel blinked back. “You put a letter on our door – something about a bill.”

        There was now, finally, something akin to a glimmer of recognition in the man’s eyes. He nodded.

        “Yes, an unpaid one. I’m assuming you are here to pay it?” Before he had finished, Rachel was already shaking her head.

        “No, I’m not,” she replied. “I already paid it. I can pull up my credit card statement on my phone.” She really, really didn’t have time for this. There was no way they had enough money on them right now, and if their water got cut off they were screwed. To her dismay, the man was also shaking his head.

        “No, no, I don’t recall any transaction from you coming through recently. I’ll give you a week to either contact your bank or get me the money. Otherwise I’ll be forced to cut off your water until you can.” The tone in his voice was stern, and Rachel knew that it would be futile to argue with him. This wasn’t a fight she could win.

        “Oh, Miss Lauren?” he called after her as she maneuvered around the pile of boxes on her way out. “I know your situation. Don’t think you’ll be getting any special treatment from me because of it.”

        “Didn’t ask for any,” she muttered under her breath as the door closed behind her. She hated that, more than she hated a lot of things. She and Bailey were well aware of their situation, and just living it was more than enough. Being constantly reminded about it by adults felt belittling. It was even worse when others tried to give them special treatment that they hadn’t asked for. Rachel often thought, and she had a feeling that Bailey agreed with her, that they would give up all the special treatment they had received just for one more day with their parents.

        The whole exchange with the landlord had taken under ten minutes, but Rachel already felt like the energy had been drained out of her. She also knew that going back up to the apartment wasn’t a smart idea either – she was just going to sit on the couch or, worse, go back to sleep. She needed to be at least somewhat productive, especially since there was this new issue, and that was only going to happen if she was out of the house.

        Speaking of this issue with the water bill – Rachel pulled her phone out of her pocket and unlocked it, opening her banking app. A quick check of her credit card statement confirmed her statement to the man – their bill had been paid a week ago. She made a mental note to call the bank and ask if there had been any trouble with the money transfer.

        After closing the app, she took a second before opening her messages. There was only one saved contact in her phone – Bailey. The rest were unsaved numbers of people that she had done odd jobs for in the last month.

        I’m going for a walk. Want to come?

        A few seconds, then:

        Sure! What happened? - B

        Something with our bill payment not working. Bullshit.

        I’m coming down. - B

        Two minutes passed, and Rachel could hear Bailey running down the stairs. Her sister appeared in front of her – hair pulled up in a ponytail, clothes wrinkled, eyes wide.

        “Bailey, what did I tell you about running down those stairs?” Rachel asked sternly.

        “I know, I know. They can be slippery and I could fall. So what happened?”

        Rachel filled her sister in as they walked. Bailey was more shocked than she was about the water bill. Rachel had to reassure her multiple times within the first two minutes of their walk that yes, the bill was paid, she was going to talk to the bank later that day about it.

        “Where do you want to walk?” Bailey asked, once Rachel was finally done reassuring her. Rachel thought for a moment.

        “We could walk along the river,” she offered up the suggestion, watching her sister’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. Bailey stopped for a second to contemplate, then nodded.

        “I’d like that,” she replied, picking up her pace.

        They walked to the Hudson in silence, both lost in their own minds. Multiple times, Rachel wondered if she should bring up her dream to Bailey. Her sister always had good advice – she might know what to think of it.

        Or she might tell you to stop reading into things too much, a voice in her head spoke. Rachel had to give the voice at least some credit – it could have just been a weird dream. But, she also knew her sister, and keeping secrets was never something she had done.

        “Hey, Bailey?” Rachel broke the silence just as the Hudson loomed in front of them. They took a moment to take it in.

        “It’s very pretty,” Rachel spoke again. Bailey was quiet, her brow furrowed. Rachel knew what she was thinking about – it was the reason they didn’t frequent this part of town more.

        “Where did Dad die?” Bailey asked. She pointed across the river. “There?” Her tone wasn’t accusatory, it was simply inquisitive. Bailey hardly ever talked about their parents, much less their deaths, and so when she did, Rachel made sure to answer her questions to the best of her ability.

        “No,” she told her sister. “More…that way,” she pointed further south. She couldn’t remember the name of the town.