Chapter 1

Once my flight takes off towards Pendleton, Oregon, I glance out the window and think about how my life has changed in the last two years since my mother passed away. My father, Jeff Cross, had married my now step mother Mary, whom he had married last fall on November 29th, 2019. I have 3 new step brothers, Mathew the oldest, Conner, the middle, and Vincent the youngest as well as the only brother I have been keeping up with since the wedding.

We have been talking a ton and learned that we have a lot of things in common so we have decided to be friends, and when I told him about moving in he was ecstatic, he told me his brother Mathew is getting a house since he's never at theirs, so that meant I could take over his old bedroom.

Right now I'm on this plane due to moving into my step mother's house. My father on the other hand lives with Mary in Tokyo, Japan, because of my dad's gaming company there, Mary decided to help my dad sell our house in Birdseye, Indiana and suggested that I should live with her boys in Oregon while she's with my father for the time being, and since Oregon has an excellent graphic design program at Blue Mountain College I agreed.

Mary Crinamortè and my father, first met when I attended high school as a senior. A year after my mother, Valarie Clarriss, died.

My mother had been struggling with cancer, I was unaware of how she struggled everyday because of it. After my mother passed away, I struggled with homework, I cried myself to sleep every night, and I lost all my friends since I rarely left my bedroom.

Me being the last to know she had cancer made me feel like, I didn't do something right, I didn't even know she was getting weaker until the day she died.

I was most likely not going to graduate high school since my grades dropped, but one night I had a dream that I was talking with my mother, in that dream she told me she would be disappointed in me if I did not graduate high school, after that dream I studied hard, got good grades, became valedictorian at my school, as well as me being nominated as student council president, and I had become the manager of the new manga arts club I invented at my high school, Birds Eye Academy, my life became shattered once again, after I had learned my father was getting married to his now wife Mary Crinamortè, I met her once and that was at the wedding where I met the boys.

I resented my father for loving someone other than my mother, until now. I still haven't forgiven him but I do understand why he wanted to forget and move on, I want to forget too sometimes, but unlike him I can't shut the memories out good or bad, if I forgot the hard times I would forget all the good memories that she had given me.

My mom, is the one I told all my secrets to, the one who knew what kind of boys I found interest in, what kind of activities I enjoyed, which was is art, she even knew how my facial expressions worked when I seemed sad or happy, like an opened book she could read me well, she knew everything about me and now, after shutting almost everyone out, I have no one, well except for Vincent. Mary could never compare to my mother, I don't hate Mary, she's very kind hearted, and raised some successful boys, and a great new best friend but just like any other kid out there you just can not except some things.

So here I am on a flight towards Pendlton, Oregon ready to start a new life, and a new me.

***********************************************

When my flight landed, I felt sluggish and somewhat dragged myself zombie like over to the luggage section to grab my bag and suitcase, which my mom had painted a wolf howling at the moon on the suitcase, it was very beautiful and one of the most prized possessions I have from my mother, other than my ankle bracket that has a white bat on the front side of it and between the bat were small pearl like beads and on the backside was another bat which was black. She said it was like ying and yang except they were bats.

Once I grabbed my stuff I wandered over to the pickup area to see if I had to hail a cab or if someone from my new house would be here for me.

As I scan through the crowd I spot a middle aged man, around thirty to forty years in age wearing a formal fitted suit, his hair slicked back with what looked like hair gel, as he's holding a sign saying "Emee Clarriss" I see him glance my way and smile. Thank the heavens, someone did come for me. I walk up to the man.

" Hi, I'm Emee Clarriss, are you here to pick me up?."

" Hello miss Clarriss, I am Sebastian Gray-," He bends down in a perfect ninety degree angle as I glanced around me awkward at the sudden formality. "-the butler for the Crinamortè brothers, I am sorry your step brothers Vincent and Connor could not come to your arrival, they are both cooking supper, your father is the one who told us what you enjoyed to eat. I apologize if this has inconvenience you in anyway". He sits straight up and grabs my bag and suitcase; "If you would like you can go in the car while I take your items to the trunk." He says with a gentle smile.

He seemed nice, they went all to the trouble of asking my father what I liked, I can't believe my father remembered what I liked. It's been a while since I've lived with my father, he moved to Tokyo, Japan, last year and left me to our old house. He paid bills and paid for my education and graduation cap, but never came home. He runs a gaming company, the last time I had seen him was at the wedding. I hope I will like it here in Oregon.

I get in the car, after a few seconds I hear the trunk slam shut, he opens the door and swiftly slides into the leather driver seat and puts it into gear as we pull away from the airport I look back and sigh .

" Miss Clarriss, would you like some music?."

" Uh s-sure thank you, anything is fine."

" Vincent and Connor are excellent hosts, so I hope you enjoy your stay, Vincent said you're going to sign up for the Blue Mountain College tomorrow, he said he would like to go with you if you don't mind".

I shake my head yes.

"That's great I'll let him know, Connor would go, but he has to grade papers." He says.

" What does he do for a living?, Vincent doesn't really talk about his brothers that often".

" He's a high school teacher at Blue Mountain High."

" That's cool, what does he teach? What about Mathew, what does he do? I know he's in law but that's about it."

" Conner teaches English. Mathew has a lot of responsibilities in Law, he's mainly a lawyer, but he does side jobs as a detective, he's always busy, his clients are from California, Florida, and Las Vegas, that's where most of his clients get in trouble," He explains.

"Mathew wasn't always popular. He started two years ago after being in law school for 4 years, his mother, Mary, didn't think he could do it, so he wanted to prove her wrong, his clients are friends of friends, and some family members."

" Wow, they must have a lot of family then, does he visit often? I don't wanna barge into his room you know". I say .

"Mathew agreed. Miss Mary wanted to use the whole attic because of the space," I gave a look, " She wasn't giving you the attic to be rude, the attic used to be miss Mary's bedroom, it huge and very roomy, it even has its own bathroom and a small kitchen, but Mathew and your father agreed and said if you use Mathew's room it would make you feel more at home and less than someone's house."

Oh, wow I guess my father and step brother know about me more than I gave them credit.

It was silent for a long time, Mr. Gray was tapping his fingers one by one on the steering wheel to the music, while I was enjoying the wind twisting and twirling my silky blonde hair and the fresh smell of the forest bedsides the car as we drove.

I glanced in front of us only to see a large grayish silver blur running very fast in front of us, but out of nowhere it looks back and sees the car only to leap onto the middle of the road facing us head on, I gasp and clutch my seat belt for dear life, my heart hammered against my chest, Mr. Gray slams on the breaks and we stop right in front of the biggest wolf I have ever seen, it growls lowly, it looks at me with it's pitch black eyes and glances away towards the forest as if someone was calling, I blinked, and the wolf was gone.

Mr. Gray looks at me with a worried expression and asks, " Are you alright?."

"Y-yeah, I-I think so other than the mini heart attack, are wolves here that large!, man it was almost the same size as a bear, I have never seen a wolf that big!." I put my shaky hand over my hammering heart trying to calm myself.

" You're not in Indiana anymore, that's for sure Miss Clarriss, yes they are pretty common they don't jump in front of cars though I'll have to call animal control to see if someone spooked the wolves". He says. " Now that the scare is over, let's go to your new home. I hope the wolf didn't scare you out of this place, it's a very good place".

I shook my head.

He puts the car in gear and we drive once again as if nothing happened.

A few minutes pass and we turn into a long gravel road and it takes us about 5 minutes to get the house.

Once we get to the house I step out of the car and gasp. The house is so pretty it is like a big modern upgraded cabin it was two story and had a big porch with a swing made of rope. I'm going to love this!.

Mr. Gray tells me to go inside and introduce myself while he puts my luggage away. I agreed and ran into the house, I had a smile from ear to ear till I hit a wall.

I glanced up, only to see it wasn't a wall, but a very attractive male with his eyebrows shooting up and his jaw clenched looking down at me, he has a very sharp jawline with a beautiful ocean like eye that had black flecks dancing like Indians dancing around the fire. The other eye, was like a forest green with golden flecks, and he had black hair with a play boy hair style to match his inhospitable look.

" Are you going to check me out all day? Or are you gonna apologize?."

The guy with one blue eye, and the other green says arrogantly.

" Excuse me I wasn't checking you out and pretty sure that I was looking where I was going, who stands in front of the damn door? you happened to get in my way, you burnt popcorn." I brush past him, and as I walk past him I see a boy around my age with long brown hair tied into a small bun with black glasses on smiling from ear to ear at me, runs up and hugs me, which makes me squeak in response. He puts me down.

" Sorry, Hi I'm Vincent remember me, sorry about my friend he's very arrogant, that was pretty funny what you said to him, bet you're the first one to call him a burnt popcorn." He says laughing.

The guy that is Vincent's cocky friend comes up and playfully shoves Vincent. They play fight for a second before an older man with similar features as Vincent, except has his short hair swept to the right like feathers, wearing grey sweats and a white shirt that clung to him.

" Hey, you're Emee right, I'm Conner, nice to meet you, dinner's done," He walked over to Vincent and Vincent's friend and smacked both of them on the heads and clasped onto their ears. " I'll show you the way, sorry for them they're always like this." He takes them by the ear and I follow behind as we head to the dining room down the hallway.

We entered the dining room and I gasp. The kitchen was on the other side giving me a view of all the chicken and many other dishes that I loved.

" You didn't have to cook all this." I say.

" It's okay we love food anyway and Vincent and Emmett eat too damn much, you can eat as much as you like, I cooked for barbarians." He says jokingly pointing at the two boys he had let go of.

" Sorry if I was rude beautiful,I didn't know you were their sister." Emmett winks.

I scoffed and he looked offended.

My brothers chuckled.

" She hasn't been here for more than five minutes and you're already pulling the moves on her. I'll feed you to the wolves if you hit on her again." Vincent jokingly says

" Speaking of which," I jumped, "Conner we had a run in with one of the large wolves in the middle of the road, thankfully we were not hurt, but I did put an alert out to the patrol." Mr. Gray says out of nowhere.

" Alright I'll keep a lookout, I wouldn't want anyone getting hurt." Connor says while glancing at me.

Umm.. should I be concern?.

About an hour later and we learned about most of my life and my embarrassing moments as well as me learning about their family and they even showed me an album of them as teenagers they said their mom didn't have time to take photos of them when they were younger which I found sad.

Emmett, during our game of questions asks,

" Did you date anyone before where you lived?"

" U-uh yeah actually I just got out of a relationship before I moved". I looked away flustered.

We sat in the living room and everyone agreed on watching a movie, Vincent who won against me in rock, paper, scissors, chose Nemo as a movie to watch, after a while I told Vincent I'm tired and he showed me to my room.

" If you need anything we'll still be in the living room watching movies". I nod and tell him thank you.

I turn the lights on, and I greeted my very large room with a smile, it had white carpet, a white desk and a king size bed with light blue sheets with a note saying " Hi, writing this to say I hope you like the room told the boys you liked blue and white from what I remember when you were in high school hope you like it, Love Dad". Awe.

I unpacked my suitcase of clothes and put away a picture of my mom and me that i had in my bag onto my desk. When I finally got done I shut the lights off and I laid down onto the fluffy sheets of the bed and soon drifted off to sleep.

*************************************

I was running in the forest, I didn't know where I was, I didn't know who was chasing me or why, I knew I had to run as fast as I could.

I didn't know why I wanted to look behind me, but when I did, I wish I hadn't. A man jumped at me and bit my neck and when I felt the pain in the bite I screamed.

I woke up drenched in sweat.

Connor and Vincent, both staring at me with worry on their faces.

" Did I scream?," they nodded, " I am so sorry, I had a bad dream.."

Vincent sits on the bed and hugs me,

" Look I know I'm a complete stranger to you and we've only texted each other for a short time, but think of me as your brother not a step brother or whatever, I am here for you, I noticed when Emmett brought up your ex was the dream about him him?". He grasps my shoulder slightly, " Did he hurt you, or something?".

"I'm fine, I dreamed about something weird, I was running in the woods and someone was chasing me. They bit me and that's when I woke up but It felt like it was so real ".

They look at one another.

" How about we have breakfast it's 6:40 am but still". Wow it's only 6:40. I nod my head and get out of bed thank god I decided to wear shorts last tonight otherwise It would be embarrassing.

" Can I take a shower first?".

" Yeah, Vincent can you grab her some towels". They leave my room and I walk into my attached bathroom it had a very large mirror and a very large bathtub and a shower next to it.

I decided to take a bath. I see a variety of soaps. I chose the vanilla scented one and started up the bathtub and added some soap a nock on the door interrupted me, Vincent comes in when I say come in and smiles at me, he hands me two towels and a washcloth.

" Thanks"

" No Problem" he says, before he left I set down the towels and I guess my shirt lifted up because when I turned around he was furious, " Is that what you ex boyfriend do to you, fucking beat you".

" what are you talking about"

" This!," as he lifts my shirt up slightly, " what the fudge Emee I swear to god the next time anyone lays a hand on you I'll kill them".

He storms out of the bathroom as I fidget. I looked at the bathtub and saw that it was almost full and turned it off. I take my clothes off and get in the bath. When the hot water clung against my skin I relax as my stress rolls off my sigh.