Prologue
Isabelle Turner knew that she was in deep shit. She’d known it the moment she stepped out of the club, half-drunk and severely under the influence. She wasn’t the kind of woman to even go to the club, but she was desperate for human contact, and shit was she lonely.
It was definitely way past her bedtime when she began to wobble towards the sidewalk, waiting for her cab to show up. It was ten minutes late, she wasn’t quite sure if she was going to vomit yet, but she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t going to vomit, either.
Her friends had already gotten into their cabs to drive home, so she was left to fend for herself. She wasn’t even scared to be out alone, the sidewalks were so crowded. The street lights were still bright, so it wasn’t so dark that she couldn’t see. As she waited for her cab, however, she got the distinct feeling that someone was watching her.
Her spine stiffened and her shoulders tensed as she searched the crowd for the pair of eyes that were making her so uncomfortable. The loud music made it hard to hear, and the throngs of people were thick as they bled into the street. It took her only thirty seconds to find him; he was across the street on a motorcycle, and he wasn’t her type at all.
Isabelle wasn’t a good girl, but she wasn’t a bad girl either; this guy wasn’t even close to being in her league. She liked sophisticated men who could read classic literature and then carry on a conversation about it, not someone who obviously hadn’t brushed their teeth in a long, long time.
It was obvious that he knew she was watching him, even though she was being discreet, because he slowly dipped his head and winked at her. She winced at the gesture, turned away from him as quickly as possible, but it would seem that the damage was already done.
He didn’t look away and he didn’t ride away, no, he waited. He just watched…and, waited. Isabelle hated the way he watched her too, with heated eyes and an open mouth; his tongue flicked across his teeth, and she cringed. It wasn’t hard for her to turn away and look back towards the street.
As soon as her cab pulled up a few moments later, she was inside of it in a jiffy. Isabelle couldn’t wait to get into her bed and forget the awful week she’d had, especially after all the drama she got from friends over her break up with Danny. It’s not that she didn’t like him; she just wanted something a little deeper than he could offer her, even if he was considered a ‘catch,’ on campus.
Isabelle didn’t want to be the ‘popular,’ girl anymore. She didn't want to be the girl with the wealthy parents, or the girl with perfect grades and a perfect apartment, or car…she just wanted to be seen for who she was. Not what her monetary value was. Her friends and Danny never quite seemed to understand that, which is why she was starting to wonder if a transfer to another school would be best for her.
Her parents would never let her drop out, and she didn’t want to do that, not in her senior year; she was as close as she’d ever been to getting her business degree, like her father, and it would be such a waste to her if she quit now. But, there was no reason she couldn’t transfer to a school with a smaller more intimate campus, where her money didn’t mold her persona.
Except, she wouldn’t ever get the chance to find that out, because when she got back to her apartment, after a seventeen minute long cab ride, there was someone waiting for her in the dark, and she didn’t end up at a new school.
She ended up in North Carolina, with the Seven Deadlies.