Authors: Unknown
Tags: #drama, #love, #book series, #romance, #suspense, #sexy, #new adult, #thrills
A Beautiful Fate
A Beautiful Fate
Book I of
The Beautiful Fate Series
A novel
by
Cat Mann
Smashwords Edition
Copyright© 2012 by Cat Mann
http://authorcatmannblog.blogspot.com/
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Special thanks to Derek Mann, Mrs. Esther Kaplan, Greco, KB Weakly, Mom, Dad, Rachel Harmon, and The Lovely Leanne Kuchar.
Cover designed by Derek Murphy of Creativindie Covers
To my loving husband and children, thank you for handing me my dream life on a silver platter. Without you, my happiness would not be possible.
Table Of Contents
22- Amazing, Breathtaking, Awe-inspiring
I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?
-John Lennon
Ava
They were screaming for me again. My knuckles were bone white as I gripped a pair of cold steel scissors in my hand. People, all strangers, screamed at me from beyond their closed doors, demanding death; begging for the coup de gràce.
A shrill scream escaped my lips as I jumped from my sleep and yanked my ear buds out with much more force than necessary.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
was chanting about opening my eyelids and letting my demons run. If only they knew. My iPhone dropped with a thunk on to the guest bedroom floor at Grandmother’s home.
Damn it!
I have to stop falling asleep with my ear buds in.
My music had insinuated itself into my dreams again, causing more nightmares than normal. Sweat was beading on my forehead and my hands were shaky.
It was just a stupid dream. Remember to breathe
. Repeating my mantra, I grabbed my phone from the floor to check the time. Six in the morning, I had officially had only four hours of sleep.
As quietly as I could, I moved down the hall towards the guest bathroom and switched the faucet on. The knob squeaked in protest from disuse. I splashed my face with cold water and looked up into the mirror at my reflection. I rolled my eyes at myself, at the dark puffy circles that shadowed my green eyes.
Once, years ago when I was small, my mom told me that I have my father’s eyes...and that was the only time she ever mentioned him. I cherish that small connection, eye color, that links me to a person I have never known. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, ignoring the tangles that dream-inspired tossing and turning had caused, brushed my teeth, and slipped on my running shoes. I moved soundlessly down the hallway and then down the stairwell and out the back door. I was anxious to run, anxious to push away my unknown fears.
Stepping out into a sunny, California morning, I was instantly greeted by the sound of roaring waves as they crashed on to shore. I stretched and began my run down the sandy beach. The shoreline was relatively quiet and free from beachgoers as I shoved my ear buds in and turned
The Arcade Fire
up to max sound.
My plans were to run a full six miles to ease my growing anxiety. The pounding of my feet on the sand and my quick panting breaths were therapy for me. I began to welcome the rising heat and the way my hair stuck to my skin as my sweat washed over me. I weaved down the beach dodging waves as they threatened to wet my feet and as the miles passed by, my angst ebbed and my senses finally numbed.
At The Pier, I turned and started my journey back to Margaux’s home. The beach began to crowd with men and women in swimsuits, spreading out their towels, talking on their cell phones and hollering at small children to stay close by. I breathed them in, the hefty aroma of coconut scented suntan lotion.
I ran, two at a time, back up my grandmother’s deck steps. I slid open her glass back door and walked through her home and back up her steps towards the bathroom for a much-needed shower. I turned the cold water on full force, gasping and squeezing my eyes shut at the shock. The water was both wonderful and painful. I forced myself under the showerhead, scrubbed my skin, washed and rewashed my hair until I finally felt clean enough to start my day.
My grandmother is a sucker for the finer things in life. Her towels are super soft and thick. I wrapped one around my body and then grabbed a second for my hair. I stood in front of my luggage that was on top of the bed and stared down at what I had hastily packed the day before. My mother had followed in my grandmother’s footsteps and I, having followed my mother’s example, am a chump for fashion. I pulled a summer dress from my bag, shook out the creases and slipped it on. It was too hot to wear anything else but loose flowing fabric and strappy sandals.
Dressed, I made my descent, once again, to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. I sat at the counter, anxious, and waiting, for what I didn’t know.
“Ava Darling.” My grandmother purred from behind me, causing goose bumps to creep up the back of my neck. She startled me from my thoughts and I jumped, spilling my last sip of black coffee across her counter top.
“Morning, Margaux.” I mumbled as I ripped a paper towel sheet from the roll and used it to soak up my spill.
“Where have you been? I looked for you all over the house and you were nowhere to be found.”
Her concern was fake, I knew, but I engaged her in the conversation anyway.
“I run, Margaux. Every day.”
“Of course,” she purred again and gave me an ultra-fake, dazzling, white smile.
****
My name is Ava Baio. I am seventeen years old. Until very recently, I lived in an old, two-story brownstone in Chicago with my mother, Lucy and before Chicago, I grew up in Montréal in Quebec, Canada.
Other than the one-time random comment from my mom about my eyes, I can only assume that I got my looks from my dad. I don’t know what he looked like, he died the same day I was born. But I do know I look nothing like my beautiful mother had. Her eyes were big and brown; mine are shocking green. She had pale, clear skin, but I am a soft, creamy tan even without being in the sun. (I have three freckles – one is right above my lip; a second one, very tiny, is on one of my middle toes...and the third is well hidden. It will never be seen by anyone.
Ever
.) My mom was tall and graceful; I am neither noticeably tall nor overly short. My mother’s hair was of a light honey color and totally straight. Mine is wavy and dark brown; I wear it down to my waist.
Baio, my mom’s maiden name, came from her adoptive parents, Margaux and Perry Baio. Margaux is a well-known fashion designer and I have never seen her in anything other than stiletto heels and an “uptown” dress. In my seventeen years as her grandchild she has managed to stay exactly the same – timeless, classically beautiful and, in my opinion, the meanest grandmother on the face of the earth. She always looks at me with contempt and her comments about my hair, nails, or intellect are always condescending and filled with disdain. She hates me and that’s fine because I hate her, too. In fact, I
love
to hate her – it is a rather entertaining hobby of mine. Unfortunately for me, as of last week, Margaux is now my legal guardian.
Margaux’s stores,
baio
designs
, can be found wherever serious money is spent. She was a nurse before she pursued her dreams of design, and from what my mother once told me, Margaux was very dedicated to her patients. I don’t know what made her change, but to me she seems to be dedicated only to herself. How she pulls herself away from the mirror in the morning, I will never know. The only plus side I can think of to being related to her is the fact that she sends me, without fail, the sample clothes from her new lines each season.
Margaux’s husband, Perry, my grandfather, was her complete opposite. I’ll never understand how he could stand to have been married to such a witch. He was a rock. There hasn’t been a day that has gone by since my grandfather’s death that I have not thought about him. His death haunts me. And now, my mother is gone too and I am left alone with my may-as-well-be-the-devil-grandmother, Margaux. I know if Perry were still alive, he would have fought for me. He would have let me finish my last year of high school back in Chicago. Back with my best friend, Mia and my boyfriend, Michael. But instead, Margaux pulled me away from everything I know and loved and now is shipping me off, after the weekend, to a boarding school in southern California. I hate her now more than ever.
