Tainted

Chapter One

TAINTED | CHAPTER ONE

The new girl

18 years and 359 days later

I pressed my pencil against my cheek as I looked at the math problem on the paper. I was good at many things, but numbers were not my exact calling in the world. My foot latched onto the bar of the chair as I leaned forward. After a while of just sitting there looking blankly at the paper, I gave up on the work. I'd have to talk to my professor later.

Instead, I took a piece of scratch paper from my pack and drew aimlessly on it until it became something. From the light shading, I imagined she had soft blond hair, almost white that went past her shoulders, but was longer; however, I only drew her until the shoulders. She had these remarkable lips that were plumped and pouty. Her cheekbones were high and enchanting making her look unique in appearance. I didn't know what possessed me to draw something so beautiful, but I was happy with it.

When I looked up from the paper momentarily to stretch, the strangest thing happened. I thought my eyes were playing tricks, but right across from me, out of a window, the girl from my drawing was there staring at me, with a hand on the window. I would be lying If I said I wasn't terrified. I shifted my gaze from the window to gain composure and then returned to it. But this time she was gone.

Maybe, I was just sleepy and was imagining things.

Taking in a deep breath I returned to my drawing. I was adding more detail in the sketch.

The chair beside me had pulled out and made me break gaze from my paper. When I looked up, I saw the girl from the window. It baffled me how similar she looked to the drawing. "Hello," she whispered angelically to me with a dimpled smile on her face. She had an accent that was foreign but nothing I could recognize.

For a moment, I just stared at her, and her smile faltered. "Hello." My voice was quiet, even more so than a whisper. I looked back down at my sketch, hiding it with my arm. The girl looked down at what she could see of the sketch, and then back at me.

"I'm Valentina."

"I'm Al," I went to introduce myself and she quickly cut me off.

"Alexander," she said, smiling.

She just said my name. How could that be possible? Well, she might have known because I was mentioned quite a lot around this small town. That didn't change the fact that this stranger knew my name. "How'd you know that?" I asked, moving my chair away from her just a tad. It puzzled me how similar she resembled my drawing. As I thought her hair was longer than just shoulder length it went to her hips. It looked incredibly soft. My eyes focused on hers as she spoke.

"I know a lot of things about you Alexander." She simply answered as she got out of her chair. She walked behind me and circled her arms around my neck. Leaning in she whispered, "I know more about you than you do yourself." Her breath tickled my ear and caused me to have a very uneasy feeling in my stomach. "My king," she breathed in a raspy low voice. I had felt every vibration of her smooth voice ringing in my eardrum.

I was more than freaked out by her, but I couldn't let my face give it away. Coolly, I eased her arms off my neck and stood up collecting my things. "I am not your king," I said walking past her.

My feet darted to the nearest exit door in the library building. Which happen to be not too far from where I parked. Before I left out, I let myself glance toward Valentina one more time. I wanted to make sure I didn't just imagine her. But nope she was still there sitting at the desk with a smirk on her lips. I turned back toward the exit and left to the parking lot.