CHAPTER 1
I’m nervous.
The kind of nervous you get where an ocean of anxiety swells in your chest every time you breathe and makes your tongue go numb, and then occasionally diverts to your butthole and makes you tingle and squeeze. It’s not helping that I’m almost an hour late, and I’m being held up.
The six-foot tall security guard standing in front of me, whose name badge is declaring he’s called Gud, eyes my student card with sneering suspicion before he snorts and turns away, rotating it idly between his fingers.
‘This all you got?’ he says. ‘No driver’s license?’
‘Do you see a car?’ I say, half lying. I’ve got a license but I hate my picture and I’m not showing it to anyone unless I have to.
‘Wait there,’ he sneers before speaking into his radio headset. ‘Gate Four. Run an ID check on a Mackenzie Miller for me. Nineteen years old, red hair, freckles. Card says she goes to UCLA. No driver’s license. Reckons she’s the Ledger’s new nanny.’
Red hair and freckles.
I roll my eyes. If I was ever a fugitive on the run from the law, that’s how the police would describe me. Suspect is a white Caucasian female, five-foot tall, with flame-red hair, and more freckles than a Lichenstein.
I take a deep breath.
My tummy is filled with dark butterflies. I haven’t done anything wrong but everything about this situation is terrifying, and it has nothing to do with Mr Grumpy and his surly performance over gate security. I’m just way out of my depth.
‘Yeah, about five foot,’ he says, turning back and eyeing me briefly.
I’m nervous because I’m starting a new job as a live-in nanny to a host family just south of Crestwood Hills. Nannying wasn’t my idea, but right now, whilst I’m studying in my second year at UCLA, I need a job, some time to study, and a place to live, and this ticks all the boxes.
‘Yeah, really white,’ says the guard, nodding with a smirk on his face.
This guy is a joke. I had to knock on the window of his booth to get his attention when I arrived. I could’ve just walked straight past and into Hollow Vale without him noticing, but I’m too darn polite and too darn honest.
His shoulders sag as he listens to the response, and I can tell he’s disappointed. I bet he was looking forward to kicking my ass to the curb. Opportunities to exert his authority must be few and far between up here in the hills.
‘Are you done playing gatekeeper?’ I say, raising my eyebrows and cocking my head as he turns back. I can’t help it, my natural reaction to stress is to become a snarky bitch and the words tumble from my mouth even as I try to stop them. ‘Power trip over?’
The guard blinks, his face short-circuiting. I can tell he wants to yell at me, to tell me to fuck off, maybe even smack me around a little. He looks like the kind of guy that gets off on that. But apparently, I check out, and it’s good to know that being a resident nanny carries some weight around here. There is a pecking order, it seems.
He hesitates, and for a moment I feel that thrill in the pit of my stomach as I think he might actually be about to strike me, but then his big hand hits the gate buzzer instead, and after a brief cacophony of mechanical symphony, the token wooden barrier opens up, slowly.
I need to watch my tongue, otherwise, my bratty little mouth is going to get me fired. I highly doubt that my host family would have the tolerance not to sack my ass after one too many snide comebacks.
I flash a smile laced with malice in his direction, then step forward, slipping through the barely open gap impatiently and swinging my little rucksack over my shoulder again as I start down the tree-lined avenue, practically running past houses that cost a thousand times more than I’ll ever earn in my lifetime.
I am way outside of my comfort zone here, but at least I look the part. I even went to the effort of buying myself some new high-waisted jeans, a blue stripy top, a few cardigans that cover up my tats, and some sensible shoes for this job. I don’t know all the details, but getting a solid recommendation from a gated family is like a six-star review, so I am pulling out all the stops. I did not, however, pull out my tongue piercing. There are some lines that I am not prepared to cross.
I lucked out with this job. The family are so desperate they skipped the interview altogether and just went solely on agency advice. I haven’t met them, they haven’t met me, and that suits me just fine. I don’t interview well. The aforementioned tats, tongue piercing and snark do not help.
I slip my phone out of my back pocket and triple check the address. I don’t need to, I’ve memorised it and looked it up on Google sixteen times already, but my anxiety is through the roof and doubt is creeping in around the walls, and I am so late. The moment I go to put it back it rings and I panic. It’s probably the agency, calling to ask where the hell I’ve got to - it’s not my fault the stupid bus didn’t turn up on time - but when I look it’s Felicity, and then I remember why.
Shit.
I forgot I’d told her to call if I hadn’t texted her by now. I hammer the answer button.
‘Hey Flick,’ I say, out of breath. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘You’re not dead?’ she says.
‘No, but I’m late.’
‘So they haven’t murdered you yet?’ she asks suspiciously.