First Lie || Deception Book I ||

The First Chapter

I dropped my duffel bag on my bed and sighed. A chapter has finished and a new one has started, I thought. And it all begins with a huge brownstone orphanage covered in creeping ivy.

After Hecate had dropped me off, I'd gone into the house with the mistress of the place (a thin, cruel-looking hag) to check-in. She'd told another girl to bring me to their quarters where they slept to get me 'settled in'. So I'd gone, and here I was. In a dingy lit room with about a dozen other girls my age and lots and lots of rickety beds with black iron frames.

I plopped down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. It wasn't the orphanage that got me on nerves, though. It was the empty, hollow looks on the faces of the girls who I'd seen on my way in. They looked like there was no light left in the world. I shivered. Not all of them, obviously. I had passed a gang of girls who'd giggled and pointed, shooting mocking looks at everyone. I'd rolled my eyes at them and ignored it. I always had hated bullies.

"Excuse me," someone whispered.

I shot upright. My attention zeroed in on the girl sitting across from me on her bed. My brain immediately started processing information about her. Fourteen fifteen ish, with long brown hair and huge blue eyes set in her pale, heart-shaped face. She sat with her shoulders curved inwards like she was trying to hide from something. "Hello," I said quietly but not weakly. "You're the one who brought me upstairs, right?"

She nodded. "My name is Allison, but you can call me Ally if you want."

I smiled. This was it. The start of my lie.

"My name's Rianna, but you can call me Anna."

"So, Ally," I said, digging through my bag for the couple of books I'd brought with me. "When did you get here?"

She flinched.

Oops. "It's okay if you don't want to tell me," I said sympathetically.

Ally shook her head. "No no, it's fine." She took a deep breath. "My mother died when I was three. I have no clue where my father is. I lived with my aunt until she passed away from a stroke when I was eight, and then I was sent to live here. At St. Anne's Orphanage." Her lips curled up in a show of anger that I hadn't expected from her.

"I hate it when people say 'I'm sorry' because-"

"It's so insincere." Ally nodded.

"But I'm sorry."

Ally smiled weakly. "Would you mind telling me your story?"

I shrugged. "Sure. My father used to run a thrift store in upstate New York but then he got killed in a car accident. I have no idea where my mother is. So I was sent to an orphanage when I was seven and then ran away within the first three months. Unsurprisingly, I got found by the police and sent to another one, but it was for fourteen-year-olds and younger. So I got kicked out, where I lived by myself for a year, and here I am."

Ally stared at me. "You're seventeen?"

I nodded. "Yep. And currently attending White Pine Secondary."

"Oh hey," she said. "I go there too. First-year there. Will I see you after the holidays?"

I shook my head. "I'm volunteering at Yancy next semester."

"Yancy Academy? The private school for troubled kids?"

I nodded again.

"What did you do to get there?"

"Let's just say that the teachers don't like me much," I grinned. "But really, I chose it. I don't know. I guess I wanted some change in my life."