Claimer: Mine. No takey.

Downward Spiral Rising

Prologue

I sat on my bed, hugging Mr. Snuggles to my chest and pouting shamelessly. I'm not usually a sulker but I figure it's okay to mope every once in a while, especially when it's over something so audaciously horrible as the news I had received earlier that night.

"This is fantastic!" Ian shouted, grinning like an idiot and completely ruining the dark aura I was trying to give off in my room. I scowled at him as he sat on my overstuffed chair.

The boy was obviously insane.

"What are you talking about, moron?! This isn't fantastic, it's an outrage! It's cruel, inhumane, scandalous! It's- it's..." I sputtered angrily, groping for another suitable adjective in that hamster-wheel I call a brain. "......... really, really bad!" I finished pathetically, but with so much gusto no one could possibly disagree with me.

"I think you're overreacting, Chloe," Nicole said soothingly as she patted my leg.

Traitor.

"Warren, make them see reason!" I whined desperately, turning to my last line of defense. Out of the four of us Warren was definitely the smart one. He'd understand.

"I don't see the big deal," he replied absently, surfing the web on my laptop and managing to crush all my hopes in one foul swoop, "You get to live in a mansion and you're mom's happy. What's so horrible about that?"

I stared at him, gaping. 'What was so bad about that?'! My mom was going insane and taking me along for the ride and my 3 best friends didn't see anything wrong with it!

"I'm moving in with 4 complete strangers!" I shrieked.

"They won't be strangers for long, now will they?" Warren asked sardonically, a smile tugging at his lips. I threw a pillow at him. Unfortunately it missed and his smile broadened.

Jerk.

"And you know Connor and Claire from school," Ian added, cerulean blue eyes gleaming. I got the vague impression he was plotting but I was too upset to care.

"I know of them," I corrected, frowning. Sure, I knew their faces, their reputations, but I didn't know them.

Ian shrugged.

"So get to know them," he replied easily.

It was times like this that I couldn't understand what I saw in him. Sure Ian was gorgeous, funny, moderately intelligent, and sweet. But he could be annoying as hell and right then I had the intense urge to smack the blond upside the back of his head.

But he was sooooo far away.

Meh. Lazy.

"You said so yourself: you can't remember the last time you saw your mom this happy," Nicole reminded me. I pouted, burrowing my face deeper into Mr. Snuggles' chest. That was true. She'd been laughing and smiling and humming ever since she'd started dating Alec. She seemed alive like I'd never seen her before. And I had been happy for her. Really, I had been.

But when she invited her boyfriend and his children over for dinner today I hadn't expected Claire and Connor Barton to show up at our door with their father and little brother. I mean, they were probably the most popular people at Rollway High; seriously, the twins were practically famous. Popular people and I just don't tend to get along well. I don't like them, they don't like me. It's the natural order of the universe.

C'est la vie.

Still, I could have handled that. I'm flexible. I can adapt. So I forced a smile and ignored the fact that Connor ignored me and Claire kept glancing at me like she knew she'd seen me somewhere. (We have 3 classes together for chrissakes). But when Mom and Alec stood up at the end of dinner, holding hands, and announced that they were engaged I lost it.

Well, my fork at least.

I'd been playing with the food left over on my plate and it just flipped right out of my hands when I heard the words "engaged" and "married" coming from my mom's mouth. So not only was my mom officially off her rocker, but Connor had a fork full of mashed potatoes splattered across his nice black shirt. He hadn't looked too happy about that. Or it might have been the whole 'guess what: we're ruining your lives on a whim' thing our parents had just been talking about.

Oh well, at least he finally looked at me.

A glare is a look, right?

Ugh. Arrogant bastard.

"What did I do to deserve this?!" I groaned.

"Maybe you were Hitler in another life?" Warren offered helpfully. He's a regular boy-scout, that one. Nikki laughed and hugged him from behind affectionately. He smiled softly and let her sit on his lap. I sunk my chin deeper into my stuffed Lobster and sulked. First my mom, now them.

God, I hated couples.

Ok, I'm randomly going to stop it here. I have to go watch "manhunt" now (grrrrowl), so this will have to do for the time being. This is really, REALLY rough sketch of what is to come. I just felt like posting something. It's is just a very basic introduction so don't judge it too harshly, k? Also, this is the first time I've used 1st person POV so I'm a little wary of it. Just tell me what you think.

Continue? Delete? Burn my computer so I can never have access to it again?

Anyway, please review, I'm a slut for it :)