Welcome to Charleston, SC.

Welcome indeed. Welcome new life. Welcome new home. Welcome new start. This will be good for us, I know it. Charleston is so beautiful, and really warm! I think that Carly and Riley are really going to love it here.

"Saaannnggg, I'm hungry!!"

And speaking of the twins...

Carly and Riley are my eight-year-old siblings and I love them to death. They look absolutely nothing like me, yet everything like our parents. Their light brown hair comes from our dad, while their bright blue eyes come from their mom. Being the product of an extramarital affair, I look like neither of them. Logic would say that I received my caramel blonde hair and grass-green eyes from my mother, but I wouldn't know...I never got the chance to meet her. I didn't even know that the woman I grew up with wasn't my mother until I turned sixteen.

But when life gives you lemons, and all that, right?

The twins eyes shine so much brighter than their mother's, and they have these cute little dimples in both cheeks. They are the light in my life, all the good. Those two are the only reason I stayed with the wicked bitch of the west that is my step mother for as long as I did.

"Sang, we're hungry," they both whine.

Chuckling at them, I respond, "Fine, I'll pull over when I find a place, kay?"

I take a quick look in my rearview mirror to see their response. They both nod enthusiastically, and I keep driving down the street until I see a sign for a diner named "Bob's Diner".

How original.

I pull into the parking lot and open up the back door for the twins.

Gotta love child locks. The last thing I need is for one of them to accidentally open the door while I'm driving.

Grabbing each of their hands in one of mine, we walk together into the very friendly environment the diner provides.

"Hello, my name is Kassy. How many?" A bubbly waitress asks me as we enter the establishment.

She turns bright, happy brown eyes to the twins before looking back at me again.

"Three please," I tell her with a smile of my own.

She nods and grabs three menus before asking us to follow her. She sits us down at a booth in the middle and passes out the menus before telling us that our waiter will be with us shortly. As the twins look over the menu, I take a look around the diner. The walls are painted beautifully portraying classic diner scenes throughout the decades. It's done so artistically that it's stunning.

"Sang, you not hungry?" Riley asks with a tilt of his head.

Before I can answer, our waiter comes up to the table. His rich brown hair hangs to the tips of his ears, and his jade green eyes are slightly hidden behind his black framed glasses.

"Hello, I'm Kota. What can I get you?"

I look to the kids for them to order first, who both give me giant grins. A quick inspection of the menu tells me why. I smile at them before turning to Kota, "Three orders of chocolate chip pancakes and strawberry smoothies please."

Kota seems frozen for a moment before writing down the order and going back to the kitchen.

The twins and I talk a bit about what we expect from the house until Kota comes back with our orders. With the order being a bit big, he has someone else helping him. He's about the same height as Kota with messy, reddish-brown hair. It looks really soft and brings attention to his serious blue eyes. I notice he has large muscles that stretch the seams of his red shirt and I have to admit, he's really hot.Both of them are really, although, Kota has more of a nerdy hot kinda thing going on with his glasses.

"Here you go, three orders of chocolate chip pancakes, and three strawberry smoothies." Kota says.

He places the plates in front of us, while the other guy gives out the drinks. After everything is on the table, they turn to leave but the new guy stops and turns back to me.

"I'm sorry, but I haven't seen you here before. Are you new?"

I find my eyes being drawn to the red-head, there's such power in his stance. The hard lines of his body tell a story of hard work and determination and I wonder how he got that way...what made him want to work this hard?

"Hello??"

My head snaps up as I realize that he's still waiting for an answer.

"Uh yeah, we just moved here. It's our first day in Charleston."

Smooth Sang...real smooth.

"Oh really, where you guys from?" he asks, curiously.

I stare at him with narrowed eyes as I think about whether or not I want to answer. Why does he want to know?

"A small town in Illinois. You've probably never heard of it." I answer vaguely, not willing to expand more. I shouldn't need too, I barely knew the guy.

"Alright," Kota says with a strained smile. "Well if you need anything just ask me or Nathan. Enjoy."

With that, they turn back around and leave us to our food.

So his name is Nathan...hmm.

We eat in silence, all thoroughly enjoying our first meal in hours. Once we're done, I flag down Kota while the twins go clean up in the bathroom. By the time they come back out, the table has been cleared, and the check has been paid. We leave with full bellies and an ever-growing excitement about our new home.

In the parking lot, we climb into my baby, Lola, a 2013 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution in gunmetal grey. This girl here is my pride and joy, I won her in a race about a year ago when some idiot newbie decided that he wanted to race for pink slips. That's what I do, I'm a racer, street racer to be exact. Highly illegal, but also highly lucrative.

I got into the racing scene when I was fifteen and my family moved to Illinois. I know, you don't really think Illinois when you hear street racing, but trust me, the circuit up there was sick. Within a few, I managed to make myself good enough that everyone wanted to race me. I was the bar that everyone wanted to pass.

Now I know what you're probably thinking, if it was so good, why did I leave, right? Well, none of this was exactly by choice. A couple of weeks ago, when my dad came back from one of his business trips, him and the step monster started fighting more than usual. Usually, whenever they get into an argument she would take it out on me, this time however, was different. This time, she let her rage from their arguments build up until a few days ago. That's when she beat before she kicked me out of the house. She told me to pack my things and never return. By the time I managed to crawl to my bedroom, my father was inside waiting for me. He apologized for not being able to protect me from her, and then proceeded to tell me about a grandmother I'd never met who had just passed away. He told me that she left me things in her will, and that I'd need to go down to Charleston, South Carolina to meet with her lawyer to retrieve all that she left me.

I was moments away from leaving when I heard the monster yelling at the twins for God only knows what. I knew that I couldn't leave them with her, so I went to their shared room, packed them each a small duffle bag, and snuck them out the back of the house. We retrieved my baby from the long term parking garage I kept her in, and drove off.

I called the lawyer as soon as we left and told him when we should be reaching Charleston. He gave me an address and told me to call him as soon as I get there. We're only a few miles out, and then we'll be home free.