Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Finding Who She Truly Is
Gabby had spent the last several minutes staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.
How had her once-simple life become so complicated?
Everything she had ever believed about herself, her family, and the life she knew seemed to be unraveling before her eyes. As she glanced down at the fading wounds on her skin, a shiver ran through her.
The memories came rushing back.
FLASHBACK
Gabby had always been different.
She had soft brown hair and light-brown eyes that were unusually striking. Her eyes were the kind people noticed without meaning to. Strangers would sometimes stare at her a little too long, while others whispered among themselves when they thought she wasn’t listening.
Her closest friends had a name for it.
“Vampire eyes,” they teased whenever she gave them one of her intense looks.
Gabby would roll her eyes, and they would all burst into laughter.
She had grown up in a quiet home with the two people she loved most—her grandparents. They had raised her from the time she was a baby, and as far as Gabby knew, they were the only parents she had ever truly needed.
Her grandparents had always told her the same story.
Her parents had died in a terrible accident when she was very young.
Gabby had never questioned it.
Why would she?
Her grandparents were kind, loving, and devoted to her. They had never allowed her to feel unwanted or alone. If anything, they had surrounded her with so much love that she rarely wondered about the parents she had never known.
There was only one thing that had always seemed strange.
She had never seen a photograph of them.
Not one.
Whenever Gabby asked about it, her grandparents gave her the same explanation.
Her grandmother would gently tell her that the photographs had been removed because they brought back painful memories. They didn’t want Gabby constantly dwelling on what had been lost.
“It is better not to dwell on what is gone, sweetheart,” her grandmother had once told her.
And Gabby had believed her.
She trusted them completely.
At least, she thought she did.
Gabby lived with her grandparents in a city called Oreland, where she had spent most of her life. She was eighteen and preparing to begin university after graduation. With only a few days left of high school, her life was filled with the usual excitement—graduation preparations, university plans, and, most importantly, prom.
Prom was all anyone at school could talk about.
For Gabby, however, it wasn’t a particularly big deal.
She had recently accepted an invitation from a classmate named Rolland.
Rolland had liked her for quite some time, although Gabby had barely noticed his interest until he finally asked her to prom.
She wasn’t exactly interested in him.
But she wasn’t interested in anyone else either.
So she said yes.
What Gabby didn’t know was that Rolland had reasons of his own for wanting her by his side that night.
His interest in her went far beyond a simple prom date.
That Saturday afternoon, Gabby went shopping for her prom dress with her two best friends, Isabella and Lizzy.
The three girls had been inseparable since playschool. Their friendship had survived countless arguments, embarrassing moments, secrets, and adventures. By now, they were less like friends and more like sisters.
They wandered through the boutique, laughing and pulling dresses from the racks.
Gabby stopped suddenly.
Her eyes had landed on a simple black gown.
There was nothing extravagant about it. It wasn’t covered in glitter or bright colors. Yet something about it immediately drew her in.
She reached for it and held it against herself.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Isabella stared at the dress before scrunching up her nose.
“Black? Seriously, Gabby?”
Lizzy laughed.
“There are literally hundreds of beautiful colors here, and you choose black?”
Gabby smiled.
“What? I like it.”
The girls exchanged amused looks.
They weren’t surprised.
Gabby had always been different—slightly quirky, sometimes unpredictable, and completely comfortable with it.
“Classic Gabby,” they said together.
Gabby laughed as they continued searching for their own dresses.
By the time she returned home that evening, the sun was beginning to disappear beyond the horizon.
The house was quiet.
Her grandparents weren’t home yet.
Gabby climbed the stairs to her bedroom, already thinking about the dress she had chosen earlier that afternoon.
She opened her bedroom door.
And froze.
For a moment, she simply stood there.
Lying neatly across her bed was the most beautiful black dress she had ever seen.
Her breath caught.
It was elegant and almost impossibly perfect.
But the dress wasn’t what made her stop.
Beside it was a delicate glass slipper.
And next to the slipper sat a small silver crown that shimmered beneath the light coming through her window.
Gabby slowly stepped into the room.
“What…?”
She approached the bed, unable to take her eyes off the strange combination.
A dress.
A glass slipper.
A crown.
It looked like something from a fairy tale.
Then she noticed the small note resting on top of the dress.
With trembling fingers, she picked it up and unfolded it.
There were only four words.
Happy Graduation, my angel.
A smile immediately spread across Gabby’s face.
Her grandparents.
Of course.
Who else could it be?
They must have planned the surprise without telling her.
Overwhelmed with excitement, Gabby quickly grabbed her phone and called her grandmother.
The call connected after a few rings.
“Grandma!” Gabby exclaimed. “Thank you so much! The dress is perfect!”
There was silence on the other end.
Gabby’s smile slowly faded.
“Grandma?”
“What dress, sweetheart?”
Gabby frowned.
“The dress on my bed.”
Her grandmother said nothing.
“The black one,” Gabby continued. “There’s a glass slipper and a crown too. It’s beautiful. Thank you!”
Another silence.
But this one felt different.
Something was wrong.
When her grandmother finally spoke, her voice was quiet.
Almost frightened.
“We’ll talk when we get home.”
The call ended.
Gabby stared at her phone.
For the first time, excitement gave way to confusion.
Why didn’t her grandmother know about the gift?
She looked back at the bed.
The black dress seemed just as beautiful as before.
The glass slipper gleamed under the light.
And the silver crown sat quietly beside it.
But now, none of it felt magical.
It felt strange.
Almost as if the three objects had been placed there for a reason.
Gabby shook the thought away.
She was probably overthinking everything.
Still, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling growing inside her.
She quickly video-called Isabella and Lizzy.
The moment they saw the dress, both girls gasped.
“Oh my gosh!” Isabella exclaimed.
“Gabby, you are going to look like a princess!” Lizzy added.
Gabby smiled as they admired the dress, but her mind kept returning to her grandmother’s strange reaction.
She glanced toward the crown.
Something about it bothered her.
She couldn’t explain why.
She didn’t know where the dress had come from.
She didn’t know who had left it in her room.
And she certainly didn’t know why the note had called her my angel.
But somewhere deep inside her, a quiet voice whispered that this wasn’t a graduation gift.
It was the beginning of something.
Something that would change her life forever.
