Chapter 1 Prologue

• Prologue
• Rayne
• It was too good to be true.
• It always was.
• There was always a catch.
• I had lost all hope but not this woman. She was more optimistic than Pollyanna and that's playing it down.
• But I'd been burnt before. I knew better.
• “We have found you a really good home, Rayne,” the social worker said as she sat at the edge of my single bed in the cramped dorm of the musty, rundown orphanage. “It’s a really good, respectable family. I just showed them your photo and they wanted you there and then. You should consider yourself very lucky considering you're about to turn eighteen.”
• “I’m sorry if I don’t display your enthusiasm,” I commented dryly. “I just lost my parents and no one will ever take their place or love me and my sister the way they did.”
• “I’m not saying your foster parents are a perfect replacement but I think you will be happy there.”
• “If they can take good care of Skylar then I’m okay with it,”
• “They are millionaires, they will take good care of you both. I have a good feeling about this,” she said squeezing my hand. "Trust me."
• I wish I could share her sentiments. I felt the opposite as a sense of foreboding crept over me. I had a really bad, bad, feeling about these people and I hadn’t even met them.
• The first sign that something was off was when a sleek black limo came to pick us up, minus the so-called respectable foster parents. Our new parents didn’t even have the decency to come and get us themselves, they sent a chauffeur and two stuffy nannies that looked at me and Sky, like we had the plague or the scum on their shoes. None of them offered to hold Sky, I mean they were supposed to try to get to know the baby they’d be taking care of, right?
• Skylar picked up on the bad vibes and started to get restless and cried. Still, they were not moved but turned up their noses at us and slinked back.
• We drove through the gates of the massive mansion and while it was pretty impressive, the welcome we received was anything but. The Burton's were cold and as aloof as their staff members. It made me wonder why they went through with the adoption in the first place. Their only son Kevin gave me the creeps with the way he openly leered at me and I held Sky tighter against my chest. Something wasn’t right with this family.
• That night, I wasn’t allowed to sleep with Skylar and the nanny told me they had to get her into some sort of normal routine. I was the enemy of progress and should just step aside and let the professionals handle it. I eventually agreed, but somewhat reluctantly.
• When I woke up the next morning Skylar was gone, along with my foster parents.
• I was in a state of panic when I found Kevin in the breakfast room, calmly eating his omelet with great concentration.
• “Where is Skylar?!” I stormed into the parlor and rounded on him. “Where is my sister??!”
• “Gone and never coming back,” he dabbed his lips with the corner of his napkin before his face broke out into a spine-chilling wicked grin. “It’s just you and me, my little reindeer.”