The car ride over to her uncle’s was horrible.  Katherine’s mother Grace had picked her up after school to drop her off on her way to the airport.  Grace had taken a job in a new city, mostly to get away from her husband, Katherine’s step dad, who was a drunk and a total asshole.  Katherine wanted to move as well but they decided she should stay and at least finish out her senior year before heading off to Princeton next fall.  Katherine was a smart girl, always had been, and a good looking one too.  Almost as tall as her mother she had striking features and the same well proportioned body.  As a youngster she had been very active in sports.  She played tennis, was a very good swimmer and could run a mile in under eight minutes.  Even as a pre-teen her blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes seemed to capture the hearts of almost every boy she met.  But since her sophomore year in high school she had done some experimenting with her self-image.  Changed her look as well as her attitude toward authority.  Grace wrote it off to raging hormones and, being a bit of a free sprit herself, figured she would let it ride.  Kids always seemed to find their way back to center if given just the right amount of freedom.<br/><br/>Grace was giving Katherine, everyone called her “Kate” for short, some last minute advice about her uncle Bill or “Billy” as she called him.<br/><br/>“Now you have to take into account that you will be a guest in his home and I expect you to act as one.”  Grace said as she took the exit off the freeway.  “He’s got his own life and since it’s his house he will have rules and you are to follow them, understand?”<br/><br/>Kate nodded but was only half listening.  She was checking her iPod to make sure she had downloaded “Within Temptation’s” latest album.<br/><br/>“Did you hear what I said Kate?”<br/><br/>“Yeah.  I heard you, jezzez.”<br/><br/>Grace glanced over and watched her daughter as she fiddled with her iPod.  She prayed Kate would make it through the rest of the year without being expelled.  She had already been accepted at Princeton but that could change very fast if she got into trouble again.  Three suspensions since her sophomore year was cause for concern.  Grace reached over and brushed a lock of raven black hair off Kate’s face.<br/><br/>“You’re beautiful, you know that?”  Grace said, almost choking with emotion.<br/><br/>Kate brushed her mothers hand away and shook her head.  Her black dyed hair fell across her face.  She inserted the earphones and turned up the volume.  The music filled her brain.<br/><br/>Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of her uncle’s house and got out.  October was still fairly warm so neither woman wore a jacket.  Grace got the rest of Kate’s bags out of the trunk and helped carry them to the door.  Then she kissed her daughter and hugged her.  She looked at her watch.<br/><br/>“Oh my God, I’m running late.”  Grace was always ‘running late.’  “Remember what we talked about and you have my number if you need anything.” She said as she half walked, half ran back to the car.<br/><br/>When she got to the car she looked back at Kate.  Her daughter stood at door dressed in a long black skirt of ruffled layers of fabric detailed with lace.  The skirt had set her back over a hundred dollars and she didn’t mind that at all, but the back leather corset, the black satin choker, the wristbands, the silver rings, black nail polish, ear piercings (she had drawn the line at some of the other piercings Kate wanted), the calf-high lace up ‘granny boots’, the black eye makeup, black lipstick and black hair to match the equally black attitude were all a bit much.  And pale?  For the past year Kate rarely saw the sun, going out mostly at night to clubs or parties at friend’s houses.  God only knew what went on there and he sure as hell wasn’t telling.  And, to be honest, Grace didn’t want to know.  Kate would be eighteen next month.  A woman in her own rite.  Legal age.<br/><br/>“Christ I hope she makes it.”  Grace thought as she waved goodbye.  She got behind the wheel and taking one more look at Kate, pressed the accelerator.  The car sped off and disappeared around the corner.<br/><br/>Katherine Anne Simmons or “Dark Angel” as her Goth friends called her, stood at the door of her uncle’s home and watched her mother drive off.  She felt an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach and her heart skipped a beat.  She looked around the middle-class neighborhood; at the neatly trimmed lawns and perfect flower beds; the sparkling clean windows and smooth paved driveways.  She blinked twice when she saw an old woman peering out a window from the house across the street.  Kate smiled exposing her perfect white teeth.  Then she looked down the street where her mother’s car had disappeared.<br/><br/>“What a bitch.” She whispered as she turned and knocked on the door…<br/>