• She remembered it like it was yesterday. Fear does that to you. In truth, it had been four years.Four years...has really been that long? That often went through Tori Takedo's mind when she sat alone. By doing things, doing jobs around town, cleaning the house, or just running,she could forget. Forget everything. Forget that she carried burdens no 16 year old should have to carry. Forget that her parents were dead, killed in a "house fire." Forget that they really died in an explosion caused by her 27 year old cousin, Hiekeama, who for some reason now wanted her dead. Forget the strange,ebony skull ring her mother had given her. Forget everthing. Lose herself in the rythyms of whatever she was doing. But eventually, the pattern would end and the thoughts and memories came flood came flooding back. The stange ring being pressed into her hand. The whispered warning from her mother,"Guard this with your life. We are not like others, Tori." Then her parents screams, the breaking of glass. Feeling herself fall out of the second story window.
    The ring of her apartment doorbell brought her out of misery. "Coming!" Tori yelled, pulling herself together. She'd been crying. She raced to the door. What she didn't know was that her whole life was going to change the second she opened the door.