Page 1 of Snowed in with the Villains

Chapter One

Skye

“Kelsie, take a deep breath. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

While my sister is heaving into the phone, her words a babbled, incoherent mess, my mind immediately goes to the worst-case scenario. My sister has been kidnapped.

My stomach twirls, and the ham and cheese sandwich I forced myself to eat just an hour ago when my own life unraveled right before my eyes travels up to my throat.

Oh god. I have to get her back. If anyone hurts her... Rage fills me up now.

I’m convinced that this was bound to happen. It’s because of the school she goes to. It’s prestigious and only caters to super-rich people with millions and billions of dollars to their names. Does the kidnapper think that Kelsie Jennings, my sixteen-year-old sister, comes from a family with money? Oh boy, they couldn’t be more wrong.

The Jennings have zero money. Like not even two pennies to rub together, thanks to my mother’s awesome financial skills and her obsession with men who invariably turn out to be thugs.

The only reason Kelsie can attend rich people’s school is because of a sweet old lady who lived in our neighborhood. When Mrs. Winters broke her hip, I used to pick up her groceries, help bathe her, and clean her house, and while girls my age were out partying, I preferred to be watching game shows on a Saturday night with Mrs. Winters. I didn’t want her to feel lonely.

She was all alone in the world. No kids of her own. No siblings. No one came to see her. She was the kindest, sweetest person I knew, and I wish she had been my gran instead.

Mrs. Winters was so grateful to me. She called my mom and insisted on paying my college tuition for me. Said she had a tidy sum of money just lying in her bank account and she wanted to do something nice, give someone in our rough neighborhood a chance to break the cycle.

I was eighteen and already enrolled at community college. I could have used the money to get a better education, but I was okay. What I wanted desperately was to give my sister, a freshman at the time, a better chance.

Besides, Kelsie was super smart and could make something amazing of her life, so Mrs. Winters deposited a little over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars into my mom’s bank account, and Kelsie switched to one of those prestigious private schools where, honestly, she just excelled.

And now someone, some kidnapper, thought we had money and is now holding Kelsie for ransom. All that is left of Mrs. Winter's money is the tuition for the last one and a half years of Kelsie’s schooling. She’s working extra hard so she can get a fullscholarship to study medicine. A whole perfect life laid out for her.

This can’t be happening right now.

“I... I... I...” my sister continues to sob.

“Kelsie, listen to me,” I say, keeping my voice firm but calm. Wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder, I slip my feet, bundled in a pair of thick socks because my apartment is as cold as hell, into a pair of boots and unlock my door, which requires both my hands. I might not live in the worst neighborhood, but it’s definitely not the best either. We bolt up and stay that way.

“Can you tell me where you are? What are you looking at right now? Are there any sounds you can hear? A train, traffic, anything that can tell me where you are?”

My heart pounding nonstop, trembling with fear, I cross the corridor of my apartment building and start banging on the door, hoping my neighbor, a girl I only greet and smile at when I see her, is home so she can call the police.

“What? What sounds are you talking about? I’m looking at my desk; there’s choir practice, and they’re singing on the lawn outside my dorm,” Kelsie says, almost annoyed by my question, before she starts wailing again. “Skye, it’s over. It’s all over. I worked so hard, and now I’ll have to go home. I won’t get a scholarship. I’ll—”

“What?” Why is my sister not making any sense? What is going on? The door on which I’ve been hammering frantically swings open, and the beautiful girl from twelve B stares at me with a heavy frown on her face.

“Kelsie, where are you?”

“Skye, I’m at school. Are you on drugs? Why are you acting so weird?”

Oh, thank god. She’s at school. She’s safe.

Okay. Damage control. “Hold on,” I say to my sister, then turn my attention to the girl who I seemed to have woken up, given she answered her door in nothing but a tank top and shorts, her hair tousled and her look of sleepy confusion on her face.

“I’m so, so sorry. So sorry,” I say and repeat the phrase a few more times. “Just a bit of confusion on my part. Sorry again.” And then I take myself back to my apartment, with my sister now wailing even more in my ear.

“Kelsie, stop crying and tell me what happened.”

“I have to leave school. Mom’s coming to pick me up. My tuition isn’t paid, and unless the seven thousand dollars is paid immediately, they can’t keep me on anymore. And it’s finals, and I’m going to miss it and… what am I going to do?” Kelsie asks and starts crying hysterically again.

Of course. Why did I reach so far for kidnappers when I had a real culprit to choose from? My mother. This can only be my mother’s doing.

“Don’t do anything. Just wait. I’m going to sort this out.”

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