Introduction

Shasta cracked her knuckles and sighed, leaving her two twin daughters even more anxious for the news. Leah had butterflies filling her stomach, fluttering around with pure excitement. She knew she was going to get this. Her mother had done everything but just flat out tell her that she was heiress. All of the friendly winks, the smiling in the hallway, it was like a girl hinting to a boy that she was interested in Leah’s house!

Ashleigh, Leah’s twin sister just sat in her chair, twiddling her thumbs, waiting calmly for the words she hoped to hear. Even though she was normally an incredibly perky, excitable girl, Ashleigh was, at the moment, silent. If she was to be dubbed heiress, she wouldn’t want to look back and be embarrassed at how she acted before becoming the top dog of the house.

Shasta cleared her throat, “Alrighty then. Lets get down to business, shall we?” Leah’s mother smiled.

Leah and Ashleigh were dead silent. You could drop half of a pin in the room, and someone could hear it from the kitchen. Leah thought she was going to puke, the butterflies were going wild. And they seemed to be evolving into falcons or condors, because they went from light, happy flying, to ripping her open from the inside. And Ashleigh could no longer hold her excitement inside of her. She was wiggling happily in her chair with a huge smile on her face.

“The heiress is….Ashleigh!” Shasta exclaimed, relieving her daughters. Leah’s heart sunk. WHAT THE- She started to think, but her overjoyed sister cut her thought of with a yelp of joy. Ashleigh shot out of her chair and started jumping happily up and down, her unnaturally curly hair bouncing on her back.

“Oh my GAWD!” She enthused to her mother, clapping her hands.

“Congratulations, Ashleigh, you deserve it!” Shasta smiled. Ashleigh wasted no time in starting some planning for the future,

“Now I think that if I hosted a pool party, Kenneth might finally look at me!” Ashleigh stated matter-of-factly. For a young adult, she still acted 16.

Leah drowned out all of the babble so she could be with her thoughts, What the hell? I thought I was heiress! Wasn’t I supposed to be heiress? And what does Ashleigh have that I don’t? She has never done anything! Anything! She just spent her teen years crushing on that stupid, ugly Kenneth! Ashleigh’ll turn the legacy into an uglacy if she has kids with him!….And she can barely dress herself!

Both Ashleigh and Shasta had noticed the silence from Leah. They were facing her with quizzical expressions on both their faces. Ashleigh had stopped talking to her mother to focus on her sister, so the silence from Leah took over the room for a good minute. Finally, Shasta spoke up, “Honey, is everything okay?” Leah frowned and stood up from her chair,

“No! Everything is not all right!” She fumed, “How could you do that? I thought I was supposed to be heiress!”

Leah’s mother put her hands up defensively, “Whoa, honey, what made you think that?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Hmm, how about the looking directly into only my eyes and smiling while talking about future plans for the legacy? How about that? That wasn’t misleading at all. How could you do this to me, mom? Do you take pride in giving me hope and then taking it all back? Gah! I hate you!” Leah stomped her feet on the ground.

Shasta sighed, “Honey… honey, honey, honey… I would never choose you to be heiress.”

Leah’s heart sunk, “What? You mean I never had any chance? What?”

“Honey, remember when you got caught after curfew?” Shasta noted simply. Leah rolled her eyes and ran her hand through her long, black, Native American hair.

“That was ONE TIME, mom! And they caught me as I was driving home! I did nothing wrong. Once he clock struck 10:50, I was in my car in the parking lot of the theatre, pulling out of my parking space. I would have been home in time, had I not been unnecessarily pulled over! And what does that misdemeanour have to do with any of this?” Leah ranted, continuing to stomp on the hard ground.

“Yes, well, our legacy cannot have a delinquent as our heiress! What would the townsfolk say? And imagine what it would do to our reputation! Clearly, as a delinquent, you are anything but responsible enough to handle this without it crashing and burning.” Shasta informed her daughter sternly.

“I am not a delinquent! And your accusation is INSANE!” Leah screamed. Shasta opened her mouth to scold her second daughter, but before she could, Leah took a deep breath and spoke as coolly as she could, “But you know what, now that I think about it, I’m happy I’m not heiress.”

“Why?” Ashleigh spoke for the first time throughout the duration of the fight.

“Because now I can do this:” Leah ran upstairs to her room, her shoes clacking loudly on the floor.

Shasta nor Ashleigh followed Leah. They simply looked at each other. “What do you think she is doing?” Ashleigh asked. Shasta shrugged, “Honestly dear, I have no idea.”

Leah was in her room, snatching all of her clothes out of her dresser. Stuffing all of her clothes in her trunk, she muttered angrily to herself, “I’ll show her.” Then she was done, but before she was set to go, she snatched the charm her father had made her before he died and put it around her neck. It had always made her feel even luckier than she already was, and luck was what she really needed right now.

Whilst dragging her trunk out of the room and down the stairs, Leah called a cab for herself. When Shasta and Ashleigh saw Leah with a small trunk full of clothes and money, they had no choice but to ask, “What the hell are you doing?”

“”I’m leaving.” Leah answered simply.

“To where?” Ashleigh asked.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” Leah said.

“Then why?” Shasta put a hand on her hip and twisted a strand of her hair with her other hand.

“To start a legacy.” Leah said smirked at her family.

“What? Honey, you can’t!” Shasta protested.

“Yes I can, mother. And I intend to. I’m not a delinquent, and I’m capable of handling the responsibility of a legacy. Even the responsiblity of being a founder.”

“Honey, you’re just lying to yourself. You’re angry, you can’t think straight right now. Stay here until you’re rational again.” Shasta tried to presuade her daughter to stay, but then a horn honked from outside the family mansion.

Leah shrugged and with a half smirk, half smile, said, “Sorry mom, but my cab is here, so, I’m out!” before scuttling out of the house with her trunk. Shasta tried to run after her, but Ashleigh grabbed her mother’s arm.

“Don’t worry, mom. She’ll be back.” Ashleigh cooed to her mother. Shasta relaxed slightly, but still wanted to go after her baby.

By now Leah had dragged her trunk into the taxi and sat in the back seat with it.

“Where do you want to go, Ms. Adahy?” The driver asked.

“Far away from here. I don’t care where, but take me as far away from here as you can for $1,000.” Leah instructed, taking a wad of money out of her trunk and tossing it onto the passenger’s seat. The driver’s eyes turned to saucers, staring at the lump of cash.

“Sunset Valley it is. It’ll take about a day to get there, but its nice and far away.” The driver said slowly before driving off into the distance.

Sunset Valley. I like the sound of that. Leah thought as she looked out the window to the blurring images of Riverview.

A DAY AND A HALF LATER…

“Miss Adahy? Miss Adahy?” Leah felt the cab driver poking her side. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Whaaat?” Leah groaned.

“We’re here. The city set up your bed and such to your requirements when you purchased the lot. Take care.” The driver said, taking Leah’s trunk out of the car. Leah got out into the bright, warm sun.

“Well, Sunset Valley, I have arrived, and you had better be ready to face 10 long generations of Adahy’s!”

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