Hey. This is my first DP fanfic, so be gentle. ;) Anyhow, there are a few things I need to get cleared up about the story. A. It's all human and none of the characters have powers. B. Chloe is nineteen. Derek is twenty-three. Simon is twenty-two. And so on. C. Characters may be OOC, sorry if they are. That's about it. I'll mention anything else in the later chapters. One more thing, I'm quite busy at the moment, so I don't have an updating schedule yet. If I do, it'll be posted on bio and/or twitter.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN darkest powers, KELLY ARMSTRONG DOES! I do however own the plot and any additional characters I may add. No plagiarism.

Anyhow, let the story begin!

Chapter 1: Heart Breaks and Heart Aches

"Nope" I said, plopping back down on my navy blue colored bed. I had just recently re-done my room, and I was still in the bubble that happens after you get something new; the one where you can't help but keep everything perfect and orderly. I fixed the black and white carpet, and pressed the speaker button on the iPhone. Placing the phone down, I stood up and walked over to my closet, and began shifting through my clothes to find something suitable for today's dinner.

"I'm sorry Chloe. It's almost the third day of summer, and you've done nothing. Your nineteen years old Chloe, you need to get out there." Aunt Lauren said. I sighed.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked, as I grabbed the blue and silver dress.

I could practically see Aunt Lauren beaming. "I signed you up for cooking camp! It's a seven week course, designed to teach you how to cook both gourmet meals and casual meals. You live in a suite by yourself, but there are several other students in the camp"

I could feel the corner of my lips rising up; I'd been nagging about wanting to go to a cooking camp since I was twelve years old and had my first family studies class. Unfortunately, with my dad making us move around all the time I couldn't sign up for anything. But now that I was nineteen my dad was letting me live by myself.

"I'll do it" I chirped. I grabbed my hair brush and ran it through my straight strawberry blonde hair.

"Excellent. The camp is in Chicago and you leave this—"

"Wait... Chicago?" I asked as I added a small amount of silver eyeliner to my eyes, widening them as I added mascara to my lashes. I winced when I poke my eye. God, I had no skill with these utensils that almost everyone else my gender used on a daily basis.

Aunt Lauren cleared her throat. "There were no cooking camps that lasted that long near here. I'm sorry"

I shrugged. "It's alright. So how many instructors are there?"

"Just the one. He's got lots of assistants thought."

"What's his name?" I asked. I placed the hair brush down, and dabbed a bit of lip gloss on my lips, before quickly wiping it off. I looked weird with shiny lips. I grabbed my purse and pulled out my phone charger, and hooked it up to my phone. There was a small beep that interrupted Aunt Lauren.

"—matter. You'll see the instructor at camp"

I narrowed my eyes. Something was suspicious. "Aunt Lauren..."

Now it was Aunt Lauren's turn to sigh. "Derek Souza"

I dropped the nail polish wand, and quickly bent to pick it up, thanking God that it hadn't landed on my carpet. I bottled up the nail polish and put it down.

"Derek Souza? Aunt Lauren, have you not heard me rant about that arrogant cocky guy, for an entire year?" I asked. And it was true, I had been ranting about him since I learned that he had rejected my friends' anti computer virus program and had given her a plethora of insults and degrading comments. Tori had sobbed for hours. As bad as I'd felt for her, until I found out what hot-shot Souza had said, I hadn't been that mad. I remember exactly what had happened.

I shuffled into Tori's room, my arms loaded with magazines. We were going to spend the night pouring over ideas for our Halloween costume. Tori and I took Halloween very seriously. Last year we were Disney Princesses gone bad. It was genius. I was Cinderella turned into Ciller. Tori was Ariel aka; Burial. I pushed open her door with my hip, shutting it with my leg. I dumped the magazines on her bed.

"Tori?" I called. I looked around and noted that the window that leads to her roof was open. I grabbed my phone and slipped onto the roof. This was exactly how I first met Tori. I had gone up to Tori's room because Mrs. Enright had let me in, and I'd climbed onto the rood only to see Tori sobbing.

I slipped onto the roof and slowly climbed down until I could see her. Tori's black hair was tied up into a messy bun, which was a bad sign. Her hair was only every tied up if she was mad or sad.

"Tori?" I called softly, settling down next to her. She didn't say anything, but she did toss me a letter. It was from the Souza and Bae Company. It was a long letter, eventually coming to the conclusion that it had rejected Tori's program. I frowned. It wasn't like Tori to cause havoc over a measly declination for one of her programs. She tossed me another letter; it was different from the last. The other one had been typed and this one was hand written.

Victoria Enright.

Sorry to inform you, but we don't really want your pathetically made program. I don't care if you think you're made to be with Simon, but he doesn't care.

I really don't. –Simon Bae.

And I've gotten tired of having to reject girls for him, so keep your desperate and slutty hands off my brother and I. He doesn't like you. At all. I'm sorry (not really) if this has crushed your hopes and aspirations, but we don't want you or your program.

-Derek Souza.

And

Simon Bae.

I threw the paper down and scowled. Tori and I spent the rest of the night making plans about how to destroy both Derek Souza and Simon Bae.

"I'm sorry Chloe. Your father approved of my idea as well. You leave this Thursday." Aunt Lauren announced.

I frowned. "Dad said yes?" I asked.

"Yes honey he did. Do you have his number?"

I frowned again. "He got a new phone?"

"Oh, he didn't tell you? He got the newest iPhone. The 4s I think? Anyway, I'll text you his number and you guys can talk it out. Alright honey? I've just been paged I have to go, sorry. Love you"

"Love you too" I said, as I clicked the end button. I decided not to ring up my dad, because he was probably in a meeting. Instead I called Tori. Normally I would go over to her house, but I couldn't because she was at this super smart people camp with her boyfriend. She picked up on the last ring.

"Hey Chloe" Tori's sultry voice said. "Hey Tori. My aunt and dad signed me up for cooking camp"

I could hear Tori perking up. "That's great Chloe. When do you leave for it?"

"This Thursday" I answered. "But, the instructor is Derek Souza"

"It doesn't matter Chloe. I got over it. Just if you do see Simon Bae, tell him my program got accepted at the Apple Company"

I gasped. "That's awesome Tori!"

"I know. Anyway, face time me in about an hour. We can decide what clothes you take okay?"

"Okay. Tell Aaron I said hi. Bye Tori"

"Bye Chloe"

I hung up and tossed the phone to the floor. I walked over to my dresser and gave myself a once over. My hair was fixed, and my make up wasn't off. My dress was slightly askew, but it could easily be fixed. I grabbed my phone and purse and headed out. I locked the house door, and slipped into my car. I was going to surprise Nate.

Nate and I had been dating for several months, but we'd been friends for about five years. We met in freshman year and hit off when he joined my drama class. I was absolutely head over heels for Nate, and I had been since grade ten. I dialed up Nate and then decided against it. I was going to surprise.

Nate and I had planned that tonight we'd have a romantic dinner and then watch a movie. I was pumped, and excited and absolutely thrilled. Nate had been busy for the last week, baseball meets and hockey games plus finals had him working around the clock. I hadn't seen him since last week, and we'd had this date planned for several weeks. My phone buzzed and I glanced down at the caller. My heart rate picked up. My Aunt had given me the number; it was Derek Souza's number.

My thumb hesitated on the receive button, but I ended up clicking it.

"H-hello?" I asked, mentally cursing my stutter. I'd had it since my mother died eight years ago.

"Hi" a deep baritone voice said. I raised my eyebrows; I'd never assumed that Derek Souza of all people would have such a... alluring voice. Shaking the thought away I returned to the call.

"Hi this is Chloe—"

"Yes, I know. That was why I called. Do you think I just randomly pick up the phone, and decided, 'Hey? I'm going to dial random numbers' you obviously knew it was me, why'd you introduce yourself?"

I scrunched my face and scowled. "You know, next time I'll just yell at you as well"

He laughed but I doubted it was his normal laugh. It sounded sinister. Maybe he was just sinister.

"Grand. We can both yell happily at each other because that will obviously get things done"

I frowned. "Obviously" I said, in a condescending mocking tone.

He cleared his throat. "I called to confirm your arrival at the camp" he stated. I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'm attending your camp" I said.

"Good. Now I have a package of things to send you, we need to go over several different rules and implications"

I rolled my eyes. "Sorry, call me later. I've got to go"

When he tried to say something, I hung up. Then I started my car, and prepared to go and surprise my not sarcastic and snarky date.

I got to Nate's house ten minutes earlier than I had expected, so I decided to walk up to it and ring the door bell. Nate was supposed to pick me up in an hour, but I might as well surprise him. Maybe I'd get his car keys and sit in his car, and when he went to pick me up I'd pop out of his car and yell "You're late!" Grinning, I started the car up again and parked two streets down. I walked the rest of the way, and came to a stop in front of his door. I rung the bell, and excitedly stepped back knowing it would be his mother. I was right.

"Hello Chloe!" she cried, flinging her arms around me. I loved Nate's mom, she was like the mother Tori and I never had. Tori's mom was always away and barely had time for Tori, and my mother, well, my mother was dead.

"Hi, I was wondering is Nate home?"

She shook her head. "No, he went to run an errand for me. He walked, if you're wondering"

I beamed and explained to her my plan. She smiled happily and handed me Nate's keys. I grabbed them and slipped inside his car. I sat at the very back, and tossed a blanket over my head. I grabbed my phone, and texted Tori. I was telling her about my plan and the call with Derek Souza, when I heard and felt the car door open and I peeked through the blanket to see Nate's fiery red hair. A smile slipped onto my features.

Nate drove for about twenty minutes, and then he parked the car. I waited until he'd slammed the door shut and locked it, before peeping out and looking at where I was. Oddly enough this wasn't my house. I saw Nate knock on the door, and when he turned around I dove under, and hid under the blanket. Nate came back five minutes later. The passenger door opened, and shut. Then the driver's door opened and shut. I waited for a minute before letting out a soft sigh.

"So" Nate said, I tensed. How'd he know I was here?

I was about to say something, when someone beat me to it. "Oh Nate, you really have been spending too much time with her"

I frowned. I turned off my phone and craned my ear towards them, so I could hear their conversation better.

Nate chuckled. "What do you mean?"

The female voice let out a soft yet unnervingly seductive laugh. I tried not to get jealous, it could be his cousin. You never know, I haven't met all of his family and Nate's mother has always been talking about one of his cousins who had a really nice voice. Sort of.

"You know your girlfriend. The Saunders girl. Blonde haired and blue eyes, ugh she's such a dumb bimbo" The female said. I frowned. I was not dumb!

"She's not a dumb bimbo. She's so sweet and amazing and—"

"—boring?" the voice said. I squeaked indignantly. Then instantly covered my mouth. But it didn't matter, neither Nate nor his companion heard.

"She's not boring" Nate said again. I smiled.

"She's not exotic and interesting either."

Nate was silent. Completely and utterly silent. My heart rate picked up and as much as I'd like to think this was his cousin I knew, deep down in my heart, that it wasn't.

There was silence before some shifting, and the soft sound of lips pressed against each other. My heart dropped, and I turned stone cold. My boyfriend was cheating on me, IN FRONT of me. Forty-five minutes before or prescheduled date. My life was in ruins.

"Tell her" the girl said.

"Tell her what?" Nate asked. Yeah, what? I thought.

"Tell her about us. Tell her that you love me and I love you"

I heard Nate suck in a breath. He let out a shaky chuckle. "I was going to. After the date" I heard him snap his fingers. And it was as if my world had come crashing down. Nate only ever snapped his fingers when he was guilty about something and telling the truth.

Apparently the other girl knew that as well. She sighed happily, and said, "I'm so happy"

I waited for Nate's answer, knowing that he'd probably say something in my honor.

"Yeah, me too"

My jaw dropped.

"Call her, call her now. I want to go on that date with you. I want to go on a romantic dinner with you and then watch a bunch of movies at the theatres"

Nate shuffled in his pocket before pulling out his phone. I decided I'd had enough. I sat up, and pulled the blanket off. I crossed my arms, narrowed my eyes and sat in the middle of the back seat. I watched as Nate dialed my number. My phone rang and Nate and his companion jumped and turned around.

"Hey Nate" I said coldly. Nate gulped. "H-hey Chloe"

I turned my steely gaze to the person occupying the passenger seat, and bit down on my lip to stop myself from bursting into tears. She. Was. Gorgeous. Long dark curly hair that ended just a little after her shoulder blade. Her skin was an exotic copper, and he legs were long and thin. Her eyes were a deep chocolaty brown, with small dabs of darker brown. Her lips were red and pouted, and she was wearing the most elegant dress ever. It came just past her knees, and was backless and strapless. Everything was nicely tucked in, giving her a soft and seductive look.

I looked like a troll on drugs compared to her.

"We're over" I said, feeling the need to say it before he could embarrass me further.

The girl looked at Nate before turning back to look at me. Without leaving my eyes she said, "Tell her Nate"

Nate sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.

"Chloe, I-I've been seeing Rae for several weeks now. She and I go a long way back, and I love her. And what I did was wrong, and I'm sorry, but I can't help but love her" Nate said.

I nodded. I leaned over and slapped him. My palm stung for a bit, but it was worth seeing the look on Nate and Rae's faces. I plucked his car keys and gripped onto them.

"Out" I commanded. The two of them got out of the car, and shut the doors. I climbed into the driver's seat and started the ignition.

"See you never again Nate. I'll tell your mom what happened" I said, before speeding away. It wasn't until I had passed Nate's house did the tears fall.

I wiped another tear away, and scooped up another bite of Creamy Delight. I swallowed and winced. If I didn't end up with a death defying cold the next morning, I'd call myself freeze girl. I turned the volume up on my movie. I'd gone old school after I came home from Nate's house, I'd grabbed three boxes of ice cream, a cooler, a big spoon, several chick flicks and locked myself in my room. Nobody was going to visit me tonight, so I wasn't worrying about anyone interrupting my momentarily fortress of solitude.

Except him.

Nate had been calling me nonstop ever since I drove away with his car. At first he'd been all sympathies, explaining the situation and then he'd turned mad. He spent twenty minutes of the last call yelling at me for taking things badly. I ended up blocking him. Oh well.

My phone started ringing. I picked it up, but before I could say anything the person on the other end beat me to it.

The deep, rough voice of Derek Souza rang out in my room, loud and clear.

"You said to call later"

I scowled, and scratched furiously on my arm. "Yes, I did"

He chuckled. "I've faxed you the package of details, get them and we can go over them"

I got up, and grabbed the sheets from my printer. "I got them" I said. I organised them and stared at the first page. It was a cover, so I flipped the page and went straight to the first section after the table of contents.

"Good. Flip to page four"

After double checking that I was on the right page, I said, "I can read for myself. Do we have to go over all the pages?"

"Yes. Read me the first paragraph"

I scowled again. "You're not my dad"

"No, I'm something else. Your instructor, the one who can complain to your dad and tell him you haven't been cooperating"

"Are you blackmailing me?" I questioned, as I read the first paragraph silently to myself.

"No, just stating the obvious"

Sighing, I read aloud the first paragraph. We ended up reading the entire thing, front to back, with instructor Souza making me take notes on the side. The camp hadn't even started and I was already tired. Great.

"Is that it?" I asked.

"Yes" he said. I let out a relived sigh and settled back down on my carpet.

"Good, see you on Friday" I said.

"Bye" Derek Souza said. I dumped my phone onto the floor and stretched. Then I picked up my phone again and dialed Tori; might as well update her on my drama. I had nothing better do.

I checked my bags for the last time, ticking everything off my check list again, before I settled into the front seat of Aunt Lauren's car. She was dropping me off at the train station, where I would take the nineteen hour ride to Chicago. Oh the joy.

Aunt Lauren hoped in a few seconds later and started up the car. The first ten minutes were silent.

"It's almost the day" Aunt Lauren said. I shrugged, looking down at the floor of the car. I knew what she was talking about. When I was six years old, my mom, dad and I, had gone on a long drive. My dad had been taking the left turn, when a drunk driver spiraled into the passenger seat of our car. Unfortunately the person occupying that seat was non-other than my mother. She'd died on impact. And my father had woken up to find that half of his heart was gone. I woke up to find out that I didn't have a mother anymore. It had been the worst year of my life.

Every year, on the day that she died I spend it curled up in my room, sobbing or staring into nothing. I haven't cried with anyone since I was seven years old. My dad and I were close, but not as close as mom and I had been. When she died, he could barely look at me. It's my fault though; I was the spitting image of my mom when she was young. Or at least that's what everyone else said. The reason I didn't cry with anyone else around was fairly simple; it was my solo mission. It was the one day that I didn't let Tori into my room, and she understood and took no offence. On mom's birthday, we celebrated. On mother's day we celebrated too. We went to places she liked and spent hours by her grave, just sort of thinking. But on the day she died, it was all silent and sad. Not that we weren't sad on her birthday or anything, it was just that we all figured she'd like her memory to be associated with happy and fun things.

After all, she was a super happy and fun person. Mom used to love bright colors, and so did Dad and I. But after she died it felt wrong to both me and dad, to just hold onto all the things that were meant to be shared between the three of us.

I'd kept all my rooms in my old houses the same color; a vibrant blue and green. Except this year. A few weeks ago I'd renovated my room, and changed the color scheme. Everything in my room was silver, dark blue, black, white or gold. Aunt Lauren had freaked and demanded I take depression pills, because she was refusing to believe that I had changed the colors because I felt more grown up. In her perspective I had finally fallen into the depression that had eaten up my dad. My dad wasn't depressed though; he just liked to focus on other things rather than his dead wife... and living daughter. I didn't mind it too much. Dad took it pretty hard though; he hadn't been out on a date since mom died.

I appreciated that he was loyal to mom for all these years, but at the same time I wished he'd just... let go. She wasn't coming back, not for him or for me. And no matter how much he threw himself into his work, she wasn't going to come back. I hated the fact, but had come to terms with it long ago. He needed to as well.

"I'll be fine" I said. Aunt Lauren nodded, but I could tell that she didn't believe me. We sat in silence until she dropped me off. A hug and kiss later, I was boarding my train to Chicago. Where I would spend the next seven weeks, including my mother's death day, cooking.

Fun.

That was it for this chapter. Most of the chapters will be roughly around this length. Occasionally they'll be longer or shorter but not by much. How'd you guys like it? I did enjoy writing it. :) I'm not one for just writing fan fiction without a purpose because none of my friends like to read and my family just doesn't get the point of fan fiction. Oh well. ;)

That's why I'm going to need the readers to help keep the story alive. I'm not delirious, so I'm not expecting twenty reviews within twenty four hours. Though, I am requesting for five reviews within two weeks. If not, then I'll delete the story. I really don't want to do that. So... read and review!

-SurrealExistence