Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (12 page)

19

EMBER

E
very class put her more on edge. Each teacher greeted her with the same dropped jaw fascination as her fellow students. She was a ghost returned from the dead and the entire school seemed intent on treating her as such. By lunch, she was starving and her head was pounding.

Quinn knocked into her shoulder gently in the lunch line guiding her along and joking about nothing while she piled food onto her plate. He offered to carry her tray but given his ongoing struggle with gravity, Ember declined.

Once he paid, he guided her to a table. She felt the knot in her chest come undone. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have to search for some place to sit at lunch or hide in the bathroom.

Everybody was there but Neoma. Quinn said she’d left early to help Isa with a catering job. Even Rhys lurked at the end of the long table, brooding over his pizza like it wronged his family. Kai and Donovan parted for her to sit between them as Quinn dropped down next to Tristin. She smiled gratefully. She started shoving French fries into her mouth, moaning obscenely at the taste of salt and carbs. She barely stopped to chew.

“God, I’m starving all the time lately.” She said to nobody in particular.

The wolves all nodded in understanding. She noted the massive quantities of food piled on their plates as well. Not that it stopped Donovan from trying to steal her fries. They must expend a lot of energy. Even Kai seemed to be eating more than the average human.

The only person who seemed concerned about caloric intake was Tristin. She ate a spinach salad and salmon. There was no way she bought that at the cafeteria. She must have packed her lunch. For some reason the idea of her badass cousin carrying a lunchbox was amusing, not that she’d ever dare say so.

Once she’d finished her pile of fries, her cheeseburger and three bites of her pizza she asked Donovan, “What did you mean after first period? You said my uncle lied. How would you know if my uncle was lying?”

Kai and Tristin looked at each other, so she addressed them too, “Yeah, I know you didn’t tell me about my uncle. Did you really think I would somehow make it through his class without him saying anything about the return of his long lost
dead
niece?”

They looked sheepish, “It was Allister’s idea. We wanted to catch him off guard. See how he responded. We knew Donovan would be there to watch his reactions. This whole town thought you were dead. They thought your dad was dead. We just wanted to see if he’d known the whole time,” Kai told her.

“Granted, it was a poorly executed plan,” Quinn shrugged. “But we tried.”

“So…how do you know he lied?” Ember gestured to Donovan.

“Wolves have excellent hearing and our sense of smell works differently. When Alex told you he didn’t know you were alive, his heartbeat told me he was lying and he smelled weird, kind of sour. He smelled like a lie.”

“So I’m not a witch?” she asked. Donovan’s gaze dropped down to his plate before he looked to Tristin and Kai.

Quinn spoke first. “That’s a little more complicated. Witches usually have a really obvious scent. You can smell their magic. The wolves say you don’t smell like a witch. You don’t smell like anything they’ve scented before, right?” Donovan and Rhys nodded.

“It’s not like you can trust anything your uncle says anyway. We all know the witches are dirty liars,” Tristin grumbled, snatching one of Quinn’s fries.

“Wow, little brother, are you just going to sit there and let your girlfriend slander us like that?”

Quinn glanced up to the girl standing behind Rhys giving her a flat smile. She shared his same dark brown hair and golden eyes. She wore her long hair braided down her back in a complicated way that looked like it took hours and she dressed like she’d stepped out of a fashion magazine. She couldn’t be more different then her brother.

Every muscle in the wolves’ bodies tensed. If they’d been in wolf form, hackles would have raised all around. “Awww,” he pouted, “the truth hurts, sis.”

She snorted, glancing around the table with disdain. “I will never get why you hang out with these…orphans when you have a family at home who loves you.”

“Hah,” he said, “That’s rich, coming from you, Astrid. Dad barely tolerates me and treats me like I’m useless. I have a place in the pack. They treat me like an equal.”

Kai threw his arm around Quinn’s shoulders, squeezing affectionately, “Aww, you are an equal, man. Even if you are a smooshy human,” Kai’s leg jerked and he hissed in pain, looking at his sister with hurt eyes, “Ow. What the hell?”

She smiled, eyes glittering meanly, “Just reminding you that you too, are a smooshy human.”

“It was the sentiment…” he grumbled rubbing at his shin. Quinn beamed at Tristin, winking at her. She rewarded him with a bored expression and an epic eye roll.

The girl who had been watching her in class came to stand next to Astrid. She supposed one might find her pretty in a gothic horror movie kind of way.

“Alex is right, you know,” the girl said, trailing one too long red nail across Rhys’ shoulder. “You should be with your own kind not this ragtag band of losers.”

Quinn glared at the girl.

“Awww,” she pouted, “Truth hurts, doesn’t it?”

Beside her, Kai tensed, eyes following the girl’s hand along the wolf’s shoulder. “Settle down, Cruella; no need for name-calling. Isn’t there a fresh batch of puppies for you to skin?”

“Mmm,” she grinned, leaning into Rhys to simper sweetly, “There is one puppy whose skin always looks yummy.”

Rhys looked pained, swatting her hand away. “Go away, Stella.”

The girl shrugged, like she was used to Rhys blowing off her advances and walked around the table slowly until she stood behind Ember. Ember stiffened, she couldn’t help it. She didn’t like having Stella behind her. She leaned down, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply.

Her magic rippled along her skin, bristling at the intrusion into her personal space, “I’m getting real tired of people sniffing me.”

The girl pushed her hair behind her ear, batting her clearly fake lashes, “Let’s go, Astrid. She’s not one of us. You can practically smell the stench of reaper on her. That’s almost as bad as people who breed with animals.”

Astrid snickered but Ember let her eyes go blank, making sure she met the girls gaze with laser focus. At first they laughed but it only took about forty-five seconds of awkward staring before Stella cracked, “What are you staring at, freak?”

“Sorry, you two were being so melodramatic. I was waiting for one of you to scream, ‘Filthy mudblood’ in a horrible British accent,” she made sure that she said the words with her own obnoxious version of an English accent, drawing the attention of the surrounding tables.

Kai and Quinn smirked at the two girls. Even Rhys almost smiled.

The two turned on their heels and returned to a table across the cafeteria. Ember asked the group, “So my dear ‘Uncle Alex’ family business with students? That’s sort of weird, right?”

Quinn shrugged. “Alex took over as head of the Red Oak coven when Allister became head of the witches’ council. Since most of the coven is underage he’s mostly just a glorified babysitter.” He glanced over at the table where Stella and Astrid sat huddled together with six others whispering and pointing in her direction emphatically. That wasn’t good. “When Alex is on campus, he has to treat all of us students equally. Once he sets foot off campus, he’s just another witch that hates everybody but other witches.”

Ember sighed. “My life was easier when I was putting makeup on dead people.” She looked up to five blank stares. “What? Don’t judge me. This place is exhausting.”

20

EMBER

E
mber knew she was dreaming. She knew because she was a child, her little hands clenched in front of her, her tiny toes buried in the sand of the beach where she stood. She couldn’t be older than five. Overhead the sky was a mass of thick black clouds backlit by the moon hidden underneath. Lightening snaked across the sky and thunder boomed loud enough to rumble the ground beneath her. The sea was blood red, the waves in the distance immense and rolling towards her. Her heart hammered in her chest, the wind whipping her hair into her face, plastering her nightgown to her body.

She held her hand up to see better, blinking against the sand blasting her skin. She knew what she had to do. She could feel it. She stumbled towards the water, she just needed to be closer. She needed to touch the water. Her fingertips tingled, she breathed heavily, trying to contain the power suddenly itching for release. It slithered under her skin, pulsing in her hands.

She knew what she needed to do. Just like the bird. She would do this just like the bird. “Mommy!” she screamed, her voice sucked into the void of the storm.

The sky opened up, the rain plastering her nightgown to her body and matting her hair to her face. She was filthy but she didn’t care. She had to fix this. She knew how to fix what she’d done.

She thrust her little hands into the air, feeling the power rip from her, fingertips burning like it took the flesh with it but she didn’t care. Not if it worked. It had to work. The power flowed through her, pulling in through the soles of her feet and pouring out through her fingertips.

As her power dwindled, so did the rain until all that remained was the warm wind that had started the whole thing. In the distance, a silhouette moved towards her.

“Mommy?” she called again. It was definitely a woman. She could see the dress, the hair, long and messy. As she grew closer, she could see the fabric of her mother’s favorite dress, tattered and askew. She jumped up and down, pumping her tiny arms over her head as the figure lurched closer. It was her, but something was wrong; she didn’t sway her hips like her mom, she didn’t swing her arms. Her motions were awkward and jerky, as if unseen strings pulled her limbs askew like a broken marionette.

“Mommy?” she whispered. She’d broken her mommy.

She yelped as thick arms yanked her backwards off her feet. She struggled to break free until she realized she was in her father’s arms. “Ember!” her father cradled her against him, eyes fixed on the figure in front of him, “Sera?” he whispered. “Oh God, Ember, what did you do? What did you do?”

“It’s like the bird. I fixed her like the bird. I want mommy,” she cried. “Let me go.”

“Ember, stop. That is not your mother.”

“Put me down,” she begged, wriggling in his arms, trying to escape. “I want mommy!”

Her father pulled them down the beach and into a tiny clapboard house, closing and locking the door. “Stay away from the windows, November Isabel. That’s an order.”

She collapsed on the floor in tears. “I hate you. I hate you!” she screamed.

Her father paid her no attention, snatching up the phone and smashing in somebody’s number, taking the phone into the next room. She heard the off kilter thumping footsteps as they made their way up the steps.

Step. Drag. Step. Drag.

She could make out the outline of her mother behind the thin white curtain; her hand slapping the glass and dragging down with methodical repetition. She looked to the hallway, where her father had disappeared, quietly crawling towards the door, mouth dry and heart pounding so hard she could barely hear anything else.

She pulled back the curtain. Eyes wide, she took in the creature on the other side of the glass and screamed.

It was her screams that woke her. They woke everybody. Heavy footsteps pounded towards her door and six spooked people stumbled into her room clearly expecting something more sinister than a nightmare.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Isa asked, eyes scanning every corner.

Ember was drenched in sweat, her sheets a crumpled mess on the floor. “Nightmare. God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake everybody. It was just...” she tried to get her shaking under control. “It was just so real.”

Isa sat on her bed while Ember tried to get her bearings. She tried to explain her dream but she was grasping at bits and pieces, fragments of fleeting memories. She remembered her mother and rolling seas. She remembered her fear. The storm. Her mother’s bloated and distorted face.

“Sounds very apocalyptic.” Neoma told her from the doorway, one delicate bare foot perched against her calf like a music box ballerina.

Wren nodded in agreement. “Sounds pretty terrifying,” he agreed, sympathetic.

“Dreams of the apocalypse are often caused by a feeling of having no control over your personal life. It can also be caused by adolescent hormones, the death of a parent or any significant loss. Given everything that’s happened to you it stands to reason you’d feel a bit out of control and your brain would drudge up some scary end of days chaos. The end of the world is the ultimate way to avoid your problems.” All eyes swung to Quinn.

“Did you memorize a dream dictionary?” Kai asked him seriously.

“Eidetic memory, dude.” He winked at Ember. “I’m not completely useless.”

Ember winced, that was the third time she’d heard Quinn say that. Ember blamed his dad and she was almost positive she wasn’t just projecting.

“You’re not even a little bit useless.” Isa told him fondly. “Hell, there are a lot of other people not pulling their weight around here.” She glared at her brother.

“What?” Rhys asked. “What am I not doing? Do I not babysit your children? What would you like me to do? What the hell does he contribute?”

He thrust his head in Wren’s direction. There was a flash of anger on the alpha’s face before she pulled herself back. “It doesn’t do well to question me, brother. But, since you are in such a helpful mood, I have a task for you.” She smiled and Rhys’ face fell, “You are going on a field trip and you’re going to take one of the…children.”

She looked around the room as if she hadn’t already made her decision. “I think you should take Kai.” She smiled beatifically.

Rhys clenched his jaw so tightly that Ember could swear she heard his teeth grinding. “We have school today.” He grunted.

“Well, guess what?” she snapped, “You’re both sick. I’ll write you a note tomorrow.” She stared him down, flashing her wolf eyes at him, daring him to defy her.

He dropped his gaze. Kai looked miserable.

“Okay, kiddies,” she joked, “Since it’s almost five am. Why don’t we all just get up and get dressed? I’ll make everybody waffles.”

Quinn gazed at Isa with such love. Ember hoped their enemies never offered Quinn waffles or Wi-Fi, they’d never see him again and she suspected his brain was more of a weapon then anybody imagined.