Adversity (2 page)

I sat
there alone until Nathan arose, hungry as usual. Werewolves burned
away everything they ate. Sometimes Nathan joked around and said
hunger caused his stress. I was starting to believe him.

My
brother raised a brow at the sight of me, up before him, but I
wasn’t planning on telling him I had been sitting there for over
two hours. My body didn’t want to move, so I had frozen to the
spot, while images of my grandmother’s broken body flashed before
my eyes. For the five billionth time, I wished I had been the one
to take revenge on the werewolf who killed her. Not some girl who
had only known for a couple of weeks that werewolves
existed.

But I
froze with fear in the face of the creatures that I’d always known
existed. I hadn’t moved to help one member of my family, and one
had died. The werewolf had come for me, had hunted me, but I had
hidden while my grandmother tried to protect me. The wolf murdered
her instead.

My family
could never forgive me for that.

The aftermath was almost as difficult to deal with as her
death had been. My grandfather had run away. My brother was too
concerned with his girlfriend’s feelings to worry about me. And my
uncle might as well have lived elsewhere, so rarely did I see him.
Sometimes… sometimes I
wanted
to fall back asleep to be in that dream world as
Kali, the girl surrounded by people who all paid attention to her.
That girl was never forgotten about. Yeah, she had problems, but
her family saw her as an asset. Me? I was the liability.

“
Up early?” Nathan asked, taking a swig of orange juice
straight from the carton. I didn’t have the heart to bitch about
that.

“
A little.”

“
Well, hurry up and get ready. I need to leave.”

Story of my life. Nobody wondered how
I
was feeling. If
I
was okay. Everyone thought of
themselves and got on with it. Mémère would have thought of me
first. Then again, if she were around, everyone would be happy. The
silence, the gloom, and the depression would all lift.

But she
wasn’t around. And she never would be, thanks to me.

Nathan
didn’t speak much on the way to school, not even when his
girlfriend, Perdita, sat next to him on the bus. I stared at her
from the corner of my eye and noted how tired she seemed, how the
strain showed in her face. Her dark blue eyes held constant misery
in them these days, even though she had been the hero, the one
who’d stepped in and taken action in the face of danger. Yet, she
seemed sadder than anyone. I longed to swap places with her. My
chest ached as I wished the heroine had been me, and not her. The
awe in Nathan’s face after the battle, and the way the entire
family had studied Perdita with an air of admiration… I wanted
those desperately for myself.

I would
get them, one way or another.

Amelia

The
sterile smell of the science lab attacked my senses, seared my
nostrils, and slammed straight into my brain, where it left a nice
kicker of a headache. I rubbed my temples and tried to concentrate
on my notebook. Not a chance. My vision was blurring again, driving
me to distraction. I could hear someone talking at the front of the
room, but the words wouldn’t form into anything coherent. I felt my
legs shaking as I swayed on my seat. In a panic, I gripped the
edges of the desk. What the hell was wrong with me now?

I took a
couple of deep breaths, wishing I could calm down already. A firm
wall of nothing pressed against me. Nothing, yet it made my heart
race in double time, and forced my uneven breathing to grow ever
harsher. I had to be coming down with something. Maybe I needed to
eat more than a slice of dry toast for breakfast. The dizziness
began to pass, and I stared at a scratched name on the surface of
the desk, determined to get through the class without passing
out.

“
You okay?”

I glanced
blankly at my science partner.

“
You haven’t even started writing any of this down,” she
said.

The
fair-haired girl smiled encouragingly at me, but I couldn’t place
her name. That had been happening a lot lately, along with
confusion, dizziness, and headaches, too. Maybe my mind was
elsewhere. I couldn’t pinpoint one thought or memory that didn’t
lead to the horror of my grandmother’s death. Perhaps my brain was
protecting me by distracting me from thinking clearly.

“
Amelia?” Confusion crossed the girl’s face, her freckles
pulling together as the skin on her nose wrinkled.

“
Yeah, sorry. I’m fine…” Her name, her name… What the hell was
her name?

“
Ger. Remember?” She grinned then, and I couldn’t resist
smiling back. I hadn’t made many friends in Dublin. Occasionally,
some of my classmates joined me at lunch when I sat at Perdita’s
table, but they didn’t want to spend time with me and probably only
hoped my more popular older brother would join us. I couldn’t blame
them for finding it hard to warm to me. Once I met Perdita, I sort
of latched on and didn’t look back, which was not good, especially
now that Perdita had so much on her mind. Unfortunately, the curse
compelled me to seek her out, to bond with her, yet she seemed to
have no trouble running away from me of late. I pushed that thought
to the back of my mind. Between my family and Perdita, we all had a
lot to deal with. I couldn’t expect anything more.

As if I
had invited conversation, Ger spent the rest of the class chatting
away. I didn’t mind so much as I didn’t quite know how to respond.
Was I supposed to pretend to be a normal teenage girl or was I
supposed to follow Perdita’s lead and push everyone away? I didn’t
know how I was supposed to deal with anything anymore, and I didn’t
have Mémère to guide me.

“
You should hang out with us sometime,” Ger said as she walked
with me to our next class.

I mumbled
something in response, and she seemed to take the hint, because she
played with her hair for a couple of seconds before saying goodbye
and walking ahead of me. Awkward.

The
headache worsened as I passed by the gym; the stench of sweat and
socks and who knew what else completely overwhelmed me. I retched
right there before running straight to the bathroom to throw up the
little that was in my stomach.

I sank to
the floor of the bathroom while sweat trickled down my temples. The
bell had rung while I heaved; I would be late. There wasn’t much
point going to class when I couldn’t concentrate on anything aside
from the thumping of my headache. Or so I told myself. I scrunched
up a piece of tissue in my hand, and rubbed my knuckles against my
eyes, hoping to push away the pain. The feelings of nausea had all
but vanished, but the headache was worsening. A drumbeat in my
skull. A hammer behind my eyes.

The door
swung open, and Ger strolled in, grinning at me. “You look like
shit.”

“
Thanks,” I said weakly.

“
Is it Ana or Mia?” she asked in a curious tone of
voice.

“
What?” It took me a few seconds to understand she thought I
had an eating disorder. “Oh. Neither. I’m coming down with a bug or
something. I’ve had a headache all morning.”

“
Well, your clothes are hanging off you.”

I stood and stared at myself in the mirror. I
was
looking pretty thin.
My cheeks had hollowed out, and my collarbone was a little…
dramatic.

“
I swear,” I said, “I eat.”

Ger
checked out her lip gloss in the mirror and apparently decided it
needed topping up. “I believe you. I was just wondering. The
headache thing, though. My aunt gets migraines. She throws up every
single time. Says the pain’s worse than childbirth. And you looked
like you were in serious pain earlier. Plus the lights in the lab
are pretty killer. That’s why I thought I should check if you were
okay when you disappeared in the hallway.”

“
Yeah.” I shrugged and tried to smile, my reflection scaring me
now that I really paid attention. “It’s probably a
migraine.”

“
Wanna get to class? Or go to the office to see if you can
wrangle a painkiller?”

“
Tried that the other day. No go. No pills for the kiddies.” I
smiled, which felt weird, as if the skin on my face was pulled too
tight.

“
Yeah, they suck.” She made a face before turning to look at
me, slipping her lip gloss back into her shirt pocket. “Hey, sorry
about your grandmother, by the way. I heard she died abroad. That
really sucks.” Her voice softened.

My breath
hitched in my throat. “Thanks. I should probably go to the office
anyway. Just in case. Hope you don’t get in trouble for being late
to class.”

She
grinned, her face lighting up. “I’ll take you. Say I couldn’t leave
you vomiting in the hallways. Come on.”

She
linked arms with me and pulled me after her, pointing out students
in the photographs that adorned the walls so she could tell me bits
of information about them. By the time we reached the office at the
other side of the school, the headache had eased, the nausea had
completely dissipated, and I was feeling a lot better.

***

Kali

A kick in
her back from her father’s booted foot woke her. Wishing she could
swear at him, she held her tongue until he told her what he
wanted.

“
Go and prove yourself,” was all he said.

“
We’ve barely settled in here. I don’t even know where to go,”
she protested.

“
I’ll take her,” Drina said, approaching her father warily. She
might be married, but he could still be heavy with his hands if no
one watched. Without a word, he walked away, and Kali sent hateful
glares at his back.

Drina
laid a hand on Kali’s arm. “Don’t provoke him.”

“
Why? Why shouldn’t I? He deserves it after everything he’s
done.”

“
Because you’ll be the one who gets hurt. And who are we to say
who deserves to be punished? You’re the one who has always told me
that.”

“
I know. But the blackness of his heart blinds me from what’s
right. He’s a constant shadow over me.”

“
Hush. We’ll walk in the sun today. No more talk of shadows.
I’ll get the baby ready, and we’ll leave as soon as you’ve
eaten.”

Grateful
for the company, the old companionship of sisterly love, and the
chance to get to know her niece, Kali hurried to prepare for the
day. The multiple layers of skirts made the heat harder to bear,
but she took some cooling herbs to chew on. The talisman in her
putsi would keep her spirits up.

The sun
had barely risen by the time they left camp. The journey to the
nearest village was longer than she liked, but her people knew well
that they were accepted by the gaje as long as they camped a
reasonable distance away. Gypsy goods and services were valuable
enough, but neither would be tolerated for too long.

Jaelle,
Drina’s toddler, snuggled against her aunt’s shoulder as if Kali
wasn’t a stranger to her. Kali held the child tight, feeling a
kinship that overwhelmed her. She had always been close to Drina
growing up—no wonder she should be filled with love for her
sister’s daughter.

They had
been apart for three years, and that was far too long. Perhaps
staying with Drina’s new family was best.

“
Are there any decent young men, then?” she asked, fluttering
her eyelashes.

Drina
squealed, immediately brightening. “My husband’s older brother lost
his wife a year ago.”

“
I did say young.”

Drina
made a face. “Oh, don’t. Stay with me, Kali. I’m lonely without
you. The other women won’t accept me. They don’t trust
papa.”

“
Do you blame them?” Kali saw the hurt in Drina’s eyes. “But
I’ll do whatever it takes to stay with you.”

They held
hands as the sun bore down making the air feel wretchedly close.
They passed by wide fields of gold, where the wheat grew tall.
Harvest time was approaching. The sun relentlessly reflected off
the surface of the distant lake.

Between
half-closed lids Kali thought she spied dark spirits in the
distance. Blinking a couple of times, she saw nothing where she
knew she’d seen a shadow. She sensed her time was most certainly
running out.

“
What’s wrong?” Drina asked. “You’re shaking.”

Shifting
Jaelle into a more comfortable position, Kali shook her head. “I
see the shadows, Drina. They’re coming for me. I told you, he’s
black inside, and he’s made me the same way. I can’t escape
it.”

“
Kali, you make no sense! There’s no darkness in you. You’re
the one. The white mother. You’ll protect us from the darkness.
Your children will grow up to be white wolves and send the shadows
away for good. Don’t torture yourself with your
fantasies.”

Kali
sucked in deep, healing breaths. The panic attacks were coming more
frequently, and though she hid them as best she could, something
about the trails they travelled provoked her fears.