Fire And Ash (7 page)

“What the hell?!” I jerk my arm out of Derek’s grip.

He is looking at me with barely contained rage and for a second I’m afraid of what he is going to do next. My hand feels around my seat for a messenger bag that’s in my car back at his house.
 

“Looking for the silver blades you have in your car?” Derek’s voice is deathly still. He speaks so quietly I’m almost not sure I heard him correctly.
 

You didn’t. If he knows about that then it means he knows what it’s supposed to be used for. And only hunters and phoenix know that. The Jensens are neither.

“Excuse me?” I say.
 

Derek snorts. “You heard me the first time. Stop trying to convince yourself you didn’t.”

I am stunned frozen for a minute. Then I’m reaching for the door handle again to put some space between us.

The door locks. It doesn’t budge when I yank at the handle.

“Let me out or you will regret it,” I hiss at Derek.

The corner of his mouth twitches as if I’ve said something that is amusing. Then shadows move behind his eyes and he is looking at me like he wants to do me mortal harm again.

“I know what you are Ashley Jacobs and I know what your family does.”

“How do you-“

“How do you
think?”
He cuts me off.
 

No. That’s not possible. I would have known if Cassie and her family were phoenix. And they live near the mountains not the park. There’s more cover from hunters in the wooded areas.
 

Even as my mind is running through a million denials of why the new girl in town— the girl I just met but already like a lot, the girl who has become my friend— is not the thing that it is my duty to root out and kill, Derek’s eyes flash gold in the moonlight, like the eyes of phoenix are prone to do when they can’t reel in their emotions. It confirms what he is, what Cassie is, and a part of me shrieks that I didn’t just see what I know I saw.
 

“You’re one of them. You’re a monster. I’d be thrilled at the thought because it means I get to kill you but I also have to kill Cassie too.”
And Mrs. Jensen.

All of a sudden Derek’s face is less than an inch from mine and I never saw him move forward. “Threaten her again or my mom and you die. Not quickly and not painlessly. But slowly. Very slowly. As you experience every bit of agony you hunter scum deserve to feel.”

His dark brown eyes don’t simply flash to gold. They remain bright, searing the color of the flames phoenix burst into before their rebirth into my retinas. I see my death in his eyes, every bit as dragged out and painful as he just promised. I should be cowed. But I’m not. He called me
hunter scum
and said the words like I was no better than gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe. I’m offended and livid.
 

“You can try. But I promise I won’t go down without a fight. My family has hunted your kind for centuries. We evolved to be able to. It is in my blood to be able to take down and kill monsters like you.” I snarl the words at him.

“And what about Cassie? Is it in your blood to kill
monsters
like her too? Or my mom who’s never been anything but welcoming towards you?”

I open my mouth to say yes. If they are phoenix then it is. But the words get stuck in my throat. I swallow. Open my mouth to say yes again and the words still won’t come.

“The funny thing is hunters call us monsters,” Derek continues when I don’t respond to his question. “Claim it’s your duty to protect the innocent from being preyed upon. But my sister was innocent and the baby she carried was too. They both died when a hunter shot an arrow tipped with silver into her heart. My dad was innocent too. His only crime was fighting to protect his family. And Cassie’s parents— her mother was a hunter who just happened to have fallen in love with my brother. When they came for him they came for her too.
Born a hunter, die a hunter right?
” Derek mocks me with our creed. “They would have killed their newborn baby too had she been present when they struck.
You all
are the true monsters. We don’t butcher people in their homes and we don’t kill innocent people.”

“The hell you don’t,” I snap.
That is exactly what you did to my mother,
I almost add but don’t. “You rob people of their lives just so you can cheat death.”

Phoenix were never meant to live indefinitely. Despite what myths say about them they are not really immortal. They are born with a set number of lives, they closely guard what that set number is, and after they have used them up the next time they die, they do not rise from the flames they combust into. My grandfather told me this ten years ago when he made me open my eyes and stand up to see something I didn’t want to see.

“
A phoenix is the reason you look upon what you see
,” he’d said. “
For every human life they take, they add an additional one to theirs. They aspire to have what they were never meant to. And they do it at the expense of us. They prey upon humans and we evolved to prey upon them. We are the balance. We are humanity’s shield against it’s only predator. We are born as hunters and we die as hunters. It is a vow you will one day take. You will live by it, you will die by it, and this is why.”

A muscle ticks in Derek’s jaw. “Not all of us are like that.
Most
of us aren’t. But the hunters have made sure that all of us phoenix have paid for the sins of the minority. We just want to live the lives we were born with, with the families we were born to.”

I don’t believe
that
for a minute. I spit at him that he’s lying, but then I think about Cassie and I can’t picture her doing something so despicable. I can’t picture his mom doing it either.
 

“Why are you telling me this Derek? What is the point of this conversation? We could have never had it and I would have been none the wiser.”

“Cassie doesn’t know you’re a hunter. My mother doesn’t either. But I knew what you were two seconds after my compulsion attempt didn’t work on you and my mom stopped me from slamming the door in your face. Neither of them need to know about you just like none of your family needs to know about us. That is the point of this discussion.”
 

Derek’s hand has tightened around my elbow again. This time he grips it hard enough to leave a bruise. Gold rings his dark pupils and I see my agonizing death played out in the fire raging within them.
 

His attempt to intimidate me doesn’t work. There is nothing he could do to me that Patrick Jacobs hasn’t already done in the training sessions he purposely barred my dad from to make sure I became a hunter that “
remains strong in the face of any tribulation
.” I still have the scar from the six inches of steel he used to carve into my side with during one of our closed sessions. He didn’t go deep enough to do any serious damage, only deep enough to make me want to scream out in pain and tell me not to disappoint him by doing so. Three years have made it faint. I can barely see it now, but it’s there.
 

I narrow my eyes at Derek, letting him see his own demise in mine. “Your fancy headlights don’t scare me and if you do not let go of my arm the next time I see you I
will
have those silver knives on me and you
will
end up without the hand you keep grabbing me with.”

He isn’t in the least fazed by my threat. “Does Cassie’s death scare you? And before you rationalize it as a no because she is a phoenix, she’s not. My brother’s wife was born a hunter. When they had Cassie whatever it is that makes us what we are, she wasn’t born with it. If you tell your family about us, about what we are, then when they come after us they will come after Cassie too. They won’t care that she isn’t a phoenix. They will only care that she grew up and lives among us.”

Derek is right. They won’t care. I shouldn’t care either. But I think of my mother. Who got caught up in a war and died because of her connection to one of the sides in it.
 

It’s not the same thing.
The part of me that was trained to think like a hunter, to be a hunter, says.
 

That part is right, but the six year old girl who found her innocent mom dead in their backyard doesn’t care. It’s the same thing to her. Cassie is innocent too and both of us know that no hunter would let her survive.
 

“Why are you telling me this?” I demand to know from Derek. I hate the position it is putting me in. “Wouldn’t it have been better and safer to let me go on believing your family was normal?
”

“
We are normal.” If I didn’t know any better I would say he almost sounded a bit wounded. “But although Cass is human, she has
unique
abilities
that are definitely not. She insists on being friends with you, against my better judgement, and Mom insists on allowing it, again against my better judgement. They think you won’t notice them and you probably haven’t so far. Cass has gotten good at hiding them. But you’re a hunter. You are trained to be astute and eventually you will. So here it is…either agree not to tell your family about us or die. Right here, right now. I will not hesitate to snap your neck right here inside my car. The doors are locked, they’re not coming unlocked no matter how hard you yank on them, and me, my mother and Cass will be gone before anyone finds your body.”
 

He says it so matter of factly that I know he isn’t bluffing. Him revealing what they were was a calculated move. And if I respond any other way than how he wants me too then he will absolutely make good on the threat. I will put up a fight, off principle I won’t make it easy for him, but I know from our bout in the ring that he’s stronger. He will ultimately outmuscle me and without a weapon there will not be a thing I can do to counter it.

Ugh!
I’m disgusted with myself for being caught so vulnerable. I make a mental note to always carry the knives with me, regardless of where I am going or who I am going to be with.

“Fine,” I grit out. “I won’t tell anybody.” The words taste sour in my mouth. I feel like the lowest of traitors. But I will hold to them anyway. It is not cowardice or fear that makes me. Derek and his threats can kiss my entire ass. It’s the six year old little girl not him that forces me to agree. She doesn’t want to find herself standing over Cassie’s body too. Or worse, being the one to take her life.
 

I was born a hunter, and I will die a hunter.
I think about the vow I took. I could kill Derek without hesitation, his mother I could force myself to. But Cassie, a human and innocent like my mom, deep down I know I could not.

Derek nods. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small switchblade. He slices it across his palm.
 

“Vow it by blood,” he says holding the knife out to me.

I look at him as if he’s lost his mind, or maybe he never really had it to begin with. “You’re cracked out. Blood vows don’t really work. I am
not
cutting myself and letting my blood mix with
yours.”

 
I don’t miss the condescending smirk on his lips or the weighty judgement in his eyes.“Why because I’m a
monster
?”

“No because you’re an ass.”

He snorts dismissively. It says
I don’t like you either.

I want to hit him. Hard.
 

“For hunters to think they know so much they truly love to be ignorant. Your lot has chosen to forget a lot of things that we remember. Like blood vows working between my kind and yours. It holds both parties to them and makes it impossible for either to break.
 

“Yeah, I believe that.
Not.”

“Yeah, and I give a shit.
Not.
I only care that you do it. It’s the only way you’re getting out of this car alive.” He pointedly looks at the locked door.
 

“Whatever.” I snatch the knife from him. “I will not expose you or your mother as phoenix. But just so we are clear, I am not afraid of you. I’m only agreeing to this for Cassie. And another thing, I will be watching you. If I find out that you are preying on any person in this town in any way don’t think that you will be safe because Cassie being human will keep me from telling my family about you. I will personally see to it that a silver blade is embedded into your heart. You might be stronger, but I promise I have a stronger resolve. I will kill you.”

“You can try,” he drawls completely unaffected.

“I can do a lot more than try.”
 

We engage in a silent stare down. Our eyes remain locked as I slice the knife across my hand and thrust my palm into his.
 

It feels like fire is melting the flesh from around the open wound.

Derek smirks in mocking challenge. Waiting to deride me for pulling away. I straighten my spine and leave my hand where it is. I don’t blink, I don’t mutter a sound, and I certainly do not let my hand shake from the pain. I remain as still and as stoic as he is. After what seems like an eternity of my hand being consumed by invisible flames, the burning slowly recedes. I do not remove my hand from his until it completely fades away.

His eyes flash with surprise and I swallow a gloating smile.
Ha! I can handle whatever you can dish.
 

The locks on the doors pop open and Derek reaches his arm past me. He looks at the open passenger door pointedly.

I remain in my seat for a beat longer, refusing to be dismissed on command. I count to ten slowly in my head. After the second time of doing so I get out of the car and slam the door behind me with as much force as I can. The window shatters and I smile sweetly into the open space it leaves behind.
 

“Oops. Sorry.”
 
I turn around and march to my front door without waiting for him to respond.
 

I hear the angry screech of tires against the pavement behind me.
 

When I go to bed I am still smiling at the strangled, livid look on his face.