Kindred (Book 1 The Kindred Series) (5 page)

   “I’ll get you more help!”

   Cassie didn’t know if she wanted to scream in frustration, rip her hair out, or
throttle the obtuse
girl. Instead, she shoved all of her
irritation
aside, and forced a bright smile. “I
’ll work on it Marcy.”
   “L
et me know if you need anything, anything at all.”
   “I will.”

  
“Also, I do have a few ideas for themes that I would love to run by you
.
M
aybe we can get together after school tomorrow to discuss them.”
   Cassie’s hands
clenched as she tried hard
to keep a tight hold on her patience
. Marcy meant well, but
sometimes
her OCD was enough to drive a saint to murder
,
and Cassie was far from a
saint. She glanced at Melissa again, silently pleading for some sort of reprieve, but it came in the form of Chris as he dumped their food
on the table.

   “Hey Marcy,” he muttered absently
,
his mind
on the food he was
rapidly
dolling out.

   Marcy’s pretty face
flooded with
color
as she ducked her head
shyly
. Cassie lifted an eyebrow
,
she
turn
ed
to Melissa who grinn
ed
brightly back at her. “Well… I uh… I have to go, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow, ok Cass?”
Marcy stammered out.

   “
Of course
,” Cassie replied
happily, glad to be free of the girl and amused by her obvious crush on Chris
.

   Marcy made a hasty retreat back to the table of girls she had been sitting with. Cassie turned eagerly back to Chris. He looked as if he was trying to solve
the problems of the world
,
his
eye
brow
s
drawn
tight
ly
together
in concentration.
His attention was focused upon the
s
hakes as he lifted the lid on one before plopping it down in front of her. 

   “I think someone has a crush on you,” she teased lightly.

  
“Huh, what?”
H
e glanced up
,
a handful of fries,
her
fries, already halfway to his mouth. Before he could eat
them
all
, Cassie surreptitiously slid he
r
plate
away from him as he
scanned
the dwindling crowd.
“Who?” he demanded.

   “Marcy.” Chris’s frown deepened as he
looked
toward the girl who was determinedly not looking their way again.
“S
hort brunette just speaking to me,” Cassie reminded him.

   Chris snap
ped
out of his food trance as
he grinned down at her. “No way,
Marcy’s to prim and proper, likes the more refined guys.”

   “Well you are definitely not refined, but she does have a crush on you,” Melissa ins
isted
.

   “Why
,
did you see something
in my future
?” he asked eagerly.

  
Melissa rolled her eyes as she shook her head. “I am not your crystal ball Chris.”

   He
rolled his eyes at
her as he
propped
his leg on the
bench
.
S
triking a pose
,
he rested his arm on his leg
,
and
gaze
d
intent
at
Marcy
. “Very sexy with the mouthful of fries,” Cassie
teased
.

   “You know it.
”
He flashed a bright grin as he popped more fries in his mouth
and
suck
ed
noisily on his shake.
   “Don’t you think she’s a little much?”

   His blue eyes twinkl
ed
merrily
as he shook back his disheveled hair
. “I’m a teenage boy Cassandra, there is no such thing as a
little m
uch to me.
All girls are acceptable.
”

   “Ugh!” Melissa and Cassie both groaned as Cassie
threw
a fry at him.

   He dodged it easily, catching it before it hit the ground a
n
d popping it in
to
his mouth. “You’re gross,”
she
told him
laughingly
.

   “But you love me.”

   She couldn’t argue
with
that.
T
urn
ing
away from
him,
she
focus
ed
her attention on her greasy fries, and delicious shake.
Cassie
glanced across the table
;
Melissa
had
a distant look on her face as she poked
absently
at a cucumber. To any passer
s
by it simply appeared as if
Melissa
w
as
n
’
t hungry
,
but Cassie knew
that Melissa’s concentration was
actually
fixed upon
some
thing
that
no
one else
c
ould
see.

  
This was not one of her
fleeting glimpse
s
of the future
either
, but a full premonition of
something
to come.
It
was one of the
premonitions
that took Melissa over,
and
h
e
ld her hostage until
it w
as
done
.
A chill ran down Cassie’s spine,
s
he hated these moments. They
always
left Melissa drained
,
and with an old, knowing look in her eyes that w
ent
far past her s
eventeen
years.
  

  
Chris leaned slightly forward, his handful of
french-fries
forgotten as he studied Melissa intently
, worry etch
ed
his brow
.
Melissa
shook her
head,
she
br
o
k
e
free of the claws hooked into
her as
her onyx eyes snapp
ed
into focus
a
gain
. She did not seem as
beat down
by this
vision
as she was by many of the others
, but a secret look lingered in her dark eyes
.

   “Did you see my death?” Chris
inquired
like he always did when
one of th
e
se premonitions seized hold of her
in his presence.

   She smiled at him, shaking back her black hair as she
popped a cucumber in her mouth. “Not this time
.”

  
Chris shrugged as he ran a hand through his shaggy hair.
“Just remember
,
if you ever do see it, you had better tell me.”

   “You wouldn’t want to know,”
Cassie and Melissa
replied
simultaneously
.

  
They
grinned at each other across the table.
“You owe me a Coke,” Melissa quipped.

   “You don’t drink Coke.”

   “You owe me something then.”

  
Melissa chewed on her cucumber before grabbing a tomato. Cassie studied her questioningly,
wondering what Melissa had seen, but she didn
’
t
really
want to know.
The thought of knowing scared her. Besides,
Melissa would not tell them,
not unless their lives were on the line. And even then, Cassie didn’t want to know what Melissa saw, not unless there was a way to stop it.

   And most of the time
,
there wasn
’
t.

  
It was very rare that Melissa ever saw anything she wanted to, but she had no choice as her “gift” ov
ertook her whenever it wanted
.

   Although, to be fair, Cassie
had to admit she
was a little disappointed she hadn’t inherited a
“
gift
”
like Chris and Melissa had. Apparently they ran rampant thr
ough The Hunter line, but
for some reason Cassie
had come up short. She definitely would not want the ability to see the future,
like Melissa,
for she didn
’
t want to
bare that cross,
and she wasn’t sure that she could
handle it
. B
ut she wouldn’t
have
mind
ed
Chris’s talent of being able to read people,
to know what they were feeling
,
and
to know who and what they were, good or bad
,
upon meeting them
.
A
nd unlike Melissa,
Chris
was able to
keep people b
lock
ed
out
, and control his ability
if he want
ed
to
.

   
But then,
any
ability
would
have
be
en
better than the nothing she had been given.
Well,
unless she
counted
her ability
to fight, and fight well
,
as a gift
.
And she was a good fighter,
she was even
b
etter than Chris and Melissa. But
,
to her,
that was not a gift. She didn
’
t care if the people she killed were no longer human, it
bothered her to ki
ll
at all
,
and
it bothered her
even more
that she was
outstanding
at it.

  
It was a fact that wore at her every day, slowly eating at her spirit.
She sometimes wondered if that was where the
growing
hole
inside of her had come from;
if that was the reason she had been feeling
less
and less
like
herself
lately
. Maybe all of the death and murder
that
surround
ed
her
had
started to
take away bits of her
soul
.
W
hatever
it wa
s
that was
missing
, or off
in her
,
she desperately needed
to find
it
,
and
fix
it
.

   She could not keep living like
this.
She could not keep going
on
without k
now
ing
wh
y she was so lost
,
and
why
she couldn
’
t shake
her misery
. She
needed to
drown out
the feverish need
for something more
that
had
e
ncompassed her. She needed
so
mething to ease the pain that
s
uffused her
.
She had been living with
the emptiness
for the last few months, but o
ver the past two weeks it had gotten worse
.
T
he hole
had
becom
e
a chasm within her soul, ripping her open, leaving her raw and exposed.