Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (10 page)

15

TRISTIN

T
ristin slipped left and hit the bag with a hard right cross. She grunted as she threw two jabs before circling left. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. Sweat drenched her clothing and burned her eyes but she threw punch after punch. Now that she was home and the adrenaline had worn off, reality was creeping in.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. Instead, she hit the bag with her left knee hard enough to rattle the chain from which it hung. She was just as responsible for this mess, maybe more. She never should have let her brother intervene. They should have told the pack. They should have told Isa.

She kept moving, kept circling the bag. Every time she stopped moving, dread crept up her spine, creating a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hated uncertainty. She liked facts. She liked orders. Everybody was so preoccupied with keeping Ember’s mysterious powers under control that the real danger hadn’t occurred to them yet. They couldn’t see that the real danger wasn’t the girl puking up black goo but something far more sinister.

Footsteps approached but she didn’t stop, instead throwing a left roundhouse at the bag before faking left and coming in hard with a right elbow. She knew it was Quinn. She knew his walk, the way he breathed. She ignored how the knot in her stomach loosened at the sight of his shadow against the wall.

He set something down and came around the other side of the bag, holding it in place as she pounded away until her muscles screamed for relief. He made sure he stayed out of the way of her fists and feet and said nothing, just watched her with those endlessly curious eyes.

“I brought you a muffin.”

She didn’t acknowledge he spoke. She couldn’t. Not yet. When she just couldn’t bring herself to throw one more punch, she let her arms fall.

He clung to the bag, “What’s eating you, Dagger?”

She set her jaw, trying to decide whether she wanted to talk it out or not. Quinn always wanted to talk. He wanted to know all of her thoughts and her feelings. He’d never met a thought he didn’t think needed expressing. That is why he and her brother were such good friends. Every thought flew out of their mouths without worrying about consequences.

She just wasn’t like that.

She sighed, almost wishing Rhys had come to find her. He understood not wanting to talk about feelings. They could just sit in a room and be, without having to fill the silence. He understood what privacy meant. However, Rhys wasn’t there and Quinn’s whiskey gold eyes were so earnest how could she not tell him?

“Everybody is so preoccupied with Princess Power Surge upstairs they seem to be forgetting we have a bigger, more pressing problem.” She put her hands on her hips, just sucking in air and catching her breath. He handed her the water bottle on the table. She poured it over her head.

She didn’t miss the way his eyes followed the drops of water as they rolled down her throat.

“She was supposed to die, Quinn.”

“Okay,” he told her, voice hoarse, distracted.

“She was supposed to die but is, instead, upstairs eating pumpkin muffins and bonding with the pack.”

Quinn’s eyes scanned her face, looking for a clue.

“Kai didn’t complete his assignment.”

Quinn’s eyes widened. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and licked his lower lip. “Well, yes, but…there have been cases of reapers who failed to collect the souls they were assigned.”

“Those reapers left the soul in a dead body. They still died. They go back and finish the job, collect the soul and that’s it. Crossed over, no problem. That’s a slap on the wrist; a rookie nerves mistake. This is different. This is much worse. You know I’m right.”

She took a deep breath, trying to stave off the panic building in her chest. “He didn’t just keep her from crossing over. He actively prevented her death. She is not supposed to be alive. Her name disappeared from his arm. That’s never happened, Quinn. That’s never happened.”

Quinn pulled her into his arms. “Have you ever met another reaper? We don’t know if it’s ever happened before or not. Let’s not worry until there is something to worry about, okay?”

She didn’t answer him. It was true, they hadn’t met other reapers. Allister told her they existed. He talked Kai through his first collection. That was the thing about this stupid town, nobody came in, and nobody went out. The same people had been here for as long as she could remember.

“Don’t, I’m all sweaty.” she squirmed against him but she wasn’t really trying to get away.

He rolled his eyes, loosening his grip, giving her the chance to move away. She pretended not to notice.

Quinn was lame. He had terrible taste in movies and he was the most uncoordinated person she’d ever met. He wore stupid beanie hats pretty much every day and those stupid black framed glasses he didn’t even need because he thought he looked like Clarke Kent. She inhaled deeply; but he smelled like home and his arms always felt really good and he was just tall enough for her to put her head on his shoulder.

“Do you know what they could do to him, Quinn? Do you know what they might do to all of us?”

She chewed on her bottom lip, rubbing her cheek against his flannel shirt. Quinn didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stood there, holding her. She knew his mind was working over a hundred different scenarios, mentally rereading every word he’d ever scanned in any human book.

She didn’t need extra-special senses to know he was afraid. He looked to the door, dropping his voice to almost a whisper. “What if she died now? What if the next time she spikes a fever we do nothing?”

He sounded sick at the idea but it wasn’t as if they hadn’t done some horrible things to protect this town and the people they loved. His hands fidgeted idly with her hair, combing through the wet strands.

She smiled weakly, shaking her head. “Are you just going to sit there and watch her die? Do you think Isa and the others will do the same? Just sit and watch her self-destruct?”

“If it comes down to her or Kai, yeah, I think we will do what we have to do.”

“You’re wrong. Kai would happily die for somebody else, even a stranger. The damage is done. Besides, Isa and the others are already in love. You like her too, I can tell. Isa loves an orphan and that girl just screams love-me-I’m-tortured.”

Quinn snickered, “Maybe they won’t find out. Maybe her name disappeared for a different reason. Maybe he was supposed to stop it?” Quinn was grasping at straws and they both knew it.

“The Grove will never allow that to go unpunished. He literally just altered the fabric of the universe. We must maintain the balance. How long do you think before they find out? How long before they figure out what he’s done and come for him?”

“Tristin. You are freaking out over nothing. We don’t even know anything will happen. If something happens, I’ll figure something out. I always do. I promise. There has to be a way to keep Ember alive and the tree worshippers off our backs. We just need more information.”

She smiled into his throat. He believed that you could solve any problem in the world with an internet connection and the right password. She shivered as she felt his lips graze across her forehead, letting her eyes flutter closed for just a second.

“Dagger,” her eyes fluttered open.

“Huh?”

“I love you, but you should probably take a shower.”

She hid a slight smile against his shoulder, “Are you saying I stink?”

“Yeah, but in like a super sexy I’m-a-badass kind of way.”

She snorted, “It’s no wonder you’re single.”

“I’m single because my future wife refuses to acknowledge that we are fated to be together.”

She burrowed closer to him, “Wow, she sounds like a real bitch. Maybe you dodged a bullet. She doesn’t really sound like wife material.”

He stepped back, smiling that dopey smile as he rubbed his thumb across her cheek, “Oh, I don’t know, underneath that knife-wielding ass-kicking exterior, she’s gotta really soft heart.”

She shifted her eyes to the ground, “That scar on your thigh would beg to differ.”

“So she stabbed me. Think of the story it will make at our wedding reception.”

“You are impossible and annoying so I’m going to go shower before I stab you again.”

His smile split into a grin and he wiggled his brows, “Good, I’m going to bed with the images of you showering fresh in my mind.”

She snickered at the grunt he made when her water bottle connected with his shoulder, snagging the muffin as she walked past. Despite Quinn’s reassurance she couldn’t shake the awful feeling things were going to get worse. She couldn’t lose her brother. She wouldn’t lose her brother. It didn’t matter what she had to do. She hoped Quinn was right and she was just overreacting.

16

EMBER

E
mber sat in the window seat of her new room, steadfastly ignoring the noise below. She sat knees to chest staring out at the moon. She’d been in the house for two days and she still couldn’t believe this was real life. She ate pancakes with werewolves. She went grocery shopping with a reaper and a faery.

Florida was weird. So like Louisiana in some ways and different in others. She was used to the noise of the city. She craved it. Screaming drunkards, jazz music and police sirens normally sang her to sleep but here the noise was different, wrong. There were feet pounding up and down the stairs, music playing in the kitchen, Kai and Quinn clutching controllers and screaming at people through headsets while playing imaginary black ops soldiers.

It wasn’t like she hated it here. Isa was great. She didn’t give Ember a hard time for escaping to her room when everything got to be too much. She even pretended not to notice she was still awake long after she told them she was going to sleep. Everybody was nice.

Well, except Tristin. She hated Ember but Ember wasn’t about to send her any cookie baskets either after what she did to her cell phone. Isa had replaced her phone with something much nicer; she’d replaced her holy sweaters and beat up boots. She’d given her an allowance that was far more generous than anything her father could have given.

Isa was like her werewolf Godmother, always trying to make Ember comfortable. Everybody tried so hard but it was so much. It was too much. Ember didn’t want to be ungrateful; she just didn’t know what to do with all of the attention.

Besides, something just felt…off. Her cell phone came with all kinds of fancy features but she’d been unable to sync her contacts. When she’d asked Isa about it, she’d told her she didn’t really understand the technology stuff and said Quinn could look at it. She had access to the internet but her email password suddenly didn’t work. She was probably just being paranoid.

As promised, her room sat at the end of the hall giving her as much privacy as a house could holding this many people. It overlooked the woods to the south side of the property so she didn’t even have to worry about passing cars. She was completely isolated.

It was kind of spooky at night, the way the moonlight cut through the trees, making even mundane things look more ominous. Leaves shook on swaying branches, sounding like a pit of angry rattlesnakes. From inside, it gave this strange illusion of it being cold and breezy like it would be anywhere else in November. It was just a trick though.

The humidity in Florida was a thousand percent, maybe higher. It sucked the breath from her lungs and made her already unmanageable hair impossible.

There was a light knock on her door.

“Yeah?”

Kai poked his head in. “Can I come in?”

She smiled at him, “Sure.”

It was weird to look at somebody and see her own strange eyes looking back. On her, they looked eerie but on her cousin, they were attractive. Kai flopped down on her bed and made himself comfortable. She glanced at the vacant twin bed sitting opposite her own and sighed. It seemed even reapers wanted things to smell like them.

“So, just checking in. Are we driving you crazy? Is that why you hide up here?”

She smirked at him. “No, that’s not it. I just don’t know how to deal with so many people. I’m like a Martian. I don’t understand your ways.”

Kai laughed. He grabbed one of the small ornate throw pillows from her bed, tossing it in the air and catching it. “I’m sure we can be annoying. We annoy each other and most of us have lived together forever.”

“Why is that?” Ember asked. “How did two reapers end up living with a pack of wolves, a human and a…faery?”

Kai thought about it for a while. “I don’t know, really. It was such a long time ago. I just remember Allister bringing us here and telling us this was our new home.”

“But who took care of you? Isa couldn’t have been much older than we are now.”

“Younger, she was sixteen when she became alpha. She didn’t even get to finish school. She took care of Rhys, Tristin and me. Allister found somebody to help run the restaurant but other than that, Isa was on her own. Well, until Wren came courting.” He snickered.

“What about Quinn and Donovan? What about Wren and Neoma.”

He laughed, “Quinn and me met in class. He was the only one who would talk to me. Since our mom’s ran the council when everything went down twelve years ago, they were still blaming reapers for what happened back then. Tristin and I didn’t have any friends. The kids who did acknowledge us just made fun of us but not Quinn. He just sat down and started talking.”

“Everybody keeps talking about this thing that happened twelve years ago, what is it? I don’t understand. What happened to all of your parents? What happened to my mom? Why don’t I remember anything?”

Kai shook his head, “I wish I could tell you but nobody knows. Well, maybe people know but they won’t talk, especially to us. Everybody is always telling us we will understand when we’re older but I think it’s a lie. I don’t even know if they know what happened here. All I know is everything changed when it did.”

“Do you remember me? Cause I don’t remember you.”

He thought about it for a long moment. “It’s strange. My memories of my life before everything changed are…I don’t know how to explain it.” His eyes narrowed in concentration. “Okay, like, when I remember things that happened to me after they play like a movie. I can replay it in my mind. But the things that happened before…the people…you are like photographs. Just single still moments. I can see your face but I don’t remember us playing together. I can see my mom but I don’t remember hugging her or her voice.”

There was a hitch in his breath as he finished. She hadn’t meant to upset him. “I don’t remember my mother at all. I’ve only seen one photo of her. I don’t know what’s worse.”

“I don’t know either.”

He blinked rapidly and she couldn’t handle the sad look on his face.

She changed the subject, realizing she didn’t want to talk about her mom either, “Tell me about how you met the rest of the pack.”

“Donovan showed up about eight months ago. He stumbled over the county line and we found him bleeding out in the woods. He was barely recognizable. We didn’t even know he was a wolf at first glance.”

“That’s awful.”

“We don’t normally let outsiders into our territory but he was so injured Isa didn’t think he’d survive the night. When he finally woke up, he told us his pack was forcing him to fight other wolves for sport. That was it. He never left. Isa never met a stray she didn’t like.”

Including her, she thought. “What’s an omega?”

“Omega’s are sort of loners, I guess? In some packs, they are the lowest in the pack but they are also wolves that are part of the pack but like their space. Donovan disappears a lot. He doesn’t go far but he’ll full shift for a few days and live in the woods. He doesn’t like to be tied down.”

She nodded as if it made any sense at all but didn’t press further, “And Wren and Neoma?” Ember asked, almost afraid to know. Each story seemed more horrid then the last.

“Neoma came with Wren as for how she met Wren, that story is hers to tell. It’s…intense. She may tell you one day. As for Wren and Isa, they’ve been betrothed since before they were born. It’s an arranged marriage.”

“You’re lying,” Ember gaped at him. “No way, they are all googly eyed over each other.”

“Now.” Kai laughed. “You weren’t here when Wren showed up to say he was sent by his pack to enforce the betrothal. Isa punched him in the face, went full shift and tried to rip his throat out in the doorway, almost succeeded too. He’s been in love ever since.”

“But, an arranged marriage? Really. Isn’t that sort of old fashioned?”

Kai tossed the pillow, reaching out and snatching it from the air as it went wide, “It used to be common in packs years ago. It’s such an antiquated notion nobody really cares about enforcing them outside of pack politics. Most betrothals are for show; a way to honor traditions and let other packs know two packs are allied. Sometimes when packs are small like ours, they are perceived as weak and sometimes an alpha will agree to follow through for the good of the pack.”

“So, they are only getting married because his pack wants them too?”

Kai barked out a laugh, “Hah, no. After Isa was done whipping Wren’s butt all over our front lawn, she stopped long enough to listen to his side of things. He wasn’t trying to stake a claim as alpha of our pack. He doesn’t even want to take over as alpha of his own pack. Wren prefers to take orders; which work out well because Isa prefers giving them.”

Ember could see Wren wanting to take orders. He was tough and smart but he wasn’t a strategist. He was more a kill-first-ask-questions-later type. Isa seemed to think everything through to make the best decisions for the pack.

“Couldn’t they just rule together?”

Kai arched a brow and gave her a look. “It’s a nice theory, but somebody has to have the final say.”

“So what happened?”

Ember listened as he talked; telling her the story of how Wren and Isa fell in love. His voice was soothing and the steady rhythm of him throwing and catching the pillow was luring her into a trance. She let her head lull to the side, gaze falling to the edge of the property. She sat up with a gasp at the figure standing below. She looked to Kai and back but he was gone.

“What? What is it?” Kai was on his feet and staring out the window.

“Nothing,” she told him, cheeks going red. She didn’t know why she lied. “I guess I just caught my reflection.”

“It’s the woods,” he told her. She stiffened as he put a hand on her shoulder, “It makes you see things.”

There was a stilted knock before Rhys stuck his head around the corner looking at Kai. “Hey, we gotta go. Somebody spotted something weird out in the woods.”

Kai frowned looking out Ember’s window, “Where?”

“Somewhere off of Highgate Road. Why?”

Kai just shook his head, giving the woods outside her window one final glance.

“Sorry, Cuz.” He sighed, gently setting her pillow back in place.

“It’s fine,” she told him, “I think I just need some sleep.”

“Okay,” he said, “See you in the morning.”

Ember sighed, the group seemed to disappear at least once a night to investigate ‘something weird’. Kai said it came with the pack admission; something about protecting their borders.

“Thanks for keeping me company,” she said.

“You could come downstairs. We don’t bite. Well, you know what I mean.”

“I know. I will.” She smiled but her mind was racing.

As soon as the door closed, she flipped her lights off and returned to the window seat. She snagged her pillow and comforter setting up her post at the window. She knew there was no way it was possible but it had to have been him. She chewed at her thumbnail, scanning the property for any sign of movement. He was out there. He was watching her just like at the funeral. She could feel him like an invisible cord tugging at her center.

Mace was in Belle Haven.