Cinder (10 page)

I roll my eyes as I turn around, ready to head back to the bench and sit down. Instead, I crash straight into a rock solid chest.

“Sorry,” I mutter, pushing back, but someone grabs ahold of my wrist and secures me in place. Their body heat floods me instead of their death. I slowly tip my chin up and meet the eyes of a tall stranger. Beautiful eyes that glisten like pieces of sea glass. His blonde hair runs to his shoulders, his features flawless like they were carved out of stone and his lips are as red as a rose… or blood. I’ve also seen him before, in the newspaper, and when I was at the school today.
Edmund Baker, town Mayor, and Mackenzie’s dad.

“Don’t worry, I’m a lot stronger than I look,” he says, his voice is melodious and welcoming.

“Yeah, I guess so…” I trail off, my lips refusing to move anymore. It feels like I should feel more fear, but all I feel is numb. Dead inside. Stunned.

Dammit,
Cameron whispers.
I’m losing control of you…

What…?
My thoughts get lost in the magnetism I feel pulling me towards the person before me.

The corners of his lips turn upward into a grin. “Are you okay?”

I nod, dazzled by his eyes, his lips, by everything. It’s like I’m drowning in him and suddenly the cold inside me doesn’t feel so cold anymore. It feels very inviting. In fact, I crave it; crave death. “I’m fine…”

Why the hell am I not more afraid? This man murdered his daughter.

Ember, don’t let him get control…

His smile darkens. “You look a little flushed.”

I feel flushed. “I’m okay. I promise.” My head does feel extremely foggy, though; like I’m standing near a lake and fog is circling me everywhere while I can barely think or see straight.

“I’m Alton,” he says and I know I’m in deep trouble, yet I can’t seem to react to it. “And you are?”

“Ember Rose Edwards,” I say dazedly, still gazing up at him. Alton. The mayor is Alton. The mayor is the leader of the Anamotti?
Holy crap
.

“That’s a beautiful name,” he tells me then lifts his hand to stroke my cheek. He sweeps his finger across my cheekbone once and then withdraws his hand back to his side. “Very poetic.” He assesses me for a moment more, and then starts to pull me with him as he heads over towards the counter. “Here; come with me.”

I follow him without even questioning him, not moving my own feet, yet I don’t think Cameron is the one controlling me anymore, either. It’s Alton, although I don’t understand how.

Alton leads me over to the concession area with his hand resting on the small of my back, effortlessly steering me through the crowd. I think he’s going to get in line, but instead he strolls up to the front, cutting in line exactly how Raven did with the shoes.

“Two waters, Adellia,” he says to the lady behind the counter who’s over-dressed in a sparkling, floor length skirt, a sheer top and hoop earrings with her hair done up in curls.

“Of course, Alton,” she says and then rushes off to the soda fountain as if he’s the most important person in the world.

I find myself leaning into Alton, and his grip tightens on me as he draws me closer and breathes in my scent. “You smell so good.”

Cameron, what should I do…? I’m losing control… and this guy… he’s Mackenzie’s dad.

He doesn’t respond and I start to get worried. Cameron said that the Anamotti brought me here to set me up. Is that what’s going on? Has Alton taken over my body so he can force me to say I’m the one who’s been murdering people?

I peer around the room, looking for cops, but all I see are Anamotti. Everywhere.

“So, Ember, are you from here?” Alton asks, relaxing against the counter top, putting his elbow on top of the glass.

“I’ve lived here all my life,” I admit, not under my own will, but I can’t tell whose will it is anymore; who’s controlling me.

“Wow, you must have some interesting stories,” he says, admiring his refection in the glass of the counter top, gripping onto my arm. I have to lean forward with him.

“Not really.” I notice how quiet the room has gotten and I look around. Everyone is gathering around and watching me with hunger in their eyes.

“You know, there is a rumor that the town was built on an old battlefield, one that went on between the Angels and the Reapers and conclusively the Grim Angel breed was created right afterward,” Alton tells me, flicking his hair with his pinky as his fingers finally leave my arm. “That the town is linked to every part of the battle, every part of death, and therefore carries a lot of power linked to death.”

“Really?” I ask as the cashier lady returns with our waters, grinning at Alton and narrowing her eyes at me. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“Of course you haven’t.” He devilishly smiles as he picks up the cup. “Why would you? No one else knows. No human anyway.”

I swallow the lump in my throat as the people around me start to close in on me. “I think I should go—” Someone nudges me from behind and I trip forward, straight into Alton.

His arms envelope me so he can steady me to my feet. “Either you really like falling into me or you’re clumsy. But I’ll take either.” He takes hold of my arm again, his fingers pressing down into my skin so hard that I wonder if I’ll have bruises. Then he reaches behind his back with his free hand and I wish I could do the same thing. Take the knife out of my back pocket. Stab him. Kill him.

But I’m frozen in place, unable to control my own body, and all I can do is wait.
This is it. I can feel it. They’re about to take me down
.

“You know, a lot is going to change around this town soon. A lot of deaths will be happening,” he says, which causes me to think of the death omen I saw back at the school. “All for a greater cause, of course.”

“Deaths you cause.” Suddenly my mouth and words are my own again. Freedom. It tastes divine. However I have no room for celebration as the Anamotti start to close in on me.

Alton smiles cleverly at me. “Of course. Who else would be clever enough to cause them?”

Grinning like the Cheshire cat, I scoot out of his hold. “Well, it could easily have been The Torva.” My brief control is gone again, back in the hands of who the hell knows. “They are cleverer than the Anamotti.”

He misses a beat as he searches my eyes with a hint of fear in his own. Whatever the hell the Torva is has him worried. “I see you know more than I thought, which surprises me. My daughter said you weren’t very bright.”

The daughter you killed
, I want to say it, but I lose control of my mouth again, Cameron taking over.

“Of course I do,” I respond nonchalantly. “After all, I’m part of you, aren’t I? Half Angel. Half Reaper. Your blood runs through my veins and so does your knowledge.”

His lids lower as he glares at me, his arm moving from behind his back. I detect a flicker of silver, like a blade catching in the light, and I try to reach behind my own back, for my own knife.

My knee springs upward and slams straight into the guy’s balls with more force than I know I’m capable of. Human or not, Alton still crumples to his knees, his face contorted in pain. Seconds later, I’m diving for him, cupping his face in-between my hands. Without even thinking, I dip down and seal my lips to his, swiftly breathing in his life. I taste the deaths of the girl’s he’s killed. I can feel the power residing inside him, the power he gets from death. I feel this twisted urge to kill him—kill other people. It’s flowing off him and coursing through me, along with the potent death omen. Blood. People covering the street. So much blood.

He groans as I jerk back with the faint taste of him on my tongue. My lips part in shock as I feel his life burning venomously through me. I start to back away, withdrawing the knife, very aware that
I’m
the one who took it out. I want to kill him. Hurt him. Bleed him out until he’s screaming for mercy.

What’s happening to me?

Anger burns in Alton’s eyes as he glares at me. “You’re going to pay for that.”

“Don’t count on it.” I lunge forward and strike the blade of the knife across his cheek, drawing a trail of blood.

He growls as someone slams into me and I fall to the ground, flat on my stomach, dropping my knife. Black capes swish around me as my head smacks against the floor. My ears ring while I see feathers floating everywhere. Just like in the alley.

In the corner

Lives a girl

Balled up

Lonely

Sullen

Locked away

By herself

She gave up

Curling in

Like a petal

Dying

Wilting

Edges browning

Cracking

So easy

The petal fell

Scattered like dust

Across

The charred ground

Covered with Cinders

Waiting to burn out.

***

“Ember, open your eyes,” Cameron whispers, his voice hued with panic. “Come on, fight it.”

My skin sears, liquid fire pulsating through my veins. I need something; I need deaths. Souls. I need blood on my hands. I need the fire on my back to subside. I need to stop melting.

“Goddammit, princess.” Cameron sounds worried, but I can’t see him. I can’t see anything; I can only feel the aching need to feel death on my lips again.

“I need it,” I whisper. “Death… I need it.”

Cameron mutters under his breath and then he’s surrounding me, touching me, feeling me with his hands. I bask in it, wanting to press my lips against his and steal the breath from him, but I can’t find him. Yet he ends up finding me and giving me exactly what I want.

Our lips touch.

He feeds my hunger.

Fills my veins.

Bringing me closer to death.

And farther away from life.

From good.

From Asher.

***

My eyelids flutter open, my eyeballs rolling back into my head that throbs in protest along with my whole body. My lids slip back shut. “Oh, my God,” I groan. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

“Not a truck, just a stampede of Anamotti.” The sound of Cameron’s voice hurts my head even more, especially since it’s no longer in my head. “Plus, you fed off their leader’s death, so I’m sure that didn’t help.”

“What the hell happened?” I groan, clutching onto my head. “What was all that stuff… or was I dreaming?”

“You weren’t dreaming,” he says. “You fed off Alton’s life, not because of me. It made you turn rabid for a moment, too much evil blood. But don’t worry; I helped you out.”

When I finally get my eyelids to open, I squint as the light of my room hits them. After I blink a few times, things around me start to take shape. My walls. My bed. My window. Cameron standing beside my doorway, looking very relaxed with his hands in his pockets and a bored expression on his face.

“What do you mean, you helped me out?” I ask, but as soon as I say it, I feel the lines on my arms burn. “Dammit, Cameron, did you make me take more of your life?”

“I had to,” he insists, strolling towards me. He sinks down on the bed, the mattress concaving beneath his weight. “Alton’s blood was too much for you and you would have probably gone on a killing spree if I didn’t override it with mine.”

“And like your blood is any better.” I ask, sitting up.

He shrugs nonchalantly. “You don’t feel like killing anyone right now, right? You should be thanking me.”

I glare at him even though he’s right. “I wouldn’t have had to go through any of it if you wouldn’t have forced me to go to the bowling alley.”

“I was only trying to help you. If we can get to Alton, then maybe we can get to the leader of the Reapers, figure out what he looks like, what he’s planning.”

“Why are you so dead set on stopping him?” I wonder, leaning against the headboard. “When he’s the leader of you?”

“Lots of reasons,” he says, bringing his knee up onto the bed. “One being that if I find him and can kill him it means freeing my family from a curse. He’s been in hiding forever and impossible to get to, but if he’s here than not so much.”

“What curse?”

“The one that makes the Logan’s outcasts,” he explains in a venomous tone. “Traps us here on earth even after the battle is over and quite honestly I’m getting sick and tired of being trapped in the human world. No offense.”

“None taken.” I search his eyes for a sign that he’s lying, but for once he seems like he’s telling the truth. “Well, I want to stop him too. And stop Alton from murdering anymore people.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe it… he killed all those girls because he needed they’re deaths… I could feel it flowing off him—the need to kill so he could survive and gain power.”

“What did you say?” he asks, stiffening. “He needs to kill to survive and gain power?”

I nod. “That’s what I felt when I drank some of his life… death. It’s weird because usually my gift doesn’t work like that—usually I only see the person’s death. But I felt the death’s on him and his need for deaths.”

He brushes strands of his hair out of his eyes, with a pucker in his brow. “That doesn’t sound like the leader of the Anamotti at all,” he says, staring off into empty space.

“I think it does,” I disagree, remembering how the detective tried to kill Raven with no remorse at all. “A guy who’s killing innocent girls to feed his sick urge to take people’s lives.”

“It’s not just an urge,” he says. “It’s a need—a need that the leader of the Reapers has.”

“You think the leader of the Anamotti is the leader of the Reapers?” I ask incredulously. “You think Alton is Altarius Vinceton.” I pause as I say it, my poetry forming mind sifting through the letters. “Take the first two letters of Altarius and the last three of Vinceton and you have Alton.”

The color drains from Cameron’s face. “This is very bad,” he says, his gaze elevating to me and for a fleeting instant I see fear. “Not only because he’s the mayor of the town, but it also means that the leader of the Reapers is now rebelling with the Anamotti and torturing Grim Angels, which means there’s no control left in my world. Anything can happen to anyone, including me.”

“So many innocent people are dying.” I shake my head, wishing I didn’t believe him. But I do. “He’s killing off people to thrive… God and I’ve seen what he’s planning to do… all those lives.” Anger burst through me and Cameron seems to get kicks off it, leaning closer to me as if he’s going to kiss me. “Could you give me some space, please?” I ask, pressing my head back against the pillow.

He remains still for a moment then reclines back, looking too composed as he fleetingly glances around my room, his gaze landing on a poem that I wrote on my wall. He reads it aloud, “
Beneath the weakened structure lies something more.
Something softer, yet stronger. It may appear brittle and unstable, like desert dust. But it’s as sturdy as steal.
It carries itself.
Flourishes like flowers.
Breathes and thrives.
It’s life to the very core.
” He pauses when he finishes then looks back at me. “You know, you’re very talented.”

I don’t respond. Despite the fact that I despise him, Cameron is a very talented poet himself and he’s kind of complimenting me. We stare at each other for a moment then finally he sits up straight and so do I.

“Goddamn, my head hurts.” I wince from the pain as the memories of everything I did at the bowling alley come back to me.

“Yeah, sorry about the headache,” he says, but doesn’t seem very remorseful. “I accidentally lost control of your body for a moment. I think Alton may have some controlling power of his own, although I don’t get how? Grim Angels are supposed to be protected from Reapers’ possession since they have Reapers’ blood in them.”

“Perhaps he did the same thing as you.”

“Trust me; he didn’t do the same thing. I’m guessing it might have something to do with him being the leader and having more power… plus he’s feeding off the energy of souls by killing people…” He trails off, looking confused. “God, I could feel his power… it was amazing, to say the least.” He glances down at my arms that are covered with gloves. “He could have very easily taken over, if I hadn’t stepped up.”

It takes me a second to catch on. I quickly tug off one of my gloves and curse at the sight of the darkened lines. “That’s why you wanted me to take your life.” I grimace, tracing my finger over the lines. “So you could control me. God, I should have seen that coming.”

“How could you ever begin to understand enough about Reapers and death to know that?” He tilts his head to the side, folding his arms over his chest, looking as though he wants to touch me. “There’s still so much you don’t understand.”

“Like what a Torva is?” I ask, putting my gloves back on, not wanting to look at the painful reminder of what I did.

He shrugs me off. “That’s just another term for our leader, a term used amongst Reapers. I could tell it unsettled Alton when you—well—
I
, said it; like you might understand more than what the Anamotti want you to.”

“I hardly understand anything,” I say. “Like the town being built on a battlefield… I’ve never heard of that before.”

“That’s because the war wasn’t properly recorded, at least in human recordings” he tells me, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “The battle between Reapers and Angels.”

I point out the window at the town and mountains around the house. “I can’t believe that battle took place in little old Hollows Grove. It seems impossible.”

“Why?” he asks. “With all the Anamotti running around, it shouldn’t be that surprising. We’re drawn to the place this all started, where our lives here on earth began and the place where Grim Angels were created.”

“So, is it just a coincidence that I’m here… that I was born here in the town the battle took place in and where Grim Angels were first created?”

He looks at me like I’m a moron. “What do you think?” He scoots towards me and places a hand on my knee. “You know, for such a small town, Hollows Grove has a very high Grim Angel population, or used to anyway. They’re connected to this place—your connected to this place, whether you like it or not.”

“Like my father was connected to this place.” I slip my knee out from under his hand.

“Does it matter, since your father’s dead?" he says with a complete lack of compassion.

I glare at him. “Yeah, but is he dead?” I watch his reaction closely. “You never did tell me what you knew about his death that day you showed up to warn me; only that you knew he was going to die soon.”

He glances around to the open window where the moon is shining just outside. His expression is haunting, and if I look closely, I can see anguish in his eyes. Then he sighs, looking back at me, and the look is gone. “I have to go.” He starts to get up, but I snag the sleeve of his shirt, stopping him.

“Cameron, if you know anything about my dad, please just tell me and stop messing with my head,” I say with a plea in my voice. “You said you want my trust. Well, if you tell me, then maybe I’ll trust you more.”