Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy (11 page)

Ranson shrugged. “I don’t know what it is.
I don’t think I want to know. But anyway, we’ll just turn this into a double
date,” he told Imani, “you and Whitelock here, and me and Dust.”

None of this was making any sense. I knew
Wiley’s stupid motive, but why was Ranson going along with this date? “What are
you getting out of this?”

He shook his head. “Absolutely nothing.
Well, maybe some grade A weed and maybe he has something on me too, but mostly
I’m doing a favor for my boy. Anyway, I don’t know what your problem is, Dust.
You should be honored.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Oh, I feel like
the luckiest girl in the world.”

Fletcher rolled his eyes at Ranson because
he never wasted time and energy hiding his feelings. “No one here wants to hang
out with you. Get lost.”

Ranson looked amused as he usually did
before pounding Fletcher. “Whitelock, I’ve been missing you at school lately. I
heard you had some kind of contagious alien disease. I was hoping it was fatal,
but then I hear you extraterrestrial freaks are pretty resilient.”

I’d never heard the idiot use such big
words.

“How’s the nose?” Fletcher asked.

Ranson touched his nose splint and that
was probably the first time I’d seen him be self-conscious about anything.
“Shut up, asshole before I break
your
nose.”

Thankfully it was our time to get on the
ride and I was determined not to let Ranson ruin any of this night for us. Fun
times for me and Fletcher were too few and far between.

Imani, being the awesome person she was,
paired up with Ranson so Fletcher and I could ride together. Ranson had tried
to protest, but the man running the ride yelled at him to have a seat so the
ride could start.

The four of us jumped from ride to ride
until I started to feel queasy, so we stopped by the face-painting booth.
Fletcher wanted to get tiger stripes painted on his face. Ranson told him that
he was going to look like a bigger idiot than he usually did, but of course
Fletcher didn’t care.

At the booth, I chatted with Mary-Kate for
a few moments. She was the one in charge of face painting. She talked about how
much money they’d already raised for the children’s hospital as she moved back
and forth refilling paint trays and cleaning brushes for the volunteers. I’d
hoped that even she’d be able to let her hair down and have some fun that
night, but maybe that was her idea of fun. At least she was wearing jeans under
her paint smock. I don’t think I had ever seen her wear jeans before.

We played a few games and ate junk food,
mostly ignoring Ranson, who obediently followed me everywhere. He was afraid to
leave my side as if Wiley were in the trees that surrounded the carnival
grounds watching us. Ranson had spent most of the night insulting us and
explaining to people why he was hanging out with losers.

We managed to ditch him once when he left
to go to the restroom. When he found us standing in line waiting to get our
palms read, he punched Fletcher in the back. “Don’t do that again,” Ranson said
through clenched teeth.

Before he even had the sentence out, Imani
kneed him in the nuts. Ranson doubled over, holding himself. “Bitch!”

That earned him a swift kick in the shin.
I pulled Imani away from him to stop the violence, even though Ranson had
deserved it. He hobbled behind the three of us, mumbling all sorts of curses
under his breath. Wiley must have really had something on him for Ranson to
still be tagging along after that. I was disappointed because I’d really wanted
to have my palm read. Maybe the reader would have told me something useful—like
what type of species I’d turn into over the next few months.

I needed to think up something to lighten
the mood. “Hey, we didn’t do the Ferris wheel yet,” I said as we approached the
ride. Who could be angry on a Ferris wheel?

Imani watched a crowd of kids leave the
ride through a gate marked EXIT. “You know what? Why don’t you and Fletcher
ride? I want to beat Ranson’s ass in ski ball,” she said, winking at me.

That was fine with me, but of course
Ranson protested. “Wait, I’m supposed to stay with—”

Imani grinned slyly at Ranson. “Loser has
to buy the winner an ice cream cone. You scared?”

“Hell no,” Ranson shouted. “Let’s go.” He
turned to me and Fletcher. “We’ll catch up to you guys. Hands to yourself,
Whitelock.”

I rolled my eyes watching the two of them
dart off into the crowd, bickering with each other.
Way to take one for the
team, Imani.

Fletcher and I made it through the gate
just as the attendant was about to close it, and climbed into a purple bucket.

I sat as close to Fletcher as possible,
hoping my hands would stop trembling. He was my best friend so I didn’t
understand why I felt so nervous around him all of a sudden.

Fletcher tapped the empty space on the
seat beside him. “What do you think this is made out of?”

“I don’t know, Fletch.” We were alone,
sitting close together on a Ferris wheel and that’s what he was thinking about?
What the seat was made out of?

My emotions couldn’t make up their minds.
I wanted to be angry with Fletcher, but I couldn’t right then. The ride moved,
sending us slowly into the air. Fletcher was preoccupied with peeking over the
side of the bucket, so I made the first move. I grabbed his hand and leaned my
head on his shoulder. Thankfully, he didn’t shrug me away.

“You smell good,” I told him. He smelled
like aftershave and something musky which was weird because to a Taker, Givers
were supposed to have a sour, pungent smell. Fletcher never smelled that way to
me.

Fletcher coughed into his hand. “Thanks.
What if the wind blew really hard right now and this thing tilted and we fell
out?”

I sighed. “I guess we’ll be all right.
We’d be hurt but we wouldn’t die. You’d heal right . . .” Then I remembered how
Fletcher wasn’t healing the way he used to and I didn’t want to talk about any
of that. “Let’s just enjoy the ride,” I suggested, and we did just that. We
held hands in silence until the ride came to a stop. It took a while for us to
be let out, since passengers could only be let off one cart at a time.

We found Imani and Ranson standing at the
ride’s exit. Imani licked a chocolate cone while Ranson glared at her with his
arms folded across his chest. I didn’t even have to ask.

We had planned on staying at the carnival
until it closed at midnight, but close to eleven, I was ready to go. I couldn’t
take another hour of Ranson and his rudeness. His presence had ruined
everything, but I guessed I had Wiley to thank for that. Even Imani, who was
always upbeat, had grown silent.

The four of us settled down at a sticky
picnic table to snack on curly fries and fried Oreos. So far, the night had
been the perfect temperature for me, not too hot, not too cold, but suddenly a
chill in the air made me shiver.

A heaviness weighed on my shoulders, like
a strong man was standing behind me, pressing down on them. I locked eyes with
Fletcher who sat frozen, prepared to pop another fry in his mouth. The hair on
the back of my neck stood on end and a foul stench filled my nostrils.
Something was wrong. Fletcher knew it too. Imani and Ranson argued over the
last fried Oreo, completely oblivious.

Not far from us was the Double Loop.
Screams and shrieks had become normal background noise to us, but suddenly they
had taken a different tone. They were no longer fun screams, but screams of
pure horror. I looked over my shoulder to see people rushing away from the
area, yelling and pushing their way to the front of the carnival as if
something were chasing them.

“What the hell?” Ranson muttered.

I stood to get a better look at what was
going on. “What’s happening?”

Fletcher took off in the opposite
direction of the crowd, disappearing into the sea of running, panicking people.
Imani screamed our names as I followed him. We were the only fools running
toward whatever had freaked everyone out. That was when I saw it, right beside
the entrance for the Double Loop line. A massive creature with the head of a
bull and a muscular man’s massive body. A Minotaur. Minotaurs belonged in the
sixth tunnel. What was this one doing out? How did it get here?

The area had been mostly vacated. The
Minotaur held one of the carnival workers under its left hoof, crushing him
with his powerful legs. Its thighs were thick as tree trunks. Two long, curved
horns protruded from the sides of its head. The carnival worker gave a long
piercing cry, his arms flailing wildly as the Minotaur placed more weight on
him. The creature knew exactly what it was doing.

The roller coaster had come to a stop, but
passengers were still stuck in their seats by their over-the-shoulder
restraints since the operator’s booth had been vacated.

The man grunted in a fruitless attempt to
lift the Minotaur’s hoof from his midsection. I felt horrible just standing
around doing nothing.

“Fletcher, do something,” I pleaded. Maybe
him changing into a wolf would distract the Minotaur.

He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t
change anymore.”

I looked at him. “What?”

“I just haven’t been able to do it for a
couple of weeks.”

I wanted more answers from him, but there
wasn’t time for that.

The Minotaur lifted its snout and sniffed
the air. My insides flip-flopped as it set its sights on me and Fletcher.
Minotaurs were Takers, and Takers weren’t supposed to harm other Takers, but
the creatures of the sixth tunnel were different. They had no self-control. No
inclination to follow rules. They went after anything in their paths—Taker or
not.

Shouts from carnival security rang behind
us as the Minotaur crushed the man even more. I couldn’t imagine the pain he
must have been in. The man let out a final agonizing howl and then fell
motionless.

Fletcher gasped. We’d just stood around
watching that man die. We should have done something.

We backed away as security rushed past us.
“You kids get to the exit now!” one of them shouted, but we didn’t move.

The three security guards formed a line
and pointed dark rectangular-shaped objects at the Minotaur—tasers. That was
probably the strongest weapon they had. Who would think they needed anything
more to guard a high school carnival?

“On three,” ordered the guard in the
middle. I already knew this wasn’t going to work. The Minotaur was so much
stronger than their measly taser guns.

“One . . . two . . . three.” They fired
and a crackling sound filled the air.

The Minotaur bayed and rushed forward.
With one swoop, he knocked two of the guards off their feet and raised the
third in the air by his throat. They hadn’t hurt the Minotaur at all. All
they’d done was piss it off.

I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to stop
the creature like I had stopped Bailey, but I wasn’t changing like I had that
night. My gums weren’t raw, a sign that my teeth were sharpening. My nails
weren’t turning into claws. I didn’t feel the need for flesh and meat.

“Stop it,” Fletcher whispered. At first I
thought he was talking to the Minotaur but then I realized that he was speaking
to me. How the hell was I supposed to stop it?

A purple haze formed around the security
guard which was quickly turning gray. I narrowed my eyes and concentrated on
the Minotaur. I wasn’t sure how being a Banshee worked. I didn’t know how hard
I had to think or if I had to say the words out loud. I made a locker door open
one day, but other than that, I knew nothing and there was no one to teach me.

“Put him down!” I shouted.

The Minotaur paused for a moment and then
snorted before lifting the security guard higher. The man made a sick gurgling
sound as his throat was being crushed. The Minotaur glared at me as if daring
me to stop it.

I looked around me thinking of ways the
Minotaur might die. A Banshee can kill with her thoughts.
Just think, Arden
.
My gaze fell on the Ferris wheel not too far away, sitting still. The carts
were empty, swaying back and forth in the wind. The ride must have unloaded
just before all this happened. Maybe I could do what I had done in the locker
room that day; make something move with my mind. I pictured the Ferris wheel
rolling off its foundation and over the Minotaur like a bull dozer, but nothing
happened. The ride remained in its place. I imagined the tracks of the Double
Loop collapsing onto the creature, but that would put us all in danger.

“Fletcher, I don’t know what to do.”

The Minotaur must have sensed our
helplessness because he squeezed the throat of the security guard until the
man’s body jerked a few times and then drooped like a wilted flower. The
creature flung the lifeless body to the side like a dishrag. The kids still
stuck in the roller coaster seats shrieked in full-on panic mode, trying to
lift the restraints that held them in. The noise caused the Minotaur to focus
his attention on them. It hunched its shoulders and stamped the ground with its
right hoof. They were sitting ducks.

The other two security guards were
crawling away when something rushed passed us—a Satyr. I recognized the white
stripe down his back. It was Principal Sharpe.