Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy (22 page)

The sixth tunnel.

I glanced at Violet who didn’t look afraid
at all. He pulled his attention to her. “Little bug, your powers have gotten
stronger, no? You’ve gone from shaping clouds to controlling the skies. Clearly
you are the winner of your Gemini dual, so you need not concern yourself with
this. Give me the box.”

Violet straightened her shoulders. “I’m
sorry, sir, but you will not take that box.”

Before I could react, Mr. Mason struck
out. He grabbed Violet by her tiny throat and dangled her in the air with one
hand. Her legs kicked back and forth.

“Put her down!” I screamed.

Mr. Mason was unmoved. “I’m sick of the
loyalty you all have to this girl over me. After all I’ve done for
you—protecting you, raising you. Anything she asks you all to do, you do.”

Violet tried to speak, but she couldn’t.
He was crushing her throat.

“Please, Mr. Mason. Stop.”

Violet’s eyes bugged out as he squeezed
harder. If I didn’t stop him. He was going to kill, Violet. He was going to get
the box and Fletcher would die too. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Mr.
Mason should have destroyed the box when he had the chance. Familiar words
bounced around in my mind; Takers take life, but only when they have to. There
was no longer a question in my mind. I had to take and there was no time left
to think about it. If I didn’t kill him right then, he would kill Violet.

A warmth surged through my body. I focused
all the energy I had on Mr. Mason. My chest burned and my head felt so light
that I wondered how I hadn’t passed out. My vision blurred. I had never felt
this feeling before but somehow I knew it was right. This was what Banshees
were supposed to feel.

I glared at Mr. Mason. He faltered for a
moment. He knew what I was doing. He tossed Violet away from him like a rag
doll. She landed on the ground where she lay still. He turned to me and
retracted his wings.

“What do you think you’re doing, girl? You
think you’re going to kill me?”

Yes, but only if I had to. “I know you’re
angry about your wife, but we’ve all lost people important to us. Nothing is
going to bring her back, especially not what you’re doing.”

Mr. Mason moved toward me. I tried to back
away, but I wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed me by the collar of my dress and
pinned me to the wall. Just like the other Takers did with Violet, he was
underestimating me. The last time, I may not have been able to kill him, but
this time was different.

I put a picture in my mind. Nothing too
gory or gruesome. As much as I may have hated him, I wanted to make this as
quick as possible. I imagined the blood vessels around Mr. Mason’s heart
tightening, allowing for no blood or oxygen to flow through. I saw his blood vessels
shriveling down to the size of a spaghetti noodle. With his free hand, he
grabbed his chest.

His face turned scarlet and then purple as
he loosened his grip on me. My feet touched the floor again and from somewhere
at my left, Violet coughed.

Veins popped out of Mr. Mason’s face and
neck as he tried to speak. He looked at me with bulging eyes, straining to
talk. I had no interest in what he had to say. I didn’t even feel as bad as I
thought I would. He had brought this on himself. Mr. Mason was the very reason
the curse hadn’t been called off. Creatures had died because of him and he was
only going to make things worse than they already were.

He dropped to the floor, flopping like a
fish out of water as he convulsed. He reached for one of my legs, but I hopped
back. Mr. Mason writhed for another minute. It was strange to see such a huge
powerful creature be taken down by little me. I wished I could have made it
faster and less painful, but I didn’t know how to. Finally, he stopped moving.
His wings flapped one last time and then dropped to the ground like a wet
blanket.

It was only then that I noticed Cadence
and Wes standing at one end of the hallway. They had probably seen the whole
thing. What was I going to say to them? I had just killed their leader. Their
father-figure. Were they going to kill me now?

“I—I,” I started to explain, but I
couldn’t find the right words, probably because there weren’t any.

Wes crouched over Mr. Mason, lifting a
limp arm to check his pulse. A slow smile spread across Wes’s face. I didn’t
understand. Maybe he was in denial of what he had just seen.

“I’m so sorry, you guys. I had to. I
didn’t have a choice.”

Cadence knelt beside Wes and Mr. Mason.
“You did good. Everything went just according to plan, Dust.”

My eyes darted back and forth between her
and Wes, waiting for her to explain, but neither of them spoke. “What do you
mean? What are you talking about?”

Cadence cleared her throat and stood up.
“We respected Mr. Mason. He did a lot for us. But let’s be real, you’re not the
only one around here with a brain. He was going to get us all killed either by
opening the sixth tunnel or with the Gemini Curse. He had to go, but of course
the two of us couldn’t do it.”

My knees felt as if they were going to
buckle beneath me. “Why not?” I demanded.

Wes shrugged. “Because of Hollis. I’m his
best friend and Cadence lo—” Cadence elbowed him in the side. “Well, Cadence is
very fond of him. Hollis would have never forgiven us. With you, he would have
understood.”

They had used me to do their dirty work. I
struggled to find the words, but I was speechless.

Cadence cocked her head to one side. “Oh,
don’t look like that. Think about it. You were going to kill him anyway,
weren’t you? It wasn’t like we put the thought in your head. When you brought
it up, we were relieved that we wouldn’t have to do it ourselves. We certainly
weren’t going to talk you out of it.”

Cadence was right. I would have killed Mr.
Mason anyway, but I wasn’t about to admit that. One of my goals was to keep
myself from being used as a tool and I had let it happen. I’d let them use me
and I hadn’t seen it coming.

Wes grew serious. “Hollis will be back in
a couple of hours. How are you gonna tell him?”

I shook my head, running my hand over the
box. I’d done enough. The rest was their problem. “You tell him. Tell him it
was all on me. I know that’s what you’re going to do anyway. But I can’t stay
here. I have to get this offering to the Archs. This curse has to end today.”

A wave of adrenaline flowed through me.
Fletcher was going to live. No one else had to die as a result of the curse.
The sixth tunnel would remain sealed as it should. For once, everything was the
way it was supposed to be. The feelings of conflict and confusion that had been
ruling my life were gone.

After making sure Violet was okay, I took
the box home and handed it to my father. He stared at it for a long time like
he couldn’t believe I had actually done it. He looked me up and down. “Your
bone?”

“It’s okay, Dad. We worked it out and I’m
fine. Perfectly fine.”

Dad stared at the box for a long time. “I
can’t believe you did it.”

He was proud of me. I could tell. My
cheeks warmed because it had been a long time since I’d felt that from either
of my parents. I was even proud of myself. How many people could say they’d
saved lives? There couldn’t be a better feeling.

Dad kissed me on my forehead. “I’ll get
this to them. I promise.”

I believed him. I didn’t know whether it was
in the Givers best interest or not to stop the curse, but I trusted my father.
He wouldn’t take the sacrifice his daughters had worked so hard to get and not
deliver.

Three weeks after I handed my father the
offering, things were falling back into place. According to Imani, Fletcher had
been getting better by the day. I refused to go anywhere near the Whitelock
house, so I depended on her for daily updates. The day Fletcher finally
returned to school, I was elated.

One day, in the middle of my American
History test, my stomach rumbled. I got the uneasy feeling that I was about to
vomit. I left my seat so fast that my chair fell back and clanged against the
floor. Not worrying about getting my teacher’s permission or a hall pass, I
raced toward the nearest restroom.

Inside, two girls stood in front of the
sink perfecting their lip gloss. I didn’t have time to worry about them and
what they would think about me throwing up. I locked myself in the nearest
stall.

Bending over, I gagged and retched like I
had never done in my life. A foul, brown liquid poured out of me. I heaved and
shook as the mysterious fluid filled the toilet bowl to the top. I had never
experienced anything like it, but once I was done, I felt relieved and twenty
pounds lighter.

After spitting out all that was left over
and flushing, I emerged from the stall. The two girls stood there, staring at
me blankly. Now that I was getting a better look, I recognized Ava Parsley, a freshman
and a friend of Paige who lived down the street from us.

She covered her nose with her hand. “Damn,
Dust. Did you throw up a dead animal or something?”

“Yeah, I did.”

The girls exchanged puzzled looks and
glared at me as if I were the most disgusting thing they had ever seen and I
knew they would spread what had happened all over the school. I didn’t care
because I understood. My body had just gotten rid of the last trace of Wendigo.
I was finally free of one of my creatures.

That afternoon Fletcher and I went to our
special spot, just the two of us. It had been a while since we’d gone to the
park to sit on our bench next to the fountain that smelled like rotten eggs.

Fletcher tore open a package of Twinkies
while I fished a small package from the front pocket of my backpack. I handed
it over. “Here. This is for you.”

His eyes lit up as he took the package
from me. It was wrapped in silver aluminum paper that we had left over from
Christmas. I’d contemplated sticking a bow on top but decided against it.

Fletcher flipped the small package over
and over in his hands. The sunlight bounced off it, almost blinding me. He
looked like a little kid receiving a gift for the first time and something
about that made me feel sad. “Open it,” I urged.

He carefully tore into the paper. Inside
was a red and black bowtie made out of the same material I had used on one of
my dresses. That way we could match. Figuring out the clasp had been a lot of
work, but for Fletcher, the effort was worth it.

He quickly attached the bow tie to the
collar of his shirt. He was wearing a sweatshirt so it looked ridiculous. But
Fletcher looked ahead with the widest grin I had ever seen on his face.
“Thanks, Arden. I’ve never had a bow tie before.”

I couldn’t help but blush at how proud he
looked to wear my creation. I gave him a peck on the cheek because I couldn’t
help it and he was so freaking adorable.

“Look,” Fletcher said, pointing down the
sidewalk.

Imani strolled toward us, swinging a huge
bag of gummy bears I was sure she had just gotten from The Sweet Tooth, the
candy shop a couple of blocks over.

She sat on the bench beside me, shoving me
a little closer to Fletcher. I threw her a look and she winked at me. “Wow,
Fletch. Spiffy bowtie.”

He nodded. “Isn’t it? Arden made it for
me.”

Imani already knew that because I had
shown it to her days before. She dangled her gummy bears in front of us. “Have
some.”

I chose a yellow one and popped it into my
mouth. It wasn’t my favorite thing to eat, but it was good. Sweet wasn’t so
bad.

“My dad said that maybe by the summer
they’ll stop locking me in at night,” I announced. I was glad that my friends
knew exactly what I was talking about and that I didn’t have to explain any
further. The weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders since I would
no longer be a threat to my family.

“That’s great,” they said at the same
time. I wasn’t hungry all the time anymore. I didn’t have any more of those
weird urges or cravings for salt and meat. I knew my Wendigo was gone but I
understood that my family needed a little more time to be sure.

“Anyway,” Imani said loudly. “When are you
two crazy kids just going to hook up already?”

I slapped her knee. “Imani!”

Fletcher sat beside me fiddling with his
tie, not bothered at all. “Hook up for what?” he asked.

Imani sighed. “I love you guys, but you
have to be two of the most socially-awkward people I have ever met. I mean,
hook up as in become boyfriend and girlfriend, Fletcher.”

“Oh,” was all he said, followed by, “I don’t
know how Wiley would feel about that,” a moment later.

My chest hurt. I didn’t know how Wiley
would feel about it, but I knew how I felt. Wiley was cute and funny and
mysterious, but I didn’t love him. I loved Fletcher.

Imani hopped off the bench and stood in
front of us. “Clearly, I’m going to have to get this ball rolling. I swear, you
guys are ridiculous.” She took my left hand and Fletcher’s right one. “Fletcher
Whitelock, do you want to go out with Arden or not? And by “go out,” I mean be
her boyfriend, bae, hunny-bunny, whatever you want to call it.”

He nodded. “I do.” My heart fluttered.

“Cool. Now, Arden Moss—”

“I do,” I answered. I’d wanted this for a
long time so there was nothing to think about.

Imani grinned. “I now pronounce you bae and
bae.” She dropped our hands and went back to her beloved gummy bears.

Fletcher looked at me and shook his head
laughing which made me feel queasy. Did he think this was all a joke? Because I
didn’t.

“Now that this is official,” he said, “I
guess I’m supposed to plan a date.” Good. He had been serious too. “How about
Friday night?”

It was Friday. “You mean tonight? Uh, I
had something planned that I absolutely can’t get out of.” There was nothing I
wanted to do more than go on a date with Fletcher, but there was something I
had been putting off for weeks. Something I had to do that I couldn’t hold off
on any longer. I had to go explain to Hollis why I had to break the promise I
had made to him. I owed him at least that much.

When I stepped into the lair, it was the
noisiest I had ever heard it. Creatures chased each other up and down the
hallways. Music blared from different rooms. The normally white walls were
covered with colorful murals. The grieving time for Mr. Mason seemed to be
over.

In the control room I found Hollis sitting
alone scribbling something in a notebook.

“Hollis?”

He didn’t turn around or stop what he was
doing.

I stepped closer to him. “Listen, I’m
sorry it took me so long to come talk to you. I wanted to say—”

“Just stop.” His voice was barely a
whisper.

“What?”

He banged his fist on the table top and
stood so abruptly that the chair toppled over. I stumbled back toward the door.
“I said stop. I don’t want to hear it.”

“But I made you a promise. I didn’t want
to go back on it, but I had to. I’m sorry, but your father left me no choice.
He was the cause of the massacre that killed your mother and he was going to
get us all killed. You’re not alone. Both of my birth parents are dead too and
a lot of the kids here.” I was rambling. I knew I was, but I just couldn’t
stop.

Hollis held his hands up. “Please, Arden.
If I killed your father, would there be anything I could say to you that would
make it better?”

I didn’t even want to imagine that, but I
guessed no. There wouldn’t be anything he could do or say that would help.

His shoulders dropped. “I know about my
father, all right. I know you didn’t have much of a choice. I just don’t want
to talk about it.”

I understood that and I would never bring
it up again unless he wanted to talk about it.

Hollis’s phone rang and he dug it out from
his pocket. He listened for a moment, his eyebrows going up and down. “What?
Who is it?” He listened a little bit longer and then hung up.

“What’s going on?”

He stared at me blankly, blinking rapidly.
“That was Cadence. She and Wes are cleaning out my father’s office. She said
they heard a voice screaming from behind the wall in there. Wes found some kind
of door in the wall but they can’t open it.”

My eyes traveled over Hollis’s rippling
muscles. “I’m sure you can get it open. Let’s go see what’s happening.”

Hollis faltered for a moment, looking like
he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what his father had been up to. Who did he
have imprisoned within the walls of his office?

I followed him down to the ground level.
Cadence and Wes stood beside the decorative curtain that had been pulled back.
Sure enough, a woman shouted, “Help! Let me out!”

Hollis rushed over to the wall and dug his
fingers into the crease. He grunted and pulled for a second and then the door popped
open. The three of them hung back as if they didn’t want to see, but I rushed
over.

My stomach dropped to the floor when I saw
who it was. Mrs. Melcher.

She didn’t look like her usual self. Her chocolate-colored
hair was longer than it was the last time I’d seen her and matted in knots. Her
gray eyes were wide and blood-shot as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. They moved
back and forth crazily. She wore something that looked like a long, black night
gown which was wrinkled and disheveled and there was nothing on her feet.

She sat on the ground in front of a small
table. Open books were strewn everywhere.

I knelt in front of her. “Mrs. Melcher?”

Her eyes stopped moving back and forth and
she finally focused on me. “Arden? What are you doing here?” She looked around
me to see the others. “What are you all doing here? No one’s supposed to know
I’m here.”

I looked over my shoulder at the other
three who only watched Mrs. Melcher wide-eyed. Nobody knew what to say, so I
spoke to her.

“Mrs. Melcher, you’ve been missing for
like six months now. Everyone’s worried. We’ve been looking everywhere for
you.”

She shook her head and clutched a book to
her chest as if it were a baby. “I wasn’t missing. I was working.”

“What are you talking about?” Hollis
demanded.

Wes pushed past me to get closer to Mrs.
Melcher. He sniffed her. “She’s an Artemis.”

“What? What’s that?” I asked.

“She’s a descendant of the goddess of
hunting.” He looked at Ms. Melcher with disgust. “And she’s a Giver so what the
hell are you doing in our lair?”

She ignored Wes and kept her eyes on me.
“I’m hunting down the Legends. I read their stories,” Ms. Melcher explained,
“then I locate them and Mr. Mason takes care of them. Where is Mr. Mason? He always
checks on me every day and brings me food but he hasn’t been around.”

I noticed several empty plastic jugs
sitting in a corner. Another one was filled a quarter of the way with water.
Thank goodness we had had found her when we did.

I looked to Hollis for further
explanation. He sighed and closed his eyes like he had a head ache. “The
Legends are not like us. They’re not even like the creatures in the sixth
tunnel. They can’t be put away for their own good and for the good of others.
They’re evil and they need to be destroyed. That’s one thing my father did—he
kept the Legends at bay. They were afraid of him. They wouldn’t dare act out,
so they stayed hidden. Now that he’s dead, they’re going to bring out their
claws and wreak all sorts of havoc. I bet you didn’t know that about him, did
you?”

No, I hadn’t and the looks on Wes and
Cadence’s faces told me that they hadn’t either.

“Wait,” Mrs. Melcher said as she stumbled
out of the room. “Mr. Mason is dead? Oh no. This is bad. This is very, very
bad. We need him.”

Hollis walked over to his father’s desk,
pressing his palms against it. “Well, it’s a little too late for that.”

Ms. Melcher’s gaze traveled over the four
of us. “Who killed him?”

I didn’t have to look around to know that all
eyes were on me. Ms. Melcher handed me a heavy book. “Then you, my dear, it is
now your job to get rid of the Legends. Don’t worry. Mr. Mason killed a good
bulk of them. There’s only six left. Of course, they happen to be the six most
dangerous ones. Oh, and you only have a few months to do it before they become
indestructible. We’d better get to work.”

I looked at the others. Wes and Hollis
stared at Ms. Melcher. Cadence shrugged. “Good luck?”