Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy (3 page)

There had been a time when home was better
than school, but it wasn’t like that anymore. Strangers treating me like an
outcast was always better than my own family treating me like one.

 Fletcher was out sick on Monday, but
thankfully, I still had Imani.

As the two of us left the school building
that afternoon a familiar truck was parked in the front lot—a black F-150 with
orange and red flames painted on both sides. The truck belonged to Bruce Wiley
who spent his time getting high and never going to class. Any time I saw him,
he was in the parking lot, sitting in his truck.

Earlier in the school year Wiley had
flirted with me. I couldn’t pass his truck without him leaning out of the
window and shouting something. After what had happened that January night, he
hadn’t said a word to me. Sometimes when I was leaving the school, his truck
would peel out of the parking lot so fast the tires screeched. Wiley had a very
good reason to avoid me.

That day I was surprised when he rolled
his window down as Imani and I passed. “Hey, Arden. Got a minute?”

I couldn’t believe he wanted to talk to me
after what had happened, but I was also afraid of what he would say. I looked at
Imani. “I can’t. I’m with my friend.”

“No, it’s cool,” Imani said quickly. “Go
ahead. I’ll text you later.”

“Okay,” I watched her move along the
sidewalk, wishing she hadn’t left me alone. I looked back at Wiley. “What?”

He gestured with his finger for me to come
closer. “Get in. I just want to talk.”

I wanted nothing more than to get as far
away from him as possible, but when someone knows your deepest, darkest secret,
you’re at their mercy. Dragging myself over to the passenger side of his truck,
I reluctantly climbed in. Wiley didn’t have the same silly grin he usually
wore. He seemed a little out of it and different than usual.

He gripped his steering wheel and squeezed
while I waited for him to talk. Wiley wasn’t a bad looking guy. He had
shoulder-length brown curls which he kept under a Red Sox cap most of the time,
perfect dimples, and deep amber eyes. I’d never not seen him wearing a
long-sleeved flannel shirt. He cleared his throat, but he still wouldn’t look
at me. “We haven’t talked since that night.”

“No.” I didn’t want to think about that
night. I didn’t want to think about Bailey.

Wiley sighed, still gripping the steering
wheel as if his life depended on him not letting go. “I don’t even—what
happened?”

I had no idea how to begin to explain that
night. It still didn’t seem real to me and sometimes I tried to convince myself
that I had imagined it all. Fletcher, Wiley, and I were the only ones who knew
the truth about that night. Thankfully Fletcher never talked about it. Seeing
Wiley always brought the memories rushing back.

Wiley took a deep breath. “It keeps going
through my head over and over. I was sitting in my truck. I saw you and Bailey
go into the woods. You were there for a while so I thought you guys might have
had a little something something that you wouldn’t mind sharing. When I found
you, you were fighting. Bailey had you pinned down to the ground and then
seconds later, you were on top of her.”

“Wiley, please . . .” I just wanted him to
stop. Why did he have to say those things out loud? I knew exactly what
happened. I was there.

He finally let go of the steering wheel,
held his hands up, staring at them. “Then you just slashed her to death. With
your bare hands. You clawed her like some kind of animal. Bailey looked like
she had been hacked with a knife, but it was you. Why did you do that?
How
did you do that?”

I sank into the car seat, wishing I could
evaporate. I couldn’t tell him the true story. I couldn’t tell anyone. The
truth was Bailey was a Doppelganger. She had been transforming into a Wendigo
and killing innocent people. She had been the one to start all this trouble.
Four people had died at her hands. On top of that, she had threatened not only
my life, but the lives of twenty plus kids having a party in the old farmhouse.
She’d planned the fake party to get us in an isolated area. The two of us had
gone outside to talk, and then she’d attacked me. If I hadn’t killed Bailey
that night, we would have all been dead, Wiley included, and the Wendigo
murders would have never stopped.

I didn’t feel good about what I had done,
but I had no other choice.

“Wiley, I had to do it. It was
self-defense. There’s just some things about that night that I can’t tell you,
but I promise you, I didn’t want to kill Bailey. I didn’t have any other
option.”

Wiley had recorded the whole thing on his
phone which terrified me. He had something he could hold over my head and share
with people any time he wanted and my life would be ruined. As far as anyone
else knew, Bailey and her parents had moved away suddenly and that was that.
Bailey had actually killed her parents, so add them to the death tally.

Fletcher promised me that we didn’t have
to worry about Wiley showing the video to anyone because if he did, what
happened to Bailey, would happen to him.

“Are you afraid of me?” I asked. Contrary
to popular belief, being feared was the worst feeling in the world. I didn’t
know what bullies got out of it.

Wiley pulled his cap down lower on his
head and finally looked at me. “I was at first, but then . . .”

My throat tightened. “But then what?”

“I’ve been watching the video over and
over and it’s kind of badass what you did.”

I reached for the door handle. “What?” If
he was actually turned on by the sight of a girl being slashed to death I was
getting the hell out of that truck ASAP.

He touched my arm gently. “No, wait. I
don’t think you’re, like us. Like people.”

I swallowed hard. He knew. That was my
greatest fear come true. “What do you mean?”

He took his hand off me. “I always knew
there was something different about you. What are you? You can tell me. I won’t
tell anyone. Are you like a werewolf or something?”

I was tempted. Sometimes I wanted to tell
someone besides Fletcher all my secrets. I had contemplated telling Imani, but
then I would probably lose half of the friends I had. “I’m not a werewolf.
Werewolves are extinct.” They really were.

Wiley nodded and lifted my hand to examine
my nails. His touch sent butterflies wild in my stomach. “These look like
regular nails now, but that night they were claws.” He used my hand to run my
nails along his arm. “Wanna watch the video?”

I snatched my hand away. “No, I don’t want
to watch the video! I wish you would delete it. It’s really sick that you’ve
kept it and watch it over and over. It’s not a movie, Wiley, it’s real life.
You’re watching someone die again and again. You’re sick.”

Wiley licked his lips and touched my hair.
“Really? I don’t think you’re in any position to be calling anyone sick. I’m
not the one who killed Bailey.”

I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt
and pulled him close to me. I hadn’t expected to yank him out of his seat, but
I had. “Don’t you ever say that again. Don’t talk to me about that night ever
again.”

He blinked rapidly and nodded. His rosy
cheeks had paled.

I shoved him away from me and jumped out,
slamming the door so hard the truck rocked back and forth. Wiley was demented.
I’d done what I had to do to Bailey out of necessity, but he was entertained by
it.

The blast of the truck horn made me jump as
I stormed away. Against my better judgement, I stopped and looked over my
shoulder.

“If you’re ever going to do that again,
let me know.”

I kept walking. Wiley was worse than me. I
couldn’t help what I was. He was an animal by choice.

I spent all evening doing what I usually
did when I needed to relieve some stress—making a dress. I had found a
beautiful lilac cotton material at the fabric store. I hadn’t made my mind up
on what I was going to do with it. While I blasted my father’s Cyndi Lauper
cassette tapes on an old radio, I draped and re-draped the fabric over my dress
forms. I’d pin the dress a certain way and then unpin it because I didn’t like
the way it looked. Listening to eighties music usually inspired me, but that
evening it wasn’t working. I finally gave up, rolled my fabric up carefully,
and went to bed.

That night I was awakened by what felt
like powerful hands twisting my stomach. Another hunger pain, but not like any
I’d had before. They were getting worse and I didn’t know how much more I could
take.

 At dinner I had eaten three servings
of mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and chopped steak, but I had never gotten
full. I would have eaten more, but the looks from my family stopped me. Their
stares were harder to endure than the stomach pains. We all knew the truth. I
would never be full until I gave my body what it really wanted—Human flesh. The
only way to counter that was for my Banshee side to become stronger, to
overcome the Wendigo part of me, but I had no idea how to do that.

Since I was locked in my room, I grabbed
my house keys. I couldn’t use my bedroom door to get downstairs to the pantry,
so I crawled over my balcony and down the rose trellis, which was sturdy and
easy to climb. What would happen if the neighbors saw me? How would I explain
sneaking out of my bedroom only to go back into the house?

After unlocking the back door, I crept
into the kitchen. I went for my beef jerky in the pantry. I ripped into several
pieces, but they didn’t hit the spot. I needed meat, but not that. After
searching the fridge for left over chopped steak, I remembered how embarrassed
I had been when Mom said I had eaten it all. I let the refrigerator door fall
closed and leaned against it. I would have to try to sleep and hope the urge
went away by morning.

Climbing the stairs, a scent tantalized my
nostrils. The aroma was flavorful and savory. I imagined the source of the
smell being soft and tender as it slid down my throat.

Opening a door, I tiptoed toward the scent.
Fresh meat called my name and I couldn’t ignore it. The meat would satisfy me
and then I could sleep in peace. Nothing else mattered at that moment but
getting what I longed for. The meat—I pinned it down with one hand and threw my
head back, preparing to take a bite. My gums were suddenly raw and sore. I ran
a finger over my teeth. They were sharper than usual. My teeth felt as if they
were growing right then and there. A snarling growl escaped from my throat,
surprising me. I had never made a sound like that.  I was prepared to
feast, but a screeching sound interrupted me, knocking me out of my daze.

I looked down. A light flipped on. A mess
of blond hair and watery blue eyes flashed before me. “Arden, please,” Quinn
pleaded. Her lips quivered. “Please don’t eat me.” She sobbed so hard that her
body shook.

Something stirred beside her. Paige. Her
hand was still on the switch of Quinn’s teacup lamp. What was Paige doing in
there? She had her own bed in her own room, then the obvious answer broke my
heart. They were sleeping together because they were afraid.

“Daddy!” Paige screamed before I could
stop her.

Bumping came from the end of the hallway
and I jumped off the bed and away from Quinn. She scooted close to Paige who
wrapped her arms around her. Seconds later Mom and Dad stood in the doorway
looking terrified.

“Arden?” Mom said. “How did you get in
here? What are you doing?”

Dad looked around, shaking his head. “She
must have gone over the balcony.”

“I-I didn’t . . . I wasn’t.” I didn’t know
what to say. What could I say? There was no excuse for what I’d done. I looked
at my sisters, waiting for them to tell our parents what I’d done, but they
only stared at me wide-eyed.

Without a word, Dad took me by the
shoulders and guided me back to my room while Mom comforted my sisters.
Fletcher was right. My family had every right to protect themselves against me.

The next day Dad stayed home from work. He
boarded up all the bedroom windows of the house. I figured it was only a matter
of time before they put me in a cage.

Instead of going to school that day, I
walked over to Fletcher’s. He’d texted me saying he would be staying home
again. He would let me in through the back door since his parents didn’t want
us hanging out either.

Although we were besties, Fletcher and I
were supposed to be enemies, or at least not supposed to be friends. Creatures
were divided into two categories: Givers and Takers. Fletcher was a Giver and I
was a Taker. Givers got their name because they created, protected, and gave
life. We were Takers, because we took and destroyed life. We thrived off of
death, but we only took when we needed to. I’d only killed Bailey because it
was necessary. Both Givers and Takers were essential to keep things in balance.

The kitchen door creaked open. Fletcher
stood there with his hair a tangled mess on his head, wearing a white T-shirt
and flannel pajama pants. I slipped inside. “Dad’s not here and Mom’s taking a
shower,” Fletcher said as we made our way to his bedroom.

Once we were in his room, he shut the door
and crawled back into bed, allowing me to get a good look at him. He looked
terrible. Paler than usual. His normally pink lips were a sickly gray tint and
purple circles had formed under his eyes.

“Fletch, you look like death,” I told him
as he snuggled underneath the covers.

“I know.”

I lay down beside him on top of the
covers. “Something bad happened last night.”

Fletcher shivered. “What?”

I swallowed hard and tried to look
Fletcher in the eyes, but I couldn’t. I was ashamed of what I was about to say,
so I stared at his grizzly bear poster on the wall behind him. “I almost ate
Quinn. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until it was almost too late.
Fletch, I could have killed my sister.”

Fletcher coughed, but he didn’t seem
surprised. “I almost attacked my mom when I first transformed. That’s why they
have to lock you in. How did you even get out of your room?”

“I went over the balcony and came back in
through the back door. I was going to the kitchen to get something to eat and I
ended up in Quinn’s room. Dad boarded up all the bedroom windows.” I sighed and
rolled away from Fletcher. “This is wrong. I can’t make my family live like
this. Like they’re in prison or something.” Especially when I didn’t really belong
there in the first place.

“All of our families have to make
sacrifices as we transform. Your father understands at least.”

My father wasn’t Human either. He was a
Guardian Angel, a Giver. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t have wings or a
halo.

“There’s only one way to stop this,”
Fletcher said after a long time.

“How?” I finally managed to look him in
the eye. That special glint that was usually there was missing.  

“You have to wait for your Gemini to die.”

Every creature had a Gemini. My Gemini was
a Giver born at the exact same time I was. When the Gemini Curse was in effect,
one half of the Gemini would inevitably die. One grows weaker while the other
grows stronger. There’s no rhyme or reason to who wins; fate makes the choice.
If you want to be the one to live, whether fate has chosen you or not, you must
kill your Gemini. My Gemini happened to be Rose, my parents’ birth daughter.

The curse only involved creatures under
the age of eighteen. It hadn’t been in effect for decades, but once Bailey
began killing Givers and innocent people, the Givers took that as a personal
threat to their side, so they cast the curse. Because of that, half of us would
be taken out.

 “Fletch, I don’t know how long that
might take. This is the first time any of us has had to live through this
curse. None of us know.”

“Just wait," he insisted. “If you’re
not getting weaker, then your Gemini is. You won’t have to do anything. But
until then, you have to fight your urges. Let your family lock you up. The new
strength you have can help you overpower your Wendigo side. You know what will
happen to you if you don’t.”

Of course I knew. The sixth tunnel. The
sixth tunnel was an underground place where beasts and the worst of the worst
monsters were condemned to live for the rest of their lives. Ghouls,
Hellhounds, Ogres, Trolls, the other Wendigos—all the beasts that were deemed
to be uncivilized. I’d rather die than be thrown into that tunnel. I had to
become a Banshee.

Time wasn’t on my side. The closer I got
to my eighteenth birthday, the closer I would be to transformation and I had no
idea which creature my body would choose to be.

The bed shifted as Fletcher rolled over
and placed his hand on my back. It felt icy-cold even through my dress, but I
didn’t react. Nobody’s hand should be that cold. He took a deep breath. “I know
you don’t want to, but I think you need to go back to the lair. They can help
you tame your monster side. I don’t know anything about that.”

I closed my eyes, trying to push thoughts
away. Not thinking about the lair had been one of my top priorities. “They’re
mad at me. They told me to never come back. I can’t show my face there again.
Especially not to ask for help.”

The Takers, my kind, were pissed at me
because the last time I was in the lair, I had threatened to kill them. I had
only done that because they were urging me to kill Lacey with my Banshee
powers. The Takers wanted to see if I could actually kill someone with my
thoughts, a skill they could later use for their benefit. Lacey was supposed to
be my guinea pig. As horrible as Lacey was, not even she deserved that. In
their minds, I had chosen a Human over them, making me a traitor.

Fletcher took his hand away just as it was
beginning to warm. “You’re going to let that pride of yours destroy you. You
better learn to swallow it.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said,
even though there was nothing else nearly as important. “Wiley finally talked
to me the other day after avoiding me for months.”

“Your hair smells like apples.”

I sighed. “Fletcher, I know you heard what
I just said.”

The bed shifted again. “What did Wiley
want to talk about?”

“That night.” Fletcher and Wiley didn’t
like each other so I didn’t want to go into the details of our conversation. As
soon as I had brought up Wiley’s name, I regretted it, but there was no one
else I could talk to about it.

“I’m not surprised. He likes you. You know
that.”

Was there a slight tinge of jealousy in
his voice? I hoped so. “It doesn’t matter who likes me, does it? I’m only
supposed to mix with my kind and I’m the only Bandigo in existence.” If I
followed the rules of being a creature, I was destined to be single forever.

Fletcher placed his hand on my back again.
This time it sent warm, tingly sensations down my spine. “It’s probably for the
best.”

I sighed impatiently. “What does that
mean? How is being alone for the rest of my life for the best?”

Fletcher moved his hand from my back and
rested it gently on my waist. “Because I can’t think of one single person,
Human or creature, who would ever be good enough for you.”

If it were possible for me to melt, I
would have liquefied into a puddle on his bed. I rolled over to face him. “You
are.”

He touched my cheek, rubbing it gently
with his thumb. “I told you. You have to forget about that. We can’t happen.”

All the warm and fuzzy feelings rushed
away. I was angry with myself for not giving up the first time he told me the
two of us would never be.

I lay with Fletcher for about an hour
until he fell asleep and then I snuck out through the kitchen while his mother
vacuumed the living room. I didn’t know if Fletcher was right about us, but he
was right about the lair. Somehow I would have to go back and ask for help. The
sooner the better. He was wrong about the other thing though. I couldn’t just
sit around waiting for Rose to die. That meant taking the risk of turning
full-Wendigo and possibly hurting my family or someone else. I had to get rid
of Rose.

I couldn’t bear the thought of going home
to my bedroom with its boarded-up windows that blocked out the sunshine.
Instead, I sat on Imani’s front porch waiting for her to come home from school.
Nestled on the swinging bench the Hughes had on their porch, I hoped her mother
wouldn’t see me. I hadn’t officially met her yet and I was sure she’d want to
know why some stranger had made herself comfortable on their private property.

 Imani came strolling up the walkway
about ten minutes after dismissal time. She removed her ear buds and narrowed
her eyes at me. Adele’s boisterous voice blasted from the iPhone. She was
Imani’s absolute favorite. “Hey, what happened to you today?”

 I remembered that she had texted me
earlier but I had never responded. I’d meant to text back that I was sick, but
I had forgotten.

“I didn’t feel well this morning.” That
wasn’t exactly a lie. “But I feel better now.”

Imani plopped beside me on the swing,
setting it in motion again. She settled her backpack onto her lap. “There was
no you. No Fletcher. I was all alone.”

“Sorry.” School would suck without Imani
or Fletcher so I knew how she felt.

She unzipped her back pack and pulled out
a small purple spiral notebook. The cover was worn and cracked as if she’d had
it for years. “Anyway, I have a humongous bone to pick with you, Ms. Moss.”

I racked my mind for anything I could have
possibly done to her. I came up with nothing. “What?”

Imani pulled a pencil from behind her ear.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about Ms. Melcher? How she just mysteriously
disappeared one day without a trace. The best part of moving to a small town is
a small-town mystery. Haven’t I told you that I want to be an FBI
investigator?”

“No.” Maybe she had, but sometimes she
talked so fast, I may have missed it.

“Well, I do. Tell me everything.”

I didn’t want to talk about Ms. Melcher.
The whole situation was weird and unfortunate. For a while I’d tried to stay
hopeful that she would turn up, because I felt like somebody should, but I’d
almost given up on that.

I played with a stray string on my dress
sleeve. Anything to avoid eye contact with Imani. I didn’t want to tell her
about the warning I got before Ms. Melcher vanished. “Didn’t your father
mention it? I’m sure he knows about it.”

Imani rolled her eyes. “No, he didn’t. He
doesn’t like to talk police business with me. He doesn’t want me to go into law
enforcement like him. He wants me to be a doctor so when I take any interest in
his work, he shuts it down. So you tell me.
Please
.”

I wrapped the string around my finger and
pulled it tight until it hurt. “There’s not much to tell. She was a really cool
teacher. A good one who made class fun but we still learned. She wasn’t like
that hot mess we have now.”

Imani scoffed. “My biology class at my old
school was way more advanced than this. This class is a joke. What else about
her?”

“She always wore boots and she just had
this edge. You just knew that even though she was a teacher, she was a total
badass. Then one day she didn’t show up for work. She hadn’t called or put in
for a sub or anything. Her parents hadn’t heard from her which wasn’t like her.
At her house there were no signs of forced entry or anything out of place. It
was like she just disappeared into thin air.”

Imani scribbled all this information into
her notebook as if she were going to do something with it. If the police
couldn’t find Ms. Melcher, what made her think she could?

“Imani, I know you heard about the animal
attacks that happened last year. Most people think Ms. Melcher was another victim
and they just haven’t found her remains and some people think she just had it
with this life, ran away and started over. That happens sometimes.” I left out
one important detail. That I had seen a purple haze around Ms. Melcher just
before she disappeared. Since I was a Banshee, the haze was a sign that
something horrible was going to happen to her. Fletcher decided to warn her and
things went left because he’d totally gone about it the wrong way. Everyone
thought he was threatening her and he had been suspended.

“Somebody told me about what happened
between her and Fletcher just before she disappeared.”

I sighed. So she already knew. “I don’t
know—”

Imani flipped back a few pages in her
notebook. “He actually went to her and told her that she was going to die. Why
would he do that? How would he know? Don’t you find it suspicious that shortly
afterwards she was never heard from again?”

I didn’t find it suspicious because I knew
the truth, but everybody else had a field day with the wild stories, calling
Fletcher a psycho and spreading the rumor that he had Ms. Melcher tied up in
his basement.

“Fletcher’s weird, you know. I don’t know
why he did what he did, but he didn’t do anything to Ms. Melcher.”

Imani bit her lip scribbling furiously
across the page. What was she writing? “I know Fletcher didn’t hurt her, but
maybe he’s a psychic or something. Anyway, something fishy is definitely going
on and I’m going to find out what it is.”