Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy (6 page)

“Thanks.” I headed off to find her. Violet
was a younger Taker I had bonded with a couple months back. She had been a
little down then and I wanted to make sure she was okay.

Just as before, no one was in the game
room except for the Grims, still involved in their card game. I figured I’d
have to speak to Violet another day. After pushing my way through the janitor’s
closet to head home, I spotted her laying on her back at the edge of the track
field staring into the sky. She was hard to miss.

I jogged over to her. “Hey, Violet.”

She sat up and looked at me, wide-eyed.
“Arden, hi. What are you doing here?”

Violet almost resembled a human. Her hair
was a purple puff that looked like a wig someone would wear for Halloween. She
was small and thin with large ears that were slightly pointed and the brightest
blue eyes I’d ever seen. She looked like a cartoon character come to life.

There was just something about Violet. I
liked the way she looked up to me the way my own sisters never had.

Violet had been given the name Cuddle Bug
because while the other Takers did gruesome, horrible things, her claim to fame
was that she could move clouds and form them into shapes. I had no idea how
that classified her as a Taker. Honestly, if that were the only power I had,
compared to the others, I would be disappointed too.

I sat beside her, tucking my legs beneath
me. “I didn’t think you guys were allowed to be out in the open like this.”

“We’re not. I think I should be excused
from that rule, though. If anyone saw me, they would think I was just some
weirdo in a wig. Besides, how am I supposed to practice making stupid cloud
formations if I can’t look at the sky?”

Even though the last part was a dig at
herself, she had a point.

“How’s everything going?”

She shrugged and pursed her lips. “Same
old. Same old. I try to stick up for myself but they don’t listen, they still
call me Cuddle Bug. They still treat me like a pet. I know you like the name
Dust now, but I don’t think I’ll ever come to accept Cuddle Bug.”

I took her hand in mine and squeezed it
gently. “And you don’t have to. If you don’t like the name, you don’t like it,
and you shouldn’t have to put up with people calling you that.”

Her hand suddenly felt warm as she
squeezed mine a little tighter. “I watch you at school sometimes. When kids
call you Dust, they don’t mean it in a good way.”

I shrugged. “Violet, it doesn’t matter how
they mean it. It’s how I take it. I hope you get to a place where you don’t let
it get under your skin.”

Violet lay back on the ground, her eyes
getting lost in the blue sky above us. “It’s okay. I have a strong feeling
things are really going to change around here.”

“What does that mean?”

She smiled and closed her eyes. “Just
watch. You’ll see.”

I looked at the sky again and blinked,
thinking something must have been wrong with my eyes. Within seconds, the sky
had turned from a cheerful powder-blue to a murky, dull gray.

For the next few days, Everson Woods
experienced weather conditions that were totally out of the norm. Rain pounded
our town incessantly, resulting in flooding and all sorts of problems. School
had even been cancelled one day because the winds were too strong for the
school buses to travel. That was the first time I’d witnessed rain that never
stopped, not even for a minute. On the plus side, Fletcher’s health slightly
improved. While he still looked terrible, at least he was up for doing
something outside of the house. I’d talked him into going to the fabric store
with me even though he hated any kind of shopping.

I still didn’t know what to do with my
beautiful lilac fabric, so I’d decided to set it aside to work on something
else. I needed to sew. It was calming and therapeutic. My mission was to find
an awesome plaid print.

“How come you never make me anything?”
Fletcher asked as we rounded a corner, huddled underneath my umbrella.

I hadn’t thought much about making
something for him or anyone else. Besides Fletcher and I, no one liked my
dresses. “I don’t know how to make shirts or pants, just dresses.”

“It doesn’t have to be those things, just
something. I’d love to wear something you made.”

My cheeks warmed slightly despite the
chill in the air. I hoped my face wasn’t red. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
Maybe I could make him a hat or something.

Fletcher held the door open for me as we
stepped into Molly’s Fabrics. I shook my umbrella out and placed it in the
holder beside the door.

As usual, the store was practically empty of
customers. Almost right away, I settled on a red and black plaid material. It
spoke to me and it was different from anything I had ever used. I could see the
dress coming together right before my eyes—the puffy sleeves, gold buttons,
maybe even a short train. While the salesperson cut the amount of fabric I
requested, Fletcher and I waited by the plate glass window. He held up some
white lace. “This is my favorite look on you. When you wear white frilly
things. It’s pretty. You look like an Angel.”

I shuddered. Why did he have to say that?
Rose was an Angel. He had kissed Rose, something he would never do to me. The
times we had kissed, I initiated it and he responded like a cold fish. I moved
over to the register and asked if the fabric was ready.

After I paid for my material, we headed
for the coffee shop. Fletcher ordered a hot chocolate with all the fixings
while I had a black coffee, no sugar.

Fletcher sipped his hot chocolate slowly,
shivering again.

“What’s going on with you?” I asked. “I’ve
never seen you sick until lately.”

He shrugged. “It’s just a cold I can’t
seem to get rid of. Probably all this rain. I’ll be fine.”

“Fletch?”

“Yeah?” He had taken the top off his hot
chocolate and was playing with the marshmallows, trying to make them sink, but
they would pop back up.

“What if I do become a full Wendigo? You
know that means we’d never see each other again.” I couldn’t imagine a life
without him.

He set his cup down and took my hand in
his. They were warm from holding the hot chocolate. “You’re going to beat this.
I know you are. I can feel it.”

I wished I could be as confident in myself
as he was in me. I pulled my hands away from his because his touch was only
torturing me. Fletcher was a Giver with a fondness for Angels but would end up
with a Walker. I didn’t fit into any of that. Even if he decided to go against
the oath and be with whoever he wanted, it wouldn’t be me.

I had other things to worry about other
than Fletcher never being in love with me. Wiley had that horrible video he was
holding over my head. I couldn’t discuss it with Imani because that would give
my secret away. “We never finished talking about Wiley.”

Fletcher rolled his eyes. “What about that
weed head?”

I thumped my fingers against my coffee
cup, wondering if I should continue. “The video. About that night. He actually
liked it. He keeps watching it over and over.”

Fletcher nodded like he wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve told you to stay away from him. Something’s wrong with Wiley. Stay away.
He gives me a bad feeling.”

The last time Fletcher had a bad feeling
about someone, he had been right, but how was I supposed to stay away from
Wiley when he had the power to ruin my life?

“Well, what am I supposed to do about the
video?”

Fletcher slurped the last of his hot
chocolate. “Nothing. He’s not going to show it to anyone. He’s stupid, but he’s
not that stupid. Don’t go thinking you have to do stuff for him just to keep
him quiet. He’s just playing with you.”

I didn’t want to know what Fletcher meant
by “stuff”, but I wasn’t as sure about Wiley as he was. “Okay, I won’t worry
about it,” I lied.

On the way home, I discovered a bigger
problem than Bruce Wiley. Mrs. Nelson, my down-the-street neighbor was sweeping
her front porch. She moved the broom back and forth briskly as she hummed to herself.
Normally, this occurrence wouldn’t have warranted a second look, but that day
it did. Mrs. Nelson was surrounded by a familiar purple haze.

It was time for me to face the facts. For my
sake and for the sake of everyone around me, something had to be done about
Rose. If I were truly on the winning side of the Gemini Curse, the transition
wasn’t happening fast enough. Reality sank in even further when I realized it
wasn’t just me against Rose. It was me against my parent’s true daughter and
Paige and Quinn’s sister. If my family knew I was sucking the life out of Rose,
they would hate me and never forgive me. Mom and Dad knew where Rose was, but
they had never contacted her. They thought it would only complicate things for
her. As far as Paige and Quinn was concerned, she didn’t exist.

 Part of me wanted to sacrifice
myself. I could bring Rose to them, let them live happily ever after, and send
myself to the sixth tunnel where the beasts belonged.

My family had made a pact not to keep any
more secrets, to lay everything out on the table. I figured it would be okay to
ask Dad about the Gemini Curse during dinner. It would be the perfect
discussion for Taco Tuesday.

 I filled a tortilla shell with
ground turkey. “Dad, the Gemini Curse. Who has the power to cast it?”

Mom cleared her throat, eyeing me as if
she was saying
not the time, not the place
. Paige and Quinn didn’t even
look up from their plates.

“One group. The Archangels,” Dad replied.
Archangels were the highest form of the breed. The highest type of Giver
period. Dad, being a Guardian, fell a few rungs beneath them. Every October he
would leave us to guard the Givers’ sanctuary. Once he month of duty was over,
he would come home. As Givers went, all Angels were top tier.

“Why would they do that?” I wondered.
“Givers will also die because of the curse. I know they wanted to punish the
Takers, but they’re hurting their own too.”

Dad took a huge gulp of water and glanced
at my mom and sisters, like maybe he didn’t want to talk about this. “Not if
they think the Givers are strong enough to find and kill their Geminis.
Typically, that’s what happens. That’s what happened the last time the curse
was cast decades ago. That’s why we outnumber Takers now.”

So that was it. The Archs were counting on
the Takers failing and our numbers dwindling. A few of our species were already
extinct or only few in number. I didn’t care for the way the Angels
underestimated us or the fact that they were trying to take us out.

“I thought Givers and Takers were trying
to live in peace with each other. Why are you trying to get rid of us?”

A flash of hurt danced across his
features. I guessed I’d sounded like I was accusing him of something when it
really wasn’t his fault. “I don’t want to get rid of anyone. This curse is the
Archs’ decision. It’s the most effective form of punishment they have, and
Takers were the first to breach our peace treaty. None of this would be
happening had it not been for those attacks.”

He had a point. Bailey had caused all
this, but still. Why did the rest of us have to pay for her betrayal? “Can’t
you get them to stop it? Can’t you talk them out of it?” I wanted this curse to
disappear. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about killing an Angel or her
trying to kill me.

Dad shook his head, taking a bite out of
his taco. After a moment he said, “The decision has been made and there’s no
going back on it. I’m sorry. I don’t have any control over that and we
shouldn’t even be talking about this.”

A heaviness weighed down on my chest. It
was anger directed at the Angels. They knew the Gemini Curse only effected
creatures under the age of eighteen—kids who had done nothing wrong. “Dad, the
lair is just a bunch of kids trying to live their lives. They’re not hurting
anyone. They don’t deserve this.
We
don’t deserve this.”

 “I understand, but the best way to
hurt someone is to go for their children. And as far as Takers go, the lair is all
you know. There are many more Takers living on the outside, in the four
surrounding states. They’re not all so innocent. You have no idea what they do,
the reports we’ve received.”

I wasn’t going to hold anyone to anything
without knowing the whole story. “You don’t know why they’ve done what they’ve
done, Dad. If they’ve hurt someone or taken a life, maybe it was because they
had to. Look at me . . . it’s that what you think about me? I only did what I
did because I had to.”

Everyone at the table froze, watching Dad,
waiting for an answer.

His face softened and he took a deep
breath. “Well, there’s one way to break the curse.”

A small swell of hope made me sit up
straighter in my chair. “Yeah, how?”

Dad pressed his lips together until they
turned white. “Honey, I’m really not supposed to . . .”

He couldn’t tell me. A Giver telling a
Taker how to break a curse was totally against the oath. This was a horrible
position for both of us. Dad and I were on different sides, Givers and Takers,
but then we weren’t. I could never see Dad as the enemy. I never would and I
know he would never see me that way.

 I glanced around the table. If my
family had to choose between me and Rose staying alive, who would they choose?
I was a dangerous beast who was a threat to their lives while Rose was a
harmless Angel. There really wasn’t much of a decision to be made, however,
they had no idea that Rose was my Gemini. I never wanted them to find out.

Dad pushed his plate away. I had lost my
appetite too, which was highly unusual. “Arden, I’ve been watching you. If
you’re not getting weaker, then your Gemini is. As long as you’re fine, that’s
my only concern.”

That was a lie. I knew it was. They had to
be concerned about Rose too, they just had no idea of the connection between us.
They didn’t know that if I were getting stronger, she was getting weaker. I’d
thought about telling them the full truth about Rose, but I could never bring
myself to do it. If I were the winning Gemini, even if it wasn’t my fault, I
feared they would never forgive me.

“Dad, you know there’s more to it than
that. I need my Gemini’s strength to squash my Wendigo side. What if it takes
too long? What if my Wendigo side takes over? What if I have to kill my
Gemini?” I asked quietly.

Quinn glanced up from her plate and spoke
for the first time since we’d gathered around the table. “What do you mean
kill? Kill who? You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

I didn’t even know where to begin. “No one
wants to kill their Gemini, Quinn, but I might have to, you know, if they’re
trying to kill me. If we chose not to kill, fate would choose one of us to die
slowly. If I don’t do anything, I’ll always be looking over my shoulder
wondering when they’re going to pop up. They could kill me first.”

“How do you know who your Gemini is?”
Paige asked.

“No one knows but you,” Dad replied. “It’s
just a certain feeling you’ll get when you’re near them. Your hair will stand
on end. Your mouth will water. Your stomach may grumble. You’ll just know.”

Paige locked eyes with me and then looked
away. “Who’s your Gemini, Arden? Who would you have to kill?”

Your sister. Your sister who you’d
probably adore. Your sister who would fit right in to our family.
“I don’t know,” I lied.

Quinn dropped her fork suddenly. “But what
if—what if Arden’s Gemini finds her first? What if they kill Arden? Dad, you
can’t let that happen.”

Paige’s eyes were watery. Mom cleared her
spot at the table, totally removed from the conversation. She’d probably
resorted to pretending that none of this was actually happening. I wished I
could do that.

I was touched that both my sisters seemed
genuinely concerned. The thought of Rose creeping up behind me and taking my
life was frightening. As if I didn’t have enough things to worry about already.

“No one is going to kill your sister,” Mom
spoke quietly from the kitchen sink, “and everything is going to be just fine.”
She was so in denial.  “This isn’t a dinner-appropriate conversation
anyway. Let’s talk about something else.”

“But—” Quinn began.

“Something else!” Mom snapped.

Everyone knew that tone. The conversation
quickly turned from Geminis to what Paige would be wearing to her spring dance.
I’d never been so jealous of my younger sister. Why couldn’t my life be
carefree? Why couldn’t my biggest problem be deciding whether to wear Electric
Blue or Watermelon Pink to a dance or deciding which of the dozen boys who had
asked me would get to be my date? I had to worry about turning into a Wendigo.
I had to look over my shoulder for an Angel who might be trying to murder me.
Then there was the other problem.

“Mrs. Nelson is going to die soon,” I
blurted out because there’s no gentle way to say something like that.

Mom dropped a dish and it clanked in the
sink. “What?”

My family stared at me as if I were some
alien specimen and I immediately regretted saying anything.

I cleared my throat and continued. “When I
passed her house the other day, she was surrounded by a purple haze. That’s the
same thing that happened with Ms. Melcher right before she disappeared.”

No one spoke. One by one, they went back
to finishing their meals. Mom started making chocolate pudding for dessert.

I took my plate to the trash can to empty
it. I hated to waste food, but the smell of tacos was suddenly making me ill.
“I’m going to warn her.”

Dad sighed. “Arden, that never works. I
understand that part of being a Banshee is to carry warnings of death, but
it’ll just end up backfiring. It always does.”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying.
Should I just let Mrs. Nelson die without giving her a heads up? What if there
was something she could do to change her fate?

Quinn had been reading my mind. “What,
Dad? She has to tell her. She could save her life.”

“She won’t say a word to that woman and
neither will you,” Mom said, raising her voice. She grabbed the hand blender
from the cabinet. “You just can’t run around telling people they’re going to
die. It’s just not . . .”

“Normal,” I finished for her. “No, it’s
not, Mom and I’m sorry that I can’t be normal, but I didn’t ask for any of this.”

Mom pointed the hand blender at me. “None
of us asked for this. That doesn’t mean you have to go around making things
worse than they already are. You will not say a word to Mrs. Nelson about
anything, you understand me?”

I looked to my father. He glared at me
sternly. He was a Guardian Angel. His purpose was to protect. He of all people
should have wanted me to help Mrs. Nelson. I was beginning to think that not
all Givers were as good as they thought they were.

I finished scraping the food from my plate
and dropped it into the sink. Sudsy water splashed onto the counter but I
didn’t bother wiping it up. “Fine.” But it wasn’t fine. The whole situation
with Mrs. Nelson was sitting on my shoulders like a weight.

Before I headed to bed, I crept into Dad’s
office where his head was bent over a thick binder. It was always easier to
talk to him without Mom and her judgements around.

He glanced up and blinked a few times,
looking exhausted. “I thought you had gone to bed.”

I plopped down sideways in the chair in
front of his desk and let my legs dangle over the arm. “I was on my way though
I probably won’t be able to sleep.” I picked at my nails so I wouldn’t have to
look at him. I was disappointed with my father’s response to what I should do
about Mrs. Nelson.

He sighed. “If this is about—”

“Dad, I don’t think any of you are being
fair. You have no idea what it’s like to get these omens about someone. How
horrible it is and how guilty you feel—yet you just want me to ignore it and
act like it’s not happening.”

Dad closed the binder and leaned back in
his chair. “It’s not that, sweetheart. It’s just that most of the time, there’s
nothing the person in question can do about it and giving them a warning like
that, well it has to be terrifying. Put yourself in Ms. Melcher’s or Mrs.
Nelson’s shoes. You’d just be scaring the poor woman for no reason. Did a
warning help Ms. Melcher?”

I cleared my throat. “Maybe. We don’t know
that she’s dead anyway.” I hated how everyone had given up on Mrs. Melcher, but
I wouldn’t.

I finally looked at my father. He gave me
a sympathetic half smile which meant he thought I was being stupid. “I’m sorry
about Mrs. Nelson, and I wish we could do something about it, but I think
you’re forgetting one important part of being a Banshee.”

I sat up straight and swiveled my legs so
that they were in front of me. “What?” Rain pounded on the roof as it had been
doing all evening and a great boom of thunder shook the windows.

“You are a Taker. Your job isn’t to save
anyone’s life. You can’t save Mrs. Nelson or anyone else. You’re an announcer
of death, nothing more.”

I cringed at his statement. He made it
sound as if I were incapable of doing something good because of what side I was
on.