Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (28 page)

45

EMBER

E
mber looked at her uncle, barely containing her panic, “Is it true?”

His brow furrowed, “Is what true?”

That ball of energy grew, her teeth started to chatter. It suddenly seemed cold and hot at the same time. Her eyes widened. She shouldn’t have let this energy free, “Are they going to kill Kai?”

He moved slowly, watching her hands, “What? Who?”

“You know who. Are those…people…the Grove…going to kill Kai?”

He sighed, letting his hands fall to his sides, “Ember, the Grove doesn’t want to kill, they want justice. They ensure that people do not tip the balance in any one sides favor. You don’t have anything to be afraid of.”

She was shaking so badly, she felt like she might shatter apart. The walls shook around them, trembling like a small earthquake, “Don’t lie to me. I’m tired of everybody lying to me.”

“Ember, you need to calm down. I’m not lying. The Grove aren’t hitmen. They are scholars. Yes, they punish but they are primarily about maintaining order. Kai upset the balance but that doesn’t mean what he did is worthy of death. Just calm down and we can talk about it.”

“I don’t think I can calm down. I don’t think I want to calm down. I want people to stop lying to me. Everybody is hiding something from me. People are lying to me about what I can do. What I am. About my mother. Even my father lied. I want to know if I’m the reason everybody is getting hurt. Did I kill my father? Did he die trying to protect me from the Grove?”

“I’ll tell you what I know, Ember, I promise, but you have to let me do something first. Okay?”

He moved too fast, startling a scream from her, the ball of light flying towards him. It missed, landing on the desk. Her uncle stared, eyes wide, at the small crater on his desk, “Ember, you cannot let your magic take over. You will never pull it back. It’s too much for you. Let me help,” he spoke slowly, like a negotiator trying to talk her off a ledge. He moved towards the cabinet against the wall.

“Everything is going to be okay. Just breathe,” he turned away from her long enough to grab something. When he turned around, he gave her a sad smile, “Sorry about this.”

He blew red powder into her face. She sucked in a surprised gasp, inhaling the bitter powder as she did. Why was everything a powder? She coughed once and the world went fuzzy at the edges, as if her brain were wrapped in cotton candy. Her limbs felt too heavy, her tongue too thick.

She blinked.

“I promise the effects aren’t permanent. It’s just a little stasis spell.”

He helped her sit in a chair at the front of the classroom, arms propped in front of her. He walked to his classroom door, looking into the hallway before closing it. He leaned on his desk, mindful of the still smoldering hole.

She opened her mouth but no words came out.

“It’s the spell,” he explained, “it will wear off in a minute.”

She tried not to panic as he continued, “I lied to you the day we met. I know the wolves told you. I did it because I thought it would protect you. I was wrong. I can’t tell you everything because I just don’t know all of it. I’m sure by now you know your father had your magic bound but what you don’t understand is why.

“First, you need to understand binding somebody’s magic isn’t meant to be a long term solution. It’s a temporary means of containment. The coven binds their magic for a short period but they must eventually unbind it or remove their magic permanently. Binding ones powers takes an inordinate amount of magic. It’s why your mother fought so hard to make sure the council voted against it. She knew it was only the first step in their plan.”

“Then why would my father agree to it?” she asked, voice hoarse.

Her uncle took a deep breath, “Because if he didn’t, the Grove was going to execute you and the twins.”

Ember felt like her mind exploded. He’d just talked about how the Grove was there for justice, now they were executing little kids, “What? Why? What crime did we commit?”

“All three of you were born with the mark of a reaper. Two of you were showing signs of coming into your powers while your mother was still alive.”

“That’s a crime? They would kill us for something we were born with?”

“You don’t know everything, Ember. You don’t know what you did.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, “Then tell me.”

“Once I tell you, there’s no going back.”

“Just say it,” she whispered.

He nodded, closing his eyes, “Allister said Josephine told you about the council meeting the night your mother died but they didn’t tell you what you did after your mother died, did they?” Ember shook her head, knowing, somewhere deep down, what was coming, but helpless to stop it anyway. “You raised her from the water, called her practically to your front door. If your father hadn’t realized you were missing from your bed and gone to look for you…there’s no telling what your mother would have done to you.”

Her dreams of her mother weren’t dreams at all, just more memories resurfacing. She shivered as her mind conjured up her mother’s distorted face. She shook her head, trying to shake the image from her brain. It was awful, horrifying really, but given the amount of people she’d raised in the last few weeks, she thought she was handling it well.

“What does this have to do with the twins? Why would they kill Tristin and Kai? Why not just me?”

He narrowed his eyes, “It’s strange that Josephine never mentioned why they met the second time? She never said exactly what caused them to reconvene the council for a second vote. Maybe she didn’t know. She wasn’t there,” he said the last bit to himself. “The council heard what you did and decided they needed to get ahead of things. Tristin screamed for your mother’s death and you raised her from the dead. Two children were now in possession of their reaper powers in one family. The town was leery of your powers but what happened at the second council meeting changed everything forever.”

Ember’s head was spinning but he just kept talking, suddenly desperate to unburden himself of these secrets, “Even after what you and Tristin had done, most of the council members stood by your mother’s decision. The wolves stood with your mother. A few of the witches, even Quinn’s mother, stood with your aunt and your father’s decision not to bind your powers but something happened. People started fighting, screaming, your father said things got physical and you and Tristin got confused.”

“Confused? What are you saying? Allister said Tristin screamed at the second council meeting. He said her scream predicted the death of her mother,” she rasped, throat like sandpaper. She clenched her fists, feeling finally returning to her limbs as the stasis spell wore off.

“Her scream may have predicted her mother’s death, but it may have also set everything in motion.”

“What are you talking about? Are you saying you know what this mysterious ‘incident’ is that everybody talks about but nobody seems to know about?”

“No, Ember,” he met her gaze, looking much older than when he’d started the conversation, “I’m saying the incident nobody talks about…is you.”

“Me?” She started to tremble, “Are you saying I killed those people?” She looked at her hands, thinking about the ball of light she’d almost lobbed at her uncle, “How?”

“You raised an army. Revenants attacked the town. Hundreds of bodies pulled from the ground at the command of a child. We don’t even know how you did it. The power it would take…There was no way you could have controlled them.”

“Revenants? What are you saying?” She shook her head, unwilling to believe him. That couldn’t be true. That would mean she was responsible for the death of her aunt and uncle. She was responsible for Rhys and Isa’s parents, Quinn’s mom and so many others. Their deaths were on her head. She lurched from her seat, falling to her knees and vomiting her lunch into the trash can.

He pretended not to notice, “Your father got you and the twins out. He left the others…he locked the doors…and he burned the building to the ground with everybody still inside.”

She heaved again, imagining her father making the decision to set the building on fire with his friends and family still inside. She spent her whole life vilifying him. The last time they spoke she’d called him a loser.

“When the Grove came, your father and Allister begged them to show mercy. He said he’d allow them to bind and strip your powers for good. He just asked them to leave the three of you alive. He told the Grove he suspected stripping your power would take Tristin’s as well. He said if he was right, Kai would be the sole reaper of the family and the balance would be restored. He never said why he thought yours and Tristin’s powers were tied together but he was right. When they bound your powers, it somehow bound Tristin’s as well.”

“How do you know all this?”

“He told me. The night he ran with you, he told me the Grove was coming back to strip your powers. He told me everything but made me swear to never let on I knew anything, not until you returned. I was too young to be on the council back then, so there was no reason to believe I was there. When the Grove discovered your father had taken you they took drastic measures to ensure the balance was maintained.

“They gathered everybody in the center of town, both human and supernatural. They wiped the memories of everybody with supernatural ties, even the humans, replacing them with cheap, vague memories of the people they lost. They slaughtered the humans not from supernatural families and cloaked the town from the outside world. Then they started the raids, pulling all books from houses, forcing anybody who wanted to use their magic to register their gifts and swearing their allegiance to the Grove.”

“How do you know all this? How is it you have your memories?”

“I’m immune to compulsion.” He lifted his shirt to reveal an intricate tattoo on his side. “A gift from your father. He wanted me to be able to tell you the truth when you were ready.”

“Do I seem ready?” Tears streamed down her face, she could taste her makeup running into her mouth, “Why would you tell me this?”

“Because you need to understand your father wasn’t a drunk. Binding powers is a temporary fix because it involves the use of dark magic. Blood magic. To maintain this kind of wall around your magic, he would be ingesting dark herbs on a daily basis. He would be using his own blood to rebind the spell at least once a month. Over time, it would start to eat away at him. Your father was killing himself a little bit at a time to protect you.”

Her heart was ripping out. She didn’t want to know anymore. She couldn’t hear anything else. He had to stop. She’d destroyed everybody she loved. She thought she’d wanted to know everything but she was wrong. All this time she thought Mace was the monster but, really, it was her. She had killed her dad, the council, the humans, she’d robbed her friends of their family and now, Kai would die for her as well.

“Ember,” Alex crouched next to her.

He tried to rub her back but she flinched away from him. “Don’t touch me.”

He moved back a bit, handing her a tissue, “I didn’t tell you this to hurt you. I told you this so you could see you’re a part of something much bigger. Your parents were willing to sacrifice themselves to save you, to save all of you. They did all of this to protect the three of you.” She couldn’t even look at him.

“This is where you decide whether or not you throw away everything everybody gave up to protect you. This is where you decide if you are going to fight. I know you are afraid for Kai but you can’t let that deter you,” he dropped his voice, “Listen to me. You cannot trust the Grove but you cannot speak against them either. Ever. Do you understand? Ember, if they think, even for a minute, you and your cousins mean them harm, there will be no way to protect you. Any of you. They are the monsters, Ember and your parents knew it. Your parents saw so much potential in you. You have to trust me; everything we did, we did for you.”

She jerked to her feet, stunned. “How can you say that?”

She picked her bag up off the floor, backing towards the door.

“Ember, why did you come to see me?”

She shrugged, numb, voice dead. “I needed something to heal my dead dog’s foot.”

“Ah, yes. Romero, isn’t it? Allister is very impressed with your progress. He talks about you at great length.”

She said nothing, watching dully as he went back to the cabinet. She found it strange that Allister thought about her at all. She’d only seen him a handful of times and, most often, not for long.

He took a small jar from the back. “It’s comfrey and lavender and a few other things. Wrap it tight for 48 hours. If he lives that long, this should fix him.”

She tucked the jar in her backpack and walked away. She went home. She didn’t know what else to do.

46

KAI

T
his was probably a horrible idea. This was definitely probably a horrible idea. They left the house as the sun started to dip low, painting the sky an eerie blood red. They were almost to the car when Quinn appeared, hands stuffed in his pockets and giving the two of them an appraising look, “Just where are you two going?”

Kai blinked rapidly, cursing the fact he hadn’t thought of a lie ahead of time. “Uh, we are just going for a drive,” Kai said with a stilted shrug.

“Dude, you are so lying.” To Mace he said, “He always does that blinky stammering thing when he lies.”

“Okay, we are going to meet some of Mace’s friends.”

Quinn snorted, “Mace has friends?”

The soul eater rolled his eyes giving Kai a look that screamed ‘could you hurry this along’.

“Just please don’t tell Isa,” Kai begged.

Quinn adjusted his glasses and stared at him with mock innocence, “I can’t tell Isa if I’m with you.”

“No. No way,” Mace told him, mouth puckered as if he’d tasted something bad. “Absolutely under no circumstances are we bringing the human.”

Quinn grinned.

They left ten minutes later, Quinn in the backseat beaming at the two of them. An hour in, the trip was going smoother than Kai thought it would. The only harrowing moment happened when Quinn called their excursion a ‘guy’s night’ and Mace looked like he might actually rip Quinn’s soul out of his body.

Kai was trying to have the same enthusiasm as Quinn but he lost his nerve sometime around the Florida/Georgia line. Things hadn’t exactly gone to plan the last time they’d gone over state lines.

The further they traveled north, the more Kai felt the need to fill the silence. Quinn was always eager to talk but Kai was shocked when Mace chimed in here and there. They talked about anything that crossed their minds from the latest video games to the likelihood of The Hunger Games ever really happening. They unanimously agreed Tristin would be the only one cutthroat enough to surviving without their supernatural gifts.

Kai was grateful nobody wanted to talk about what happened in New Orleans. It seemed there was an unspoken pact to avoid discussing anything too deep or painful. Which left only the most ridiculous subjects up for grabs, often veering them way off topic.

“I mean, really what’s the difference between superheroes and the supernatural, really?” Kai asked.

“Spandex, mostly,” Quinn reasoned.

Mace nodded, wincing at the idea. “Yeah, I’m not wearing spandex. It looks like it might be…binding.”

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind Batman’s costume,” Kai told him.

“Or his toys,” Quinn added wistfully.

They fell silent after that. Kai thought about Tristin at work tonight, which led to thinking about Rhys which led to him wanting to punch something. “So where is this place anyway?” he asked by way of distraction.

“Not far, barely over the state line,” Mace supplied vaguely. Quinn and Kai exchanged nervous glances. “Oh and if you want to say any last words to anybody, you might want to call or text now.”

They both looked at him, startled.

“No cell service out there,” he grinned.

“Oh,” Kai said.

Isa was going to murder all of them when she found out. She had let him borrow the jeep. She never let anybody borrow the jeep. She loved the jeep. He’d told her he wanted to go for a drive. She’d never even questioned him, which meant somebody had already filled her in on what happened with Rhys. She’d let him drive the jeep out of pity. Even Isa thought his feelings for her brother were worthy of pity. Sympathy may not get you everywhere but it could apparently get you a night of exotic dining with a soul eater in the backwoods of Georgia.

“So what happens if you don’t eat? I mean, you are immortal, right? Or undead? Is it the same thing?” Kai asked.

Quinn snickered at the look of incredulity on Mace shot him. “You’re a reaper and you don’t know the difference?”

“Hey, I’m a reaper who learned reaping from werewolves and witches. I did the best I could. Don’t be so judgey.”

“Fair point,” Mace conceded. “How many souls have you collected?”

He wasn’t sure why he was embarrassed. “Well, I mean, I don’t come into my full magic for another year so they don’t really call on me too often.” He could have shown him the names but it would have involved slipping off his shirt and it was getting colder the further north they traveled. “Twenty,” he finally answered. “Ember would have been twenty one.”

“Strange thing, that,” Mace said without clarifying. Quinn’s eyes snapped to Mace and they traded an odd look. Kai didn’t want to know what it meant so he didn’t press.

The rest of the car ride passed with him flipping the channels on the Jeep’s radio as Quinn or Mace vetoed every single song with lengthy diatribes about why they sucked.

Once they exited the interstate, his leg jittered double time. They traveled the back roads on a two-lane highway that gave way to a two-lane gravel road. After a few miles, the road merged into one hard to navigate, barely visible bumpy dirt road. Kai was suddenly very grateful for the four-wheel drive. He couldn’t help but notice how desolate the area was.

The jeep bumped to a stop in front of what looked like an abandoned granary and Kai thought he should reevaluate his life choices. It wasn’t normal to frequent places only good for shady meetings and body dumps.

An old sign clung to a falling down fence. He could make out only a few letters in chipped paint, the rest hidden behind layers of oxidized metal. The parking lot was a field of red clay dotted with patches of weeds and the occasional mud puddle. A singular corroded street light gave off a sickly yellow glow, making the building look sinister. At first glance it seemed like your average warehouse, all corrugated metal and a tin roof, but a heavy steel sliding door barred the entrance. It seemed overkill for an abandoned factory.

“You’re going to feed here?” Kai asked, disbelief leaking into his tone.

Mace squinted at him, the corner of his mouth tugging to the side in a face Kai had come to think of as Mace’s oops-I-may-have-lied face. “About that…”

Kai tensed, pulse skipping. His hand floated to the knife tucked against his side almost of its own accord. Quinn watched Kai, waiting for an indication things were going bad.

Mace put his hands up, all wide-eyed innocence. “Relax. I’m not going to kill you. I just didn’t come here to feed.”

“Then what the hell are we doing here?”

“I need to pick up a something for a friend of mine and I thought you’d prefer to get out of the house rather than mope at home on your front porch like a lovesick puppy. He invited himself.” He nodded his head in Quinn’s direction. “Besides, the alpha never would have allowed me to borrow the jeep.”

Kai rolled his eyes, silently begging for strength. “I can’t believe people actually stay here, like, on purpose.”

Mace pounded on the steel door. “You know what they say about judging books by covers?” Mace chided.

The door opened and a shadowy figure stepped back, allowing them inside before floating back from whence they came. Four people peered at them from the right side of the room. Quinn scanned their surroundings and Kai was sure he was calculating the distance to every visible exit in the place. Kai skimmed over the new faces but couldn’t keep his eyes from looking upwards.

A thousand glass jars dangled from the ceiling each with a single light bulb. Vines crawled along the rafters, making the entire roof look like some modern industrial garden. There was a large conference table in the middle of the space and just beyond that, a spiral staircase led to the bottom of what must be the grain silo. A large bar stretched along the wall to the right with a fully stocked shelf of expensive booze.

It was the coolest space Kai had ever seen. He fought the urge to take a picture. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a girl uncoiled herself from her seat at the bar, slinking her way to Mace, face determined.

Quinn’s brows ran towards his hairline, looking at Kai. Kai wasn’t even going to guess.

“Until Shelby told me about your deal, I thought for sure you were still in that dungeon being tortured,” she said. She had a faint accent. Irish maybe. She had a full figure and dark chestnut hair and she touched Mace as if she had a claim.

“Hoped would be more like it, Bridget.”

“You had it comin’,” she told him. “Don’t steal from the hyenas. They’re a nasty lot.”

Mace gestured vaguely. “So I’ve learned,” he told her dismissively. “I’m looking for Tate.”

“Then look no further, friend,” came a voice from the doorway.

Kai turned and his jaw dropped. He couldn’t help it. A tall boy lazed against the doorframe. He wore low-slung leather pants, an unbuttoned shirt, a jacket and a large scarf. He was barefoot.

Quinn’s expression said he thought he looked ridiculous; but not Kai. He looked amazing. Kai’s tongue shot out, licking parched lips, suddenly having no idea what to do with his hands. He shoved them in his pockets, dropping his head and covertly looking at Tate through his lashes. He had an olive complexion, messy black hair and abs like an Olympic swimmer.

His eyes glinted solid yellow in the dim lighting, pupils barely visible. He was a shifter. Probably a feline, the way he moved, prowling towards them with a cat like grace and a calculating smile. He raised the bottle he had clutched in his right hand by way of greeting.

Mace rolled his eyes at his friend. “Tate, meet Kai and Quinn. Kai, Quinn, meet Tate.”

Tate raked his eyes over Kai, smirking at Mace. “I approve.”

“Mmn, I thought you might,” Mace told him. “I trust you won’t mind entertaining my friend while I talk with Shelby.”

A look passed between the two. “I’m sure I can handle that. Give her a few minutes though, she’s on a conference call. Oh, and be careful…she’s in a mood.”

Mace grimaced, “When is she not?”

“You.” Tate crooked his finger, “Come with me.”

“Uh, no way. You are not ditching me to make out with Felix the cat,” Quinn said, looking back and forth between the two of them.

Tate smiled at Quinn, measuring him up. “Audrey,” he called out in a singsong voice. “I have somebody I want you to meet.”

A girl their age appeared from the back of the room. She was slight and dainty, blonde hair piled on her head in that messy style that girls wanted you to think was easy but Kai knew from Isa took forever. She wore a loose fitting dress and bare feet. “Audrey, meet Quinn. I think you should show him and Mace the library.”

Her eyes lit up and she grasped Quinn’s hand, dragging him towards the back.

“I see what you’re doing,” Quinn told him, letting himself be pulled along, “trying to lure me away with books. It’s working but only because I want to.” Quinn gave one last look over his shoulder at the two, telegraphing his disapproval with his eyebrows.

Kai took a deep breath to calm his nerves, watching Mace follow his friend, “After you.”

Tate steered Kai to the spiral staircase below the grain silo, pushing open a treehouse style door and climbing inside. He pulled Kai in after him. Kai stopped short. “I feel like I’m in Jeannie’s bottle.”

He turned in a circle, taking it all in. Silk and fabric draped from every available surface. No furniture, just pillows. Hundreds of pillows in every shape, size and color. Tate smiled at him. “It is a bit decadent, I guess, but once you lay down you’ll understand the appeal.”

Kai’s stomach turned a little at that. What the hell was he doing here? He didn’t want Tate to get the wrong impression. He may have come here to forget Rhys but not by sleeping with a stranger in a grain silo in nowhere Georgia. While he admitted it would be dramatic, it wasn’t quite the effect he was looking for. He was very far from home. He glanced at Tate, uneasy.

“Relax, I can smell him all over you,” Tate told him with a wave of his hand, flopping into the pile of pillows and slugging straight from the bottle he still clutched. “I can keep my hands to myself. As irresistible as you might be.” He winked at him.

Kai’s annoyance flashed to the surface, “I don’t belong to him. I don’t belong to anybody.”

Tate cocked a brow at him, smiling widely. “You don’t have to convince me. I’ll make out with you if it means that much to you.”

Kai rolled his eyes and flopped down next to the stranger, defeated. “What are you anyway?”

“Shifter. Panther,” he said, offering him the bottle. “You?”

“Reaper. Collector.” He drank deeply from the bottle before erupting into a coughing fit. “What is that?” he gasped.

“Moonshine.”

“Seriously?” Kai choked. “You have a house that looks like it belongs in Architecture Digest but you’re slugging back moonshine?”

“You can take the boy out of Florida but you can’t take Florida…blah, blah, blah. Besides, this place isn’t mine.”

“You’re from Florida?” Kai asked, nestling further down in the pillows.

Tate was right. It was so very comfortable. He needed to talk to Isa about doing this to the living room. It would make pack night puppy piles much more fun. He tentatively took another sip from the bottle, wincing at the burn.