Dark Secrets

Dark Secrets

Book
One

First Edition
for ePub

Text © 2013 by Angela M
Hudson

Cover image © 2013
Shutterstock

Edited by Jennifer
Carter, Inked! Editing

mailto:[email protected]

Smashwords
Edition

License
Notes

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This is a work
of fiction. Characters, names, places, events or incidents are
products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual
people, living or dead, or to places or incidents is purely
coincidental.

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Amazon

Other books in this
series:

The Heart’s Ashes (book 2)

Mark of Betrayal (book 3)

Lies in Blood (book 4:

to be released October 2013)

To Mike, for all the
love this book holds

Prologue

Everyone has a secret.
The depth and darkness of that inner truth can be the precursor
that determines ones lifeline or, perhaps, eventually, personality.
To err is human, so I'm told. But my mistakes and regrets were
buried so deep, darkened my soul so black, that they were no longer
secrets, but bars on a prison I trapped myself in, I guess. And if
I opened that door, if I let them out, there was a strong chance
that those who love me might never look at me the same. I couldn't
live with that; I was the treasure in everyone’s life—the little
girl who was born still, without hope of ever taking a breath. To
show them what I truly was would be to destroy them.

They say that death
blessed me with skin pale as the moon, soft as a rose petal, and
lips coloured with blood. The day I was born, my parents held my
tiny, dead body for a last goodbye, but all the tears in the world
couldn't restore life. Until they did.

Mum always said my
father’s love saved me—that as his hands touched my breathless
form, I started coughing, which became crying and, finally, blue
skin turned pink, renewing the room with hope. His large hands laid
open, cradling this screaming child like a curious new stone and a
breath passed before they could move, before they could dare to
believe I was alive.

My mother named me for
my grandmother, Amara, which means “everlasting.” But I no longer
wear that name with pride; she was a woman of beauty and kindness,
something I could not liken to. Not anymore.

How could that
miracle, that child they proclaimed to be the “blossom of life,”
have become something so dark, so tainted, that the wish they had
for her to breathe would one day become the mistake they
regretted?

I had ended life and,
in that, was not worthy of mine any longer.

Chapter
One

“
Ara-Rose, hurry up.
You’re going to be late.”

“
Sure, Vic—uh, Mom,”
I called down to the woman at the base of the stairs. “Just
finishing my hair.”

“
Your hair’s
perfect,” she called back. I rolled my eyes, unwinding the long
braid, then scooped the dark waves into a ponytail, pulling the
elastic band out again after a few seconds to fluff it around my
face. It was Murphy’s Law—to be starting a new school, in a new
country, on a bad hair day.

With a deep huff at my
reflection, I stood back; the girl in the mirror looked as
miserable as my soul felt. Even the smile she’d practiced so many
times just looked forced—overly polite. But it was the best we
could do. On the bright side, I was lucky to have stayed so thin
over the months. Even with all the emotions I’d been eating, my
yellow dress still looked nice on me. Maybe too fem for school.
Maybe not. I had no way of knowing what the kids over here wore or
even if long hair was fashionable. For all I knew, I could be
heading into a one-way popularity suicide jump. And I think, in
truth, that’s why I wore this dress. I kinda wanted to just blend
in—stay away from everyone. But being cast as a frigid dork on day
one served my purpose too.

I turned away from the
mirror, stuffed a summer cardigan in my bag and readied myself by
the bedroom door.

Step one on Ara-Rose’s
road to recovery: new school.

A lanky galoot passed
me in the hall, giving a cool nod as he ruffled a hand through his
bed-hair, shrugging his backpack onto both shoulders. Where I came
from, that was something only dorks did.

“
Hey.”

“
Hey,
Amara.”

“
Sam,” I huffed. “I
hate being called Amara, you know that.”

“
I'm sorry.” His
shoulders dropped. “You’re right. Butt-face suits you so much
better.”

“
Oh, yeah?” I said as
he stalked down the stairs. “Well…it suits you better
more.”

“
Nice try,” he
called, slamming the front door on my humiliation.

I slapped my own brow,
shaking my head. My knack for sibling rivalry needed
improvement.

“
Morning, honey,” Dad
said, coming out of his room at the end of the hall, wearing his
suit and an expectant grin.

“
Morning,
Dad.”

“
Nervous?”

I stood on my toes,
pressing my forehead into his kiss. “No. I'm actually fine.” But my
pathetic giggle exposed the truth my words buried.

“
You’ll be okay. You
just need to get back into living, honey. After all, it’s been two
months.”

“
I know.” I’d been
counting the days. “But…what if someone says something mean and I
start crying?”

“
Says something about
what?”

“
You
know.”

He clicked his tongue.
“The scars?”

I nodded, my eyes on
my feet.

“
Honey, you are
beautiful. And these—” I flinched a little when he touched my jaw.
“The doctor said they’d completely fade, eventually, and for
now—well, they’re barely visible. You’re still my beautiful
girl.”

Beautiful?
My lip quivered. “How can you even say that, Dad?
Maybe I was once, but—”

“
Oh, honey, don’t
cry. It’ll be okay. Hey—” He squished my cheeks together. “Look,
all the kids there are great. You’re going to love it, I promise.
But you know the hardest part of a journey is always the first
step. And look at you; all dressed up, lookin’ pretty, and you’ve
got your little backpack. The hard part’s over now.”

“
Um, actually, I
think the hard part’s gonna be the whispers and stares when I walk
into that school with a neon sign over my head that says
‘New’.”

He laughed once.
“Would you like me to drive you?”

“
Dad?” A frown
replaced my pout. “It’s across the road. I’ll walk.”

“
I could walk with
you?”

“
Yeah, right. That’ll
really help me blend in, won’t it? I might even be lucky enough to
get my head flushed down the toilet.”

“
None of the kids
there are like that. I think you’ll be just fine. Now—” he turned
me toward the stairs and gave a soft shove, “—go to school. And
don’t come home until you’ve been a normal teenager for at least a
day.”

“
Bye,” I called over my shoulder, vaguely aware of Dad
following. I opened the front door and stepped outside, hearing it
close behind me with a certain amount of farewell in the sound that
did not permit return. I had been officially kicked out of the
house for the day. No more moping, Ara-Rose. Time to move on. After
all, they’ve been dead now for
two
whole
months. Not like you should still be
grieving.

“
Boo!”

“
Ah!” The sudden
noise pushed my heart up my throat. “God damn it, Sam, you little
butt-head.” I leaped off the porch step, dumped my backpack on the
grass, and ran after him. “Come back here and I’ll make it
quick.”

He ducked behind Dad’s
car. “I’ll tell Mom if you do it, Amara.”

“
It’s Ara-Rose!” I
stomped my foot.

“
Well, that’s a
stupid name.”

“
Not as stupid as
your face.”

“
Really?” He stood up, holding his hands out.
“
That’s
all you
could come up with?”

I huffed, stomping
once in his direction; he bolted behind the tree, cackling. “You’re
such a pain, Sam.”

“
Rather be that than
whiney and melodramatic.”

“
I'm not melodramatic. I'm expressive. There’s a difference.”
I let my voice quiver a little and squatted down with my face in my
hands, tucking my dress in first so my underwear wouldn’t show. He
was about to see how
melodramatic
I could be.

“
Aw, sis, I didn’t
mean’ta make ya cry...” he said, making the stupid mistake of
touching my shoulder. I grabbed his wrist, calling on three years’
worth of self-defence training, and jammed my shoulder into his
chest—flipping him onto the grass in front of me.

“
Ah!” He coughed out, rolling into a ball on his side. “How do
you
do
that?”

“
Call me Amara again
and I’ll be happy to demonstrate.” I dusted my hands off, stepped
over the pile of Sam and walked to the curbside. But an invisible
barrier stopped me; I merely watched the students across the road,
filing up the stairs to my future daily obligation.

“
Bell’s gone,
Ara-Rose. We’re late.”

I shrugged.

“
Well, you might like
after-school detention, but I don’t.”

“
You don’t have to
babysit me, Sam. You can walk ahead.”

He went quiet for a
second; the call of teens laughing and a whistle blowing somewhere
on the football field seeming suddenly really loud. “It’s not so
bad there, you know.”

“
I’m sure it’s not. I
still don’t wanna go.”

“
People’re really
nice,” Sam offered. I looked up at him—all the way up. His height
shaded me from the morning glare, leaving the simple, easy-going
smile he inherited from my dad to warm the moment.

“
I don’t want them to
be nice. I want them to leave me alone.”

“
That’s easy.” He
shrugged, readjusting his backpack, then wandered onto the road.
“If you want them not to like you, just be yourself.”

“
That’s it! I’m going
to kill you this time, pest.”

“
You have to catch me
first.”

I charged after him,
my sudden movement making him squeal like a girl, though it kind of
sounded like a bumblebee. “I used to run track, Sam, remember? You
won’t get away.”

“
Yeah,
used
to. But I doubt those twig legs could even catch a renegade
granny with a walking-stick.” He took off again when I glared at
him, and I bet he thought he’d escape, darting so gracefully over
the grass, but he hadn’t counted on me being a little fitter than I
let on—until I grabbed his shoulder. “Oh no, don’t kill me, I take
it back.”

I reached past his
shielding hands and punched him. “Jerk.”

“
Ouch.” He rubbed his
arm as I walked away. “You punch like a girl.”

“
I
am
a
girl.”

“
Yeah, well, you owe
me.” He caught up to me, grinning.