Destroyed (19 page)

But in my head, I screamed, with every ounce of meaning behind it.

STOP KILLING GUARDIANS.

My father flinched and looked at me with wide eyes. Neither he nor Kai had stepped up to look in the box. They didn’t know the horrors it held. My phone rang. On autopilot, I answered.

“Holy hell, Naomi, what was that?” Jason asked.

I knew then how to control the Destroyers. It seemed almost instinctual at that point. But I was too late.

“Alejandro’s dead.” I replied, and hung up.

I wish there were a rose that described my grief. Something about mourning, sadness, and the emptiness that appeared where my stomach should be. For once in my life, I was roseless.

It felt like a long time, but really it’d only been about thirty seconds since I opened the box. I’d backed into the wall. Kai and my dad both looked into the box together. My dad threw up and Kai backed away with his hand over his mouth.

The gory head wasn’t real to me. I knew he was dead, but I didn’t feel it yet. I never realized that the death of a loved one is like that. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t cry. “What are we going to do?” I asked.

All three of us sat at the table. My hand was shaking as I dialed the number. All I could think was that Ginny had gone to stay with Alejandro last night. Every ring on the phone seemed to take a year. Julio, Alejandro’s brother, answered on the fourth ring.

“Where’s Ginny?” I asked.

“Not here. Listen you might want to sit down. Something horrible has happened.”

“I know. Is Ginny alive?”

“We don’t know where Ginny is. Her phone was here, but she’s not. The guards say she came to stay with Alejandro, but she wasn’t in the room when they checked on him in the morning.” He dropped his voice. “Listen, this does not look good for her. The guards think she is involved somehow.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Because she kicked them out of the room for the night. They think she did it.”

“You don’t think that, do you?”

“No, of course not. But it does look suspicious. Where is she? And how did you know?”

“We got a box this morning. It had his….” I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.

Julio let out a breath. “At least we know where his head is.”

“How are you so calm?”

“Experience. I can’t afford to go to pieces right now. I need to find the murderers and your aunt.”

I heard a scream on his end of the line.

“Hang on.”

“Wait you can’t….” But he’d already set the phone down. I prayed that Ginny was okay. I tapped my fingers. Nothing felt real at the moment. A few minutes later, Julio picked up the phone again.

“Ginny’s safe. She was with Puck. She had a client who decided to throw a last minute Christmas party and needed some help. By the time she was done, it was late and she just slept on the couch. She left her phone with Alejandro by mistake. Listen, things still look bad for her. The safest place for her might be with you. I have to go. I’ll have Ginny call you as soon as she can.”

“Wait. What do I do about, you know?”

“I don’t know. Give me some time to process.”

He hung up. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins. I didn’t know what to do either. My dad was cleaning the mess on the floor. Kai grabbed a towel, flung it over the top of the box and moved it to the garage. Then he sat next to me. He took my hand in his but didn’t say anything. After my dad cleaned up the floor he sat across from me.

“Are you okay?” asked Kai.

I shook my head, afraid of what would come out of my mouth if I actually spoke. The phone rang again.

“Naomi. It’s Puck.”

I lost it at that point. The tears exploded out of my eyes and I began to sob. The phone slipped out of my hands. Kai picked it up and spoke with Puck briefly. All I could hear were my own sobs. My dad put his arm around my shoulder and I curled into him, grateful for the comfort.

After Kai hung up, he sat next to me and waited until I quieted.

“Ginny’s a prime suspect. They are leaving the police out of this, but the guards have already alerted the Guardian council. They are meeting this afternoon. Julio is bringing Ginny here and he’ll take the head back with him. They’ll be here in a few hours. I’m going to go to the airport and pick up Ginny. Do you want to come?”

“Of course.”

Jason showed up just before we left for the airport. He rode in the back seat. I’d been crying on and off. I wondered when I’d run out of tears. Kai filled him in on exactly what happened as we drove.

“Can I ask an obvious question?”

“Sure.”

“Won’t this make Ginny more of a suspect? I know she wasn’t involved, but won’t it look suspicious if she’s suddenly living with the Master Destroyer?”

“No one will know where she is. She will not be allowed to leave the house. Puck is going to tell the council that he’s hiding her to protect her. He knows how to handle his council. He’ll convince them that she didn’t have anything to do with it.”

We waited at the private airport instead of the commercial one. Jason handed the box to Julio. Ginny followed Kai to the car, her shoulders slumped. She looked awful, for the first time in her life. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend her pain. I would have to let her grieve in her own way. I let Jason sit in the front and I sat in the back with her, my arm around her shoulder. She wasn’t crying, and she didn’t say a single word.

And the roses cried Tiny Tears with us.

On Monday, Ginny cried.

A lot.

On Tuesday, I joined her.

On Wednesday, my dad brought home two gallons of ice cream.

We cried some more.

On Thursday, we ate it all.

But the tears still came.

On Friday, we shopped from open to close.

Finally, the tears stopped, and sorrow set in.

The most expensive rose ever created took fifteen years and cost five million dollars. It’s called Juliet Rose. It’s a pale peach cup rose with a very light fragrance. Obviously its creator was not a Guardian, or it wouldn’t have taken as long.

On New Year’s Eve, I went out to visit the roses in my garden. I hadn’t been out there since Alejandro died. There would be no funeral, which was hard but understandable. A funeral like that would attract many Guardians to a single location, which would make them too large of a target. Maybe after all of this was over, we could have a ceremony, but not until then. I knew that I had stopped the murders. But I also knew that we had to find the people who did it and bring them to justice. For Alejandro.

In the cold, most of my roses would be hibernating, but I had a feeling my Destroyer rose would still be in bloom.

It had snowed last night and I was grateful for my boots. The snow wasn’t deep, but it covered the ground with a gorgeous, bright white coat. I followed the path through the trees. I went under the trellis and, sure enough, all of my roses had gone brown. All except the Destroyer rose.

It had grown three feet since I had seen it last. Before, it had several different kinds of blooms. Each Destroyer’s energy that I had plugged into it had its own section. But the whole rose had now changed. All the blooms were exactly the same. A deep dark purple edged with black. They were the most beautiful roses I’d ever seen. The blooms were enormous and at least a hundred hung heavy on the thick branches. The branches had no leaves, but two-inch thorns that curved into deadly blades.

I reached up to sniff a bloom. It smelled of secrets. Of Kai and of Puck and my love for each of them. It made my heart ache.

I backed away from the rose, clearing my head. Footsteps crunched in the snow behind me.

I turned and found Kai coming through the trellis, along with a creepy-looking Destroyer. He had a sharp chin and greasy hair. He followed Kai with a smirk on his face. I hated guys like him. They reminded me of Dwayne.

“Peter says he has info on the Destroyers who killed the Guardians.”

“Seriously man, we had to come out here and freeze our asses off so that she could be a part of this?”

“Naomi is leading the investigation since her uncle was among those murdered. Otherwise, I wouldn’t give a damn about the Guardian murders.”

Peter nodded. “Whatever, man. She has you whipped.”

Kai laughed. “Maybe. But don’t piss her off too bad. You have no idea what she is capable of.”

“The information,” I interrupted.

The man shivered and started bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Last week, I was down partying in Fayetteville, and this Destroyer starts bragging about how he killed a Guardian. Said he slit the poor sucker’s throat and watched him bleed out.”

“Does this Destroyer have a name?”

“Yeah. Tyler. He heads up the drug trade down there.”

I looked at Kai. He nodded. “Yeah, I know him. We can go visit him today if you want.”

You can go.
I dismissed the man in my head. He looked confused. Maybe I should have been more direct.

“Wait, don’t I get a reward or something.”

Kai pulled out his wallet and handed him a hundred. He scoffed.

“I don’t want this. I want freedom to use more power, or permission to touch a few girls. Come on, give me something.”

“What makes you think I can do that?”

“You know the Master Destroyer. Everyone knows you are his right hand man. Rumor is that it’s her dad.” He pointed toward me.

“Sorry, no. I’m not asking him for that. Take the cash.”

The man turned around and muttered. “I liked it better when the old Master was in charge. At least then I could do what I wanted.”

Without much thinking, I sent him pain. I didn’t want him to spread rumors that the old ways were better because we could lose what little control we had. Peter gripped his head and spun in circles. I stepped around him to talk to Kai. I released the pain.

Kai wove his fingers through mine. “We are going to find the sons of bitches who did this. I promise.”

“I know.”

I was facing Kai when his hand stiffened in mine. He nodded toward my rose.

Peter was approaching the rose bush. He seemed enthralled by it. I thought about stopping him, but I was curious as to other’s reactions to it.

“That rose is gorgeous,” murmured Kai.

“Yes it is. Weird, huh?”

“It feels like you.”

“You can feel it this far away?”

“Yes.”

Peter reached for a bloom just over his head. He brought it toward his nose and curled his finger around the branch. That was his mistake. He caught his finger on a thorn and the branch snaked around his arm and pulled him toward the bush. The man screamed.

Without thinking, I shouted in my head.
Stop.

The rosebush shuddered and dropped Peter. Kai and I ran to him. He shuddered on the ground, clinging to his arm. It was a bloody mess, punctured from wrist to shoulder.

Kai looked at me, his eyes wide. I shivered, unsure of what to make of it. The rose had always felt different, but never alive like this. Kai pulled Peter up by his armpits. He stood for a moment, shaking.

“It…it took my power.”

Holy mother of all roses. It could do the same things I could. And apparently I could control it, too.

Kai raised his eyebrows.

“Did the rose take all of your power?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Good, then you can still be controlled,” I said.

Kai looked at me with curiosity. He didn’t say anything as we took Peter to my father, who bandaged him up. For some reason, Dad found the whole thing comical. Which certainly didn’t diminish Peter’s belief that he was the Master. Any man who can find humor in another’s pain had to be evil.

When he left, I asked my dad about it.

“Why did you find that so funny?”

“Because my little girl’s roses are taking down powerful Destroyers. The idea is a bit ludicrous.”

I shrugged, still a little dumfounded that my rose could do such things. Kai and I left him to his animals.

On the way back to the house, Kai finally spoke.

“What did you mean, he could still be controlled?”

“Are you not the Master Destroyer? You have control over the Destroyers.” I had to convince him of his place.

“No, I don’t. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Sure you are. Maybe not consciously, but he asked for permission to do bad things. If you weren’t controlling him, he’d already have that ability.” The lies were not easy, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet.

Kai nodded.

“I sure wish I knew how I was doing it.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon. Come on, I want hot chocolate and I need to check on Ginny. It’s too cold out here.”

I love white roses because they are so easy to manipulate. I can easily change the color by breeding it with any other roses. But some white roses are beautiful just as they are, like the sweet and spicy Secret’s Out.

We found Tyler in a rundown townhouse in the middle of downtown Fayetteville. The whole place was filled with smoke, music blared at full volume; I knew it would be a miracle if I walked out of there without getting a headache. The party was small, maybe forty or fifty people hanging out. Judging by the energy they all put out, I’d say seventy-five percent of them were Destroyers.

Kai had to shout over the music to be heard. He yelled Tyler’s name over and over until we found him, at the kitchen table, surrounded by others. He was short, skinny, and had a huge nose. He didn’t look like the type that could kill so many people.

He grimaced when he saw Kai. Probably recognized him.

“What do you want?”

“To talk to you,” Kai yelled back.

The kid stood up. “So talk.”

Kai shook his head. “Not here. Somewhere quiet and private.”

“Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of my homies.”

“No, let’s go to a room where there aren’t so many people.”

The kid smirked. “I’ll take that girl of yours to a more private room.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

I sighed. “Let’s go. Now. Just the three of us. A quiet room please.”