Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) (22 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Three

With a careless bang I burst in
through the back door as I yanked on my spare pants.
 
I was still coated in the caecus’ stinking
black blood, and I had managed to smear the sticky stuff all over my clothes.

I ran up to Dylan’s room – luckily
without bumping into either of my siblings – and found him at his desk hunched
over his laptop, watching Youtube videos of cats.

“Wow.
 
Your dedication to that history project is
impressive,” I remarked sarcastically.

Dylan swiveled around smoothly in
his chair, and his jaw dropped at the sight of me. “What happened to you?”

I batted at the air
nonchalantly.
 
“Just saved Cecelia from a
caecus.”

“You
what
?!”

Without bothering to ask for
permission, I picked up his phone from his desk, entered the passcode, and
scrolled through his contacts.
 
“You
still have her number, don’t you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Follow me,” I shouted over my
shoulder as I walked out of his room with his phone.
 
“Because we’re going to need Adrian to call
it.”

***

“Let me get this straight – you
want
me to call Cecelia?” Adrian said
with uncertainty.

“Yes.
 
I just need you to make sure she didn’t see
me.”
 
I wasn’t sure exactly when I had
stopped being a human and started being a panther.
 
Which was why I had shown up at Adrian’s
doorstep unannounced, with Dylan at my side and his phone in my hand.

Adrian and Arisella’s guardian had
left by the time I came, and I had already recollected the experience for
everyone.
 
All that was left was to make
sure that Cecelia hadn’t seen too much.

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Hey, how are you?
 
You say you got attacked by a giant cat?
 
No way!
 
You didn’t happen to see anything unusual aside from a giant cat, did
you?
 
No? That’s great!” I suggested.
 
“You’ll probably have to flirt with her.”

“A lot,” Dylan added.
 
I elbowed him sharply in the chest.

“I really don’t want to talk to
her.
 
Can’t someone else do it?”

“Don’t look at me,” Arisella
said.
 
“I detest that sorry girl.”

“That girl won’t stay on the phone
with anyone longer than two minutes if she’s not talking to a boy,” I
muttered.
 
“Anyway, she hates me.”

“And she’s not exactly too fond of
me,” Dylan said.
 
“But she seemed to
really
like you, Adrian.”

I elbowed Dylan again, and this
time he let out a painful little grunt.
 
He shot me a confused look.

“If you get stuck, we can just tell
you what to say,” I offered.
 
“It honestly
won’t be that hard.”

“Fine,” Adrian conceded, taking
Dylan’s phone from my open palm.
 
He
pushed Cecelia’s name and the phone dialed.

“Put it on speaker,” Dylan advised.

“What’s that?
 
Is it this button?” Adrian said, looking
uncharacteristically overwhelmed.

“Here, let me.”
 
I seized the phone and pressed the speaker
button just as Cecelia picked up.

“Cecelia Stone – who’s this?”
 
She sounded shaken and faraway, not nearly as
sickeningly confident as she normally was.

“This is Adrian,” Adrian said without
emotion.

“Even I know you’re going to have
to be more convincing than that,” Arisella hissed.

“Say ‘Hi Cece.
 
I was just wondering what you’ve been up to
this evening,’” Dylan prompted.

Adrian repeated the words with a
reluctant face but with an awfully convincing voice.

But I wasn’t sure it even really
mattered, because words immediately started pouring out of the phone.
 
Once Cecelia Stone started talking, she
couldn’t be stopped.

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe what I
have been through today.
 
You know what
happened?
 
I’ll tell you what
happened.
 
I was attacked!
”

“Attacked?” Adrian repeated with
interest.

“Attacked!” Cecelia screeched.
 
“No more than an hour ago by an awful wild
animal.
 
There I was in the woods,
running like I do every day, and then all of a sudden I saw this huge black cat
run at me – and this thing was a giant – and jerk around erratically all around
me. I swear, it was going to kill me.”
 
Cecelia stopped, and I thought she was done.
 
But then she added with a whisper, “It’s got
to be the rabies, you know.”

“Uh, yeah,
the rabies
.” Adrian attempted to disguise his scorn as shock.

“That dense, orange dolt,” I
scoffed under my breath. “I
saved
her
from being caecus dinner.”

“The horrible thing must have been
sick.
 
It smelled like a dead possum,”
Cecelia went on.

Adrian raised an eyebrow at me.

“That was the caecus, I swear,” I
said quickly.

“Did you see anything else
strange?
 
Did you see any other people
out there who might have been in danger?”

The hint of urgency that had crept
into Adrian’s voice seemed to amuse her.
 
“No, it was just me.
 
If only
there were other people out there.
 
Then
that cat might have attacked them, not me, and I wouldn’t have to go through
any of this.
 
I felt that devil cat
staring right at me, like it wanted to suck out my soul.
 
Oh, and it had these awful purple eyes.”

And at that moment, everyone
simultaneously stopped breathing.

“But,” Cecelia continued
obliviously, “I managed to scare the thing away – intimidate it.
 
And I ran all the way back home.
 
Daddy says it’s a miracle I survived, that
I’m a hero.”

Arisella rolled her eyes.
 
I was grateful for Cecelia’s simple mind,
though.
 
She had probably only seen two
living things in her life with violet eyes, and somehow she hadn’t managed to
connect the two.

“So, you told your parents?”

“Of course, silly.
 
Who else is going to file a report?”

“A
what
?”

“Adrian, I know you heard me.
 
Are you playing with me?” Cecelia said coyly.

“Can you blame me? Things just
sound so much more interesting when you say them,” Adrian answered, his voice
practically dripping with adoration.
 
My
stomach turned a little.

“Oh, Adriannn.”
 
I could practically hear Cecelia blushing
through the phone over her disgusting teasing.
 
“Daddy’s talking to someone from the police or animal control over the
phone now.
 
He’s going to put me on the
phone, so I can tell them what happened, so they can put up a notice and warn
everyone in the area.”

“Oh no,” Arisella whispered.

“Are you sure?” Adrian pressed.

“Of course I’m sure, Adrian.
 
I’m always sure about what I want.”
 
Cecelia was clearly over being shell-shocked
and ready to flirt openly now. “And I’d like for us to spend some time together
tonight.
 
It’d really make me feel better
after everything that happened.”

“As much as I’d love to, I’m afraid
I can’t.
 
I’m very busy with an
assignment tonight.”
 
Adrian lied
skillfully.
 
“Although, just a bit of
advice, don’t tell anyone about the purple eyes.
 
Of course, I trust you, but other people may
not know you as well as I do.
 
And I
wouldn’t want you to be judged.”

Cecelia produced a ridiculous,
shrill laugh.
 
I wasn’t sure Cecelia was
taking Adrian’s advice seriously. “Thanks, babe.
 
It’s lovely, this sudden interest you’ve
taken in me.
 
But are you sure you can’t
come out tonight?”

“Completely sure.
 
I really must be going now.
 
Remember about the eyes.”

“But Adrian, I’d really like to
talk to you some more,” Cecelia whined.

“Bye.” Adrian hung up the phone
without even waiting for her to reply.
 
He turned to his sister with grave seriousness and suppressed panic in
his eyes.

“We’re screwed,” Arisella laughed
emptily.

“Why are we screwed?” Dylan
demanded.

“Because,” Adrian sighed, “as soon
as that report is filed, and people discover that a massive panther not native
to this area has been roaming the woods, we’re bound to arouse the suspicions
of the Bloodbourn.
 
Caeci have died
here.
 
We already know they’ve been
watching.”

“And if it gets into the report
that the panther had violet eyes, there won’t be a chance for us.”
 
Arisella fluidly rose to her feet and walked
to the window to stare out into the night.
 
“Unlike Cecelia Stone, the Bloodbourn are very perceptive.
 
They’ll know it was an Irisbourn.”
 
She turned to glare at me.
 
“Why couldn’t you just have let her die?”

I shook my head.
 
“Leaving her there would have been the same
as killing her myself.
 
She may be stupid
and shallow, but she doesn’t deserve to die.
 
I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

Arisella stalked over to me and
lifted my chin with her finger, forcing me to look straight into her eyes.
 
“If you want to survive, you’re going to have
to learn how to live with much worse.”

And suddenly Adrian was there,
removing her hand from my face.
 
I could
feel stinging where her nails had dug into my jaw.
 
“Stop,” he growled.
 
“You’re hurting her.”

Arisella scowled at her brother and
left silently.

“What happens now?” Dylan resumed.

“We’ll be leaving,” Adrian said
resolutely.
 
“Tonight.”

“No!” Dylan and I blurted at the
same time.
 
I had risen to my feet in
front of Adrian, so we were face to face.
 
He looked slightly shocked by my abrupt movement.

“My family – I need time.
 
I have things I still need to tell
them.”
 
I could feel my face grow flushed
and my eyes dampen at the sudden reality of leaving my family.
 
But now was not the time to be
emotional.
 
“Please, Adrian.
 
Just a few days.
 
That’ll give us time to prepare.”

“You can’t afford to let your
emotions cloud your judgment right now.
 
A few days could be the difference between life and dea-”

“
No
.” The cold force in my voice surprised even me.
 
“I will not leave my family right now.
 
And if you intend to take me against my will,
I will never, ever forgive you.”

“
Fine
,” Adrian snapped.
 
“I’ll
give you three days.”

“Thank you.”
 
The air had suddenly grown very tense, and my
skin shuddered with adrenaline and heat.
 
“Dylan, let’s go.”

I hurried out of the house with
Dylan at my side before Adrian could change his mind.

“Three days?” Dylan said with
disbelief, pulling me to a stop on the sidewalk in front of our house.
 
“Amber, you don’t have to go anywhere.
 
We can keep you safe right here.
 
We can call the police.
 
And I sure as hell am not going to let those
two nut jobs steal you away to fairyland.”

“I have to leave.
 
If I don’t, they’ll find you and Heather and
Matt, too.
 
Besides, I trust those ‘nut
jobs’ with my life.”

“How could you do this to me
again?
 
How could you leave me alone
again?” I could hear the anguish in Dylan’s words.
 
“How could you do this to your family?
 
To Heather?
 
Don’t you remember the state Heather was in after your parents
died?
 
What do you think would happen to
her if you left too?”

“I don’t have a choice.”
 
Tears streaked my cheeks, and my voice
faltered as the walls I had so carefully constructed to conceal my emotions
came toppling down.

“Amber Rose Tesse,” Dylan
articulated coldly.
 
“If you intend to
leave this house in three days,
I
will
never, ever forgive
you
.”

Having used my own words against
me, Dylan strode into the house and slammed the door behind him.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

“You know I care about you a lot,
don’t you?” I murmured, as I brushed a stray golden tendril of hair from
Heather’s forehead.

I had slept in Heather’s bed that
night, like the way we used to when we were little.
 
We had some time before we left for school,
and all I wanted was to be near her.

“Mmmm, sure,” Heather groaned, her
eyes still closed.
 
She hadn’t really
woken up yet.

“Remember when Mom and Dad died?”

Heather’s eyes fluttered open, and
she sat up.
 
That had woken her up.
 
“Of course.”

“I know that was hard for us, but
we got through it.”

“Why are you bringing this up?”
Heather asked suspiciously.

I sighed.
 
“Because, well, sometimes bad things
happen.
 
Really bad things.
 
And there’s nothing we can do.
 
But I know you can get through it, because
you’re strong.” I held one of her soft, warm hands in mine.

“You’re being really weird.
 
Is something wrong?”

I produced a weak laugh that almost
died in my throat.
 
“No, no,” I reassured
her.
 
“I’ve just wanted to tell you that
for a while.”
 
I bit down hard on my
lip.
 
There was so much more I wanted to
tell her, but so little I could.

“Oh,” Heather shrugged.
 
“Thanks.”

“Just stay strong for me,
Heather.
 
What happened to us when Mom
and Dad died – that can’t happen again. We have to be stronger than that.”

“I know,” Heather agreed seriously,
which surprised me.
 
Had she been
thinking about our parents’ deaths recently?
 
“Anyway, I was wondering,” Heather began with new animation, “if we
could go see this new spy movie next week.
 
Dylan and you and I could all go – it would be so fun.”

I suppressed an unanticipated sob
that tore through my chest.
 
I hadn’t had
a chance to rebuild the emotional wall yet.

“I think I might be busy,” I said,
turning my face away from her. “You and Dylan should go see it, though.” I
swung my legs over the side of the bed.
 
“I’ve got to get ready for school.”

I hurried out of her room without
looking at her, so she wouldn’t have to see me cry.

Matt had left early that morning
for some sort of business in Dallas, so I didn’t have to answer any questions
about the bulging backpack Dylan helped me haul out of the house in addition to
our normal school bags.

After I had returned to my room
last night, I found a message from Adrian on my phone, much to my surprise,
instructing me to prepare an emergency bag.
 
I was to deliver it to his house before school.

Dylan had even helped me pack, even
though he refused to talk about what we were packing for.
 
We had stayed up late that night stuffing a
travel backpack with my clothes, nonperishable food, a sleeping bag, and first
aid equipment.

After we had finished doing that,
Dylan fell asleep sprawled across my bed.
 
But I couldn’t sleep, so I sat at my desk, penning my goodbye letters to
Heather and Matt by dim lamplight.

I told them I needed a change, that
it was too hard to live with them anymore, and that I was leaving for another
city.
 
I told them they may never hear
from me again, and that they shouldn’t try looking for me, but that they
shouldn’t worry because I knew what I was doing.
  
Each lie was harder to write than the
last.
 
I shoved the letters into a small
cubbyhole on my desk, knowing that they would only look there when they
searched my room for answers after I had disappeared.

I found Adrian waiting in front of
his gate the way he did every morning, except this time without Arisella.
 
His blue eyes looked paler and more drained
than usual, his clothes a little more untidy than their usual immaculate state.

“Where’s your sister?” Dylan asked
rather impolitely and passed the bag to Adrian.
 
Dylan strained under the bag’s weight and had to use both hands to keep
from dropping it onto the concrete, but Adrian lifted it with one arm, as if
the bag were lighter than a feather.

“She won’t be coming to school with
us again,” Adrian answered.
 
“She’ll be
running patrols for signs of the Bloodbourn during the day.”

“Oh,” I mumbled.
 
So much had already begun to change, and
there was nothing I could do to stop it.

When we got to school, the halls
were already abuzz with the story of how Cecelia had nobly fought off a rabid,
bloodthirsty panther.
 
A report had been
filed and a public warning released, and somebody for the school blog had even
written a story based on Cecelia’s completely inaccurate account.
 
Gossip-hungry people flocked to Cecelia’s
side, voracious for the new details she kept churning out – all lies, each one
more ridiculous than the last, fabricated to keep the school’s attention.
 
At least there would be a silver lining in
leaving – that I would never have to see Cecelia Stone again.

Fortunately, though, I didn’t hear
anything about purple eyes.

I hadn’t realized just how little I
slept the previous night until I was in math class.
 
I had to fight to keep my eyelids from
sagging under invisible weights.

With a leaky neon gel pen, I sketched
nonsensical patterns in the corner of my math notebook.
 
Some time during the last thirty minutes, my
head had dipped and my body had arched over my desk, emphasizing my evident
disinterest for the lesson.
 
I furtively
scanned the room for Ms. Garner, and found her castigating another student for
throwing a marker across the room.
 
She
would be preoccupied for at least another ten minutes, enough time for me to
take a brief nap.

I turned around to glance at
Dylan.
 
He was already snoring softly on
his desk.

With a curt sigh, I sank my head
into my arms and drifted off, only to be yanked out of semi-consciousness by a
resounding crash from the front of the room.
 
But my fatigue overpowered my curiosity, and, aside from a slight
flinch, I remained motionless with my head down.

“Amber!
 
Where’s Amber?
 
I need to talk to her.” An urgent voice
pierced through the class’ shock.

The familiarity of the voice
snapped me out of my lethargy.
 
What the
hell was Adrian doing interrupting my pre-calculus class?
 
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I noticed a
splintering crack running down the entire length of the door to the room.
 
Oh my God.
 
Adrian, the prodigal child who had just lectured me on controlling my
emotions, had smashed school property.
 
In front of over twenty mortal witnesses.

Before I could see why Adrian had
suddenly developed the urge to publicly humiliate the both us, Ms. Garner
launched a merciless verbal assault against him.

“What in the world do you think you
are doing in
my
classroom, breaking
my
things, interrupting
my
students?!” Ms. Garner spat with
burning hatred.
 
From the look on her
face, she was clearly considering strangling Adrian.

“Amber — I need her.
 
She takes this class,” Adrian responded
rapidly, paying no regard to Ms. Garner’s rage.
 
His eyes were still scouring the room for my face.

“Listen, child.
 
I don’t tolerate insolence.
 
So, congratulations, you just earned yourself
and
Miss Tesse
in-school-suspensions,” she snapped ruthlessly.
 
She stalked over to her desk to write the corresponding notes to the
attendance office.

“You can’t give Amber an
in-school-suspension for something that idiot did!” Dylan jumped to my defense
without a moment’s hesitation.

“Idiot?” Adrian scoffed under his
breath.

“Don’t you dare question my authority,
Mr. Winters!” Ms. Garner screeched, undoubtedly unaccustomed to not being able
to squelch disobedience.
 
With every
second, she seemed to be slipping further into wild insanity.
 
Before the class could collapse into hell, I
quickly chose that moment to rise from my seat.

“Okay, everybody stop!” I
bellowed.
 
I saw the burning intensity of
my eyes reflected in the shocked faces of my classmates. When even the
notorious Ms. Garner momentarily cowered under the authority of my gaze, I wondered
if this was part of the Irisbourn power I had been given through birthright.

“Adrian, what do you want?” I
sighed, satisfied that the arguing had stopped.

“
It’s time
,” Adrian said, as his eyes begged me in silent
desperation to listen to him.
 
And for
the first time, I found fear in his fearless eyes.
 
I froze as the reality of his words sank in.

My
three days.

What
had happened to my three days?

I shakily got to my feet and
shrugged my backpack on.

“Miss Tesse, where do you think
you’re going?” Ms. Garner snapped.
 
“If
you leave my class now, don’t you dare return.”

I glared at her with all the
pent-up loathing I had accumulated for her over the weeks.
 
“Perfect.
 
Because I have no intention of coming back.”

I heard a few brave souls laughing
and clapping as I turned my back on my stunned teacher and stalked out the door
to join Adrian.

“We need to go,” Adrian said,
pulling me toward the closest exit.
 
He
looked rattled by the aftershocks of my outburst.

“Hold on!” Dylan shouted.
 
The cracked door to the math class swung
open, and he came flying out of it.
 
“I’m
coming too.”

“Dylan, no. Stay here,” I pled,
looking back toward Dylan while Adrian ushered me away.
 
“You can’t come.”

“Amber, we have to move.
 
We have no time,” Adrian pressed.

“I’m coming,” Dylan said, dead set
in his decision.
 
“I’ll follow you.
 
If you try to stop me, I’ll call your
sister.
 
She’ll get back to the house
before we do, and she’d do anything to keep you from leaving.”

“You wouldn’t,” I gasped.

“I would.”

“Amber, we have to go.
 
Now!” Adrian roared.
 
His new surge of urgency snapped my body into
movement.
 
Unable to stop Dylan and
unable to argue with him, I sprinted alongside Adrian out of the school.
 
Thanks to Dylan’s heavy breathing, I didn’t
need to look back to know he was following us.

When Dylan and I arrived at
Adrian’s house, we were half-dead, sweaty messes.
 
The fact that Adrian barely looked winded
just made me feel worse about myself.

As much as I wanted to collapse
onto their blood red living room carpet and take a nap, Adrian urged me
forward, supporting half my weight.

“What happened?
 
Why are we leaving now?” I asked.
 
I had been dying to know ever since Adrian
burst into my math class, but I had only gotten the chance to now.

But Adrian had barely opened his
mouth to answer before Arisella appeared on the stairs, covered from head to
toe in thick, black liquid that reeked with the stench of death.

“This happened,” Arisella thundered
with a disgusted look on her face.
 
“Caeci are everywhere now.
 
Newly
sent, well-fed caeci.
 
They saw me, and I
couldn’t kill them all.
 
The Bloodbourn
will be here any minute.”

“I thought we had three days,”
Dylan pointed out.

“We didn’t expect word to spread
about Cecelia’s panther attack so quickly.”
 
Adrian was stuffing weapons of all kinds into a pouch in a black,
heavy-duty backpack. “We have to leave
now
,”
he said when he had collected a sufficient number of weapons.
 
He led me to the back of the house toward the
garage.
 
“You’ll need to drive.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Natchez, Mississippi,” Adrian
responded without thinking.

I raised an eyebrow at him.
 
“That doesn’t sound like Fallyre.”

“We’ve been planning this ever
since we discovered you were Irisbourn.
 
The drive is long enough that we’ll be able to lead the Bloodbourn away
from here for the sake of your family.
 
Then we’ll lose them.
 
While
they’re looking for us in Mississippi, we’ll already be in Fallyre.”

We all followed Adrian into the
garage and watched him fluidly toss a spotless white sheet onto the ground,
revealing a brand new silver Mercedes-Benz SUV.

“Holy crap,” Dylan murmured.

“Our guardian dropped it off last
night,” Arisella elaborated.
 
“I told you
she brought us everything.”

“The rest of the bags are already
in the back.”
 
Adrian popped open the
driver seat door and motioned for me to enter.
 
“It’s time.”