Scorching Secrets (18 page)

On the coffee table in front of me is my notebook. I’m not sure how it got there, but I reach over and grab it. Flipping to the back, I frown when I see the amount of blank pages I have left. I’ll have to go get another one soon. Putting in my iPod headphones, I click shuffle. Sara Bareilles starts playing. I’ve been listening to her a lot lately, but her songs speak to me.

I draw a spider web—a large detailed spider web. Dew drops cling to each silky stand. In the top left corner, I draw a gruesome looking black spider with many eyes. It looks feral…hungry. In the bottom corner, is a small bug. A bug struggling to get away but can’t because it’s tangled in the web. I feel like the tiny captured bug. Dravin is getting closer to capturing me again, and there is nothing I can do to get away. I am stuck in a web watching and waiting for my enemy to come and finish me.

When I finally look way from the drawing, the room is full. Colton is sitting off to the side, not looking at me. Tom is sitting in the kitchen. Everyone else is in their usual locations. I take out my headphones, place my notebook back on the coffee table, and walk into the kitchen to talk with Tom. “Good morning, Ryanne,” he says with a smile as I sit across from him.

“Morning, Tom.” I’m not sure if Logan told him about the vision I had. “Can I ask you something?” He puts his magazine down and nods at me, so I continue. “Is it possible…to extract magic from someone?”

“Is this about the vision you had?”

“Yeah, Dravin said that he found a way to extract magic from a person. I’m just curious if you think he was telling the truth or if he was just trying to scare me.”

“I’ve never heard of it happening before, but a lot has happened recently that I’ve never heard of prior to this. I think it would be difficult for him to extract magic from a mage, but I don’t necessarily think that it would be impossible. You might be a different story. See, mages are born with magic basically imbedded in them because of our ancestors. You’re a different story because no one in your family was ever a mage.”

I can hear people entering the room behind me, but I only pay attention to Tom. “So you think it’d be easier for someone to extract magic from me because I wasn’t born into a mage family?”

“Possibly. Like I said earlier, I’ve never heard of it happening before. You’re one of a kind, Ryanne. I do know that if he got a hold of the amount of magic you have, he’d be unstoppable.”

“Inconceivable!” David yells.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,” I say and turn toward David, waiting for his response.

“Dang it,” he says.

“If you’re going to use a movie quote, make it a little more challenging than The Princess Bride.”

“You’re killin me smalls!”

“The Sandlot.” I turn my attention back toward Tom. I hear David mumble behind me. “Thanks, Tom.” I stand up and walk back into the living room. “Boy, do I hate being right all the time,” I call over my shoulder.

“JURASSIC PARK!” David yells. I turn around and smile at him before returning back to my previous position on the couch.

So there goes my plan of letting Dravin just have my magic. I can’t give him any more power than he already has. We’re having enough difficulty fighting him off as it is. We don’t need him to be any more powerful. I’d originally thought that giving up my magic would save everyone, but I know that Dravin won’t use it for good, so that wouldn’t work. I’ll have to find something else to do.

Soon after, everyone comes back into the living room too. I sit on the opposite end of the couch than I usually do. Liam takes the spot beside me. Colton sits in his usual spot. Bragden sits on the ground in front of me. Larkin stays in the kitchen with Tom.

I ask Bragden to get my iPod off the coffee table, since he is sitting in front of it. When he reaches forward, the back of his tank top moves a little, and I swear I see something on his skin. He hands me the iPod and turns back around to face the TV. David and Emma are already looking for a movie to watch.

Leaning forward, I move his shirt to the side a little and see the black marks I briefly saw earlier. Moving the shirt over a little more, I gasp at what I see on his skin. He still has the bear claw that I drew on his shoulder. It’s as dark as it was when I first drew it.

“How is that still there?” I lightly trace the outline with my finger. “Shouldn’t it have washed off by now?” I tear my eyes away from the drawing and look at him. He is smiling widely at me. “What?”

“Do you remember when you guys went out shopping?” Of course I remember that day. “Well, while you guys were out. Larkin took me to the closest tattoo parlor and I made it permanent.”

“That’s a tattoo?”

“Yep, I liked it so much that I wanted it to be inked into my skin.” I look back down at the tattoo. It does look good on him.

“Really?” I smile widely at him. That’s awesome. I know that he didn’t get it for me, but it still feels good that he liked my drawing so much that he got a tattoo of it.

Colton

Ryanne leans forward and kisses Bragden on the cheek. Just a simple peck on the cheek and a freaking surge of jealousy shoots through me. I groan and lean back against the back of the couch. I know that David and Emma hear me, but it doesn’t look like anyone else did. Ryanne is obviously ignoring me, but why? She’s acting normal around everyone else, but she won’t even look my way. She’s sitting on the opposite side of the couch instead of beside me where she usually is.

I glance over at her as she flips through songs on her iPod. Her lips purse as she tries to find a song to listen to. I’d kissed other girls before, but none felt like that. I didn’t think about their kiss for much longer afterwards. I wasn’t frustrated with those girls as much as I am with Ryanne. What does she want from me?

I can hear the beat of the music coming from her headphones. I turn toward Emma, “Did you talk to her this morning?”

“No. She woke up before me. Have
you
talked to her yet?”

“Not yet. I came down here to talk to her this morning and she was talking with Larkin.” I turn toward Larkin, hoping that he will tell us what they were talking about. “And she appears to be ignoring me right now.”

“She asked me if I could watch out for Jane because of the attacks against her. She’s worried about her.”

Ryanne’s music starts to quiet, so we stop talking. Another song starts, but no one says anything. I draw my eyes from the TV screen one more time and look at her. She is staring down at the floor, biting her lip.

“Liam, is she ok?” Since Ryanne isn’t going to talk to me, I’ll have to settle for finding things out from a second source. He glances over at her. She takes a headphone out and turns toward him. I can see the unshed tears in her eyes.

“What’s going on, Ryanne?” Liam asks her. She doesn’t say anything to him. She looks down at her iPod, and then after a couple of seconds, she hands it to him.

“Listen to this song.” Once he has the headphones in, she walks upstairs. I watch Liam, trying to decipher his reaction to the song. Without saying a word, he hands me the iPod. I listen to the song and frown as I listen to the lyrics.

The sadness in the voice of the lead singer and the grim resonance of the lyrics pierce through me. Is this really how she feels? The song stops, and I pull the headphones out and turn the iPod off. I need to talk to Ryanne. She’s worse than she’s letting on. I stand up to go get her when she bounces back down the stairs, fully dressed in work-out clothes, pulling her hair into a ponytail.

“What are you doing? We’re not training until later,” asks Liam.

“I’m going for a run.” She grabs her tennis shoes and sits down on the last stair, quickly tying the laces.

“Not on your own,” I tell her.

“Then someone can come with me. I don’t care, but I’m going on a run.”

Before I can say anything, Bragden volunteers. “I’ll go. I’m already ready.” Bragden is always wearing a training outfit. He says it’s easier than having to change twice a day. Ryanne brushes past everyone and walks out the front door. She begins stretching in the driveway as she waits for Bragden.

“I hate running,” Bragden mumbles as he follows her outside.

About eight minutes into the run, I start to hear Bragden breathing heavily behind me. We’ve only gone a mile, and he is having trouble keeping up. How is he that well built if he can’t run a single mile? I stop running and walk back to where he’s standing on the side of the road.

“How do you have so much energy?”

“I don’t. I’m just frustrated. I needed to get out of that house for a while. I needed to be away from everyone. Running seemed like a good idea; I haven’t run in forever.” I pause and wait for Bragden to catch his breath, so we can continue.

“I’m good. Let’s go.” I slow my pace a little to keep up with him, but after a couple of minutes, he starts to breathe heavily again.

“Larkin,” I call out.

Larkin blinks in beside Bragden and looks between the two of us, looking for danger. I shake my head at him. “Can you see if Liam can run with me? I think Bragden is dying.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right back.” Larkin disappears.

Bragden nods his head. “That was a good idea. I definitely wouldn’t have made it back to the house.”

We wait a couple minutes before Larkin appears again with Liam at his side. Liam looks between Bragden and me and smiles when he sees how winded his brother is. Larkin puts a hand on Bragden’s shoulder, and they disappear.

“How far out are we?” Liam asks.

“A little over a mile. I need to run further though.” I start to run again while Liam stays where he is. “Please try to keep up,” I yell over my shoulder at him. Liam snaps out of it and runs after me. Unlike his brother, he is able to run a good distance before tiring.

I am enjoying the way my muscles feel being strained like this. This is different from training. During our training, I use all my muscles, but I haven’t pushed myself like this before. I like how my heart rate increases, and it becomes harder to breathe. Strange as that sounds, it makes me push harder. I like hearing the sound of my footsteps echoing off the hard ground. I like how the sun feels against my skin, and how the wind feels against my face. If I could, I would just stay out here forever.

“Ryanne…can I ask you something?” Liam asks while running beside me. I am more comfortable running with Liam. He matches me with athletic ability.

“Sure…” I reply, without breaking my strides.

“Is it really that bad? Like that song?”

“I don’t know.” I take a deep breath, so I can continue running while I talk. “It’s just frustrating knowing that so many people depend on me. I don’t know what to do.” Inhale. Exhale. “I feel like I’m being pulled in all these different directions, and I know that I have to keep on fighting, but sometimes I don’t want to. I feel like everyone knows what needs to be done but me. I’m so lost.” I stop running to try and catch my breath.

Liam stops and joins me but doesn’t say anything. That’s one of the things I love about Liam. He knows when to say something and when I just need to talk everything out. Nothing he could say would make me feel any better, but it feels good to just tell someone—to finally get it off my chest. He lets me catch my breath, before turning to me and smiling.

“I’ll race you back.”

“That’s three miles.”

“I know.” He takes off, leaving me behind. He knows I can’t turn down a challenge. I start to follow him, keeping an even pace, but he remains in the lead the entire way. When I see the house up the road, I start to pick up my pace. Since Liam ran faster the entire way, he is starting to tire. I kept a much slower pace so I could use my last burst of energy at the end. I speed past him and run up the driveway. With a smile, I look over my shoulder at him and stick my tongue out as I open the door to the house and patiently wait for him to enter.

“You won that one…I’ll give you that,” Liam says when he enters the house. At least I’m not the only one having trouble breathing. Liam is just as out of breath as I am. I slowly walk into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and bring one back for Liam. He thanks me and gulps down half of it right away.

“I see you lasted longer than I did,” Bragden says.

Liam takes a deep breath and turns toward his brother. “She beat me. She ran a whole extra mile, and she beat me.”

Emma walks into the room followed by David, Colton, and Logan. “How long did you run for? Based on how heavy you two are breathing and the amount of sweat dripping off of Liam’s head, I’m assuming you went pretty far.”

“About six miles. We raced back the last three.” I walk over to the couch and lean against the back end. “Are you going to train?” I ask to no one in particular.

“Yeah, but you should rest,” Logan suggests.

I take another sip of water. “No, I need to continue working with my magic. I don’t want to lose control like I did the other day.” I glance over at Larkin to see if he will train with me. He nods at me and gestures for me to follow him outside.

Colton

“So, Ryanne seems a little better.” I glance over and watch as Larkin tells her something. Ryanne will listen and then attempt to do whatever he asked. Usually she can accomplish it, but from where I am standing, I can tell she is getting frustrated at this task. She has her hands outstretched in front of her, facing each other, with her eyes closed. Her face is scrunched up in that expression she gets when she’s concentrating really hard on something. I watch as a translucent blue ball begins to form between her hands.

“I think she just needed to take a step back from everything and take a slight breather. She would have continued running if I hadn’t challenged her to run back. She can’t turn down a challenge,” Liam says.

At a closer look, the object forming between her hands looks like a ball of water. She takes a couple steps backward, and with a mischievous smile on her face, she turns to Larkin.

“No…don’t do it!” Larkin yells. Ryanne throws the ball of water toward Larkin when he turns to run away. He tries to duck, but it hits him in the middle of his face. She laughs and spins around to run in the opposite direction. He shakes his head, but I can see his shoulders moving from his laughter. He transports right behind her and grabs her around the stomach. She screams as he starts tickling her. Despite the fact that I still don’t like Larkin, I’m glad that someone is able to make her laugh.