Shattered Secrets (Book of Red #1) (11 page)

Derick

Abby hated my guts. I knew she would. The girl loathed feeling tricked. Everyone does. But her? Not the forgetting type, not when her family, me—her supposed best friend—and even her childhood friend Mark were all liars. We had to get out of here or she’d lose her mind for real, stuck with a bunch of people she couldn’t trust—
I
couldn’t trust them. If my parents and the Snellings explained Kalóans and Abby’s place in the world to her the way they did me, she would disown us all and never talk to anyone again.

She deserved more.

More I wanted to give her.

I’d prepared for her negative reaction, for Abby to assume she needed medical help instead of guidance into a new life. For months, I made small withdrawals from my bank account. Well, small in the eyes of my parents who could afford anything and everything because they saw lottery numbers and stock rates well before events occurred—crashes
or
large cash pots.

For months, I planned our escape.

Slowly opening my door, I checked to make sure no one was coming and then snuck into the guest bedroom at the other end of the hall. I’d never make it out the front door, not without someone hearing me. Besides, the Snellings just arrived.

Assholes.

Abby knowing the truth would kick Mark’s overbearing obsession with her up a notch—or ten. And his dad? The man believed he and his family were the only ones who deserved to be near her, some bullshit about a Somatoph pledge.

He’s the same man I overheard telling my dad that Abby needed to ‘procreate to protect the future’.

Disgusting.

And not the life I’d want her to lead.

The window squealed as I lifted it, and I froze, listening for footsteps, but didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. No screaming Abby. No shouting matches between my dad and Mark’s. Things were calm, so I removed the screen and crawled onto the roof over the porch, then closed the window.

Invisibility definitely came in handy. I hid myself from view and grabbed the gutters, lowering myself to the railings, then jumped to the soggy ground. I sprinted across my large yard, the narrow street and Abby’s land, then into Abby’s house, wasting no time in my purpose.

Gather her things.

Toss out our phones.

Put everything in the Mustang.

Grab Abby.

Leave.

I wouldn’t fail.

Abigail

f I’d hoped the book would make me feel better, that hope was crushed immediately. According to
History of Kalós
Page 1002 in the Living Off-Plane section—and Mr. Crawford—if what Derick and I experienced was true love, both of us should have been freed from some of our human restrictions. But only he was.

Maybe I wasn’t so supernatural, after all.

I wanted to hide. Mark and his family arrived not long ago, as well as my parents with a bag full of stuff. They all sat in the family room, staring at me as though I were some sort of wild animal ready to burst out of my cage. I propped my elbows on the kitchen table and put my face in my hands, fighting back an urge to cry. None of them needed to see this.

Being alone would have been nice. Derick was alone. Why couldn’t I be with him? Apologize? Run away and lock myself in an asylum, even?

“Keep reading.” Mr. Crawford placed a big cup of steaming tea on the table.

Strong smells of chai and fruit wafted toward my nose. The scents were soothing, but a deep ache pressed on my chest. Nothing could take that away. Well, maybe
someone
could.

“It may not be as bad as you think.”

I looked up, trying to make sense of his words. Mr. Crawford definitely pried into my thoughts, but
not as bad as I think
would have been me going to my house and forgetting any of this ever happened, or waking up and discovering this was all just a dream.

Derick hurt me, then made up for it, then I spit in his face, and now, he hated me; I was sure. My parents weren’t my parents. Nothing was real. Not even my love for Derick. Hell, not even Mark, someone I’d known since diapers, was
normal
.

Suddenly Ms. Wiley’s slow reading didn’t seem that bad. I could handle boring and mundane over being a different species any day. I closed my eyes, imagining the steel gray classroom with its steel gray blinds and stark white board in the front of the room. Somehow, all that lack of personality screamed home, right, good,
easy
.

“We kept your identity a secret for a long time, as your birth father, who’d never wished to bring you harm, asked us to do. He wanted you to have a happy life, and he feared if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t be able to because you’d never be safe.” Mr. Crawford smiled, deepening the faint wrinkles around his mouth. “That normal life ended when you and my son kissed.”

Mark growled, but Mr. Crawford didn’t pay him any attention. I, on the other hand, now wanted to know how long Mark knew who we were, and who he kissed in order to wake up.

“Now, it seems anyone can find you. Do not doubt what you feel.”

Mr. Crawford’s words held truth… at least some. When I saw Psycho Number One in the restaurant, he said my powers grew stronger. Maybe what happened there wasn’t a hallucination, but why couldn’t Derick see him?

His dad squeezed my shoulder and pointed at the cup of tea. “Grab that and come with me.”

“Shouldn’t I keep reading?” Not that I wanted to look at any more of the confusing words.

“You’ve learned the most important thing, but there is something I’d like to speak to you about in private.” Glancing at Mrs. Crawford, he picked up the mug then handed it to me; it was warm, and the tea smelled so yummy. Derick always made this when I was upset, and no doubt Mr. Crawford was aware of that; they seemed to be aware of everything between me and Derick. “About your history.”

I stood, ready to escape all the watchful eyes. “Where to?”

“Outside. There’s a place I’d like to show you.”

“Show me?”

He grinned. “I believe you’ll enjoy it.”

“Okay.” Doubtful. “Let me grab my coat from Mom.”

She jumped at her name and started across the spacious room, a smile barely touching her red eyes. “Here.”

Mom wrapped me up tightly and planted yet another kiss on me, moistening my cheek with her tears. “Take your scarf, too. It’s really cold today.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I wrapped the soft, purple scarf around my neck and trailed behind Mr. Crawford.

He opened the door and moved aside, allowing me to step onto the wrap-around porch first. Dangerous move for someone protecting me from kidnappers, kidnappers who wanted me because I was special, powerful.

No one told me why though. “Mr. Crawford?”

“I’ll explain the why, the how, the who—all of it—after you explain what you meant about hallucinations in the restaurant,” he whispered, draping his broad muscled arm across my shoulders, leading me from the porch into the woods.

“You wanted to speak in private because of what you heard?”
In my head
.

“Partially.” He glanced sideways. “You see, we knew you
thought
you saw Boredas because Derick found me outside the restaurant last night, but what I didn’t know is that the Fávlosi spoke to you. I didn’t see that memory, or your encounter with him. But I have a theory I’d like to test.”

Fávlosi
? My mind yelled that I had a team of stalkers—and that I should probably start taking notes.

“Not stalkers. Think of us more as bodyguards.”

I laughed. “Do people ever get tired of you snooping into their heads?”

“I don’t use the ability often. But with you, and with Derick when he learned of all this, my snooping can save lives.”

“So what does Fávlosi mean?”

“It is a term that refers to our enemies. Simply put: it means villain, where Kalóan means good. They are similar to us in many ways. They connect with human emotions, read minds, have speed and strength and invisibility and other various powers. But we serve fundamentally different purposes. Where we seek to repair a failed marriage, they step in and cause a spouse to cheat. Where we seek to provide shelter for the homeless, they burn buildings. Where we encourage countries to work out their differences peacefully, they take over a fighter plane and slaughter innocent life. They are sociopaths, arsonists, rapists. If I connect to a calm human emotion, there is a Fávlosi who connects to one of anxiety.”

“That’s—”

“Overwhelming?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “In Kalós, children are enrolled in classes from the time they’re out of diapers. If we lived there, you’d have a better understanding. A better education.”

But I didn’t.

We crossed the quiet street then walked down the dirt path surrounded by bare trees next to my house, following in the same direction Derick and I always did when venturing to our favorite spot.

Mr. Crawford dropped his arm and clasped his hands behind his back, leaning forward a little as he walked, his eyes not on me but on something far ahead of us, something probably locked inside his thoughts. “You’re positive you saw someone in the restaurant?”

Nodding, I said, “Yes. The same guy who took me from the house. He said I was finally starting to see, that my powers were growing stronger.”

“But no one else saw him? Not the customers or employees?”

“No.”

“Did he touch you?”

I closed my eyes, listening to the brittle grass crunch under my feet while I thought back to the creep’s features. He looked so kind, so earnest, yet he was such a monster. I didn’t remember him touching me though—not since the kidnapping anyway. “No. Would it mean something if he did?”

Mr. Crawford stopped walking and turned to face me; his serious blue eyes matched Derick’s so perfectly, minus the signs of age around the corners. “Yes.”

In the summer, the woods next to my house would be lush and green, impossible to see through and full of songs from birds and frogs. But now I saw hundreds of yards worth of naked, brown branches, and the silence of the winter forest around us unsettled me, as did Mr. Crawford’s short answer.

Derick’s father took a deep breath of the cold air filled with the scent of decaying leaves, and he glanced around almost as if he wanted to be sure we were alone. “Your parents were killed shortly after you were born, but they’d already given you to the Nichols.”

Given his response about Boredas, I didn’t mind the subject change, especially about people I didn’t know, didn’t have feelings for or memories of. “Why?”

He started walking again and kept his hands clasped behind his back. “Why were they killed, or why did they give you away?”

“Both. I know nothing. Please.”

“They gave you away because they knew you would be powerful and wanted to keep you safe. Your mother was a Cognizant
,
and your father was a Guardian—two of the strongest types of Kalóans. Your birth marked the first merging of these powers, actually, the first merging of any powers with Guardian blood. There would be many interested in your abilities.”

“But I’m not capable of anything. And what are Cognizants and Guardians?”

“Cognizants see through things, whether it be the veil of time, reality, or, sometimes, and in very rare cases, truth—”