The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (9 page)

Haven hugged herself and shivered as
she walked through the ruins of her home. Most of the second floor
had completely fallen through to the first, leaving the burnt,
skeletal frame around the outside of the house open to the air. The
sky above was grey with rain clouds. Thunder rumbled in the
distance; it was supposed to rain later that afternoon.

She brushed the tears from her eyes
and stopped at the threshold to her parents’ room, hesitant to go
any farther. What was left of their bed mattress covered the broken
pieces of the bed frame in the middle of the room. A huge hole was
burned right through the center of the mattress in a long oval that
was exactly where her parents had been sleeping when—

Haven quickly turned and walked away
to search other parts of the house.

Her closest relatives were
her Aunt and Uncle in San Diego. They couldn’t make it out for the
funeral service and had wired her some money so she could stay in a
hotel just down the street until she got her plans figured out.
They said she could even stay with them if she wanted. Everyone
kept telling her that the best thing she could do after something
traumatic was to be around other people, but she didn’t care. Haven
wanted to be alone so she didn’t have to listen to anyone telling
her how sorry
they
were for
her
loss.

The service for her parents had been
two days earlier at the funeral home across town. Extended family
flew in from all over the country; people she hadn’t seen in years
and barely remembered. They were all nice to her, mumbling their
apologies and offering to do anything if they were able, just to
let them know. She thanked them all and tried to be as sweet as
possible but couldn’t say much more than that because she would
start crying again. It took her at least half an hour to stop once
the tears started.

Everything she did reminded her of her
family. She needed a dress for the funeral, and that made her think
of all the times she went shopping with her mother. The first time
she ate a bowl of cereal after the fire, she couldn’t help but
think about trying not to wake her parents whenever she crept
downstairs at night to eat ice cream.

She felt absolutely awful about not
being nicer to them in the weeks leading up to the fire.

Haven stopped next to the collapsed
frame of the couch in the family room and kicked at a small pile of
rubble. The tip of her shoe caught on something small and pushed it
under the couch. She knelt down and pulled it from the
ashes.

It was a glow-in-the-dark star from
the ceiling in Noah’s room. One of the five points had burned off.
She wiped a fresh tear from her cheek and rubbed her wet finger
against the star to wash away the black soot covering the
plastic.

Haven had been unable to get past the
crippling guilt that consumed her in the first week after she lost
her parents. She did little more than spend every day in her hotel
room, yelling at herself and pounding the walls because she had
gone to that party and hadn’t stayed home with her
family.

The guilt gradually lessened after the
first week, but she knew it would never fully go away.

Haven squeezed Noah’s star in her fist
before putting it into her jeans pocket.

She walked over the debris in the
family room and onto the front yard. The grass was burned twenty
feet out from the house in all directions. The fire department had
been able to stop the flames from spreading to the neighboring
houses, but there was nothing they could do to save Haven’s home;
it was already too far gone by the time they arrived.

The speed at which the house was
consumed gave more credibility to the theory that an accelerant had
been used, and meant that—if anyone had kidnapped her brother—they
had also murdered her parents by purposely starting the fire to
cover their tracks. As Haven walked toward the street and the
waiting police car, she couldn’t help but feel hatred toward the
officer inside along with every other person who was supposed to be
helping to find her missing brother and the people who had killed
her parents.

She didn’t say anything as she got
into the passenger seat and closed the door. All she did was cross
her arms and watch the ruins of her home drift away as the officer
pulled the car out onto the street and drove toward her
hotel.

13

H
aven’s first day back at George Walker High School started
terribly.

She was given a police escort a few
days earlier when the “experts” were supposedly getting ready to
declare Noah’s absence a kidnapping. A police officer trailed after
her wherever she walked—which was hardly anywhere—and drove her to
the few places she was forced to visit.

When her escort dropped her off in
front of school that morning, reporters were already waiting for
her, microphones in hand. They pushed forward as she got out of the
car, leaning to the side so their cameramen could get that
all-important close-up of a girl who had lost everything. The
reporters shouted questions about how it made her feel to know that
her parents’ killers were still on the loose, and could she please
tell everyone how scared and worried she was about her kidnapped
brother.

Even though the arson and kidnapping
was still a solidifying theory, the local press picked up the story
and ran with it. Haven had to change hotels twice because of the
sea of reporters that waited outside her room after they found out
where she was staying. The more days that passed without any sign
of Noah in the ashes, the more certain everyone became that it was
kidnapping and murder.

Haven kept her mouth shut as she
shoved her way through the crowd and into the school. The reporters
weren’t allowed past the front gates, and she was at least thankful
for that much.

The day went downhill from
there.

She didn’t understand why she even had
to go back in the first place. There was no reason she couldn’t
have done all of her work from her hotel room. The stay at the
hotel was only temporary, though, since she found out the state
wouldn’t allow her to live anywhere without an adult guardian for
too much longer. She may have been able to get away with it if her
life hadn’t turned into such a media circus.

Principal Rivera had dropped the idea
of Haven switching to Advanced Placement courses in light of the
tragedy, which suited Haven just fine. She doubted she would be
completing her school work anyway.

What’s the point?
she thought.

Life had turned into
endless days of sitting at the police station, answering the same
questions about her family over and over again. No, she
didn’t
know of anyone
who may have wanted to hurt her parents and kidnap her brother. No,
she was absolutely
certain
she loved them and never wanted anything bad to
happen to them. The line of questioning that led to that last
statement disturbed Haven more than anything else. The implication
was that she had something to do with the horrible fire. The first
time one of the policemen had even remotely hinted at that
possibility, Haven screamed at him and ran out of the
room.

Now that she was back at school, Haven
hoped that some small degree of normalcy would creep back into her
life and that she could put the events of the past several weeks
behind her.

If only it were that easy.

Everywhere she went in the school,
students looked at her suspiciously and whispered to each other,
laughing or staring wide-eyed in potential fear. It wasn’t until
she finally caught up with Kayla in between classes that she
learned the reason why.

“
Hey,” said Haven as she
walked up to Kayla’s locker. Kayla put a book inside and pulled out
a folder that she dropped into her backpack.

“
Oh, hey!” She zipped up
her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, then started walking
down the hallway.

“
I called you, like, a
hundred times last week,” said Haven. “Why didn’t you ever pick
up?”

Kayla wouldn’t make eye contact with
her. “I thought you needed your space, you know? I didn’t want to
bother you.”

“
I needed someone to talk
to, Kayla.” said Haven. She had to swallow to stop her throat from
tightening. “You’re supposed to be my friend. I thought I could
count on you.”

“
Look, I’m sorry, alright?
I don’t do well with…with situations like that.”

“
Yeah, me either. But you
could have answered your phone.”

They passed a group of students who
stopped talking and stared at Haven.

“
Why does everyone keep
doing that?” she asked. “They stare at me like I’m some kind of
freak.”

“
You mean you don’t know?”
said Kayla.

“
Know what?”

Kayla stopped and sighed. “They all
think you did it.”

“‘
Did it’? What do you
mean? Did what?”

Kayla still wouldn’t look
at her. “
You
know…”

Haven’s eyes opened in shock. “They
think I burned my own house down?!”

Every student within earshot stopped
what they were doing and turned to look at her.

“
Shhh!” said Kayla. “Keep
your voice down.”

“
But you were there! You
saw it yourself!”

“
I already told them,”
said Kayla. “Over and over again, but they didn’t care. Ever since
one of the reporters said they hadn’t ruled you out as a suspect,
it’s the only thing they believe. You know how rumors work. The
worst one is always the favorite.”

“
Well, that’s just great!”
said Haven, throwing up her hands in frustration. “Everyone at
school thinks I’m some kind of psycho!”

“
I don’t,” said Kayla.
“
You
know the
truth, and that’s all that matters. Look, my class is right over
there. I gotta go.”

“
Kayla, wait!”

Kayla walked away and ducked into her
classroom. Haven stood on the sidewalk in front of the building,
too stunned to move.

The bell rang. Students hurried past,
trying to get to class before the teacher marked them tardy and
sentenced them to detention. Haven watched them scurry inside, and
she was both envious and furious that the biggest thing most of
them had to worry about was punctuality.

She walked slowly to her next
class—history, her least favorite. The teacher didn’t say anything
when Haven walked in five minutes late, he just paused and waited.
All the students stared at her as she walked to the back of the
room and sat at her desk. The teacher cleared his throat to get the
students’ attention, then resumed his lesson.

Haven wasn’t hungry at lunchtime, but
she wanted to catch up with Kayla and reclaim a sense of what her
life was like before the fire—even if it was only a fraction of
what it used to be. She was still mad at her for not picking up her
stupid phone when Haven needed her most, but they could talk about
that later.

She walked into the cafeteria and
looked for her friend. It was the very beginning of lunch, so most
of the tables were full. Kayla sat on the other side of the room
and Haven started to make her way across the cafeteria.

As she got closer, she noticed that
Kayla was sitting with someone—a boy. The boy said something and
Kayla laughed. She flipped her hair back playfully and touched the
boy’s arm. Haven couldn’t see who it was since he had his back to
her, but as far as she knew Kayla didn’t have a boyfriend. Maybe
she had picked one up while Haven was away.

Haven smiled as she walked up to the
table, happy to meet Kayla’s new guy. Kayla noticed her when she
was still a couple steps away and stopped laughing immediately. She
stared at Haven like a deer caught in headlights. Her mouth was
slightly open as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t force
out the words. She just sat there, dumbfounded, while Haven walked
up, smiling.

The boy turned around in his seat. It
was Jason. “Oh, man…” he said. He turned back to his food and
stabbed at some french fries with his fork.

“
Haven, I—I’m sorry,” said
Kayla. “I know I should have told you…”

Haven walked past the table
quickly.

“
Wait!” said
Kayla.

“
Let her go,” said Jason.
“If she can’t grow up, then that’s her problem.”

Haven felt blood rush to
her face. She ran toward the exit and planned to keep running as
soon as she was outside. She wouldn’t stop until she was far away
from that place—from those people. She wanted answers. No more
waiting, no more uncertainty; she would
make
the police find out who killed
her parents and kidnapped Noah.

Haven was halfway to the cafeteria
door when an unusual heat blossomed on the back of her neck and ran
down her spine. It spread outward, stretching to every part of her
body. The blushing warmth in her face paled in comparison to the
boiling heat that coursed beneath her skin. Arms, legs, torso, and
head—every part of her felt like it was burning. She stopped
walking and looked down at herself to make sure she was not
actually on fire.