She was glad she hadn’t drunk any of the water since arriving here as images of pod people and aliens danced through her head. Had everyone on this street been body snatched or placed under some form of mind control? She had to get out of this place before the lunatics decided she was a liability who was better off dead.
“I want to go home,” she finally said.
“Avery—”
“I want to go home.” Her eyes returned to her mother. “Tomorrow.”
“Those kids need you!”
“What do they need me for?”
Julie absently twirled a stray tendril of hair around her index finger. “Your power will complete their coven.”
“What is a coven?” Avery demanded.
“That’s what a group of witches is called, and you belong in their coven.”
“No, I don’t.”
“There is something evil out there, and it’s coming. Without you to complete them, those kids don’t stand a chance against it. And don’t think you’ll be safe if you return home; when it finishes with them, it will come for you.”
The hair on Avery’s nape rose as a small voice whispered in her mind. Listen to her. Something is coming.
No! I will not be a part of this insanity.
Her anger at Julie made it almost impossible for Avery to do anything her mother asked of her willingly. The fact the woman was going on about freaky lightning, witches, and evil things only made it easier to tell her to get lost. Sane people knew Julie was spouting nonsense.
Then why did Avery still feel as if something sinister was breathing down her neck? Because the shared delusions of the people on this island are terrifying.
“You have to help them defend themselves against what is coming,” Julie whispered.
“And just what is coming?”
Julie opened her mouth before closing it and opening it again. “I, ah… I’m not sure.”
Avery got the distinct impression this woman knew more than what she was saying, but she didn’t understand why she’d keep this bit of information from her after all the other crap she’d spewed.
“I have no powers—” Avery started to say.
“But you do! And those kids will help you bring them out.”
“I won’t be a part of this insanity!” Avery yelled as her composure crumpled. Closing her eyes, she gathered her unraveling emotions before speaking again. “I want to go home.”
Her mother rose from the chair and stepped toward Avery, but she froze when Avery edged away from her. “Those kids are a part of you; you can’t abandon them.”
“You’re a part of me, but you abandoned me,” Avery replied with a calmness she didn’t feel. “I’m going back to my life, my dad who cares about me, and people who aren’t crazy.”
Tears shimmered in her mother’s eyes. “Fine. Run away from your family and fears.”
“Like mother, like daughter.”
CHAPTER 7
Avery stretched her legs out as she leaned back in the lounge chair and tilted her face to the warm, July sun. Her best friends Lila Colston, Tina Gayle, and Karen Tucker were sitting on chairs around her and rabidly listened as she regaled them with the story of her short visit to her mother’s house. The four of them had met and become friends in elementary school and been as thick as thieves ever since.
With dramatic inflections in her tone, Avery told them about the kids on the beach but left out their unearthly radiance and her weird experience with them. She’d been home for two days, but this was the first chance she’d had to see her friends since returning.
“I can’t believe you left. Those guys sound hot, especially that Reid!” Lila clasped her hands together and fluttered her lashes.
The mention of Reid caused a small tug at Avery’s heart, but she ignored it. It didn’t matter that she agreed about his hotness and had kind of liked the guy; she was never going to see any of them again.
“They were strange,” Avery murmured. “Besides, I missed you guys, and being with my mother was awkward and, well… awful.”
Karen placed a comforting hand on Avery’s arm. Karen’s smile lit her warm, hazel eyes. She wore her sandy blonde hair in a loose ponytail that emphasized her round face, small nose, thin pink lips, and slender neck.
“It must have been uncomfortable for you to be with her. I would have left too,” Karen said.
Avery smiled as she squeezed Karen’s hand. How could Julie expect me to leave such good friends for a bunch of strangers and a stupid lie?
It is not a lie! an inner voice suddenly screamed at her. It was the same voice that whispered to her the other night, but now it was stronger. It’s the truth, and you know it. The scar on your mother’s arm, on your dad’s shoulder, the birthmarks, the way those kids look, the way your parents look! There is something different about all of them.
Avery shoved the voice aside. She would never see them again, and she doubted her mother would try to have anything to do with her anymore. The sadness that realization brought with it surprised her. She’d mistakenly believed herself past the grief Julie inflicted on her over the years, but seeing her again had proven her wrong.
“Avery!”
Avery jumped and spun to face Tina. Tina’s slender nose scrunched in disapproval, and her pointed chin jutted out as her brown eyes met Avery’s. Her caramel-colored hair dangled in a braid over her shoulder to the top of her bathing suit.
“Where did you go?” Tina asked her. “I’ve said your name like ten times.”
“I was thinking,” Avery said.
“About what?”
“Nothing,” she replied absently.
Tina opened her mouth to reply, but Lila launched to her feet and started speaking before Tina could. “Let’s go swimming.”
Lila dropped her towel on the deck as she walked toward her pool with long, graceful strides. A member of the dive and swimming team, Lila’s parents upgraded their pool years ago when Lila started winning competitions. Now, she was one of the top-ranked divers in New England with colleges scouting her and offering her scholarships.
A nagging feeling gripped Avery as Lila’s lean body climbed the ladder to the high board and she strode toward the end of it. The tips of her chocolate-colored hair bounced against her shoulders as she walked.
Drawn forth by a sense of something wrong, Avery rose and walked toward the diving board.
“I invented a new dive!” Lila called to them.
“I’m sure you didn’t invent it,” Tina retorted as she lathered sunscreen onto her arms.
Lila gave her the finger as she turned so her back faced the water.
Don’t let her do it! the voice inside Avery screamed.
“Lila, please don’t,” she called out.
Lila’s doe brown eyes blazed with determination when they met Avery’s. “Don’t think I can?”
“I know you can,” Avery assured her, “but please don’t.”
Lila scowled before lifting her hands over her head. Avery’s breath froze, and the board twanged as Lila launched herself off it. When Lila twisted through the air with her usual athletic grace, it would have been mesmerizing, but Avery had watched Lila dive enough to know something was wrong.
She watched helplessly as Lila unfolded, but it was too late, and there was nothing she could do to help her best friend. A gurgled scream erupted from Avery when Lila smashed into the water with her body and neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
When Lila sank into its clear depths, Avery dove into the water and, seizing Lila’s arms, she kicked as she pulled Lila to the surface. Her arms and legs ached, her lungs burned as water bubbles trailed out her nose, but she gripped Lila tighter and pulled her onward.
Bursting free of the water, Avery ignored the exhaustion in her legs and burning lungs as she kicked toward the stairs. Tina met her halfway and, grasping Lila’s other arm, helped Avery haul Lila toward the stairs and out of the pool. They laid Lila carefully on the ground as Karen rattled off Lila’
s address into her phone.
Avery ignored the pain the motion caused when she fell to her knees at her best friend’s side. Lila’s head and limbs flopped to the side as water trickled out of her open mouth. A sick feeling settled in the pit of Avery’s stomach while she shoved Lila’s wet hair aside and frantically searched for a pulse.
“She’s alive,” she whispered as tears slid down her cheeks.
• • •
“She’s going to be okay,” Lila’s dad said.
Lila’s parents had just returned to the ICU waiting room after speaking with the doctor. They only stood a few feet away, but Avery felt as if she were seeing them through a dull haze of unreality.
“There is a lot of swelling along her spine, and she did fracture a vertebrae, but though they think she’ll require physical therapy, the doctors are confident she’ll walk again,” Lila’s dad continued.
Avery breathed a sigh of relief and closed her eyes against the tears threatening to fall.
“The doctor said we can see her now, but only for a few minutes. She won’t be able to have any other visitors today, but I’ll talk to them about the three of you seeing her tomorrow,” he said to them. “She’s going to need you to help her get through this.”
“We’ll be here,” Tina said.
“We know you will,” Lila’s mother said before they turned and left the room.
Avery wiped her nose before rising and following them out of the waiting room positioned outside the steel doors of the locked ICU. Footsteps from the other end of the hall drew her attention, and she turned to see her dad walking toward her. When he was only a couple of feet away, Avery threw herself into his warm embrace. She sobbed as he hugged her and offered comforting words of reassurance.
“Let’s get you home,” he said as he ran his hand over her hair.
Avery stepped away from him and wiped away her tears. Still in her bathing suit, she’d thrown on her black cover-up after the paramedics left with Lila. Karen had called Lila’s parents while Tina called her older brother to drive them to the hospital, but he’d left for work after dropping them off. All three of them were wet, disheveled, and shaken from what had happened.
“Can you take us too?” Tina asked weakly.
He nodded, and they followed him out to the car. No one spoke until they were inside and her dad started the vehicle.
“I can’t believe it,” Karen said.
“She’ll be fine,” Tina replied firmly. “You heard what her dad said.”
“Yeah, but being laid up for any amount of time will drive Lila crazy, and what will happen to her scholarships if she can’t dive again for a while?”
“She’ll get through it, and we’ll be there for her,” Avery said.
“She should have listened to you, Avery. She would be all right if she had,” Karen murmured as she stared out the window.
Her dad cast her a questioning glance, but Avery ignored it.
“She’s Lila; she’ll be fine,” Tina said again.
CHAPTER 8
“But I knew!” Avery cried as she paced in front of her dad. “I knew something terrible would happen, and it did.”
Her dad’s leaf green eyes studied her warily. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”
Helplessness filled her as she threw her hands in the air. “What if I could have stopped it from happening?”
He pushed his black hair back from his handsome face as he sat forward on the couch. When Avery noted the stubble lining his square jaw, she stopped pacing. Always meticulous about his appearance, she’d never seen him in need of a shave, not even while they were on vacation.
“You can’t stop what is meant to be. Lila’s accident was part of fate, Avery,” he said.
Avery did a double take as, for the first time in her life, she felt as if she didn’t know her dad. She’d never heard him talk about such things before. “Since when do you believe in fate?”
“I’ve always believed in it, but I never talked to you about it. There’s a lot you don’t know, and a lot you don’t believe, but you should.”
Unsure of how to respond, Avery fell back on the only thing that made sense in the real world. “Have you lost your mind like my mother?”
He gave her a tired smile as he rose. “Your mother isn’t crazy, Avery, and neither am I.”
“Are you telling me that her nutty story is true?”
“I understand this is difficult for you to understand, and that’s my fault as well as your mother’s. We chose this life for you. We thought we were doing what was best for you at the time, but we might have been wrong. I never thought you’d reject the truth once you learned it.”
Her dad had always been her rock, and now he sounded as crazy as her mother. However, if he was telling her these things, could it be true? Could he have lied to her for the past seventeen years?
She’d never felt so betrayed, and she had no idea how to react or what was expected of her in this strange new reality she’d plunged into.
“I don’t have magical powers.” At least this much she knew to be true. She’d never done anything fantastical in her life, and other than the strange voice telling her not to let Lila dive into the pool, she’d never experienced déjà vu or anything like it. “And I don’t belong on that island with those people.”
“Yes, you do, Avery.”
Unable to listen to this anymore, Avery spun away from him and stalked toward the front door. She needed out of the house and some time alone to think. She removed her dad’s car keys from where they hung on a peg beside the front door.
“I’m taking the car,” she muttered.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“I need to be alone.”
She flung the door open and sprinted to the car.
• • •
Over an hour later, Avery stared in dismay at the freshly painted, gray exterior of the large, Cape-style house. The inside lights spilling onto the front walkway gave the home a warm, inviting air. The potted plants hanging from the beams of the porch swayed in the summer breeze that carried the briny scent of the ocean. There were no cars in the driveway, but someone was home.
Avery couldn’t believe she was here, of all places, but something had propelled her here. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she’d been helpless to resist the incessant pull she felt to this island. The name on the mailbox read Davis, and she knew who lived here, or at least she was pretty sure who lived here, because she’d done some hunting on Facebook after returning home.
She wouldn’t call it stalking; she’d merely been easing some of her curiosity. She’d also learned the names of the others were Alex Ford, Eric and Isla Larsen, Mario and Rosie Adams, Sandra Beckett, and Shawn Olson. Landon and Reid were the only two siblings, so she assumed the others who shared a last name were cousins.
She almost put the car into reverse and left, but she had to get everything straightened out, and she suspected they might have answers for her. Climbing out of the car, she closed the door, shoved her hands in her pockets, and strolled up the cobbled walkway. The porch steps groaned beneath her weight, but the wood didn’t bend as she walked toward the door with the dread of a death row inmate going to the chair.
Run. Go home. Pretend none of this happened and return to your life.
But she couldn’t. No matter how badly she didn’t want it to be true, she knew nothing could ever be the same again. Her parents had made sure of that. Even if she returned home and stuck her head in the sand, she would always question if what they’d said was true, and she couldn’t live the rest of her life without answers.
Taking a fortifying breath, she knocked on the white door before she lost her courage and scampered away. The soft chirrup of crickets and the creaking of the plants filled the silence after her knock. Then she heard footsteps pounding down the stairs.
Even though she heard someone coming, she still wasn’t prepared when the door opened and she found herself staring into Reid’s silver
eyes. He looked like she’d punched him in the gut as he stared at her, and then he smiled. That smile turned her insides to goo, and despite everything that had happened, she smiled back at him.
“Who is it?” Landon asked as she came down the stairs behind him.
Landon’s eyes widened when she spotted Avery, and she froze before breaking into a welcoming smile. She rushed down the rest of the stairs and shouldered Reid out of the way until she stood beside him in the door. “Don’t just stand there; come in.”
Despite Landon’s welcoming words, Avery remained on the porch. “I have a question.”
“What is it?” Reid inquired.
Before knocking, she hadn’t known what she expected from these two, but she did now. “Is it true?”
Landon and Reid exchanged a communicative look before Landon responded. “Yes, it’s true.”
Avery closed her eyes and gulped; for some reason, hearing it from them made it real. A part of her didn’t want to believe it, but another part, a part she didn’t understand, had always thought it.
“Why do you need me?” she croaked.
“You’re a part of us,” Reid answered.
She opened her eyes, and her breath left her when she saw the compassion in his gaze. For the first time since coming to this island, she felt as if she might have a friend in this. “I have no power. I have nothing to offer you,” she said.
“You do, but you haven’t awakened your power yet. We understand why you prefer not to stay with your mom, but we are all connected,” Landon told her.
Avery gulped as she swung her gaze from Reid to Landon. The understanding in Landon’s blue-green eyes made Avery think she might have two friends. “Connected?” she asked.
“We’re connected by our heritage, our powers, everything. You’re a part of us.”
Avery had no idea what to make of that. “I won’t leave my dad.”
“You don’t have to,” Reid assured her.
“I like my life the way it is.”
“Your life has already changed; you have to accept that.” The words were firm, but Landon’s eyes remained kind.
“What if this isn’t my destiny?” Avery asked.
Nightmares (The Coven, Book 1) Page 4
