Burn (The Sinclair Falls Novels Book 1)

by Shae Mallak

  "Sure, if you want ," Jonah agreed. "He liked hanging out with you guys too. He didn't want to leave," he admitted to her.

  "So why did he?" Ava asked. "He can stay here as long as he wants. He doesn't have a family, he told me so. He can use Evie's room. She's not going to be using it."

  "She's using it right now," Jonah replied. "Are you kicking her out?"

  "No, she's fine I guess for now," Ava sighed. My heart clenched hearing my sister preferred a stranger over me. "But she shouldn't be here," she continued seriously.

  "What do you mean, Ava?" he asked.

  "She can't be here," Ava said impatiently. "Because it happens on the mountain." she insisted.

  "What does? What are you talking about?" Jonah pressed, trying to hide the worry in his voice and failing.

  "My friends said it happens on the mountain," she repeated. "They said it was important."

  "Did they tell you what it was?" Jonah asked.

  I was glad at least he didn't try to tell her that her friends weren't real or were wrong. Ava never reacted well when people said that. Instead he treated her like what she had to say really was important, a fact that warmed my heart.

  "The dragon," Ava answered with a little frustrated sigh. I stared at the door with wide eyes in complete shock, frozen in place.

  "That's what they said?" Jonah questioned her seriously. "Did they say what the dragon would do?"

  "No," she denied. "They just said the dragon gets her on the mountain."

  "The dragon gets her?" he asked, sounding confused. That made two of us.

  "Yeah," Ava verified. "That's what my friends said. They said the dragon gets Evie on the mountain and that it was really important."

  "Thank you, Ava," Jonah replied. "I'm glad you told me. You can tell your friends not to worry, we're going back up in the morning."

  "Good," Ava sighed in relief. "Maybe now Evie will get some sleep, then," she said, then pattered down the hallway back to her bedroom and closed the door with another little creak.

  I didn't move for a while, still paralyzed in shock from my sister's unexpected, late-night revelation. Could it be a coincidence that my little sister suddenly started spouting off about dragons just a few hours after I'm chased by one in the woods? Not likely. Either both of us were certifiably nuts or there was some seriously weird shit going on in Sinclair Falls.

  "Evelyn," Jonah called softly. I didn't answer. "Ev," he called again with a heavy sigh. Finally finding my feet able to move, I scurried across the room and crawled into bed, keeping my back to the door. A few seconds later it slowly opened and I tried my best to keep my breathing slow and even and my eyes closed until he shut the door again.

  Ava was wrong about one thing, at least. It was a long time before I was able to get any sleep.

  FOURTEEN

  I woke up slowly the next morning, which was odd enough to make me suspicious. Being Saturday, usually the twins would be screaming and bouncing around the house, begging me to let them go the park or the pool or a friend's house, whichever obsession they'd latched onto that day. I couldn't remember the last time I was truly able to sleep in; if I wasn't up for them I was up for work. So when I peeked at the clock and it said ten o'clock, I naturally bolted out of bed in search of my siblings, expecting from the silence that something terrible had happened.

  "Good morning," Jonah greeted after I stumbled over his feet in the hallway.

  He stretched his neck as he stood, smirking at my bed-head. I had been too panicked to worry about my hair. Or the rumpled state of the rest of me, for that matter. Judging by the look in Jonah's eyes as they skimmed over me, he definitely noticed.

  I tried to ignore the heat in my cheeks and the flutter in my chest. He was, after all, the one carting me up a mountain straight into the sharp claws of a fiery dragon. Ava's friends could be cryptic sometimes, but I didn't think there were very many ways of interpreting their latest message.

  "Twins?" I blurted, glancing down the hall at their open door. Surely Jonah hadn't let them go out alone!

  "Greg," Jonah replied. I exhaled sharply in relief. "You must've been tired," he said, looking at his watch.

  "Late night," I muttered, then stepped back into my room and closed the door on him.

  I lingered in the shower, even more reluctant to face Jonah after everything that happened. Was it only a day since I first went off with him? It felt like forever ago, not a measly twenty-four hours.

  I threw a few items into an old backpack, namely my favorite book, a half-empty sketchpad, some pencils and charcoal, and a few extra pairs of underwear. Unpacking the day before at the glass cottage revealed I only brought two pair with me and I didn't want to have to ask Jonah to have more delivered. Yeah, Jonah, and if could get some ice cream, some wine, and, oh yeah, some panties—size seven. Bikini style. Thanks a bunch! Yeah, right. That was never happening. If I was going to die, I was going to do so with fresh underwear.

  I made sure to grab my cell phone as well the second time. Not only could I call Ava and Addis in the evenings, but, worse-case scenario, I spend the rest of my life getting really good at Candy Crush. Or burnt alive by a dragon.

  Ava's comments from the middle of the night still bothered me. I learned a long time before that Ava's friends were creepily accurate with their predictions and warnings, if a bit obscure at times. Whether it was just child's intuition or something more, I never really put any thought into it. But if I could be chased by a dragon, Ava could certainly have invisible friends that could see the future. Hell, anything was possible! After all, what was the alternative? A family reunion at the nearest asylum.

  What was so important about me and the dragon anyway? Was my death really that imperative to the universe? I didn't like that Ava's friends were so eager to get me back on the mountain for my death sentence. Weren't they supposed to be on our side? Or at least Ava be sadder about her sister dying? Was I so terrible of a caretaker for them that she was glad for me to leave?

  I felt a little guilty pretending to be asleep after Ava went back to bed, but what was I going to say to him? I wasn't going to lie to him about Ava's "vivid imagination" as most called it. I believed her. But it was harder to explain when she said stuff like that—like dragons on mountains. Or in the woods, as the case may be.

  "Another bag?" Jonah asked, eyeing the old backpack on my shoulder.

  "I didn't feel like losing at strip poker the rest of my life," I replied cheekily.

  Jonah gave me a grin that I wanted to slap right off his face. "You seemed to be enjoying it at the time," he reminded. "Until—" His face darkened a moment.

  Until I didn't, I mentally finished for him. Until I ran away like a scared child. Like what he was doing wasn't making me tingle with warm happiness all over. Like a coward.

  "So how will we be filling our time, then?" he asked congenially, both of us choosing to ignore the awkward pause. He reached for the backpack, sliding one strap over his shoulder and shifting it around to his chest to peek inside. I blushed when I realized too late what he saw was a handful of underwear and not the items underneath. "I can't say I'm opposed..." he teased.

  "Not that," I growled, reaching to snatch my bag back. "Underneath," I muttered when he moved it beyond my grasp, which wasn't hard to do with the height difference. He rummaged around curiously as I scowled at him—all too aware of what he had his hands on—until he presented the sketchpad with a flourish.

  "Ah-hah!" he smiled. "A few tasteful nudes, then?" he smirked. I smacked him on the arm and he pretended to be hurt by it. "Fine, fine," he surrendered, slipping my sketchpad back inside. He didn't look through it, for which I was grateful. Looking at my sketchbook was like reading my diary. I didn't think I was ready to get that personal with Jonah yet.

  Yet...?

  "Ready then?" Jonah asked. I stared at him dumbly. My thoughts had wandered and I couldn't think of what he was talking about. "Ready to go?" he prompted. "Greg is at the park with the twins blowing
off steam. Figured you'd sleep better without screaming nine-year-olds running around. We'll stop by on our way out of town."

  "Thank you," I said genuinely. "Can I eat first?" I asked, my stomach growling loudly on cue.

  "Of course," Jonah replied. He laid a hand gently on my shoulder to guide me downstairs. His touch burned through my cotton t-shirt and I shrugged it off as casually as possible, but the heat had already spread to my core. The damage was already done.

  Why did a man like Jonah—a manipulative, self-admitted ex-criminal—have such an intense effect on me? I still couldn't wrap my mind around it. In light of what I knew about his past, surely I should be less attracted to him! My racing heart and fluttering stomach, however, indicated otherwise.

  In the kitchen I found a large stack of pancakes on the counter next to a bottle of maple syrup and a jar of peanut butter. I couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled out of me and Jonah's face lit up like I just gave him the highest praise.

  "Pancakes were Addis' idea," he admitted a moment later while I dropped two slightly warm, crescent shaped pancakes onto a plate. I held one up curiously. "The moons were Greg's idea," he chuckled. "He was teaching them the lunar phases."

  "I feel sorry for whoever had to eat the new moon," I joked. "But seriously, combining food and learning is genius."

  "I told you Greg was great," Jonah smiled. "I wouldn't leave them with someone I didn't trust, Ev."

  "Thank you," I said again, even though my heart wrenched again. It sounded like the twins were better off without me after all. When was the last time I just played with them instead of trying to mother them? No wonder they liked Greg more than me. "And the peanut butter?" I smiled, smearing some over a full moon.

  "That was Ava," he laughed. "She said it's your favorite."

  "It is," I nodded. "Best combination—pancakes and peanut butter!"

  "Never tried it," he admitted with a shrug. I spun around and gaped at him in disbelief.

  "You poor, deprived child!" I cried dramatically. I pulled out another plate and shoveled two more lunar pancakes onto it, halfway through coating them with peanut butter when a thought occurred to me. "Wait, you don't have a peanut allergy do you?"

  "No," he chuckled, pouring two cups of coffee from the nearly-full pot. He set one beside me on the counter and sipped on the other. "Just deprived."

  "Well, not anymore," I declared. I drizzled syrup over both our plates and handed him a fork. "Eat up, buttercup," I said. "Your taste buds can thank me later." I was already stuffing a large bite of pancake in my mouth as I walked over to the kitchen table while Jonah studied his plate. "Oh, just try it," I groaned, talking around another bite. I jumped up to fetch my coffee cup from where I left it on the counter. "If you don't like it, I will happily finish them off for you," I offered with a smirk.

  He followed me back to the table and cut off a little bite of pancake. I rolled my eyes at him and gobbled down the rest of my first crescent moon. Eventually, the piece of pancake made it to his mouth and I watched him slowly chew and swallow, highly amused.

  He didn't say anything for a while, just staring at the plate, so I assumed he was one of the weird people who didn't like it. More for me. I reached for his plate to scoot it toward me but he batted my hand away. "Hey," he scolded, "Hands off the flapjacks!"

  "Well! You didn't react!" I defended. "I assumed you didn't want them!"

  "Well, you assumed wrong," he retorted.

  "Told you," I smirked, washing down my breakfast with a little coffee.

  "I was trying to recall the last time I ate pancakes," he admitted. "It's been ages."

  "You can thank the twins, then, for the idea," I smiled. I smeared a finger in the leftover syrup and popped it into my mouth, sucking on it as I stood to get seconds. Jonah watched me with hot, mirthful eyes. "What do you eat, then?" I asked him curiously. "Surely it's not an all-grilled-cheese diet."

  "Heavens, no," Jonah chuckled, taking another bite and a swig of coffee. "I'm actually a fairly adept chef," he bragged.

  "Oh? Like fancy gourmet stuff? Because I'll warn you, I'm more of a burger and fries kind of gal."

  "I'm aware," he laughed. "And I'm good at those too," he promised. "Which reminds me, I need you to make a grocery request list," he said. "So it can be delivered tomorrow."

  "Delivered?" I scoffed. "We're already in town, Jonah. We can just go get it ourselves. Save your delivery boy." I sat back down across from him with two more peanut butter pancakes and pointed my fork at him. "Save everyone time and effort. And money," I added with a shrug. "Delivery fees up the mountain must be ridiculous!"

  "I'd really rather not linger in town too long," Jonah admitted with a frown.

  Was that because of what Ava said last night about the dragon? Even if Jonah did believe her for whatever reason, why would he be eager to have me back up a mountain to my death? I mean, what else was going to happen? The beast didn't really seem the cuddly type...except for the strange smoke-hug feeling right before Jonah showed up. I was pretty sure, however, those claws weren't compatible with tender human flesh, hug-wise.

  "Because of Kinney?" I asked, pretending I knew nothing about Ava's dragon comment. "I thought you said you took care of it."

  "I did," he assured me. "It has nothing to do with Kinney or your father."

  "Where is Dad, anyway?" I asked suddenly, realizing I hadn't seen or heard from him since Jonah threw him out of the car. "Did he come home last night, do you know?"

  "Briefly," Jonah said. "Near sunrise, just long enough to grab a shower and fresh clothes and give me a good glare before he left again."

  "Left for where?" I asked, not expecting an answer. I was pretty sure I already knew. "Surely he's learned his lesson with gambling by now. After everything."

  "He was wearing a suit," Jonah shrugged. "But I didn't ask where he was headed."

  "A suit?" I gaped. I couldn't remember the last time I saw Dad in a suit. Actually, yes I could. It was at Mom's funeral. "Weird," I murmured suspiciously. What on earth was Dad wearing a suit for?

  "When you're done we'll head over to see the twins," Jonah said, changing the subject and taking his own clean plate to the sink. He wrapped up the rest of the pancakes and did the few dishes in the sink while I finished my second helping.

  Greg was easily spotted at the park in the middle of a throng of overeager single moms drooling at his feet. As Jonah and I approached, some of them started drooling at Jonah's feet as well while others glared at me like they hated me for simply walking next to him.

  "Joe," Greg smiled, shaking Jonah's hand affectionately and slapping him on the shoulder in greeting. "So you two finally decided to show up!" Greg gave me a goofy smile, earning me more glares from the gaggle of women around him—women, I noted, he didn't seem to notice at all. "Sleeping Beauty," he greeted me with a mocking bow.

  "Where are the—"

  "Evie!" I was barely given a warning before Addis ran at me from behind, knocking me forward into Greg. Jonah quickly pulled me back to my feet, scowling at Greg, who ignored him. "Ava said you were here!" Addis cried.

  "Hey, Addis," I smiled, hugging my brother. "Good to see you too, bud."

  "Greg is going to teach me how to kill a fish!" he declared proudly. I turned a questioning look to Greg, who held up his hands in surrender.

  "Fishing. I said we would go fishing," he corrected. "I never said anything about killing fish."

  "You promised fish dinner!" Addis pouted. "We have to kill the fish before we can eat it!" he pointed out, making us all laugh.

  "So we do," Greg agreed. "But I'll be doing the killing...er, cooking," he said. "You two catch, I cook," he winked at Addis.

  "Where's Ava?" I asked Addis.

  He pointed behind him to the playground. I spotted her near the slide, seemingly talking to herself, eyeing us worriedly, then talking to thin air again. Her friends were back. Hopefully not with more dragon predictions. One death sentence was enough for one day.

&
nbsp; "She's worried about you," Addis said with a frown. "Something important," he shrugged. "But she'll be okay with you, right?" he asked Jonah, tilting his head up and giving him an earnest look.

  "I'll protect her with my life," Jonah promised, glancing at me with a blush. I didn't know Jonah Carson was even capable of blushing! Teasing, smirking, flirting, threatening—certainly. But blushing was a new one.

  "Good," Addis nodded firmly, then hugged me tight again. "I told her you would be okay," he said to me, then ran back to the playground, shouting at Ava. Ava waved from where she stood but didn't come over, still talking to mid-air.

  "She's been doing that a lot lately," Greg commented, noticing the focus of my attention. "Addis said her friends aren't usually so talkative, but lately they've been around a lot more."