Ash and Ember: Book 2 of the Scorched Trilogy

by Lizzy Prince

  “I found this in one of the desk drawers in the den,” Mari said as she slapped the phone book onto the island.

  “I don’t think that map is up to date,” I said when I saw how old the phonebook was.

  “It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged. “The landscape is essentially the same, so this should give us her general location.”

  It sounded so easy, and I had to wonder why Ryan and Munro hadn’t done this years ago. Mari answered my question before I had a chance to say it out loud.

  “This is a long shot. Hattie probably still has some kind of cloaking spell that she’s using, but we have to try, right?” she said to no one in particular. She didn’t have to justify her actions to me. I’d give anything a try at this point.

  Mari held the bowl up over the map and tipped it over. The dirty blob of gel and herbs plopped onto the map with a little splat, and I couldn’t seem to mask the disgusted look on my face when it almost splashed up on me. Mari chuckled quietly but quickly started murmuring the words of the spell, locus dicere, over and over again until I was almost hypnotized by the sound.

  After a few minutes where the little blob just sat on top of the page, Mari sighed and leaned back, shaking her head.

  “No good,” she said to me before she shouted in the direction of the living room, “It’s a no go on the tracking.”

  She lowered her voice back to normal decibels and turned to me. “She must have a cloaking spell.”

  “What would the little blob do if she didn’t have a cloaking spell?” I was intrigued by this little piece of magic. Well, with all of it really.

  “It would move over the page until it stayed on the spot where she was camped out at.”

  Mari started picking up all of her supplies and closed the phone book, smooshing the blob in between the pages.

  “I’m going to bake cookies. I think we need cookies for Christmas. You want to help?” She turned to me with a hopeful smile on her face.

  “Sure. Just as long as you don’t expect me to do any of the baking. I have whatever the baking equivalent is of a brown thumb.”

  Mari laughed and grabbed a list she’d written out from the corner of the counter. “You can just keep me company while I bake. How about that?”

  “Deal.”

  “Ryan, will you take me to get supplies?” she called out as she grabbed her coat from the front closet, and he jumped up to grab his own coat. They were out the door before anyone could put in any specific cookie requests.

  Wandering back into the living room, I saw Theo putting some ornaments on the tree, and I strolled over to his side to help.

  “Want some help decorating the tree?” I asked, already pulling out a fragile spun glass bulb from one of the boxes Mari had found.

  “Do you pagan ass witches even celebrate Christmas? Do you have to sacrifice a chicken or something first?” Theo smirked as his words dripped with sarcasm. I had to wonder if he was ever serious.

  “Jesus, Theo.” I laughed.

  “Exactly. Are you going to get your witch cards taken away because you’re celebrating Jesus’s birthday?” He was grinning at me, enjoying our blasphemous conversation.

  “You know I had a present for you, but I think I’ll give it to Lola instead.” I narrowed my eyes and pinched my face up like I’d eaten something sour.

  “What? You know she’d probably throw anything you gave her in the fire,” he said pointing to the roaring flames burning in the fireplace. I tossed him an irritated look because he was probably right.

  “Fine, but you really don’t deserve it.” Theo reached over and hugged me quickly following the embrace with a hair riffling that he couldn’t seem to resist giving me.

  “Don’t say that, cuz. You know you love me,” he cackled gleefully while smushing my hair into a tangled mess.

  “Gah! Get off me,” I laughed, pushing him away with a huff that was more for show than heartfelt.

  Munro chose that moment to walk into the room with Lola at his side. Much too close if anyone wanted my opinion. He took in my flushed face and messed up hair and frowned at us while Lola looked irritated. Although with her I wasn’t sure who that emotion was directed at. She flounced into the room looking chic in tight dark jeans and a chunky sweater. She looked like she’d spent all day skiing at some expensive chalet as she sat down primly in one of the chairs.

  “Do you guys have to wrestle like you’re five-year-old’s?” she said with a flippant tone, but I caught the slight edge to her voice as she turned to glare at Theo.

  He took advantage of the opening and sat down on her lap forcing a little ompf from her lips. He slid his arm behind her neck and pulled her face in close to his. “Don’t be jealous, Lo. We can wrestle later if you want. Just not in front of an audience, okay? Not really my style.”

  Lola pushed him off her lap with a powerful shove, and he landed on the floor laughing. “Alright. If you’re that desperate for me, here is as good a place as any.”

  “Pig,” Lola spat at him as she stood up and stomped out of the room. Theo looked up from the ground with a devilish expression on his face while he tried to look innocent.

  “Do you think it was something I said?”

  Munro and I had both watched the entire episode in silence. He had a confused look on his face, but I was just perplexed. Even though Lola acted put off, there had been a definite spark in her eyes when Theo had touched her. It appeared that all the buddy time was chiseling through those crispy outer layers of Lola’s anger.

  After a moment Munro turned to me and spoke, “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Um, sure,” I tucked an escaped lock of hair behind my ear like I was all cool and nonchalant but my heart was beating erratically.

  Things were still weird between us, but it didn’t stem from anger with him any longer. Foolish or not, I had quickly forgiven him after the warehouse. The death of my parents and my recent introduction to the family I’d never known, had lit an understanding in me that I hadn’t had before. Life was short and unpredictable. I didn’t want to waste time being angry for something that had been out of his control. Maggie playing devil’s advocate had made me think about why he’d kept secrets from a different perspective. I understood why he’d kept the secret about Hattie being his mother. And I understood his actions at the warehouse had not been his own. I knew that he would never hurt me if he could help it.

  Theo got up off the floor and settled in the chair Lola had just vacated. “Is that your way of asking me to leave?” he asked Munro, pointing his thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen like he was asking if that’s where we wanted him to go.

  Munro responded before I could even think of what to say. “No, you stay, we’ll go.”

  Theo waved us off, and I followed Munro upstairs and into his bedroom. I had a flashback to the day we’d sat on his floor and I’d connected to the magic for the first time. It felt like it was both a thousand years ago and just a blink since that day. There was still only the single hard backed desk chair and the bed for seats, so I choose to stand and wait for him to let me know why he wanted to talk.

  Munro strode over to his desk and opened up one of the drawers while I stood with uncertainty in the middle of the room. He grabbed something from inside the drawer, but it was closed tightly inside his hand so I couldn’t tell what he was holding. He looked more relaxed than I’d seen him in days. Though I had no idea why since things were more of a cluster now than they’d been even the day before, when we’d had a person tied up in the den downstairs. Munro turned to face me before he slowly came to stand in front of me.

  “I wanted to give this back to you,” he said, opening his fist and letting a long silver chain and charm dangle from his fingers.

  “My mom’s necklace,” I gasped, and felt my fingers tingle and itch to touch the charm. I’d almost forgotten he’d had it. “Did you check it out?” I asked, my eyes darting back and forth between the charm and Munro.

  “Yes, and it’s
fine. No spells, no hexes.” He lifted the chain, lowering it over my head, pulling my hair out so that the chain rested against the skin of my neck. His fingers trailed down the length of the chain until they found the charm, and he carefully lowered it to rest between my breasts. He was looking at me like he hadn’t seen me in years, and I was his long-lost love. There was a soul-deep need in his eyes and it was only for me.

  “Why do you think Hattie left it for me that night?” My eyes never left him and though we were talking about the necklace, I was diving into the gray depths before me and getting lost in what I saw there. Need, heartache, love. The feelings were so heady I felt myself sway, and Munro reached out to hold my arms and keep me steady, the smallest electric pulse sparking between us.

  “I think she was proving a point. That she could get to you anytime she wanted.”

  “Why do you think she didn’t just kill me?” My voice was low because my words felt harsh. Munro’s eyes shifted between both of mine, and he looked resigned.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I believe she was trying to prove she wasn’t a monster.”

  “Do you think she’s a monster?” I asked, very aware that this was his mother we were talking about.

  “Yes. And no.” He dropped his hands back down to his sides, but his body was still only a few inches from me. His chest just barely brushed against me as he took a deep breath, and I trembled from the contact. Munro was looking at my lips, but I could tell his mind was somewhere else entirely.

  “I understand how pain and loss can twist someone until they are nearly unrecognizable. And maybe that pain caused her to do bad things.” The tips of his fingers brushed against the back of my hand like he needed some sort of contact to continue speaking. “But she was the one who created that pain. She chose to do what she did to my father. Out of greed and the desperation for more power.”

  I didn’t speak, just listened, sensing he needed to get all of this off his chest. Wanting to support him, I turned my hand and laced my fingers through his.

  “People endure difficult things every day, but it’s no excuse to do more damage to someone else.”

  As if waking from a dream, Munro’s eyes lost their shadowed look with a blink when he looked down and stared at my hand as though surprised to find it holding his.

  “I’m sorry about everything, Annie.”

  “I know.” I sighed. “It’s not fair of me to blame you for someone else’s sins. If that was the case, you would have just as much right to be angry at me.”

  Munro tilted his head at me. “Why would you say that?”

  “I don’t know how much of what Hattie told me about my mom is true, but even if a part of it is, then my mom had a hand in what Hattie became.”

  Munro’s head was shaking before I finished speaking, “No, you can’t blame your mom for Hattie’s actions. What she did was out of her own greed for power. Don’t allow her to place the blame on your mom.”

  I lowered my eyes as the weight of his words sank into me. It was as if I were carrying the burden of everyone else’s actions on my shoulders, and I didn’t know how to let go of those things that didn’t belong to me.

  “I know why I can’t access my magic,” I said instead of prolonging the other painful of conversation.

  My head was still lowered, and Munro gently tipped my chin up with his fingers, trailing them over my jaw and down to the pulse beating vibrantly on my neck. He left them there, his fingers feeling the evidence of life thrumming beneath his touch. “Why?”

  “I’ve iced it in.” I swallowed, feeling vulnerable with what I was about to admit. “After my parents died, it wasn’t like I cut myself off from the world, but I wasn’t living in it. I had Maggie and Sara, but I didn’t want to open myself up to new people.” I took a deep breath as Munro softly caressed my skin with his thumb.

  “When you came along, you worked your way into my life and melted a little of that ice.”

  Munro clenched his jaw and looked down at me with regret and need. “And I lied to you.”

  “I think I shut down after that. I’ve built up this wall to protect myself, and I don’t know how to tear it down.” I looked him in the eye as I spoke, willing him to see that I’d been hurt, but I was trying to figure out how to move forward. Because it didn’t feel worth it to hold on to this pain any longer.

  Munro brought both hands up to my face, cupping my cheeks with an aching tenderness. He lowered his forehead to mine and we stood, connected, breathing in the same air, while I felt his guilt thrum through him as if I had a direct line to his emotions.

  “I wanted to protect you, but I was wrong about how I did it,” he murmured, his breath a whisper over my lips.

  I lifted my hands up to wrap around his wrists, holding on while his hands cupped my cheeks. The little spark of electricity flared between us softly, but still not as powerful as it should have been.

  “How about next time, we work together to protect each other?” I pulled back slightly so he could see the half-smile on my face.

  “Teamwork makes the dream work,” he said, a teasing glint shining in his eyes.

  “Oh my God, not you too.” I laughed.

  “What can I say, Theo is like a contagious disease. He rubs off on everyone he comes in contact with,” Munro said, and I threw my head back in laughter.

  Being in Munro’s arms, feeling happy, it felt right. I smiled up at him, feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. Downstairs, we could hear good-natured bantering and Munro tipped his head in the direction of the door.

  “Should we go decorate a tree?”

  Sliding my fingers over the charm that was back around my neck where it belonged, I smirked. “We’d better go before Lola kills Theo.”

  “I’m not getting in the middle of that fight.” Munro pretended to cringe in pain, and we both ended up laughing as we made our way downstairs.

  Chapter 17

  The mood was considerably lighter when we made our way back down to the living room. Theo and Lola were decorating the tree, and I swore she giggled just before we entered the room. It was obvious I still wasn’t Lola’s favorite person because she gave me an annoyed look, and her features rearranged into a scowl when she saw me. Theo, seeing her sour face, kept pretending to lose his balance when hanging ornaments and stumbled into her teasingly, again and again. Lola swatted him away, but I could see her trying hard not to smile. Butch was in the kitchen eating a sandwich and reading a book, looking peaceful in his own bubble, while Ryan and Mari were still at the store.

  “Need some help?” I asked as I made my way over to the box of ornaments. The tree was almost completely covered in the sparkly glass bulbs, but I had to do at least a little Christmas decorating.

  Munro sidled up beside me to help, but his phone buzzing diverted his attention from the merry scene in front of us. He pulled out the phone from his hoodie pocket and answered.

  “Hey. What’s up?” A look of confusion crossed Munro’s face, and he momentarily pulled the phone from his face to look at the caller id. “Uh… yes… Who is this?” He paused to listen as the person on the other end spoke. “What happened?”

  There was alarm in his voice that grabbed my full attention and all the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Theo and Lola turned from the tree and were looking at Munro with equal parts concern and dread. Butch appeared in the arched entry from the kitchen to the living room and leaned against the wall as he listened. Worry evident in his kind eyes.

  Staring at the creases in between Munro’s eyes as his brow furrowed in concern, I strained to try to hear what the person on the other end of the phone was saying.

  “Okay. Okay. Yes. Can you tell me if there was a woman with him?” Munro said in an infuriatingly one-sided conversation that provided just enough detail to have us all frozen with fear. Listening intently, his eyes darted around as though he was unable to focus on any one thing.

  He ended the call and looked over the room. “Ryan
was in an accident. He’s at the hospital.”

  “Mari?” Theo asked, the color leaching out of his face.

  “I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me about anyone other than Ryan.”

  Real terror started to suffocate me as Munro grabbed his keys and a coat. “What kind of accident?”

  “There was an explosion at the store,” Munro responded, throwing me my coat. “Let’s go.”

  Trying to squeeze all five of us into the front cab of Munro’s Ranger would have been comical if we weren’t all scared shitless. Munro’s truck was our only vehicle because Ryan and Mari had taken his car. I was surprised when Munro handed over his keys to Butch but quickly realized that if Munro was driving, I would have had to sit on Butch’s lap. As it was, Lola was on Theo’s lap, and I would need to sit on top of Munro.

  I tried to condense myself into as small of a space as possible, but Munro’s arms still had to wrap around me, one slung over my thighs and the other essentially holding my ass. No one spoke as Butch drove us to the hospital at a breakneck speed. He whipped the truck into the first parking spot he could find, and we tumbled out of the open doors and sprinted toward the emergency room entrance.

  The waiting area was dated and dingy with floors that were covered in peeling yellowed laminate tiles. The wallpaper was beige with little flowers dotting it and a hideous brown border with a decorative scroll pattern. The chairs were utilitarian and the same brown as the wallpaper border, making the whole place feel dirty and unsterile which wasn’t comforting considering we were in a hospital.

  Munro and Theo both dashed to the receptionist’s window and she lazily slid open the glass partition that separated her from the rabble of the waiting room. Lola and I both stood back, waiting for the guys to finish talking to the receptionist while Butch lingered somewhere between us both. Munro moved away first, running his hand through his hair in frustration. I met him halfway and reached out to grasp his arm gently.

  “What did they say?”

  “Not much. Just that they’re back there, and a doctor will be out soon to talk with us.”