The Arcadia Falls Chronicles: Omnibus (Books 1-6)

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  “Chloe.” He said softly.

  “No, I’m sick of this. I think my opinion should be considered.”

  I looked at Alice and Oscar for support, and both of them lowered their eyes toward the table.

  “Oh, come on, you guys.”

  Alice looked up at me. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I’ll go along with whatever you decide, but I’m not getting in the middle of this.”

  Oscar nodded, “To be honest, I’m all for taking that place out. But, like Alice said, I’m not getting in the middle of it. You guys are going to have to figure this out for yourselves.”

  “Fine.” I shoved my chair back and grabbed my bag. “Have it your way, Drew. Everyone always does what you want anyway, so I know that my idea is a lost cause.”

  “Chloe.” He stood up to follow me.

  “No! Don’t even bother.” I tried not to run through the library and didn’t even stop for Linda when she called my name. I hurried out the door, letting it slam shut behind me.

  I just ran, not even really knowing which direction I was going. I just wanted away from them. Everyone always did what Drew said. Most of the time he was right, but it really burned me that he wasn’t in agreement with me on this. How come he was always the one who had the final say on everything?

  Out of breath and panting, I found myself at the pond where Gavin had brought me last year.

  I stared at the pond. It’s flat surface completely calm, mirroring the pristine snow and the leafless trees surrounding it. Snowflakes drifted down and melted into the water without marring the perfection of the glassy surface.

  I remembered that day I came here with Gavin. He had shown me his beautiful gift. Controlling the water and making it rise up out of the pond, swirling around in a sort of reverse whirlpool. That day was the day he and I connected.

  Why was I here?

  I felt a few hot tears slide down my cold cheeks. Damn it, I missed him. I wanted my friend back, and now we didn’t even talk. I was fire, and he was water. We were incompatible, but I didn’t want to be compatible, I just wanted to be his friend.

  Slowly, I walked toward the water.

  He was Drew’s brother, and it seemed that they were never going to get along. I felt so bad for Drew. He’d had to spend every day running into his mother, who had left him; and his brother, who was the reason she’d left him.

  I knelt down into the snow. It soaked into the calves of my jeans, but I didn’t care. Being careful not to fall in, I slowly reached out and touched my fingertips to the icy water. Immediately, rings spread out around my hand, rippling across the water, ruining its perfection.

  Suddenly, the ripples in the water began to... vibrate. My fingertips in the water tingled like my foot did when it fell asleep. I yanked my hand back out of the water and fell backward onto my butt, not taking my eyes off the water.

  The ripples rose out of the water, forming droplets, like rain going the wrong way. The droplets mingled with the snowflakes in a beautiful dance.

  I felt my heartbeat slow and turned my head to look behind me. “Gavin?”

  I heard splashing as the droplets fell back down into the water. He grinned, his green eyes glowing. “Who else?”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him, still not moving from my spot in the snow.

  He shrugged and moved forward. “This is my spot. The question is: What are you doing here?”

  He plopped down into the snow beside me, not seeming to care if he got his own jeans wet.

  He looked rather good in those jeans. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking things like that since I had a boyfriend, but still, a girl could notice. I would have to have been blind not to notice.

  “I just came out here to do some thinking.” I shrugged like it was no big deal.

  “I thought you were doing most of your thinking up at the falls, with Drew.”

  I flipped my hair back over my shoulder. “How would you know that? And what do you care anyway?”

  I know because it’s not a secret. You guys are up there all the time. And I do care, because I care about...” he trailed off.

  “What?” I demanded. “You care about what? Enough to know where Drew and I spend all our time?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Chloe. You know why.”

  I forced myself to abandon my defense and tore my eyes away from his to stare out at the water again.

  “Yeah, I know why.” We were both silent after that, just sitting there.

  Then, suddenly, Gavin reached out and took my hand. I tried to yank it back. I didn’t want to hold his hand. That was like cheating.

  “No,” I told him, and he released me as suddenly as he had reached out.

  “Okay, okay,” he held up his hands. “Listen, I think you need to know that I have to leave for a while.”

  “Are you going on mission?” I asked.

  “No, not really,” he looked away.

  “Well, why are you leaving then?”

  “I just need to get away from here. I thought that I could handle being around you and Drew, but I can’t. I hate seeing you with him.”

  I bought into the guilt trip. Casting aside all worries about cheating, I reached out and put my hand over his. “Look, I don’t want you to leave because of me... because of us. Please stay.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. I need to get away from here for a while.” He flipped his hand so that our hands were palm to palm and laced his fingers with mine. “But you need to know, I don’t intend on letting him have you forever. I am going to come back, eventually, and when I do, I have every intention of fighting for you.”

  For a moment, I was speechless. He was sitting here telling me that he planned on trying to win me over, away from Drew.

  “Gavin... I...” I didn’t get any more of the sentence out, because before I knew it, he had pulled me forward and crushed his lips into mine.

  Every single nerve in my body danced, and the warmth of my fire heated my body.

  Heaven, help me, I kissed him back. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t resist. I just kissed him until he pulled his lips away from mine and jumped to his feet. “Remember that, Chloe. Remember me, because I’m coming back, and we are going to be together.”

  Holy Moly. What in the world just happened?

  I sat there in the snow feeling horrible. I kissed the one guy Drew hated, and that very same guy was apparently in love with me and declared that he was going to fight for me if he had to.

  “Oh, no,” I muttered to myself and picked myself up off the snow. As I stood, I felt eyes on me. Suddenly nervous, I scanned the edge of the woods. The feeling was right. Drew stood there, among the trees, watching me.

  Our eyes locked, and I wanted to sink into the ground. Damn, damn, damn!

  Simply by the hurt in his eyes, I knew he had seen us kiss. He said nothing, pulled his beanie down over his ears and turned away, leaving me to drown myself in my own guilt.

  ~~~***~~~

  One of the things that bothered me the most about having to share my room with Alice was that when I wanted to be alone, I couldn’t. That evening, everyone pretty much steered clear and left me alone when they realized things weren’t right with Drew and me.

  Monday droned on at school, and I skipped dinner because I knew Drew would be there. Shortly after they finished eating, Alice crept into the bedroom. I lay on the purple comforter and stared at the ceiling and thought about how I was going to fix the problem.

  “Chloe?”

  “Leave me alone.” I rolled over onto my side.

  She crawled onto the bed beside me. “Maybe you should talk to Drew. He seems pretty upset, too. I don’t know what happened, but it can’t be so bad you can’t fix things.”

  “It is that bad, Alice. He saw Gavin kiss me.”

  “Hmmm.” She thought for a bit. “That is bad, but if he kissed you, I’m sure it was obvious that you didn’t instigate it.”

  “I kissed him back. This wasn’t a peck on the cheek.”

>   “Oh.”

  I wanted to start crying all over again. I knew how I would feel if I had seen that happen between him and Christina. I would have been furious, and there would have been more to deal with than Drew’s method of silent treatment.

  “I know I have to talk to him,” I told her.

  We were both quiet for a while, and then Alice stood. “You said you were going to try and help me with the magic stuff. Did you want to work on some of that now? It might take your mind off of stuff.”

  I sighed. I wanted to procrastinate, but I told her I would help her. It needed to be done. She was right, too. It might take my mind off of stuff.

  “All right. I suppose it’s time to stop wallowing and get on with my life. I know things will be okay.”

  I went into the bathroom to get both of the candles that were sitting on the counter and brought them into the bedroom. Setting them both down on the cool hardwood floor of my bedroom, I sat down cross-legged and gestured for Alice to sit opposite of me. Once she was settled I held out my finger and let the fire come. When a little flame appeared at the tip of my finger, I smiled and held it to the wick of one of the candles. I didn’t light the other one. I left that one for Alice.

  “In all those books,”—I extinguished my flame—“it says fire is one of the more basic elements a witch will learn in the beginning. I am pretty sure I can help you with that. I receive my power from angels and gods, but you will get yours from nature, from everything around you, and the pure energy in the air.”

  I felt strange, like I knew exactly what I was doing and was supposed to be doing it. Like the words were being fed to me to say just the right thing to Alice.

  “Now, to start, close your eyes and think about bringing all the energy into your body. Try to mentally fill yourself with it.”

  Alice closed her eyes and held her hands out palm up.

  She opened her eyes after a few minutes of sitting there and nothing happening. “Nothing,” she sighed, exasperated.

  “You have to concentrate. For me, it happens when I imagine that I’m literally pulling from the energy around me.” I thought for a minute. “Maybe if you concentrate on pulling from the earth, like the trees and plants and things like that. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure you’re not going to make fire from your palms like I do. So maybe you should focus that energy on the candle. Try to light the other candle.”

  She nodded. “All right.”

  Again, she closed her eyes. This time she left her hands down on her legs. She seemed more relaxed this time. While I watched, she breathed in deeply through her nose and out her mouth in a meditational way. I said nothing, keeping my own energy at bay so she didn’t accidentally pull from me. I wasn’t sure that could happen, but I had read a bit on channeling, and I didn’t want her to accidentally channel me. She needed to learn her own focus first.

  The wick sparked.

  I gasped unintentionally, and Alice’s eyes flew open. “What?”

  I shook my head. “Try again! The wick on the candle sparked!”

  Her eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed with warmth. “It did?”

  “Yes.” I nodded vigorously “Try again!”

  I think the spark gave her confidence. Confidence meant a lot when trying to focus energy. She closed her eyes again. That time, it took far less time for the candle to spark. I smiled while she breathed and focused because I knew it was going to work. We had done it.

  “Keep going,” I urged

  The flame jumped to life as a gigantic lick of orange, and then settled to normal size candle flame.

  “Open your eyes, Alice.” I knew my cheesy grin had to be from ear to ear. She opened her eyes and saw the flame of the candle burning bright.

  “I did it,” she whispered.

  “You did it!” I whispered back, excitedly.

  She shook her head. “You didn’t do this, did you?”

  My smile disappeared. “Why would I do that?”

  “To make me think I can, for confidence or something.”

  “Actually, that thought never occurred to me. This one is all you.”

  She finally let herself smile. “Let’s do it again!”

  And we did, over and over and over again for hours, until Alice merely had to close her eyes and the flame would appear.

  ~~~***~~~

  It was time to talk to Drew. Whether he wanted to talk about it or not, it had to be done. A week had passed, and things were weird in the house because of us. After school the next Monday, I found him at the gym, beating the crap out of a hanging punching bag.

  I wore my workout clothes. Even though we were fighting, I had still kept up with my after-school training the previous week. I just hadn’t been doing it at the gym. He was doing a great job of ignoring me at home, too. Not that I tried very hard to be around him.

  I stood back and watched him. He was shirtless with only his workout shorts on. His muscles rippled each time he slammed his fists into the bag.

  “Drew,” I approached him slowly, “we have to talk.”

  “There is nothing to talk about,” he told me and kicked the bag with a round house.

  “Yes, there is.”

  “No, you made it clear what you want. There is no reason to talk about it.”

  I sighed. “I understand why you’re angry. I would feel the same way.”

  Kick, punch, kick.

  I tried to ignore the fact that he was doing his best to ignore me.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I told him.

  He spun around toward me so fast I took a couple of steps backward.

  “You didn’t do anything? You kissed him!”

  I shook my head. I really didn’t want to blame Gavin, but I had to. “He kissed me. I didn’t kiss him.”

  “I saw you.” He spun and hit the bag again, causing it to swing backward.

  “You saw him kissing me. I didn’t instigate it or ask him to do it. I went there to be alone, and he showed up.”

  “I know what I saw.” Right, left, right, left, he let loose several quick punches and then stopped, lowering his taped hands.

  I reached out to touch him, and he jerked away.

  “Seriously?” I cried out. “Fine!”

  I don’t know what happened to me but I lost all sense of trying to be civil and punched him in the stomach, hard.

  “What the....” He crouched a little bit because he hadn't expected it.

  “Oh, my god! I’m sorry!” I stepped forward out of instinct to make sure he was okay. His surprised eyes were wide, but I couldn’t read what was in them.

  Then he lowered himself and with one quick sweep of his leg, he knocked me to the ground. I landed on my back as the air gushed out of my lungs.

  “Drew!”

  I tried to get up, but he was on top of me holding my arms down.

  “Knock it off,” I grunted at him.

  “No. You want to play it this way, we can play it this way.”

  “I didn’t kiss him. I just responded to him.” I flung my legs up and wrapped them around his neck. “I’m sorry.”

  I yanked down with my legs and Drew fell back. I kept my legs around his neck and squeezed.

  “Chloe,” he wheezed out as my thighs tightened around his neck. He grabbed my legs and tried to pry them away from him, but I squeezed harder.

  “Damn it, Drew. I picked you. I’m not a cheater.”

  “Sure looked like you were.” He finally pried my legs away and escaped. I turned over and tried to crawl away, but didn’t get far. He grabbed my legs and yanked me back toward him, then tried to straddle me again.

  Furious, I slammed my fist into his cheek bone.

  He didn’t say anything, but he grabbed my hands again and held them above me while I lay flat on the mat. I tried with my legs again, but he had already been taken that way so he was onto me. I wiggled and squirmed beneath him.

  “Let me go. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

  He
lowered his head until our lips were almost touching and stared me in the eye. “I don’t want you to leave me alone. I want to be yours, alone. I don’t like sharing, especially with him.”

  “Drew,” I sighed and relaxed my body. His lips came just a little bit closer.

  “You know, Chloe. This sort of thing really doesn’t help my trust issues.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I don’t know what else to say. I love you.” The last came out as a whisper.

  Suddenly he was crushing his lips against mine and tingles shot through my body. At the same time, there was a huge burst of applause. Startled, Drew and I both turned our heads and every single person in the gym was clapping and even a few ‘woohoos’ came from our unexpected audience.

  “Oh, my god,” I whispered as I hid my face in Drew’s neck.

  He laughed and rolled off of me. “Well, it’s not like it’s been a secret that we’ve been fighting. This is a small town, and everyone knows everything about everyone here."

  “Wonderful,” I moaned.

  Our audience was disbanding and going back to their workouts.

  Drew held his hand out and helped me to my feet.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he told me, bringing me close to him for another super-awesome kiss.

  “I won’t,” I mumbled against his lips.

  I couldn’t help but think of Gavin’s lingering words about fighting for me. At least he would be gone for a while, and we wouldn’t have to worry about it.

  I just wished they could get along so we could be friends.

  ~~~***~~~

  “The whole gym was watching you guys!” Alice exclaimed.

  She was placing about fifteen candles around the bedroom.

  I lay on the bed watching her. “Yeah, it was super embarrassing, but I’m glad it happened.”

  “I wish I could have been there to see it.”

  “I imagine it was probably a good show. I’m sure people are going to be talking about that one for a while.”

  Alice finished setting up her last candle and rubbed her hands together. “Okay, are you ready?”

  I nodded and she stood in the center of the room and closed her eyes. I felt a rush of air sweep through the room and then all the candles flamed to life. I smiled.

  “Open your eyes, Alice.”