Gift OF DEATH
Lin augustine
GIFT OF DEATH
Copyright © 2020 by Lin Augustine.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Van Cunanan
Cover design by Lin Augustine
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Lover of Death
About the Author
Acknowledgments
To my friends and my sister
for encouraging me
Chapter 1
I love myself. I love myself. I love myself.
I read somewhere that if you say something to yourself over and over again, eventually you’ll come to believe it. Well, it’s been about five years since I started repeating that dumb phrase in my mind but I’m no closer to believing it now than back then.
“Chrys, wake up, okay?”
I glare over at Ron, who is hunched over the wheel of the stolen pickup truck, squinting to see the dark dirt road, thick with trees that scrape the sides of the truck. Ron is a big girl—big in height and big in muscles. I, on the other hand, am the kind of weak and scrawny girl that girls like Ron are compelled to either bully or protect. Both of us are now sporting little afros since we shaved our heads a couple months ago in an attempt to “go natural” and say bye bye to chemicals and straighteners and maintenance, but above all, to routine and structure and expectations.
“How many times do I gotta tell you I’m not sleeping?” I say.
“Well then talk to me, alright? I’m bored out of my mind and the stupid radio ain’t working.”
I sigh, my breath mingling with the air of the truck, so hot and stuffy despite having the windows open. I wish the A.C. worked. “We should dump this truck soon.”
“And then what? How else will we get to your magic camp?”
Anyone else would have said “magic camp” in a condescending tone, but not Ron, never Ron. She’s wrong about it being magic but I at least appreciate that she takes me seriously.
“I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this truck,” I say.
“It took us forever to yank it.” Ron slows down the truck even more since the road has gotten so bumpy that we jostle around in our seats constantly.
“I can sense some ‘magic’ people nearby. Maybe we should get out and walk.”
It’s the first time I’ve felt these tingles on the back of my neck. It’s like someone is hovering right behind me, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But even though it’s the first time, in my gut I know exactly what it means. We’re close. Close to people like me.
“How many?” she says.
“I don’t know. Not many, I think. Maybe just one or two.”
“Then they’re probably not the camp. Probably just strays like us. We haven’t got any flashlights and we should save the batteries on our phones, don’t you think? Probably not the smartest to go wandering into the forest in the middle of the night.”
I look out of the window. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness but I still can’t make out anything in the thick trees surrounding us. “I guess…”
I ball my hands into fists so tight that my nails dig into my palms. It’s not because I’m angry, but because I’m on edge. Whenever I’m on edge, my hands shake and I hate that about myself.
I love myself. I love myself. I love myself.
“Chrys! Don’t stop talking to me, man.” Ron is hunched over the wheel so much that I can’t see her face. “I feel like I’m gonna pass out if you do.”
“If you’re tired, let’s pull over so you can take a nap.”
“Here? Are you freaking crazy? What if some murderer comes up and gets us?”
I laugh, hollower than I intended. I hate that word. Murderer.
Murderer. Murderer.
I love myself. I love myself.
“Just talk to me and we won’t have to pull over and get killed.”
I let out a slow breath and relax my hands. I massage my palms, feeling a slight indentation there. I really should cut my nails soon before I start drawing blood.
When I feel like my voice is stable, I say, “What do you wanna talk about then?”
“Tell me more about the camp.”
“I’ve told you everything I know already. You know I don’t keep secrets from you.”
Ron scoffs. “Please. Keeping secrets is your most prominent personality trait.”
“I only keep the unimportant stuff secret.”
“If it’s unimportant, then why keep it a secret?”
“Because it’s so unimportant that it’s not even worth hearing. Just like me. Unimportant. Not worth anything.”
A tree branch slowly scrapes across the side of the truck.
Ron glances over at me. “Woah. Where’d that come from?”
I gulp. I didn’t mean to say that last part out loud. It was a slip from my dumb stupid mind. The kind of remarks my brain teases me with constantly. Probably because they’re true, right?
I love myself…
“Chrys!” Ron says.
I sigh loudly, present with Ron again, dragged out of those thoughts that weigh me down like cement blocks. “I was just joking around.”
“That’s not funny. That sounds like the kind of shit Mary used to say.”
Mary. Just the name alone makes me want to shudder. She was our foster mother—well, technically, she still is. If we’re caught now, they’d probably send us straight back to her, but we’d rather die—no, not die, not really. But we have no intention of ever going back. That’s why we dumped our hair and dumped our real names two months ago, opting for a tomboyish look that mismatched with our girly flower names, Chrysanthemum and Rhododendron. At first, we called each other the full thing, but now we like the inside joke of our seemingly normal sounding nicknames.
“I’m sorry,” I say, looking at her. “I just… I think I’m getting loopy from the lack of sleep. When morning comes, let’s find somewhere to dump this truck and get some rest, okay?”
“Fine.” Ron tu
rns her attention back to the road and gasps. “Shit!”
“What?” I look at the road.
One second, there’s a little boy standing in the middle of the road illuminated by the headlights. The next second, the truck jerks to a halt like it crashed into a wall—with way more force than it should have due to how slow we were going—and I’m punched in the face by airbags. My head is ringing and my vision is blurry.
I hear my door open.
“Is she awake?” a young boy’s voice says.
“I think so,” a slightly older sounding boy—the kind going through the voice-cracking stage of puberty—says. “I’ll take care of it.”
I feel a hand on my shoulder and then I’m plunged into darkness.
Chapter 2
A sharp slap across my cheek.
I gasp and open my eyes but I can’t see. I feel a piece of cloth tied tight around my eyes. I turn my head all around, trying to see from under the blindfold. I try to move my arms and legs but they’re tied down, confining me to the hard chair I’m sitting on. The tingles on the back of my neck have intensified.
“What is your gift?” that same young boy’s voice from earlier says.
I breathe heavily, mind whirring. Gifted. Yes, that’s what they actually call it. I almost forgot after being alone with Ron for so long. Ron always calls it “magical” instead. Neither of those words capture the true horror of it, but I suppose if I have to choose one, I’d prefer “magical.”
Ron. Is she here? Why isn’t she speaking?
I open my mouth to call for her but the boy continues speaking. “That other girl, she’s a normie. But you…” He whistles. “I need to know what your gift is.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s safe, for now. Tell me what your gift is and I’ll release her.”
“Tell me where she is first,” I say with a clenched jaw.
He scoffs. “She’s dead asleep, like you were. If you shout, she won’t hear you. She’s not here.”
I hear something like gravel crunching, as if he’s walking towards me. Gravel? There shouldn’t be any gravel here. The road was just dirt and the forest should be too. I don’t know where Ron is and I don’t know where I am either.
“Look,” the boy says, “I just want to know what your gift is. Tell me and I’ll let you and your friend go.”
I doubt he actually will. But on the off chance that he will, maybe I should just humor him. What can I say that will get him to leave me alone without telling him the truth? How about a half-truth?
“I… I don’t know.” I pull against the restraints tying my arms to the arms of the chair but they don’t budge. “I don’t know what it is.”
He’s silent for a bit. “That’s impossible. It likely destroyed your childhood. That’s how it is for everyone.”
I frown, trying to push down those memories. Those memories…
I love myself.
“You’re lying!” he shouts.
I flinch. For a moment, I think he heard what my thoughts and caught me in that lie.
“Tell me what your gift is.” His voice has an edge to it.
I relax a bit. There’s no way he’s telepathic, otherwise he’d have already figured out my “gift” without having to ask like this. “I don’t know how it works, okay? That’s the honest truth.”
“No one knows how it works. But the effect—the effect should be obvious. What is it?”
My hands are trembling. I want to ball them up but there’s no room.
I hear more crunching of gravel and I feel a sudden breeze pass over me, as if from a window or door or something.
“That’s enough,” a woman’s voice says—or maybe she’s a teen girl, around my age? “Who authorized you to do this?”
“Tam and I were hunting in the forest and we sensed her.”
“So you kidnapped her and tied her up?” Gravel crunches as she steps closer. “If she’s one of us, she’s welcome here. End of story.”
“But she won’t say what her gift is!”
“Then that’s her choice and you know that.” She says that word heavily, not as if she’s trying to emphasize it, but as if she can’t help but weigh it down. “Untie her at once.”
“But she’s strong,” he whines.
“You think I don’t know that? Untie her.”
The boy mutters as he walks over loudly and releases my legs, then my arms and finally, the blindfold.
I look around. This isn’t a room, but some kind of narrow tent that’s a head taller than me, and I’m pretty short. It’s still a bit dark, but the reddish tinge of sunlight is starting to creep inside. There’s nothing else inside of here except us and the chair, yet it feels so crowded.
The young boy is a blond hair, blue eyed kid with an arrogant-looking face. His head, limp hair hanging down to his cheeks, reaches my chest. He’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts. The shirt has writing on it, but I can’t quite make out what it says in the dim light.
The woman—no, she must be just a teenager—is about the same height as me. She has similar clothes as the boy, but her shirt is purple, whereas his is blue. A long, thick mass of loose dark curls obscure most of her face. I have always wanted that kind of curly hair—the kind that hangs down instead of up, and bounces and dances.
Ron really isn’t in here like that boy said. I feel a ball of panic well up as I wonder where she could be. But I also have no clue where I am, so I should figure that out first and then find Ron.
“Where am I?” I ask.
The girl walks over and pulls me up to my feet gently. From here, I can see her tan skin and dark brown almond eyes. As she smiles, the deep sadness and weariness in her eyes remain. “This is where you were coming, right?”
“Camp Amaryllis?”
It’s the official name of what Ron calls the magic camp. We gave ourselves the flower names in honor of it, after I first heard about it just three months ago and told Ron I wished I could go there. And she said, then let’s go, let’s go. We had no clue where exactly we were going, but we went, we went.
The girl nods. “I’m Valeria, but you can call me Val. And this is Jayden.”
As she points at the little blond boy, he huffs and looks down with crossed arms.
“And you are?” she asks.
“Chrys, with a y.”
“Chrys, you don’t have to tell anyone about your gift, okay? No one knows mine either.” She looks down at the boy. “Jayden, since you seem so intent on knowing people’s gifts, why don’t you go ahead and tell her what yours is?”
He huffs again. “It’s no secret. You tell her if you want.” Then he stomps his way out of the tent, less graceful than he probably intended due to the gravel crunching under his feet.
After we both watch him go, Valeria—I refuse to call anyone by a nickname other than Ron—turns back to me and tucks a curl behind her ear, but it doesn’t do much to get the hair out of her face.
She looks me in the eyes, a strong unwavering gaze. Her eyes, containing that sadness, hold something else, too. It’s a kind of… knowing, and it’s very unsettling.
“He’s an alright kid once you get to know him,” Valeria says. “But you should know that we generally fall into two camps here. Some, like Jayden, think everyone should know each other’s gifts but others, like me, think it’s unnecessary. Regardless of personal opinions, Amaryllis’s official policy is that it’s up to you to share or not, so don’t feel pressured by them, okay?”
I nod and gesture to the tent around us. “So Amaryllis is literally a camp, with tents and sleeping bags and stuff?”
She chuckles. “No, no. This is just a scouting mission. We’re heading back to HQ once the sun rises.”
“What were you scouting for?”
She puts her hand on her chin and looks up. “There’s a group of g
iftists around here. We like to keep tabs on them, making sure they don’t have info about our HQ whereabouts and won’t attack us and whatnot.”
“Giftists?”
“Yeah, you know, normies who hate the gifted.”
“Ah, sure…”
She smiles. “Don’t worry. You’ll catch on to all the terminology soon enough.”
“Oh, um, speaking of ‘normies’ my friend is here with me and—”
Her eyes open wide. “No, absolutely not.”
“No?”
“Amaryllis isn’t for normies. She can’t come with us.”
“But she’s my friend and she isn’t a ‘giftist’’or whatever. She’s nice, I swear.”
“Have you told her about your gift?”
“Sort of—”
“Has she seen a gift being used firsthand?”
“I would never use my gift on—”
“Has she seen any gift at all?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then absolutely not. You think she’s nice now, but you don’t know how she’ll react, Chrys.”
“And you think you know? She’s—”
“I do know,” she says through gritted teeth. “Trust me, I know.”
I take a step back, tripping into the chair behind me, forcing me to sit down. Her eyes… I ball my hands into fists on my lap. Her eyes are deep with that same sadness but that unsettling knowing has multiplied and taken over. Angry and furious and sad, so sad.
Valeria closes her eyes and I’m finally released from her gripping gaze. A tear falls down her cheek and she wipes it off impatiently.
I stand up again, shakily. “Okay, I’m not doubting you, Valeria. But Ron is my only friend, and we’ve been through hell together. People like us, us so-called ‘gifted, we’re not the only ones who suffer. We’re not the only ones who need a refuge. If I abandon Ron, she’ll have to go back to hell, and I’ll never let that happen.”
Valeria, still with her eyes closed but no more tears now, sighs. “Fine. I’ll leave it up to Li to decide. She’s in charge at HQ. Your friend can come with us, but she’ll have to be blindfolded. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Gift of Death (Gifted Book 1) Page 1
