The Naturals Trilogy

by Madeline Freeman

  “I kinda… had plans tonight.”

  “With the charming Clarissa Perry, no doubt,” Orrick said. When three sets of surprised eyes turned in his direction, Orrick just chuckled. “I am not without the resources to be well-informed.” He smiled, turning his full attention to Corbin. “Miss Perry is, of course, welcome to accompany you, if you and she are able to accept that some areas of the party might be off-limits to her.”

  For a moment, Corbin seemed dumbstruck by the terms, but finally he managed to say, “Um, sure.”

  Orrick clasped his hands together. “Splendid. Well, the event doesn’t begin until later tonight. You’ll be picked up between eight and eight fifteen. Until then, Kellen will take you home.” Orrick nodded toward the elevator and Morgan turned to see Kellen standing there. She immediately wondered how long he’d been there, and how he’d known to come back for them.

  Morgan stood but didn’t move toward Kellen. While Orrick had given them a lot of information, she realized he hadn’t touched on the subject she most wanted to know about. Did he know anything about her mother? She opened her mouth to ask a question, but at the same moment, Kellen cleared his throat.

  When she glanced back at him, Kellen jerked his head toward the elevator, and Morgan took that as her cue to leave. She turned briefly to wave awkwardly at Orrick and mumble an “It was nice to meet you.” Corbin and Lucas followed suit, and the three of them were soon in the elevator with Kellen.

  No one spoke as the elevator took them down floor by floor. When the doors opened, Kellen led them through the lobby. He nodded to the doorman as they exited the building. His car was waiting just outside and the four of them got into it wordlessly. It wasn’t until Kellen was on the freeway that someone spoke.

  “So, do you… work for Orrick or something?” Corbin asked from the back seat.

  “Not exactly,” Kellen said.

  “Because it kinda seems like you’re his errand boy.”

  Morgan watched as Kellen’s jaw clenched. She pushed forward with her mind—an experiment—to see if she could sense something from him, but she seemed to run into the same sort of wall she hit with Lucas.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” Kellen said shortly. He glanced at Morgan. “And you’re sloppy.”

  “Not like I’ve had any formal training or anything.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Besides, I didn’t think you’d notice; you’re a Mover, aren’t you?”

  “Primarily, yeah. But I think since you’re learning that you can focus your abilities, you’re pushing too hard. Like a tsunami rather than a spring breeze.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Pretty easy to detect.”

  Corbin leaned forward. “About Orrick, though. What do you mean, appearances can be—”

  “My parents died,” Kellen said stiffly, cutting Corbin off. “When I was young. Nine, I think. Orrick’s been watching over me ever since. He’s taken care of me.”

  “Oh,” Corbin said softly, and Morgan could feel his chagrin, his discomfort. Immediately she wondered if she could do the calming-down thing that Lucas had been able to do. She took in a breath and focused her energy on Corbin. Not sure what else to do, she repeated Calm down over and over in her mind.

  Lucas began chuckling, breaking Morgan’s concentration.

  “What?” Morgan demanded, turning in her seat so she could face him.

  Lucas just shook his head, still smiling. “Nothing. By all means, continue.”

  Morgan shot him her best evil look, but Lucas was unfazed by it and continued to smile contentedly. Morgan turned forward again and stared out the window for the duration of the drive.

  Chapter Eleven

  Morgan sat on the couch watching TV until around six when her dad came home. He announced he was pulling out the grill for cheeseburgers and assigned Morgan sous chef duties. While Morgan was making macaroni and cheese and steaming broccoli, she heard her phone’s ring tone sounding in the living room.

  When she got to the phone, she saw Ris’s name on the caller ID. She answered the call. “What’s up, lady?”

  “Guess who’s got another date tonight?” Ris asked, her words tumbling out quickly.

  Morgan headed back to the kitchen. “Hm… Let me think about this… It’s a very difficult question…”

  “Shut up,” Ris said playfully. “Corbin called. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  Morgan paused in her stirring of the macaroni. “Already knew what?”

  Ris laughed softly. “Yeah right. Corbin told me to go to your place because we were being picked up there… by the hot guy from the party.” Ris’s voice dripped with suggestion. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  “It’s not like that,” she said, checking on the broccoli’s progress. “You know Lucas? The barista from that coffee house I was telling you about? He’s coming, too.”

  “Now who’s big pimpin’?”

  Morgan decided to ignore the comment. “So, when’re you coming over?”

  “How’s now?”

  “Fine. Have you eaten?”

  “Nope.”

  “Cheeseburger?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  Morgan smiled. “Okay, I’ll tell my dad to put another burger on for you. And I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “Bye.”

  Morgan ended her call and headed out to the back yard.

  “What’s up, princess?” her father asked when he noticed her.

  Morgan smiled. “Ris is coming over. She and I are going out tonight and she wants to get ready together.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “So… I’m making another burger?”

  Morgan nodded. “If you please. She hasn’t eaten yet.”

  Her father nodded and, after putting the grill’s lid down, walked into the house. Morgan followed. By the time she got into the kitchen, he was already in the process of making another burger patty. “So,” he said when he noticed she’d entered the room. “Going out with Corbin again?”

  “I’m not going out with Corbin,” Morgan clarified as she walked to the stove, “but he’ll be there.”

  Dylan held his hands up innocently. “Pardon me for asking.”

  “No way. Off with your head.”

  “Then who’s going to make you the perfect cheeseburger?”

  Morgan considered this. “Fine. I’ll spare your life. This time.” She smiled.

  He smiled too. He placed the new patty on a plate and washed his hands. “So… is there anyone you are interested in?”

  “Dad,” Morgan whined.

  “It’s my job to ask,” he said, turning off the water.

  “Then I guess it’s my job to be mortified.”

  He dried his hands. “It’s true. Any other response from you would just be a letdown.”

  Morgan rolled her eyes as her father grabbed the plate with the patty and exited the kitchen. She then turned her attention back to her sous chef duties. She strained the noodles and was mixing up the cheese sauce when the front door opened, revealing Ris and a large overnight bag. Ris waved before hauling her belongings in the direction of Morgan’s bedroom. When she returned she was smiling.

  “How long till dinner?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Probably just a couple minutes.”

  “Okay, then. Not enough time to tell you about last night.”

  “Not unless you want to share the details with my dad, too.”

  Ris shrugged. “I could always leave out the tawdry bits.” She grinned, an assurance she was kidding.

  Just then, Morgan’s dad entered the house, cheeseburgers in hand. He greeted Ris cordially and invited her and Morgan to fix their plates. Then the three of them moved out to the dining room table.

  Dinner conversation was filled with laughs as Morgan’s dad gently teased both girls about the evening’s plans. The girls, in turn, teased him by informing him of all the borderline illegal things they intended to do on the night’s outing. He just smiled and regaled them with stories of the stupid things he�
�d done as a teenager, like trying to impress a girl by riding his bike down a flight of stairs, an attempt which completely backfired when he fell off the bike and face-planted in front of his crush.

  “It all worked out for the best, though,” he said at the end of his story. “That girl wasn’t the one for me, so I guess it really didn’t matter that I embarrassed myself like that.”

  Ris nodded appreciatively. “Very grown-up of you to say.”

  He nodded. “I’d hope so. I am, after all, a grown-up.” He smiled for a moment, then his expression turned more serious, more sad. He glanced at Morgan. “Her birthday’s coming up soon.”

  “I know,” Morgan said quietly. It would be the tenth birthday Chelsea would not be there for. The anniversary of her disappearance was also rapidly approaching, but she didn’t say anything about that, and neither did her father.

  The meal ended rather quickly after that. Morgan and Ris cleared their places and put their dishes in the dishwasher. Morgan put away the extra macaroni and broccoli and put the pans in the sink to be dealt with later. Then the two of them headed off to Morgan’s room.

  Morgan went directly to her closet and stared at her clothing blankly. She wasn’t really thinking about clothes. After a minute, she turned to Ris to ask for some assistance, but Ris wasn’t paying attention to her. Instead, Ris was holding the photograph Morgan kept on her bedside table, looking down at it thoughtfully. Morgan went to stand beside her and looked down at the picture, though she didn’t really need to. She had every detail memorized from staring at it so many nights. It was a picture of her mother, Chelsea. In the picture, she was laughing, her head tipped back, her brown hair spilling around her shoulders in loose waves, her light brown eyes sparkling.

  “She’s really pretty,” Ris said quietly, careful, Morgan noticed, to use the present tense. Once, years ago, Morgan had thrown a fit when Ris had referred to Chelsea in the past tense, as if she were dead.

  Without even realizing it, as she looked at the picture, Morgan allowed her mind to reach out. She became aware of a variety of emotions swirling through Ris’s mind: sadness, worry, confusion. But then there was something else—not thoughts, per se, but impressions. They were jumbled, but Morgan was able to sort a few out—Where could she be? If she’s still alive, why hasn’t she come home? I wonder if she just doesn’t want to come home?

  Morgan turned away from the picture and took a few steps away from Ris, anger coursing through her veins. How dare Ris even suggest that her mother didn’t want to be with her family? How dare she?

  But then, suddenly, Morgan came to her senses. Ris hadn’t suggested it. Morgan had been traipsing through her friend’s inmost thoughts. If anyone had the right to be mad at the moment, that person was certainly Ris. Taking in a deep breath, Morgan turned to Ris and smiled. “Weren’t you going to tell me about your date?”

  Ris set the picture down in its place and looked up at Morgan, grinning. She launched into a description of the details of the previous night, from what Corbin wore to what they ate to what covers the band they saw butchered. Morgan listened and nodded encouragingly as Ris spoke.

  It wasn’t until Ris got to the end of her description that Morgan realized one piece was conspicuously absent. “What about the end of the night?”

  Ris looked at her, an expression of mock confusion on her face. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” Morgan waggled an eyebrow suggestively.

  Ris just stared at Morgan a moment before sighing. “Fine. No kiss. Well, not really. He kissed me on the cheek.”

  Morgan nodded in light of this information, a flash of emotion coursing through her. When she identified the feeling, she felt a wash of alarm: was she jealous? She gave herself a mental shake. Of course she wasn’t jealous. Ris was her best friend, and it wasn’t like she liked Corbin. Still, she didn’t know whether she was displeased with the fact that he had kissed her only on the cheek. “Well, there’s always tonight,” she said after a beat.

  Ris smiled. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Only—” Morgan said, thinking of the last time she’d been out with Corbin and Ris, “—I would lay off the drinks this time if I were you.”

  Ris gave a humorless laugh. “I think I learned that one on my own. I was just so nervous last time… but tonight it’s water only for me. Maybe some pop.”

  “I think that’s a good call. No way you’re getting a kiss if we’ve gotta carry you out of the place.”

  Ris tossed a stuffed penguin in Morgan’s general direction.

  Morgan didn’t flinch and the penguin hit the wall behind her: Ris’s aim was notoriously off. “Okay, if we’re going to get ready for this thing, let’s get ready.”

  “Okay,” Ris agreed. She walked over to her overnight bag and unzipped it. “I brought a handful of choices for us to try on…”

  “Of course you did.”

  Ris turned to Morgan and made a face before continuing her excavation of the overnight bag. They spent the time until Kellen was supposed to pick them up getting ready, occasionally walking to the living room to get feedback from Morgan’s father on their looks. He was, predictably, not particularly helpful, but Morgan liked the idea of making him feel involved in their craziness.

  By the time the doorbell rang, the girls were dressed and ready to go. Ris opted to wear a short dress with leggings and a variety of sparkly clips in her short hair for decoration. Morgan was ordered to wear a silver dress which was, in Morgan’s opinion, indecently short. Ris also put Morgan into knee-high boots that made her dad’s eyebrows hitch up when he saw them.

  He insisted on opening the door—“So you girls can make an entrance.”—and seemed surprised to see not one but three guys on his front porch.

  “And which of you is Corbin?” he asked as Morgan and Ris approached the door.

  The impressions Morgan got from the guys as they caught sight of her and Ris made Morgan blush. Behind her father’s back, she raised an eyebrow. Only Lucas looked in any way abashed.

  Corbin held his hand out for Dylan to shake. “Corbin Starling. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Abbey.”

  Dylan shook Corbin’s hand and eyed Lucas and Kellen warily. “And you two are…?”

  “Lucas Kenrick,” Lucas said promptly, also offering his hand for Dylan to shake. “I go to school with your daughter. And Corbin. And Ris.”

  Morgan smiled at Lucas’s obvious nervousness. She wondered if he’d ever met a girl’s dad before.

  After Dylan shook Lucas’s hand, he turned to Kellen, suspicion in his gaze. “You don’t go to school with Morgan?”

  “No.”

  “Kellen’s a friend of mine,” Corbin offered helpfully.

  Dylan didn’t take the bait. “What school are you at?” he asked, still looking at Kellen.

  “Not in school.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Morgan’s only seventeen,” Dylan said.

  Morgan groaned. “And since Kellen’s not my date, his age in relation to mine isn’t an issue.”

  Dylan glanced at his daughter. “So, Lucas is your date?”

  “No,” Morgan insisted quickly—perhaps a bit too quickly. “He’s my friend. The only ones on a date are Corbin and Ris.”

  Dylan looked unconvinced. For a moment, Morgan wasn’t sure what her dad was going to do. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation, but he couldn’t very well forbid both Morgan and Ris to go out. And if he forbid Morgan, he wouldn’t feel right about Ris being alone with three guys. Morgan watched the conflict brewing behind his eyes and then, suddenly, the conflict was gone. Her father’s shoulders relaxed. He smiled.

  “You’ll have your phone on you?” he asked Morgan.

  “Of course,” Morgan said, eyeing him suspiciously.

  “You can have my number, too, sir, if you’d like,” Corbin said from the doorway.

  He waved a hand absently at Corbin. “That’s not nece
ssary.” He looked from Morgan to Ris and back again. “Have fun, girls.”

  “Thanks, we will,” Ris said quickly. She grabbed Morgan’s forearm and pulled her out the door as if afraid if they waited around he would change his mind.

  Kellen directed Morgan to sit in the passenger seat and for Corbin, Ris, and Lucas to sit in the back. As Corbin and Ris debated who should ride in the center, Morgan leaned in close to Lucas.

  “Did you do it?”

  “What?”

  “Do your… calming thing on my dad?”

  “No.”

  Morgan wanted to ask more, but Corbin, Ris, and Kellen were already in the car.

  Corbin, ever the gentleman, was in the center of the bench seat, flanked by Lucas and Ris. As soon as Kellen put the car in gear, Ris began prattling away—a habit when she was nervous. She asked Kellen where they were going, asked Lucas about work, asked Corbin about his shoes. Even though she’d spent the last few hours with Morgan, Ris asked Morgan some questions, too. After about five minutes of incessant chatter, Morgan turned in her seat to look at Lucas. She raised an eyebrow at him and glanced pointedly at Ris, hoping Lucas would catch her meaning. After a moment, Lucas nodded and glanced at Ris. Slowly, Ris stopped talking, her shoulders relaxing. She turned to Corbin and smiled. When Morgan turned forward in her seat again, she caught Kellen shooting her an approving look.

  Kellen turned on his radio and the rest of the trip passed quickly. Their destination was a large warehouse downtown, and Morgan was unsurprised by the presence of valets dressed in black pants and white button-up shirts. Four valets came to Kellen’s car and opened all the doors. Kellen handed over his keys and led the group inside.

  Whatever Morgan’s expectations for the décor of the warehouse were, they were quickly forgotten when she entered the space. The warehouse was enormous and open, painted white from floor to ceiling. Lights twinkled up in the rafters and down support posts. Different color flood lights flashed across the dance floor at unpredictable intervals. Hundreds of people crowded the space, some dancing to the music, some talking, some watching.