The last thing I wanted was her in Bram's bedroom, especially dressed the way she was. I grabbed her arm. "No, you won't. Sit down on the couch and I'll get him for you."
She yanked her arm away from me. "What's your problem? You don't own him, you know."
"I didn't say I did, but you're not going up there."
Nokomis scowled. "I can't stand girls like you, Keira. You play hard to get, act like you don't want a guy, but then you don't want anyone else to have him either. That's not fair."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
"You know damn well what I'm talking about. Why didn't you just marry Dunningham like you were supposed to? Any other girl would have."
"Well, I'm not any other girl, am I?"
"Sorry, I'm late, Nokomis," Bram said, running down the stairs wearing a black hoodie and ripped jeans.
Nokomis approached him at the bottom of the stairs. "It's okay. Keira and I were having a nice conversation."
Bram looked at me and smiled. I hoped I looked all right , since I'd just rolled out of bed , and then I wondered why I was worried about that. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I ran my fingers through my hair.
"Keir, want to join us?" Bram asked. He gave me a pleading look as if he wanted me to come so he wouldn't have to be alone with Nokomis. I relaxed a little. Why had I been so tense again? He was obviously not into Nokomis.
Nokomis pouted. "No! You promised me one-on-one time, Brammy, and I really need it."
"Brammy?" I repeated.
Bram shifted uncomfortably from his right foot to his left. "Yeah, I asked you not to call me that," he told Nokomis.
"You two go ahead. I want to go for a jog anyway," I lied. I had no intention of running until later in the evening when it got cooler, but I knew if I went out there with them somehow, my scythe was going to end up hurting that girl. I tried to push those thoughts away. I was not going to be one of those girls—desperate ones who fought over guys.
"All right. I'll catch you later," Bram said, heading for the back door.
Nokomis followed, but not before turning around and mouthing the word, "Bitch," to me. I clenched my fist and took a deep breath. I was not going to be that girl.
I ended up going for that morning run after all. I needed to blow off some steam. Naomi joined me. I told her about what had happened with Nokomis that morning.
Naomi laughed, but I didn't find anything funny about the situation.
"What's wrong with you?"
"People only get jealous for one reason, Keira."
"I'm not jealous."
"Keira, you're talking to me. Your best friend." Naomi stopped running, so I stopped too. She put her hands on my shoulders. "I know you like Bram, you know that I know that you like Bram, but you need to get over him. We're here in a new world with no rules. Girls are going to be throwing themselves at him left and right. He's not going to be a one-woman man."
I didn’t like the way this conversation was going, but she made a good point. There were no rules here. Bram could do what he wanted with whomever he wanted and there was a good chance he already had.
I stared at the ground so Naomi couldn't see the concern in my eyes. "You don't think he's already…"
Naomi threw her hands up. "I don't know , and I don’t ever want to think about my brother doing that, but of course it's possible."
I suddenly felt sick.
"Come on. You can do so much better than him. Bram's an ass. He and Nokomis deserve each other." She started to run again. I trailed behind her. I had lost all of my steam.
17
Three weeks went by , and none of us had gone on an assignment. Lawson had initially given us a week, but when that week was up, he hadn't shown up. Colden, Tate, and Eilam went on assignments and said nothing more about us not participating. I guessed Colden figured that Lawson would handle us himself.
Dunstan came to visit with Lawson in tow. First Dunstan wanted to take a look at everyone to make sure that we were okay and didn't need any more transfusions. Everyone seemed to be fine.
Mr. Lawson stood before us as we crowded into the living room. "Now, I told you last time that if you weren't going to work for me, you were going to have to leave the home that I paid for , and I wasn't going to take care of you anymore. I see that with the exception of three of you, you've chosen to cop out on your part of the deal."
Several kids shifted uncomfortably in their seats, but Bram looked unconcerned. I had to admit that his coolness made me feel less anxious about everything.
"So?" Bram said, looking at his nails. "What are you going to do? You don't have any control over us."
Dunstan repeated that to Lawson.
"I'm going to put you outta my house," Lawson answered.
"How?" Shiva asked. Shiva had been taking his job as Bram's assistant seriously.
Dunstan relayed the message.
"What do you mean how?" Lawson asked, raising his voice. "I'll just throw you out."
Bram rolled his eyes. "You can't even see us. You can't touch us. You can't hurt us. I suppose you could call the police to get us out, but they'd only think you were crazy."
Dunstan told Lawson what Bram had said , and Lawson looked to him for help. Dunstan only shrugged.
Lawson adjusted his necktie. "I'll sell the houses."
Bram laughed. "Yeah, good luck selling a house where lights turn on and things move by themselves. It'll be like ghosts are living here, dude. Nobody's going to buy these houses. No one's buying houses in this neighborhood anyway."
Dunstan gave Lawson a softer, modified version of that, but it didn't keep him from being furious. "You listen here. You spooks, blood-suckers, creatures, whatever you are—you're not going to play me for a fool. I'll burn these houses down before I let you stay here on my dime."
Kuro stood with his scythe. "What did you call us?"
Dunstan held his hands up. "Hey, sit down, son."
"Tell 'em, Dunstan," Lawson urged. "Tell your little monsters to get out of my hou—"
Before Lawson could get the sentence out, Kuro swung his scythe around the back of his head, brought it around, and sliced into Lawson's neck. A long squirt of blood landed on Dunstan's shirt. Lawson's head tilted back as his large body dropped to the ground. I closed my eyes, hoping it hadn't really happened.
Everyone froze, stunned, except for Dunstan. He swiped a trickle of blood that ran down his cheek. "Well, that was unnecessary."
Bram stood. "Kuro, what the hell is wrong with you, man?"
Lawson's body twitched for a moment, then he didn't move again.
"What?" Kuro demanded, looking at us as if we were crazy to be stunned. "You heard the things he was saying. He was threatening to burn our houses down."
"That was no reason to kill him," I said.
"Why not? He orchestrated the deaths of dozens of people. Now we don't have to worry about him anymore. A lot of people are going to continue to live now that he's gone."
I looked at the body on the ground, a pool of blood gathered at his neck. The dead body didn't faze any of us. We saw things like that all the time. Some deaths were more gruesome than others, but nothing surprised us. For some reason, I couldn't muster up that much sympathy for Lawson. Maybe it was because he was human, and I wasn't conditioned to, or maybe Kuro was right. In his own way, Lawson was a murderer.
"Well," Dunstan said, "there's no sense in wasting perfectly good human blood. Boys, help me get this body back," he said to Colden, Eilam, and Tate.
It took all three guys to carry Lawson's heavy body , and even then they struggled. They hauled him out of the front door without a word.
Dunstan watched them leave, then he turned to Kuro. "That was a huge mistake. Lawson was our lifeline. Now what are you going to do?"
Bram stood between Kuro and Dunstan. "We'll figure it out."
Dunstan narrowed his eyes at Bram. "I highly doubt that. Your buddy here has totally messed up the plan. There was a bigger picture here."
&nbs
p; Bram folded his arms over his chest. "Look, Dunstan, we appreciate your help and all, but with all due respect, we really don't need you anymore. We needed you to transport us here. We needed human blood. Now we've got that. Don't think you own us because you don't."
Dunstan smirked at Bram. "You're getting too big for your britches, boy. There's a lot of things you don't understand, but you'll learn them the hard way." He turned and let himself out.
Bram addressed the group. "I know we are all surprised about what just happened, but it happened and there's nothing to be done about it now." I figured that was his roundabout way of protecting his friend from our accusations. "Now we need to move forward and figure out how we're going to take care of ourselves from here on out. In case you haven't realized it, going back to Nowhere is definitely not an option anymore."
Nokomis raised her hand. "We could get jobs." I'd almost forgotten how stupid she was.
"How are we going to do that when no one can see us, genius?" Dorian asked. He and Josh had been very quiet sitting together at the bottom of the staircase. Josh seemed to be in a trance, staring at the pool of Lawson's blood still on the living room tile.
"We'll just have to take what we need," Chase said.
"Steal?" someone asked.
"It's not stealing," Bram said. "We're not bound by the human law here, so technically, what we're doing is taking. We have to do what we have to do to survive."
"It's not just food and clothes," I said. "Lawson was paying for our electricity and water. We're going to have to make do without those too."
A worried murmur spread through the room. That was going to be a problem. We were all from Farrington and although we weren't wealthy, we were used to living comfortably and having all that we needed. None of us had ever experienced living without water or electricity.
"Hey!" Bram shouted. "Don't worry. We'll figure it out. I didn't tell any of you that this would be easy."
Dorian and Josh headed upstairs after Dorian mumbled something about figuring out a way to create his own electricity. I had a vision of the two of them electrocuting themselves.
"You didn't say it would be easy, but you said it would be better," a girl named Garnet complained. "At least we had electricity in Nowhere."
Kuro wiped the blood from his scythe. "Yeah? You're welcome to go back there anytime. No one's keeping you prisoner here." Then he looked at Bram. "That's why I said no girls. All they do is complain."
I shot him a look. "Maybe you want to rephrase that."
He faltered a little. "All some people do is complain."
Bram whistled to call everyone back to order, because the room had broken out in conversation. "Okay, in the meantime, we continue with our training. I'll be doing a session in the morning , and Shiva will do one in the afternoon. Make sure you attend one every day. And if you happen to suck," he continued, looking at Naomi and me, "we're available for individual sessions. This is serious. We don't know what we might come up against , and everyone needs to be able to protect themselves and each other. I'll be starting in ten minutes. Bring your scythes." Then he turned to Kuro. "You made this mess, clean it up," he said, pointing to the blood on the floor.
I didn't participate in that training class. Naomi, Chase, and I decided that we needed a break to digest all that had happened. Chase took Naomi and me to a lake he had found about four blocks away. The area was peaceful and empty. One elderly man stood at the lake's edge , feeding ducks bits of bread.
I hugged my legs to my body as we sat at the side of the lake. Naomi was wedged between Chase and I. "What do you guys think?"
Chase shrugged. "I'm not worried. If Bram says everything's okay, everything's okay."
Naomi shook her head. "I think you put too much faith in my brother."
"Maybe you don't put enough," I said, surprised at what had come out of my mouth. Chase and Naomi both looked at me. "I mean, I think he's doing pretty good so far at being a leader. You know, aside from jumping off of roofs."
Naomi stared out at the lake. "You're in love with him , so your opinion is biased, Keir."
I pushed Naomi into Chase , and the two of them shared a good laugh.
"But seriously," I said. "I'm glad we're here. I mean, aside from the black cloud of Dunningham's revenge hanging over our heads, it's nice here."
Chase nodded. "Yeah. It's nice not having to study one-hundred-pound books for hours every day. Or getting called out at a moment's notice on an assignment and doing the same thing day in and day out for the rest of our long lives."
"Or," Naomi added, "worrying about being punished or put to death for the tiniest violation."
"And we haven't been here too long. I'm sure it will be even better once we start doing other things. I've always wanted to go to a movie," Chase said.
"I've been," Naomi said. "It was pretty cool."
"I'd like to go to the beach. Maybe an amusement park," I said.
Chase nodded in agreement. "Me too. That would be awesome. Hopefully Bram would let us."
"Bram isn't our father. We can do as we please," I told Chase.
"Yeah," Naomi agreed, "he may be the leader, but he's not going to be ruling every aspect of our lives, I can promise you that."
We lay on the grass a little longer watching the ducks. It was so quiet I could have fallen asleep, but Chase reminded us that we had to get back because it was his turn to make lunch.
Later that night after dinner, I opened my bedroom window to let in some cool nighttime air. Down in the yard, Bram was giving Dorian and Naomi private lessons.
"But I already came to a session today," Dorian whined.
"So what?" Bram retorted. "You two are worse than everyone else. You're my brother and sister. You can't be the worst fighters, it's embarrassing."
I smiled. Bram was a good brother. He loved Naomi and Dorian, although he had a weird way of showing it. I knew that he would do anything for them.
I stood there for a while watching him give them lessons. Naomi got frustrated after he yelled at her one too many times. She stormed into the house, but Bram kept going with Dorian.
Dorian stopped mid-swing and stepped closer to his brother. "Bram, do you think we did the right thing coming here?"
"Of course, I do. If I didn't I wouldn't have brought you guys over here. Hey, has your big brother ever let you down?"
Dorian shook his head. "No." Bram lifted his scythe to continue practice, but Dorian continued to stare at the ground. "Bram? How come you chose Shiva as your right hand instead of me? I'm your brother."
"What?" Bram asked.
"You don’t think I can do it."
"That's not it. Dorian, you're more of a brain. An academic. Shiva is a good muscle. He's more aggressive, that's all. You're my one and only brother , and no one else can take that position. Don't forget that."
I felt for Dorian. I knew Bram had always been their father's favorite. Dorian struggled for his approval, but Bram had always been the apple of Nox's eye. Now he wanted the same acceptance from his brother. He wanted to be just like Bram. The only problem with that was that Dorian and Bram were like night and day.
They practiced for a few more minutes and then Dorian went inside. Bram dropped his scythe and lay on one of the patio chairs. I decided to go down and talk to him.
I closed the sliding door quietly behind me. Bram held his arm over his eyes, but I knew I couldn't sneak up on him.
"Keir, what's up?"
I lay on the chair next to him. "Umm, Naomi, Chase and I were talking today about doing some different things. I mean that was part of the reason that we wanted to come here, right? To experience the human world and things we don't have in Nowhere."
"Yeah, we should," Bram said, still not looking at me.
"There were a lot of rules in Nowhere that we had to follow that we don't have to follow here."
"Yep."
I had to ask him something, but I wasn't sure how to ask it. It had been eating away at me and I had to
know. "Things about dating and… consummation."
Finally Bram looked at me and grinned. "Keira Grim, is that what's going on in that head of yours? You've been thinking about sex?"
My cheeks warmed. "No. I haven't been thinking about sex, I've just been thinking about—" There was no easy way to say it, so I might as well just spit it out. "If one of us wanted to, you know, it wouldn't be a crime here. It wouldn't be against the rule, so I wanted to know…"
I looked away from Bram , and I could tell from the corner of my eye that he had looked away from me. We weren't in that kind of relationship, so I had no right to ask him such questions, but I had to know.
"You wanted to know what?"
He knew exactly what I was trying to ask. He could have just answered the question and saved me a lot of embarrassment, but then that wouldn’t be Bram. He was going to make me ask.
"Have you taken advantage of that new freedom?"
"You're asking me if I've had sex yet?"
"Yeah. That's what I'm asking."
Bram took a deep breath and I closed my eyes. I was pretty sure that I didn't want to hear what he had to say.
He chuckled. "You know that's a very personal question and I don't have to answer it."
"I know you don't, but I want you to." I looked at him now.
His smile dropped , and I braced myself for him to tell me that he'd given himself to someone already. "I've had offers."
My jaw dropped. "Offers? From who?"
"Nokomis."
I should have known. I wanted to kill her.
"Yeah, she thought we should make the discovery together. She wanted me to be her first."
"Were you?"
Bram paused way too long. "No."
I believed him. "Oh. Why not?"
"Nokomis is cool, but I don't want my first time to be with her. I mean, I want to know what it's like, what the big deal is, but I don't want it to be with just anyone."
I took a deep breath, relieved. I relaxed in the patio chair.
"How about you?" he asked.
"Of course not! Who would I have done it with?"
"Dunningham."
Keira Grim: The Final Breath Chronicles Book Two Page 12
