Brothers of the Flame (An Ariel Kimber Novel Book 1)

by Mary Martel

  “We have to get out of here. Now.” I could never be sure which twin was speaking when I could not see them with my eyes. “It’s spreading. What the fuck? Please, please, Ty, tell me he did not do this.”

  Tyson had his phone out and was talking quietly to someone. Did he really think his Uncle could have caused something like this? And how? Apparently, the twins thought Quinton might have been involved as well.

  The onlookers screamed as Chucky threw up more blood. This time it sprayed grotesquely across the food spread out on the table. I wasn’t sure how much blood he had left to spew out of him, his clothes were drenched and there was a pool of the red liquid at his feet.

  My stomach jumped and rolled at the sight of all that blood and I swallowed in hopes of keeping the nausea at bay. I would not throw up out here in front of all these people. I would not throw up. What if I did and blood came out of my mouth, too?

  Oh my god. Yesterday I had worried about death by toilet water at the hands of my fellow classmates. Today I worried about death by blood loss after I spewed it all out of me while I covered not only myself in it but the people around me.

  “Tyson,” I muttered frantically. “I need to get out of here.” Oh god, please, please don’t let me throw up.

  His hand wrapped around mine tightly and heat shot up my arm. I ignored it and clung to his hand with both of mine. I was like a woman lost at sea in the middle of a dark and dangerous storm. He’d appeared out of the dark waves as if summoned by magic to save me and I clung to him. I’d surely drown if he let me go. I’d drift away and sink under the crash of a giant wave. My lungs would fill with water and I’d be lost to the sea. Tyson was my life preserver. I clung to him desperately.

  “Everybody get back inside,” One of the teachers yelled. His eyes seemed too wide for his face and he stood further away from the bloody mess than the rest of the teachers. He wasn’t one of my teachers so I didn’t know his name. “In the cafeteria, all of you. Now.” I wondered if he’d come inside with us because he wasn’t brave enough to stay out here.

  I wanted to run towards the door and away from all the blood and puking but the mob already fighting over who got inside first almost scared me more than the blood. Sometimes when people were afraid they could become frantic and panic and when that happened they have the potential to become dangerous, trampling everyone in their wake in order to reach safety themselves, not caring who they hurt in the process. I had no desire to be caught in the middle of that tragic shit show.

  Tyson held on tight to my hand as we waited. The twins crowded around me. Abel at my side, Addison at my back. They didn’t touch me for which I was thankful. I didn’t think I could handle all their heat on top of everything else at the moment. Tyson’s heat crawling up my arm was more than enough. Any more and maybe I’d embarrass myself again by fainting for the second time in my life.

  We waited towards the back of the mob and were last through the door because of it. Two students laid on the ground moaning. They’d been caught in the mob and had gotten hurt. One was the girl who’d tried to befriend me on the first day of school in creative writing. If I was a better person I’d have tried to help her, but Tyson tugged on my hand and I moved with him. The sound of retching echoed off of the walls in the brick corridor all around us. Fear kept me from looking back to see who else was now vomiting up blood. Fear of what was happening and fear of vomiting myself.

  I swallowed convulsively. “I don’t want to puke,” I whispered to no one in particular.

  Tyson squeezed my hand almost painfully. “If you vomit it won’t be blood, I promise.”

  I didn’t believe him. “You can’t know that,” I insisted.

  “Yeah, I can.”

  “Tyson-”

  “Later, sweetheart. I promise you I will explain everything later. Right now, we need to focus on getting the hell out of here before it spreads any further.”

  I wanted an explanation now, not later. The look on his face stopped me from demanding one. He was angry. So very, very angry. I didn’t want him to direct his anger at me so I kept it to myself. He said later, he’d tell me everything later, and I planned on holding him to his promise.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The cafeteria was abuzz with noise. Girls were crying and huddled together, clutching at one another in a desperate attempt to gain some form of comfort. People were screaming. Teachers and staff had the exits blocked off and students were demanding to be let out. Very few had actually seen what had taken place out in the courtyard but word had spread like wildfire and no one wanted to be forced to stay locked inside the school and especially not in the cafeteria so close to the sick kids. I didn’t blame them, I wanted out of here, too.

  Tyson dragged me along behind him with the twins glued as close to me as they could get without actually touching me. We moved to an empty space along the wall and Tyson let go of my hand. Immediately I wrapped my arms around my middle and hugged myself. I backed up until my back met the wall then I slid down it. My butt hit the floor and I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them instead of my middle.

  Addison crouched down beside me but he didn’t speak to me. With Tyson in front of me and Abel on the side Addison wasn’t I couldn’t see what was going on and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

  I concentrated on breathing and not throwing up. I felt guilty about leaving the injured girl from creative writing class outside. I should have tried to help her. What if she was right this second throwing up blood because we’d walked right past her and left her there to her fate instead of trying to help her.

  “What’s wrong?” Addison asked.

  I looked at him with big eyes. How could he even ask me such a question? “Gee, Addison, I don’t know.” I muttered sarcastically. “One minute we’re outside sitting in the sunshine and enjoying our lunch. Two seconds later that A-hole Chucky is spewing blood all over the place. Then everybody else is raining blood all over each other. It was the stuff of nightmares and you ask me what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head as his lips tipped up in the corners, in a tiny smile. I didn’t know what he had to smile about at a time like this. Maybe he was crazy? Maybe they all were crazy?

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “You looked sad for a second, almost lost. You weren’t thinking about what happened outside. You were thinking about something else.”

  It seemed odd that he’d know me so well after only a few days. But… “Actually, I was thinking about what happened outside. Well, part of it. That girl on the ground who’d been trampled trying to get to the door? She’s in my creative writing class and on the first day of school she was the only person who was decent to me. She told me she wanted to be friends but I didn’t believe her. She kept talking about rumors about me and Tyson and she told me she’d heard my mother was a gold digging whore, but claimed to want to be my friend all the same. I don’t know if she meant it or not but I do know I wasn’t very nice to her. I feel bad for just leaving her out there when I maybe could have helped her. What if she’s out there puking up her own blood right now because I didn’t help her get up and get out of there?”

  Abel tugged on a lock of my hair, pulling my head back and forcing me to look up at him. He loomed over me. “In case you’re forgetting, my twin and I share that class with you now. We’ve seen her and she looks at you with hate and jealousy in her eyes. So fuck her. If she ends up puking her own blood all over herself then it’s no less than she deserves. You don’t need to be concerned about anyone other than yourself and us. To hell with the rest of those assholes. If it had been you out there in their shoes none of them would have tried to help you. They all would have run away from you as they pointed their fingers at you and maybe even laughed. You don’t care about people like that.”

  He tugged one more time forcibly on my hair before letting go. His eyes scanned the room and it was like I’d been forgotten, like he hadn’t spoken to me at all.

  “My twin
is right,” Addison said.

  I nodded and laid my head down on my knees. I hadn’t nodded in agreement so much as I didn’t want to talk anymore. I’d completely forgotten that they now shared creative writing with me and would have seen the girl. I never seemed to remember her unless she was in my line of sight, then I always ended up wishing I hadn’t taken notice of her in the first place. What was it with this damn girl?

  Abel was intense. First with the hair pulling, which hadn’t hurt but had definitely surprised me. Then he came right out and told me I shouldn’t care about anyone besides us. I knew it was painfully obvious I had not made friends with anyone else, but was it really so wrong to care about the other students? To worry about them? I didn’t think so.

  “The paramedics are here,” Tyson said. “Not that it will do anybody any good. You can’t fight magic with modern medicine.”

  Magic…

  Magic…

  Magic…

  Something brushed against the back of my mind.

  Magic…

  When had someone recently said something to me about magic? The more I thought about it the more my head hurt. A male voice inside my head whispered magic. It was a lovely voice. Masculine, deep and throaty. The kind of voice that raised goose bumps along your skin and made you shiver but never in a bad way. What had he said about magic and when had he said it to me? I couldn’t remember but thought it was important. I couldn’t remember so I was unfortunately left without an answer. Since Tyson had brought it up, maybe I would be able to ask and get some of my questions answered through him.

  “Tyson?” I asked hesitantly. “What do you mean by magic?” And I felt stupid for asking it. Such things as magic weren’t real and I needed to stop fixating on the damn word whenever I heard it.

  “I’ll explain it to you later, Ariel. I promise.”

  Again, with the promises. He was going to drive me mad with this nonsense.

  “Tyson,” I said slowly so he wouldn’t miss a single word, “you can’t keep saying shit like that to me. Eventually you’re going to have to give me more than a promise. This is the third time one of you has mentioned magic like it was a real thing and now I want to know what in the hell is going on.”

  Tyson leaned over me. His dark, dark eyes so serious as they moved over my face. “Third time? When else have you heard one of us talk about magic?”

  “Yesterday at your house and…” I snapped my mouth shut. I would not talk to him about a dream I had about his Uncle before I even met him and it was made worse due to the fact I didn’t even really remember it.

  “And,” Tyson prompted.

  “And…” Shit. “And, nothing.” Way to go, Ariel Kimber. That was genius.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” He asked.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I parroted.

  He shook his head, sending his long hair forward, hiding part of his face. He didn’t bother to push it back behind his ear. Instead he used it to shield part of his expression from me, hiding.

  “We can’t talk about this here at school in a room full of students. When we get home, I swear to you I will tell you whatever you want to know.”

  I wanted to argue with him about so many things but he had a point. Maybe talking about certain things wouldn’t be appropriate at this moment. Not in a room filled with frightened people, not when all it would take is one small thing to set them off and who knew what would happen. The possibilities were endless.

  “They’re letting people out,” Abel informed us. He reached down, grabbed ahold of my hand and dragged me to my feet. His eyes blazed bright green and the look in them told me not to argue with anything he had to say. “If they’re letting people out then we are not hanging around.”

  He moved towards the exit, pulling me along behind him. As we moved he laced our fingers together which seemed more intimate to me than our palms pressed together.

  People either moved out of his way or he shoved then roughly out of it. If it were me I’d have gotten out of his way. The twins were huge and could likely do some serious damage. I felt like a dwarf standing beside them and I wasn’t exactly short.

  The teachers were all yelling their own version of the same thing.

  “Remain calm.”

  It was a little late for that one, but I guess things could always get worse.

  “Leave in an orderly fashion. No pushing or shoving. Let’s try to be civil here people.”

  Again, it was a little too late. Where had they been with this sound advice when we’d been out in the courtyard where there had been both pushing and shoving? Huh? I tell you, these people were serious A-holes.

  “There will be no school tomorrow. Classes will resume on Monday unless you’re notified otherwise.”

  This announcement actually had some people cheering. Let’s hear it for a three-day weekend. These people were unbelievable.

  “If you feel sick dial 911 or have someone take you to the nearest hospital. Do not attempt to drive yourself. If you drive yourself, you could be putting not only you but everyone else on the road in danger.”

  This one was my favorite because it sobered everyone who’d just been celebrating the upcoming three-day weekend. Nothing could put a damper on your joy like thinking about turning into a human fountain of blood.

  We made it through the door and out of the cafeteria unharmed. As we made our way out of the building more teachers and staff lined the hallway repeating everything the teachers were saying in the cafeteria.

  Abel held on tight to my hand as he pulled me along behind him. The hallway was quiet save for the teachers and staff. The students scurried towards the exits and if they spoke they did so in whispers. It was a drastic change from the loud noise in the cafeteria. Two EMT’s carrying an empty stretcher between them passed by us just as we made it to the door that would lead us outside. I wondered if there were more EMT’s on the way because these two plus the two I’d seen earlier didn’t seem sufficient. And, who knew who else had barfed up their own blood in the time since we left.

  The bright light of the sun shined down on us as we walked outside. It chased the chill of the last hour away. The parking lot and the front of the school were lit with flashing red and blue lights. There were three ambulances parked right up front. One must have just pulled up because the EMT’s were only then climbing out. Two fire trucks were parked on the grass beside the student parking lot. Freaking fire trucks. Police vehicles were parked everywhere. The lawn and sidewalk was scattered with very official looking people in uniforms, most of them some form of police officer. Holy crap. This seemed excessive.

  “You’d think there was something dangerous and life threatening inside the school.”

  “Shh,” Tyson leaned into me from beside to whisper in my ear. “Don’t say things like that too loud out here. It could be taken the wrong way and we don’t want that, especially not now with everyone on edge.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic.

  We tried to give the officers and fire fighters a wide berth as we made our way to Tyson’s Audi and the twins monster truck but there were so many of them it proved difficult to avoid them. There were simply too many of them.

  I didn’t understand why they were all here. Wasn’t there real crime happening somewhere that some of these people should be off solving? Weren’t there criminals to catch? Speeding drivers to ticket? If ever there were a perfect time to commit a crime in this town it would be now. Possibly even the next several towns over.

  After I was safely inside Tyson’s Audi he turned and grinned at me, blinding me with his outrageously beautiful smile. “Do you think it’s weird that I’m suddenly starving right now?”

  I made an eww face at the thought of eating food after watching so many people spewing blood all over each other. I didn’t think I could stomach eating anything.

  Tyson burst out laughing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I called Mr. Cole on the ride home. He didn’t ans
wer and I figured that meant he was still at the hospital with his brother’s family. I left him a brief message explaining to him why school was let out early and that there’d be no school tomorrow. I left out all the gory details and simply told him there was some seriously contagious flu outbreak that spreads like wildfire. I didn’t want him to worry about me, not when he’d already had so much to deal with. I hoped my mother was behaving like a reasonable adult for him.

  “Sweetheart,” Tyson called gently. “We’re home.”

  Shit.

  I’d completely spaced out on him. Had he been trying to talk to me?

  “Are you still planning on spending the night at my house tonight?” He asked me.

  “What?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  He frowned at me. “Don’t you remember this morning when Abel told you you could sleep over at our place?”

  Actually, I had forgotten all about it. Abel had claimed there was plenty of room and no one would mind my staying there. I didn’t think I wanted to spend the night at Tyson’s house. I wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping over there.

  “Your Uncle-” I started.

  “No, no, no.” He held up his hands, his palms pressed out towards me as if to ward off my words. “Uncle Quint won’t care if you sleep over. In fact, when he finds out you’re going to be in your house all by yourself til God knows when he’ll insist on you staying with us. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past him to call Mr. Cole and tell him you can stay with us. Quint is utterly ruthless and he will do whatever he feels necessary to get what he wants. You shouldn’t waste your breath arguing, you should just pack and come over.”