Chapter Eighty Five
“I’ve gotta go back to Chicago…” I announced in my most panic filled voice as I tossed clothes into a suitcase.
“Whoa, slow down Tray! What exactly are you planning on doing with Ember while you go rushing off to Chicago?? You don’t even know if there’s anything wrong. Krista might have found out that Garrett and Emily were her friends from your previous school and simply invited them to come to her party,” Willow responded, being a voice of reason.
“She can stay with you at Sunridge. She can’t go to school until I get back. I’m losing it here,” I replied urgently and continued to toss items into the suitcase.
And, Willow was unpacking my stuff while I wasn’t looking…
“Listen to me…you can’t go off and leave her here alone. She will freak out if you try to abduct her and force her to go to Illinois of all places. She’ll ask what’s wrong and are you truly prepared to answer all of her questions? You might be scaring her for no reason and then, you’ll feel guilty. Let’s make a deal…”
“What deal? There’s no deal that I can see…” I stated and looked at her in frustrated defiance.
I stopped packing and turned around to face her. The only reason I was willing to listen to her was because my mind was made up already. Well except the whole ‘leave Ember here without me, unprotected’ thing. I hadn’t quite figured out that one yet…
“I’ll fly to Chicago, tonight and I’ll even make a special cunning ribbon to use. I can go to your old school during lunch time tomorrow and wait for them outside of the cafeteria. I’ll let you know when I see them and then, you can channel to them through the cunning ribbon. It’ll almost be like you’re there in person. I’ll stay linked while I’m chatting with them and can get the answers for us.
“I don’t have time to create a permanent cunning ribbon like the one I made for Ember – those take at least three days to craft. The one I can make will only work for about forty five minutes. So, we’ll need to decide precisely which obliterations you should use and what questions need to be asked. This part is very important. You may not listen to my personal thoughts while the ribbon is in use – period. Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t want you to go alone, so no freakin’ way is that gonna happen!”
“You can’t come with me for reasons we’ve already discussed. Hey, I know, go ask Ember if she’d like to fly away for two whole days and vacation with you in snowy Chicago. Let’s see what she has to say about it. Oh and don’t forget to tell her you’re not gonna provide her any reason for the trip at all and you won’t answer a single question about it either. She’s very attached to this place and she’s not known for being mute or passive. You’d have the tantrum of the century on your hands from her, but be my guest and go find out for yourself.”
“You’re not going alone – period…”
“Mind explaining yourself before I start to think you’re attemptin’ to order me around Traywick Shane Pateman?? I’d hate to be engaged in an argument with you over a misunderstanding…”
“Willow, I took her away from that school because of a very bad guy who suddenly developed way too much interest in her. I didn’t use my gift on him or anyone. I just went home, packed us and we moved here, to a more rural location. A place where I thought she’d be safe from him. I won’t risk sending you into a situation where I can’t personally protect you – especially when it comes to this guy!”
“Okay, calm down. We can fix this together, but I need more facts than just a ‘very bad guy’. You make him sound like the son of Satan. I’m sure he’s not that bad. I’ve spent my life conning and running scams – in case you’ve forgotten. I’ve met loads of bad men and I can typically, handle myself in any given situation. I certainly feel like I can handle just finding her high school friends, letting you channel an obliteration to ask them a few questions and then going back to the airport.”
“He’s almost worse than the son of Satan. He is Armond Salvitore, the gang leader for the Blood Legion Family. I’m sure you’ve heard of them…”
“Oh my heavens, what kind of interest did he have in Ember?? She’d never join a gang – no way! She’d be more likely to eat a live snake or something. They have some ‘jump on board/slit your own throat kind of in/out ritual’ thing. There is no way your little girl did anything to encourage his attention. You said she hardly spoke to anyone, so I know she wouldn’t go chattin’ up some stupid gang leader. How on earth did she end up on his radar?? What did he want to do with her, anyway???” Willow continued her tirade for another several sentences before she finally had to stop and take a breath.
“Armond called Ember his newest ‘lovely promised mommy.’ That’s all I heard and I didn’t bother to use my obliteration skill on him because I knew she’d never attend another urban, inner-city school. No gangs of any kind are here in the rural mountains of North Carolina…” I started to explain.
“Well, that is if you don’t count the dark clique…” Willow offered, cryptically and I looked at her perplexed.
“What exactly is the “dark clique”? That doesn’t sound like much of a gang…”
“She selected that name for the rather large group of kids that hang around the front of the lunchroom. You know the ones – the obnoxious boys and the equally insufferable girls that sit together during every lunch session. I guess they could be considered a gang of sorts. I’ve never heard anyone other than Ember refer to them that way…”
“How’d she come up with a name for them like the dark clique?”
“She said it’s because the boys all wear various shades of black every day.”
“Are you SURE you understood her, correctly? I haven’t seen any group of boys dressed in black – well, except a few Goth kids, but there are only seven of those that I’ve counted and three of them are girls. I’ve made everyone at that school my business. There’s not some pack of “black dressed demon boys” invading the campus unless they’re ghosts or something…”
“She’s quite certain. The boys at the front tables appear to be dressed in black every day – at least to her they do. She accurately sees the girls because she says they all wear trendy clothes.
“Actually, the girls at those tables wear designer clothes, shoes and accessories. I’ve never known Ember to be fashion conscious, but she does know trendy when she sees it. By the way, those are all name brand items – not one ‘knock-off’ in the bunch. Some of their shoes retail in the thousands. I just figured they were into shoplifting as a group…” Willow stated.
I called Krista and used my skill on her. She confirmed everything Willow said about the dark clique. She even stated that only Ember sees the guys as being dressed in black – not the girls. No one else in the school considers them a gang. She also stated that she had never personally seen them do anything worse than start a fire in a trash can at a football game one time. According to Krista, they have a reputation for being entitled kids and were usually mean to anyone not inside their circle. Otherwise she didn’t know any of them or even their names. Strangely, I have never tried to discover any of their names either.
“So now we’ve got two leads to follow – the Chicago BLF’s and our local, unknown dark clique chapter…” I offered and pondered over our options.
“This might turn out to be a girl hazing thing because the dark clique boys refused to ‘welcome’ Ember because of you. The guys didn’t do anything to Greg that day, either. I highly suspect that they chickened out because of the ‘Krista knows Ember and Ember’s brother Tray is big and scary’ factor.
“Although I’ve never been a boy, I kind of figure they’d have to save face somehow in front of the girls. Maybe this party invitation switch was a maneuver designed to make Ember run away from being so freaked out. After all, it’s no big secret how protective she is over her private life.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but somet
hing still feels wrong about all of this,” I told her and couldn’t quite figure out why it was bugging me so badly.
“There’s only one way to find out about the Armond/Blood Legion Family connection and that’s in Chicago. You can observe the dark clique, but if it turns out to be the girls behind this prank then you can’t do much about it. Well, at least not directly you can’t because I promised Ember. You’re welcome to your do your personal best to Salvatore. The world needs the additional air as far as I’m concerned…” Willow gave her permission to obliterate Armond and not just in a persuasion kind of way.
I had no doubt I would be supplying that extra air should the leader of the Blood Legion Family still have his sights set on my little girl...
Ember Rising Light (Book One) Page 89
