Ember

by Jessica Sorensen

  As I gather my books and bag from the table, Cameron wipes some remaining blood from my hair with the sleeve of his shirt. “Such a shame.” He grins slyly. “I’ve been dying to get you alone again. But I guess I can wait until tomorrow.”

  “About that,” I start to cancel, not wanting to add more to my cracking plate. “I think I—”

  “I’ll pick you up at eight,” he cuts me off, sensing a rejection. Backing away, he runs his fingers through his hair and smiles. “I promise, I’ll give you the time of your life.” The way he says it sends a chill over my skin.

  “Oh my God.” Raven comes running up to me, her purse on her shoulder and the car keys in her hand. “Did you hear?”

  I shake my head, my eyes locked on Cameron as he shoves through the exit doors.

  “Farrah Taverson’s body was found next to the lake.” Raven says as we walk out the door of the library. The hallway is empty, and most of the lights have been shut off. “I guess she told a few friends she was going to go looking for Laden. Some boaters found her floating in the water, and she had stab wounds and there were feathers in the pockets of her dress. They think it’s murder. And probably the same one who killed Laden and your—”

  “Neither of their bodies have been found.” My heart crushes into the bits and pieces that stab into my stomach. “So they might not be dead.”

  She gives me a look of pity. “Yeah, maybe.”

  I swallow hard. “How do you know this?”

  She leans in and whispers, “I overheard Mr. Reynolds talking to the cops about it when I snuck out to go to the bathroom.”

  We push through the side doors. Parked in the fire zone in front of the school are two police cars. But if what Raven says is true, then how did I see her body? Could my death omen abilities have cranked up and now I can see death without touching someone? I’m not sure—I’m not sure about anything anymore.

  “What’s wrong, Em?” Raven asks, unlocking her car. “You look like you saw a ghost or something.”

  Or something. “I’m fine.”

  She frowns at me with doubt from over the top of the car. “Are you sure?”

  I nod, ducking into the car. “Yeah, absolutely one hundred percent fine.”

  “Want to know something really creepy,” Raven says, swinging the keychain around her finger. “I got this really strange text from Farrah and now I’m wondering if it had something to do with this. Like maybe she was being stalked by the murderer and was starting to get scared.”

  “Why would she send you a text?” I take out my cell phone and check my messages. “I didn’t know you guys were friends.”

  “We talk a lot in art class.” She cranes her head and backs out of the parking spot.

  I toss my cell phone in my bag. “What did the message say?”

  She shoots me a haunting look. “Fear the Reaper.”

  ***

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Raven bounces up and down in the middle of my bedroom, holding my unenthusiastic hands. Her bangle bracelets jingle and her eyes are as sparkly as her glitter eyeliner. “This is so amazing. Why didn’t you tell me in the car?”

  “Because I knew you’d want to bounce up and down, which is a total road hazard.” I wiggle my hands free. She’s been really bad lately about touching me. “But don’t you think it’s a little weird that he asked me out? I mean, I really don’t seem like his type.”

  She flops down on my bed and dramatically drapes her arm over her head. “Oh Em, you are so naïve sometimes.” She peeks out from underneath her arm. “Did you ever read that romance book I gave you? It has a lot of good tips in it.”

  “I’m sure it does.” I try not to roll my eyes. I feel like shit, but try to play it off, convincing myself that what happened with Farrah was just my death omen evolving. “But I still don’t know if I should go…”

  “Are you having second thoughts because of Asher?” She frowns. “Because I don’t think you should date him.”

  I check my messages and then toss the phone on the dresser. “At the library you said the opposite.”

  “No, I said you should call him and find out if he likes you. And obviously he doesn’t, since he hasn’t called back.” Her lips curl to a smile. “And now you have tall, blonde, and sexy wanting you.”

  “It’s just a date.” I write the word solitude on my wall and then below it: Do you know me at all? Are my words just air? Is my heart easy to spare? “I don’t have him.”

  She slants up on her elbows and scowls at my words. “Why did you just write that?”

  I shrug and circle the words: you, are, my, and heart. “Why do I write anything?”

  She leaps off the bed, steals the marker from my hands, and traces over the letters until the words transform into a small sketch of an intricate angel. She clicks the cap on and hands the marker to me. “There. That’s much better.”

  We grow silent and she gathers her purse from the bed. “I’m going to take off. Call me tomorrow before you go on your big date. And wear something sexy.” She eyes my clothes and slips out into the hallway.

  I drop down on the bed and pick up the romance novel from my nightstand. Each and every page has me pulling faces. It’s a relief when my phone rings. I chuck the book aside and grab my phone off the dresser.

  I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Hello.”

  “Hey, it’s me,” Asher says.

  A pause.

  “You haven’t been at school,” I finally say. “Were you sick or something? You ran off so quickly after Garrick, umm… tried to hurt Raven and I.”

  “I was… Look, Ember, can we talk about this in person?”

  “Umm… is this about the message Raven left you?”

  “Kind of.” He speaks cautiously. “But there’s also something I want to show you.”

  “Sure,” I tell him. “What time are you going to be here?”

  His somber tone doesn’t alleviate the tension. “Can I pick you up in like fifteen minutes?”

  I tell him yes and we say goodbye. I pull my black vest over my red and black striped top and lose the arm warmers. Then I wait for Asher on the living room couch, trying not to get too pumped up about seeing him. Ian’s not at home and I haven’t seen my mom since she told me I’d turn into a killer like my dad. But that happens when she drinks a lot. My dad wasn’t a killer. He liked his bar fights, and did some questionable things, but he never sent anyone to their grave.

  I turn on the TV, but the satellite’s been disconnected. “Did she forget to pay the bill again?” I dial my mom’s cell, but it sends me straight to voicemail. I hang up and search the cabinet drawers for the bill. There are stacks and stacks of papers, batteries, tacks, pens, but no bills.

  Suddenly the lights flip off and the house suffocates in darkness, except for the faint cast of the outside light filtering through the curtains.

  “Okay… did she forget to pay the power bill too?” I fumble through the drawer and pull out a flashlight. I shine the light around the room as I walk toward the front door. The floorboards creak under my feet and I can hear heavy breathing.

  I’m not alone.

  My boot catches on something solid and I fall flat on my face. The flashlight flies out of my hand and rolls across the floor. My legs tangle with something and the silence of their body is more frightening than if I felt their death.

  “Asher?” I squint through the dark down at my legs.

  A dark figure slowly rises from the floor. The head is enormous, its arms long, and its body stretches to the ceiling. A cape flows to the ground and armors its face. Nope, not Asher.

  “Ember,” it breathes, reaching for me. “Don’t be afraid. You know I’d never hurt you.”

  “You stay the hell away from me.” I flip over onto my stomach, taking out the table. I scramble to my feet and sprint across the room for the flashlight. I scoop it up and spin around, sweeping the light across the room.

  But he’s gone.

  I back for the door, sliding
my phone out of my pocket. I dial Ian’s number. “Come on, come on, come—”

  The doorbell rings. Startled, I drop my phone on the floor and the back pops off. I snatch up the pieces and quickly throw open the door.

  Asher looks sexy as hell. His inky black hair dangles in his gorgeous slate eyes and the sleeves of his plaid shirt are pushed up, showing off his lean arms. My eyes stray down lower, to where his jeans ride low on his hips, and I picture myself trailing kisses down his abs.

  Damn Raven and her dirty books. They’re messing with my head.

  He shields his eyes with his hands. “Do you blind every guy that shows up on your porch?” he jokes.

  I click off the flashlight and toss it on the end table. “Sorry, the power went out.”

  I shut the door behind me as I step outside. We walk silently to his car and get in. Through my living room window, the caped visitor watches me and I can’t seem to take my eyes off him.

  Asher turns the stereo down and rotates in his seat to face me. “Is something wrong?” He tracks the course of my gaze. “What are you looking at? Did you forget to turn something off?”

  I tear my attention away from the house. Away from him. “No, everything’s good. So what did you want to show me?”

  He grins as he backs down the driveway. “It’s a surprise.”

  I try to be happy, but I’m severely distracted by the return of an old friend, the Grim Reaper. The last time he showed up, he ruined my life.

  Chapter 10

  I first met the mysterious cloaked creature when I went to live with my dad. I named him the Grim Reaper, but only because he looked like Death. When I was little, I thought he was my imaginary friend because no one could see him but me. After he vanished from my life, he reappeared once, right before my dad vanished. He told me my dad was going to die within minutes. I panicked and called the cops, telling them Patrick Edwards was about to die. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life and put me under high suspicion.

  I watch the trees blur by, trying to convince myself that I didn’t see the Grim Reaper, that he was just a figment of my imagination. The sky is masked with darkness and the fields and yards are shadows.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Asher drives down the main road toward the outskirts of town. “You seem a little distracted tonight.”

  “What?” I turn away from the window.

  Asher sighs. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he reaches over and takes my hand. “You’re probably wondering where I’ve been for the last few days and why I ran off after that thing with that man who had the X on his eye.”

  “You mean Garrick,” I clarify.

  He entwines our fingers and tranquility envelops my over-thinking brain. Suddenly, my Grim Reaper and my Death problem are insignificant.

  Asher asks, “Do you know Garrick?”

  “Yeah, I met him at the party,” I explain. “The one that I met you at.”

  He sketches along the folds of my fingers, sending tingles all over my skin. “Did you meet him before or after I talked to you that night?”

  “After,” I reply. “It was right before I left to chase down Raven… He told me someone was messing around with my car.”

  “And then your car’s brakes went out.” He cracks his knuckles on the steering wheel as he cogitates. “I wonder if…”

  “If what?” I press. “Asher, do you know this the guy? And did he mess with my brakes that night? Because he told me someone else was messing with my car, and I’m starting to wonder if it was him and maybe he was also the tailgater.”

  He slips his hand from mine and places it on the shifter; it feels like a glove slipped off my fingers and my hand feels bare. “Ember, have you ever heard of the Anamotti?” he asks and I shake my head. “Well, it’s this term that got thrown around a lot in the neighborhood I lived in New York… It’s kind of like this hush-hush secret society thing.”

  “What kind of a neighborhood did you live in?” I wonder.

  He hesitates. “The Upper East Side.”

  “So it’s a secret society for rich people.”

  “Kind of.”

  “I’m confused,” I confess. “What does this have to do with Garrick? Is he part of it?”

  He fiddles anxiously with the air freshener on the rearview mirror. “Yeah, he was… He is part of it.”

  “So Garrick’s from New York too?” I question. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’m not sure I believe that you, Cameron, and Garrick, all moved here at the same time and from New York.”

  “Garrick didn’t move here from New York,” Asher discloses in a subdued voice. “I said the term got thrown around a lot in my neighborhood, but it doesn’t mean every member from the Anamotti lives there.”

  I ask, “But then how do you know Garrick is part of the Anamotti?”

  “That X tattoo he has,” Asher makes an X motion over his eye with his finger, “is the symbol of the Anamotti.”

  “So what are they?” I inquire, thinking about what I read on the internet about X symbols. “What is their secret society all about? And why do they have X’s?”

  He restlessly drums his fingers on the shifter, lets out a shaky breath, and laces his fingers with mine again. “I’m afraid it might scare you, especially because Garrick is interested in you.”

  “No, he seems interested in Raven.” Unable to help myself, I caress his palm with my thumb. “I think he was with her that night when Laden disappeared.”

  “Maybe,” he says sadly. “But I think he’s using Raven to get to you.”

  “For what?” I begin to pull my hand away. “And how do you know all this… Are you part of this Anamotti?”

  “I can’t tell you that right now.” His hand tightens on mine. “Trust me, I want to. Desperately. But not yet, okay? I need to… we need to spend some time together first. ” Honesty blazes in his eyes like smoke over a fire. “Please just trust me, Ember.”

  It’s a strange answer, but not accepting it would be like the pot calling the kettle black. “Okay, I can wait, I guess.”

  He runs his fingers through my hair, gently tugging at the roots and sending a shock of pleasure through my body. Wow. Dear God Almighty.

  “Thank you for trusting me,” his voice perpetuates my body with heat.

  We leave the sunnier part of town behind and enter the rougher side. The old-fashioned shops and restaurants become old and dilapidated houses. Rusted cars clutter the yards and bars and smoke shops fill up the business areas. It’s frightening how much this side of town feels like home.

  My concentration centers on Asher. “So where’s this mysterious place you’re taking me?”

  Still holding my hand, he downshifts. “That’s kind of a surprise, but I thought we could get something to eat first. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

  I crack the window and let in a cool breeze. “Yeah, that’s fine with me.”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing bothering you?” he asks. “You seem a little… sad. Or sadder than usual.”

  The wind gusts through my hair and I shut my eyes, breathing in deeply. “I’m fine. I promise.” I erase my sadness as much as possible, and open my eyes, summoning up a small smile. “I’m actually just really hungry.”

  “Good.” He grins and turns the car into the crowded parking lot of Phil’s Shenanigans and Fun. “Hmm…” Asher observes the sign. “I wonder what kind of fun it’s referring to.”

  “No, you don’t,” I say unintentionally. It’s the bar where my dad hung out.

  “You’ve been here?” Asher shuts off the engine.

  “Once or twice.” I omit some of the truth. “And I think they card here.”

  “I heard they don’t.” He points a finger at the front door where a young couple is walking inside. “And I think we go to school with them.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” I sigh heavily. “I think they do let in minors.”

  My dad came here a lot and brought me with him. I’d sit
in the corner booth, coloring, while he drank himself into a stupor, ranting about his philosophical ideas on life and death until he’d piss off someone enough that they’d take a swing at him. Then Phil, the owner—who was like a second father to me—would load us up in his Chevy and drive us home.

  “Do you know if the food’s good here?” Asher opens the car door.

  “Yeah, the food, the service—it’s all great.” Except for the memories.