Tempest

by Laura Marie

  I sincerely hoped I could convince her, but I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to. Chloe had been dead set on running away, and I understood it from her point of view. I only wished there was more I could do to help.

  “Are you going to be okay for food?” I asked. “And candles? And God, there are so many other things. How will you survive here?”

  “I’m sure I’ll figure it out,” Chloe said. “I’ll run to the shop just now, I have some savings, and then I’ll hole up here for a couple of days. But you won’t forget me, right? Come to see me.”

  “Of course,” I said. There was no way I was leaving my best friend in this abandoned house to wither away.

  I still didn’t think it was the answer to hide away. Even if Chloe had been the one to commit the murders, which I strongly believe she didn’t, she had to talk to someone about it. She couldn’t just hide away and hope that the problem would disappear. It just didn’t work that way.

  But I wasn’t going to try to convince her. I would let her stay for a while. Maybe she would hate it so much that she would go back home after a couple of hours. The first night in this scary place might be enough to convince her that it was the one place she didn’t want to be. After all, going through something like this alone would be terrible.

  Chloe and I left the abandoned house and got on the bus. We headed toward town to buy a couple of things. Chloe had wanted to go to the store alone, but I wouldn’t let her. It was the least I could do. I had a bit of time left, still. My mom and Victor wouldn’t get suspicious until I stayed away past the time the library closed.

  An hour later, Chloe was settled with candles and matches, food for the night and a bottle of water in case she couldn’t drink the water at the abandoned house.

  “Don’t burn the place down,” I said with a small smile. Chloe chuckled.

  “I remember what fire does to me, don’t worry.”

  We both shuddered when we thought back to the time I had nearly burned Chloe up alive with my magic. It had gotten out of control and almost ruined our friendship.

  “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” I said. “I’ll bring your homework.”

  It went without saying that Chloe was going to stay away from school for a while. I would cover for her.

  I turned toward the door to leave.

  “Emily,” Chloe called me back.

  When I turned around, she grabbed me into a tight hug. I was so surprised by the contact, when Chloe never touched me, that I didn’t know what to do for a moment. But I closed my arms around her and took the opportunity to hug her when I had wanted to for so long.

  “It’s going to be okay, Chloe,” I said.

  She let go of me again and took a step back, creating distance between us, as before.

  “It’s good to know that someone believes in me,” she said with a smile.

  “Always,” I said.

  I left the abandoned house and followed the path back through the trees until I reached the road. It felt wrong to leave my friend behind. But I had to believe that it was going to be okay in the end.

  Even if I was the only one in this town that thought so.

  CHAPTER NINE

  School was quiet without Chloe. I worried about her. With classes that I didn’t have with her, I asked some of the other kids to bring me her homework. I wanted to swing by the abandoned house after school.

  When Chloe hadn’t returned home last night, her mom had phoned me in a panic. Chloe had told me to tell her mom that she was okay but wasn’t going to come home. I had given Mrs. Gardner the message. Even though she hadn’t been happy, the lack of gossip around town must have meant that she had accepted it. I didn’t quite understand it, but it made Chloe’s life a little easier, which was a relief.

  When I arrived home, my mom called. She was still at the salon, of course.

  “I need you to go into town and pick up a couple of things for me,” she said.

  “I had other plans, mom,” I said.

  “Yeah? Well, you’re going to have to postpone them. I need you to do this first.”

  I rolled my eyes. If I had done this in front of her, she would have reprimanded me. But she couldn’t see me now, and I was allowed to be irritated with her as I wanted.

  “I left a list on the table. I need you to take care of that.”

  I couldn’t exactly argue; my mom was in a no-nonsense mood. She had been a lot shorter with me since she had met Victor. Or rather, since I had met Victor. Maybe it was my punishment because I didn’t like him. So sue me.

  After my mom hung up, I walked to the dining room and found the list she had left me. I had to do a full grocery run, pick up something from the dry cleaner and place an order at the butcher.

  Definitely punishment.

  Or maybe this was her way of keeping me busy so that I couldn’t see Chloe. There was no way she could have known that I had hidden her at the abandoned house, but my mom had a way of having the worst timing.

  I was going to have to postpone seeing Chloe until after I had managed all the errands. My mom was going to call me and check up on me, no doubt.

  I headed to the store, first. If I did a grocery run, I would have to go back home after to drop off the packets before I did the next thing on the list. It was a surefire way to keep me busy all day.

  In the grocery store, I meandered through the aisles, picking all the things my mom had written on the list from the shelves and nothing more. She had given me a budget. I wouldn’t even get a reward for this.

  When I turned the corner, I nearly ran into two werewolves. I didn’t know how I knew that it was what they were; maybe it was the magic that clung to their skins, almost like being wrapped in a fur coat, the taste of something wild.

  “If you ask me, it’s one of the young ones,” the older Wolf said. They were both in human form, but their eyes glowed like jewels. I didn’t know how I knew, but they were talking about the vampire murders.

  “Absolutely,” the other said. “They don’t know how to control themselves. The vampires think they are so sophisticated, getting high and mighty in our faces, but they drew first blood. They were so sure we were the ones who would lose control.”

  I had known that the vampires and werewolves didn’t exactly mingle, but this sounded a lot like bitterness.

  “They should just banish the whole lot,” the first Wolf said. “Things like this shouldn’t happen around town. There are families here, for God’s sake.”

  I turned and walked away. I had heard enough. Even if they didn’t think it was Chloe, specifically, they were sure it was one of the younger vampires, sure that they had no control. Unfortunately, they were right about the control. Chloe had none. But that didn’t mean it was the norm. And I wanted to prove that they were wrong. I wasn’t suddenly an advocate for the vampires. Reece was a good friend, too, and he was a werewolf. I just didn’t like how everyone was suddenly discriminating because one vampire had messed up.

  Once I finished with the groceries, I headed back home, crowding the packets around my legs on the bus like a hen with her chicks. My mom usually did the grocery shopping, but she had a car. It was unfair that she was making me do this.

  When I arrived home, Victor was in the kitchen making a sandwich. What the hell was he doing here? My mom wouldn’t be home for hours, still.

  “Do you want one?” Victor asked, gesturing to his sandwich.

  I shook my head. “I have things to do.”

  “Don’t worry about getting to that right now, sit with me,” Victor said.

  “I’d rather not. I want to get this done as soon as possible,” I said. I was polite, it was more than he deserved already. I didn’t want to have to spend time with the guy, too.

  “Nasty business, these killings,” Victor said just as I was about to walk away.

  I froze and turned around.

  “What?” I asked. Why was he talking to me about this? I knew I was suddenly suspicious because I was hiding C
hloe, but it seemed to me like everyone was talking about the vampire murders now.

  “I just want to remind you that not all the creatures out there are safe,” Victor said. He turned to me and leaned his hip against the counter, comfortable in my house. I wanted him gone.

  “Is this about Chloe?” I asked. I was almost a hundred percent sure my mom had put him up to talk to me about my friendship with her.

  “I don’t know your friend,” Victor said. “I just know that not everything is what it seems. Your mom told me that you had a run-in with another friend of yours, a witch that turned out to be quite dangerous.”

  “So, just because I made a mistake with the one, my judgment is obviously warped and all my friends are dangerous, right?” I was snappy with him, but I wasn’t going to let him pin something on my best friend that wasn’t her fault, and I wasn’t going to let him lecture me when it had nothing to do with him.

  “Don’t be so defensive, Rabbit,” Victor said.

  God, if he called me rabbit one more time, I was going to attack him. The moment I thought it, my anger triggered my magic and heat rose around me like a wave. I doubted he could feel it, he was just a human. And until my fire manifested in actual flames, there would be no proof to the naked eye that something was wrong.

  But I couldn’t do anything to him; he was my mom’s boyfriend. And if I did, I would only be proving him right.

  “I have to get out of here,” I said, trying to swallow down my magic. “I still have a few things to do.”

  I managed to make my escape and stormed down the road, my fury dancing on my skin, my blood boiling.

  Literally.

  I hadn’t spent a lot of my time unlocking my fire magic. I had been working on my Atmokinesis more, lately. But the fire was still the first thing that responded when I was angry. I guess it was the heat.

  “Hey, what’s the rush?” Reece asked, walking toward my house just as I came down the drive.

  “I just want to get away from here,” I said. “My mom’s boyfriend is an ass.”

  Reece chuckled. “I can totally relate to that.”

  I blinked at him, his comment distracting me a little.

  “Shitty stepdad,” Reece said with a shrug.

  “Were you looking for me?” I asked, realizing he had been on his way to my house. He didn’t often come to visit me. Reece usually spent time with Chloe if he hung out with anyone else than his football team.

  “I was,” Reece said. “Where’s Chloe?”

  I had forgotten that he would have been looking for her. And if he was asking me, she hadn’t told him anything. That didn’t surprise me. Chloe was embarrassed about her bloodlust, and she was convinced she was a murderer. It wasn’t the kind of thing you told the guy you had a crush on.

  Which I was sure she hadn’t.

  “Look, don’t tell anyone,” I said.

  Reece shook his head. I knew I could trust him – the only reason he was here was that he was worried about Chloe. He would never do anything to hurt her or put her in harm’s way.

  “She ran away from home. She’s staying at the abandoned house on the beach for now.”

  I watched Reece’s face as the news sank in.

  “Why did she run away? Is she okay?”

  “She’s convinced she committed the murders. Both times, it happened when she had blacked out. She thinks the clan will come after her. Apparently, Dmitri wants to sit down and have a chat with her. And I understand why she doesn’t want that; I don’t exactly trust him, either.”

  “Shit,” Reece said. It was only one word, but it fully summarized the situation.

  “Yeah, it is,” I said. “But I want to help her. I want to prove that she is not the one who did it.”

  “How?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know that yet. I went to the first crime scene the other day. I couldn’t find anything more than vampire magic. They all feel the same. I was hoping I could find a clue as to who really did it so that I could prove that it wasn’t Chloe.”

  Reece nodded and looked over my shoulder, thinking.

  “I want to help,” he said. His eyes were chartreuse when they settled on me.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Well, you can sense magic, but I can smell. When I’m in Wolf form, I can sniff out a trail. Why don’t we go back to the scene and I’ll see if I can find the scent? I know what Chloe smells like. I’ll know if it was her or not.”

  It actually sounded like a great plan. We were two teenagers, but I was sure that we could find something this way. The police were all human, and even though they had decided to involve themselves now, I was sure they hadn’t thought about using magic and preternatural sensors to find out what was really going on.

  “That’s a great idea,” I said to Reece.

  “When do you want to go?” He asked. He looked ready to leave right away.

  I sighed and looked at the piece of paper in my hand scribbled with my mother’s errands.

  “I have to get this done first. I want to go see her afterward, and then maybe we could head out tonight.”

  “Will your mom let you out?” Reece asked.

  I shook my head. “No, but that’s nothing new. Since she started dating Victor, she hasn’t really been letting me do anything. I’ll just sneak out. Meet me on the corner.”

  Reece nodded and walked me to the bus stop before he disappeared. With him on my side, I was more confident that we could make it happen. Why hadn’t I thought about asking him earlier?

  CHAPTER TEN

  “It’s me,” I called when I pushed open the wooden door and stepped into the abandoned house. Chloe was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even proof that she stayed here.

  But I knew she was hiding. If I were hiding out here, I would make myself scarce at the sound of someone approaching, too.

  Chloe came down the stairs. They were wooden, carpeted once upon a time, but the carpet had worn down, and the wood seemed to be rotting away in patches, too. She looked nervous, scared, and a little crazed.

  “You took a chance going upstairs,” I said.

  Chloe nodded. “I thought that maybe someone else would think that, too. I figured if it looks dangerous, it would be the last place someone would look. Besides, it’s not as bad as it seems. I haven’t fallen through yet.”

  “Nice,” I said. “That’s clever.” I was impressed.

  I held out a bag with leftovers from the night before. I knew Chloe had bought food, but I was sure that she would like something home-made.

  “Oh, my God. Thank you.” She took the bag from me and opened it immediately, starting to eat the food.

  “Come on, let’s sit down,” I said. Chloe would just stand in the middle of the room and finish the food. That’s what it looked like.

  Chloe and I walked through the rooms until we reached what once had been the kitchen. The cabinets were all there, the doors were hanging open at odd angles, and a half-wall blocked off the main room from the area that should have been the breakfast nook. But the table and seat had been ripped out, and Chloe and I perched on top of the half-wall, instead.

  I turned my head to the window. The glass was thick with salt that had blown from the sea, but the view of the ocean was spectacular. I could understand why this had been the breakfast nook. I could only imagine what it would be like to have breakfast with this view every day.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, turning my attention to Chloe.

  She pulled up her shoulders, chewing. “I’ve been better.”

  That was the understatement of the century.

  “Your mom is worried about you,” I said. “But she hasn’t sent out a search party for you or anything. Maybe she understands.”

  “She doesn’t. It’s why I’m not telling her. I’m scared of what they’ll do to me if they find out what I really am.”

  I shook my head. “You’re not a monster, Chlo. You’re just in a bad space.”

  Another serious unde
rstatement.

  I studied Chloe while she ate. She looked even worse than yesterday. She was deteriorating so quickly, it was as if weeks and months had sped up for her.

  I frowned, thinking of something.

  “Are you drinking blood?” I asked.

  Chloe looked up at me, eyes wide. She shook her head.

  “You know I don’t. I can’t stand the idea of it.”

  She swallowed hard, the motion similar to what she did when she was having an anxiety attack.

  “I don’t mean from someone. But from little animals, woodland creatures, don’t you guys do that?”

  Chloe pulled up her shoulders. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to know. I don’t want this.”

  I nodded. I understood. But Chloe didn’t need me to contradict her now. We both knew that she had to feed if she really wanted to control this thing. She was refusing to, and because of that, she was only getting worse and worse. I hoped that she would come to her senses before things went too far.

  “Do you want to see what I’ve been working on?” I asked, changing the topic. Maybe I could distract her.

  Chloe nodded. I nodded toward the window, telling her to look outside.

  When her face was turned toward the window, I reached deep down and summoned magic I had started to develop. I focused on the feeling, trying to find the same level I had found when the vampire magic had come at me.

  As we looked out the window, dark clouds gathered about the beach and stretched out across the ocean. Safety Beach was always a very sunny place but, lately, I had managed to change the weather completely.

  “Are you doing this?” Chloe asked, incredulous. Her eyes had a little spark in them, and it was good to see that she had been distracted from the misery.

  “You bet,” I said. “Keep watching.”

  Rain started falling, pelting the sand and rustling as it fell into the ocean in sheets. I concentrated, shifting the magic. A couple of yards away from the beach, I started the whirlwind. I wasn’t very good at it yet, but the wind started twirling around and around, picking up speed. The rain spread out at all angles, the whirlwind growing in size until it was a small tornado.