Blood Awakens

by Jessaca Willis

  “Why are you here? Don’t you have better things to do than stalk me?”

  “Stalk? Pft! Don’t be so full of yourself, kid.” Carson was wild with satisfaction at the reaction the demeaning moniker warranted from Santiago. Kicking himself off the wall, he approached and gave Santiago such a hardy pat on the shoulder, that his insert almost fell out. “I’m out here on official Hope business.”

  “Oh yeah?” With goading eyes, Santiago resituated the insert and fidgeted with the deflation he’d just noticed in his fauxhawk. “What’s that? Searching for sand? Cacti? More desert?”

  To his surprise, Carson laughed. “If only the job of a scout were that easy. No, I came because I felt the call of suffering people. Turns out, it was just you lot.”

  Santiago couldn’t stand to listen to him anymore. Diesel was so far ahead that there was no point in racing to catch up to him now. But walking back to Hope alone beat standing there with Carson any day.

  “Rough in there? Savina not give you an ‘A’?” The grown man pouted his lip far enough that it rested on his protruding, round chin.

  “I don’t care about a grade. I care about getting better.”

  “If you want to get better, then you should be training with me instead.”

  Santiago glanced at Carson from the very edge of his vision, not only to gauge the sincerity of the offer, but also to convey that he found the idea ridiculous.

  “I’m being serious. Being an empath, it’s not easy. You could use a good mentor, someone who knows what they’re doing.” With a jerk of his head, he pointed back toward TULIP. “Not that nut-job.”

  Though Santiago was starting to agree that Savina knew little about what she was doing, he wouldn’t be caught dead admitting that to Carson. Instead, he hastened his pace.

  “I could teach you about aura and how to tell one emotion apart from another. I could teach you how to block yourself from receiving the calls, or how to focus on one while drowning the others out. I could teach you your likely undiscovered ability to find your soulmate.”

  At that, Santiago stopped dead in his tracks. He had questions, sure, but mostly, the suggestion had given him an answer. Carson was suggesting that empaths could find their soulmates, like they had some kind of love radar. It was undoubtedly why his attraction to Mara was so strong. It was the only logical explanation. He should’ve hated her on sight for everything she was doing and everything she stood for.

  Maybe the soulmate radar was why he’d dreamt about her.

  “That got your attention,” Carson said with a goofy smirk. “Looking for love?”

  “Leave me alone,” Santiago growled, resuming his storming off. “I don’t need your help. I’m fine.”

  “Whatever you say, kid.”

  Seething, Santiago continued the long journey back to Hope, though not entirely alone. Accompanying him was a warmth he’d never known: giddiness at the thought of having met his soulmate.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Graciela

  For the night’s festivities, the northwest quadrant of Hope was painted purple. Graciela marveled at the handmade and re-used decorations adorning the topmost points of buildings to the very paths that people walked. Everything between the school to the lunch tent was decked in plum, lavender, and violet.

  “Thank you for the petals,” Mara said politely to the merchant before handing the handful of freshly plucked pastel-purple flower petals to Graciela. “Do you have anywhere for these?”

  Graciela nodded, even though she didn’t have an exact place in mind off the top of her head. She hadn’t brought a bag with her today. In fact, she’d kind of grown accustomed to not having one since coming to Hope. But her loose-fitting pants did have pockets, so she let the petals fall inside and hoped they wouldn’t dye the left thigh of her pants.

  Men and women, both the young and the old, Graciela alongside them, had spent the better half of the day adorning their tents and shops if they had them, every corner of the community. All week long, groups set off in the early morning to gather purple morning glories, western pennyroyals, and the popular salvia celestial-blue flowers. Their wreaths now garnished doorways, draped from canopies, and lined walkways. The flowers too damaged for display were used as dyes for shirts, dresses, and whatever else anybody could think to stain.

  The other quadrants of Hope were participating in a similar fashion, gathering their own specific colors of blue, red, and yellow, although the fourth quadrant adopted the color orange as well, since yellow flowers were a bit more difficult to come by.

  The town was a bustle of excitement. A toe-headed boy with freckles sped through the commotion, concealing petals tucked inside his shirt, careful not to let a single one drop. The ones he did accidentally let fall were hastily retrieved by a flock of birds that appeared to respond to his whistling. He broke through a gaggle of women who frantically adjusted each other’s outfits, tugging and tightening loose tresses of hair and ribbon. Beside them, a man and women stretched their arms up high trying to determine where to place a newly completed purple banner that read, “Moonshine.”

  Although Graciela knew the words “moon” and “shine,” she hadn’t a clue what the couple was advertising and shrugged it off as some American pastime or obsession with space. Not too farfetched of a thought, considering.

  She didn’t know when their last Tri-Lunar Festival had been, although judging by the elevated excitement it had likely been a while ago.

  “Everyone seems so happy today. Is there always this much excitement for a Tri-Lunar Festival?” Graciela asked, leaning forward so her voice had less distance to travel.

  “Yes, but this one is special. It’s transformed into something greater than its religious affiliations, a celebration of the Awakened. These festivals occur every four months. We use the moon cycles to determine—hey!” Mara halted just in time as a man breathed fire across their path for his crowd’s spectacle. “Be careful with that!”

  Graciela had once heard that dragons could maintain their beast-form abilities while still being in human form, but she had never actually seen it before. Come to think of it, she didn’t think she had ever seen a dragon, period.

  The man nodded an apathetic apology and continued his street performance.

  Mara continued. “Today is the annual Tri-Lunar Festival though. I don’t want to spoil it, but the annual one is unique, a little more exciting than the others. You’ll see.”

  Although Graciela had nothing to compare it to, never having participated in a Tara Prana custom herself, Mara’s promise thrilled her. Leading Graciela by the hand, Mara continued to weave them through the crowd. Blurred shapes buzzed all around them.

  Mara’s lips spread with devious pride. “Not only does it allow us to be ourselves, but who doesn’t enjoy a celebration?”

  Graciela hardly noticed the expansive field that had opened before them, more festive than anything they had come across. The people of Hope funneled into the arena from all sides, finding their seat in either quadrant, each a proudly decorated pavilion of bleachers.

  This section of Hope had been closed to the public for the previous week, apparently in preparation for the event, and Graciela had never once thought to ask why. They had done a splendid job with their decorations. In the very center lay what she could only guess was a stage, a tiny little thing of a platform with a podium on top.

  “For later this evening.” Mara grinned. “Come, I think the boys are waiting for us.”

  They left the arena before ever fully entering and continued to twist along the winding paths. Around the bend, two familiar faces conversed over a boiling pot.

  The young men reviewed the recipe in hand with a critical eye, disagreeing about a particular ingredient. Santiago held up a cup of some red spice while Sean desperately waved his hands, offering a small spoon as an alternative.

  Knowing that her brother had never cooked a tasteful meal in his entire life, Graciela was prepared to take Sean’s side in the
matter.

  “Looks like we got here just in time,” she teased, her brother shooting her a nonthreatening glare. He looked so childlike in the moment, she was half surprised he didn’t flick his tongue out at her.

  “Thank the Mothers! Please tell your brother you cannot put a whole cup of cayenne in any recipe, but more importantly, not in our red pepper and tomato soup. It’ll ruin it.”

  She shifted an eyebrow at her brother.

  He shrugged. “What? I like spice.”

  Graciela yanked the measuring cup from his hand, and with the toss of her hip, gently nudged him out of the way. “Let me. Why don’t you help Mara with the dye?” She took note of the wide-eyed look he gave her, a code of a secret sibling language they had perfected in childhood. This facial expression, one complete with pursed lips, usually signified a betrayal of some kind. Although in this moment she had no clue as to what he was referring.

  Before Graciela and Santiago could continue the nonverbal sibling language, Mara shoved a handful of shirts into his chest and pulled him over to a chair, leaving Sean and Graciela to the meal prep.

  Kind, soft eyes searched Graciela’s. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better, thankfully.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You’re looking much better.” As the words fumbled out of his mouth, sheer horror made his eyes pop. “Not that you looked bad. I didn’t mean that. I just meant—”

  Graciela giggled, enjoying the struggle he endured while he searched for some articulate grace. Letting him suffer wasn’t really in her nature though. “I do look healthy again, don’t I?” she finally finished for him, letting him off the hook.

  “Yes,” he sighed in relief. The corner of his lip twitched up while he massaged the back of his neck.

  Assuming the role of chef, Graciela ignored the recipe and gave the brew a strong stir. It was simple enough: water, tomatoes, and red peppers—which were already in the pot. Then cayenne pepper, salt, and thyme. They were fortunate to have such ingredients in a desert, but the water and earth temperals helped immensely with farming, each taking shifts to create moisture and irrigate the crops.

  The only thing left to do was to add the spices, taste for a quality check, and let it stew. Not difficult at all.

  “Where did you learn to cook?” Sean asked.

  “Nowhere really, I just do it. Our dad worked a lot, so I was in charge of the garden and cooking our meals.” A few dashes of salt were thrown into the mix. Piquant aromas stung her nostrils, making her mouth water in anticipation and she realized he’d been the sole creator of the soup before her arrival. “You get better with time. What about you?”

  “Yeah, I guess the same. Samson and I would take turns with our mom. She cooked on the weekends, and we would cook during the week, and by ‘cook’ I mean that we made boxed macaroni and cheese with sliced hot dogs most nights.”

  Mara said dryly, “It’s amazing you’ve survived this long.”

  “Oh really?” Sean snorted. “I don’t see you volunteering to help.”

  Mara rose, chest puffed out, her body toned but still feminine. The dye had already begun to seep into her skin, staining her fingers with opaque, purple gloves. They fisted in a challenge.

  “Hey, whoa! Calm down, turbo,” Sean said, feigning intimidation. “Today is about having fun, not brawling.”

  “Synonymous, if you ask me,” she said, winking at Graciela.

  All in good fun, Sean shared a secret eye roll with Graciela as he turned away from his pugnacious friend.

  “That’s what I thought. You don’t have the skill to back the challenge,” Mara said, returning to her seat and dunking another shirt into the dye. “And I’ll have you know, I make an irresistible cassoeula. So delicious, you would never be able to eat anyone else’s ever again.”

  “I can’t say I’d have anything to compare it to. I’ve never even heard of cass—whatever you called it,” Sean admitted.

  “Cassoeula? Uff, you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a pork and cabbage stew, with other vegetables. But it’s all about the preparation of the pork. You have to get it just right to make sure it’s equally tender and savory. Look at me. What have you done? I’m drooling just thinking about it.”

  “We used to make cabbage stew back at home too,” Santiago said, using a finger to poke at a shirt that wouldn’t submerge itself. “I don’t think Gracie ever put pork in it though. You should make it for us sometime. It sounds delicious.”

  Mara stilled, a sliver of pain tearing through her eyes. It only lasted a fraction of a second. The guys hardly seemed to notice, but it didn’t go unnoticed by Graciela. With her keen sense of emotional observance, she caught Mara casually attempting to shirk something off like a bothersome fly.

  “Eh, well, I tell you what. If I ever get ahold of my family recipe books, I would happily introduce you all to my fine Italian cuisine.”

  There had been significant pain dwelling beneath the word family. The more she thought about it, the more Graciela realized she’d rarely, if ever, heard Mara talk about her family.

  The boys were still obliviously stirring their pots of soup and purple dye, but Graciela couldn’t help but focus on that slight shimmer at Mara’s tear duct. The eyes were the windows into the soul, and Mara’s were screaming, two jade green hands practically swooping Graciela inside them. Somewhere hidden below, there was a voice urging her to drop it, not to push Mara to talk about what she was feeling. But she also didn’t like the idea of her friend feeling alone in all of this.

  She couldn’t stop the words from gushing out, as if someone else now operated her vocal cords. “Do you have family? Back in Italy I mean?” She felt abashed that she didn’t already know the answer.

  The air imploded, sharpening itself with a thousand pieces of shrapnel.

  Mara didn’t blink an eye. As if on autopilot, her hands gripping an old off-white shirt, plunged, uninhibited into the flower-tinted water. Petals floated up, carelessly spinning, peaceful but unsettling in the purple water.

  All eyes focused on Mara, voice detached and distant. “Yeah. I have family.”

  Graciela noted the word have, present tense. That was a good sign. It meant they were still alive.

  The next shirt went in, soaking up the purple hues.

  “It must be difficult to be away from them. Who’s there?”

  Everyone had stopped working, except for Mara. Her one-man shirt-dying assembly line continued without a hitch. Beside her piled a stack of approximately fifteen shirts. Mara had explained earlier during their walk that they always stained a few clothes on the day of the Tri-Lunar Festival to set aside for future newcomers. Each neighborhood had a designated “dyer.” This way everyone had something festive to wear, even if they had only just arrived the night before.

  “Two sisters. Both younger. I suppose Giulia is sixteen by now. Elena, fourteen.” Her voice was calculated and controlled. Like a homicide detective describing a newly discovered deceased victim, she spoke only objectively. No elaboration on blissful memories of who they’d been or what they were like.

  Graciela was surprised she even got to hear their names, Mara’s tone was so utterly void of emotions.

  Without taking her eyes off the bucket, Mara dunked the last shirt into the pool of purple that swallowed it whole. “And then there’s my father. A businessman.” Mara said the word with so much disdain, Graciela was afraid to ask anything else. Not that Mara gave her the chance. Before anyone could say anything else, she retrieved the shirt, rung it out, and stacked it on top of the others before hoisting the pile over her shoulder. “I should hang these out to dry. You guys go ahead and eat. I’ll meet up with you at the performances.”

  Graciela started to call to her, but Sean rested a cautionary hand on her shoulder. Even as gentle as he was, Graciela knew better than to continue. He was the leader after all. Not to mention, he knew Mara better than she did.

  “It’s not easy for her to talk about them. She misses t
hem every day. Mara and her sisters were very close, more than family, more than best friends. Kind of like you two,” Sean said, zigzagging a finger between Graciela and her brother. “It tears her up inside that she’s not with them, that she doesn’t know how they are or even where they are.”

  Though it burned a hole in her chest, Graciela did as he suggested, taking a seat beside her brother while they finished letting the soup stew.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sean

  Even as Graciela sat there reading a textbook, she looked content. The corners of her mouth seemed to always be slightly turned upward, as if the woman never let herself frown. And never once did Sean wonder if her joy was false in some way. Graciela seemed to be a genuinely happy person.

  Sean supposed fearing that you’d lose the one person you love most in the world, and then saving them, would give you a heightened appreciation for life.

  Simmering over the fire, the bubbling soup reminded him of blood, and he found himself all the more hungered. Disgust swelled.

  “What are you reading?” he asked as a means of distraction.

  “Clinical Procedures for Emergency Medicine. Dr. Gallagher recommended it,” Graciela said, a wide smile blossoming from nowhere.

  Again, he was struck by the pleasantness of it, of her sweet nature.

  “I think he prefers to be called Darach,” Sean smiled before remembering the other helpful books they had. “I would also suggest the Veterinarian Manual he has.”

  “Cómo? Dr. Gallagher never said anything about working on animals.”

  “Hmm, I’m not sure why he didn’t. We have livestock here, as I’m sure you’ve either seen or smelled. They get sick and need antibiotics and such. Sometimes they get injured, but not often. We rely on our medical team—you know, you, Darach, and myself—to know how to care for both the people and the animals of Hope. Plus, you’d be surprised how similar to animals some of the Awakened are.” He winked and immediately felt abashed. Mentally, Sean made a note to himself to remember to stop winking at people he was still getting to know.