Soul Forgotten (Blue Star Series Book 1)

by Laura Winter

  I pulled away. “Girls like that? Seriously? This has nothing to do with Clara,” I snapped. Actually, it had everything to do with her. I wasn’t blaming her, but I also wasn’t going to tell my dad the truth.

  “Look,” he said, shaking his head. “I get you haven’t had a girlfriend before, and this is probably just some phase, but first she breaks your heart and now this?”

  I could see him start to puff his chest which only made me more upset. It was hard not telling him what was actually happening between Clara and I. He wouldn’t understand our powers, and he definitely wouldn’t understand our connection.

  “Dad, she is not some phase. Can you please just let this go? It’s not a big deal.”

  “If you tell me the truth about what happened, I might consider letting it go. Might.”

  As he folded his arms, I spit out the first thing that came to mind. “Some guys tried to pick a fight using Clara, and I fought back, but not before they got a cheap shot in.”

  There, that was sort of truthful. Richard and Aidan did use Clara, but the cheap shot was my own fault because I couldn’t stick my landing.

  My dad relaxed, but that wasn’t comforting. I could see the disappointment in his eyes. “Look, I can’t control who you hang out with or who you date. I guess I need a better chance to know this girl, but I hope you can make better decisions about this before it gets worse.”

  I didn’t have anything more to say, and I had lost my appetite, so I turned around and headed up to my room.

  ◆◆◆

  After Dad had gone to sleep, I left a note on the table saying I had left early for school. That was at least something I could get away with unless he woke up to check on me in the middle of the night. It’s not like I’d make much noise sneaking out. I grabbed my backpack and used the shadows to get to Clara’s house. She had clearly fallen asleep waiting for me so I kissed her cheek and crawled over to the other side of the bed.

  Your dad is going to kill you. Clara groaned and rolled over to face me, struggling to keep her eyes open.

  “Worth it to see you,” I replied, brushing the hair out of her face. “How was the library?”

  “Messy. How was your dad?”

  “Messy.”

  She smiled and rolled back over, scooting back into me so I could hold her. I played with her hands until her breathing got heavy as she fell asleep again. It wasn’t long after that when I was back in the same nightmare. It was terrible watching Clara die from that mysterious wound in her stomach. Even if I caught her in the dream, she would still collapse; she would still die saying the same words.

  “You’re too late.”

  I woke up to the sound of rain against the window and an empty bed. I pushed up to see Clara sitting on her desk chair, her feet propped up on the windowsill. She had thrown on sweats over her pajamas and her hair was still in a tangled, beautiful mess. She swirled her fingers in the air as the rain danced in patterns along the window, obeying her command.

  “C?”

  She didn’t respond but I noticed her headphones in so I got out of bed, stretching my shoulder as I walked over to her. I wrapped my arms around her from behind, resting my chin on her shoulder.

  Clara leaned into me and placed her hand over mine. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “You didn’t. What are you thinking about?”

  She pulled out one of her earbuds and handed it to me.

  Grey Morning. FOXTRAX.

  I frowned. “Are you making it rain?”

  “No, I wish,” she replied, her voice distant as she continued staring out the window. “Otherwise I’d make it rain all the time. This is my favorite weather.”

  “C, you couldn’t have known about your dad, you know that right?”

  “But I should have pieced it together. I should have trusted the previous version of myself. Every time I think I can get answers, shit happens.” Clara flicked her fingers and the raindrops turned to ice.

  I turned her shoulders to face me. “You can’t help that your dad’s a psycho, but I’m here now, so let me help you.”

  I changed the song on her iPod.

  Take on the World. You Me At Six.

  The house creaked around us as my eyes widened. Clara burst into laughter.

  “I think House likes you now.” She slid off the desk and made her way to the closet to change.

  House? Like, it had a personality? I shook my head and changed into the clothes I had packed, prepared to make breakfast. I rolled my eyes as I made it to the kitchen. Yeah, I should have seen that coming. There was already a spread of food out, with extra sweets and a massive cup of coffee in front of Clara’s space.

  She came down the hall wearing my old sweatshirt and black jeans, her violet hair in a tangled bun on top of her head. Clearly in a better mood, she skipped up to the table and grabbed the sugar jar, turning the container over and dumping it into her coffee.

  “What?” she asked as she leaned over the table for a donut. “I can feel you staring.”

  “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m this lucky to have you in my life,” I replied.

  She sat down and threw her feet up on my lap. “You’re just lucky I didn’t run away after you shoved me into your closet.”

  “You can’t hold that against me. I panicked.”

  “No, I’m absolutely holding that against you. Plus, you said that wouldn’t happen again, yet here we are,” she replied, sticking her tongue out.

  I pushed her legs off my lap, holding in a laugh. “What can I say? You’re just a phase I have to go through, according to my dad.”

  Clara smiled, reaching forward as she grabbed the leg of my chair and pulled me closer. How the hell was she so strong? She leaned toward me and kissed me hard, but pulled away quickly. “Wait, a phase?”

  I laughed and kissed her again. “He’ll come around. I just didn’t have a good enough story for my shoulder.”

  “So he totally hates me, first for sleeping with you, and now for getting you hurt.”

  Glitch interrupted us as he honked from the front. We grabbed our bags and ran out in the rain, hopping in the back seat together.

  “You both thought it was a good idea to sleep together after the last time?” he asked, watching us in the mirror.

  I rolled my eyes. “We aren’t sleeping together, dude.”

  “Yeah, sure you aren’t.” He and Clara exchanged a look after seeing my cheeks flush, laughing. Why was this stuff always funny?

  “It’s funny because you’re nervous about it,” she said, poking my side.

  “Stop listening to my thoughts. Can we please change the subject?”

  “Sure,” Glitch said, pulling into a parking spot at school. “Let’s talk about all the subjects we have midterms on next week.”

  “Huh, I kind of forgot we do schoolwork,” Clara said, scrunching her nose.

  “Just normal teenage stuff going on here,” Glitch replied. “Powers, homework, Nate’s overbearing dad, Clara’s evil dad, midterms…”

  28

  Clara

  Nate didn’t risk getting caught sneaking out the rest of the week. We spent the afternoons studying for midterms and he went home before curfew. I still couldn’t sleep much, and it was worse to wake up to those nightmares alone, even though I was dying in the dream. After almost four months of the same scene playing over, I thought I’d be used to it now, but this week it felt worse. Maybe it was the headache that came back in full force.

  The voices were almost always present, but they picked my most vulnerable moments to get worse. Thursday was one of those days. I woke up already dizzy and nauseous, barely able to stand. After knocking everything off my nightstand, I managed to text someone that I had a headache and wouldn’t go to school. I didn’t know if it was Glitch or Nate, but they were the only two contacts in my phone. Actually, I didn’t even know if I had sent something coherent since I just poked at the keyboard using muscle memory.

  I could feel the pr
essure in my head building as the voices hissed and scratched at my skull. Having another outburst right now was not ideal, but I could feel it coming. Stumbling into the hall, I pushed through the door into the training room. If the outburst was inevitable, at least this room would require the least amount of cleanup.

  I curled into the corner and pulled my knees into my chest, but something cold pinched my leg. I pulled the Blue Star marble out of my pocket, watching the blue lights swirl violently under the surface. If I had just woken up, how did it get into my pocket? The last time I had this thing, I had almost lost myself to its power, and now Nate wasn’t here to pull me out. I chucked it to the other side of the room and buried my head into my hands. No matter how hard I pressed my palms into my forehead, the pressure wouldn’t release.

  There was only one way it had released before.

  I screamed and pushed the voices out with all of my power. The wave of energy expanded out of me and sent everything in the room flying away from me. The weights and equipment crashed and tumbled across the floor, their sounds barely audible over the ringing in my ears. I felt the blood running down my arm again, but also out of my nose. I didn’t bother trying to contain it because I didn’t have the energy. I just let every inch of my body release the pressure until I couldn’t focus any longer, numb to the pain of everything except what was left in my head.

  The room slowly stopped spinning and the headache returned to the constant dull pain in the back of my neck. I didn’t know how long I sat in the corner before I was finally able to push off the ground. Blue blood stained my old shirt and sweats I had slept in, but I didn’t care. It felt like I was walking around in a fog, bumping into the walls and trying to ignore the banging sound in my head.

  No, that wasn’t in my head. Someone was banging on the front door. I wobbled closer and heard Nate’s voice through the door.

  “Clara! House won’t let me in through a shadow. What’s going on?”

  Shit. I couldn’t let him see me like this.

  House tried to open the door but I held the lock with every ounce of power I had left in my body.

  “Nate, I’m not going to school. Just come back later, please,” I begged, pressing my head against the wall.

  He stopped pounding as House creaked underneath me. I could tell he wasn’t happy about keeping Nate out, but I held firm. No one should get in my way when I felt like this; I was a danger. But I also couldn’t let him see what had happened to me.

  “Clara, it’s Saturday. I’ve been trying to get in to check on you for two days,” he said, his voice more gentle this time. “Please, unlock the door.”

  My heart dropped and I lost focus. Two days?

  House took advantage of my distraction and opened the door. Nate’s face turned from concern to horror as he looked at me.

  “C, holy shit,” he said, stepping through the door as he responded to my thoughts. “You didn’t know you were locked in here for two days? Why didn’t you let me in?”

  I let him guide me down the hall, even though his revelation had cleared the fog in my mind. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t control it. I just… I didn’t want to hurt you,” I replied, avoiding his gaze.

  “This is much scarier. Twice now? And getting worse?”

  I left him in my room and turned on the shower, ignoring him. I couldn’t deal with the truth. I grabbed a change of clothes from the closet and walked back toward the bathroom. Nate grabbed my hand before I could get inside.

  “Clara, answer me.”

  “Yes, it’s getting worse, but I can’t do anything about it,” I snapped. “Can I please shower?”

  I didn’t mean to be rude but I could feel the wave of nausea building and I didn’t want him to know. He sighed and let go of my hand, not saying anything more. Careful not to turn around too quickly, I walked into the bathroom and leaned against the door to close it.

  God, I looked terrible. Blue blood was smeared from my nose over my lips, like I had been attacked by a blue paint ball gun. My hair was in the same top knot I had slept in two days ago, matted with the blood from my hand where I had gripped tightly to fight the pain. No wonder Nate was so worried about me.

  The cold water ran blue again, something that no longer freaked me out. At least I could concentrate again. I had spent two days with that headache and didn’t even know about it. Nate was right; it was getting worse. The pain, the voices, the damage… I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Nate got caught in that path.

  I could feel the remnants of my headache pain and stiffness radiating through my body as I changed clothes. I shoved my old clothes in a corner of the bathroom, ready to face Nate’s disappointment in me.

  He was sitting on the bed, waiting with the first aid kit, but he avoided my gaze. Somehow he was learning to block his thoughts from me so I just stood in the doorway waiting for him to say something.

  He sighed. “I saw the training room.”

  “Nate, I—“

  “I get it.”

  I shook my head. “I locked you out because you could have gotten hurt. I didn’t even realize what I was doing, or that I had been in here for two days.”

  “C, I heard the voices. I get it,” he said, lowering his head.

  “What?” I felt my heart sink again as I slid forward and sat on the bed next to him. He picked up my left hand, careful not to touch the cut, and turned over his right palm to show me his scar.

  “I could hear them because of this. It was nowhere near what you felt, but I could hear them shouting at you. To me, it was like a whisper in the back of my head. That’s why I came over. When House was locked, I didn’t know what to do. You scared me.”

  “But now you see what these headaches do to me; the destruction I’m capable of. Why are you still here? You should be terrified of me,” I replied, pulling my hand away.

  “Clara, I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of what you’re doing alone. Don’t you dare think that we shouldn’t be together because of this,” Nate said. He took my hand back in his and started wrapping my arm.

  I shook my head. “I have to stay alone, otherwise I could hurt you. Do you have any idea what that would do to me?”

  “Do you have any idea what that would do to me?” he snapped, securing the tape around my arm. His shoulders sank. “C, I’d rather be by your side through this than see you fight it alone.”

  There was no point in arguing with him. I had shut him out so many times before and look where that got me. Maybe he was right, and for the first time, I had someone on my side.

  “So, now what?” I asked. “I don’t really want to sit around waiting for my next headache.”

  Nate stood up and plugged his phone into the speaker before tugging me off the bed. “First, you dance with me. You just spent two days locked up.”

  Hopeful Romantic. This Century.

  He pulled me closer as I rested my head on his shoulder.

  “Third,” he whispered, “you come to dinner tonight. My dad insists.”

  His voice caught, like he was nervous. I glanced up. “You skipped number two.”

  “Agree to number three before I tell you.”

  I scrunched my nose. “Fine. I agree to dinner.”

  Nate took a deep breath, ready to say something, but paused. I raised my eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

  He sighed. “Second, I tell you something I’ve been trying to say for a week now. C, it kills me when you shut me out because… I love you.”

  The music stopped and I realized it was because I stopped. I could feel Nate squirming in my arms as I stood in silence. It was unintentional, though. He really had taken my breath away.

  I resorted to the only other thing that crossed my mind. I pulled in and kissed him, hard. There was at least one good thing in my life, even if the rest of it was crashing down around me. I lifted away from Nate’s face, even though he resisted, and placed my hands around his neck as his remained locked around my wai
st.

  “My fellow insomniac, I love you too,” I laughed, pulling him onto the bed with me.

  29

  Nate

  Clara picked up my hand and traced the scar on my palm as I rested my cheek on top of her head. Her hair was drying and sticking out in a tangled mess, but I didn’t care. She was perfectly her, the girl I loved, and now I knew she felt the same way.

  “We really should try to find out more information about the Blue Star,” she said, sitting up as she adjusted her shirt and looked at me. Wait, not her shirt, my shirt. How did she always look so much better in my clothes than I did?