Burn (The Sinclair Falls Novels Book 1)

by Shae Mallak

  “When?” I choked out. “What do you mean when? I thought I told you—“

  “Yeah, but my friends say different,” she declared.

  “Your friends?” Jonah asked curiously. I groaned and felt a warm blush creep across my cheeks.

  “She has invisible friends,” Addis said matter-of-factly, “Only she can see them, but they tell her things.”

  “What kind of things?” Jonah asked. I was surprised to hear interest in his voice rather than the judgment and distrust I usually heard when Ava talked about her “friends”.

  “Things that come true,” Addis answered, scooping another spoonful of cheerios into his mouth.

  “Childish nonsense,” Dad muttered, sipping his coffee. I flipped the pancakes and refrained from giving my opinion. I knew from experience it was pointless arguing with Dad about it.

  I had my own doubts about Ava’s invisible friends, but I also knew when she shared different things they said, they had a tendency to come true. I don’t know how, but I'd learned not to ignore her friends’ advice, whatever the true source may be or however crazy it sounded. The fact that they were talking to Ava about Jonah and I—and agreeing with Jonah’s confident statement from the night before—bothered me more than I cared to admit.

  “What exactly did your friends say?” Jonah asked Ava, ignoring my father.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Dad said, scowling at Ava over his cup of coffee. “You’re ten years old now, Ava, you can’t keep pretending to have an imaginary friend.”

  “They’re not imaginary!” Ava protested. “Just invisible!

  “You have to stop acting like a child,” Dad scolded.

  “They are children,” I snapped, flipping the pancakes onto a plate. “Don’t condemn them for something you don’t understand,” I argued. “It’s not hurting anyone!”

  “They need to grow up if—“

  “If what, Dad?” I challenged. “If I leave? If there’s no one else to take care of them because you’re too busy drinking and gambling away whatever money you have left?”

  “How dare you talk to me like that!” Dad yelled, vaulting to his feet and turning the full force of his ire at me. “I am your father!” he shouted.

  “And you gave me away!” I shouted back. “How about you stop expecting your children to act like adults and actually be one yourself! I won’t be around anymore to fill in the gaps and hide your problems, Dad, and don’t you dare put the same burden on them that fell on my shoulders when Mom died and you decided to take a vacation from life!”

  “How dare you—"

  “How dare you!” I countered.

  Emotions that I had carefully bottled and suppressed for three years bubbled to the surface and exploded like a shaken soda. I picked up the plate and stomped across the kitchen, slamming it down on the table in front of Dad’s chair. “Here’s your damn pancakes!” I cried, then I stormed out of the kitchen to dead silence.

  As I skulked down the hall I heard Jonah tell Ava and Addis to get ready for school and the twins scurried upstairs to their bedroom without protest. I expected to feel his scorching presence follow after me and was surprised to find myself alone in the backyard.

  “Enjoy it while you can,” I muttered to myself. I sat in one of the old swings, gently rocking back and forth and dragging my feet through the grass, letting the blades tickle my bare feet.

  My dad built the swing set for me when I was five years old. It took an entire weekend to put together and I remembered I was jumping around, constantly at his elbow the entire time, too excited to stand still long enough to actually help.

  I spent so many hours of my childhood swinging and staring at the empty seat beside me wishing for a little sister. Every time I asked Mom got really quiet and sad and Dad got mad at me for bringing it up. At the time I didn’t understand why they always got so upset.

  Then, when I was thirteen, the twins suddenly appeared in our lives one day and never left. My parents never talked about what brought the twins to us and I never asked, simply grateful for the siblings I always longed for.

  I caught them at the bottom of the slide as toddlers. When they were older, I pushed them in the swings, taught them to pump their legs to go higher, and how to jump at the perfect time and land without rolling their ankles. I showed them how to play pirate ship, pretend the ground was lava, and climb like monkeys across the swing set.

  The first time I caught Ava talking to her friends she was sitting on the swing talking to the empty swing beside her as it swayed gently in the breeze. She looked over at me with the saddest face I'd ever seen and told me her friends said that Mom was sick. I told her Mom was fine; three months after that the doctors found the cancer. At the time I didn't recall the strange conversation with Ava from the swings until a few months later when the cancer spread and Ava announced that her friends had warned her it would happen. That's when she told me more about her invisible friends who whispered secrets to her.

  "They've always been there," Ava shrugged. "Ever since I can remember."

  Addis accepted his sister's claims about her friends as truth despite not being able to see or hear them any more than the rest of us. At first I chalked it up to a child's imagination, but the older they got the harder it was to use as an excuse. It was Addis who called me when Ava told him through her tears that her friends told her Mom was going to die. He begged me to come home. I waited another two weeks until the end of finals before I finally made the trip home, the doctors already concurring that Mom wasn't going to get better.

  It was the middle of the night when Ava came into my room and woke me up and the three of us went down the hall to Mom's room, crawling into the bed and cuddling around her small, frail form while she took her last breaths. Ava told me later that her friends told her it was Mom's time to go. I never doubted her or her invisible friends again. The death of a parent is a lot for anyone to deal with, let alone for a seven-year-old whose told beforehand. I wanted them to be able to be kids for as long as possible and was determined after that night to make sure it happened. I didn't mind taking on all the responsibility if it meant Ava and Addis could enjoy a few more years of the innocence of childhood.

  Dad wasn't exactly making it easy for me to keep my promise to myself. I knew it was impossible to hide everything from them—especially with Ava's invisible informants—but I prided myself on keeping them out of the adult problems and burdens as much as possible. When I was gone under the protection of Jonah, who would protect the twins? A thread of optimism liked to believe Dad would finally step up and become the parent he hadn't been in years, but realistically I knew it wasn't wise to pin my hopes on him. I'd been disappointed too many times in the past; I knew better.

  As I tried to think of a plan to take care of Ava and Addis from afar, Jonah joined me outside. He filled the second swing, wincing when it groaned under his weight. He didn't say anything, just sat in the swing, twisting slowly from side to side.

  "What's gonna happen to them?" I asked softly.

  "They'll be okay," Jonah said confidently. I raised my eyes to search his desperately.

  "How do you know?" I whispered.

  Jonah's face was completely serious when he answered. "By law, you are under my protection," he reminded me. "Protecting you means also protecting those you love." The surprise must've been evident on my face because he chuckled a little and continued. "You didn't think I would steal you away and leave them to glue the pieces back together on their own, did you?"

  "Well, yeah, kinda," I admitted honestly.

  "I'm not," he clarified. "They'll be okay. I promise."

  "What does that mean, exactly?" I asked. "I mean, when you say you'll protect them, what does that entail for you exactly? I mean, you can't always just throw money at a problem and expect it to be magically fixed."

  "You don't trust me?" He lifted an eyebrow in amused inquiry.

  "You know damn well I don't," I retorted.

  "I'm not just thr
owing money at the problem," he replied evenly. "Just trust me on this. I promise I will gladly give my life for theirs—and yours—should the situation ever occur."

  I studied him with narrowed eyes for a while before deciding he was telling the truth. Whether he would actually keep his promise if it ever came up was another matter entirely but, for the moment, his word was enough. It had to be. There was no other option for me.

  "Okay," I nodded. I stood up and headed back to the house.

  "Okay?" he asked, catching up with me in a few quick steps.

  "Okay," I repeated. "I believe you." I stopped and pinned him with my best glare. "Don't disappoint me."

  Jonah gave me a dimpled smile. "I'll try my very best not to disappoint you, Evelyn," he agreed. Together we went back inside to see Ava and Addis off to school and prepare to leave.

  The rest of my life awaited. Whatever the future held for me, I felt a little better knowing that if anything ever happened to the twins I could legally sue Jonah Carson for neglect and breach of contract. It was a small consolation but it was all I had and so I held onto it like a life raft.

  FOUR

  Two short honks announced the arrival of Trent Gallegos, the driver of the carpool. Usually I joined them, squeezing between a car seat carrying a cranky toddler headed to daycare and an equally cranky teenager headed to high school. I was dropped off at work at Billiard Consulting where I spent most of the day answering phones and taking messages, one of two jobs that filled my time and helped pay our bills. At four o'clock, the van came back around to pick me up and I was once again squeezed into the back seat, headed home with the twins. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I stayed only a few hours before leaving again for my night job cleaning office buildings.

  "Damn, I should probably call my bosses," I muttered as we stepped back into the house. I patted my hips automatically searching pockets for my phone before I realized I was still wearing my pocketless pajama bottoms and my cell phone was probably still sitting on my bedside table on its charger cable. I glanced at the clock before jogging up the stairs for it. I paused halfway up and pivoted to stare down at Jonah, one foot on the bottom step, ready to follow me. "I have to quit my job," I said with surprise.

  "This is just now occurring to you?" he cocked his head to one side and a lopsided smirk tweaked the side of his mouth.

  "Well, yeah," I retorted hotly. "I mean, obviously I knew I wouldn't be here—and you made it completely clear I'm not returning anytime soon—"

  "That is completely up to you, Evelyn," he replied evenly. I scowled at him. "The sooner you accept the fact that you're meant to be with me—"

  "Don't start that," I snapped. "And if you say 'soul mates' or 'meant to be' or anything similar regarding whatever relationship you think we'll have I will slap you!"

  "Noted," he chuckled. His amusement at my ire only made it burn hotter. Before I had a chance to blow up at him Ava and Addis came running down the stairs, bumping past me and waving at Jonah as they went by and sprinted for the door. "I don't think I've ever seen kids more excited for school," Jonah commented.

  "They're not excited for school," I said, rolling my eyes and jogging back down the stairs and after my siblings. "They're excited for Trent."

  "Trent?" Jonah asked. "Is that their friend?"

  "Sort of," I laughed. "It's their driver." I stepped through the front door, left open in the twins' wake, and down to the white passenger van waiting in our driveway. "Morning, Trent," I smiled.

  "Evie," he greeted with a bright grin in return. "Lovely day! If you want, I can come by the office with lunch and we can eat out by the fountain again."

  "That sounds great, Trent," I automatically replied.

  "Great! How does Chen's sound?"

  "You know I like Chinese food," I smirked. Behind me Jonah approached and cleared his throat irritably. "Right," I murmured under my breath. "I'm sorry, Trent," I sighed. "But I won't be joining the carpool for a while."

  Trent frowned then leveled a glare at Jonah over my shoulder. "What's wrong? Are you sick?" he asked me, full of concern. He glanced again at Jonah before focusing his attention back to me. He lowered his voice to a whisper so the rest of the passengers wouldn't hear him. "Is it your Dad?" he asked.

  Knowing the reputation of my father and of Mr. Carson, it wasn't hard to put the pieces together. Most of them, anyway.

  "Is he threatening you, Evie?" Trent asked in a low voice. "Do I need to call the police?"

  "I can hear you," Jonah growled.

  "Good," Trent shot back. "What's going on, Evie?" he asked, turning his attention back to me. "Whatever it is, I can help. I have connections on the police force and—"

  "Thank you, Trent, but it's fine," I interrupted, holding up a hand to stop him. "Mr. Carson isn't threatening me. It's just...a long story," I moaned. "If you could keep picking up the twins while I'm gone, I'd really appreciate it."

  "Gone? Where are you going?" Trent glared at Jonah over my shoulder again.

  "It's complicated," I hedged, shifting awkwardly on my feet. "Will you keep them in the carpool?" I repeated.

  "Of course," he agreed. "How long are you going to be gone?"

  I glanced hesitantly at Jonah but he was too busy glowering at Trent. "Hard to say," I answered vaguely. "I'll be in contact with the twins and stuff, but I'm just taking a sabbatical of sorts." A sabbatical where I'm held against my will by a large, cocky, rich man who is way too attractive for his own good, I amended mentally. "Like I said, its complicated."

  "Who's gonna watch Ava and Addis?" he asked. "Or take care of the bills?" he questioned. "We both know your dad...well..." he shrugged by way of apology for the implied ending of the sentence. We both knew well enough my dad was less than dependable—a lot less.

  "It's all taken care of," I told him honestly. I hoped Jonah was true to his word because if Trent noticed anything wrong or out of sorts while I was gone he was probably going to call child services and then beat up Jonah. Jonah crossed his bulky arms across his chest, his dragon tattoo flashing in the morning sun. Well, he would try to beat him up, I corrected myself.

  "Are you sure I can't help you with anything?" Trent asked.

  "She's sure," Jonah answered.

  "I believe I was asking Evie," Trent scowled back.

  "I'm fine," I lied to Trent. I hoped I was convincing; Trent would never leave if he knew the truth of the situation. "Really."

  "Okay," he said uncertainly. "If you say so."

  "I do," I nodded firmly, trying to convince myself as well as him. "Bye Ava, bye Addis!" I shouted toward the back of the van. Ava popped her head between the front seats and gave me a big grin.

  "Bye, Evie!" she waved exuberantly. "Bye, Jonah! Remember I get to be a bridesmaid at your wedding!" she cried. Trent gaped at her and then at me. Jonah chose that moment to put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close against his chest. I wanted to slap his wide grin off his face and shove him away from me.

  "Me too!" Addis cried, poking his head up beside his sister's. "I wanna be in the wedding!"

  "Of course," Jonah grinned, squeezing me closer. Heat flared where his skin touched mine and spread through me until I was pretty sure I was blushing from head to toe. "You'll both be in the wedding!"

  "Don't encourage them!" I scolded, pulling away from him. The slight chill of the morning air caressed me and my body temperature dropped back down to normal again, although my heart wouldn't stop beating a mile a minute.

  "We're not getting married," I clarified.

  "Yes, you are!" Ava insisted. I groaned and buried my face in my hands as Ava and Addis both giggled and returned to their seats in the back again.

  "We're going to be late!" Jessica cried from the back.

  She was the mother of the cranky toddler I was usually squished beside. She was the only passenger who was dropped off after me, a fact Trent often complained about. Jessica was a single mom who worked long shifts at a department store whose favorite
hobby was hitting on Trent. She hated me because of my friendship with him and was going to love my absence from the morning carpool.

  "Thanks, Trent," I said genuinely. "I'll see you around."

  "Right, yeah," he nodded, gripping the steering wheel as he exchanged glares with Jonah.

  "I'll see you around," he said with a half-hearted smile.

  "Bye Evie!" Ava and Addis shouted from the back. With a wave, Trent backed out of the driveway and sped off down the street toward their first stop.

  "I don't like that guy," Jonah growled.

  "Please, you don't even know him," I scoffed. "Trent is a nice guy! He's been running the carpool for years—he's the one who made room for the twins and me three years ago. He's been a real life saver!"