by AC Washer
Hidden Ashes
Reigning Fae Book 1
AC Washer
HIDDEN ASHES
Copyright © 2021 by A. C. Washer
Cover design by Miblart
Edited by Jennifer Rees
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any number whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historic events is entirely coincidental.
acwasher.com
Created with Vellum
To Mrs. Davenport and Dr. Parrish, the teachers whose words keep me going after all these years.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Afterword
About the Author
Chapter 1
I wiped my busted lips with the back of my hand. My caseworker stood over me, holding my brown frizz like someone would hold a dead pet hamster.
“You okay, Kella?”
I spat into a clump of dried-up weeds, trying to get the sour taste out of my mouth.
No. I wasn’t okay. No one would be after driving down a bumpy dirt road for thirty minutes straight. Or upchucking with a bruised rib. Pain meds were great, but they weren’t that great.
“Here, let me get you a mint.” Deena rummaged through her boat-sized black and white purse she’d grabbed in the mad dash from the car to the side of the road.
After a few moments, she yanked out a couple of headscarves and crammed them into the crook of her elbow, digging further in.
“Has to be here somewhere,” Deena muttered.
Deena didn’t look up as I slowly straightened from a crouch. I walked over a few clumps of Colorado’s sun-scorched grass before the rural road’s red dirt puffed up onto the white rubber of my shoes. Aside from the green pine trees flanking this stretch of the road, rural Colorado didn’t look at all like Denver. The overgrown weeds and wildflowers were decked out in all things pointy—spiked tops, thorns, little needles poking out between dried-out leaves. They threatened to impale anyone stupid enough to hike through them.
But once we turned onto the dirt road, the surroundings greened up to where someone thought the place warranted building the campsite we passed a few miles back. There had to be a river or something nearby, otherwise no one would waste their time coming here.
Deena kept telling me that we were close, but each mile we drove made my stomach clench even more. I didn’t realize I’d be so far from Caleb, and guilt had been eating me up inside for ever agreeing to this.
When I got to the open van door, I jerked to a stop.
Keys swung in the van’s ignition, hypnotizing me as they arced back and forth. All of Deena’s promises of financial help after I aged out and getting scholarships because I’d have been in foster care—of it only being for eight months—all of that evaporated.
Sure, all of that had sounded good in the hospital, but Caleb needed me—I felt it in my core. I couldn’t abandon him like this.
And right now, the only thing keeping me from Caleb was freedom.
From my perspective, cars and freedom were pretty much the same thing.
I licked my lips and glanced at Deena, her face still buried in her bag only a couple of yards away. I looked back at the keys dangling from the dash. Normally, I drove stick. An automatic? Too easy.
My heart sped up. Any other time, I’d torpedo my way across the seats and be out of there in five seconds flat, rolled-down window or no.
But bruised ribs kind of put a damper on things like fast escapes. Thanks, Dad.
Slowly, I lowered myself into the car, grabbing my soda and some fast-food napkins as props just in case Deena looked up.
She didn’t.
As gently as I could, I shut the van door. The window was rolled all the way down, and I cursed myself for trying to get some air just a few minutes before. The thunk of the car door locks sounded like a bomb detonating. I glanced back up. Deena was still at the side of the road, digging through her purse.
My leg slid over the center console until I straddled it. I moved my butt over…
“Found them!”
Deena looked up at the same time I whipped my head around. Our eyes met for one long second.
We moved at the same time. I grabbed the wheel, turning the keys in the ignition, and yanked the gear stick into drive. My left foot slipped as I tried to slam on the gas, giving Deena time to slingshot herself to the van.
If I’d been in my dad’s convertible, I could have floored it right then, ripping away from Deena without a hitch. But no. I was in a minivan—a green slug on wheels that let Deena grab onto the door and push her torso through the passenger window before I even got to 5 mph.
I swerved, hoping her rear would drag her back outside of the van. Instead, Deena lurched forward and grabbed the steering wheel, her hands latching onto it like suction cups.
The van jerked right and left as I tried to pry Deena’s hands off even as she wriggled her legs the rest of the way through.
I knew it was over even before Deena shoved me behind her and slammed on the brakes. Pain shot through my ribs, exploding in my eyes like bright pinpricks of light. I didn’t even notice when she killed the engine.
Breath ragged, Deena eyes were glued to a pine tree about a foot away from us. I moaned, clutching my sides… again.
Bit by bit, I eased myself back into the passenger seat.
A few more minutes passed before Deena turned to look at me, her full lips thinned to half their size.
“What is wrong with you?”
I knew better than to laugh, but a humorless chuckle escaped anyway. I looked out the passenger window. “Would you like that list in alphabetical or chronological order?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Deena shake her head.
“What did you think you were gonna do, head to Denver and sleep in your brother’s hospital room? After stealing my car? Like the police wouldn’t be all up in your business.”
I cringed. Sure, I was an act-first-think-later kind of girl, but I’d never been end-up-in-the-back-of-a-police-cruiser kind of idiot. Yeah, I’d been thrown off balance since Caleb almost died, but this—I’d reached a whole new level of stupidity.
Deena kept talking, but I only caught a few words like “reckless” and “report.” I glared at the bumpy dirt road outside my window. It wound up a hill with no end in sight. Turning around or barreling ahead made no difference. The ride would suck either way.
Deena’s voice grew louder, snapping through my thoughts. “Kella, look at me when I’m talking to you.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wasn’t ready. Not for foster care, not for being alone…and definitely not for Deena. After what I just pulled, Deena was going to put me in a group home—or something like it. True, I didn’t know much about foster care, but I was pretty sure they tried not to set attempted car thieves loose on foster families. And while I didn�
��t want to be a foster kid, I wanted to be under lock and key even less.
“Look. At. Me.”
I sighed even as I straightened my spine from my hips to my shoulders. Ready or not…. I turned.
Deena’s eyes were usually a warm, friendly dark brown. But now, they were twin tar pits that would drown and fossilize me if I so much as breathed wrong.
“Now you listen to me—and listen good, because I’m only saying this one time.” Deena leaned in until I could see the dark pores in her face. “You listening?”
I nodded.
She sat back. “Good.”
Deena grabbed her soda and gave a long pull before she raised a perfectly manicured finger.
“One. If I hadn’t found this lady to take you in, you’d be in residential right now. No, don’t you look away from me.”
I dragged my eyes back to hers.
“Two.” Deena raised another finger. “You mess up again, I’m hauling you back to Denver and putting your butt in a residential facility for troubled teens. You get me, Kella?”
My hands clenched even as my heart soared at being given another chance. My body didn’t seem to know what to think. I gave Deena the barest nod I could manage.
“No, you get me? I know you want to be with your brother, but that’s not happening—at least not while he’s in the hospital. Anyway, seeing him once a month sure beats none, and that’s exactly what you get if you mess up. Do you want that? Do you want to be around a bunch of folks who’ve seen it all and won’t give a sh—who won’t care about you? Is that what you want?”
I shook my head.
“I asked you a question. Is that what you want?” She stared me down.
“No.” I paused. “Ma’am,” I added, since that seemed like a good idea at the moment.
Deena snorted. “Yeah, Kella, lay on all that politeness now that you’re caught. You think I don’t know what you’re thinking? I was you. That’s the only reason I’m giving you another chance.”
Deena ripped the keys out of the ignition and shoved the door open.
“Stay here,” she ordered.
“No.” The word slipped out before I could ball it up and swallow it down. But man, did it feel good coming out of my mouth.
She paused, halfway out the car, and turned to stare me down. “Excuse me? If you won’t stay in the car—”
“I’ll stay in the car, but…” It took a few seconds for me to wrap my mind around why I’d even said “no” in the first place. “…you’re nothing like me.”
Deena regarded me for a long moment before she sighed. “Look, I get it. You’re hurting right now. But just because I don’t have the exact same problems doesn’t mean I don’t understand. That’s why I did everything I could to get you into this home—because I get—”
I snorted.
“What, you don’t believe me? You think it was easy finding you some place?” Deena shifted her whole body to square off with me. “You’re new to foster care, so let me spell it out for you. Nobody wants teens. All they want is a cute little baby—or maybe a toddler—and we both know you don’t got that kind of cute.”
I rolled my eyes. Deena was giving herself way too much credit. “She called you. It sounded like she was putting in a fast-food order: ‘White, seventeen-year-old girl with an April birthday.’” I shrugged. “But if that’s your definition of doing everything, then yeah, I guess you did.”
“She didn’t…” Deena frowned. “Kella, those painkillers must be something else, because that’s not what happened. I had to beg Ms. Reid. She’d been taking a break from foster care and wanted another month.”
I stared at Deena. I’d been as clear-headed when she took that call as I was now. “She asked if you had a seventeen-year-old girl with an April birthday,” I insisted. “And you were like ‘yeah, how’d you know?’ and ‘we’ll head out there tomorrow.’”
Deena’s black brows inched even closer with every word I spoke before she shook her head. “No matter. You’ll be off those meds soon enough.”
“I wasn’t hearing things.”
Deena shot me a glance that screamed let’s indulge the delusional kid taking painkillers and I had to look away before I said something stupid. I was in enough trouble already.
Deena glanced out the car window that’d been coated with a film of dust. “Hon, I need to get my purse. Wait here a second.”
A couple of minutes later, Deena had us driving a half mile back the way we came, the up-and-down motion of the road making my stomach clench. Right before I could roll the window down again, Deena turned left into a campground site.
Only the crunch of the gravel under the van tires punctuated the silence.
Deena jerked the van into park at the first campsite we came to.
We sat there for a long moment.
“This is as good a place as any to take a break for a few minutes. Somewhere to sit out of the sun, at least. I need to call the office and check the address. And you, well” —Deena’s assessing gaze swept across my face— “pretty sure your stomach needs time to settle.”
I gave a nod.
“But just so you know…” Deena pulled the keys out of the ignition, held them up in the air, and curled her fingers around them one by one.
I clenched my jaw, but quickly remembered that hurt. Instead, I rolled my eyes, grabbed my soda, and pushed open the door.
The campground was full of dirt, lots of evergreens, and a few scattered clearings with old picnic tables and stone-rimmed fire pits.
I walked over twigs and dirt until I reached a table where a large, random oak tree blocked the early afternoon sun.
“I’m going to see if I get better reception out of these trees,” Deena called over to me, already headed back toward the road.
I shrugged and leaned on the picnic table. That was a bad move—the weathered wood porcupined me with a splinter. I snatched my hand back, muttering a curse.
For the next few minutes, I tried to shove my stubby fingernails in far enough to squeeze a little sliver out. I only managed to push it further in.
I blew a strand of hair out of my face and scowled.
First, the gut-heaving dirt road paved by death himself. Then, the botched escape attempt. And now? I was losing a battle with a splinter the size of an ant.
Well, I’d lost a lot of things in the last week. My lunch and a war with a splinter weren’t so bad.
Be good and get your grades up. Don’t run or you won’t get to see Caleb. Deena had told me all of that right before we left the hospital. And what did I do? Try to turn Deena’s green slug into a getaway vehicle.
Genius.
I blew another strand of hair out of my face, squinting down at my palm.
I’d followed my gut like always, but it didn’t turn out so great this time. What I needed to do was wait—or at least come up with a plan. So what if I’d escaped with Deena’s van and raced all the way back to Denver—what then? It wasn’t like I could have stayed with Caleb. Even if he got out of the hospital, I’d still be a minor for another seven months, and he had to be at least twenty-one to become my guardian.
Not that I wanted that anyway. Caleb already took the whole ‘protective older brother’ thing to heart. Adding a legally-recognized title would make him unbearable. Especially if I got myself into another scrape like this.
And what the heck was wrong with my gut? How was making off with my caseworker’s van so I could drive back to Caleb a good idea? What was I going to do, ditch it on the side of the road like some wannabe gangbanger and stroll into Caleb’s hospital like nothing was wrong? If Caleb were conscious—
I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about what he’d say once—no, if—he found out.
Last thing Caleb needed was my stupid decisions stressing him out. Especially since the last one ended up with him in the hospital. I needed to get smart. Get…Well, if I were honest with myself, what I really needed to do was get my life back on track. With everything Ca
leb had going on—college, a job, a scholarship he couldn’t afford to lose—a broke sister showing up on his doorstep as soon as he got out of the hospital would be cruel.
At least in foster care I’d be able to get a job and save up. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I was on my own. And I’d just jeopardized that. Pretty sure residential kids didn’t get jobs on the outside.
I winced at my own stupidity.
It was one thing if I took my dad’s mustang out for a joyride—some part of him knew he deserved worse, so he never reported me—but a caseworker’s car?
But it was hard thinking straight when my gut screamed that Caleb needed me, so when I’d seen an opportunity, I’d taken it.
My gut was an idiot; listening to it only got me a pissed off caseworker who’d dump me in residential if I messed up one more time.
Hopefully this Ms. Reid person was decent. I could put up with ‘decent’ until Caleb was better. And if I had enough money saved up by then, I’d run. My old job would take me back no problem.
I took a sip of root beer, swishing it around to get rid of the sour taste in my mouth, and spat it out before setting my cup on the prickly picnic table.
When I glanced up, I did a double take. Three guys in their late teens, maybe early twenties, were several campsites away and walking in my direction. With how the day was going, I already knew they were the next pit stop on my week-long stretch of suckiness.
I popped in a mint as I leaned into the oak beside the picnic table. The bark dug through my thin, navy-blue tee, scratching my back.