Cynder pulled away from his step mother, she raised her hand at him but it stopped midflight.
“That, would be your last mistake.” His father rumbled.
“Oh Leonardo!” She gasped. “What are you doing here dear?”
“It’s a goodbye party. I came to say goodbye.” He threw her hand away from him.
“You can’t leave me! You have nothing! You have nowhere to go.” She raised her head in triumph.
“I have my son, and that’s all I need. We’re done with you.” He turned to Cynder, “Go get her son.”
Cynder ran to the terrace where Andy had his girl pinned against the railing, she was pushing him away to no avail as he buried her mouth with his own.
Cynder pulled his step brother off of her then struck him in the jaw with a powerful right hook.
Andy landed on his butt.
“He’s nobody. He’s not the one you want!” Andy yelled.
Cynder pulled the watch from his pocket.
“I think you have my key….my lady.”
“Ella….and yes I do. But does it go to your watch or your heart?” She slipped the key from her wrist and popped the watch face open. The clock read 12:00, midnight, as Cynder wrapped his hands in her beautiful hair.
“Both…Ella.” He whispered as he kissed her.
Cynder and his father moved out of the evil witch’s house. His father quit the company and took a position at Ella’s mother’s corporation. It offered more money and no travel time. They moved to New York, lived in a large loft that over looked Central Park.
Cynder and Ella were inseparable. Their ‘happy ever after’? Well that’s a whole different story.
This is the third amazing Krystal George anthology I have had the honor of being a part of. I am so very thankful for the opportunity and deeply humbled to have my stories nestled between stories written by authors I love and truly respect.
I hope you enjoyed the story of Cynder and Ella. If you would like to read more of my work you can find me at www.rayneedazewriting.weebly.com or message me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RayneeDazeWriting
I hope to hear from you all soon!
Seeing Red
By: Krystal George
©2014 by Krystal George
My brother was a cop. My father had been a cop. My grandfather had been the sheriff before he retired. With all things considered, I should have known what I was getting myself into… but I didn’t sign up for this.
The floor was sticky with blood. The walls were splattered with it. The bed that most of the victim had been found in was drenched in it. It was the grizzliest scene this small town had probably ever seen, and if it wasn’t, I was thankful that I hadn’t been around for anything worse. As it was, I couldn’t help running outside and taking a handful of deep breaths just to ensure I didn’t throw up the entire contents of my stomach.
“You okay there Rookie?”
I looked up at my partner, Cragger. For all of the nonchalance of his words, he was looking a little green himself. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I told him.
He clapped me on the back. “I bet you didn’t think that you’d be seeing something like this during your first few months on the job.”
“I bet you didn’t think you’d ever see anything like this in Evergreen anyways,” I answered back. We both turned back toward the house and Cragger shivered. “Who made the call again?”
He nodded toward a young girl sitting on the edge of an ambulance with a blanket around her shoulders. Although she was visibly shaken and pale, there appeared to be no other sign that anything was wrong with her.
“The victim’s granddaughter. Apparently she was stopping by to check on her and found her like this.”
I inhaled sharply, “that’s kind of a sick messed up way to find your grandma.”
The current sheriff, Sheriff McNaley, walked up behind us. “You boys okay out here?” When my father was alive, Sheriff NcNaley was his partner. I always wondered if he hadn’t passed away if he would be the one wearing that shining star.
Turning my thoughts away from things in the past, I turned toward the sheriff. “Who could have done this to that poor little lady?” I asked him.
He shook his head sadly and looked up at the darkening sky; it was going to be night soon. “That’s what we are going to find out Nate.”
He walked a little ways down the wraparound porch and studied the granddaughter with a curious expression on his face. Something about the way he was watching her made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Cragger, why don’t you go on down and see if the granddaughter knows anything more or has any suspicions,” he said finally… only Cragger had his head hanging over the porch railing and was busy spraying the yard with whatever he had eaten for lunch today.
“I’ll do it, sir.”
He eyed me for a second and I wondered why he was so hesitant to send me over to her. Finally he nodded, “see what you can find out.”
When I walked toward her, she was alone. Since she had no real injuries, it was more imperative that the crime scene was secured and the victim’s remains were gathered. There was something eerily familiar in the way she watched me. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but the awareness was there. She was young; probably around seventeen and there was a tiny spark of recognition in her eyes when I stopped in front of her.
“Didn’t we go to high school together?” She asked.
Taken aback by her question, I stared blankly at her face trying to process what she was saying. Finally I answered her, “it depends. How old are you?”
She smiled slowly, despite the current situation, and shrugged, “I think you were a senior when I was a freshman.”
I nodded, “I guess that’s possible.” I scratched at my face absently and looked back over my shoulder. “Look, I’m really sorry about your grandma. No one should have to live through something like this.”
Her jaw tensed and I saw a flash of pure rage in her eyes. “There are a lot of things someone shouldn’t have to live through,” she mumbled.
I frowned, but some sort of commotion going on behind us drowned out her words. I turned fully toward the house just in time to see one of the EMT’s running around the side of the house. He was screaming and pointing behind him.
“What the hell is going on?” McNaley called from his perch on the porch.
“It’s… I mean… there’s…” he stuttered, pointing to the back of the house where the forest swallowed it up.
“Take a deep breath, son, what happened?”
I took a few steps toward them then, so that I could hear what he said. Most everyone had gathered round at his panicked screams and terrified glances back the way he had come.
The EMT, I thought his name was Brandon, gulped down air the way some people gulped down water. “There’s something back there… in the woods. I heard it.”
At first the crowd around the house was extremely quiet and then all at once people began shouting suspicions and orders. It was almost chaotic the way the stumbled about at Brandon’s exclamation. McNaley stood there, though, calm as if he was standing in church and just chewed on a toothpick contemplating Brandon’s claim.
“It’s a forest,” he said finally. “There are lots of things ‘back there’”
Brandon shook his head. “No, sir. I grew up here, I know what the forest is like.” He looked behind him in terror, “this was something else.”
The girl inhaled sharply and I turned back toward her, “don’t worry miss, we are here to protect you.”
“It’s not me that needs protecting,” she mumbled under her breath.
I couldn’t be certain, but it almost seemed like her eyes darted toward the sheriff when she said it. There was an edge of tension in the air and I cleared my throat trying to get a solid hold of the situation again when all of the sudden all I wanted to do was back away from this girl and get the hell out of here.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The cop in me
asked instead.
I stared into her eyes, mesmerized by their strange shape and color, while she answered. “There are things about this town that you don’t know about, Tanner, things that could get you killed.”
I frowned. Her voice had gotten so soft that I was sure no one else had heard her, but I still couldn’t help looking behind me to make sure no one was paying attention to us; no one was. “I don’t understand.”
She put her hand on my arm and pulled me to the side of the ambulance, out of the view of anyone around. Her grip was surprisingly strong and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had this eerie feeling that something else was going on here; something that I wasn’t prepared to deal with.
“I’ve always kept an eye on you,” she said softly, “I didn’t want you to end up like your father.” That caught my attention and my breath caught, but before I could say anything, she held up her hand to stop me. “I was there that day. You wouldn’t have seen me, not in the way you see me now; but I was there.”
I shook my head, “my father died in a car accident. There wasn’t anyone there, no witnesses. It was a hit and run.”
She smiled sadly. “Things are seldom what they seem in this world.” She looked back toward her grandma’s house and her jaw clenched. “But I’m going to make a difference this time. He took things too far.”
I turned to see what she was looking at, but all I saw was McNaley and Cragger standing on the porch, both of them looking unconcerned about Brandon’s accusation. There was something… off… about the whole scene and I suddenly felt like I was watching a horribly written horror flick. I wanted answers. No… hell, I needed them. But when I looked behind me, the girl was gone.
The forest floor flew beneath me as I quickly made my way through the woods. There was no one around to hear me so I wasn’t cautious as I drifted through the familiar surroundings. My brain was working in overdrive. Too much had happened for me to believe it wasn’t him. But why? That was the question eating away at me now. After all of this time, why had he chosen now?
My heart was hammering in my chest; beating too rapidly for comfort. It was making my vision blur… making it hard for me to see anything but red as I made my way to the spot I was looking for. As if going there would make anything easier. As if I didn’t already have all of the answers that I needed.
A cry escaped my hoarse throat and I whimpered softly as I finally emerged into the clearing. It was empty. Just as I had suspected it would be. My heart broke all over again. No one was coming then. The tides had changed and I was on my own. Blue eyes flashed before my eyes and I thought, “Not alone… I still had him.” Nathan Smalls.
I let emotions rush through me. There was something about him. Something that had kept my eyes on him for as long as I could remember. If only he had realized I had been there, watching… waiting. Maybe things could have been different. I had to trust him now though. My grandma would have wanted that.
With that thought held securely in my mind, I retreated back the way I had come; more careful this time in case I was wrong and I wasn’t alone… in case I was being watched.
It was going to be a long night. Where the hell had she gone? Of course, it’s my fault that she’s missing and I’m left with two words ringing in my ears. FIND HER!
Yeah… yeah, I thought irritably. If only Sherriff McNaley knew how badly I wanted to find her, maybe I wouldn’t be feeling his disgusted stare boring into the back of my head. Only I couldn’t tell him that I needed to find her because she said she was there when my dad died. That would just sound crazy. Everything else about this night was crazy enough, I didn’t need his radar trained my way.
That was why, even though Brandon had claimed there was something in the woods, I was still walking far back behind the house with my flashlight in hand. I knew I wasn’t going to find her. She had disappeared right under our noses. If she had wanted to get away that badly, I doubted she was going to be easy to find. Still… I had to try. If nothing else, it gave me some room to breath away from all the action.
The woods were eerily silent. Not the peaceful, nightly silent, but the silence that was missing the normal sounds of the woods. No birds chirping, no animals rustling in the brush, no scampering of the night creatures. Nothing but silence. The hair on my arms began to stand on end and a nervous knot began forming in the pit of my stomach; like a rock, complete with jagged edges that were causing all sorts of pangs and aches to run through me.
A snap to the left of me had me spinning on my heel. Because the forest was so eerily silent, that one sound was like a shot gun going off. “Who’s there?” I shouted. More silence. Then another snap but to the right this time. I spun that way. “Hello? This isn’t funny.”
Then, as if just waiting for me to say something, I began to hear laughter. Not the normal, human, tinkling laughter, but a hoarser scary version of a laugh. It took everything inside of me, all of my police training along with growing up with my father to stand my ground. It wasn’t easy. Not when everything inside of me was screaming for me to run. I had to face this. It was my job to face this.
“Who’s out there?” I asked again.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Talia?” When I turned at the statement, it was to face my sister. Only she seemed… different. There was something wrong with her face. It almost seemed like her features were stretched, like she was standing in front of an abstract mirror in a fun house. Only she wasn’t. Her eyes seemed huge… too big for her face.
She rolled her neck and I could hear the bones cracking inside it. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said again.
She was younger than me, and I was more concerned about her safety out there than with her purpose for being out here. “Does mom know where you are?”
She laughed then. That hideous hoarse laughter that wasn’t at all like the laugh I was used to from her. Then she placed one finger in front of her lips and I gasped in horror. “Shh… someone might find us,” she said before laughing again.
I couldn’t stop looking at her finger, her hand, her arm, then back to her finger. It was longer and thicker. It was covered in a hair that from this distance looked coarse and thick. But it wasn’t those things that really had me worried. It was the razor sharp claw like nail that was protruding from it.
“Talia, it’s late and it’s not safe out here. Let me get you home.”
She shook her head exaggeratingly slow. “I think I’m right where I should be.”
She smiled then and her teeth were white in the darkness and big… too big… and sharp… too sharp. I felt sick to my stomach. I was shockingly close to losing what little food I had in my system. This was my sister; my baby sister. Sure we hadn’t been super close since our dad died, but hell, we had lived through a traumatic experience. It had been expected to force some distance between us. Especially because while I had been heartbroken over it, she had gone on with her life like nothing had even happened. I had resented her for that… but I had never seen her like this.
“What’s wrong with you?” I whispered.
She walked closer and I noticed that her clothes were covered in blood. I could smell it on her. As she drew nearer, I could see it smeared on every exposed surface of her body. As she watched me watch her, her tongue whipped out and she licked at a smudge close to her mouth. My stomach heaved and I felt myself dropping to my knees. I knew I had to get out of there, but this was my sister. She wasn’t a monster… was she?
“Leave him alone Talia.”
It was her.
Talia growled and threw her head back causing more bones to crack, more distortion to her face. “He is mine Micha.”
She stood her ground.
“He is your brother, not some pet to play with… not another meal.”
I stood up and back a few steps away from them. “What is going on here?”
“It’s simple really,” Sheriff McNaley said as he walked toward us, “this monster killed her own grandmothe
r.”
My eyes flew to the girl and I watched as she flinched and then clenched her fists. “He’s lying,” she said through her teeth.
“Tell him, Talia, tell your brother what happened.”
Talia had begun to whine when the sheriff walked up and now she was on her knees and twitching strangely. “Yes… she killed her grandma.” She began licking at her grotesque arm and I realized she was cleaning herself.
“I don’t understand.” It was all I could say because this was crazy. Everything happening, everything I was seeing, it was all crazy. Something from a nightmare. Something that wasn’t real.
“Your sister isn’t what she seems, Nate,” the girl said. “Neither is the sheriff.” She spat out the last word as if it was poison.
McNaley laughed. “She’s talking nonsense. This boy has known me his entire life, he knows who I am.”
“Why should I believe you?” I asked her softly.
She turned to me and there was such sadness in her eyes that I had to catch my breath. “Because he said you know who he is, not what he is.” She turned away and looked pointedly at both Talia and the sheriff. “You don’t know what we all are.”
Then, as if on cue, the clouds shifted and silvery moonlight spilled down into the forest. All three bodies began to twitch and transform in front of me. Wiry hair sprouted from their skin, eyes grew larger, feet and hands turned into paws with claws extending from them, and before I knew it, I was looking into the faces of three very large and very pissed off wolves.
I had to protect what was mine. He may not realize it yet, but we were destined to be together. I felt it in the depths of my soul and I would not fail to kill any who stand against us.
A growl worked its way out of my chest and into the night. I faced my adversaries with my head held high and ready to do some damage. Nate fell to the ground and then scooted backwards, his eyes large and unbelieving. He didn’t want to believe what he was seeing, but he would. He would have to.
After Forever Page 19