Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two

by Sharon Bayliss

  “Maybe.”

  “Even if you didn’t understand why, you were right. You were right that Julie was being tortured. You were right that you could walk through the concealment spell. And you were right that you could save Julie and Evangeline. I hate to say it, but if fall magic is anything like other types of magic, it involves a lot of guesswork. But in the end, you were right.”

  “Being right is overrated.”

  “I wouldn’t know. You’ll have to ask your mother.” He smiled slightly, and handed Patrick another slice of pizza.

  manda opened her eyes and saw the empty chair where David had sat a moment ago.

  “David?”

  She had dozed off, a strange thing to do while getting chemo. She didn’t care how tired she was, she couldn’t sleep with chemicals being pumped into her veins. And where was David? He always stayed with her. She believed in the power of his presence more than she believed in the power of chemotherapy.

  She tried to comfort herself. He could have seen she was sleeping and took the chance to go use the restroom or get a drink. But she doubted it. She could feel agitated, dirty magic polluting the room.

  “Mom?”

  She saw Jude, and that monster, Caroline. Jude looked stricken. He hadn’t seen her since the chemo had taken her hair and all the youth left in her skin. But Caroline smiled at her, her arm looped around Jude’s. If Amanda had any strength at all, she would have done her best to attack her. But she had neither physical or magical strength anymore, at least not enough to put a dent in Caroline. She had sucked magic out of three of the four events, and had to be more deadly and dangerous than ever.

  “David,” Amanda called.

  “He’ll be right back,” Caroline said. “Just taking a break.”

  Amanda looked around and saw everyone had taken a break. The nurses. The other patients. The entire chemo room had emptied.

  “Stay away from me,” Amanda said.

  “Mom, it’s okay. She’s here to help you.” Jude approached her and reached for her hand.

  Amanda grabbed Jude’s hand and squeezed it as hard as she could, a combination of affection and attack. “You need to stay away from her.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “How could you? After you’ve seen what she did to your brother and sister? I still had faith in you. How dare you prove me wrong?” She threw his hand back at him.

  Caroline put her hand on Jude’s arm. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “She’s sick. In pain.”

  Caroline poked at the tubes on the chemotherapy machine curiously. “Did they give you odds?” she asked.

  Amanda didn’t answer. She looked around. She knew magic would do no good. So, she prayed to God instead. For David to come back. For Caroline to leave. For Jude to be okay. For her to live.

  “It’s important,” Caroline said. “I need to know your odds. They must think you have a chance of survival, if they continue treatment. Is this right? Is there some chance? If not, I need to know.”

  “Tell her, Mom. What kind of odds did they give you the treatment would work?”

  “Go away,” she said.

  “If you’re terminal, then I may still be able to help,” Caroline said. “But I’ll have to wait until I find the spring equinox wizard. Magic from three out of four events will be enough if you have a chance of survival. But in order to reverse death, I’ll need the spring.”

  “Reverse death? That’s not something wizards can do.”

  Caroline smiled. “That’s not something polar wizards can do. A wizard with magic from each event could do anything.”

  “I don’t want your help,” Amanda said. “I don’t want any of your dirty magic touching me. I know what you did to get it.”

  “Please, Mom,” Jude said. “You don’t like her, that’s fine. But that’s no reason to die. Think about Dad. About Patrick and Emmy. How could you leave them knowing you didn’t have to?”

  “I don’t want to leave them. I don’t want to die.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Caroline said.

  “5-10% chance of remission. Those are my odds,” Amanda said.

  “That should be plenty,” Jude said. “Right?”

  Caroline nodded. “You’re going to be fine,” she said.

  Amanda wanted to spit in her face, but instead tears slid down her cheeks. She wanted to live. All she had wanted for the past few months was for someone to tell her she would be fine, and really mean it.

  “It won’t happen overnight, I’m afraid,” Caroline said. “At least I don’t think so. It means the treatment will work. You’ll still have to get the chemo. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Caroline took her hand. Amanda winced. At her touch, she felt fear. And for a moment she didn’t know if Caroline had come to kill her or save her. A demon and an angel all wrapped into one.

  Caroline patted Amanda’s hand. “This won’t hurt a bit,” she said.

  In life, there haven’t been too many places where I’ve felt like I truly “fit in.” However, the community of readers and writers is different. I belong perfectly with the hard-working, big-dreaming, weirdoes and misfits that I am so pleased to call my friends, fans, and colleagues.

  Within this community, there are countless people who deserve thanks. If I had time, I would write a thank you note to every one of you who chooses to purchase my book, and then a big, squishy hug for everyone who takes the time to write a review or tell someone about my book in person or online.

  I also want to thank the talented ladies who helped make Watch Me Burn the best it could be—beta readers Vicki Keire, Gwen Gardner, and Emma Adams, acquiring editor Katie Hamstead, and my lead editor Julie Rodriguez. Also, Nikola Vukoja who found some last minute edits. All of you left your lovely and clever fingerprints in the text.

  Thank you my cover artist Michelle Johnson for her breathtaking work, and to all the staff at Curiosity Quills Press who help me share my stories with the world—especially Eugene Teplitsky, Lisa Gus, Nikki Tetreault, Andrew Buckley, and Clare Dugmore.

  And as in all things, I want to thank my family for their unwavering support of my ridiculous dream, especially my husband and mother, who stand by and support me every day of my life…including the ones when I forget to shower. I’d also like to thank my sons, who frankly, are not supportive of Mommy’s writing because they think she should play with them 24/7, but I’d still like to thank them for being super cute and for not yet spilling juice on my laptop.

  hen Warren arrived outside his mother’s apartment, he saw Luke Skywalker’s face plastered against the window. For some reason, his mother had taped his old Star Wars comforter over the patio glass. He didn’t pause too long to wonder why. His mother suffered from what his brother called severe eccentricity, a condition that sometimes included blacking out windows with old sheets for no obvious reason.

  Warren always came home when his mother asked, in part because she tended to do things like make bacon in the toaster and start fires. However, if she called him today for anything less than a toaster fire, he would head right back to campus to enjoy the first day after finals the way he had intended to—drunk and poolside.

  He wiped his feet like his mother taught him, even though the revolting brown carpeting didn’t show much. He kind of missed the crappiness of the apartment he grew up in, although he didn’t know why, because crappy also described his new apartment in Eugene. Still, to him, home smelled like pine trees intermingled with pool chlorine and exhaust from the laundry room.

  His mother stood in the kitchen beside their yellow nineteen-eighties stove and a refrigerator that always looked too small next to Warren and his other too-tall family members. She held a box of uncooked spaghetti and didn’t respond to his presence right away. The box of spaghetti looked worn and crushed, as if his mother had stood there and squeezed the box for a while. The wrinkle between her eyes had grown deeper, and a few more strands of gray had found their way into her
waist-length black hair.

  Warren took the box of spaghetti out of her hands.

  “I will make you dinner,” she said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Two Red Bulls churned in Warren’s hungover and now worried stomach.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Please don’t say cancer. At six-foot-five, Warren had grown too tall for most childish things, but losing his mama still felt like the worst thing that could possibly happen.

  “It’s Isaac,” she said.

  Warren’s hands began to sweat.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  Okay, maybe losing his little brother felt like the worst thing that could possibly happen.

  His mother took Warren by the hand and led him into their apartment’s only bedroom. She had slept on the couch for fourteen years, and Warren and Isaac had shared this room. A bleach-stained towel hung over a broken window. Through the gap, Warren saw the courtyard full of pine trees where they had played as kids—the courtyard where Isaac collected specimens to look at under his microscope while Warren hit mud balls with his baseball bat.

  Glass surrounded a brownish-red smudge on the carpet. Blood.

  “What is this?” Warren asked.

  “Someone took him.”

  Warren’s breath caught in his throat.

  “He came home to visit. Said he felt sick. I tried to get off work, but I couldn’t find anyone to cover my shift.” Her voice took on a higher, more urgent pitch. “When I came home, he was gone.”

  “You mean someone actually broke in and took him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s sixteen years old and freaking six-foot-four. You don’t just abduct a guy like that for no reason. What the hell for?”

  She shook her head, her eyes on the spot of blood.

  “Did you call the police?” His voice got higher and louder too.

  “Yes, I called 9-1-1, like you told me to for an emergency. Isaac put the numbers on the phone so I wouldn’t forget. They came and asked me questions and took pictures.”

  “What did the police say?” Warren asked.

  “Just to call if anything new happens.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. He’s nice to everyone. Keeps his head down. This is bullshit.” He realized he had yelled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to curse.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Warren knelt to get a better look at the blood smudge, careful to avoid the glass.

  His mother sat on the floor next to him and took his hand.

  He didn’t notice his hand shook until she held it firmly.

  She pulled him into a hug and squeezed tightly.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I know. I love you, too, Mom.”

  “I think you should go.”

  “What? No. I’m not going anywhere.” She got confused at the grocery store on her best days. She needed him now. And he needed her.

  “They’ll come for you, too,” she said in a near-whisper.

  He pulled away from her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing. I’m just worried. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  She didn’t lie well, and only one topic caused her to act this evasive.

  “Does this have anything to do with my father?”

  She paused for what seemed like a full minute, and then finally gave the same answer she always gave when they asked about their father.

  “No. Your father is dead. He died in Waterloo when the bomb hit Texas.”

  arren’s mother told him to get out of Portland, drive across the Canadian border, and check into a hotel using a fake name. He had no intention of doing any of that. He didn’t know if she lied on purpose, or had just gotten confused, but he suspected his mom hadn’t told him the whole story. Regardless, blood smeared his bedroom floor. And no one messed with Warren’s brother. He had protected Isaac from bullies ever since the little dork decided to wear a cape and top hat to school in third grade, and that wouldn’t stop now that Isaac towered over just about any bully. Warren planned to find his brother, and then kick the ass of whoever caused that smudge.

  Isaac’s phone rang and rang without answer, and Warren gradually lost hope that Isaac sat on his couch watching science documentaries or whatever boring thing he would do on a Saturday night. But just in case, Warren decided to start by visiting Isaac’s apartment in the Commonwealth of California.

  He patted the hood of his fifteen-year-old Camry and gave it a little pep talk. You’ve got an eleven-hour drive ahead of you. But I know you can do it, I have faith in you.

  On the drive, Warren topped off the Red Bulls in his stomach with a Venti Iced Americano. When he finished the coffee, his heart raced and he wondered how much caffeine it took to kill a man. About thirty miles from the border, Warren saw an official Oregon road sign that said, Warning: Entering Texas Empire in Twenty Miles. And then another one, a little later: Warning: This Road Leads To The Texas Empire. Turn Around Now To Remain in The U.S. The signs plus the caffeine kept his heart rate up. He didn’t know if these warnings remained in effect or were just left there from before the bomb. Now that the Texas Empire had fallen, the Texas territory of California had become a territory of the United States. So it should be safe. Right?

  With all the worrying about his brother, he hadn’t stopped to think about entering the old Texas Empire for the first time since his family had escaped as refugees fourteen years ago. He’d made a few bad choices in high school, but he had never joined the forbidden road trips to California to see if the Texas Empire drinking age of sixteen remained in effect. His mother didn’t set too many rules, so he didn’t mind following the one rule she enforced—“Don’t go to Texas. It’s a bad, bad place.”

  Now only a few miles from the border, he wished he had asked her why, exactly. He knew the United States and the Texas Empire hated each other like a snake and a mongoose, although the country that played the snake in the story changed, depending on who told it. But Warren’s American high school history class painted Texans as cartoon villains. They called the Texas Empire a lawless place where the convenience stores sold heroin, prostitutes roamed the streets, and people played roulette at McDonald’s. Worst of all, of course, Texas was a monarchy, where leadership passed down from father to son. Their ancestors had founded America in the first place because they didn’t like Kings telling them what to do, so they didn’t like it in Texas either. Warren’s history teacher hadn’t convinced him to hate Texas. He felt the two hundred years of conflict simmering between the lines, and he didn’t get worked up about politics. Live and let live.

  The California border had a massive cement fence that could keep out a T. rex or a herd of zombies, and the United States government probably thought the Texas Empire had both. The deserted guard station could have housed a Wal-Mart. In the vacant window of the guard station hung a sign that said, Border Open: Enter At Your Own Risk.

  For some reason, Warren held his breath while he crossed the border, and then expelled it loudly after he entered. The signs got to him. He had to chill out. Isaac lived here and went to school here. The land on this side of the border looked the same as the land he just passed through. He didn’t sprout wings or see little green men on the side of the road as soon as he crossed.

  The highway looked smoothed out from recent repair, with new United States green highway signs alongside the old Texas Empire blue ones. He couldn’t see much in the darkness, so he couldn’t spot any potential zombies or T. rexes prowling outside.

  Eventually he had to pee, so he stopped and set foot on Texas Empire soil for the first time in fourteen years. The gas station sold guns and liquor, plus a lot of Texas Empire-themed knickknacks placed to either entice tourists or frighten them into turning around. One T-shirt had the entire North American continent colored in with the Texas flag and said, We’re coming for you. Another one said simply, Screw you, America. Other than feeling bullied by T-shirts, peeing at a Texa
s Empire gas station didn’t seem different from peeing in an American one. They had M&Ms and Doritos and Coca-Cola and Purell dispensers, and no heroin.

  Warren reached Palo Alto in the early morning and wondered if he should second-guess doubting his history teacher. He saw abandoned cars with broken windows and people openly selling drugs. Really openly. At a stoplight, one man pressed a laminated menu of narcotics to Warren’s car window. It looked professionally made, like the menus Warren handed out at the microbrewery-slash-restaurant he worked at.

  But aside from the drugs-to-go, Palo Alto didn’t seem too bad. Colorful buildings popped up among the lush green landscape. They even had Starbucks. He drove by the Palace of the Lord of California. Once the monarchy fell, the Governor of the Commonwealth of California lived here instead of a Lord, but he still got to live in the palace. The building looked like an over-blown Spanish mission, with red tile roofs, stucco walls, and lots of archways and palm trees. Not a bad way to live.

  Isaac lived in a yellow, cube-like apartment complex, near Pike University where he went to school. Isaac had an IQ of 162, so he began college at the same time Warren did. He had a funky brain, like his mind took steroids. Warren would watch him scrawling notes or solving puzzles, and his eyes would jet back and forth so fast they looked like they vibrated. Isaac’s smarts and premature grown-up-ness made him seem like the older brother … or even Warren’s grandfather, on occasion. He said stuff to Warren like, “You would be a genius, too, if you applied yourself even an iota.”

  Even in the weak early morning sun, people lay by the pool, and Warren felt their eyes on him as he walked by. But people looked at him everywhere he went. Warren knew he stood out. He had hair so black it had a blue sheen, and pale blue eyes. That, plus his height, made him somewhat of a spectacle. Unlike Isaac, who tended to slouch and wear a lot of gray, Warren had no problem standing as tall as he could. He smiled at some pretty girls in bikinis. They smiled, but then grabbed their towels and shoes and headed straight for a first-floor apartment. He couldn’t imagine why they would run from him like they had seen the bogeyman, but women frequently did things that baffled him.