Salem's Revenge Complete Boxed Set

by David Estes

  I write about my friends, I don’t talk about them. Talking is…hard. Words don’t always come out the right way, and words about the two most important people in my life have to be perfect, the way I form them in my journal. My throat constricts just thinking about my friends being under Laney’s shrewd scrutiny.

  “No,” I say.

  “Come on,” Laney urges. “I spilled last night. Now it’s your turn. Think of it as therapy. Everyone needs to get things off their chest sometimes. And I’m bored of walking in silence.”

  My heart says NoNoNoNoNo, but my mouth says, “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Xavier first,” Laney says, her lips curling in victory.

  “He’s flamboyant, a romantic. Loud on the outside, but insecure on the inside—in a way that’s endearing.” So far so good, I think. Maybe if I just pretend like I’m writing about them, the words will come out right.

  “He sounds gay,” Laney says. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she adds quickly.

  “He is gay,” I say, laughing.

  “That’s cool,” she says. “I have—had—a few gay friends. Nicest people I ever met. Good dressers, too. What else?”

  I bite my lip because thinking about Xave is starting to hurt a little. “He always made me laugh. Always. Not always on purpose, but still. Some of my worst days were fixed by Xave.” And he was my hero so many times I can’t count them. It’s what I should say, but I’m afraid I’ll completely break down if I go there.

  “I think I’ll like him,” she says, and I can’t help but appreciate the way she says it, like it’s a foregone conclusion that she’ll meet him someday.

  “Only idiots don’t like him,” I say, a challenge.

  She doesn’t take the bait. “Okay. Is that it? A gay romantic with a good sense of humor?”

  “He’s like a brother to me. We were both in the system, foster kids. We had the same foster parents once. We understand each other. He’s the best of this world.” The throat-tightening thing is happening and I have to stop, have to look away from Laney’s piercing blue eyes.

  “Thanks for telling me about him,” she says. “What about your girlfriend? Was she an orphan, too?”

  I’m glad for her question because it makes me laugh and opens up my airways. “What—you think foster kids only make friends with each other?”

  She shrugs. “I’ve never met any. Well, before you.”

  “No, Beth had biological parents. Her mom was a good woman. A real mom mom, you know? She’d make lemonade in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter. Her father was a lawyer who only liked me up until the point when he realized I wasn’t gay and that I was interested in his daughter. Then he became my mortal enemy, although Beth told me it was all an act.” The words are spilling from my mouth like rainwater from a drainpipe, completely unblocked, unprotected. It feels good, like layers of dead skin are being peeled off my soul. Maybe I do need therapy.

  “Beth’s dad thought you were gay?” Laney says, snickering. “Not that I’m surprised…”

  I ignore the jab. “He thought Xave and I were…together,” I say, smiling at the memory. “Then he caught me kissing Beth on the porch one night when I was dropping her off. I’d pay to have a picture of his expression.”

  “Except money is just paper now,” Laney says. “So Beth was cool, too, like Xavier?”

  “Cooler than Xavier. Cooler than me.”

  “Cooler than you?” Laney feigns shock. “How could anyone be cooler than you?”

  “I know, hard to imagine, right? She’s cool in a geeky kind of way and geeky in a cool kind of way. She’s smarter than me, is the most honest person I know, and loves all kinds of animals, not just the furry and cuddly ones, although she likes them, too. She stands up for what she believes in, no matter how hard it is. I learned a lot from her.”

  “I hope I get to meet her,” Laney says.

  My heart sinks just a little. “I hope so, too,” I say, because sometimes the allure of denial is too powerful to ignore. I’m unable to keep the image of her bloody message from my mind.

  The scuff of our sneakers on the asphalt fills in the sudden silence. And then Hex, who’s been consistently walking ahead of us, barks and rushes forward, diving off the highway and toward a hill in the distance where—

  —is it a mirage, a trick of the sunlight reflecting off the road?—

  —in this gray, broken world, where beauty is a lost thing of the past—

  An endless field of bright yellow sunflowers marches to the horizon.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Hex! Stop!” I shout, and for once he does, turning back to look at me, tongue hanging out the side of a wolfish grin.

  I almost forget why I was calling to him, I’m so dumbfounded. “Uh, thanks,” I say, which sounds ridiculous when you say it to a dog. “Come back?” Am I asking him or commanding him? He looks at me like I’m a fool—which, clearly, I am.

  He comes, but then whines at my feet and jerks his head back toward the distant sloped field, glinting with gold and green. I rub my eyes. The sunflowers are still there.

  “Weird,” Laney says. “Have you ever seen that many sunflowers?”

  “No,” I say, “but sunflower seeds have got to come from somewhere.”

  “Pennsylvania?”

  It’s not what I would’ve guessed, but I’m no expert. I take a step closer, as if such a small movement will give me a better view. Then I feel it.

  The pull.

  Something familiar.

  The aromatic smell of flowers; the warmth of sunlight; the cool, refreshing taste of ice cold lemonade on a hot day, like today; the touch of a woman, gentle and tender and caressi—

  I shake my head, but the pull is still there.

  And Laney’s gone past me, her legs churning forward, her movements stiff and almost robotic. “Laney,” I say.

  “Smells so good…” she murmurs.

  “Laney!” I say again, louder, but she doesn’t respond, just keeps walking.

  Hex chases her, grabs her pant leg, and starts tugging back. Without a word, she kicks at him, dislodges him, and continues on.

  Crap.

  I run over, fighting the magnetic pull, which gets more and more disorienting with each step, like I’m sprinting through a fog, past Hex, who’s barking his head off but unwilling to approach Laney after she kicked him, and in front of my friend, trying to block her view.

  She seems to look right through me and I feel ice down my back despite the heat. “Laney?” I say, but she’s gone, her eyes glazed, her expression distant. She plows right into me.

  When I grab her, she seems to suddenly realize I’m there, scratching and clawing at my face, her eyes white and wild. It hurts like hell and I can feel the warmth of blood from broken skin flowing down my face, but I ignore the pain, picking her up and rushing her forward—with Hex barking around my ankles—like a tackling dummy in a football practice drill. All the while she’s kicking and screaming and hitting me with tight fists that are a lot stronger than they look.

  “Ow-ow-ow-ow-OW! Damn, Laney, cut it out!” I finally scream, tossing her to the shoulder on the other side of the highway.

  She tumbles backward onto her butt, relatively cushioned by the brown, overgrown grass. When she looks at me, her eyes are her own again. “What was that, Carter? Seriously, you think that just because you’re gorilla-size and bigger than me that you can just toss me wherever you choose? Do that again and you’ll end up as holey as Swiss cheese.”

  Trish stands behind Laney, her lips curled slightly. Is that a smile?

  Half-grimacing from the cuts and bruises on my face, I start to laugh. She’s back, no doubt about that.

  “What do you think you’re laughing at?” Laney says, pushing hard to her feet.

  “What do you remember before I picked you up and chucked you in the grass?” I ask, still chuckling. Pulling out a torn piece of cloth from my pack, I dab at the stingy cuts on my cheeks.

/>   Laney screws up her face, looks at me like I’m out of my freaking mind, and then says, “What’s that supposed to mean? I remember…” Her voice trails off and she gets this faraway look in her eyes. Oh no. It’s happening again, I think, preparing my battered body for another round with the human wildcat.

  But no, she’s just realizing that…

  “I don’t remember,” she says, almost sheepishly, a look I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen cross her face. “Hex came back and we were looking at the sunflower fields and then I took a step forward next to you, and then…”

  “Then what?” I prod.

  “Then you dumped me in the dirt,” she says, brushing at her pants, although it’s not like they’ve ever been clean since I met her.

  “One—it was grass, not dirt. And two—the part you can’t remember? You were staggering forward like a zombie, heading toward those fields. I tried to get you to come back, like I did with Hex, but you couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hear me. So yes, I picked you up like a child and carried you away. And you punished me for it,” I say, waving my hand over my face. “Your Honor, People’s Exhibit A. Perhaps you should consider trimming those retractable claws of yours.”

  For the first time since I met her, Laney ignores my verbal jabs and manages to focus on the important parts. “Like a zombie?” she says. “What was that? I remember amazing smells, tastes, and, uh, other feelings.” She says the last part awkwardly, looking at my feet, like the way you’d talk to your parents about sex.

  I smile, but without humor, because I’ve figured it out. “Sirens,” I say.

  That’s when Hex barks a warning.

  In tandem, Laney and I spin to follow my dog’s gaze, which is locked on forms moving across the landscape on the other side of the highway.

  “Oh no,” I say.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Laney says.

  “Can’t,” I say. “Can’t just walk away when I might be able to do something.”

  “Cut the Superman crap,” Laney says. “You’re just a teenager.”

  “I have to,” I say, because of the promise I made to myself. As long as I’m alive, I won’t look the other way if I can make a difference. The soon-to-be victims are already at the base of the hill—four people, two men, two women—moving forward in the same herky-jerky way that Laney was just a minute ago.

  Consumed by the pull.

  “Then I’m coming with you,” Laney says, that familiar stubbornness evident in the hard line of her raised chin.

  “You can’t resist the Siren’s Call,” I say.

  “The Sirens’ Call will take you, too,” she says.

  “I’m able to…resist it,” I say.

  “How?” she says, and I’m not sure if she’s really interested in the answer or just trying to buy some time to convince me not to go.

  “Don’t go any closer to the flowers,” I say. “If I’m not back in an hour, get as far away from here as possible.” I turn to go but she grabs my arm.

  And then suddenly she’s so close, right up against me, and her lips meet mine and I’m falling, falling, falling to a place that’s warm and comforting and—

  “What the hell?” I say, pulling back sharply.

  Her eyes dance with amusement. “It was worth a try, right?” she says, and I realize she was willing to try anything to distract me, to get me to stay, to keep my nose out of this fight. The warmth of the kiss sits on my lips, and I realize I don’t hate the way it feels.

  “Stay. Here,” I say, although I know it’s as futile as commanding Hex. I flick a glance at Trish, who’s staring absently at the sunflowers. “Don’t leave your sister.”

  Drawing my sword, I sprint across the highway and onto the opposite shoulder, leaping the guardrail like I’m dodging a diving defender’s tackle. Letting gravity—and something else?—pull me down a small hill, I watch the four people enter the sunflower fields, disappearing amongst the green stalks.

  The black iciness of dread fills me.

  The last time I tried to protect anyone from the witches…

  Thankfully, the thrill of the Sirens’ Call pulls me away from the weight of my regrets, replacing it with a flighty bolt of energy that seems to throw me forward with reckless abandon.

  Control. I’ve got to get control.

  But the closer I get, the more I lose control. In my mind I realize it, that something beyond me is dictating my actions, but I can’t make sense of it, can’t stop it.

  “No!” I shout, slamming to a stop, my fists tightening like hammers, my teeth hurting from grating against each other, my jaw locked and achy. “Enough,” I hiss under my breath, fighting the urge, fighting the Call.

  Deep breaths, deep breaths.

  Slowly, slowly…

  I. Get. Control.

  The pull is still there, but like a background force, like a gentle breeze, able to touch me but nothing more.

  I step forward tentatively, but I’m okay now. More swiftly, I dart up the hill, until the first sunflowers rise above me, their happy, smiling faces looking down.

  And the smell is so good…

  I can almost taste the cool breeze on my tongue…

  The touch of impossibly soft lips on mine…

  “Shut up,” I breathe, and the thoughts and sensations slink away to the background again.

  Through the flowers I wade, pushing the stalks aside with my hands, scanning ahead for the people and for danger, seeing only green pipes and gold faces.

  And the pull, getting stronger by the second. The Call.

  You are not your own anymore.

  You are ours.

  You are safe.

  More out of anger and resistance than necessity, I slash through one of the sunflowers, decapitating it. The face continues to smile up at me from where it now rests in the dirt at my feet.

  Safety.

  Warmth.

  Love.

  Come to us. Be saved.

  “Oh, I’ll come all right,” I mutter.

  Screams tear through the day’s silent fabric.

  Not again. Too late. Not again.

  Movement ahead. Another violent, horror-filled scream.

  Slash, slash, slash! I hack my way through the sunflowers, adrenaline ripping me from the pull of the Sirens, until their Call is nothing more than a whisper in the dark.

  The clearing opens and I see them.

  Three witches, three warlocks. The women are clothed in yellow dresses, the material smooth and silky, tantalizingly close to being see-through. The men wear green suits and are tall, dark and would fit in just fine on a Parisian catwalk.

  None of them are her—The red/white/blue Siren—for which I’m dimly relieved.

  One of the female Sirens, a tall blonde Barbie, extracts a long blade from a human man’s stomach, his blood glistening like wet dye on a freshly painted fence. The source of the screaming drops to the dirt, his yell cut short in a gurgle-sputter as blood fills his airways.

  The other three humans don’t seem to notice, just move forward, entranced.

  Come to us.

  Come.

  The blonde has turned her attention to me, still holding her blood-sheathed sword, which she wipes on her sunflower-yellow dress. She beckons to me with a provocative finger motion.

  I’m in dangerous territory now, the Sirens’ Call so strong that I fear a move forward will suck me into their strange hidden vortex. But the humans…

  Three more steps and they die.

  I leap into the clearing with a loud battle cry that I hope will partially help to shatter the spell the humans are under. The world tilts around me and it’s like an invisible hand is nudging me from behind, calmly and gently ushering me forward to my doom.

  Not today.

  I whip out a throwing knife and chuck it at the blonde Siren, who takes it in the breast, wide-eyed surprise written all over face. She drops her sword and clutches at her chest, a crimson pool spreading amongst the yellow silk. I hope she has a good dry clean
er.

  The final remaining human man is approaching a dark-skinned Siren who’s clutching a curved knife, wild glee in her eyes.

  The throwing star is in my hand and I’m flicking my wrist before my mind even catches up to what I’m doing. The deadly pinwheel rotates away, but it’s cut off when the third female Siren, a brown-skinned beauty with glossy black hair and dark mesmerizing eyes jumps in front of the blade, blocking it with some kind of a simple spell that raises a poof of green mist. The star stops in midair and then falls harmlessly, sticking into the dirt.

  Behind her, the dark-skinned Siren closes in on the human man. Based on his attire, he’s probably a farmer. He’s wearing dirty overalls, a red and white plaid shirt, and dusty old boots. I start to run toward him, but the Siren is too quick, slashing him across the throat. There’s a spray of red in a rainbowesque arc, and then the man’s head drops sickeningly from his shoulders, rolling down the hill and past me, his unseeing eyes staring at me with each revolution.

  My stomach churns with horror, but I choke it down in an instant, one of Mr. Jackson’s lessons cutting through me like a scythe. The time for grief is after the fight.

  I charge the Sirens, careful not to slip on the gore coating the rugged terrain.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  There’s a series of green poofs as I slash at the tanned Siren, each one blocking the path of my sword. But I’m filled with adrenaline and fury, the exact kind that almost gave me the strength to defeat Mr. Jackson on the fateful day that convinced me I had to leave his side, and I’m not to be denied.

  One stroke slips through her defenses and she cries out as a long gash opens on her shoulder. My next attack is a jab and there’s nothing to block it. Her eyes widen as the sword enters her abdomen. As I push the blade in further, all the way to the hilt, her head lolls forward and her face is so close to mine, her perfect, unblemished skin and full lips tantalizingly near.

  With all my strength I wrench the weapon from her skin and draw it across her throat.

  She dies with a bloody smile on her neck, just like she should.

  The third female Siren flees into the sunflower fields.