Destruction: The December People, Book One

by Sharon Bayliss

  “Spend the night with me tonight,” she whispered.

  “Absolutely.”

  “But maybe shower first.”

  David chuckled.

  “Seriously… why didn’t you shower at the hotel?”

  “I didn’t think about it. I just wanted to come home.”

  “You’re ridiculous.” She whispered it into his ear like her own brand of sweet nothing. “And stinky.”

  vangeline insisted on wearing a dress and sandals to scatter her mother’s ashes, even though it was January and they were climbing to the top of Enchanted Rock. However, since Evangeline originally hadn’t wanted to come at all, it pleased David that she chose to dress up. She looked lovely. A white party dress with black ivy stitched around the hem. David liked it because, for once, she didn’t remind him of anyone. Not Crystal, not David’s mother, only Evangeline. Showing a glimpse of the grown-up self she would become. To complete her outfit, she had drawn intricate, colorful butterflies up and down her left arm. They looked so real he worried the people would think he had let his twelve-year-old get tattoos.

  They had the rock mostly to themselves, as he had expected for wintertime. The bald face of pink granite had no trees to block the wind. Xavier draped his jacket over Evangeline’s goosebump-covered arms before David had a chance to. He didn’t have much planned. He had done his research but hadn’t found any wizard rites that seemed fitting. They all mentioned the wizard afterlife, known as the Summerland. Summerland was just another word for Heaven, but he didn’t like it. The word alone implied they didn’t belong there. So, it would be simple. Just the three of them, and not much would be said. David hadn’t really known the woman in the box for a long time, but he thought she would like it.

  He pulled the cedar box out of his jacket. He didn’t mention he had carried it with him for months. He also handed the opal ring to Evangeline. She accepted it without comment and put it in her dress pocket.

  “Is there anything you want to say to her?” David asked.

  As expected, they didn’t respond right away. He waited.

  “Okay,” Xavier said. “Um…”

  Xavier looked at the box in David’s hands and rubbed his arms. “I’m sorry.”

  Xavier’s face contorted as if he tried to hold in a sneeze. David realized he tried not to cry and put his arm around Xavier’s shoulder and hugged him. The first time David had ever touched his son. Xavier pressed his face into David’s shoulder to dab away his tears covertly.

  “She’s not mad. She’s proud of you,” David said. Of course, he had no idea what she thought, but the words had a ring of truth to them. He hoped Xavier heard it, too.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Evangeline said quietly. “I shouldn’t have said you deserved to die. I was just mad. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want you to die; I wanted you to get better.”

  “It’s okay. She knows that too.”

  David ran his fingers across the smooth cedar. He had lots of things to say. I’m sorry. I’m mad at you. I still love you. I love our kids. I forgot how it feels to have the tips of your hair brush across my chest when you lean down to kiss me. I wish I could feel it again.

  “I hope you found what you were looking for,” he said.

  He scattered her ashes in the four cardinal directions. The wind quickly swept her away into the great “more”. When the sun caught the ash, it briefly shimmered iridescent, as if she had never been made of anything more than fairy dust.

  I have a wonderful life and for that, I owe many thanks to many people. First, I’d like to thank my husband, for loving me just as I am and for supporting me unconditionally on every step of my writing journey. I’d like to thank my mother being a wonderful mother and grandma, and for the magical inspiration and education. I’d like to thank my brother for being an early reader of Destruction and for his words of encouragement. I also wish to thank everyone in my extended family. I’m lucky to have supportive and loving relatives all around me.

  I had some incredible beta readers for Destruction. Their input helped to make the story and characters what they are today. Thank you to Ben Chiles, Charity Bradford, Dana Edwards, Gwen Gardner, Deana Barnhart, and Leah Deane. Your feedback and support meant so much to me.

  And, none of this would happen without the support of Curiosity Quills Press. Thank you Eugene Teplitsky, Lisa Gus, Katie Hamstead, Andrew Buckley, Courtney Worth Young, Nikki Tetreault, Holly Erwin, Clare Dugmore, and all the other goats and minions. Of course, I have to thank my brilliant editor Mary Harris. She really helped me make the story stronger. And, the talented cover artist Michelle Johnson. The cover is everything I hoped for and more. Last but not least, thank you to Krystal Wade, who used her own very limited free time to give Destruction a final edit and proofread.

  There are volumes worth of people who deserve my thanks for helping to spread the word about Destruction—including everyone who participated in my blog tour, cover reveal, and release day blitz. I also want to thank every single person who purchases this book and writes a review. Your support means so much to me.

  I also want to thank J.K. Rowling for inspiring my love for magic and wizards… despite her biased portrayal of Slytherins.

  Every night I say a prayer of thanks for everything I have. And, I’ll do that again here. Thank you God for all of my many blessings. My family. My safety. My health. I truly love all that you have given me I’ll do my best to appreciate every bit of it.

  Sharon Bayliss lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and children. She hates wearing shoes and loves jogging in the rain. She only practices magic in emergencies.

  She is also the author of the young adult science fiction novel, The Charge.

  You can connect with her at www.sharonbayliss.com, www.facebook.com/authorsharonbayliss, and @SharonBayliss on Twitter.

  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 c
ould 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 VentiIced 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 Texas 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.

  Warren climbed the stairs to the second floor and found Isaac’s apartment. He turned the knob, then tried to open the door, but found it locked, of course. What had he expected? Did he think he would show up, knock on the door, and Isaac would explain how the whole thing had been a misunderstanding? He rammed the side of his body into the door a few times, more out of frustration than anything. The door looked sturdy and probably had at least one solid lock. Warren might resemble Superman a little, but he couldn’t break down doors.