Gray (Awakening Book 1)

by Shannon Reber

  My body jerked. I hadn’t seen a light like that in years. No. That was a crazy thought. Lamps were an entirely normal part of life. Nothing unusual. Nope.

  The woman examined me closely, then her mouth fell open. “What happened to you? You’re covered in blood,” she said, but didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she brought the phone up to her ear and began to make a call.

  Blood? I looked down, startled to see that she was right. My shirt had been white at one point, but right then, a huge, reddish-brown, crusty stain covered it. It made me look like I’d come out of a horror movie. No wonder Rose Connelly had looked so freaked out.

  There was nothing wrong with me though. I had no idea what was going on. Nothing made sense anymore.

  I ignored whatever she said into the phone, my eyes taking in everything they could in the bright room. It was insane. It wasn’t my home at all.

  I took a step back, then another, unsure where to go, or what to do. Mom. Dad. Kassia. Where were they? Why couldn’t I remember anything other than times from years in the past? I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I was seventeen years old. The memories which flooded my system were all from when I was little though.

  I stepped back again, but bumped into the door. I had broken into someone else’s home. Not a good move, it seemed.

  I set the key down on a table next to the door and turned to open it. Lost. Empty. Alone. Where was my family?

  “Honey, wait. Don’t leave,” the woman said and stepped toward me. “Are you Shayla?” Her eyes searched my face like it held the answer to a profound mystery.

  I tipped my head to the side, unsure why that name felt so familiar. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  An image floated through my mind. My sister had been tickling me mercilessly, As soon as you tell me where you put my stuff, I’ll let you go, Shayla.

  My lips quivered a little bit. Shayla. It was my name. “Kassia calls me Shayla the shoplifter because I always take her things,” I said to myself, doing all in my power to figure out the rest of it.

  Rose’s lips turned up in a small smile, then she offered the phone to me. “Last I heard, your sister was still in town.”

  In town. Right. Kassia was five years older than me. She would be in college, or about to graduate.

  I didn’t take the phone though. Strangely enough, it felt foreign, as though I hadn’t used a phone in years. Why did everything feel so unfamiliar?

  After a moment, red and blue strobes lit the air. Police lights. Huh. That felt just as bizarre as everything else.

  Then the questions began. Police officers asked me hundreds of them, but I had no answers. All I knew, was that my name was Shayla Vincent.

  The officers finally decided that to ask the same questions over and over was useless, so simply loaded me into the back of one of the police cruisers. My eyes met Rose Connelly’s as they closed the door behind me and a lost feeling engulfed me.

  She turned her lips up in a small smile and lifted her hand to wave, but her eyes turned to something else. I looked as well and saw a guy around my age walking toward her. That guy must be the Ben she had mentioned, because Rose threw her arms around the kid’s neck.

  The cops ignored the two. They just got into the car and began to drive. It was even stranger to pull away from the house than it had been to walk into it.

  Desolation consumed me. Why would Mom and Dad have sold our house? What was going on?

  I grimaced when the police took me to the hospital. There was nothing wrong with me, but they just wouldn’t listen.

  Everyone stared and whispered while doctors asked yet more unanswerable questions and nurses checked me for every disease known to man. All I wanted was to see my parents, but no one would answer my questions about them.

  After what felt like hours, I was given a pair of blue scrubs and they let me shower off the grime and dried blood which covered me. It felt amazing. The heat of the water soothed both my body and mind. Nothing had ever felt better.

  It startled me when I stepped out of the little bathroom, to find that a man and a woman stood there, staring at me. One was a big, bald bull of a man with fierce, intense eyes. The woman was blonde, with silvery blue eyes, taller than me by a head or so.

  Silvery blue eyes. Just like Mom. Just like me. Could that be Kassia?

  I took a step toward her, but stopped. No way was that my sister. Kassia had always been full of laughter and jokes, but the woman who stood before me wore such a ferocious look, she seemed ready to strangle me or something.

  That look made my back stiffen. No way would I be pushed around. Not a chance. “You have a problem?” I demanded, my feet shoulder width apart, one slightly in front of the other, my body loose, ready for the attack.

  The blonde didn’t respond, but took a step toward me.

  I bared my teeth and raised my fists. She was taller than me, so I’d have to be very fast. I prayed she wouldn’t attack though. Something felt very wrong about the whole situation.

  She stopped and tears swam in her eyes. “The hook shaped scar on your neck, where did it come from?” she asked, like there was nothing more important than that small mark on my skin.

  I didn’t lower my fists, but since that question had brought the memory back, it seemed important to speak of that day so many years before. “My sister was teaching me to ride my bike, but she forgot to teach me how to stop. I crashed, but didn’t let go of the handlebars, so landed on a pair of ice skates.”

  She let out a small gasp and one or two of those tears spilled over. “Why were there ice skates on the ground?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  I rolled my eyes. “We couldn’t decide if it was a better idea to make the scarecrow a fairy or a hockey player so we compromised and made it both. The skates just didn’t quite make it to the scarecrow’s outfit.”

  “And what did your dad tell you when you were screaming while the doctor stitched you up?”

  I gaped at her. My mouth worked silently for a moment. Could that be Kassia? “Dad told me I’d won my first badge of honor. He said we all have scars and that we wear them with pride, to remind us of the lessons we’ve learned.” I lowered my fists and took a small step toward her, trying to find my cheerful sister under the woman’s cold mask. “Kassia?” I asked, my eyes wide. She looked so much like Mom, the kind of woman that men probably loved, both beautiful and aloof.

  She stared at me a moment longer. “Shayla,” she stated and sank back into a chair behind her. “Where have you been? They say you’re covered in scars. Who hurt you?”

  I stared at her for a moment, but there was no answer to that question. I had no idea. I walked over and sat in the chair next to hers. “Where’s Mom and Dad?” I asked, although something inside me already knew. There was a vacancy in my heart which had never been present before.

  She sniffed and wiped at the tears on her cheeks with a shaky hand. “They’re gone, Shayla. Mom and your dad were killed on the same night you disappeared. Even Grandma’s gone. She died four years ago.” She turned to look at me, her bottom lip quivering. “I thought you were dead too, Shayla.”

  Pain. It tore through me. Mom, Dad and Gran were all gone? Kassia was all that was left.

  It took me a moment to realize that tears slid down my cheeks and my sister held onto me like she planned never to let go. It was strange to see our massive differences. I was short, pale and dark haired, practically identical to my Dad. She was Mom’s double, tall, blonde and perfect. Our eyes were the only thing which showed our relation.

  “What happened, Shayla?” she asked me after a few minutes of both of us crying quietly together.

  I pulled free and wiped some of my tears away. “I have no idea, Kassia. I don’t remember anything,” I said, though as those words were spoken, an image flitted into my mind.

  It was of a man with dark hair and pale skin, with a tattoo of a spear of Odin in the center of his forehead. It was so clear, but that man had weird, pointy ears, like the elves in mov
ies. Strange. Where had that image come from?

  The huge, bull-man stepped over and crouched down in front of me. “Shayla, do you remember me?” he asked, his voice a little patronizing.

  I looked him over for a moment, then it dawned. “Chief Bouchard,” I said and leaned forward to hug him. He had been my Gran’s best friend, my godfather. I wasn’t sure if he was still the Chief of Police, but something told me it was true.

  He pulled me back almost immediately, but his expression was a tiny bit less fierce as he looked at me again. “The doctors want to do some more tests on you, to find out—”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine, Chief,” I said, wanting to get out of there as fast as possible.

  “Fine, are you? Why don’t you tell me when the last time you ate a meal is.”

  I furrowed my brows. “I don’t—”

  “Your blood pressure is dangerously low, you’re ten pounds underweight, your body is covered in scars and there is a wolf branded into your shoulder blade. Along with all that, you don’t seem to be able to remember anything. You’re staying, Shayla.”

  Ugh. Chief of Police indeed. I scowled at him, then held out my hand between us. “One night, then I want to go home,” I said before it hit me. Someone else lived in my home.

  The Chief took my hand, though didn’t shake it. He gave it a light squeeze, then stood up and began to issue orders to everyone around.

  They all jumped to obey him, other than Kassia. My sister stayed by my side, her eyes fixed on the floor.

  I had needed Mom and Dad to be there, but they were gone. I’d never see them again, so whatever had happened to me didn’t matter. I had to find out the truth about what had happened to my parents.

  Three

  After innumerable tests which told them nothing, the hospital finally relented and allowed me to leave. It was an odd feeling. There was no home left to go to, so being released didn’t mean that much to me.

  Normalcy. It was all I wanted. I told them over and over. It didn’t matter that I had only just gotten back. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember anything. Giving myself the illusion of normality was all that was necessary.

  Kassia had brought me some clothes to put on until we could get some which would fit me. Her jeans were six inches too long and the sleeves of the shirt had to be rolled up several times, but it didn’t matter to me. I liked the feeling. It was almost like an embrace or something.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to take some time to get accustomed to being back,” I was asked by at least five people.

  “I’m sure,” I told them and was finally able to convince them that school was not something which should be put off. Everybody went to school. So would I. I was determined to force myself to feel like any ordinary girl.

  My sister kept her eyes fixed on me during the whole process of me being signed over into her custody, then tested to find out what grade they should place me in. It was like she thought I would disappear if she looked away for even a moment.

  I closed my eyes and tipped my head back when we got outside after a very long and boring morning. I was unused to the sunlight, but the warmth of it on my skin felt amazing. I wanted to stand there for hours and soak in the feeling. Apparently wherever I had been for eight years had been dark. Right then, that didn’t matter to me.

  I was free. My sister was there with me. Everything would be fine because of those two facts.

  Kassia handed me a pair of sunglasses and motioned to her little black car not far from us. “Are you up for some shopping, get you some clothes and whatever else you’re going to need for school?”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “What? Are you saying you don’t want me wearing your clothes all the time?”

  She didn’t answer, but gave me a questioning look.

  I tipped the sunglasses down to look at her. “I’m not a weakling, Kassia.”

  “I didn’t say you were. I asked if you’re up for shopping.”

  “Aren’t girls always supposed to be up for shopping?”

  “When were you ever like any other girl?”

  I grinned at her. “Excellent point. But yeah. I’d love to have some clothes made for someone my size, rather than someone built like a supermodel. I’d also love a burger . . . and fries and a milkshake.”

  “Not very healthy choices.”

  I smirked at her. “I’ll get a strawberry milkshake. It’s fruit. Exceptionally healthy.”

  She shook her head a little, but her slight smile was still in place as she drove us to the store.

  “Think any of the kids at school will remember me?” I wasn’t sure if that would be a good thing, or a bad one if they did.

  “Your story was on the news last night and this morning and every cop, paramedic, dispatcher and the Connelly woman are probably all talking about it today. It’s a small town. What else is there to talk about other than you?”

  “Um, flying horses, naked mole-rats, whoever’s big in Hollywood these days,” I said with an innocent smile.

  She coughed out a slightly amused sound, but didn’t answer, like since she was my legal guardian, she thought she had to act like the grownup.

  I grimaced, sick and tired of being tip toed around. I wanted my sister back, the one who would laugh like a lunatic while she invented new words to insult me with. We had always roared with hilarity while we ran around, trying to find new ways to annoy each other.

  I missed that, missed the fun, even the annoyance. No. I would not let her be so serious. One thing had to be like it was. My sister had to come back just like I had.

  “So what do you say we go to a tattoo parlor and get all inked up for school?” I asked as we got out of her car and walked toward a clothing store.

  Kassia raised her brows, no smile anywhere near her. “I’d say you’re marked up enough, Shayla,” she said quietly, so much sorrow in her eyes I felt the urge to cry.

  I couldn’t allow myself to do that anymore or there would be no end to the tears. “How ‘bout some—”

  “Is that Shayla? Oh you poor thing!”

  I turned to find a group of girls walking out of the store. They were all my age and stared at me like I carried some weird contagion which might cause them to pop out in boils if they got too close to me.

  The girl who had spoken was tall with curly, light brown hair and big hazel eyes which made me think of a muddy pond with sludge on the top. I wanted to chuckle as that thought came into my mind, but didn’t. She looked almost exactly like she had as a little girl, other than much taller and curvier.

  “Hey, London,” I said, certain it was her simply because of the sharpness of her smile.

  She gave me a startled look, then leaned down exaggeratedly to throw her arms around me as though to show everybody how much taller she was than me. She pulled me back and smiled widely. “Oh sweetie. I’m so happy you remember me, you poor thing. I missed you so much. I was so excited when my mom told me she saw the news story about you being home,” she said, though her eyes and voice told the truth behind those words. “Did you come to get something nice to wear for your interviews?” she asked, eyeing my too-big clothes with scorn.

  “Interviews?”

  London smiled so hugely it looked like it would hurt her cheeks. “Everybody wants to hear from you, Shayla. Everybody wants to know your story. Didn’t you know that, sweetie?” She spoke to me in the same way she would if I was a slow witted toddler.

  “Why would anybody care?” I asked, baffled by the idea.

  “Oh, you poor thing. You must be so confused by everything,” she cooed at me. A group of guys walked past us and when they did, her smile changed to something seductive. She set her hand on her hip and thrust out her chest like a male frigatebird in mating season. “Be sure and get her something nice, Kassia, something that brings out those pretty eyes and distracts from how pale and skinny she is,” she said in a way which was most definitely meant to make the guys look at her.

  Kassia looked like
her teeth might be clamped on her tongue, but in a move almost like one she would have made years before, she patted the top of my head and made kissy noises. “My poor Shayla and her delicate beauty. You sweet little lamb,” she mocked, her tone sharp as a blade.

  I broke in before London could retaliate, which it was clear as day my sister would consider an act of war. “I was actually planning on getting some clothes for school. I have nothing other than Kassia’s clothes at this point.” I did all in my power to look unbothered by her.

  “School? Oh do they have you in some special needs classes?” she asked loudly, her smile razor sharp.

  I did my best not to sneer at her, but shrugged as though nothing had ever gone wrong for me in the entirety of my life. “The only need I specially have is patience to make it through a day inside.”

  “Oh we just hope you’ll be able to remember where you are, sweetie.”

  Wow. The girl was even meaner than I had remembered.

  The way she looked at me, it was completely obvious she was thrilled by how pale and malnourished I was. It was clear to both of us that I would be no competition for the attention of guys.

  A twinge of nervousness passed over me as the other girls looked at me in the same way. It was altogether clear what they would be like at school.

  I wanted to leave, ask Kassia to get in the car and drive away with me. We could stop in a new place where there was no past, no memories of the days when everything had been charmed.

  But normal was what I had wanted. What was more normal than a nasty high school girl?

  An image came into my mind of the guy I had dreamed about the night before, with white skin, dark hair and a spear of Odin tattooed on his forehead. He stood with his hand held out in front of him and smiled as he made the pile of stones around us dance like magic. I didn’t believe in magic, but that image was such a nice one. That guy from my dreams hadn’t looked at me like I was plain and skinny like London did. He looked at me like I was beautiful.

  Another image came into my mind of London with water dripping from her nostrils. That amused me. It seemed like the perfect way to take her ego down a notch or two. The weird thing was though, the second the thought came into my mind, she sniffed, then flushed a bright red when water started to drip out of her nose.