Gray (Awakening Book 1)

by Shannon Reber

  I jerked. My breath came out in short, sharp gasps. Had I done that? I could feel the water, feel its delight in doing something for me, but it was the air which called to me. It wanted to help as well.

  No. There was no way. I did not believe in magic. That was ridiculous. London’s little issue was just karma or something. It had to be.

  My sister grinned a little nastily, though not quite derisive. Huh. Kassia must have changed a lot more than I had thought.

  I gasped and turned my eyes away from London. I didn’t listen to her as she quickly said goodbye and walked away with her hands over her face.

  I gasped again. The water called to me, asked me if it could do more. That was crazy. I must be off my meds. Where had I been for eight years? What had happened to me? What was I?

  “You’re not ready for this. Come on. Let’s get you home, Shayla.” Kassia wrapped her arm around my shoulders like she thought I was going to pass out.

  I pulled away from her. I had to be free. I had to. “I am ready. Stop nagging me,” I said, my voice a little sharp. Guilt washed over me the second I saw the look on her face, so pushed away every thought but cheering her up. “Come on. You said you’d buy me clothes that actually fit. You can’t go back on that now or London will use my lack of fashion sense as a club to beat me to social death. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”

  She didn’t speak, but slowly turned to walk with me into the store.

  I looked around, unsure where to turn first. I had no clothes at all, so that shopping trip would not be too short. “Kassia, you don’t have to hang around.”

  “I am not leaving you alone.”

  “It’s a clothing store. Do you really think—”

  “I said I’m not leaving you alone, Shayla,” she said with a bite in her voice.

  I stopped, then beamed at her. “Look at you. You know how to get annoyed with your baby sister like a real girl! I’m so proud.”

  She made a half huff, half laugh kind of noise and settled in quickly. She pointed out things she liked and reminded me of other things which would be necessary. It took us a couple of hours to get everything, but it turned out to be far more fun than I had thought.

  “Shayla Vincent?”

  I turned as we walked out of the store a while later, both of us loaded down with bags. It startled me to see a well-dressed woman with a microphone, a man behind her holding a video camera. Both of them looked straight at me.

  “How does it feel to be home, Shayla? Can you tell us where you were held, or what was done to you?”

  No. I would not be made a spectacle of. They would not do this to me. I wouldn’t allow it.

  I shook my head, my eyes fixed directly on the woman’s. “I’m not Shayla Vincent. You will forget that you saw me,” I said, sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the woman would indeed forget.

  Her eyes dilated. A look of confusion came to her face. She turned back to the doors and stared as though she waited for me to walk out.

  The camera man appeared baffled, his eyes and camera both still fixed on me. I said nothing to him, but turned my mind to his camera.

  The air pulsed, like it wanted to help me in some way. I didn’t need it though. Not in the moment.

  “You never saw me,” I stated, not at all surprised when he turned in the same direction the reporter had.

  Good. I could ask the air to . . . no. That wasn’t possible. It was all in my head.

  Be careful, Gray One. Humans cannot understand your magic. You must forget. I will tell you when it is time.

  I didn’t know what was going on. It seemed pretty likely I had lost my mind. What else could make me think I had made water come out of some girl’s nose, or made people forget me or whatever. I had to be unbalanced. That was all there was to it.

  I hadn’t felt crazy though. I had felt in control for the first time in a long time. No. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t. I didn’t believe in magic.

  My hands shook so hard I found it difficult to open the door of Kassia’s car. I also found it hard to think clearly because of the ferocious hunger which suddenly roared through me. It was like I hadn’t eaten in years.

  “Let’s stop and get you that burger,” Kassia said, her hands clenched tight on the wheel as my stomach let out a roar like there was a wild animal inside me which fought to be free.

  I had to turn my mind away from my own insanity, so shook my head and patted my noisy stomach. “Oh, I’m not hungry. I just need to find a place to give birth to the Cerberus.”

  Kassia snorted, then her lips turned up in a smile and she laughed, she really, truly laughed.

  I smiled, relieved to have that distraction from all of the strangeness around me. “Hey! I remember a girl who used to do that laughing thing all the time. Let’s see if we can find her, make sure she sticks around.”

  She rolled her eyes, still grinning as we pulled into a fast food place and ordered us a feast of junk food.

  I talked with my mouth full the whole way home, trying to make Kassia giggle, anything to keep me distracted from my own thoughts. The idea of silence frightened me almost as much as the things I didn’t remember over the past eight years. I had to talk, to focus my mind on reality.

  Reality was that I would start school on Monday. Reality was that I would be stared at and whispered about. Reality was that London Jarvis had sold me out to the media.

  I grimaced, determined not to allow her even one more moment of my time. “So where’s your boyfriend?” I asked Kassia as we pulled into the driveway of Gran’s house.

  My stomach fluttered at the sight of the place. It was a lovely red Victorian structure more than a hundred years old, everything about it both historic and charming.

  “What makes you think I have a boyfriend?” Kassia got out and began to unload my bags from the back seat.

  I coughed out a derisive sound. “Kassia, you’re one of those girls.”

  “One of what girls?”

  I made a face at her. “A girl with a supermodel body and a distinct ‘step off’ kind of vibe. In other words, you’re the kind of girl every guy wants.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “So does this mean you don’t have a boyfriend?”

  She cocked her brows in a snide way. “So Shayla, you ever get it in your head to ramble on and on until somebody got so sick of you, they stuffed a pair of socks in your mouth to shut you up?” she asked, something like a look she would have given me when she was twelve on her face.

  I crinkled my nose at her. “You think I can’t talk through socks?” I asked with a wide grin.

  She chuckled again. “Shayla, you have burger in your teeth.” She shook her head as we walked into the house, but allowed me the time to look around, to recall the thousands of happy days we had spent as a family there.

  I ran my tongue over my teeth, indeed finding a chunk of burger stuck there. I wasn’t particularly bothered since the only person around was my sister. “I’m planning on storing burgers in my hair and ears to have as snacks during school. Just practicing with this bit.” I pretended to chew loudly while looking around.

  My stomach clenched into tight knots. I couldn’t allow the fear of all that had been forgotten to spoil the fun. Kassia and I had fun that day. I would make it continue on. It did not matter how stupid I would have to be.

  Kassia shook her head, but continued to smirk as she carried my bags into one of the bedrooms and dumped my stuff out on the bed. “We should go tomorrow and get you a laptop and whatever, a bookbag too I guess.”

  I shrugged. “I’d rather have actual paper, pencils too.”

  She swallowed hard like a lump had risen in her throat. “Still the artist, I take it.”

  I nodded, pleased to have that connection to Dad, through the art we had both loved. I had to swallow back a lump as well, so just reached into one of the biggest bags to take out a truly fabulous pair of boots. I slid them on, loving how they felt.

  I
also loved my new clothes. I had picked ones which would make it easy for me to move. My jeans were stretchy, my shirts loose, my boots grippy on the bottom. They were good clothes for fighting, ones which wouldn’t constrict my movement.

  I would not allow myself to be taken again. No matter what, I would be sure that nothing took me from Kassia. We would heal from all we’d lost together. School, London, even my own craziness, none of it could be more important than remaining safe and being sure my sister was safe as well.

  Four

  It was nerve-racking as I walked into my first class. The people all around acted just like I had expected them to. They whispered and stared, but I had prepared myself as much as possible for it. Without looking at them, I walked to the front of the class and handed the teacher a sheet of paper which told him my name and a bunch of other junk.

  The teacher didn’t look up, just handed me a book. “We don’t have assigned seating, so you can sit wherever there’s a free desk,” he said and nodded me off.

  That was a relief, but his lack of reaction worried me a little. It was obvious he knew precisely who I was, but he either didn’t like me or didn’t like the idea of having an extra student in his class. Fabulous. Just fabulous.

  I walked over to an empty desk and sat down, then pulled out a sketchpad Kassia had bought for me. A cheerful, peaceful image came into my mind, so I began to draw. Nothing else was necessary. All I needed was that peace.

  The image in my mind was of a day when I was five or six, when me and Kassia had climbed one of our favorite trees and hung upside down from its branches. It had been a hot summer’s day, my sister’s laugh and the fretting of my best friend had made everything feel wonderful.

  “Hey, I remember that!” someone said as they walked past me, then sat down in the desk just behind mine.

  I turned around to find a boy with hair the color of carrots who leaned forward to look at my sketch, his green eyes bright with delight. I didn’t even have to think about who he was. His hair was a dead giveaway. “You were too chicken to climb the tree, weren’t you, Francis?” I asked with a prayer one thing might go right, just one.

  Francis made a face at me. “I prefer to call it reasonable, not chicken.”

  “Most chickens do think they’re pretty reasonable.”

  Someone laughed, so I turned to see who it was. The guy looked like a muscle with legs, his light russet skin, dark hair and deep, coffee brown eyes making me wonder.

  “Are you Ben?” I asked, sure he was the Ben that Rose Connelly had been worried about on the night of my return. He looked like a male version of the woman, though there was something harder around his eyes which hadn’t been in hers.

  He raised his brows, then nodded. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  I shrugged and tapped my nose. “Magic,” I said and looked back at Francis. “You still chicken?” I asked, truly enjoying myself in the moment.

  “I was never chicken,” he said, then sighed. “Okay, yes I was and I might have those tendencies, but I am still awesome,” he said with his nose in the air.

  I nodded. “You always were, Francis. I’m glad you haven’t lost that.”

  He grinned. “Same goes, Shayla.”

  And it became clear in that moment, I truly was home. Some people would be morons, but some would be fabulous. I guessed that was just the way life would be. I was pretty sure it was the way life was for everybody, so that was something.

  “I heard she killed her parents, then ran away. Maybe she’s been in jail,” one girl in front of me whispered to another across the row from her.

  “No way. Why are they letting her come to school with us?”

  “I don’t know. I bet it’s just because her family is so rich.”

  “Wow, how rich are they?”

  I grimaced and turned my head in another direction. Other people whispered their speculations about me to their neighbors, no one willing to let me have a gossip free day.

  “My aunt’s a nurse at the hospital they brought her to. She said the girl’s got this wolf symbol branded into her back.”

  “That is so gross.”

  I would have done anything at all to be able to get up and walk out, never look back at either those people or that town again.

  “I found a box of sketches which had been hidden in the wall on the day my mom and I moved into your old house.”

  I glanced over to find Ben giving me a look which said clearly he thought the gossips were way out of line. I did my best to make my expression cheerful, but it was no easy feat. “Yeah. I had things hidden all over the house. I’d guess my sister’s ballet shoes are probably still in the AC vent.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Found those on my first day too.”

  I grinned and raised my brows at him. “You find her books in the space behind the wall in the linen closet?”

  “No, I didn’t, but I’ll find them now.”

  I glanced back at Francis with my brows raised in question. “Remember that? I bet Kassia she couldn’t walk across the room on her hands without falling over. She had to give me her three favorite books if she lost.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah and you threw stuff at her to knock her over,” he said, his green eyes alight with amusement.

  I recalled those days perfectly. Mom and Francis’ mom had been best friends and Francis had been mine, so we had spent a lot of time hanging out while our moms did whatever it was that grownups did. It was easy to see he still thought of me as a friend, not just that girl who had gone missing all those years ago.

  I looked at Ben again, not sure if he had spoken to me so he could tell his friends he had talked to the weird new girl, or if he was like his mom, friendly and compassionate. “Kassia will be thrilled if you find those books. It—” but the bell rang at that moment, calling the class to order.

  I grinned at Francis and pretended to zip my lips, then handed the imaginary key to him. It was an old joke, one I hoped he would still be amused by.

  He winked at me and tossed his hand over his shoulder, like he was throwing my key away.

  I made a face at him, then turned to the front, preparing myself for a day of being trapped inside. Panic filled me at the thought of being indoors all day, but I fought it back to the best of my ability. It was a very difficult thing. Why couldn’t I just get up and walk out, be free? I had to be free. I had to.

  I crossed my legs under the desk and wiggled my foot to give me a bit of that freedom. The class took forever, the teacher’s voice droned on and on about things I already knew.

  I took in a deep breath of air. The heat of eyes which stared at me from every direction was like they were nasty little kids with magnifying glasses and I was a bug on a sidewalk. I kept my eyes on my sketchpad, determined to focus on those glorious memories of peace.

  I glanced back to smirk at Francis, but saw Ben looking at me, his expression just like his mom’s had been. It was as though he saw all too clearly what was going on in my head.

  “Miss Vincent, can you tell us what the scientific study of population characteristics is called?” the teacher barked out. It appeared he saw that I looked at Ben rather than at him.

  “Demography,” I stated and turned my eyes back to the front.

  “That’s right. Maybe if some of you got kidnapped, you’d learn this yourselves,” he snapped at the class, going back to his lesson as though he hadn’t just used what had happened to me as a club to beat my classmates over the head with.

  Images flashed through my mind. I was in a cave. Blood and pain were all I knew. Shackles. I had to be free of them. I couldn’t stand to be bound.

  Color drained from my face. I clenched my hands into tight fists. I couldn’t allow myself to lose it in front of the class though. I had to get a grip. I had to focus on nothing but the book in front of me and the lesson which wasn’t a lesson at all.

  The cave was just a nightmare. Nothing more. There was nothing to be afraid of, especially not in my human geogr
aphy class.

  It would be easy to close my eyes and ignore everything around me since I knew that stuff already. I chose instead to focus my attention on the teacher’s voice and nothing else. There was nothing other than that class. I was a blank slate, an open book, some other clichéd saying.

  When the bell rang, I rose with everyone else, eager to be gone. I was an ordinary human girl. I had to remember that.

  Francis stepped up on my left side. “Hey Shayla, what’s your next class?” he asked, a wide, friendly grin on his face as though not a moment had passed since we had been friends.

  “Statistics,” I said, my brows quirked in question. “You?”

  “Spanish.” He looked genuinely disappointed by the idea we wouldn’t be in the same class. “Sit with me at lunch?” he asked, his hands clasped together prayerfully as he mouthed ‘please’.

  I chuckled, peace alive and well inside me. My best friend was right there, as fun as ever. “That’s a lot to ask, Francis. I’m going to have to think about it,” I said with as serious a look as could be managed.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Shayla.” He blushed to the roots of his fiery hair as he turned to walk to his class. “See you around, Vincent.”

  I waved. “I miss you already, Ruggles,” I called and dug out my schedule to see what the room number was for my next class.

  “It’s this way,” Ben said from my right side.

  I looked over at him, then tipped my head back. It startled me how tall he was, well over six feet tall which made me practically a dwarf by comparison. “Jeesh. What does your mom feed you?” I asked, happy to have him there. The whispers about me had continued on, so the distraction was nice.

  “Human growth hormones. Why? Don’t you have those for your breakfast?”

  A blond kid jogged over, his baseball cap turned backwards, his face set in a scowl. “I hate this school sometimes,” he said without even a glance in my direction.