The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  Blake sat there, seeming lost at the end of the tale.

  I pleaded with him, “Blake, I want you to think about who is telling you this. Look at me. Have I ever given you cause not to trust something I told you?”

  He shook his head slowly. “What are you becoming?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged, still watching him take it all in.

  “You ran from the bus stop at Miller’s Crossing all the way here in a day?” His voice was empty, no accusation or feeling.

  “I did.” I said it hopefully, wanting him to believe me so I could finally rest a bit. I wasn’t tired in the regular sense, but I was tired of not feeling safe.

  He took a deep breath. “Okay, I am going to go with you on this one, until I can either disprove or solve it. It’s you. You have always been my best friend and never lied to me.”

  My eyes lit up. “I can stay here with you?”

  “Of course.” He frowned at me. “Why wouldn’t you stay here with me? You thought I would kick you out because you drank demon blood from that guy you can’t prove is a demon and don’t require sleep or food anymore?”

  “Pretty much,” I murmured as he got up from the couch and grabbed my hand.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “If you don’t eat or drink, do you poop?”

  “Yeah. I ate and drank at my house and pooped. But I went a long time without doing any of it.”

  “Interesting. I need some sleep to try to digest this, and I suggest you try too.”

  “Okay.” I let him drag me to his room. We climbed on top of his bed. He turned the lights out and lay beside me.

  “How are things with Alise?” I asked, tired of my ridiculous life.

  “Oh man.” He laughed. “Your sister is crazy. I have no idea what to do with her. It’s like having a two-year-old around, and you know how I feel about other people’s children in my house. She touches things and breaks them. She has to be doing something every second of every day. I seriously think she might need Ritalin or something.”

  I burst out laughing.

  He turned to me with a serious face. “Aimee, I’m not kidding. She broke my vintage Luke Skywalker. It was still in the box and she took it out and broke it. She said it was an accident, but I think she misbehaves on purpose to start fights with me.”

  He had hit the nail on the head. I chuckled, feeling sorry for him.

  “You can’t choose who you love. I’m a prime example of that.”

  “Do you love them both though, Aimes? That Aleks guys leaves you in the hospital with the demon dude, lies to you about what he does for a living and about his dad killing your mom, and he let Jaime die.” Blake’s voice wasn’t cruel. He truly was curious.

  “No.” I was close to tears as I spoke, “When I’m with Shane or without him, I love him. But I only love Aleks when I’m with him. I think he has something that makes me think I love him, but it’s fake. Like lust.”

  He sighed. “Aimes, love is supposed to lift you up, not bring you down. No relationship that’s healthy puts the other person above you. The relationship that ends all the good things in your life is the wrong one. You’re choosing the wrong guy if you love Aleks.”

  “Look at you, Mr. Love Guru.”

  He laughed. “I saw it on Dr. Phil.”

  I closed my eyes. “I do love Aleks, but not as much as I love Shane, and not for the right reasons. I wish I didn’t love Aleks at all. I truly think if he’d never come along, I would have found my way to Shane naturally. I would be happy right now, instead of dying alone.”

  Blake pulled me onto his chest and kissed the top of my head. “You’ll never be alone, Aimes, not ever. Besides, you can see ghosts now—you’re good. You can start charging people to speak to their dead. I mean, since you’re clearly not going to college now.”

  “Shut up.” I whacked him in the gut and snuggled into his armpit. “How’s Giselle?” I asked, scared to hear the answer.

  “She’s great, as far as I know. Her body has accepted the liver with no problems. Alise said your dad was there to see her. I guess he and Shane stayed in the city a few days after you went to the magical Hollywood liver clinic.” He rolled his eyes. I didn’t see it but I heard the eye roll tone. “I can’t believe your dad would fall for that lie about you being at the celebrity liver clinic. I knew it was bullshit the minute your sister told me about it. She really tried to convince me too, even trying to find it on Google and then telling me it’s so top secret you can’t Google it. I laughed and told her if it was out there she might not be able to Google it, but I sure as hell would be able to.”

  “My sister still believes the puppets in the Chipmunk movies were actually chipmunks in clothes. But I couldn’t believe that guy was able to trick my dad. Of all the people in the world I would not call him gullible. He bought it though—it was strange.”

  “I was scared you were dead or something and he just couldn’t cope with it.”

  I hugged him tighter. “I would have haunted you a little so you would have known.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I expect you to haunt me when you die.”

  I fell asleep quickly.

  Chapter 24

  Don’t hold your breath

  I woke to an empty room and daylight streaming through the huge windows.

  It was strange how reenergized and invigorated I felt. I’d never woken without wanting to go back to sleep. It was like a robotic wake up, on and off.

  Blake was gone which worried me. I climbed out of his bed and walked to the family room, hoping I would find him at the computer.

  He was nowhere to be found in the basement. I climbed the stairs, hoping his parents were still in the city, or at the very least, on a vacation somewhere. I didn’t think I could face his chipper and perky mom, not after everything I’d been through.

  But the house was completely empty. I searched every room, starting to panic. When I couldn’t find him, I sat on the peach leather couch in the front room and watched out the window for him to come home with my sister, Dad, Shane, or worse. I assumed he had panicked when he woke and ran from the house, thinking me either crazed or drugged out.

  I sat there for a long time, not moving. I noticed my lack of need to move. I wasn’t restless or fidgety. I didn’t have to change positions or even breathe. I held my breath just to see how long I could go for. I started to feel weird about not breathing, but not desperate for air. When I breathed I felt better, but it wasn’t as if I couldn’t have made it another twenty minutes without the breath. I decided to test it out and walked to the backyard. I stripped down to my underwear and tank top, jumped into the cool crisp pool, and let out all the air in my lungs. I sank like a stone to the bottom of the deep end and sat, waiting for desperation and panic to set in. Nothing happened, so I waited some more.

  In my peripheral I saw a dark figure at the edge of the pool. I pushed myself up to see Blake’s frowning face.

  “You were down there for seven minutes.” He didn’t flinch.

  “Jeeze.” I splashed at him. “I thought you were Dorian. Not cool. I could have gone longer. Were you spying on me?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to see what you would do when you were alone. I watched you hold your breath on the couch. This is crazy.”

  “I know.”

  He sat at the edge of the pool and hiked up his pants. He dipped his feet in and cringed at the cold. “My dad hasn’t turned the heat on yet. This weekend he said. It’s fifty degrees, Aimes, fifty. The chemicals were just balanced yesterday in preparation for the heater.” He pulled his legs out after a couple of seconds.

  “This is so crazy. It doesn’t feel cold to me.”

  He looked worried. “What if this is a nervous disorder and you’re hurting yourself, but you just can’t feel it—like an aftereffect of the drugs.”

  “It’s not.” I swam to the edge. I climbed out of the pool, using no effort to lift myself up and out.

  Blake raised his eyebrows at that. “Not so feeble anymore, h
uh?”

  “No.” I smiled. “One benefit so far is that I’m stronger.”

  “Want something to eat?” he asked, handing me one of the lush pool towels. I had always laughed at how his pool towels were nicer than most people’s “good” towels that you weren’t even allowed to use. I wrapped it around me and followed him into the house.

  “How long was I sleeping?” I asked as I sat at the bar like always, waiting for him to feed me.

  He looked puzzled. “Twelve and a half hours. You slept like the dead too; I tried to wake you up and it didn’t work.”

  “Did I breathe?” I asked worriedly.

  “Nope, not really, and none of the usual snoring either. Waffles or grilled cheese?”

  I paused and tilted my head at him.

  “Just testing.” He shrugged and made me a grilled cheese sandwich.

  I slept at Blake’s house for five nights, hanging in his basement playing WoW and watching TV. Every day he went to school and hung out with my sister but I loafed around, enjoying my quiet.

  He spent every minute of his free time trying to solve my issues.

  We had data, proof, a spreadsheet of physical testing, and a spider web of information, but he was still in denial about how this had come to be.

  Drug-induced brain tumor was in the lead for things that could be wrong with me. I let him believe I had imagined it all, but my heart knew it was real.

  I never left the safety of the basement, even for food. Blake brought it to me on a regular schedule, believing I would end up hurting myself by only eating when I needed to. The food filled me but something inside was still hungry. I experienced a thirst or a hunger I couldn’t explain. The thirst grew whenever Blake was around, but I had been able to control it.

  Blake was out again and I was lying on his bed, not sure what to do with all my free time, when I sensed it.

  Someone was watching me.

  My stomach twisted.

  Scared it was Dorian but hopeful it was Aleks, I glanced around the room.

  Instead of Dorian or Aleks, Shane stepped into the doorway. He glared at me with a burning intense pain in his eyes. He seemed weak and sick, but I ignored it and the fury and sprang off the bed, grabbing for him.

  As if he needed to touch me too, I was off the ground and dragged up into his arms. He wrapped me around him and held me like a child. Our bodies trembled. I wrapped my legs around him and buried my face into his shoulder. I didn’t know what to say. I owed him an apology. I honestly didn’t think I would do it justice.

  I made the attempt anyway. “I’m so sorry, Shane. I didn’t mean to leave. I just didn’t have any choice. I didn’t mean to hurt you like that.”

  He never spoke. He just carried me to Blake’s bed. I reacted, “The spare room is down the hall. We can talk in there.”

  He obeyed, still not speaking, and carried me down the hall.

  He sat me on the bed, knelt on the floor in front of me, and held me tightly to him. “Aimee, I don’t understand why you left. Why did you trust Blake and not me with your problem?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” I cuddled into him, trying desperately to pull him onto the bed with me.

  “You killed me instead. I’ve been dying the last week.” He stood and closed the door. He walked toward me and picked me up again. He laid me down on the bed, back where the pillows were.

  The hunger to be with him seemed to be outweighing the hunger I couldn’t quite describe.

  “Aimee,” he whispered, kissing my throat.

  “I’m glad you came.”

  “I love you, Aimee.”

  “I love you too.”

  He pulled back. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”

  “I do mean it.”

  “Then why?” His expression hurt more than anything.

  “Because I love you.”

  He didn’t appear to understand, but he didn’t try to speak on it again. His response was physical. It was better than anything either of us might have been able to say.

  Chapter 25

  That was amazing and then it wasn’t

  I glanced over at him and frowned. “Did Blake tell you I was here? Did he tell my dad?”

  “No. He wouldn’t do that to your dad.” His face got serious. “Aimee, where have you been?”

  “Here.” I gulped. It would have to be talked about at some point. His eyes filled with fear.

  “You’re the only thing that makes me feel like the person I want to be. I need you. Without you, I have a hole in my chest. I’ve been going crazy for days.” The truth was in his eyes. I felt the same.

  “I need you too. I had to run away from this guy Dorian. He—well, he was mean to me.”

  I didn’t want to tell him about Dorian assaulting me in the elevator. It was a fight he would never win, and he would want to defend my honor. Especially, since he’d just taken all my honor away from me.

  His face stormed over into a dark and sinister expression. “Who the hell is this Dorian? When did he try to hurt you? Does he work in the hospital? I’ll kill him, Aimes.”

  “No.” I gulped. “I thought Blake told you the whole story. Dorian is a demon of some sort which I know sounds crazy, but he is. You just have to believe me. He tried to scare me, I think. It worked and I ran away.”

  His face was a bit scary as he spoke, “Blake told me what you believe happened. He seems pretty sure it’s a brain tumor. We need to get you some help, Aimes.”

  “No. Blake’s crazy—brain tumor. No, Dorian made me swap blood with him. It was gross. It healed me. I went from deathbed to fully healed in like half an hour. He said I would change and be dangerous to you, my dad, and everyone. Nothing has happened since though. I’ve had some bad stomachaches but that’s about it.”

  Shane seemed baffled. “You honestly believe this?”

  “I don’t know what I believe. I don’t want to hurt you though. Just in case.” I sounded nuts, there was no doubt. He didn’t seem to believe me, but he wasn’t giving me the same look Blake had.

  He smiled, but something about his eyes worried me. “Go get a shower and meet me back here.”

  “Okay.” I hurried to the shower and washed. Then I wrapped myself in a towel and made my way, slinking through the basement into the guest room.

  Blake was apparently not home yet. He was probably keeping my sister occupied and convincing her not to come to his house.

  Shane was putting his clothes on when I got to the room. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yeah. I tried lying in the bed waiting for you but”—he looked around—“we can hang at my place, Aimes. This feels weird.”

  I laughed. “Okay. Meet you there when I’m done cleaning up?”

  “I can stay and help you clean up.”

  “No. It’s nothing major.” My face reddened at the thought of him stripping the sheets with me. Virginity sheets no less . . .

  “Okay.” He walked to me in his jeans and without a shirt. He rubbed his hands up my arms. “I love you. Please, don’t leave me again. And be fast.” He kissed my forehead and walked from the room. “I miss you already.”

  My face was on fire, thinking about what we had done.

  I had to clean the bedding if I was going to leave and stay with Shane. I threw on my clothes quickly and started stripping the sheets, trying desperately to ignore the pain in my chest that seemed to come out of nowhere.

  “Uh, why are you pulling the sheets off?” Blake’s voice made me jump.

  I turned to look at him. “I’m heading to Shane’s house.”

  “Why?” He laughed, seeing my red face and raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Did Shane come over?”

  “What?” I frowned. “No?” My tone rose an octave.

  “Dude.” He cocked his head. “Did you break something?” He spun around panicking and making me laugh.

  “No.” I carried the sheets to the laundry room, shouting after him, “I’m not Alise.” I closed the washing machine on m
y sheets and walked out of the laundry room.

  “Your sister is getting suspicious as to why I can’t have her over right now while my parents are away.”

  “You can. I’m leaving.”

  “So why are you washing the sheets to the guest room you haven’t even slept in?” He sprawled out on the sofa, gawking up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you should be leaving.”

  “Okay.” I laughed and sat on the couch across from him. “Why?”

  He grinned, still staring at the ceiling. “Because you still need to tell me who you had sex with in my guest room.”

  “I never had any sex. I was seriously just cleaning the sheets ‘cause I want them fresh, you know? I like the smell of fresh sheets.” My excuse made no sense. He appeared amused.

  “I found this though, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t mine or my dad’s.” He pulled a white undershirt out of the couch cushions. I frowned at him, puzzled. It was Shane’s undershirt. I wanted to grab it and smell it, but I resisted. My eyes had already revealed more than enough with my surprised look.

  “It was on the floor of the guest room. Now spill the beans or I’m phoning Shane and asking why you couldn’t have just done it at his house.” He joked but he was enough of a pest that he’d do it.

  “Fine.” I dropped my face into my hands, ashamed. “Okay—God! I lost my virginity in your guest bed. I’m so sorry.”

  He grimaced. “Throw the sheets out, Aimee. Damn, we aren’t hard up for sheets around here. My mom has a whole closet with just sheets in it. Where is Shane anyway?”

  I felt even worse and groaned into my hands, “The sheets are fine. I’m washing them to be polite. Shane went home.”

  He sat up. “Is he okay?”

  I shivered. “Yeah, he’s fine? Why?”

  “What about the guardian angel and the death prophecy?” He seemed more sarcastic than usual, but of course Blake didn’t believe Aleksander was real. He was a figment of my drug-induced brain tumor symptoms.