The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  A finger roughly opened my eye. I was still on the couch in the sunroom. I recognized the pictures of Shane hanging over the fireplace. My eyes focused on Dorian’s smiling face. I would have been afraid, but at that point I just wanted death.

  “Are you ready to end this?” He grinned his evil villain grin.

  “Yeah.”

  He held his finger over my mouth and sliced it with his fingernail. His black blood dripped onto my face from his other hand. I tried not to swallow, but he forced it into my mouth. I felt like I was drowning. The warm liquid slid down my throat like the slug it reminded me of.

  He picked me up and carried me to the back door. I scanned the house to see no one there. Where had Shane gone?

  It was my last thought before I fell back into a dark and twisted dream.

  I floated until I heard him speaking again.

  “Why, good morning. Had a good sleep, I assume.” Dorian offered me his hand. I took it, completely disoriented. I was in the forest again but not near the beach. There was no salt in the air, just the cool dampness of the woods.

  “Am I dead?” I asked slowly. I wondered if he had ended my life with his black goo.

  He laughed. “Yes, you are, and yet you’re not.”

  I frowned, hating him and his stupid riddles. He was as bad as Aleks. He never answered any of my questions.

  “Where is Aleks?” I asked, hoping he had at least killed his dad.

  “I’m not his keeper.”

  “What are you?”

  He trailed a finger down my face. “Does it matter? What I want to discuss is that there is no one here to save you this time. Nowhere you can run to that I can’t find you. Elevators are tricky for me. Can’t wink into moving objects. Not that it matters now. You’re mine.” He started to walk around me slowly in a circle as if inspecting me, like a wolf circling a bunny.

  I didn’t feel like a bunny though. I was strong, sensing I could kill him if I had to. I frowned, wondering how that thought had popped into my mind.

  I squeezed my hands, flexing them. I was strong. I just knew it.

  He grinned. “You can feel it, can’t you? You’re reborn and brand new.”

  “What have you done to me?”

  He peered innocently at me before he flashed his black eyes. “I saved you, Aimee. You’d be in the ground already if not for me.” He stepped very close to my face. “Where is your gratitude?”

  He pressed his lips into mine forcefully. My lips crushed into my teeth. I winced as he forced his tongue into my mouth. I pushed him away and he flew backward, slamming into a tree. His evil smile grew as he moaned, “There’s my girl. See how easy it is to lose your cool? If I had been a human, you would have hurt me badly, if not killed me,” he taunted.

  I stared down at my hands, realizing I could never lose it around my sister or Shane, no matter what. I held off judgment on whether Blake would feel my full wrath or not.

  “Hungry?” he asked as he walked toward me.

  “I am hungry.” I couldn’t help but admit it. I was ravenous.

  He stepped around a tree and pulled out a terrified-looking girl from behind the huge old cedar. She was tied up with a gag in her mouth.

  “What have you done?” I was horrified.

  “Gotten you a gift.” He brought her to me. She glanced fearfully from me to him and back to me. Her soft-green eyes pleaded with me to save her. Her tear-stained cheeks and sniffling nose pained me, but the terror in her eyes sickened me. She spoke volumes with her eyes, begging me to free her.

  I wanted to untie her and run with her as fast as I could. I wanted to get her away from him, but something about her sweet face made me want to touch her. I was compelled to let my fingers just brush a little against her soft skin.

  She was my age, if not a little older. She had long blonde hair like mine, but hers was thinner and wispier. She was very pretty which didn’t seem to affect me. All I saw was the life inside her. It sparkled. I wanted some of that sweet life.

  I looked at her white tee shirt with pink jammie pants, and assumed Dorian had taken her from her bed.

  Almost everything in my body told me to save the girl. Nearly everything screamed to run away from her. But a tiny part whispered for me to just brush against her thin bare arm, with just one finger. I wanted just one taste of her. I couldn’t fight myself as I lifted my right hand. I touched the soft fabric of her white cotton shirt. I let my hand fall to her bare arm and her skin jolted against mine.

  She struggled until I touched her. Then she stood very still. I let my finger drag down her bicep, filling me up.

  I pulled my hand away, shutting off the sensation.

  She seemed dazed, taking deep breaths. I let my finger brush her warm skin again, and as I touched her, the sensation came again.

  Gasping, I pulled away once more.

  An unnamed need filled me strongly. My body acted before my brain could react. I grabbed both of her bare arms with my hands and held her tightly. I was certain I would tear the arms right off her. A light come down from the sky like a sunbeam as I was filled completely.

  There had been a void inside me, a hole that had needed filling. I had been unaware of it until I touched her. I had mistaken it as hunger. I pulled every last bit from her. Sensing her run out, I was still a little hungry, so to speak. I squeezed her thin arms, hoping to get every last drop.

  As the connection faded and she was empty, I let go. She fell to the ground in a heap. I flexed my thin fingers, stretching them. I was alive in that moment as if I was a battery that had just been recharged.

  Dorian’s eyes sparkled with life as he watched me experience it for the first time. He knew the feeling I was having at that moment. It was ecstasy.

  I stared down at the heap of girl on the ground. “Is she okay?”

  “No, she’s gone, my dear. Try to think of them as sheep. It gets easier.”

  “Gone?” I blinked. I didn’t fully comprehend what was being said. I knelt beside her and shook her. She had marks where I had squeezed so hard on her thin arms. She moved like a sleeping person when I jostled her, but didn’t stir.

  “You’ve drained her life from her. She’s a shell now. Her soul is free.” His voice was a whisper in the silent forest.

  I peered up at him as a tear formed in my eye. “She’s dead. I killed her.”

  “It’s either feed off them or die yourself.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to run. I wanted to run away from her. She was proof I was a monster. The forest spun around me as I searched for an escape or a solution.

  “What am I?” I panicked. My breathing was out of control.

  “You’re an immortal now. Every immortal has a specific need. It’s how we survive. Vampires need blood, lycanthropes need raw flesh, succubi need human emotions, and we need souls, or rather, the separation of the soul. We feed on the tearing that occurs when the soul is set free.”

  “What are we?”

  He smiled. “Death deity, sin eater, grim reaper, black angel of death. You choose. Either way, your touch does tend to finalize everything in one’s life.”

  “No. Death deity? No, that’s a myth. That’s mythology.” But I looked down at the dead girl and knew what he had said was true. I was what he had named. My hands. They were my mom’s hands. I’d always loved that. Hers had never been as dirty as mine were.

  I covered my face, astonished at how much I could hate myself, Dorian, Blake, and Aleks all at once. “This is the fate I chose instead of death—instead of my one single death? I’ll survive by doling out death, like I am God? Like I have any right to choose for others? How could you not tell me? How could Aleks not tell me?” My words came out as if they belonged to another. They sounded too hollow to be mine.

  Dorian ignored me. He checked his cell phone as if I were keeping him from something pressing. Something besides the death and burial of a girl. To him this was one useless girl. I shuddered as I looked at her. I wondered if he had use
d his mind tricks to do terrible things to her first.

  I couldn’t reason with myself. I was death, and that was a fate I would have to find a way to work around. “You’ve made me into death. I’m death. Will I kill everything I touch?”

  He sighed impatiently. “No, you have to learn to shut it off and on. You have to learn to control it.” He kicked the girl on the ground, not respecting her limp dead body. “This is because you were too hungry. If you let it get too far, your hunger will take over. You will feed, Aimee. We always feed. If you don’t let yourself become famished, you can be picky. You can choose the evil or sick.”

  “Don’t you touch her,” I shrieked at him and picked the dead girl up off the forest floor.

  I held her like she was my sister, my kin. If she were my family, I would want something else for her, beyond some disgusting demon kicking her corpse in the woods. She was still warm in my hands. I didn’t know what to do with her.

  Lifting my nose, I smelled the air for the ocean and started to run toward the scent of the salt. I had never seen a dead body before, let alone held one in my arms. I wanted to hug her and cry and tell her everything would be okay, even though it wouldn’t. It would never be okay. I had taken her life.

  I ran as fast as I could which apparently was pretty fast. I saw the ocean through the trees and ran down to the beach. I looked both ways to ensure no one saw me carrying a dead girl out into the open waters. The cold ocean water hit me with a refreshing wave. The cold didn’t hurt like it should have. I swam out into the chuck, holding her hand until I reached a good distance from the beach. I let all my breath out and grabbed the dead girl’s hand. I sank like a stone down into the cool ocean water.

  The seawater didn’t bother my open eyes. I watched seaweed and small fish pass by us as we sank into the dark.

  When I reached the bottom of the sea floor, I found a big rock and pinned her under it, trying desperately not to think about what I was doing. I left her there in her pink pajamas and white tee shirt. Seeing the peaceful look on her face nauseated me.

  I swam to the surface, kicking with my legs as fiercely as I could. When I broke through the waves, I breathed in relief to feel the air in my lungs. No air in my lungs felt unnatural. I swam to shore and crawled out of the ocean waves.

  I tried to be realistic about the whole situation. It was my first time being a soul-sucking demon. It was my first kick at the can, feeding off of a person. I had made a rookie mistake. I could do better. I could find a cancer ward or criminals and easily put them out of their misery. If I’d been warned or trained by someone with compassion and care, it wouldn’t have happened. I gazed into the forest where Dorian was and decided I would try my luck alone for a while. I couldn’t stay in my hometown.

  Hopeful and distraught at the same time, I started to run along the beach and dove into the water again. Portland was my only hope.

  I shut myself off, especially my feelings for Shane. I had no feelings for Blake—not any I was willing to act upon so I pushed him to the back of my mind. I didn’t need that anger now. My sister and dad would be sad without me, but at least they’d be alive. I shut off my feelings for the girl on the ocean floor who didn’t deserve the death she had received. It was done.

  I swam for the harbor.

  When I got there, I crawled out breathlessly and dragged my sopping cold body into an alley. I pressed my back against the wall and waited for things to make sense. No money, no food, no shelter. No friends. No Shane. No Aleks. I tried to reason with myself, tried to make it make sense.

  I noticed a scent on the cool breeze. I lifted my nose and took a deep inhale. The aroma was ecstasy, like a donut shop or patisserie. My mouth watered. I opened my eyes and realized what I was seeing. It was a couple walking hand in hand. I was smelling them. They smelled like dessert. I turned and ran into the alley. I wouldn’t take another life. No matter what. I dragged myself into a cardboard box and closed my eyes.

  Chapter 28

  How much sin can a sin eater eat in a city full of sin?

  Portland, Oregon, one year later

  The heels of my boots clicked with every strike against the cold, shiny cement. The dank night air crept in through my thin sweater. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to keep up with his pace without being too obvious.

  My palms were warm.

  They itched with a burning I could not soothe. I wiped them back and forth on my pants, dragging them as I waited for the release. It was the same every time. I still had none of the patience I’d had when I was alive. I had lost my ability to sit still. My trigger finger itched, so to speak.

  I rounded the corner, staying across the street from him, trying not to let him get too far ahead. His outdated pleather jacket made it easy to keep him in my sights. No one but an immortal would be wearing pleather.

  I sounded like Giselle . . .

  He turned down a dark alley and I grimaced, wondering if he was on the lookout for his next victim or if he would go home.

  Overconfidently, he walked without ever looking back. His kind believed they were the strongest animals in the urban jungle. His instincts lied to him and allowed a false sense of security.

  I played with the silver ring on my middle finger. A thin red line ran through the middle of the band and on the underside was the design of a delicate red rose.

  The ring was my mark.

  It was my badge.

  It permitted me to follow the man.

  It made my brand of deadly force acceptable.

  When he stopped, I realized we were near the alley I had been in when she rescued me. I shivered and tried not to think about how bad it had all gotten, how hungry I had been. I still reeked of seawater and possibly my own urine when she found me.

  She was the craziest old lady ever.

  She strolled right up to the cardboard box and kicked it, calling me by name.

  My hands ached to take her life, any life.

  But she wasn’t scared.

  She saved me.

  I shook my head and snapped back to the visual I had on the mark.

  He cut through the alley to his building, heading home.

  I climbed the fire escape on the other side of the alley and watched him through his window.

  A shout tore from the apartment. He paced in front of the small window, screaming at motionless beings I could not see. He trembled like he was about to break.

  He was the one.

  I thumbed the platinum ring, mindlessly watching, always watching. The Roses Academy had saved me from myself in a moment of weakness and sorrow. I wished I could save Peter, but he had taken it too far—his kind always did. The fae didn’t work well with humans. Humans were too weak.

  His hands flew back and forth, expressing his rage. He stopped, hovering a moment over something or someone. No one moved beyond him and no words were spoken besides his.

  He was a monster, trying desperately to control his change, surrounded by humans. Weak and breakable humans. I watched as his mind literally lost its control akin to a twig breaking from a branch. It made the most pronounced snap and the monster emerged.

  He shouted and then his fists came down on the couch. They came down hard, making screams match the fury they hit with. His arms moved like a madman’s, clawing and hitting as his body trembled with the change.

  He was going to shift in front of them.

  It wasn’t entirely his fault. He had mistakenly thought he would be able to have a normal life.

  I winked myself inside to the madness. The inhabitants of the room could not see me as they covered themselves completely. Peter raged at the couch and the people curling around each other. A mom tried to protect her two small children. She used her body as a shield.

  Peter’s face grew distorted as his head shivered and shook.

  I leapt forward, not even worrying about being seen. I touched Peter’s quivering shoulder. I smiled down at the small child who peeked up at me from under his
mom’s bleeding arm. He smiled through the tears when his eyes met mine and his lips formed the word, “Angel.”

  I winked my right eye, disappearing from where I was and flashing us to the street with me standing in front of him.

  His eyes widened in disbelief as I lifted him into the air.

  Warm sparkly life jolted into me when my bare hands made contact with the fleshy meat of his throat before he had the chance to finish changing into a worthy adversary.

  He choked and fought, but it was useless as recognition and fear spread across his face. “You’re a Rose.” His last words.

  My eyelids fluttered as the euphoria of feeding filled me up.

  Peter’s body would remain in human form long enough for the medical examiner to rule it a heart attack. His body wouldn’t decay the way a regular human’s would, but he’d be buried or burned before then.

  “Stop!” a man’s voice echoed through the alley, interrupting my meal.

  The spark of the fire died when the dead man dropped to the ground. The way it ended without the normal fizzle forced a shudder of dissatisfaction.

  Turning, I licked my lips, wondering if my eyes still glowed like molten steel, a result of my feast. Down the alley a policeman stood with his weapon drawn and shaking in his hands. I wondered if he was new to the force. I could empathize. My hands mimicked his, trembling still.

  “Stay where you are!” His voice never wavered the way the sizable gun did. Not that his strong command masked the scent of fear that rode on the wind as if searching out my nose. “Don't move!” His voice was familiar. “What’s in your hands?” He crept closer. “Show me your hands!”

  Panic filled me. “Run his prints and you’ll thank me.” The dead man on the ground wasn’t innocent. The Roses Academy had rules about that sort of thing. I wished I could explain that to him.

  The policeman walked toward me cautiously. “Get down on the ground.”

  “No.” I almost laughed. “Would you lie on this street? This alley is filthy with germs and God only knows what else.”