The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  I swallowed hard, pretty sure we didn’t have a single thing in common. “Oh my God, yeah, that’s terrible.”

  “Yes, it is. But the point I’m trying to make is you didn’t choose what you are and you can’t stop being it. You need to give yourself a little leeway for the moments where you don’t put your best foot forward.”

  “Thank you.” I almost said it like a question because I was still stuck on the dead babies and villagers.

  “I’m off to Boston.” She smiled wide.

  “Have a good trip.” I waved as she walked away.

  She spent an enormous amount of time in Boston.

  I strolled from my room, lost in thought about how weird it had been with Lucas coming to find me and how hungry I was.

  “Ari?”

  I turned back, finding Ben in the hall with me. “Hey.” I didn’t feel awkward with him, like I did his brother. He was easy to be around.

  “How are you feeling this morning?”

  I blushed. “Oh good. Actually great.”

  “I thought Lucas was going to kill something when he found out you’d run away. Especially after the way I found you in the woods.”

  “Why—what did he do?”

  Ben walked down the stairs beside me. “He ran, following your scent the whole way around town, till he found you. The bouncer wasn’t going to let us in. We didn’t have wallets with us, but Lucas scared the hell out of him. Then he told that guy you were dancing with that he was going to tear his limbs from his body and make him watch as he ate them if he didn’t get lost.” He laughed.

  I was horrified. “Is he insane?”

  “No, just angry.” He sounded nonchalant, like Andy telling the story of eating the whole village. The weirdos in this house were finally starting to show their true colors, and I wasn’t entirely sure I liked what I saw.

  “How did he track my smell all over town? Why would he eat someone’s legs?” The threat was nuts.

  “We have pretty good noses. So speaking of which, want to see the wolf today?”

  “I guess.” I fought the urge to ask more questions he didn’t seem to want to answer. He didn’t even touch the leg-eating one. “Where’s Lucas?”

  “He’s in Canada. Roses crap.”

  “Are you a Rose?”

  “Yeah.” Ben nodded. “I think Lydia wants to see you, so how about meet me in the back in like an hour?”

  “Okay.” He waved and sauntered off. Confused, starving, and curious about the whole Roses organization, I headed for the kitchen.

  “I made you some oats.” Annabelle appeared out of nowhere.

  “Why?” I groaned. “I hate oatmeal.”

  “Well, I know that but you be eating it today. Boss’s orders.”

  I sat and stared at the steaming bowl of hot cereal and nodded. “Who’s the boss?”

  “Me!” She vanished, leaving cold air and attitude.

  Chapter 14

  The Roses

  Aimee

  “I need you to do me a favor.” Lydia wandered into the room, giving me a serious frown.

  “Okay.”

  She didn’t smile. “Ari needs to meet with the Roses Academy. It’s time.”

  “What?” I lifted my brows. “Ari isn’t strong. What if she’s more mortal than anything else?”

  “She isn’t,” Lydia continued. “I got the blood tests back and we tracked her route through the woods the other day. It was seventeen miles uphill. She hasn’t run in the body she’s currently in right now and pulled off seventeen miles uphill. She’s not mortal.”

  “Okay,” I conceded. “I’ll take her to New York.”

  “Thank you. I have to go speak to her, to tell her. Will you come?”

  “You scared of her?” I cocked my head.

  “Little girls don’t scare me, Aimee. I just think she might need the support. She might panic and think I’m sending her away the same way you did.”

  “Okay.” I stood from my laptop where I was chatting with Shane who was on duty but sending me messages.

  I smiled at his profile picture and blushed, thinking about the way he had looked at me when we were with my dad. I wished we were able to spend more time alone, but I didn’t know if I could trust myself.

  “I really don’t need to see that, Aimee.” Lydia scowled.

  “Well, stop looking in my mind.”

  Lydia walked from the room. “You broadcast it like it’s on CNN. I didn’t have to try.”

  “He’s a cute boy, Lydia. I can’t help it.”

  “Shane’s a looker all right. A man that sexy in uniform should be illegal.”

  “So illegal.” I followed Lydia to the kitchen where Ari struggled with a bowl of Annabelle’s gruel. “Good God, why are you eating that?” I grimaced as Ari tried to get it down. “You must have pissed her off good to be punished like that.”

  “Yup.”

  “Pissed off who?” Lydia sat at the table. “That’s a healthy cereal. You did drugs yesterday and this will help get them out of your system.”

  “Stop eating that or I’m going to get sick.” I wrinkled my nose. “We need to talk anyway.”

  Ari’s eyes grew worried. “Lydia, I’m sorry about yesterday. I won’t do it again—I promise.”

  Lydia laughed. “No, it’s not that, honey. We have figured some things out about you. Aimee is taking you to New York to get acquainted with everyone. You need to start your training.”

  “You’re sending me away?”

  “No, to be trained.” I laughed. “I said the same thing to Lydia when it was my turn. She isn’t sending you away. She’s sending you to learn about yourself. We fit into two categories in this world, good and bad. You need to be good.”

  Lydia nodded. “Exactly, and in order to be on the side of good, you’ll need some help with control.”

  “So, you’re really not mad about yesterday?”

  “Of course I am.” Lydia frowned. “I’m furious about yesterday, but you aren’t alone in the blame. Elsie and I are just as much to blame as you are. We all messed up. I want you to pack a bag for New York. You’ll be there for a few months.”

  “Months?” Ari choked on the disgusting cereal, making me gag slightly.

  “Yes, dear. Months.” Lydia looked indignantly at the gruel.

  “I’ll come and visit as much as they’ll let me. We won’t leave you there alone.” I tried to make her feel better.

  Lydia squeezed Ari’s arm. “There really is nothing to be afraid of. It’s just time.”

  Ari didn’t seem convinced and I didn’t blame her. I shuddered every time I remembered my months at Roses Academy. Pride and fear made the ring on my finger special to me. It was hard work becoming good. Our natural instincts were to be bad.

  “Guess I’ll go get ready.” She paled and pushed the bowl of slop away.

  “You should hurry. If Annabelle comes back and sees this bowl’s still full, you’re dead.”

  Ari grinned weakly and got up.

  Lydia sighed as she left the room. “That child is going to have an uphill battle until we can rid her of the other part of her.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.

  When it was time to go, poor Ari looked sick, standing at the front door waiting for me.

  “You know since we’re winking there, you don’t need to wait at the front door.” I cracked a grin.

  “Right.” She smiled nervously. “Force of habit.”

  I flexed my fingers. “Ready?”

  “No.” She shook her head, looking around the room. “Not at all.”

  I laughed and touched her, winking us away and thinking about the lobby to the building in New York. A bank was on the bottom eight floors and the Roses Academy took up the top twelve. The air moved around us, flashing colors for only a second, and then my boots made contact with the ground again. “Welcome!”

  “I hate that.” She shivered.

  “I know.” I glanced around to make sure we were a
lone. “No one likes it.”

  Ari got her bearings and glanced around the lobby. She seemed stunned, taking in the modern and swanky decor. I remembered my first time. “I know how you feel. You saw where I grew up. We didn’t have fancy buildings like this one. I honestly thought I’d gotten lost when I first came here.”

  “It’s like something off a TV show.”

  “You have no idea.” I snickered. “Well, let’s go see everyone.” I walked through the large glass doors and up to the receptionist.

  Ari gasped upon seeing the woman sitting at the desk. I kicked her but greeted the woman with a pleasant smile. “Morning, Gladys. How are you?”

  “Aimee!” The woman beamed back, flashing bright-green eyes. “How are you?”

  “Great, this is Ari. I think Lydia called about her.”

  “Yes, of course. Nice to meet you and welcome.”

  Ari stammered as she gawked, “H-hi, uhm—”

  “Sorry, Gladys, first timer.”

  Gladys laughed. “I remember everyone’s first day. Take a seat.”

  “Dude, not cool,” I whispered almost silently as I dragged Ari to a seat.

  “Her eyes—”

  I put a hand to her mouth and softly whispered directly in her ear, “Hush. She can hear your heartbeat. Were-cats have incredible hearing. I will explain later.” I pulled back and changed the subject, “Did you say goodbye to everyone?”

  “Ben was going to let me play with his wolf, but we had to leave. And he wasn’t in his room when I went to tell him we were leaving and Lucas was gone. But I said bye to Annabelle. I think she cried.”

  “She always does.” I smiled, almost laughing. “And a word to the wise, don’t let Ben con you into playing with his wolf.”

  “Why?”

  “Just trust me.” I rolled my eyes. “Maybe focus on finding a way to text Lucas. That poor boy is over the moon for you.”

  “I don’t have a cell anymore. Street-urchin version of me lost the one that came with this body.”

  “Right.” I grimaced. “Okay, well, they’ll give you your Roses cell phone pretty much the first day, so I’ll add your new number and give you my contacts. You can text him if you want to.”

  “I do want to. I like him too. He’s strange and intense, but whatever.” She blushed and glanced down. “Anyway, I haven’t touched a cell phone since I left the desert. It’s been really weird. When I first got here, I wondered if my friends missed me back home, but then I remembered none of them have met me. None of them would talk to a girl like me.”

  “Then who needs them?” I wrapped an arm around her and hugged tight. “You’re still the girl you were all along. These scars and the tats are kind of like a reminder of the path you don’t want to take. But just because that other version of you lived this life, doesn’t mean you have to continue living it.”

  “Aimee.” Someone interrupted my pep talk.

  I lifted my head to see Daniel Jacobs. “Daniel, how are you?” I stood, hugging him and kissing either side of his face the way he did mine.

  “Very well. And how are you?” The older man smiled softly. His elderly face, gray hair, and genteel English accent were not to be mistaken with nice old man. I learned that the first day. He might have soft-blue eyes and enjoy a cup of English Breakfast every morning like my father, but inside he was a frightening bloodsucker.

  “I’m great.” I pointed at Ari. “Daniel, this is Ari. Ari, this is Mr. Daniel Jacobs. He’s in charge of recruits and training.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Ari made the face she always did when she struggled with her other self taking over. It was the poor girl’s defense system.

  “You as well. We have heard so much about you. Your gifts are very rare. Please come in.” Daniel held a hand up to a scanner on the wall and the glass doors opened.

  I strolled behind them, watching as she got her first glimpse of what we’d been hiding from her for months.

  “This facility was built a long time ago, but we are continually modernizing, based on current designs and trends.” Daniel walked us through the labs and offices. “We’ve been in this office for eighteen years, and before that we were in a building on this very land for two hundred years. When the settlers came to the New World, we came along. We started in New England first and then moved our headquarters here when the city really started to boom. Has either Lydia or Aimee told you anything?”

  She trailed along, clearly puzzled.

  He grinned back at me. “You left all the explaining to me?”

  “We didn’t know what she was. Lydia wanted to be sure she was even Roses Academy material.”

  “Fair enough. In the world there is light and dark, good and bad, gods and devils. It doesn’t matter how it’s spoken, there is a fine line between what is right and wrong. Taking a human life, an innocent’s life, is wrong. Many like us have done it.” His eyes flashed to me just as I lowered my gaze.

  “Oh, Aimee, don’t make that face.” Daniel laughed. “Everyone is guilty of it. Especially in the first phases of whatever changes occur. I myself have committed a few atrocities in my time. Here we offer the chance at not only learning to control whatever urges or hungers you face, but also, for a select group of people like Aimee, we offer the chance at redemption.”

  Ari lifted her face in surprise. “Redemption?”

  “Yes.” Daniel smiled. “Yes, love.” He held up his platinum ring with the thin red line running through it. “We are the thin red line that keeps the balance in society. We are the protection between good and evil.”

  Ari’s lips lifted even higher. “You admit you’re superheroes?”

  “I suppose. And because of the super situations we face, we obviously can’t have someone who’s mortal running about trying to stop the chaos that occurs. Which is how we all ended up here. Each of us has something about our DNA that has proved to be interesting.”

  “Did I get bit by a radioactive spider?” Ari snickered with a sarcastic smile.

  “Keep an open mind.” Daniel winked.

  “Have you ever heard of having such an open mind your brains fall out?” Ari continued to grin.

  “No. That’s ridiculous. It sounds like something the church would say.” Daniel scoffed, losing some of the humor and tolerance he was pretending to have. “You probably noticed Gladys at the front desk. She is a were-tiger. Her eyes always look like a cat’s eyes. She can’t help it. She wears contacts in front of regular people but in front of us she’s the way she is. Were-tigers are just part of who we all are. Everyone has a different gift or ability.”

  “Or curse,” I muttered.

  “Rightly so,” Daniel agreed.

  “Brandon’s a shifter, right?” Ari asked me.

  “Yeah. He is. Did he tell you about it?” I couldn’t believe he would discuss that with her, not with Lucas spitting on her first.

  “No. He never hung around long enough to discuss anything.” She sounded a bit bitter.

  “Well, Gladys, like Brandon, turns into a cat—a Bengal tiger. They are shifters. They can transform into certain animals: panthers, wolves, bears, tigers, and oddly enough, dogs.”

  “What happens to their bodies?”

  Daniel sighed, revealing his true self. “Their bodies change. They are still themselves. They just shift.”

  “Only those animals?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Yes, well, we believe the other species of shifters have likely died off. They weren’t strong enough. The predators have lived because they’re strong. Then there are people like me.” He smiled, letting his fangs drop. Blackness creeped across his blue eyes, filling them entirely so no white remained.

  “What the hell!” Ari screamed, jumping back.

  “It’s okay.” I wrapped my arm around her.

  Daniel frowned, speaking through his fangs, “I’m still me. I just have these now.” He put his fangs away and the black pulled back into his pupils.

  “He’s just like Andy.”

&nb
sp; “Andy kept that part to herself.” Ari caught her breath. “What could I possibly do to you? How could I fight against someone like you, who could drink my blood and kill me?” She seemed panicked.

  “Your demon blood would kill me. You’re actually extremely rare, a born Nephilim. Children like you seldom survive. The mother never survives, unless she’s the demon. You’re very lucky, it’s a rare gift.” Daniel sniffed.

  “Yeah, well I don’t feel very lucky. One version of me never existed, and the other has lived on the streets my whole life, except for the time I spent in orphanages. I have no family. You’ve just told me society would call me a demon, which, FYI, is a rude thing to call someone. We obviously have a different idea of what lucky is.” Ari started to shake with anger as her tone changed.

  “You must be the other Ari that Lydia told me about.”

  “You and Lydia can go screw yourselves. This three-ring circus is a joke.” Ari turned to me. “You want me to stay with the cat lady and fangs over there? I want to go home. This asshole is going to try to eat me in the night. You can’t leave me here. It’s some kind of scientific experiment. That bitch out front is probably the result of chemical testing.”

  “Stop!” I met her harsh stare with firmness. “You’re safe here. Do you trust me? Don’t think about anything else, just answer that one question. Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” she relented, unhappy to have to admit that. Her face flushed after a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you an asshole.” She sighed.

  “You are quite entertaining.” Daniel chuckled. “That must be some battle going on inside you. You are a born demon, meaning you’ll have to be trained by a demon. You must snuff out the other you in there to ensure you’re not a danger to people, or yourself.”

  “What happens if I’m a danger?”

  “We deal with it,” I answered her truthfully. There was no way of sugarcoating it. It was the main reason none of us, apart from Lydia and Annabelle, had gotten too close to her. The chance we’d have to snuff her out still lingered over her head.

  Ari swallowed that bitter pill and questioned Daniel, “What do you do?”