The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  Hurrying, I got ready for work, leaving the apartment, and locking the door. I felt uncomfortable about the apartment. Mitch had encroached on my private space, making my feel a slight bit territorial. I had wanted to keep it secret. It was a strange need, but it was one I had and couldn’t explain, even to myself.

  The restaurant was booming with every table full. Cookie had been amazed with how quickly I’d learned everything and fit in. Little did he know, I had spent years doing this. Waitressing really was my calling.

  I could predict what people wanted. I could sense their needs.

  It had to be something to do with being half angel or demon or whatever the hell Dorian was.

  Pausing in the chaos, I watched Cookie for a second, seeing something I had never noticed before—stress. He wasn’t the jovial cook he’d always been. He was worried and constantly stressed about everything. When my uncle owned the place, he had taken on all the responsibility. Cookie had been left to do the cooking. The fact that he had to both cook and run it seemed to be wearing on him.

  I leaned through the window. “If you need any help with anything, just ask, okay? I used to do the ordering and inventory for my uncle’s restaurant back in Portland.”

  “Okay, sweet.” He nodded. “I would love it if you could handle that. I’ll go over it with you later, when we slow down.”

  “When?” I smiled and rolled my eyes. “You mean if we slow down.”

  The door opened behind me, blowing in hot air. I turned to see Mitch coming in.

  “Hey, Mitch,” I spoke quietly, pouring a coffee for the mayor.

  “Hey.” His eyes darted, meeting mine for a second. He moved past me quickly.

  I frowned, pondering his change in temperature toward me.

  Maybe he had looked in the box and found the mementos.

  Maybe he saw similarities between me and the ex-girlfriend, a serial killer.

  When the shift was ending and the last of the patrons were paying, Cookie got me to come to the back and go over the inventory and ordering. He was stunned at how fast I figured it out.

  “You’re a real lifesaver.”

  “You should have asked someone sooner. You look tense and stressed all the time.”

  “Yeah.” He frowned at my familiarity with him. “I guess I have been a bit stressed.”

  “Well, I got this, so don’t worry.” I walked out with the ordering sheets and sat down at a table to rest my tired feet.

  Mitch avoided eye contact with me. I kept my gaze on his face, until finally he peered up at me. “What?”

  “What?”

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “Why are you avoiding me?”

  He shifted uneasily. “I’m tired from someone passing out on the roof. I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn’t. I had to carry you all the way home.”

  “I wouldn’t wake up?”

  “Nope.” He shrugged. “It was weird. And you’re heavy after a couple of blocks.”

  “Well, thanks for carrying me home.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t mention it.”

  “How did you know where I lived?” I tried to ask nicely but I couldn’t.

  He paused and then grinned. “I have an amazing sense of smell.”

  I narrowed my gaze, pondering the way he still wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “Okay.” I stood up with the papers. “Well, I’m out of here. See you tomorrow?”

  He smirked. “Yeah.”

  I walked out, enjoying the heat hitting me as I went through the door. I loved the feeling. The warm wind played with my long hair, filling the air around me with the smell of the greasy diner. I smiled, remembering the runs I used to take, and how the smell of my uncle’s diner always filled the air when I released my hair.

  I strolled down the road, heading home.

  “Do you have the time?”

  “No.” I looked up at the man in dressy clothes who had stopped me on the dusty road. The watch on his right arm screamed at me to run, but everything went dark before I could. His watch was the last thing I saw.

  When I woke in the dark, I called out softly, “Hello?” My voice sounded funny, ragged. My dry lips were cracked and my mouth parched. I smacked my lips together, feeling the pasty thickness in my mouth.

  I looked around the room but no one was there. It was a cell with no windows; there was a small shower and a toilet. There was also a door.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been there. A hot tear slipped down my cheek as my hands began to burn again like they had in the beginning of my change. I knew I’d been there a long time. They’d starved me. The burning meant I would attack anything. My hands tingled as if I had slept on them.

  My sweaty body seemed to be overheating again. My eyes adjusted to the dark and I tried scan around the room, but the light coming in under the door was so faint I could barely make out where I was. It appeared to be a warehouse of sorts, perhaps.

  Noises off to the side of the room made me turn in that direction. “Help me. Please someone help me,” I called out. No one answered.

  The noise interrupted my silence again.

  “PLEASE HELP ME. WHOEVER YOU ARE, PLEASE HELP ME!” My voice cracked from the dry throat. I needed a drink. The hunger in my hands was burning me up.

  The door was opened, filling one corner of the room with light. The light was blinding, making me shut my eyes but I still begged, “Please, I just need some water. I won’t tell anyone who you are. I don’t even know who you are. Please, just some water.”

  The light was gone as quickly as it had come, making me adjust my eyes again. When I was able to see, I gasped. Someone was in the dark. I could see a figure. My hands sensed the person before my eyes did. I was like a shark in water, smelling out blood. My hands wanted the person on the opposite side of the room.

  “Stay on your own side. Please trust me. Don’t come any closer or I’ll hurt you. Not because I want to. I won’t be able to stop it,” I begged as the hot tears burning their way down my cheeks.

  Oddly enough I wasn’t scared of a person in the dark. I was scared of me. I was scared for us.

  The feet shuffled closer. The person made a muffled sniffle.

  “What are you doing? Stay there! Please don’t come any closer.” I backed up the bed, pressing myself against the wall.

  I could make out the shape. It was a girl. She was my age maybe.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I asked softly.

  The girl took another step as if fighting herself. It seemed as if she didn’t want to walk toward me but couldn’t stop herself. I pulled the blanket on the cot up over my own head.

  “Please, please, please, please, please. God, please help me.” I chanted, “Please, please, help me.”

  The shuffling footsteps got louder.

  I lifted back the blankets to the startled face of the girl directly in front of me. I screamed. Tears stained her cheeks. Her glistening eyes caught the limited light. Her hands were behind her back and duct tape was across her mouth. She wore a tee shirt and shorts. As she shuffled closer, I recognized her. “Missy, stay away from me. Stay back.”

  Missy sobbed harder as I spoke her name. Her white tee shirt was nearly glowing in the dark. My hands were burning. I sat them underneath me and rocked back and forth. “Lucas will find me. We’ll be okay, Missy. He will find us and we’ll be okay.” It was my turn to cry.

  Hot tears flooded my eyes as she got closer, ignoring my pleas.

  I closed my eyes, which didn’t help. I could feel the heat emanating from her. She made the hot room closer.

  “Lucas will find me, Lucas will find me, Lucas will find me,” I whispered into the dark.

  Missy sat on the bed, snuggled into me.

  “Please leave me alone, Missy. I’m not strong.” The confession hurt. I suspected it hurt both of us.

  There, in the stifling dark, I recalled Aimee saying Dorian could do mind control. She had made him do it to Shane before, to ma
ke him forget her.

  “DORIAN—YOU’RE MY DAD. PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS!” I shouted again, praying he would listen to me.

  With my eyes closed, feeling so weak and hot, I must have passed out on the bed.

  I woke with someone on top of me.

  Not thinking, I put my hands out to move her off me.

  As my hands made contact with Missy’s arms, they took control and pushed. It shot from them, like it had with my uncle.

  The air filled, sparkling the way it always did.

  The picture hanging in the air broke my heart.

  Missy was prom queen and her boyfriend wanted her to go to the car with him. He wanted to celebrate their victory. She made it out to the car but decided against celebrating. She got angry with her boyfriend, David. I recognized him. Missy broke up with him for being so disrespectful and asking her to lose her virginity in a car. She stormed off. She decided to take the acceptance to Yale. She had been about to turn it down because David was her soul mate and he was only going to community college.

  The picture changed and Missy was back at the car. She got in and the car suddenly started moving, making me sick to watch. After a few minutes Missy got out and David broke up with her right there. She found out she was pregnant. She went to Albuquerque on the bus and was standing outside the Planned Parenthood. She came home and she wasn’t pregnant anymore. She faded from me as a fat girl on a couch in a trailer, eating a tub of peanut butter and watching TV. Her grad ring hung in the air, the silver band catching the light. I put a trembling hand into the air, knocking the ring to the ground.

  Relief and pain overwhelmed me simultaneously. I curled into a ball and cried into my pillow.

  I whispered softly into the darkness, “Lucas will find me. Lucas will find me. Lucas will find me. Please, Lucas come find me.”

  I wished someone could touch my arm and send me back to the crossroads where I boarded the plane home. I wished I’d just gone back to Lydia’s. I wished I had never touched my uncle.

  Missy was the beginning of the end for me.

  I didn’t cry anymore. I didn’t have any tears left.

  They never fed me. I didn’t get water.

  The only sustenance I got was people. I didn’t know how long I’d been there. I didn’t know who held me there. None of the people sent in spoke. I never saw light unless they sent someone in to be pushed. And every person they sent was an innocent.

  But I didn’t care anymore.

  My hair was ragged, my skin was clammy, and my body was weak.

  Every time I pushed, I would get a sense of being full, but it wasn’t the same.

  They had sent eight people to be pushed in the time they had me thus far.

  I’d tried to fight in the beginning, but it didn’t make sense anymore. The only thing I had accomplished by protesting was scaring the humans beyond belief.

  Lorna had been my last. I swallowed my pain and anger, just walking up to the crying woman and pushing her while maintaining my control.

  I couldn’t get their faces out of my mind. Each of them went from completely happy lives to pain and suffering. One girl committed suicide. One man killed his wife in a fit of rage. One woman ran away, leaving her children and husband alone. One man got cancer. Lorna became a prostitute and died in an alley of some kind of sickness.

  Every one of them haunted my memories and filled my dreams with pain and anger. I didn’t know how to make it stop. I tried waiting at the door for them to open it, but they always waited until I was asleep and snuck someone in.

  The last day of confinement, I lay on my cot, sensing the craziness overtaking me. I writhed in my attempt at sleeping until I smelled it. Someone else was in the room.

  I stayed still for a moment, waiting to hear them.

  When they didn’t move or make a sound, I glanced around until I saw him in the corner.

  He watched me, the glistening of his eyes caught the dim light coming in from under the door. When he didn’t make a sound or move, I climbed off the bed, refusing to witness him struggle in fear and agony.

  As I drew closer, I stopped, stepping back.

  My chest tightened. “No.”

  The man before me was as close to me as my uncle.

  He didn’t cry or struggle or try to fight me. He stared me down, confused maybe but unwilling to show his emotions.

  But I wasn’t afraid to show mine. I turned toward the door and screamed, “DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS! HE WILL DIE. DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS. I WILL DO ANYTHING YOU ASK.” I didn’t need to push him. I knew exactly where he would go. I knew he nearly died in the army. He had been military for years before he came to work for my uncle.

  Cookie took another step forward, maybe to show he wasn’t afraid of me.

  “Please don’t, Cookie. Please don’t come any closer. I can’t stop myself,” I whimpered.

  He nodded once, his eyes not leaving mine. He was telling me it was okay.

  “I’m a monster, don’t you see?” I asked quietly. “That’s why I’m here. They want me to kill you. They want me to hurt you. They want it to hurt me.” I stepped back as he took another step forward.

  He blinked and a single tear slipped down his cheek as he walked directly to me.

  Tears poured from my face as my hands made contact with his bare arms. The push was as gentle as I was able to give. He froze as the air sparkled and his picture filled the space between us.

  He was young and in the army. He was on mission in a desert. I knew it was Afghanistan. He had told me the story. As they walked up to the jeep, he passed the keys to his buddy to let him drive. He laughed and they joked. As they were driving his friend looked over and pointed out something. They didn’t notice the mine on the side of the road. The jeep blew up. His friend died instantly, while Cookie was thrown out of the jeep.

  Suddenly, he was back at the jeep. His friend gave him the keys and instead of throwing them back, he drove. When the jeep hit the mine, Cookie was killed and his friend was blown from the vehicle. He was injured as Cookie had been. At Cookie’s funeral, the wounded man hugged three children and a beautiful woman. He cried and kissed the casket.

  As Cookie faded, he smiled and spoke softly, “Thank you.”

  He vanished, leaving his dog tags floating in the air. I reached out, and as my fingers made contact with them, noise filled the space around me. The door jerked open and people ran in screaming at me.

  They surrounded me, but I couldn't make out what any of them were saying.

  All I registered was Mitch smiling at me from behind the group.

  He gave me a thumbs-up as he faded.

  I blinked and I was back at the diner, standing in front of it.

  I wore shorts and my legs were tanned again, but I wasn’t wearing runners. I had on flip-flops. In fact, when I searched my memory I saw that I didn’t really run. Cookie had been the influence in my life for fitness and activity.

  But he was never part of my life, of this life.

  This was a whole new life.

  Mitch had saved me, knowing that Cookie would bring me back to the beginning. Everything in my life had changed with Cookie’s death.

  My hands burned again, just like they had the day I sent my uncle back.

  I glanced up at the red sign that again said “Vince’s.”

  Sighing, I knew everything was right again. Well, except everything in Portland, but at least I hadn’t been able to mess with their lives. They had never met me. I was never orphan Ari. Or churchy Ari.

  My uncle was still in the diner, cooking.

  I started to feel faint, like I was going to pass out. My hands were burning. I knew it wasn’t the flu. I walked away from the diner, knowing I had to get away from my uncle.

  Heading down the street to the pharmacy, I stood at the side of the building and tried to get my breath. “You okay, Ari?”

  David, Missy’s loser boyfriend, was standing next to me.

  “Yeah, want to give me a hand? I l
ost my contact over there.” I pointed farther down the alley. I knew he was a dirtbag so I had no remorse for what I was about to do.

  “Of course.” He grinned wickedly. “I can do that.”

  We walked into the alley, making me smile too.

  Chapter 25

  Chronic case of déjà vu

  Aimee

  I peered out at the wet day, exhausted from something, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I felt like I’d run a marathon.

  At every corner déjà vu seemed to be waiting for me. It was as if my powers had grown and I was able to glimpse things in the future. I sighed, hoping that wasn’t the case. I liked the mystery of it all and I didn’t need any more power.

  Aleksander walked into my room, tapping lightly at the door. His smile sent a shiver across my body.

  “Morning, Aimee.”

  “Hey.” I smiled, still unable to see him without feeling giddy. Every time I was near him I somehow forgot I had vowed to stop messing around with him. I knew what I felt for him was part magic and part passion, and love wasn’t a part of the equation.

  He made every girl react that way to him. I wasn’t special. I constantly reminded myself he was dangerous and this was fake before I let the horny teenager in me win the battle of whether we made out.

  “I’ve been having the weird feeling lately. It’s a bit like déjà vu, but it’s not. It’s like my day was going in a certain direction yesterday, but today it’s gone and going a different way, and I see both ways.”

  “Yeah, I’m having that too.” I reached up and twirled a piece of my hair, recognizing myself for the pathetic mess I was around him.

  “You too, huh?” He looked up at me through his lashes and grinned. “Perhaps we should take this discussion downstairs.”

  “You afraid of me, Aleks?”

  He leaned in, filling the air around me. “Absolutely.”

  He knew I’d get dizzy with the pheromones. “Cheater.”

  “Come on, let’s talk to Lydia.” He laughed. It was like my favorite song. His dark-blond hair was cut shorter than normal. I reached out, running my hands through it.