The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  Rage instantly flares. I shove him back hard and stalk away, shaking my head and clenching my jaw. I could kill him. “Saved them.” I groan and walk to the truck. I notice a shadow alongside the house.

  “Lorelei, would you wait up?” He calls after me. I stop, but it's not for him. It's for the green eyes watching me from the shadows. A wrinkled old hand creeps up to the stunned lips of the face that's partly hidden in the darkness.

  “Lorelei,” she whispers, but I can hear it as well as if she'd shouted it at me. I don’t know what to say or do. She steps from the shadows, shaking her head. “How?”

  “Angie.” My jaw hangs open. I glance around, looking for him. He's gone, of course. God forbid, he ever sticks around for the hard stuff.

  “Good evening, ma'am,” I say softly, trying to thicken my accent and pray she doesn’t really recall me.

  His warmth comes up behind me. “Compel her to forget,” he says softly.

  I take a step forward. Her green eyes grow. A tear leaks down the side of her too-tanned and too-tight cheek. She shakes her head and the tears take over. She sobs uncontrollably. I wrap myself around her.

  “Why did you let me grow old? Why didn’t you take me with you?” she sobs.

  I hold her to me and try to speak soothingly, “You look the same as before. Just as beautiful as before.” It ain't a lie. She looks the same to me. I still see her face and her wickedness. The man in the window was proof of that. She is as feisty and spicy as she ever was.

  She trembles. “I thought you died. I thought you were gone.”

  I pull back and stare into her eyes. “I did. I'm dead, Angie.”

  “You're warm, you're real. You're young and pretty.”

  “I live on the deaths of others. I'm not real. I'm a monster.” I glance back at Whit as tears leak from my eyes.

  She gasps, seeing them.

  “See.” I wipe the black tear and nod. “The devil's tears. Nothing is the same for me.”

  She grips my arms. “Your daddy and Em?”

  “Dead. All dead.”

  She looks me over. “Like you?”

  “No. Real dead.” I slide my hands down her face. “How has it all been? How was real life?”

  I need it to be amazing. I am terrified it was horrid and she was miserable. She wipes her tears and sniffles. “It was awful at first. I never left for New York or California like I wanted. I stayed and helped poor Martin with his grief. We fell in love and he asked me to marry him.”

  I kiss her, tasting the damp salt on her cheek. “Of course. I'm grateful you were there for him.” I don’t want to tell her I know the truth of the matter. I would never embarrass her that way. Not at the end of her life.

  “We were married a year later. We had a toast to you and yours at the wedding. It was nice. We moved to Washington for a spell. Then Martin decided he wanted this. So we came home. Lord, Lorelei, you look the same. It's frightening.” Her voice is the fakest I have ever heard it be. It's like we don’t even know each other. I hate it. I'm still stuck in the time when we were best friends and she knew everything. She is the fake, sweet Southern lady that she only ever used on strangers, never me.

  I smile warmly. “Did you have kids?” I know the answer.

  She nods and sniffles. “Yes, lord, we got us four that got themselves a bushel of grandkids for us.” She points and scowls. “Don't you dare call me a grandmamma. I will kill you.” She says it “keel,” like we always did. Typical Louisiana talk.

  I put my hands up defensively. “You know you love it.”

  She smiles, and for the first time I see happiness in her eyes. “I do. God help me, but I do. I got my charities and such. Martin keeps busy. I figured he'd retire by now but no such luck.” Her eyes sparkle and I see the pain that she is too well bred to show purposefully.

  “He always was a hard worker.” I hate him still. I need to know why he married her, and if he made her life hell. The thought of it all is killing me inside.

  She laughs. “Where are you staying?”

  “Nowhere. Just here to check on things, like always.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Well, I did hear, from a very reliable source, that a grandchild of the Huntingtons was at the house, rebuilding it.”

  “That would be me. I am cleaning it up for Tessa. She’s been living there in the dirt and the mud for too long.”

  She crosses her old-lady arms. “That old bat is still alive?”

  I laugh and look at the source. “She is.”

  “She's gotta be clear a hundred.”

  “She was only a few years older than me.” It's a lie, but I need to make sure she ain't too suspicious.

  She looks past me and frowns. “Who's your friend? Where are your manners, Lorelei?”

  I shake my head and lean into her face. My eyes fix on hers. My breath becomes hot. “You didn't see him. In fact, he is no one. You never saw me. You saw Aunt Tessa's granddaughter who looks a lot like me, but you could tell right away it wasn't me. I died in that old house forty-eight years ago, in that fire. I'm named Lorelei after my cousin who died forty-eight years ago. I took a shortcut and lost it.” I blink and wave. “Night, Mrs. Ryan. Thanks for helping me find my shoe.”

  She’s dazed for a second. I hear her start to breathe again, and with every inhale she takes, I take a step away. My heart hurts, at least the hole that used to be a heart hurts. I hate that I left her. I left her to get old and suffer for half a century.

  “She seems good.” Whit's there suddenly.

  Disgust fills my face as tears burst from my eyes. “Good? She was never gonna marry—she was gonna have fun and be a stewardess or a CEO's top secretary. She was gonna be free. The smile on her face was as fake as her breasts and white teeth. She ain't happy. She's married to that scum because I died. She took my place. Something must have happened. He forced her or got her pregnant and she married him. I would bet the entire plantation, that bastard hurt her for the last forty-eight years and I let him.” My footsteps become something menacing.

  He grabs my arm. “Where are you going?”

  I spin back around and point. “You go back to the house and make sure she don't recall none of that conversation. I'm not great at that eye-magic shit. I'll be back.” I don’t even recognize my own voice. It's a growl, and a mean one at that.

  His eyes sparkle. “Don't do anything you'll regret.”

  “I ain't done nothing but shit I regret,” I grumble and stalk off into the dark and hate the way the word “shit” sounded like sheet. My accent is getting thicker.

  He laughs behind me. “When did you get such a foul, countrified mouth on you?” I sneer and ignore him.

  My boots crunch along the ground. I don’t know where I'm walking to. I sniff the air. I can smell him but it's faint and in every direction. “Damned humidity.” It's like he's hiding under a blanket.

  “Maria?” I call into the night skies. “Auntie Maria, you there? I need your help.” I am about to keep walking, certain I can't call on the dead, when I feel it.

  The cold air is refreshing as it hits. “You calling me, child?”

  I shudder when I see her, white mist floating in the air. I swallow and try not to be terrified. “You know where I can find Martin Ryan?”

  “Huh?”

  I cross my arms. “I need to find me someone. A man named Martin Ryan. Can the other dead folks help you find him for me?”

  Her misty hands land on her cloud-like hips. “What I look like—a hound dog? I don't know where he's to. Y'all need to go home. Sunrise is in a couple of hours.”

  I wonder how weird I look, talking to a cloud in the dank air. “No need to get snippy. You were nicer when I was little.”

  She gives me the same look I'm giving her. “You was nicer when you was little too. Now you a dead, nasty creature. Go home, Lorelei.”

  That stings, coming from a ghost. “How is it I can see you so clear now but before I could only hear the whispers?”

  “Because
now you dead too. And you ain’t got no one stopping me from getting to you,” she whispers and the cold air is gone.

  “Damn,” I mutter and close my eyes, smelling his scent in the air. It’s the same as it always was. I turn to the right and start to run.

  I find him precisely the way I expected to, with a pretty young girl in a seedy-ass motel. She looks so much like me, I'd have thought she was me. I grimace through the window and then walk to the door where I roll my head and shoulders a few times. I shrug and try to loosen up. I'm tense from the meeting with Angie. I feel sick and it hurts in a way I can't explain to myself. My emotions still don’t work the way they used to. I take a breath and kick the motel door open. He jumps up and covers himself. I close the door and grin. “You miss me, baby?”

  He squints and backs away. “Lorelei?” Terror crosses his face with the recognition.

  I grin harder. “The very same.” I grab the foot of the terrified young girl. My fangs launch.

  “Please, leave me alone,” she begs.

  I bite down hard on her throat. My fangs crunch into her neck and instantly her sweet blood fills my mouth. She's sugary and fresh like a still warm orange plucked from the tree. I almost close my eyes, but I don’t want to give him the chance to run.

  When I’m done, I drop her and step over her dying body.

  His eyes are wide and horrified.

  I wipe the blood off my lips with my hands. “I'm gonna enjoy killing you, just like you enjoyed mauling me like a bear in heat.”

  He shakes his head and quivers. “Lorelei, I swear. I was a young man then, hopped up on my hormones and you were so pretty. You still are.” His words taper off into a whisper and he has the audacity of laying his eyes on my chest.

  His wide eyes flicker between the dying girl on the floor and the evil grin on my face.

  “Tables have turned, haven’t they? I'm the one in control. You ain't got no rights now. I’m no longer too young and too stupid to see how ridiculous the whole thing is. Not like back then.” I remember Whit's words about Southern debutants. He was so right.

  I take a step toward him, watching his eyes dart about the room for a plan. It makes me smile.

  “You think you can outrun me, Martin, baby?” I cross my arms. “Go ahead, try.” My voice lowers as I eye him through my lashes.

  He swings at me but my hand moves faster than his. I backhand him hard. He staggers back. I grimace, averting my eyes. “Put some shorts on at least.”

  He leaps at me, growling with rage. I grab his shoulders and drop him to the ground. I hold him facedown on the now dead girl. Her wheezing and death rattle has stopped. He squirms and screams as I push his face into her bloody neck.

  “You wanted her, have some of her.” I shove his face into the bloody wound. His strength is remarkable but it's nothing for me. I lift him into the air and hold his bloody face to mine. “You will cooperate with me. You will answer my questions.”

  He almost fights it but then nods.

  I drop him to a crumpled heap on the floor.

  I sit on a chair across from him. “Why did Angie marry you?”

  He answers like he's in a daze, “Her daddy. He made her do it.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “I told him that I had been with her for months and she was with child.”

  I clench my jaw and hold back the rage building in me. “Was she?”

  “No.”

  “Had y'all been together?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers.

  “Just once.”

  “When?”

  He swallows. “I made her come with me into the woods at our engagement party. She was real drunk.”

  I wince as he speaks the words. I have to control my anger. “Why her?” I whisper.

  His face is frozen in the blank stare and his words sound like they’re being spoken by the dead. “I wanted to marry her before I ever asked you. She had good connections. Her daddy was a man of influence. But she hated me. She always hated me. I wanted her, but she wouldn’t have me. She heard about me being caught with Margery Banks. She told me I was the last man on earth she would marry. I gave up and told my daddy to make a deal with your daddy. You were so pretty. That made Angie angry with me. She offered me herself, to spare you marrying me. Hurtful bitch. Y'all were lucky I wanted you at all. I was a prize. I'm the governor of Louisiana for Christ's sake.” His words fill with a tiny bit of emotion. He has an accent now, like a proper Southerner. Only he isn’t.

  “Did you force Margery Banks and Angie?”

  His eyes fight something. His jaw clenches. After a second he slumps and nods. “I did.”

  “How many girls you done that to?” I need a shower.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you scared of me, Martin?”

  He nods and swallows.

  “Do you understand what I am?” I get comfy in the chair.

  He shakes his head again. “I don't know. Death?”

  “Crawl to me, Martin.”

  He fights himself but his body moves. He crawls on his hands and knees to his death.

  “Look up at me like a good doggy.”

  With hate filling his eyes and bitterness covering his face, he looks up at me. I don’t see the boy I once did, his face is so altered. But in his eyes, I still see the twisted horrid person he was. Only now he's an old man who hasn’t aged right. His skin is too tight and too tanned. His soul is blacker than mine, I think.

  “Did you ever love her, Angie?”

  “No.”

  “Were you cruel to her the whole time?”

  He nods.

  “Did you hurt her throughout the marriage?” The hold I have is almost gone. I'm breaking myself with this. The torture ain't just for him. I deserve every ounce he does. “Did you?”

  He nods again.

  I grin bitterly and point my fingers. “Tilt your head. Show me that strong neck.”

  He does it.

  I lean into his cold eyes and whisper, “Fight for your life, Martin.” I sink my fangs into his throat as he comes to life. I hold him as he punches and grips but he doesn’t stand a chance. His blood fills with adrenaline. I rock in the chair, holding him like a scrambling cat.

  I suck him to the point I did her, but I don’t drop him. I hold him tight and rock still. His anger and bitterness made his blood taste of it. Tears leap from my eyes. I have destroyed him.

  “I wish I could make your soul go to hell. I wish I could make you suffer the same things you've given her, for all of eternity.” My black tears leave my eyes, landing on his dying face. He coughs one last time and then he's gone. He gurgles and dies in my arms. The death is too kind for him. He deserved so much worse.

  I stand and leave the motel room. Leaving him and his mistress on the floor for all to see.

  It's the fate he deserves. If I can give Angie a few years of tranquility and peace, I'll be happy. I owe her that, in the least. She tried to save me the fate I was stuck with. She tried to spare me everything. She tried to warn me and I abandoned her. I let him force her into the woods at my party. I need to forget it. I need to get rid of it. I need it to go away. The guilt and pain don’t sit right with my soullessness.

  I walk to the old hiding house, looking for him.

  “Whit,” I call out. I don't want to be alone.

  I see movement across the old field. The moonlight bounces off his face as he steps. I can almost hear Nina Simone singing when I see him. His broad shoulders and thick arms make my knees weak. I can hate him and let him love me. I decide it when I see his face. He knows I've done something naughty. He can smell the blood lust that’s filled me.

  I whisper to him, knowing he'll hear it. “I need you.”

  His pace picks up. I jump into his arms and wrap myself around him. His soft lips caress my cheek as he inhales me.

  “I need you,” I murmur again into his hair as his head dips into my neck.

  “I've wanted you since the minute I saw you.�
� His words are brushes of warm wind against my nape.

  We have sex. I lose my virginity and nothing about it is the way I thought it would be.

  Lying in the wheat, feeling itchy and kinda weird, I decide I need sleep. I pat him on the arm. “Thanks. This was fun.”

  He looks sick as I grab my jeans. I try to pull them on, but end up hopping about on one foot.

  “What? Fun? What are ya doing?” His accent thickens up a bunch. He sounds like he's fresh from Scotland.

  “Damned skinny jeans,” I gripe and struggle. They're making my getaway hard. I give up on them and walk across the field for home, holding my pants. I'm grinning on the inside. I got him, finally. I have hurt him. It isn’t even close to revenge and it's petty, but I'll take anything I can get.

  His panicked voice is filled with confusion when he screams after me, “Lorelei, wait. I can make up for that. But trust me, the second time is way more fun.” His voice cracks and I almost laugh.

  He’s standing in the field with his pants around his ankles and his shirt torn from his body. He looks remarkable in the moonlight.

  “Of course it was my first time, I don’t just sleep around, Whit. We talked about this. I'm not that kind of girl. You of all people know how I was raised.” I stand in the dead grass and struggle to pull my pants up as he comes toward me, holding my boots. I do my pants up and take my boots one at a time.

  He has his pants on but his naked torso distracts me. He has tattoos I never noticed before. I've never seen him without his shirt before—I don’t think I have. I force my eyes away from the black ink that trails up the side of his ribs and the underside of one of his arms. The other arm has a band around it. They all seem Scottish or Celtic.

  “I think we should talk about this.” He’s obviously upset. It’s filling me with warmth and bitter happiness. “You have to give me a second chance. I've waited forty-eight years for you.”

  “No, thanks.” I grin and pull my boot on and turn away from him.

  He grabs my arm. “Wait.”

  I rip it from his grip. “I said no thanks.” I smirk back at him. “You got what you wanted from me, Whit. Now leave me alone. We aren't doing that again, not ever.”