Ember (Death Collectors, Book 1)

by Jessica Sorensen

  ***

  “Yo, where the hell have you been?” Ian hollers from the living room sofa. He’s eating a bowl of Fruit Loops and watching a movie starring people who have thick French accents.

  “I told you before I left that I was going to a party.” I slip my jacket off and toss it on the banister.

  He glances over his shoulder and his mouth falls open. “Why does it look like you went swimming in a lake with your clothes on?”

  “Haven’t you heard? It’s what all the cool kids are doing.” I lug up the stairs.

  “Since when have you been cool?” He yells as I reach my bedroom door.

  I don’t answer and close the door. I flip on the lamp and slip off my waterlogged boots. I groan with each movement. My legs and arms are heavy and my head is pounding. “Those were my favorite pair of boots.” I trudge toward the closet to put them away, hoping they’ll dry out and won’t be ruined.

  Sobbing drifts from the back of the closet and I freeze. “Hello?” I pull back the curtain. “Who’s in there?”

  Raven runs out and throws her arms around my neck. “Oh my God! Where were you?”

  Rain, water, blood. She can’t breathe. I pat her back, but I’m irritated. “Where was I? I think I should be the one asking where the hell were you. You just left me there. And you left with a guy who I had a death omen about.”

  “I know.” Her tears soak the shoulder of my shirt. “I’m sorry, Em. I just thought… Well, I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s hard to remember anything.”

  I draw away and frown at her. “Raven, you didn’t drink from a cup someone offered you, did you?”

  She bites on her lip guiltily. “I needed another drink and you dumped mine in the trash. So I drank one that this really cute guy offered me. Well, except for this weird X tattoo across his eye.”

  “Raven.” I take a frustrated breath. “I love you and everything, but sometimes you’re an idiot. How many times have we talked about drinking from cups from people we don’t know? Especially ones like what you just described. Because I think I met that guy and he wasn’t cute—he was a creep. But you were too drunk to notice it.”

  “I know,” she wails. “And I’m so sorry.”

  I feel kind of bad. “I know, but you have to be careful.”

  She wipes away the mascara dripping down her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Do you think I was slipped something?”

  “I’m not sure.” I guide her to the bed and she curls up in a ball like a scared child. “Do you remember what happened with Laden?”

  She shakes her head quickly and hugs a pillow to her chest. “Everything’s all blurry.” Her eye twitches—her lying tick. “But Em, I think I saw death tonight.”

  My muscles tense and my lips burst with a hundred questions. But her cries alter into hysterical sobs. I sigh, deciding not to press until morning when she’s gotten some rest and sobered up. I grab some pajamas and head to the bathroom to shower.

  “Em… why does it look like you went swimming? And what did you do to your head?”

  “It’s a long story.” I sigh. “I’ll explain in the morning after you’ve got some rest.”

  She shuts her eyes. “Leave the light on, okay?”

  ***

  After a hot shower and fresh set of clothes, I stare at myself in the mirror with my hand over my heart. I died tonight. My heart stopped beating, and then revived, all because of Asher. But how did he save my life? It felt like when my grandma died, and her life entered me.

  I tiptoe back into my room. Raven is passed out on her stomach taking up the bed. I cover her up with a blanket and notice bruises on her wrists and elbows. Her shirt is torn and there’s a small scratch across her shoulder blade in the shape of an X.

  “What happened to you tonight?” I whisper, placing a finger lightly on the spot. She winces and rolls over.

  My brain is growling and my skull feels cracked. I grab a blanket, snatch a black marker from my dresser, and hide out in the closet. I situate on the floor, near the wall that displays the rest of my ramblings, and press the marker to the wall. It’s like my hand is possessed.

  Like a feather in a dust storm, with no direction

  The Raven flies through life, helpless and omitted

  Until night declares and the wind expires.

  Then it flies to the land of stones and etchings

  And becomes an Ember, breaking away.

  I decide my poetry might be off tonight so I set the marker down, but my hand takes on its own life, forcing the tip to the wall again. I scratch down X after X until they nearly cover the wall, pushing so hard it peels through the paint. Then, in the center, I sketch an hourglass.

  The marker falls from my hand and I scoot away from the wall. I blink and blink again, but the drawing stays. Is this aftermath of the accident? Or am I starting to lose my mind, just like my dad?

  I fall back on the floor, exhausted. Seconds later, I drift asleep.

  Chapter 5

  A week before my dad’s disappearance, he was acting strange. One day when I came home from school, I found him in the garage with his head tucked under the hood of the car and the engine running. I hurried and pushed the garage open and he coughed as the door rolled open.

  “Sorry, Emmy,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was shut.”

  I walked down the steps and peered under the hood. “Dad, are you okay…” The inside of the hood was covered in little red X’s. “What are those?”

  “I’m not sure… I don’t remember how they got there.” He slammed the hood and I had to jerk back to avoid my fingers getting squished. “But you don’t need to worry about me, Emmy. I got everything under control. What I need for you to do is find that necklace Grandma gave you.”

  “The maroon stone one?”

  He perked up. “Yeah, do you know where it is?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure where I put it… but I’ll start checking in the boxes in the basement, if you want.”

  He nodded and a flicker of yellow lit in his grey eyes. “Could you do that for me, Emmy? Please?” he asked and I nodded. Then he glances over his shoulder at the wall. “Do you see anything behind me?”

  I shook my head. “There’s nothing there but the wall and the toolbox.”

  He hopped into the passenger seat of his car, and took out a small knife from the glove box. “Good. Now go find the necklace.”

  Through the open garage door, a raven flew in and landed in the beams, shaking its feathers to the ground. My dad went ballistic.

  “You get out of here, you little demon!” He threw a screwdriver at the raven, but missed. The raven cawed, tormenting him. “Get out!” As it flew away, he relaxed. “Emmy, if there’s one thing you need to know about life, it’s to never trust anyone or anything. Life is a freaking mind game and you and I are the pawns.”

  It was the first time I worried he might be losing his mind. After that, he rapidly went downhill, especially when I couldn’t find the necklace.

  ***

  I wake up on the closet floor with my cheek pressed to the marker, a feather on my forehead, and the strange drawing on the wall.

  “What on earth?” Sitting up, I rub my eyes and blink at the sunlight glistening through the curtain. I pick up the feather and notice smudges of red paint on my hands. “What did I do last night?” I remember crashing into a lake, Asher saving me, and Raven crying. Then nothing. It’s like I’m hung-over, but I didn’t have a drop of alcohol last night.

  Raven’s not in bed and the room is cleaned up. It’s her way of saying sorry. The neighbor across the street watches me from their front porch as I flick the feather out the open window. I start to pull the window shut, but pause. Someone is looking up at me from the sidewalk. His hands are inserted in the pockets of his black jeans and black eyeliner contours his eyes. His skin is as pale as a ghost and his hair as black as a raven.

  “Laden?” I squint.

  His gaze holds mine and a hostile smile
cambers on his lips.

  “What a creeper.” I pull the window shut and back away.

  I change into a pair of black plaid shorts and my favorite Alkaline Trio T-shirt. I scrub the red off my hands and the marker off my face. I dab some black eyeliner around my grey eyes, tousle my fingers through my long, black hair, and I’m good to go. The aches and pains from the accident have subsided, except for a minor headache and a tiny cut on my forehead, which has shrank in size.

  Raven and Ian are downstairs at the kitchen table. Raven’s denim skirt barely covers the top of her legs and she has her favorite pink shirt on, one that shows a lot of cleavage. Ian has a knitted beanie pulled over his messy brown hair and the jeans he’s wearing are spotted with various colors of paint.

  Raven bats her eyelashes at him and skims her fingernails up Ian’s arm. “God, that’s so cool.”

  “It’s so fabulous,” he says in his deep voice he only uses to impress girls. “You should totally come check it out.”

  “Oh, I bet it is.” Raven licks her lips and smiles, like everything is fine. She glances up at me and her smile brightens. “Em, darling, I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.” She hops up from the chair and links her arm through mine, scorching me with her omen. “See ya later, Ian.” She winks at him.

  “Later, beautiful,” he says and then targets his attention to me. “Hey, Em, have you talked to mom lately?”

  “No,” I say as Raven tugs me toward the front door. I wiggle my arm free and breathe in the death-free air. “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “I’m not sure.” He wanders into the foyer. “She’s been acting kind of weird. And not her normal weird… I caught her talking to herself, but it was almost like she was talking to someone that wasn’t there.”

  “Are you worried she’s not taking her meds again?” I gather my leather jacket from the coat rack. The fabric is crisp and still smells like murky lake water and fresh rain.

  “I’m not sure.” He glimpses at Raven and lowers his voice. “I was running low on mine, so I went to get some from her bottle, and it was full.”

  “Why didn’t you just go get a refill?” I slip on my jacket and dust off the dried dirt. “You guys don’t even have the same prescription.”

  “It’s all the same to me,” he says with a shrug. “Besides, that’s not the point. The prescription was from like a month ago.”

  Raven’s cell phone rings. She unlocks the door and walks onto the front lawn to answer it.

  “Well, we need to talk to her,” I tell him. “You know what she’s like when she’s not on them and the last thing she needs to go through again is another meltdown.”

  “I know,” he agrees gloomily. “Why don’t you make sure you’re home tonight and I’ll make something and we can sit down and talk to her?”

  “You’ll make something?”

  “Well, I’ll pick up something.”

  “Alright, I’ll be here then.” I step outside and shut the door.

  Raven’s still on the phone, bobbing her head up and down. “Yeah, uh-huh.” She mouths to me, Where’s your car?

  “That’s part of the long story,” I utter.

  Her face contorts. “Huh… No, not you,” she says into the phone.

  She carries on with her conversation while I stand on the curb by the spot where Asher dropped me off last night. The shock has worn off and I add up bits and pieces of the accident. Finally, I come to a mind-boggling conclusion: I should be dead. It happened exactly like my death omen said, but my heart is alive and my lungs breathe beneath my ribs.

  “So what happened to your car?” Raven strolls up to the curb and tucks the cell phone into the pocket of her denim skirt. “And why are you staring at the curb like it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”

  I jerk my eyes away. “What happened to you last night?”

  She bites at her bottom lip. “Well, things kind of got out of hand and I think I might have overacted.”

  “Overacted?” I question. “About what?”

  “Um… Laden being a jerk. I mean, he totally tried to put the moves on me, which is fine—I’m used to it. But I really wasn’t in the mood.”

  “I think I might have seen him standing in front of the house this morning.” I point over my shoulder at the spot.

  Her body goes rigid. “What was he doing?”

  “Staring at me like a weirdo.” My tone is light. “What exactly did you do to him last night? Break his heart into pieces?”

  She shakes her head, gazing off into empty space. “I didn’t do anything to him. He was the one who tried to push me too far.”

  “So that’s why you were crying?” I ask, watching crisp autumn leaves blow down the street. “Because he pushed you too far?”

  “Pushed too far…” She pulls her hair into a bun and secures it with an elastic off her wrist. “Look Em, I know I freaked out on you last night, but I swear it isn’t what you’re thinking. No one slipped me a roofie and I wasn’t as drunk as you thought.”

  We jump back from the curb as the sprinklers turn on. “Then what was that talk about seeing death?”

  “What are you talking about?” she asks as we run to the edge of the driveway, out of the reach of the sprinkler. Our shoes and the bottoms of our legs are wet.

  I lower my voice. “You said you saw death last night.”

  She takes a pack of gum out of her pocket and pops a piece into her mouth. “I did?”

  “Yup. And you were more than just upset—you were freaking out.”

  She pops a bubble. “Hmm…. Maybe I wasn’t as sober as I thought. Or maybe your gift was confusing my head.” She chews on her gum slowly, considering. “Well, I don’t know why I was talking about death, but I was upset because this really hot guy totally wasn’t that into me, so I wandered off with Laden because he was interested.”

  “I’ve never seen you that upset, except for once.” Right after she found her mom. “Guys are disposable to you. How could you be so upset because one blew you off?”

  “Okay, first off, he didn’t blow me off.” She flares up her hands and sways her head with attitude. “He was just distracted. And besides, that’s not the only reason I was upset. Laden left me on the side of the road like a total douchebag.”

  I gape at her. “How did you get home?”

  “I walked,” she explains nonchalantly. “We were just on the bridge, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

  “It seemed like a big deal last night,” I point out.

  She sighs and sits down on the curb. I plop down beside her and we stretch our legs out into the road as the sun shines down on us. “Remember when we used to sit here and wait for my dad to come home?”

  I give her a small smile and lean back on my hands. “He always used to bring something for us, like a candy or Play-Doh.”

  She laughs at the memory and her eyes crinkle at the corners. “God, he always seemed like such a great dad, but he turned out to be a total jerk, bailing on his kids like that.”

  “It wasn’t your fault he left.” I stare at the jack-o’-lanterns on the porch of the house across the street, remembering when Raven’s dad helped us make one that looked like a cat. It was one of our rare perfect moments, full of weightless laughter, pumpkin seeds, and the gentle autumn air.

  “I know. It was my mom and her stupid drug habit.” She pauses, her jaw taut. “How did we end up with such crappy parents?” Her eyes widen. “Oh crap, I didn’t mean that. Your dad was a good guy. He just had some bad habits.”

  “Like stealing cars,” I mutter, gazing up at the clear sky.

  “I said I was sorry… Look, I’m still pissed off about that guy last night and I don’t even know why I’m saying this stuff.”

  “It’s fine.” I flick a gnat off my knee. “But I have to know something.”

  She rubs some lip gloss over her lips. “What’s up?”

  I know what she wants me to say—what will make her feel better. “How hot was the guy?” />
  Her eyes light up and she squeals. “Oh my God, he was so hot. Seriously, Em, like hotter than any of the losers at our school.”

  “And how old is he?”

  “He’s a junior, like us. He actually just moved here from New York.”

  A lump rises in my throat. “Oh yeah? New York, huh. That’s pretty awesome.”

  “It’s not pretty awesome. It’s amazing.” Her voice effervesces. “And he’s got these really beautiful dark eyes and his sexy eyebrow ring.”