Invisible (The Curse of Avalon Book 1)
Page 1
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
EPILOGUE
© 2017 Sariah Skye
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: sariahskyeauthor@gmail.com
Cover by CRIMSON PHOENIX CREATIONS
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTES
OTHER WORKS:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
For author Yumoyori Wilson, for inspiring me to try something new!
PROLOGUE
I was about to throw up on every person in this room. The Niagara Falls of vomit was about to happen, and there was little I could do to change it.
“Avie...are you okay?” My best friend Summer touched my shoulder lightly from her seat behind me.
I weakly turned to look at her; my whole body shaking. Her brown eyes widened, and she knew I was not okay.
“Maybe you should go to the nurse?” She suggested.
I shook my head. “I doubt Mr. Drysdale would let me. I’ve been there every day this week.”
Summer scoffed. “Screw that, you’re sick.”
I rolled my eyes briefly, wiping perspiration off my forehead with the back of my hand. “I’m not sick; I’m anxious.”
“Anxiety is a sickness—you need to go get your medicine!” Summer urged me. The two of us sat in the back of the classroom, but even from this distance, Mr. Drysdale could hear a fly fart from across the classroom. I swear, he was a damn vampire with that sensitive hearing of his—Hell, he was old enough to be one. Regardless, he was an ass, and not the donkey variety. I hated him.
I put a finger to my lips and shushed her. “You know he doesn’t think anxiety disorder is a real illness.” I frowned, taking a brief look at him.
Mr. Drysdale was about four-hundred years old, with murky hazel eyes, and a long, white Santa beard. Though, he was nothing like Santa. Mr. Drysdale was a horrible, rotten man, and I’m pretty sure that he sacrificed children to demons in his backyard. You know, for “funsies.”
His favorite thing, even though he was a social studies teacher (not a speech teacher!), was making everyone give presentations every semester. I’d gotten lucky, and hadn’t had him last semester. But this time, my luck ran out.
I hated presentations. Being the center of attention in a large room, all eyes on me was enough to make me throw up, pass out, hyperventilate, or all the above. Classic symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, of which I suffered, but Mr. Drysdale didn’t care. No matter how my mother argued with him, he wouldn’t budge. He’d say, “Give the presentation, or flunk the class.” I wished I was a witch so I could put a nasty curse on him. Maybe give him a raging case of hemorrhoids. Oh, and leprosy. That too. All his limbs could fall off—except for the hemorrhoid of course.
It was a lot of pressure to put on a seventh grader with anxiety problems. He claimed that if we couldn’t handle public speaking now, we’d never make it in the real world. And, the presentations were at least half of our semester’s grade. So, either learn to be good, or flunk.
Flunking was sounding better and better right now.
To make things worse, he videotaped each presenter, and pointed out your flaws later. If you were really good—or really bad—he would show your video to his honors class: a group of really snotty, self-absorbed know-it-alls that loved to feel superior. In every walk of life except Social Studies class, they were the nerds – the bullied. In Drysdale’s honors class: they were the bullies.
I was pretty sure that Mr. Drysdale had been the victim of one too many wedgies in his life; and he was determined to pay it forward to anyone he could. Even though I wasn’t popular. I didn’t have a lot of friends; I kept to myself. Summer was pretty much all I had. Oh, and my dog. Otherwise I was pretty much ignored. Which suited me fine because of this…anxiety thing.
“Next presenter!” Mr. Drysdale’s raspy voice called, as he stood in front of the classroom, reading from a clipboard. He searched the room and his eyes landed on Summer and me. She had already gone, so clearly—I was next. I swallowed a huge lump of panic that had gathered in my throat.
My heart nearly stopped; the bile burned and churned in my stomach. My skin was clammy and cold, though my insides were on absolute fire: I was about to lose it.
I would give anything if only he couldn’t see me. I squinted my eyes shut and clutched the cold, steel bars underneath the single-person desk that I sat on.
“It’s okay, Avie…it’s okay…” Summer tried to soothe me, rubbing the back of my neck with her fingers. “You’ll be fine.”
I dared to open an eye. Mr. Drysdale’s gaze was fixed right on me.
The vomit started raising. I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to prevent completely losing my lunch. Yep, Mt. Barf-a-suvious was about to erupt.
His rheumatic eyes searched me. He opened his mouth; he was about to call my name.
Please go away…I wish I could be invisible. Please, let me be invisible!
Mr. Drysdale shut his mouth. He glanced at me, confused, scratching his head. He set the clipboard down at the podium that he stood behind, and brushed off the front of his ugly, old-man-white, and blue checked shirt.
I dry heaved. My immediate vision started go black before me, and I became woozy. I clenched my eyelids closed, and prayed for a miracle.
“Avie?” My head began to roll. Summer clutched my shoulders.
“Jason Collins, you’re up next.”
My eyes flew open and I inhaled deeply. The influx of air helped to relax my body. The bile started to rest and my vision returned to normal. Sorta.
Even though he looked right at me; I had been sure I was next.
But he never called me. Not that day, not the rest of the year. He never called on me ever again. It was like I wasn’t there. For roll call, he’d read my name off, but never really set eyes on me as he marked me present. Somehow, I got a grade on my work, but there were no comments on my report card about my lack of presentation. In fact, it was never really acknowledged at all.
And I couldn’t be more relieved.
Or confused. But, for now, I wasn’t going to push my luck. Eventually, it’d catch up with me. For now, I was just glad to be ignored. Surely, it couldn’t last forever, right?
CHAPTER 1
“So, what do you do for a living?”
I looked across the table at my dining companion. The dishwater-blond haired man had a fork in one hand, and his phone in the other. His thumb swept across the screen rapidly, his eyes darting back and forth as he stared.
I blinked once, and sighed heavily. Great. Another one. Clearly, he didn’t hear a word I said.
I don’t know really why I was surprised; it always happened. Girl rarely goes on dates, when girl does, girl gets ignored by guy who is more interested in his phone. Or the sports game on the big screen across the room, or ogling the waitresses. Anything but the girl.
Glancing at my silver wrist watch, I could see that we’d only been here forty-five minutes. Long enough to order drinks and receive our meals. He’d been on his phone for forty of that.
I swallowed a large swig of my iced tea, and slammed the glass down on the table; just hard enough to make a noise, hoping it would bring him out of his phone-induced stupor. The silverware on the table rattled, the plates full of food shook, but the man didn’t appear rattled. His name was James, but right now he was just “the man.” Because like all the others, he was being completely rude by ignoring me.
“Wow, that’s interesting!” I said loudly. “Sure beats my job at the morgue. Seeing frozen penises all day long really gets quite hard.” I stifled a chuckle at my own lame joke. I didn’t really work at a morgue—that would be disgusting—but surely either the word “morgue” or “penis” would get his attention finally. It didn’t. His eyes remained glued to the screen, although now his fork had dropped, and he was typing messages with both thumbs into the phone.
I scowled. “Yep. It gets really interesting doing what I do, dealing with the genital warts I have. It’s the worst, but I have a cream that eases the chafing. Looks like hell but you don’t mind red, itchy clitorises, do you?” Surely, clitoris had to get his attention.
Nope.
Time to pull out the big guns.
I looked down and unfastened two buttons on my black cardigan sweater. Adjusting my boobs so they nearly spilled out, I leaned over the table, coughing loudly.
My date glanced up from his phone momentarily. His eyes grazed me briefly. “I’m sorry, Eve, were you saying something?” Before I could respond, his phone buzzed, and he was back to typing away.
I sat up straight. “It’s Ava, jerk. Seriously, I get it if you are not interested in me, but I at least deserve enough respect to have you set your fucking phone down.”
“You’re absolutely right, Evie,” he said, bobbing his head in agreement, still texting away on his phone.
I rolled my eyes, grabbing my purse next to me. “You’re a dickhole.” I stood up, shoved the chair into the table forcefully and stomped through the restaurant; leaving the rest of my drink and uneaten meal behind. Also, the bill. Ha. James didn’t even glance up as I stormed off to my car in the parking lot.
Summer is going to get it, I thought angrily to myself as I drove home. She promised me this guy would be different; that she swore that her friend’s brother was a nice, upstanding guy.
Ha.
And maybe he was, but I had the worst luck with men. Ever. I was just completely invisible to them. James wasn’t the first man this had happened with. Literally, since I was old enough to realize I liked boys and had crushes, I’ve always been ignored; looked over for the prettier girl. The popular girl. The easy girl.
Somewhere along the line you think boys would have grown up, but clearly, they haven’t. Now though, they couldn’t know I wasn’t the popular girl or the promiscuous girl right off the bat, or the girl they wanted. Just maybe I was. Hell, I very well could be the slutty girl, if given a chance! But this was at least the third date I’d gone on all summer where the guy couldn’t get off of his phone. And it was only the second week of July. Summer just started.
Fuck me, I thought, rolling my eyes at my reflection in the rearview mirror of my silver Toyota as I paused at a stoplight. Crowds of young people lined up along the buildings of Hennepin Avenue, waiting to get into clubs; to drink, and grind against each other for a good time. I frowned, trying not to be resentful. Summer and I still had a good time. I just rarely went home with anyone afterwards.
Though, she always did. Not of the male variety though, if you catch my drift.
A car horn honked behind me; apparently the light had been green for a few moments now. I waved a “sorry” in my rearview mirror and sped off towards the freeway.
The further I escaped from the city, to the suburbs of Minneapolis, the emptier the roads became, until it was just myself and another car on the freeway. That seemed strange to me for a Friday night, but the really strange part was the only other car on the road happened to be matching my speed.
“Probably just one of those stupid speed monitors,” I said to myself. I couldn’t stand those; he didn’t want to go over fifty-five miles an hour so no one could.
Rolling my eyes, I laid on the gas pedal gently, and sped past him; doing about sixty, then sixty-five.
The car—a dark-colored antique automotive boat of some kind, with tinted windows so I couldn’t see inside—sped forward itself and matched my speed.
“The fuck?” I muttered, touching the brake with my toe slightly, easing off the speed. No one was behind me so, I knew I wouldn’t be causing any problems except for the jerkoff in the next car.
I sped back up, doing seventy. His engine revved and matched my speed.
“Shit…” I noticed my turn off on the green highway sign overhead, announcing I had a quarter of a mile. And since he was in the right lane—trying to block me like a wall, I was going to have to speed up super-fast, and cut the fucker off to make my exit. So I did, laying on the gas, shooting my little Toyota up to eighty; her pathetic little four-cylinder engine whining as I asked for more power.
The other car sped up too, but I had a small lead on him. I knew though with an engine like the one in his car he’d catch up quickly. I whipped the steering wheel to the right, and the tires squealed as they cut into the right lane. The car, now behind me, had to slam on its brakes to avoid hitting me.
Seeing the headlights in the rearview mirror grow smaller and smaller, I let out a sigh of relief. I scoffed. “Whatever that was…”
I paused at the stop sign before the road that would lead me into my quiet neighborhood when I noticed headlights in my mirror once again. There was no other lane for him to switch into, so instead he decided to ride my bumper.
I gestured in the mirror, rudely, that clearly said, “What the fuck, dude?” But he didn’t back off.
I swallowed nervously, as I turned and headed into my quiet neighborhood. I was hoping maybe he was just impatient to get to his house, but he remained inches from my back bumper, following me along the way down the road. The streets again were empty, lit only by the lamp posts overhead. I was so concerned, watching the mystery douche in the mirror when I caught sight of a tall, broad-shouldered, built-like-a-brick-shithouse man on the sidewalk outside of my house.
I was so startled, between him and the weird car behind me, I
missed the driveway and nearly crashed into my neighbor’s garbage cans.
I squinted my eyes shut, waiting for the impact of the fucker behind me to slam into my rear…but it didn’t happen.
I dared to peek my eyes open; the shit-brickhouse man stood there, menacingly glaring at the stalker car.
The wheels squealed, and without warning it sped down the street, leaving smoke and dust in its wake.
I was paused, nearly in my neighbor’s driveway, my tail end half in the street, as I caught the eye of the man on the sidewalk.
I didn’t want to make it apparent that I was staring—but I couldn’t help it. He was good-looking. Very sexy, with brown hair that was combed back and cut short along the sides, brooding lips, and a well-groomed, dark beard, cut close to his skin. Almost like a shadow. I slowly put my car into reverse, eyeing him the entire way. He seemed to gaze past me until I was nearly upon him on the sidewalk. His brown eyes snapped upward and landed on my face.
I swallowed; the look of his intense stare making me uncomfortable. And distracted, as I totally just drove past my driveway. Again.
“Shit!” I exclaimed. Exasperated, I slammed on the brakes and threw the car into reverse, the mysterious hottie still staring at me as he stopped before the driveway.
My heart beat rapidly, and my breath hitched. Just looking at him had been the most erotic experience of the past year at least—if not ever. He was beautiful, and just his mere gaze was fogging my brain to the point that I nearly plowed into Summer’s Jeep as I finally managed to pull into the driveway. My brakes squealed as I pumped them to avoid my friend’s car.
“Damn, Avie!” I heard a voice, full of feminine attitude cry out. Summer Santiago, my best friend and roommate, came dashing out of the front door. “Girl, what the hell you doing?” She didn’t wait for me to shut the engine off; she opened the driver’s side door and stood there, hands on her hips, waiting for an explanation.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Sum… I just got distracted. I almost hit this guy that—” I checked out my rearview mirror for him but he’d walked out of view. Craning my head over my shoulder, I tried to see him through the rear windshield, but there was no sign of him.