Free Spirit: Book Two of The Bound Spirit Series

by H. A. Wills

  Donovan pauses and crosses his arms, his bulging frame brushing against Nolan and Kaleb. He taps out a rapid tattoo against his leather clad bicep, then releases a slow breath and confesses, “I remember when I was like six or something, overhearing my parents talk about a family that was staged to look like they were seated for dinner, except dinner was the family’s internal organs. It was like the world’s most fucked up Rockwell painting, with a nice, cozy fire burning in the hearth and everything.”

  “You never told me that,” Kaleb says, his gaze searching Donovan’s body language, while his tone is a mix of surprised and hurt.

  Donovan shrugs. “Not the best family memory.”

  “Well, I’m not hungry anymore,” Nolan comments under his breath.

  A twisted half smile pulls at Donovan’s mouth, and he exhales a huff of a laugh.

  The noise of the rain seems to fade away, Donovan’s story encapsulating us into a world far from the dreary normalcy of a random Tuesday at school. Any appetite I might’ve had is gone, instead my stomach is suspended in a weird feeling of free fall. Every passing day seems to rip away a new layer of what I thought I knew and leave me bleeding.

  “Why?” I croak, then clear my throat. “Why your family specifically? Did your parents just have the shitty luck of finding them first?”

  Everyone looks away from me, which I’m starting to learn is the signal that my rabbit hole is about to get a whole lot deeper. I’m never going to reach the bottom, am I?

  “Like I told you, I’m the last of my line,” Donovan says to the wall behind my head. “That didn’t happen by freak accident, and these aren’t the first demons to focus on taking us all out.” He swallows heavily. “They’re just the ones that focused on our particular branch of this fucked up tree.”

  My hands turn to fists, the fabric of my sleeves clutched tight between my fingers. Connor places a warm, comforting hand on the middle of my back while Nolan starts petting my hair, as if sensing my growing frustration along with my fear. These half answers never end with something that makes everything better.

  “And your fucked up tree is special because...?” I ask, the question trailing off in a tone that reminds him I was promised the full story.

  “Callie, first I think we need to explain...” Kaleb starts, but once again is interrupted by Donovan.

  “I’m the last of the Morning Star line,” he says bluntly, his gaze shifting to my face with challenge in his eyes and a hard tic to his jaw.

  As in Lucifer, the Morning Star? Aka The Light Bringer. Aka The Devil. That Morning Star? And here I thought I was the only one descended from Satan, is the first thing that pops in my head. As per usual, I have no idea what the fuck this means besides the obvious.

  “Deodamnatus,” Kaleb grunts, pinching his nose and sounding at the end of his patience. “You say it like it makes you evil to be descended from Lucifer, when you and I both know it doesn’t.”

  “Not evil. Just cursed,” he replies flippantly.

  When Kaleb sees the exasperated look taking over my face, he turns to Donovan and asks, “Are you done, or do you want to explain the intricacies of Hell so Callie can understand the actual significance of your ancestry?”

  “Go for it, all knowing one,” Donovan answers with an insolent sneer.

  “You sure?” Kaleb challenges, folding his arms and mirroring Donovan’s body language. “Wouldn’t want me to leave anything out or sugar coat it.”

  Connor sighs, shifting his weight to his right foot, which is closer to me.

  “Oh my god,” I groan, releasing my sleeves so that I can drop my face into my hands. “I can’t tell if you sound more like brothers or an old married couple.”

  Nolan snickers and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Sometimes we can’t tell either,” he stage whispers in my ear.

  “Wait,” I say, when another wave of the fuck crashes over me, and peeking through my fingers, I ask, “God’s real, isn’t he?”

  Kaleb glances over to me, his expression shifting for a moment to scholarly warmth, as he answers, “Yes, though not quite as humans’ religious texts imagine him. He’s the consciousness of the afterlife and creator of all that exists there, similar to what Mildred referred to as Mother Earth for the mortal realm.”

  “Right.” I suck on my front teeth and try to swallow the hysteria that’s bubbling up inside. “So, uh, later we’re going to have to discuss the whole entire realms having a form of consciousness, and let’s get back to the intricacies of Hell and what I need to understand about the devil.”

  I’ve gone from living through figurative Hell to discussing the workings of literal Hell. I don’t think there’s a strong enough word to describe the sheer weirdness that my life has become.

  I lean into Nolan, my head resting on his shoulder, waiting for when all this shit will make sense.

  Kaleb and Donovan go back to staring each other down, now both with their arms crossed over their chests. Kaleb has one brow raised, as if to say, ‘You’re sure, you’re sure?’ While Donovan squints back, expressing something to the lines of, ‘Go ahead, since you seem to think you know it all.’

  “For fuck’s sake, one of you tell me,” I snap, desperate to have at least one thing make sense. “Hell, turn it into a song and fucking sing it as a duet. I don’t care, just someone explain it to me.”

  And that’s it. What little gravitas the situation had is lost, and they all bust up laughing.

  “I’m glad I amuse you,” I grumble, my head rolling up to look at the overhang above us. “You know what? Don’t tell me. Just point me in the direction of The Dummies Guide for the Supernatural, and I’ll learn it myself.”

  This earns another round of uproarious laughter. Even Connor is audibly snickering.

  I lean my head to the side, so I can look over at him. “Et tu, Brute?”

  He smirks down at me and pats my shoulder, wisely choosing not to pat the side of my face.

  While they’re all still wheezing and giggling, there’s a sharp tap on the glass window that startles me, and a male teacher pokes his head outside.

  “What are you guys doing out here?” He grunts, his eyes clearly looking for some type of contraband.

  “It was stuffy inside,” I answer, my annoyance over being interrupted hard to hide from my voice. “We needed some fresh air.”

  Damn it! Now I’ll have to corner one of them to explain Hell to me-- or maybe Mildred knows. Oh, maybe witches have books explaining other supernaturals! I mean, we’re supposed to be the supernatural police or something.

  The teacher gives each of us a hard glare before demanding, “Get back inside. No students are allowed out here without a supervisor present.”

  Only Kaleb can seem to manage an expression that comes close to contrite, the rest of us an array of blank indifference to annoyed-- mostly I fall under the annoyed department. The teacher holds the door open for us, and we all file back inside. The air is once again warm and stifling, like getting smacked in the face with a wet towel. Once we’re all inside, he closes the door and is quickly off across the cafeteria to go yell at some other students that are sitting on the table instead of the bench seats.

  Fortunately, our table is still empty-- maybe this is the table the guys always sit at when it rains, and no one would dare risk a confrontation with Donovan or Connor. We all flop back down in our original seats.

  I rest my head in my hands and try to figure out how to ask about Hell in a way that the general populous won’t understand, when a moron with a death wish intentionally bumps into the back of Donovan, making a “tsh” sound while pantomiming the crack of a whip. A group of his neanderthal friends howl like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen.

  I spoke too soon.

  “The fuck,” Donovan growls, his expression morphing into a promise of pain, as he slowly turns around with his back now facing the lunch table.

  At first, I’m simply stunned. I mean, I’m not scared of Donovan, but for all i
ntents and purposes, I can’t be killed-- or even maimed for too long, really. Neither can be said for this random idiot.

  The guy gets a calculating look in his eyes, his gaze shifting from his friends and the menacing expression carved across Donovan’s face. Taking a few steps back, he taunts, “Does she keep your balls in individual bags, or do they just roll around at the bottom of her purse?”

  “The fuck did you just say?” Nolan purrs, his eyes narrowing to slits and his hands bracing on the table ready to stand.

  I place a hand on his shoulder, attempting to discourage any vampire voodoo he’s about to perform. My heart starts to pound in my ears, as I feel the coiling of his muscles under my fingers.

  Connor goes scary still, his head leaning to the side like he’s listening to more than the confrontation in front of us. Oh shit.

  Kaleb’s hands curl into fists on top of the table. There’s a hard tick to his jaw from him gritting his teeth, and there’s angry indecision in his eyes.

  “Guys, please. Just let it go,” I plead, my fingers clawing into Nolan’s shoulder to keep him still. “They’re just being assholes and aren’t worth the suspensions.”

  “Guys, please,” the moron echoes in a mocking high falsetto, then sneers because he doesn’t want it to be a quick death, “So, on top of snipping your balls, she has you all on leashes.”

  Hearing that, both Donovan and Connor stand, and the moron’s friends aren’t laughing anymore. At more than half a foot taller, Connor looms over the group of boys and glares at them with a cold fury that promises, if they’re lucky, only a shit ton of broken bones.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity. Fuck. Fuck. This is so not going to end well.

  While Connor terrifies the group of boys so bad that they look ready to wet themselves, Donovan grabs the moron by his sweatshirt and begins to lift the guy off the ground.

  “You better hope she holds my leash,” he threatens, his aqua eyes blazing as he stares down the moron, “because otherwise, I will fucking end you-- and no one will miss your sorry ass.”

  Appropriate amounts of fear start to make its way across the guy’s face, as it begins to dawn on him that the huge crowd of witnesses he thought would protect him from the guys acting rashly, are actually cover to keep them from being seen by the administration. He swallows heavily, and his mouth flaps open and closed like a fish gasping for life.

  Kaleb rolls his shoulders, then slowly stands. Placing a hand on Donovan’s shoulder, he murmurs, “Not here. Not in front of Callie.”

  Since I don’t want the fight to happen, I’m choosing not to take offense to that and decide to have another discussion with Kaleb about what I can handle. When Connor and Donovan were sparring I was okay-- well, I didn’t have an episode. Then I consider how this guy doesn’t have a chance against Donovan. I can mentally hear the screams, the crunching of bones, the meaty thud of fist against flesh, and I shiver. Yeah, okay. He may have a point.

  Donovan glances at Kaleb, then at me, before growling, “Run. Run far. Run fast. And pray to fucking god that I don’t find you when they’re not around to stop me.”

  He let’s go, and the moron crumples to the floor. Quickly, he scrambles back to his feet, and the linoleum squeaks with how fast he and his friends sprint away.

  “The fuck you looking at?” Donovan snarls at the surrounding students that are silently gawking at us. With one look at him, in almost unison, they turn back around and suddenly find their dwindling lunches fascinating.

  After another warning glare from Connor and Donovan that promises extreme pain if anyone is dumb enough to mess with us again, they all return to their seats.

  “Stupid must be fucking contagious,” Donovan grumbles, “because I swear I remember warning some other dumb shit last week that messing with Callie doesn’t end well.”

  “I remember,” Kaleb mutters, before sighing, “Did you have to threaten to kill him? The administration takes that seriously, and they’ll believe that filius canis over you-- especially since it’s true.”

  “So what?” Donovan replies, with a shrug that encapsulates how little he cares. “I’ll get detention, or if they really want to make an example of me, in-school suspension. Doesn’t really matter to me.”

  Kaleb buries his head in his hands. “I wish you’d care just a little bit-- at least enough so your name isn’t on every administrator’s faex list.”

  “Shit list,” he mocks with a hard roll of his eyes. “You can say it. There won’t be anarchy in the streets if ‘Perfect Kaleb’ swears in English.”

  True irritation takes over Kaleb’s face, as he turns to glower at Donovan. He snarls, “Futue te ipsi, es mundus excrementi. Potes meos suaviari clunes.”

  Donovan whoops, a huge grin taking over his face. “God damn, man. You nearly made me blush.”

  Kaleb throws his arms up in the air in defeat, then rubs at his eyes, muttering, “I don’t know why I bother.”

  I really need to learn Latin. It seems like I’m missing the opportunity to add some good curse words to my vocabulary.

  Nolan surprises me out of my thoughts when he murmurs, “Callie love, you can let go now.”

  I look over at my hand on his shoulder, and find his fingers curling under my own in attempts to loosen my vice like grip.

  “Shit, sorry,” I apologize, snapping my hand back.

  He wraps both his arms around me and shifts so my head is against his shoulder. “I wouldn’t have hurt them,” he assures, speaking quietly to the top of my head.

  Not physically, I think to myself, but reply, “Can’t be too careful with you lot.”

  Nolan chuckles. “True. Thanks to D and Con, those idiots are going to be scared of their own shadows for weeks.”

  “What I don’t understand is what would possess those idiots into causing the confrontation in the first place?” Kaleb ponders out loud. “As much as I disagree with the tactic, Donovan’s abrasiveness has left most terrified to look him in the eye, let alone say something disparaging to his face.”

  “They have a death wish?” Donovan replies with a smirk. “What I want to know is what the hell they meant? When did hanging out with a girl mean my nuts were clipped?”

  All the guys wince with that remark, before Connor growls, “New rumor.”

  Nolan sighs, resting his chin on my head. “What did the evil bitch say now?”

  “Callie freaked seeing you with another girl,” he answers with a bitter edge. “Threatened to hurt herself if we all didn’t leave the party.” His jaw flexes with how hard he grits his teeth and spits, “Calling her a manipulative, possessive psycho.”

  “That’s rich coming from her,” Donovan sneers with disgust.

  Kaleb offers me a look of gentle sympathy, as he seems to attempt to gauge my reaction.

  “Wow, this must be serious,” I joke in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Connor said three whole sentences-- it’s practically a monologue.”

  Unfortunately, this only earns a few pity laughs and a look from Connor.

  “I’m sorry, Callie,” Nolan murmurs, equal parts frustration and sorrow in his voice. “Gina has always been obsessed with me and thinks if she scares off any girl that gets near me, I’ll eventually come back to her. Which makes her delusional on top of being a bitch.” He releases a slow, deep breath that causes a few strands of hair to fall into my face. “I feel like I should’ve warned you before inviting you into our collection of misfit toys.”

  “Please,” I snort with a dark edge. “If anyone should come with a warning label, it’s me.” Relaxing more fully into him, I attempt to pat his hand, which is hard to do since his arms are wrapped over my own. “I’m okay, really. It’s not the worst I’ve been called, and there’s a twisted irony that of all the rumors she could make up about me, she chooses the one thing that I literally can’t do-- well to any great effect.”

  No one looks particularly amused with the irony. Tough crowd.

  “As glad as I am that you’re handling the rumo
rs so well, it doesn’t make what she’s doing okay,” Kaleb counters, crossing his arms and resting them on top of the lunch table. “You’re not the first person she’s done this to.”

  “And these aren’t your everyday high school bullshit rumors,” Nolan adds with derision.

  He lets me go, sits up, and shifts so we’re back to being next to each other verses leaning on each other. Sadness anchors in my chest with his retreat-- noticing it’s something he does every time Gina is brought up.

  He runs a hand through his hair, which somehow doesn’t mess it up, and explains quietly so as to not be overheard, “Her magic may be limited, but what little she has is air magic, and she’s perfected the spell to spread a rumor like fucking wildfire. Everyone that hears it believes it as fact, but nothing points back to her because no one can remember who told them.”

  “I’m getting real fucking tired of your ex,” Donovan snarls. “That bitch can’t keep getting away with this shit.”

  Connor grunts his agreement, and I can feel his body tense. I place one hand on his arm, and when he glances down at me, I offer up a weak smile. Flickers of different emotions cycle through his amber eyes, and my heart aches over the war that wages within him. I couldn’t care less what lies people believe about me. Hell, the only thing that would really do damage is if anyone found out the truth. But the fact these rumors are hurting my friends-- Bitch is going down.

  “Preaching to the damn choir,” Nolan replies to Donovan, but eerily fits with my internal thoughts. “This shit is one of the reasons I broke up with her in the first place. Someone would piss her off, then days later their reputation was ruined. Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long to get back to us. Must have been a slow weekend for her.”

  Before anyone can comment further, the bell rings announcing the end of lunch period. As we throw away our trash and collect our backpacks and coats, Nolan asks, “You guys coming over today after school?”

  Donovan and Kaleb shoot looks at each other, then Kaleb sighs, “We can’t. We have to help out with today’s evening service since we missed Sunday’s.”

  “Aww. What a cute little choir boy,” Nolan teases, reaching to try and pinch Donovan’s cheek, only to get his hand smacked away.