CSPWDT (YA Paranormal) ch. 1-4 (Patreon)

Here is chapter 1-4 of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, Book 1 in my Dead Things Series. If YA isn't your jam feel free to skip over or ignore it. My regular content will be out as usual tomorrow. 

This is just a sample. 

(I have no idea why I'm nervous about publishing this here, but I am.)

Chapter 1-Ember 

“You know, Ms. Landry, you have the best skin I’ve ever seen on a corpse,” Ember Denning told the body lying before her. “I would know; I’m a professional.” She dusted powder across the older woman’s cheeks, Ember’s whisper conspiratorial as she added, “But if you see your sister up there, don’t tell her I said so, since I may have said the same thing last month.”

Her latest client was predictably silent on the matter. She sighed. She needed livelier friends.

“Ember?”

Ember squeaked in terror, spinning around, makeup brush brandished before her like a weapon.

Her boss chuckled. “What are you going to do, rouge me to death?”

She dropped her hands and shrugged, defeated, going back to her task. “It’s a powder brush, actually.”

He looked at his watch. “What are you doing here, Ember?”

She furrowed her brow, hoping she looked suitably confused. “I work here?”

That got her the eyebrow. Miller Hammond was a lot of things—including the owner of the funeral home she stood in—but he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t buying it. He folded thick arms across his chest and fixed her with his best hardened stare. He was trying for threatening but with his dark freckled skin and kind eyes, he looked like he should be playing God in every movie.

“You know exactly what I mean. I thought you were going to the cemetery today?”

She shrugged, eyes sliding away. “The day’s technically not over yet.”

“Girl, do not play games with me,” he said. “You need to go see your father. You missed his wake. You cannot miss his burial. You need to see him before…” He trailed off, letting his words go unspoken.

He didn’t have to say it. She needed to see him before social services came to collect her. She didn’t see the point of shoving a seventeen-year-old into foster care for one year, but the social worker had assured Ember her opinion didn’t matter.

“Why do you even care?” she asked, tone casual as she slammed her brushes back into their proper containers. “He didn’t care about me when he was alive. Why should I care about him now that he’s dead? It’s not like he knows I’m there.”

He glanced at the old woman lying on the table. “Who are you trying to convince? You spend more time talking to the dead than the living.”

Her face flushed. She didn’t have a good answer, so instead, she said, “The difference is these people just died.” She snapped her rubber gloves off. “My father has been dead for years. Somebody just finally laid him down.”

“Ember,” he said, his voice soft with…something. Sympathy or maybe pity. “Your dad was troubled. He—”

“Was a drunk,” Ember finished.

“He loved you.” He moved towards her, but she held up her hand. He stopped, palms raised in surrender.

She hunched in on herself. She had a thing about personal space. But she gave him a ghost of a smile anyway. It wasn’t his fault she was weird. Miller was just trying to help. He was always trying to help.

“I…” she started, an apology dying on her lips.

“No. Nope. You don’t have to believe me, but you do have to listen to me. Not another word. Take your skinny behind out of here and go do what’s right. Now. I’ll have Alice finish up with Ms. Landry.”

I do not have a skinny behind, she thought with a huff. “Fine,” she said, snagging her sweater from the hook by the door. “But don’t blame me when she ends up looking like one of those queens on Bourbon Street.”

“Uh huh.” He waved a hand at her. “And you go straight home after the service. It’s going to be crazy in the quarter tonight. I don’t want you getting caught out in that.”

She rolled her eyes but nodded. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I mean it.”

“Okay!” Jeez, it’s not like it was her first day living in New Orleans. There was a festival in the quarter pretty much every day, especially this close to Halloween.

“Oh, and Ember.”

She turned with an exasperated sigh. “Yes?”

“Happy birthday.”

She gave him a lopsided smile. “Thanks.”

The walk to the cemetery was quick. People were already celebrating. Men wore skull masks and top hats, and women wore elaborate face paint and beautiful dresses in honor of Día de los Muertos. She stared longingly at a dark-haired girl with a huge red rose in her hair and sugar skull face paint. If Ember were an ordinary girl, she’d be preparing for the event with her friends. Despite sharing her birthday with the Day of the Dead, she’d never celebrated it.

She smiled at the girl as she passed, but the girl dropped her eyes and moved far away on the narrow sidewalk. People avoided Ember as if a force field existed around her. It didn’t hurt her feelings anymore. It was why she usually ignored Miller’s fatherly warnings about being careful. Nobody wanted to be near her. People were afraid of her. She just didn’t know why.

It was cold, even for that time of year. Swollen gray storm clouds marred the afternoon sky, casting the landscape around her in shadow. She pulled her sweater tighter, hoping her arm hid the largest hole. She shivered as the wind picked up and swirled the fallen leaves around her feet.

She wasn’t the first to arrive at the service. A sea of strangers, all gawking at her with undisguised interest, stood before the large tomb housing the remains of her father. Those gawking were mostly his students and other colleagues from the university, there to satisfy their morbid curiosity. Her father had no friends. It was hard to make friends when you spent your whole life as a barely functioning alcoholic. There weren’t many friends at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

She could feel their scrutiny like tiny daggers piercing her skin. She hated when people stared…and they always stared. Even in a city like New Orleans, a city that embraced voodoo, ghosts, vampires, and witches, Ember made them uneasy. She was strange looking—her hair too orange, too wild, her wide violet eyes too unnatural—but she didn’t think that was it. She wasn’t the only unusual looking person in the city, but New Orleans was a superstitious place, and something about her triggered people’s paranoia.

She clenched her jaw, a muscle popping as she ground her teeth. She just wasn’t herself since he died. Maybe she was getting sick. Thunder rumbled overhead, and she squinted into the sky, inhaling deeply. It smelled like rain. Of course, it was going to rain. She hadn’t brought an umbrella.

As the minutes ticked by, she became restless. She hated waiting. Couldn’t they just start this useless ritual already? People whispered to each other, their gazes heavy on her back, their hushed voices like tiny insects scuttling in her ears, making her skin crawl.

She glanced at the gates. She could go. She could just turn and leave. But everybody would see. She chewed at her thumbnail. What did she care what a bunch of strangers thought about her? She could do as she pleased. She had nobody to answer to.

Her breath caught on the thought. She had nobody. She stayed where she was, frozen.

A dark-skinned man in a long black robe ambled his way to the front of the crowd, smiling and shaking hands with the people, clasping them warmly on the shoulder like a visiting dignitary. The group quieted, and Ember watched as the woman closest to her smoothed her hands over her blouse as if there would be an inspection after the service. Ember rolled her eyes.

“Brothers and sisters.” The man’s voice boomed in the silence, echoing off the surrounding stones. “We are gathered here to say goodbye to a dear friend.”

She couldn’t help the snort that escaped, covering it with a cough as eyes snapped towards her. It was the reverend’s job to spout off platitudes about the dead, she reminded herself.

What was he going to say? “Dear friends, we’ve gathered to say goodbye to a man who was a lousy professor and an even worse father. A nasty, neglectful jerk who spent his days trying to decide if he would ignore his only child or verbally abuse her to the point of neuroses. He spent most nights passed out in his vomit, and none of us are sorry he’s gone.” This crowd would love that.

As he spoke, her anxiety grew. She felt feverish, a heat overtaking her body, starting at the soles of her feet and crawling higher as the minutes passed. Beads of perspiration formed on her upper lip despite the cold air whipping through the cemetery. She had to be coming down with something. She tuned out the preacher, her eyes fluttering as she swayed on her feet, vision swimming. She blinked hard several times and dabbed at the sweat on her forehead with her sleeve. Was she going to pass out?

A wave of black umbrellas swung into the air as the sky opened up. People huddled together, trying to ward off the frigid cold and the sudden downpour of rain. Ember made no move to protect herself from the torrent, all her energy focused on remaining upright. Her hair stuck to her face, her sweater and black dress clinging like a second skin. She should be freezing but she was in flames, her mouth dry and head stuffed with cotton. What was happening to her?

The preacher droned on despite the weather. The woman in the blouse rushed forward to shield the good reverend with her obnoxiously large black umbrella. What was this lady’s deal? Was she trying for extra grace in Heaven? Ember’s fingers buzzed like she held a live wire, the sensation growing until she was sure a million fire ants writhed beneath her skin, scratching and biting.

People inched farther away from her. Could they see what was happening, or did they simply question the sanity of a girl who didn’t have the sense to get out of the rain?

Her eyes scanned the perimeter, looking anywhere but at the crowd. At first glance, she thought him a statue, an apparition in the deluge of rain. He sat perched on top of a mausoleum, crouched like a gargoyle with his elbows on his knees, a hood shrouding his face. Three stone crosses rose behind him, giving him the appearance of a post-apocalyptic monk guarding a sacred shrine.

That feeling beneath her skin intensified, and she fought the urge to tear at her flesh with her nails. She balled her hands into fists, clenching until her nails pushed tiny half-moons into her palms. The pain brought the tiniest bit of relief if she just focused on it and not the razor blades beneath her skin.

It hit her then—pain like a lightning bolt, ripping through her skull. She would have hit her knees, but she was paralyzed, hanging like a marionette doll controlled by some unseen puppet master. Her limbs wouldn’t budge, cement heavy and useless. She tried to scream, but no sound came. Nobody looked her way. Could they not see there was something wrong with her?

Dread clung to her, as real as the fabric against her skin. She was on fire. She needed to cool down, but the rain was as hot and thick as the blood pounding in her ears.

She was going to die like this, standing at her father’s funeral, drenched and in agony.

Her eyes settled on the figure in the distance. If he was a monk, maybe he’d hear her prayers. Maybe he could end her misery. He tilted his head, and she stupidly thought maybe he’d heard her somehow. Maybe he could sense what was happening.

He stood then, rising from the top of the tomb like another spire. He pushed back his hood, but she still couldn’t see his face. Why couldn’t she see his face? She needed him closer…needed to see him, to know he saw her. She was going crazy. What did it matter what he looked like? He was too far away to help. She was going to die there and he was going to watch.

She found the idea weirdly comforting. At least she wouldn’t be entirely alone in the end, not like her dad. Another shot of pain seared through her, her vision whiting out. She hoped it happened soon. At this point, she welcomed losing consciousness. Anything to make the pain stop. But if she closed her eyes would she only pass out? She didn’t think so. Her panic ratcheted. She knew with a sick certainty that if she closed her eyes, if she succumbed to this…feeling, she was going to die. She didn’t want to die. Tears gathered in her eyes before slipping down her cheeks.

Ember felt it then—a slippery coolness washing over her. Icy fingers pressed against her temples, working their way under her skin and soothing the searing heat, like ice water through her veins.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, eyes closed, breathing deep, letting the break overtake her. When the sensation faded, she opened her eyes. It wasn’t raining anymore. She watched the crowd drift away, not one of them ever looking back at her. She blinked, trying to clear the frosty cobwebs clouding her brain, and took a timid step forward, shoulders dropping in relief when she found her limbs were working.

She looked to the mausoleum in the distance, but there was nobody there. Had he ever really been there?

Was this what it felt like to go crazy?

Chapter 2 - Mace

Mace kept his head down and his sopping wet hood up. It may not have protected him against the weather but it afforded him some anonymity. She had seen him in the cemetery, forcing him to hang back farther than usual. He wasn’t afraid of losing her. The girl only had three destinations: the funeral parlor, the cemetery, or that ramshackle apartment she called home. The greater concern was her getting to that home in one piece.

He weaved through the crowd of drunken revelers, doing his best to keep her in his sights. She paid no attention to her surroundings, drifting along in a daze. She stepped in front of a cab, earning her a honk and a shout in Creole. She didn’t even acknowledge the angry man hanging out his window.

Mace couldn’t decide if the girl had left her father’s funeral with a death wish or if this was the after-effect from the incident in that cemetery.

It didn’t matter to him either way. He’d spent the last seven days bored out of his mind. It would be a shame if a bus hit her just when her life was getting interesting.

He couldn’t fault her for his boredom, he supposed. It wasn’t as if she knew he was following her, and it seemed unreasonable and somewhat impolite to task somebody with keeping their stalker entertained.

Entertaining him was an impossible task, really. Immortality sounded great in the brochure, but after the first hundred years, everything seemed redundant. His life had become a tedious loop of stalk, kill, repeat. He had to eat, but it didn’t make hunting any less monotonous. He was famished, but when he looked at the crowd, not one of them seemed more appealing than following the girl. He’d rather go hungry. Besides, clean-up in a crowd like this would be messy. People shouldn’t let the media fool them; murder wasn’t that exciting after the first fifty bodies or so.

His eyes landed on a group of drunken college guys harassing one of the street musicians, his eyes lingering long enough that one of them might mistake his intentions. On second thought, maybe he did have time for a bite.

He glanced at his charge with a sigh. She still wandered through the crowd like a ghost. He shook his head, gaze straying back to the frat boys with longing. Making one of them his dinner was a bad idea, especially in this crowd. Really, though, would the world miss another douchebag in boat shoes and a backward ball cap? In truth, feeding on one of them would practically be a public service.

One of the boys tried to snatch the wig off a female impersonator, getting a right hook to the face for his trouble. Call it what you wanted: natural selection, Darwinism, top of the food chain; some people just didn’t make the cut. Mace liked the hunt, the thrill that came from being the better monster, but humans didn’t provide much of a challenge. Still, when he looked at boys like them, he was willing to make an exception for the greater good.

With one last glance, he shook off his hunger and went back to following the girl. Those boys weren’t likely to wander far from the quarter. He could always find them later. Thunder rumbled behind angry storm clouds before the sky unleashed another flood. The girl stepped into her apartment, glancing back behind her as if she sensed somebody watching her. Mace pulled himself farther into his damp hoodie, grateful the cold didn’t affect him. If he weren’t immortal, he’d likely die of hypothermia. Instead, he was just very uncomfortable.

He settled himself on the roof across from her building, tugging his sleeping bag around his shoulders, grateful for the overhang shielding him from the downpour. He tucked his knees against his chest, resting his elbows there as she came into view in the window. She flung off her wet sweater and moved out of view only to reappear in her bedroom window. When she yanked her dress over her head, he dropped his gaze to his phone, glancing at the time.

It was almost time for check-in. He was to call every six hours, no exceptions. It was part of the reason he’d almost declined the offer. He wasn’t much for deadlines. He felt it stifled his…creativity. Strangely, his employer had been oddly insistent that he be the one who watched the girl. It made little sense given his taste for exotic cuisine and his penchant for homicide, and Mace was obsessed with curiosities. He knew where he ranked among his kind. He was very much a last resort. He wasn’t a babysitter or a bodyguard. They didn’t hire him to follow humans, no matter how bizarre they appeared. They didn’t even hire him to killhumans.

He pulled a granola bar from his bag and tore into it. It didn’t satisfy his hunger, but it gave him something to do with his hands. As he watched, she stopped to answer the phone. She became more agitated as the call went on, finally slamming the phone down in its cradle and ripping it from the wall. She smashed it on the floor. His brows knitted together. She was acting quite strange since the funeral.

He wanted to talk to her. He needed to know what she was, but his orders were clear. Observe her behavior. Report what he sees. Do not interact with her. Do not kill her. They’d stated the latter explicitly…twice. He was to report anything unusual immediately.

The term unusual was subjective, it would seem, because everything about this girl was unusual. She had no friends. She interacted with very few people. She’d only attended school once in the last four days, and while there, she’d kept her head down and hadn’t spoken a single word. Her classmates hadn’t been so kind. They teased her mercilessly. Taunted her about being an orphan. It seemed not even the death of a parent could stop people from being people. She hadn’t acknowledged them in any outward way, but she also hadn’t gone back either.

Instead, she chose to hide in the cemetery. He’d first thought she was there to visit her father. He’d been wrong. She was far too familiar with the cemetery for a girl her age. She knew everybody. Every single body. She spent hours putting single flowers on the graves of the deceased. She lit the candles often left as tribute. She carefully righted trinkets friends and family left behind. She wasn’t just respectful of the dead, she was reverent.

When she wasn’t tending the dead, she was talking to them. Before he saw her in the cemetery, he’d thought her mute. Then he’d witnessed her have a forty-five-minute conversation with a mausoleum with the name ARSENAULT etched across the top. As she carried on her one-sided chat, she drew, pencil flying, sketching an old man dressed in his Sunday best and a beat-up fedora.

It was safe to say his new charge had a singular preoccupation with the dead. Perhaps they were speaking to her. Even so, it wouldn’t explain why he was watching her. His employers rarely concerned themselves with the special humans. But after what he’d just witnessed in the cemetery, he supposed it was safe to put her firmly in the non-human column—breed undetermined.

Given her fascination with the dead, he would almost think Valkyrie or reaper, but power didn’t seek them out. That power in the cemetery had come for her, swirling up from the ground and swallowing her whole. She’d stood, paralyzed, helpless to do anything. Had she unwittingly called that power to her, or had it come for her of its own free will? He wasn’t sure which was worse.

He supposed she could be a witch, but she hadn’t been in control of that power. If she was a witch, she was either very new or completely incompetent. Perhaps, if he could get near enough to see her mark, it would give him a clue as to her origins, but that would mean getting closer to her. He’d already gotten too close. He’d already interfered. He’d disobeyed direct orders.

He wouldn’t feel bad about that—couldn’t even. His employers had known what they were getting into when they’d picked him for the task, so the fault lay entirely with them. He had no idea why he’d approached her, other than just to see what would happen. He was curious by nature. They had to know he wouldn’t be able to leave something so tempting alone. So much energy surrounded her. How could he not try to tap into it?

Theoretically, it shouldn’t have worked. His magic should have had no effect on hers. Very rarely could a person temper one person’s magic by adding their own. If anything, he’d run the risk of creating a much bigger complication, such as killing a large crowd of people at a funeral and rendering himself unemployed.

It had worked, though. Her magic had practically rolled over and purred at his, and his magic had responded in kind, wrapping itself around hers and making itself at home. Witch magic didn’t do that.

It was maddening. He felt like he was missing something. Something important. It gnawed at the corners of his mind, just out of reach.

A flash of color caught his attention at the window. She had changed into jeans and a bulky sweater, a tattered purple duffle bag in her hands. She stuffed clothing, her sketchbook, shoes, and anything else she could fit into the bag, then went to the kitchen and grabbed a coffee can from the top shelf, pulling out cash and stuffing it into her jean pocket.

Interesting.

His phone vibrated in his hand, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Mace,” he answered.

“It’s like you’re trying to piss him off.”

“Echo.” He grimaced at her tone, picturing her pinched face. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Check your watch. You’re late checking in.”

He glanced at his phone. “Ah, right you are, luv.” He’d lost track of time.

“So, anything to report?” Echo prompted, annoyance creeping into her voice.

The girl flitted around the apartment, a rare smile blooming on her face. Mace huddled farther under the sleeping bag as the onslaught of rain began to blow in from the east, coming in sideways. As the water poured in through her open window, she rushed forward, hands landing on the frame. But instead of closing it, she looked up and froze.

He did too.

There was no way she could see him, not from this distance, not with the rain and the dark. He squinted, leaning forward, as she stared into the darkness, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Maybe she could see him. She’d observed him in the cemetery earlier. He couldn’t help but stare back. Her cloud of orange hair was billowing in the chilly air, and even with the rain gusting in her face, she looked…captivating, like some vengeful spirit out of a gothic novel. She stared for another second before slamming the window shut hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame.

He blinked, spell broken.

“Hello?” Echo questioned through clenched teeth.

He opened his mouth to tell her what he’d seen but faltered. If he told them she was a…well, a not human, there was an excellent chance his next assignment would be to kill her like the others. It had to be why they’d chosen him. Nothing else made sense. They’d obviously wanted him to ensure she was supernatural before they put her down.

He wasn’t quite ready for that. He had to know what she was. He’d been around a long time, and he’d never seen somebody who appeared to leach power from the ground they stood on. His fingers flexed. His magic wanted to know too.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry, bad reception up here. Nothing to report yet. The girl is dismally boring. I should charge him triple for forcing me to endure this type of torture.” He lowered his voice, attempting a flirty tone. “Any chance you feel like telling me what he wants with her? Since when did we start concerning ourselves with humans?”

She snorted. “That’s hardly any of your business, is it?”

“No need to get snippy, luv. It was a fleeting curiosity.”

“He doesn’t pay you to be curious. He pays you to do as you’re told.”

“Well, somebody has her sassy pants on today. What has your knickers in such a twist?”

The girl’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Please, please, don’t do anything stupid, Mace. Just watch the girl and report what you see. A trained monkey could do it.”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s the thing of it. He could have assigned anybody to watch the girl. Why the homicidal maniac? Why hire a killer to babysit one tiny human girl? Seems like a terrible staffing choice, really, like hiring an alcoholic to tend your bar.”

“Just mind your business, do your job, and don’t do anything that is going to get you in trouble.”

“What’s he going to do? Kill me? I’m immortal.”

She made a grunt of frustration. “Yes, well, there are far worse things than death, as you well remember. Whatever she is, she’s got him on edge. Don’t make him mad.”

He sighed. “I’ll be in touch.”

He ended the call just as the girl opened the old laptop on the coffee table. She sat on the floor, typing furiously for the next few hours, her attention never wavering. The rain had disappeared by the time she hoisted her bag over her shoulder and headed for her front door. She didn’t even bother to lock it behind her.

“Now where are you headed?” he asked the empty rooftop.

Chapter 3 -Kai 

Kai Lonergan hated math. You would think being a supernatural creature in a supernatural town would make you exempt from mundane chores, like math and econ, but no, the authorities forced shifters, witches, and even reapers like him to endure the horrors of high school. The town claimed they had their reasons—keeping up appearances, blah, blah, blah—but as far as he could see, it was just good old-fashioned torture.

He dropped his chin to his hand and sighed dramatically. “I hate this,” he told his sister. Tristin didn’t even look up from her notebook. He leaned forward to peer past the waterfall of her dark hair. She sat hunched over her desk, tongue poking from the side of her mouth. His sister was no artist, but he could see she was doodling dismembered stick figures with pools of black ink at their feet. Great, as if people didn’t already think they were freaks. The school therapist would have a field day with that.

He continued his conversation despite his sister’s lack of participation. “Hate’s not even a strong enough word,” he decided. “I loathe math. Detest it. I hate math more than I hate asparagus, more than I hate that weird fruit thing Isa makes us choke down every Christmas. I hate math more than I hate”—he shuddered—”marshmallows.”

His sister shook her head and grunted but didn’t otherwise acknowledge him. If Quinn were there, he’d understand. Quinn understood Kai’s hatred of squishy weird foods because Quinn was the best friend ever. But Quinn was in smart-people math where they started throwing in hearts and hieroglyphics and alchemical symbols, most of which Kai was sure they just made up. Quinn assured Kai it wasn’t so, but no good could come from putting math and chemistry together.

“Come on, Tristin, commiserate with me. Be my sister. Let us band together over a mutual hatred of math.”

A desk chair scraped behind him, and a shadow loomed over his desk. Warm air puffed against his skin as an angry werewolf rumbled, “Shut. Up.”

Kai grimaced. He’d managed to forget Rhys’s annoying presence for almost ten whole minutes. That was a new record for him. In Kai’s defense, it was hard to forget a six-foot-six slab of muscle that shadowed your every move. It was especially hard when they wore their shirts tight enough to count their abs and smelled like rain and sex and poor life choices. He closed his eyes, attempting to regulate his teenage hormones and wildly thumping heart before Rhys smelled it on him.

He needed a distraction. He decided on the easiest course of action: annoying the wolf. It was a win-win. He leaned back until his head was resting on Rhys’s desk and grinned up at his perpetually grumpy face. “From this angle, it looks like you’re actually smiling.” Kai laughed softly. “It’s like an optical illusion.”

Rhys growled low in his throat. “Get off my desk.”

Kai schooled his expression into a pout. “Now you’re just hurting my feelings. Tell me I’m pretty, and maybe I’ll relinquish your desk.” He batted his eyes, satisfaction warming him, as Rhys turned an unnatural shade of purple. “Come on,” Kai coaxed. “Use your words.”

Rhys started to partially shift into wolf mode, eyes glowing, the light bringing out the gold flecks in his brilliant green irises, his canines elongating dramatically.

Kai snorted a laugh. “You’re so easy to rile up. One little joke and you go all flashy eyes. Those stopped working on me when I was like seven, dude.”

The wolf moved closer until his face hovered just over Kai’s, a lock of mahogany hair falling across his forehead. Kai’s mouth went dry, and he swallowed convulsively, definitely not imagining the epic upside down Spiderman kiss they could be re-enacting. Rhys made a choked noise that was as close to a laugh as he got. Kai knew it was because he heard his heartbeat stutter. Stupid werewolf hearing. It was such an invasion of privacy.

“Pay attention or I’m going to tell Isa you requested that weird pickled herring recipe she made last year, and I’ll ask her to put that clotted cream sauce on it, too.”

Kai shuddered at the memory of the alpha’s attempt at foreign cuisine and stuck his tongue out at Rhys, relinquishing the desk. “You suck.”

“You wish.”

His sister snorted at that, glancing up long enough to laugh at her brother. She thought Rhys was hilarious. They were two peas in an emotionally constipated pod.

Their teacher, Mr. Keller, appeared, looking as thrilled to be there as the rest of them. He took one last slug from his styrofoam cup before throwing it in the trash. He dropped his bag on the floor loud enough to cut off the low murmur of restless students, waiting until all eyes were forward. “Okay, who wants to get us started on last night’s quadratic equations homework?”

Crap. Kai knew he’d forgotten something. He dropped his head onto his desk with a loud thump.

“Has math finally killed you, Mr. Lonergan?” The teacher asked, sounding far too hopeful to Kai.

He heard the snickers of his classmates and lifted his head just enough to make eye contact with the aging witch. “No. Unfortunately, I’m still here, but I think my brain is literally melting.” He dropped his head back on his arms.

“Tristin,” Mr. Keller said. “You seem to be working rigorously on what I’m sure are your notes. Perhaps you could share them with your brother?”

Kai rolled his head towards his sister with a smirk, brow raised, eyeing her morbid drawings. “Yes, Tristin, you take the best notes. Perhaps you could share with the whole class.”

Her pen slowed, and she looked up from her grisly masterpiece long enough to scowl at her brother and shoot him the finger from her lap.

She forced her face into some semblance of a smile. “Of course, Mr. Keller. I’d be happy to.”

“I guess your sister absorbed the brains and the manners in the womb. Did she leave anything for you?” Keller asked.

Kai leaned back with a grin, tapping his pencil against his notebook. “She got the brains and the manners, but I got the looks and the personality.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sunshine,” his sister retorted as she flipped to a clean sheet of notebook paper and started anew.

The teacher eyed him. “Mr. Lonergan, do you think I can get through the rest of class without you further derailing my lesson?”

Kai looked pained, the tapping of his pencil increasing. “Hard to say really. I can’t help it, dude. Math physically hurts me.”

“Don’t call me ‘dude.’” The teacher’s eyes dropped to the pencil, warning clear as he gritted out, “Mr. Lonergan.”

Kai opened his mouth to promise his best behavior when Rhys’s hand appeared, snatching Kai’s pencil and snapping it in half before dropping it on his desk.

Kai’s mouth fell open. That was his only pencil. He went to say so but went temporarily mute as he felt a familiar burning at his wrist. He didn’t look at first, just rubbed absently at the spot, dread pooling in his stomach. Why did collections always seem to come on a Friday? Nobody should have to die on a Friday. It was the best day of the week. Whoever made these decisions should reserve deaths for awful days like Monday. People shouldn’t have to work all week long just to kick the bucket just before things got good. Not that anybody cared about the opinion of one novice reaper.

He glanced at his sister, wondering if he should tell her he wouldn’t be at work later. He pushed the sleeve of his shirt up just enough to peer at the name, his curiosity getting the better of him. He skimmed over the name, letting his sleeve drop back into place before yanking it up again in confusion. The hitch in his breathing sounded loud in the sudden silence.

That couldn’t be right.

Rhys sat forward enough to whisper, “What is your problem now?”

“Can I help you?” Kai snapped, yanking his sleeve down to cover the name, sounding scandalized.

Rhys stared at Kai for a good thirty seconds before the wolf opened his mouth, but he never got the chance to speak. Kai never got to hear whatever scathing retort Rhys had planned. Tristin’s pen fell from her fingers. She looked at her brother, eyes bleeding red as a shriek ripped from her lips. Everybody whipped around in their seats, hands covering their ears, cringing away from her.

Goosebumps erupted along his skin. Tristin covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide as she looked at him. Kai’s heart slammed against his chest as he stared at his sister.

“Well, that was unexpected,” he said to nobody in particular.

Chapter 4 - Tristin 

Tristin sat on the wooden bench outside the principal’s office, staring at her hands in her lap. She refused to look up. She could hear the whispers and the laughter of the students moving between classes. Could feel them staring as they passed. This was so embarrassing.

Kai sat next to her, quiet for once. She could feel the empathy rolling off him in waves. Her brother hated to see somebody miserable. He would sit and stare, radiating love like a sad-eyed golden retriever until she placated him. “I’m fine, really. You don’t have to keep me company. I’ll just tell them I…saw a spider…or something.”

Kai arched a brow at her. “Tristin, two months ago, you ripped out a wendigo’s jugular with your bare hands.” He pulled a face like he could still see it. “Nobody will believe you.”

He was right. There was no way anybody was going to believe anything she said, not even the truth. She wasn’t sure she believed the truth. She’d spent the last twelve years as a banshee who couldn’t banshee. She’d finally made peace with the idea of never getting her powers back, Sometimes, she’d wondered if she’d ever really had them at all.

She had no memory of ever screaming. Allister swore he’d heard her scream as a child—and Allister wasn’t really one to make stuff up—but the adults in town hid too much, and she just didn’t trust them. Her brother was the reaper, so she had to be human. That was just the way it worked. Yet, suddenly, she wasn’t just a human, and now, everybody knew it. Her face burned at the thought of more attention on her.

“Why now?” she asked, mostly to herself.

Kai took a deep breath and looked at her. “I think I may know why.”

She glowered at him, eyebrows raised. Of course, he did. How long would he have sat there giving her puppy eyes if she hadn’t said anything? She said as much, earning her a hurt look and another deep breath.

“Okay, I need to show you something, but you can’t freak out,” Kai said.

Tristin blinked at him slowly. “Bro, I’m not the drama queen in this particular duo.”

He shrugged. “True.” He turned to shield himself from the passing students and pushed the sleeve of his plaid shirt up. “Look.”

Her gasp was audible even in the crowded breezeway. Kai’s eyes widened, giving her a look that screamed be cool. Tristin glanced up to make sure nobody had heard her before dragging her gaze back to the name. She ran her fingers across the letters and numbers.

November Lonergan

29° 59’ 8.2644’’ N

90° 6’ 40.2552’’ W

She fought to get a grip on her heartbeat. She was freaking out. Holy crap. She was definitelyfreaking out. She breathed in and out slowly. She stared at the name. This made no sense at all. November was dead.

“What the hell is going on?” she whispered.

Kai thought about it for a while, his thumb rubbing absently over the words on his wrist. “Maybe it’s a coincidence?”

She glowered at him. “You think it’s a coincidence that my abilities return the exact same moment our dead cousin’s name shows up on your arm to be collected? Really?”

“Well, it is our birthday,” he said, cheeks flushing.

“Happy birthday, here are your reaper powers and your dead cousin?” she asked. “Nothing about this makes any sense.”

“I don’t know, Trist. Allister said your powers would resurface eventually.”

“Let’s just forget my freaky banshee powers for five minutes and focus on our dead cousin.”

“Our technically undead cousin,” Kai supplied.

“Not for long if she’s on your arm,” she reminded him. “This feels wrong. It seems like a trap. We should tell Isa.”

“No way,” he snapped, immediately looking apologetic. “I just mean we don’t even know what we’d tell her.”

“Um, how about our dead cousin’s name popped up on your soul collecting to-do list?” Why was he being so stupid about this? “Come on, Kai, you have to admit this feels wrong. November is dead, and even if she weren’t, they wouldn’t send a family member to collect her soul. It’s creepy.”

“So, maybe they’re sending me a message. Maybe I’m not supposed to collect her. Maybe I’m supposed to save her.”

She stared at him for a long minute. “Have you lost your mind? Do you know what the Grove will do to you if you actively interfere with a collection?”

She clenched and unclenched her jaw until her teeth hurt. They had to tell Isa; they couldn’t not tell the alpha. They needed somebody with more information than they had. Besides, they had to go home sometime.

She looked away, asking, “What about Rhys?” She didn’t want to see the look of betrayal on his face. If they couldn’t talk to Isa, her brother had to be the next best thing.

“Have you suffered a recent blow to the head?” he asked. “He hates me. He would probably tell me to go, just hoping I’d get killed or do something stupid so he could turn me into the Grove himself.”

She rolled her eyes. “You are ridiculous.”

He waved off her comment. “Maybe, but that’s not important. What’s important is figuring this out without involving the others.”

Tristin had no idea why he was so desperate to leave the pack out of this. “Why? Kai, this is crazy. We can’t just run off chasing a ghost. We don’t even know where we’re going.”

“New Orleans,” he said, showing her the GPS coordinates on his phone.

“Are you freaking crazy?” she shouted. “Isa would never let us do this. We’ve never even left this town, much less the state. We have no idea what’s out there.”

“Could it possibly be any worse than what’s here? Tristin, this town is Disney for the paranormal. New Orleans couldn’t be any worse.”

“How would you know? All your knowledge comes from the human internet and television shows.”

He looked at her funny. “Um, that’s where most people get their information, Tristin.”

“No, that’s where humans get their information, and you’re not a human.”

He arched a brow. “Right back at ya, sis.”

Her sigh was long-suffering, her look withering.

Before she could retort, he held up his hand. “Look, I have no idea what this means or what’s out there, but I’m not going to just ignore November’s name appearing on my arm, not when your powers magically resurface at the same time. I’m going to New Orleans, and I’m going to save her. Are you coming with me or not?” She stared at him balefully until he said, “Wonder Twin powers, activate?”

He held up his fist.

“You’re such a loser,” she muttered as she bumped her fist against his.

“Really?” he said, eyes bright, grin spreading across his face. “We’re doing this?”

She made a frustrated noise, startling the few stragglers in the hallway. “Fine, we’ll go, but when Isa finds out, I’m one hundred percent blaming it all on you.”

He jumped to his feet and kissed her forehead sloppily. “I’d expect nothing less.” His smile looked positively evil when he asked, “Now, whose car are we stealing?”