Fire And Ash Page 5

  “Enough!” Mick calls out throwing Derek the towel around his neck. “Before one of you does some real damage to the other.”

  He places his freight train of a body between us so we can’t engage each other again.

  ******

  My family has returned home when I walk through my front door.

  “You look like shit,” Sean says from the couch as I limp into the living room.

  I give him the finger and he laughs at me under his breath when my grandmother calls out from the kitchen that she saw me.

  I collapse into the seat nearest the door. It’s the worn overstuffed recliner my mother bought my father for Christmas when I was four. It’s the same one she used to sit in and read me bedtime stories until I fell asleep. She’d fall asleep too until Dad happened upon us and then he’d gently prod her awake and he’d carry me to my room with her one step behind him. They always tucked me in together and kissed me goodnight at the same time. Mom kissing my left cheek and Dad my right.

  It is one of the happy memories I have of my parents before their constant arguing began. I smile at it, trying to hold on to it and not think about the things that came later.

  “What happened to you?” Aunt Farrah’s question brings me back into the present. She’s sitting on the couch in between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. There is no way they were there first and she chose to sit between them. It’s more likely that she claimed the couch first and they sat on either side of her simply to be annoying.

  “A boy happened to me,” I grumble wishing more and more that I’d actually broken Derek’s nose. It feels like I had a run in with a brick wall. Every muscle in my body is sore, but my right shoulder and my back are screaming at me particularly louder than the rest.

  “What boy?” My cousins and my aunt all growl at the same time. They each look certifiably homicidal.

  I roll my eyes at the absurd conclusion that they’ve all jumped to. “Not like that. It was in the ring down at Mick’s gym.”

  Sean and Gerard relax but Aunt Farrah still looks like she’s ready to murder somebody. And if she looks like that, I’m suddenly glad Dad is not around because I am positive there would be no stopping him from marching over to the gym, demanding that Mick give him Derek’s address and then shoving his size twelve boot up Derek’s butt.

  Aunt Farrah raises one eyebrow at me and I think she is actually considering doing it herself. It would be utterly embarrassing, but it would also be a riot watching it go down.

  “I left him in worst shape than I’m in,” I say quickly to talk her down. I am perfectly capable of fighting my battles for myself. “He had my arm locked in a submission hold, but I used your head butt trick.”

  “Good. Did you break his nose?”

  “No. Mick would have thrown me out the gym.”

  Aunt Farrah’s approving smile turns into a disapproving frown. “Ethics do not win fights. Always kick your opponents when they’re down. Every time.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Blood Vow

  As I ring the doorbell at Cassie’s I remind myself to remain on my best behavior. I am here for her birthday dinner, and punching Derek in the face will ruin the occasion.

  When Derek answers the door I am convinced the universe is testing me.

  I smile sweetly at him when I see that his nose is still slightly swollen. Good. Because it’s been three days and my arm still hurts like a bitch.

  He is wearing navy khakis and a white button down shirt, and I berate myself for noticing how nicely he cleans up.

  He does not initially speak. His eyes do a slow perusal of me from head to toe, identical to the way they did the first time I came to his house. But this time I am not in jean shorts and a tee. I’m wearing a dress I borrowed from Aunt Farrah because Cassie said that she wanted everyone to dress up. I feel the sudden urge to tug at its short hem, but refuse to give Derek the satisfaction of seeing me do it. I can only imagine the judgmental smirk that it will induce.

  I find myself thankful to be wearing a cardigan over the skinny straps and semi-low neckline of the dress. Even in summer temperatures dip rapidly across Colorado once the sun goes down.

  “Are you going to let me in or are you going to leer at me all night?” I quip.

  His eyes flash with surprise and I take satisfaction in knowing I’ve caught him off guard. He shifts his body to lean casually against the door frame quickly recovering. “I was just looking for a hint of the bruises I know I left behind. Call me sadistic, but I like to admire my handiwork. How’s your shoulder feeling by the way?”

  “Just fine. How’s your nose? Did I break it?” I push past him, not waiting for him to invite me in.

  His incredulous laugh booms out behind me. “You wish.”

  I am about to throw a snappy comeback over my shoulder when his hand shoots out and jerks me backwards by the arm that is not sore.

  He leans in way too close to my personal space and I just know he has lost his mind. What in the actual —

  The thought stops short when he begins whispering in my ear.

  “Tonight is Cass’ birthday and she has asked me to be nice. I’m complying because birthdays are a big deal for her. But I don’t like you and you are the last person she needs as a friend.”

  What?! He doesn’t like me. The asshole doesn’t even know me. I snatch my arm away and am about to ask him just what his deal is. Why he has decided that he doesn’t like me just off of principal when I haven’t done a single thing to warrant it, but Cassie appears from around a corner at the exact moment that I am.

  She eyes Derek suspiciously. “Are you being nice?”

  He throws her a high wattage smile and slings one arm around my shoulder. The sore one, and I’m positive it is done on purpose. “Of course. I promised I would, didn’t I?”

  She asks the question with such desperation that I don’t have the heart to tell her differently or not to play along, especially when it is her birthday and over the phone when she invited me out to dinner with them she told me that she hasn’t had a birthday that included real friends since before Derek’s dad died.

  “Derek has been a perfect gentleman since he answered the door,” I assure her. Ha! If that isn’t an oxymoron.

  Her face relaxes into relief. “Mom is waiting on us in the car around back.”

  When Cassie turns her back to lead the way I elbow Derek in the same spot between the ribs I kicked him in at the gym. He didn’t go down or cry out, but it was a solid kick. I know it still has to be sore. I am proven right when his body tenses beside me and he lets out a low heavy breath. I’m being petty, but no more than he is with his arm weighing heavily down on the shoulder he tried to pop out of its socket.

  “Get your arm off of me,” I whisper low enough for Cassie not to hear.

  Derek pretends like it is too low for him to hear too.

  I accidentally on purpose step on his foot with the heels Aunt Farrah said it was blasphemous to wear the dress without. I’ve only worn heels all of five times before in my life, but I’m coordinated enough not to look like a klutz in them. Still, I pretend to wobble a bit and my left heel digs painfully into Derek’s right foot. I swallow a smile when a perplexed Cassie turns around at the sound of his wince.

  “Sorry,” I say smiling innocently over at him for her benefit. “I’m not used to walking in these things.”

  Derek takes the front seat beside his mom and Cassie sits in the back with me. Thankfully. Riding in a car beside Derek for an hour to Highland Village and back would have been a true test of my will that I know I would have failed.

  Sitting through dinner at the Hibachi restaurant without strangling him is bad enough. Every time he opens his mouth to sling a cleverly masked dig across the table at me I imagine impaling him with a chopstick.

  When we get back to their house my car won’t start. The local tow shop closed at eight along with just about everything else in town and if I call a twenty four hour wrecker from Highland Village they w
ill charge two arms and two legs for the drive they will have to make. Mrs. Jensen suggests I leave my car for the night and have it towed to a mechanic in the morning. I agree with her right up to the point where she says Derek can drive me home. But telling her I’d rather walk from their house to mine barefoot than ride in a car beside her charming son would be rude so I smile tightly and tell her thank you instead.

  Derek doesn’t seem any happier about his mom’s offer than I am. He stalks out of the house with his keys then growls at me not to close the door too hard to his car. I pretend like I don’t hear him and slam it shut. Childish I know, but Derek Jensen brings out the worst in me.

  We ride in tense silence the entire way to my house. I reach for the door handle and begin climbing out of the car before he even has it in park good. A hand at my elbow jerks me back.

  “What the hell?!” I jerk my arm out of Derek’s grip.

  He is looking at me with barely contained rage and for a second I’m afraid of what he is going to do next. My hand feels around my seat for a messenger bag that’s in my car back at his house.

  “Looking for the silver blades you have in your car?” Derek’s voice is deathly still. He speaks so quietly I’m almost not sure I heard him correctly.

  You didn’t. If he knows about that then it means he knows what it’s supposed to be used for. And only hunters and phoenix know that. The Jensens are neither.

  “Excuse me?” I say.

  Derek snorts. “You heard me the first time. Stop trying to convince yourself you didn’t.”

  I am stunned frozen for a minute. Then I’m reaching for the door handle again to put some space between us.

  The door locks. It doesn’t budge when I yank at the handle.

  “Let me out or you will regret it,” I hiss at Derek.

  The corner of his mouth twitches as if I’ve said something that is amusing. Then shadows move behind his eyes and he is looking at me like he wants to do me mortal harm again.

  “I know what you are Ashley Jacobs and I know what your family does.”

  “How do you-“

  “How do you think?” He cuts me off.

  No. That’s not possible. I would have known if Cassie and her family were phoenix. And they live near the mountains not the park. There’s more cover from hunters in the wooded areas.

  Even as my mind is running through a million denials of why the new girl in town— the girl I just met but already like a lot, the girl who has become my friend— is not the thing that it is my duty to root out and kill, Derek’s eyes flash gold in the moonlight, like the eyes of phoenix are prone to do when they can’t reel in their emotions. It confirms what he is, what Cassie is, and a part of me shrieks that I didn’t just see what I know I saw.

  “You’re one of them. You’re a monster. I’d be thrilled at the thought because it means I get to kill you but I also have to kill Cassie too.” And Mrs. Jensen.

  All of a sudden Derek’s face is less than an inch from mine and I never saw him move forward. “Threaten her again or my mom and you die. Not quickly and not painlessly. But slowly. Very slowly. As you experience every bit of agony you hunter scum deserve to feel.”

  His dark brown eyes don’t simply flash to gold. They remain bright, searing the color of the flames phoenix burst into before their rebirth into my retinas. I see my death in his eyes, every bit as dragged out and painful as he just promised. I should be cowed. But I’m not. He called me hunter scum and said the words like I was no better than gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe. I’m offended and livid.

  “You can try. But I promise I won’t go down without a fight. My family has hunted your kind for centuries. We evolved to be able to. It is in my blood to be able to take down and kill monsters like you.” I snarl the words at him.

  “And what about Cassie? Is it in your blood to kill monsters like her too? Or my mom who’s never been anything but welcoming towards you?”

  I open my mouth to say yes. If they are phoenix then it is. But the words get stuck in my throat. I swallow. Open my mouth to say yes again and the words still won’t come.

  “The funny thing is hunters call us monsters,” Derek continues when I don’t respond to his question. “Claim it’s your duty to protect the innocent from being preyed upon. But my sister was innocent and the baby she carried was too. They both died when a hunter shot an arrow tipped with silver into her heart. My dad was innocent too. His only crime was fighting to protect his family. And Cassie’s parents— her mother was a hunter who just happened to have fallen in love with my brother. When they came for him they came for her too. Born a hunter, die a hunter right?” Derek mocks me with our creed. “They would have killed their newborn baby too had she been present when they struck. You all are the true monsters. We don’t butcher people in their homes and we don’t kill innocent people.”

  “The hell you don’t,” I snap. That is exactly what you did to my mother, I almost add but don’t. “You rob people of their lives just so you can cheat death.”

  Phoenix were never meant to live indefinitely. Despite what myths say about them they are not really immortal. They are born with a set number of lives, they closely guard what that set number is, and after they have used them up the next time they die, they do not rise from the flames they combust into. My grandfather told me this ten years ago when he made me open my eyes and stand up to see something I didn’t want to see.

  “A phoenix is the reason you look upon what you see,” he’d said. “For every human life they take, they add an additional one to theirs. They aspire to have what they were never meant to. And they do it at the expense of us. They prey upon humans and we evolved to prey upon them. We are the balance. We are humanity’s shield against it’s only predator. We are born as hunters and we die as hunters. It is a vow you will one day take. You will live by it, you will die by it, and this is why.”

  A muscle ticks in Derek’s jaw. “Not all of us are like that. Most of us aren’t. But the hunters have made sure that all of us phoenix have paid for the sins of the minority. We just want to live the lives we were born with, with the families we were born to.”

  I don’t believe that for a minute. I spit at him that he’s lying, but then I think about Cassie and I can’t picture her doing something so despicable. I can’t picture his mom doing it either.

  “Why are you telling me this Derek? What is the point of this conversation? We could have never had it and I would have been none the wiser.”

  “Cassie doesn’t know you’re a hunter. My mother doesn’t either. But I knew what you were two seconds after my compulsion attempt didn’t work on you and my mom stopped me from slamming the door in your face. Neither of them need to know about you just like none of your family needs to know about us. That is the point of this discussion.”

  Derek’s hand has tightened around my elbow again. This time he grips it hard enough to leave a bruise. Gold rings his dark pupils and I see my agonizing death played out in the fire raging within them.

  His attempt to intimidate me doesn’t work. There is nothing he could do to me that Patrick Jacobs hasn’t already done in the training sessions he purposely barred my dad from to make sure I became a hunter that “remains strong in the face of any tribulation.” I still have the scar from the six inches of steel he used to carve into my side with during one of our closed sessions. He didn’t go deep enough to do any serious damage, only deep enough to make me want to scream out in pain and tell me not to disappoint him by doing so. Three years have made it faint. I can barely see it now, but it’s there.

  I narrow my eyes at Derek, letting him see his own demise in mine. “Your fancy headlights don’t scare me and if you do not let go of my arm the next time I see you I will have those silver knives on me and you will end up without the hand you keep grabbing me with.”

  He isn’t in the least fazed by my threat. “Does Cassie’s death scare you? And before you rationalize it as a no because she is a phoenix, she’s not. My brother
’s wife was born a hunter. When they had Cassie whatever it is that makes us what we are, she wasn’t born with it. If you tell your family about us, about what we are, then when they come after us they will come after Cassie too. They won’t care that she isn’t a phoenix. They will only care that she grew up and lives among us.”

  Derek is right. They won’t care. I shouldn’t care either. But I think of my mother. Who got caught up in a war and died because of her connection to one of the sides in it.

  It’s not the same thing. The part of me that was trained to think like a hunter, to be a hunter, says.

  That part is right, but the six year old girl who found her innocent mom dead in their backyard doesn’t care. It’s the same thing to her. Cassie is innocent too and both of us know that no hunter would let her survive.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I demand to know from Derek. I hate the position it is putting me in. “Wouldn’t it have been better and safer to let me go on believing your family was normal?”

  “We are normal.” If I didn’t know any better I would say he almost sounded a bit wounded. “But although Cass is human, she has unique abilities that are definitely not. She insists on being friends with you, against my better judgement, and Mom insists on allowing it, again against my better judgement. They think you won’t notice them and you probably haven’t so far. Cass has gotten good at hiding them. But you’re a hunter. You are trained to be astute and eventually you will. So here it is…either agree not to tell your family about us or die. Right here, right now. I will not hesitate to snap your neck right here inside my car. The doors are locked, they’re not coming unlocked no matter how hard you yank on them, and me, my mother and Cass will be gone before anyone finds your body.”

  He says it so matter of factly that I know he isn’t bluffing. Him revealing what they were was a calculated move. And if I respond any other way than how he wants me too then he will absolutely make good on the threat. I will put up a fight, off principle I won’t make it easy for him, but I know from our bout in the ring that he’s stronger. He will ultimately outmuscle me and without a weapon there will not be a thing I can do to counter it.