Ember X (Death Collectors)

chapter 5





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

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

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

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

“The maroon stone one?”

He perked up, his shoulders straightening, his chin elevating, along with his mood. “Yeah, do you know where it is?”

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

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

“No. there’s nothing there but the wall and the toolbox.”

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

I stared at him, wondering why he was acting so strange, when suddenly a raven flew in and landed in the beams, its feathers molting and a few fluttered to the ground. At the sight of the raven, my dad went ballistic.

“You get out of here, you f*cking little demon!” He threw a screwdriver at the raven, but missed, and the raven cawed. “Get out!” Spanning its wings, it flew away, and he relaxed, returning his focus to me. “Emmy, if there’s one thing you need to know about life, it’s to never trust anyone or anything. Life is a freaking mind game and you and I are the pawns.”

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

***

I wake up on the floor with my cheek pressed to the marker, a feather on my forehead, and the strange drawing on the wall just in front of my feet.

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

Raven’s not in bed when I walk out and the room is cleaned up, my clothes put away, my books stacked back on the shelf, and my pencils, pens, and markers put back in the desk drawer. It’s her way of saying sorry.

The neighbor across the street watches me from their front porch as I open the window and flick the feather outside. I start to pull the window shut, but pause at the sight of someone looking up at me from the sidewalk. His hands are inserted into the pockets of his black jeans and black eyeliner contours his piercing eyes. His skin is as pale as a ghostly fog and his hair as black as a raven feather.

“Laden?” I squint, leaning out.

His gaze holds mine as a hostile smile curves on his lips and he mouths something, but he’s too far away for me to tell what.

Shaking my head, I yank the window shut and back away off the bed. I change into a pair of black and pink plaid shorts and my favorite Alkaline Trio T-shirt, and then I scrub the red off my hands and the marker off my face. I dab some kohl eyeliner around my grey eyes, tousle my fingers through my long, black hair, and turn to head downstairs. The aches and pains from the accident have subsided, except for a minor headache and a tiny cut on my forehead, which has shrank in size.

Raven and Ian are sitting at the table when I step into the kitchen. Raven’s denim skirt barely covers the top of her legs and she has her favorite pink shirt on, the one that shows a lot of cleavage (her words not mine). Ian has a grey knitted beanie pulled over his messy brown hair and his jeans and t-shirt are splattered with various colors of paint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why didn’t you just go get a refill?” I slip on my jacket and dust off the dried dirt. Sometimes I feel like a babysitter, between Ian and my mom. I wonder what would happen if I ever move out—how bad things would fall apart. “You guys don’t even have the same prescription.”

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

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

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

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

“You’ll make something?” I question with doubt.

“Well, I’ll pick up something.”

“Alright, I’ll be here then.” I step outside and shut the door, inhaling the cool air, trying to relax, but my mom has me worried.

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

“That’s part of the long story,” I say with a heavy sigh. My car’s gone. I officially have no way to get anywhere, like work and school. And I can’t afford a new one. “Damn it,” I curse under my breath.

Raven’s face contorts at my reaction. “Huh… No, not you,” she says into the phone.

She carries on with her conversation while I stand on the curb in the exact spot where Asher dropped me off last night. The shock has worn off and I add up bits and pieces of the accident, recapping each detail. I come to a mind-boggling conclusion that I should be dead; that I crashed into a lake and was trapped in the car while it sank. It happened exactly like my death omen said, but my heart is alive and my lungs breathe beneath my ribs. I squat down on the curb and lower my head, telling myself to breathe. That it doesn’t matter because I’m alive.

“So, what happened to your car?” Raven strolls up to the curb and tucks the cell phone into the pocket of her skirt. “And why are you staring at the curb like it just ate your puppy.”

I jerk my eyes away and rise to my feet. “What happened to you last night? I was really worried.”

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

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

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

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

Her body goes rigid and her eyes enlarge. “What was he doing?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

I lower my voice, wringing out my hair. “You said you saw death last night.”

She wipes the water from her face, takes a pack of gum out of her pocket, and pops a piece into her mouth. “I did?”

“Yeah, and you were more than just upset—you were freaking out.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know what she wants me to say—what will make her feel better. “How hot was the guy?”

Her eyes light up and she squeals, kicking her feet up and down. “Oh my God, he was so f*cking hot. Seriously, Em, like hotter than any of the losers in town.”

“And how old is he?” I wonder. “He wasn’t old, like that one guy you dated a few months ago… and he wasn’t married, right?” With her, I have to check. Raven’s list of guys is endless and there are no limits with her. She will date anyone who she deems hot worthy, which has gotten her into a lot of trouble. I keep waiting for her to change, mature, but she never does.

“I think he’s the same age as us... He actually just moved here from New York.”

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

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

“Sounds like your type.” Jealousy burns under my skin as I realize who she’s talking about. Asher. My Asher. No, not really, but I wish. “But I mean, you said he wasn’t into you, right?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Not yet, but he will be. And you’re going to help me.” She pulls me up by the arm, her nails digging into my skin, and I wince. “His first day of school is tomorrow so I have to look fabulous.” Her eyebrows furrow as she stares at the empty driveway of my house. “You never told me where your car was.”

“I wrecked it last night,” I say with no desire to explain it to her. “On my way home.”

“Oh no, Emmy, I’m so sorry.” She gives me a big hug and kisses me on the cheek.

I hold my breath, balling my hands into fists. “It’s okay.” I give her a soft pat, desperate for her to let me go. “It was just a car… Raven, can you let me go please?”

“Oh, sorry.” She steps back, freeing me from the burden of her death. “Is the car fixable?”

“Not unless we can get it out of the lake.” My tone is sunny, but my heart is charred.

“Wait a minute. You drove it into the lake?” She swats my arm and I flinch. “Why didn’t you tell me last night when I made that comment about your clothes?”

“You were upset.” I scuff the toe of my boot against the rocks in the driveway. “I didn’t want to make it worse.”

“I’m sorry.” She frowns. “I’m a terrible friend.”

“You’re not a terrible friend,” I assure her. “You were just distracted by your own problems.”

She nods in agreement as we wander down the sidewalk toward her townhouse right next door. The street is quiet and the air is gentle against my skin. Crisp leaves flurry from the branches of the trees and cover the lawns with pink and orange. It’s late October and the lawns are ornamented with Halloween decoration: witches, fake tombstones, and plastic skeletons.

“Em, how did you get out of the lake?” She pauses to readjust a loose strap on her sandal. “Alive?”

“All those survival tips my dad always crammed into my head finally came in handy.”

“You got out by yourself? How? And how are you walking around completely okay?”

“I guess I’m just really lucky.” I don’t know why I lie. It’s like there’s this part of me that doesn’t want her to know.

“Lucky? More like a freaking, walking miracle.” She moves to the side and steps in front of me, looking me in the eyes. “I can’t believe I wasn’t there for you. I’m so sorry.” She pauses, considering something, and then shifts the subject, stepping out of my way. “Come on. You and I are going shopping because you need some cheering up and I need a sexy new outfit for school tomorrow.” She skips up her driveway.

I follow her and wait by her Corolla while she runs inside the house and gets the keys. That’s the thing I love about Raven. She hardly asks questions. She didn’t ask how I got home. What I was going to do about my dad’s car. Why I didn’t go to the hospital. But as much as I love not being grilled, I wonder if there is something wrong with our friendship, if she should have asked those questions. I once read a quote by William Shakespeare about friendship: “A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.” If I told Raven the wrong thing—something she didn’t want to hear—would our friendship end?

“Okay, so we have to stop and put some gas in because it’s low.” She swings the keys around her finger as she exits her house.

“I think I might stay home,” I tell her, leaning against the car door. “I’m feeling kind of sick.”

She points a finger at me as she trots down the front steps. “No way. You have to come be my fashion advisor.” She eyes my clothes over as she stops in front of me. “Or at least keep me company.”

I surrender and climb into the car. “Can we at least stop and pick up a new cell phone? Mine is somewhere at the bottom of the lake.”

“Sure.” She climbs into the car, then backs down the driveway, but slams on the brakes as a U-Haul drives up the road, followed by a red Jeep Wrangler. The U-Haul parks in the driveway of the house across the street and two doors down, and the Jeep parks out front. It’s one of the larger brick houses on the street, two stories with an upper deck and flourishing rose bushes in the yard.

“It looks like someone is finally moving into Old Man Carey’s home,” she says with inquiring eyes.

Two guys climb out of the moving truck, dressed in grey coveralls; movers, I assume.

We’re pulling onto the street when long legs stretch out of the Jeep, a guy hops out, and Raven slows down the car again. His blonde hair glimmers in the sunlight and hands in his ash eyes, which burn with intensity as he takes in the house. Jeans hang loosely on his hips, boots cover his feet, and a tight-fitted Henley shows off his rock-solid abs and lean arms.

“That’s the guy from the cemetery,” I mutter aloud, taking in the sight of him in daylight.

“What guy from the cemetery?” Raven watches him like he’s something delicious as he struts across the lawn. She fans herself. “Good God, he’s hot.”

“We should get going.” I reach over and shift the car into drive for her. “I promised Ian I’d be back by dinnertime.”

We’re parked in the middle of the street and it’s obvious we’re staring at the new neighbor. He starts to head across the lawn, but then stops in the middle, titling his head in our direction, and he watches us, an amused smile playing at his deep red lips.

“Oh my God! He’s the grave robber.” Raven slams her hand on the steering wheel as it clicks. “We so have to go over there.”

“Don’t even think about,” I hiss, but she’s already turning the steering wheel. “You just said it yourself—he’s a grave robber.”

Her eyes sparkle mischievously and I slouch in the chair as she drives toward his house.

“What’s your problem?” she asks, turning down the radio as she pulls up to the curb. “Don’t you want to find out who he is? And why he was digging up a grave in the middle of the night. I mean, maybe you misunderstood what was going on and now he could explain it to you.”

I shake my head and shield my face with my hand, letting my hair fall forward. “Why? So you can date him?”

“Or maybe you could?” She parks in front of the Jeep. “You really need to get over this fear of men, Em. We’re nineteen-years-old. We can drink and go to bars with fake IDs, get laid whenever we want to; yet, you’re so God damn terrified, you’ve never even kissed a guy.”

“Because I can’t. Not because I don’t want to.” I’m growing annoyed with her. “Do you know what it would be like to kiss a guy… and feel his death course through you at the same time?” I shake my head when she rolls her eyes at me. “Nevermind. Can we just go? Please. We’re not going to make it back in time if we don’t get going.”

“You are so freaking weird sometimes.” Pressing the button on the door, she rolls down the window and waves him over. “Lighten up.”

He walks over with a swagger to his hips, his legs taking long strides, and there’s cockiness in the way he moves. Each step states self-assurance and sex pretty much drips off him as he bends down and rests his arms on the door, his dark eyes taking us in leisurely.

“Hi there, gorgeous,” Raven purrs in a seductive tone as she slides her finger up his arm. “We noticed someone is finally moving into Old Man Carey’s house and we thought we’d come over and introduce ourselves.”

“Old Man Carey’s?” He cocks his head, amused, but beneath it there’s anguish. “I assume you’re talking about my grandfather.”

“Oh, he was your grandfather?” Raven presses her hand to her heart. “I was so sorry to hear that he died.”

“You knew him?” the stranger asks with doubt. “Really?”

“Oh yeah, I used to bring him soup all the time when he was sick.” She licks her lips slowly. “I was very heartbroken when he died.”

“I bet you were.” His eyes focus on me, causing my adrenaline to surge. “Did you get your notebook back, Ember?”

I pressed my lips together, shocked. I thought he’d deny he knew me, considering the circumstances that we met under.

“I did.” I straighten up in the seat and tuck my hair behind my ears. “Thank you for dropping it off at my house.”

“I could tell it was important to you.” His gaze penetrates under my skin as he leans in through the open window. “Did you get my message?”

“You mean the poem?” I ask and he nods. “Yeah, I got it… It was sad and beautiful.”

“But did you get it, get it?” His voice hauntingly floats out like the night I first saw him. He sucks his lip up between his teeth, waiting for my response.

“I’m not sure…” I can’t take my eyes off him, the need to touch him scorching inside my body like liquid fire in my veins. It’s intense, like standing at the edge of a cliff, preparing to base jump, but I’m not sure if the parachute will open.

“Read it closer.” His eyes smolder as he releases his lip from his teeth and a small gasp escapes my mouth. He smiles, pleased at my reaction. “I think you’ll get it eventually.”

I’d blush if I wasn’t so sexually riled up on the inside. “I’m sure I will.”

Raven clears her throat and her tone is snippy. “Sorry to break up your guys’ little moment—since personally I’d love to see if you end up screwing each other.” She rolls her eyes. “But we gotta get going.”

I blink at the sound of her voice. I’d forgot she was there. “Yeah, we should get going.”

“Right…” He pats the car door as he ducks his head and steps away. “Maybe I’ll see you around later tonight, Ember.” He winks at me. “At the cemetery.”

My stomach flutters with fear and exhilaration. “Yeah, maybe.”

Raven rolls the car forward and he starts to walk away.

“Wait,” I call out and he stops. “You never told me your name.”

Raven cocks a reprimanding eyebrow at me. “Don’t you mean us?”

“Cameron.” He flashes me a sexy grin. “Cameron Logan.” He waves and turns away from us, strutting up to the movers opening the back of the U-Haul.

Raven rolls up her window and turns the car around, heading for the main road. “Okay, what the f*ck was that about? Since when are you such a little slut?”

“I wasn’t being a slut,” I protest, not taking it personally, because Raven calls just about anyone a slut. “I was being friendly.”

“You never talk to guys like that,” she accuses, flooring the car to the end of our street, and then she veers to the right and speeds off onto the highway. “And how did he know your name? And where you live?”

“They were on my journal.” I shrug, still dazed over what happened.

“Still, it’s really creepy.” She flips down the visor. “And what poem were you guys talking about?”

I roll down the window and let the breeze cool off my stifling skin. “The one he wrote in my journal.”

“You mean that creepy one you just put up on the wall?” She frowns. “The one that sounds like it was written by a serial killer?”

“That’s what you say about all poems,” I remind her. “And his was just deep.”

“Whatever, Em. In my opinion, the guy is a total creep… looking at you like that… you practically had an orgasm.”

“No, I didn’t,” I protest. “And why is he a creep? Because he knew my name and writes poetry?”

She laughs disdainfully. “I’m not jealous of you.”

I flip through the radio stations. “I never said you were.”

She smacks my hand away from the stereo and cranks up some upbeat pop song, knowing I’m not a fan of that kind of music. She belts out the lyrics at the top of her lungs, waving her hands and bobbing her head. I rest my head back and watch the trees drift by. I’m almost asleep when she slows down the car.

I open my eyes and start to unbuckle my seatbelt, but we’re stopped in a line of cars, not at the store. “Where are we?” I rub my tired eyes.

“Stuck in traffic.” She impatiently drums her fingers on the steering wheel.

“Wait, what… traffic?” I quickly sit up. The town is too small for traffic, yet there’s a row of cars lined each way over the bridge and down the road. Police vehicles barricade the street and uniformed policemen are sectioning off the center of the bridge with yellow tape and trying to detour everyone to the side.

“What’s going on?” I mumble, rolling the window all the way down to get a better look.

“Somebody probably did something stupid,” she replies in a bored tone as she inspects her fingernails for chips.

The line of cars crawls forward and Raven presses on the gas, driving by slowly. In the middle of the taped off section, an X is spray-painted across the asphalt and smashed into the cement barrier of the bridge is a rusted black Cadillac. The windows are broken, the hood is demolished, and there’s blood dripping from the back tire. And there are black feathers on the ground and on the hood.

“Isn’t that Laden’s?” I squint at the car. “Oh my God, it is.”

“Hmm… I guess he must have got into some trouble last night.” She smiles at the thought.

“This couldn’t have happened last night,” I say. “I just saw Laden this morning.”

“How can you be sure of what you saw?” she questions with a sparkle in her eye.

I eye her over questionably. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“There’s a lot of things I’m not telling you.” She grins and cranks up the stereo.

I turn back to the scene. There’s an hourglass painted on the back of the window in red, and feathers all over the hood and the ground. It’s the exact scene of when the police found my dad’s car, just a different location. And I worry that, like with my dad’s disappearance, I’ll become the prime suspect.