Crossfire (Book Two of the Darkride Chronicles)

  CROSSFIRE

  (Book Two of the Darkride Chronicles)

  By Laura Bradley Rede

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2013 Laura Bradley Rede

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion without the express, written consent of the copyright holder.

  Darkride is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed herein are fictitious and are not based on any real persons living or undead.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Chapter 1: Cicely

  “Still feeling sorry for yourself?” Five grins at me over the back of her seat. Her fangs shine even in the dim light of the van.

  “Five,” I say, “I have a right to feel sorry for myself. I died.”

  “Sure,” she says, “like three days ago! Ancient history, baby.”

  “Yeah?” I say. “Not to me.”

  “Awww…” Five pouts her lower lip—it looks funny with her fangs—and traces little tear-streaks on her cheeks with her finger tips. “Frequent crier miles.”

  “That’s stupid,” I say. “You’re an enluzante, too. You know we can’t cry.”

  “Oh, listen to you now! Little miss expert on the undead! Three days later and apparently you know everything.”

  “But you just said three days was—”

  “Haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’ ”

  “Sure,” I say. “But it did kill me.”

  Five swivels around to face forward again and pops her headphones back on her ears. “Buck up, buttercup. Time to move on.”

  Time to move on. As far as I can tell, that’s all we’ve been doing. We’ve been on the road since we left Minnesota, the six of us packed into Ander’s old family van. Ander insists on doing all the driving, only swapping places with Emmie when it’s clear he’s going to drop from exhaustion, and then only long enough to nap. Emmie and Five take turns riding shotgun to navigate. Ander’s fourteen-year-old brother D.J. spends most of his time staring out the window, sweating like he has a fever. He won’t actually turn into a werewolf for the first time until the full moon, but the lycanthropy is already infecting his system and his body has to adjust.

  As for me, I clearly have my own adjusting to do. I’ve been sitting on the floor of the way-back, buried amongst the boxes like a piece of cargo, because it’s the darkest place in the van. Luke has been keeping me company, but he hasn’t exactly been in a talkative mood. He spent the first two days of our journey hunched like a crow in his long black coat, shaking in withdrawal from our near-bonding experience. Today he’s a little better, but we still haven’t talked much, mostly because I know what he’ll want to talk about: us. I’ve already told him all I have to say about that. Whatever there was between us is in the past. Right now, in spite of what Five may think, I’m trying to focus on the future.

  And our future lies in Brave Boat Harbor, Maine, home of the mysterious Naomi Faire. Ander hopes that, whoever she is, she’ll be willing to take in two werewolves, three vampires, and a human thrall before the full moon hits and D.J. wolfs out for the first time. Ordinarily, the trip to Maine would take about a day-and-a-half if we drove straight through, but Ander insists on taking a round-about route, just in case someone’s tailing us.

  And there’s a good chance someone is. After all, in the last week we have killed both a famous monster-hunter-turned-werewolf and a vampire queen. Someone must want us dead—or, you know, deader. Ander says he doesn’t want to lead trouble to our potential ally’s door.

  Or maybe Ander is just lost.

  Like me.

  I toy with the red leather bound copy of Dracula on the van floor beside me. I found it in one of the cardboard boxes, and I’m sure it used to belong to Ander’s uncle, Michael. It’s old—maybe even a first edition—and to my newly-heightened senses, it smells strongly of leather and must. I pulled it out because I hoped it would shed some light, so to speak, on what it means to be a vampire, but so far, I haven’t been able to concentrate well enough to take it in. I just keep reading one line over and over: The dead travel fast.

  Yeah, well, we’d better. Because the one thing we can’t do is—

  “Stop!” Emmie yells. “Stop the car!”

  Ander jams on the breaks so hard the boxes around me slide, the potion bottles in them rattling. Luke jolts awake, grabbing my arm protectively. “What is it?” he asks. “Werewolves?”

  Ander says, “Vampires?”

  I say, “Hunters?”

  “No!” Emmie flashes us a big smile. “Clothes!” She points to a strip mall beside us. There’s a dingy little Goodwill in the center of the strip.

  Five gives a manic laugh. “Look at you people! Post-traumatic much?”

  “Jesus, Emmie.” Ander slumps forward, his forehead on the steering wheel. “I thought it was an emergency!”

  “It is an emergency!” Emmie sounds indignant, even through the sweet honey of her southern accent. “We’ve been traveling for days and some of us didn’t get a chance to pack first!”

  “I did.” Five smiles smugly. “But I’m not sharing.”

  “Exactly!” Emmie says. “So we need to pick up some clothes and this is the first thrift shop I’ve seen open late. We gotta stop, right Cicely?”

  “That’s right,” I say. I personally don’t think Emmie has much of a problem—she looks cute in everything, even the baggy sweatshirt and torn jeans she borrowed from Ander—but I have lots to complain about. I can’t bring myself to borrow clothes from Ander because they smell too much like wolf. Which means I’ve spent three days in the blood-stained jeans and t-shirt I was buried in. Not cool. Plus, this van is feeling a little claustrophobic right now. Funny how being buried alive makes you wary of small spaces.

  “Okay,” says Emmie brightly. “Let’s take a vote. All in favor of going to the thrift store—”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” says Ander. “No fair taking a vote because Luke will automatically side with Cicely. He’s still recovering from almost bonding with her.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Luke’s vote is null. But Emmie and I still vote we go.”

  “This is not a democracy,” Ander says.

  I sit up taller. “It’s also not a… wolf-tatorship.”

  “Yum.” Five smiles. “Wolf-taters.”

  D.J. growls.

  I narrow my eyes at Ander. “You are not the alpha of me.”

  “I am the alpha of D.J.,” Ander says, “and he votes we keep driving.”

  “Nuh-uh,” D.J. says. “I smell hamburger. I vote Big Mac.”

  “See?” I say. “That’s another one! Now Five, you’re psychic. Do you see us going into the thrift store?”

  “I see me going into McDonald’s.” She smiles wickedly. “I could use a bite.”

  D.J. snarls. Five hisses back.

  “Cool it, you two!” Ander barks. “McDonald’s will be drive-thru only! And Emmie and I will go into the thrift shop.”

  “Wait,” I say. “What about me? I need clothes worse than anyone!”

  Ander looks away. “I just don’t think it’s safe.”

  “It’s, like, 8:00 p.m.!” I say. �
��It’s plenty dark.”

  “I wasn’t worried about the sun hurting you,” Ander says quietly. “I was more worried about you hurting someone else.” He turns back to face me, his blue eyes full of concern. “Newly made vamps are irrational, impulsive…”

  “Did a werewolf just call me irrational?”

  “…emotional. Crabby. There are humans working in there, Cicely. I just don’t think you’re ready. I’ll shop for you.”

  I laugh. “No offense, but werewolves aren’t exactly known for their fashion sense. Your clothes are disposable.”

  “Then I will go,” Luke says.

  “Again, no.” Luke has impeccable taste in clothes, but I’m not sure I’d be comfortable wearing anything he picked out for me: long dresses, vintage blouses, a thousand times more feminine than the stuff I normally wear. “I really want to go for myself.”

  Luke looks hurt. “But you liked the dress I bought you for the dance, yes?”

  Like isn’t the word. I loved that dress. But that dress is gone, that dance is over, that life is in the past.

  “I’ll pick out something!” Emmie beams at me from the passenger seat. “Oh, it’ll be fun!”

  I shake my head. I could never pull off Emmie’s personal style, with her short denim skirts and her tight Hello Kitty t-shirts. “I just want a new red hoodie.”

  “You have a red hoodie,” Ander says.

  “I died in it,” I say. “Twice, if you count being buried alive.” I give him a beseeching look. “I just want something new.”

  Luke sits up straighter. “I will take responsibility for Cicely in the store.”

  Ander sighs. “Fine. We all go in. But Cicely’s staying with me.”

  A few minutes later, D.J. is headed for McDonald’s, Five has vanished to God knows where, and Ander, Luke, Emmie, and I are ambling towards the Goodwill. A little bell chimes as we walk through the door and the girl behind the sales counter looks up from the talk show she’s watching on an old black-and-white TV. She reminds me a little of Zoe. Not that she looks like her – besides the pierced nose and the fact that she’s about our age, they don’t have much in common. Maybe it’s just because I know Zoe would give her right arm to work in a thrift store instead of at her dad’s café. Or maybe the smell of the place (laundry detergent, mothballs, dust) makes me think of thrifting with Zoe. My sense of smell is so much stronger now and every scent is tangled with memories. Just walking through the door makes me long to chat with my best friend.

  It doesn’t, evidently, have the same effect on Luke. He wrinkles his nose. “I hate to say it, querida,” he whispers, “but I believe these clothes have been worn by someone else.”

  “That’s the point,” I whisper back. “They’re used clothes.”

  The girl’s eyes scan our little group and light on Luke. A blush rises in her cheeks and I have to grind my teeth together to keep the fangs from forming. The girl gives Luke a shy smile. “Can I help you?”

  “We’re fine,” Ander says quickly.

  “Sure.” She doesn’t take her eyes off Luke. “We’re supposed to close in fifteen minutes, but you can take your time.”

  Luke graces her with a smile. “You are very kind.”

  The girl’s cheeks go a shade darker, but she grins back at him. I can’t really blame her. Even after three days in a van, Luke is stunning. Maybe even more stunning for being a little rumpled. His dark curls are mussed, his eyes fever-bright with the bonding withdrawal. The girl watches him as he walks down the aisle. I’m sure she would follow him, too, if he asked her—right out the back door of the shop. There’s probably an alley, a dumpster to hide us from view…

  Don’t think like that, I warn myself. Think about how she looks like Zoe.

  I shove the thought of feeding out of my mind, but the girl must feel me staring because she peels her eyes off Luke and turns to me instead. Her expression turns wary. I can only imagine what she sees—I haven’t seen myself, since mirrors don’t work for me any more, but I can still imagine. My skin is pale. My long brown hair is lank. My cuts and bruises from our time in the tunnels are still fresh because my body no longer heals itself.

  In short, I look like a vampire.

  The girl drops her eyes back to the TV as I pass and I can smell her fear and confusion. It’s not that she knows, I assure myself. It’s just some ancient, leftover instinct telling her to be careful. I remember when that instinct kicked in for me with Luke… too little, too late. It wasn’t strong enough to save me, and it wouldn’t save her either.

  “Hey, Cicely!” Emmie steps deliberately between me and the sales girl, linking her arm through mine and tugging me down the aisle. “I think I mighta scored you a sweatshirt.” She whips a hoodie off the rack. “Ta-da!”

  I stare at it. “It’s black.”

  “Well, sure.” Emmie shrugs. “I don’t see any red. But think how great it will be for sun protection! Plus, it hides blood stains!” She thrusts the hoodie at me, smiling. “Go on, try it on.”

  I tug the hoodie on over my t-shirt. It’s big. The hood covers my face like a cowl and I don’t need a mirror to know how I look, shrouded like this. I look like the Grim Reaper.

  But Emmie is right, it will be perfect protection from the sun, and looking dead is a hundred times better than actually being dead, you know, permanently. I force a smile.

  “It’s great.”

  Emmie beams back at me. “Good! Now to find a few things for me.” She starts rummaging through the rack of t-shirts, tossing the ones she likes—namely anything cutesy in her signature color green—in a big pile on the floor. I find a few things for myself, too: some t-shirts and a gray sweater and a few pairs of worn-in jeans. I head for the dressing room. It’s really just a closet with a full-length mirror, but it makes me think of the last time I tried on clothes, in the dressing room of Binghams at the Mall of America. Then, I was looking for a dress for the Fall Formal, back when my worst enemy was a high school mean girl, and all I had to lose were my boots and my pride.

  My, how times have changed.

  “You okay in there?”

  It’s Ander, standing outside the dressing room. I can see his huge sneakers under the door, and I’m suddenly very aware I’m only half dressed. I pull my t-shirt back on quickly and turn instinctively to check myself in the mirror.

  But the mirror, of course, is empty. It reflects back the peeling paint of the dressing room wall and nothing else. I knew it would be empty, but standing here in front of a full-length mirror is so different from catching glimpses of nothing in the rearview mirror of the van.

  “Cicely?” Ander’s voice is edged with anxiety. “Cissa, are you in there?”

  “Yes,” I manage faintly. “I’m still here.”

  A half-hour later we regroup at the checkout, minus Ander, who has gone to check on his brother. Emmie has managed to find a pair of bright red cowboy boots and a huge pile of clothes, most of them in various shades of green, with a smattering of pastels thrown in. “Your pile looks like a box of Lucky Charms,” I say.

  She laughs. “Green was my color at the bar, you know? All my costumes were green to go with my stage name, Emerald.” She shrugs. “I guess I’m just used to it.”

  Her smile is wistful, and I realize for the first time that Emmie must miss all the friends she had at school and at the Nightlife. I feel suddenly bad Emmie got swept up in this at all.

  Although I’m certainly not the only reason she came with us. Emmie flashes a charming smile at Luke and holds a sequined tank top up to her ample chest. “Tell me, what do you think?”

  Luke barely looks at her. “I think that tasting good and having good taste are not necessarily synonymous.”

  Emmie pouts her lips, though I’m not sure she knows what ‘synonymous’ means. I’d love to take her side, but the fact is, Luke has great taste. Right now he has a selection of tailored clothes folded neatly over one arm and a pair of polished leather shoes dangling from his fingers. The clothes look like
they date from World War II and they probably came out of some great-grandpa’s closet, but I have no doubt on Luke they will look gorgeous.

  The sales girl seems to agree. She keeps cutting shy glances at him as she rings up his things. The shoes cost all of a dollar, and I wonder if Luke has ever paid less than a hundred for a pair of shoes in his long, long life.

  “Please, querida, allow me.” Luke takes my things and places them on the counter— partly because he knows I have no money, but also, I suspect, because he doesn’t want me to get too close to the sales girl, who is blushing the sweet shade of a ripe peach.

  “Oh,” says the sales girl. “Are your things together, then?” She looks disappointed.

  “Yes, of course.” Luke smiles at me and the sales girl looks sullen. Then he adds, “Put everyone’s on the same tab,” and the girl brightens a little. But she still steals skeptical glances at me as she rings up my baggy sweatshirt, my plain t-shirts, my holey jeans, as if she’s thinking, what does he see in her?

  Suddenly she doesn’t remind me of Zoe. She reminds me of all the snotty girls at St. Agnes High who used to give me crap. What does he see in me? I want to say, I gave up my life so he could live forever! But I know what Luke sees in me is even more complicated than that.

  And I know it shouldn’t matter what he sees. Luke isn’t the one I love.

  But I still don’t want anyone else looking at him that way. Not yet. When the girl looks up again, I catch her gaze and hold it. That tempting red drains from her cheeks and she looks away, fast. She’s not just embarrassed. She’s scared.

  Well, good, I think. I pick up my plastic bag of clothes and sweep it off the counter—

  And freeze. There, inside the display case, is a black velvet board covered with crosses: tiny gold ones, big silver and turquoise ones, a slender crucifix on a beaded chain. My hands begin to tremble. My stomach curls in on itself in fear, seeming to press against my spine. My mouth goes dry and my fangs itch to erupt in a fit of fight or flight. All I want to do is run, but I’m frozen.