Betrayal (Vanish Book Two) (4 page)

Great, I had just gotten here, now I had to
make the journey back to the house. I had little hope of making it
back alive. Dante sensed my frustration.

“I’ll go with you,” he offered.

He got up from the table, and I followed him
to the door. He walked at a normal pace, and it didn’t take him
long to realize my limitations. He chuckled and motioned for me to
jump on his back. He carried me back to the house, and let me off
once we were inside. It was much easier to walk on a flat surface,
though I still wouldn’t call it easy.

I went into Grace’s room and tapped her
shoulder.

“What—” Grace said, alarmed.

“Were going shopping, you should get
ready.”

“Ugh,” she whined.

“C’mon were leaving soon.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, sounding more
concerned about me than she had in a long time.

“Yes and no, but I’m trying not to think
about it.” I walked out of the room to let her get dressed.

She walked out of the room a few minutes
later, wearing the same sweat pants and sweatshirt she had on for
the last three days. I imagined she must have been wearing them for
far longer than that.

“Hey, you know they have clothes in there you
can use, right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

We met Elizabeth, Lily and Annabelle back at
the house. It wasn’t as long of a ride as I expected. First, she
took us to get lunch. It was at a restaurant in downtown somewhere;
I didn’t know where we were, but then again, it was rare that I
did. We sat out on the patio, not many cars drove by.

“Okay, so the main reason I wanted to take
you girls shopping is, we’re having a party tonight. We want you to
meet all of our friends. Welcome you to the… well, neighborhood I
guess,” she joked.

“That’s so nice,” Annabelle said. “I’m
excited!”

“Great,” Elizabeth replied with enthusiasm,
and then she looked over at me.

“You guys have been so wonderful to us; I
don’t know how to thank you,” I said, though I wasn’t a big fan of
being at a party with close to no one that I knew.

“It’s no problem at all, really,” she
laughed. “But it would mean a lot to me if you all dressed up.” She
looked around at all of us; Annabelle couldn’t have been more
excited. I, on the other hand, was not too excited about dressing
up. “It will be fun,” she promised.

When we were done with lunch, Elizabeth took
us to a fancy dress store. It was Annabelle’s dream come true. As
long as I could find some heels that weren’t five inches like
these; I figured I would survive. I could understand why a girl
like Annabelle was thrilled to be in here. The dresses were
gorgeous; I was starting to get a little excited, myself. Annabelle
ran from rack to rack, spouting out gibberish about the necklines
and material. I couldn’t keep up.

“We have all day Annabelle,” Elizabeth
giggled.

I went to a more modest rack. There were
plain blue and black dresses, most looked like T-shirts with
skirts. I turned around and saw Annabelle twirling around in a
beautiful, red dress. The style was called mermaid, as Annabelle
pointed out. It fit her perfectly until it puffed out just below
her knees. Grace picked a dress off the rack and hurried to the
dressing room. She stayed in there for a while; I was starting to
get worried. Then, I looked over at Lily. She was slouched over
sitting on the ground across the store; I went over to see if she
was okay.

“How’s it going Lily?” I asked.

“Leave me alone,” she snapped.

“What did I do to you?”

“It wasn’t bad enough that Dante is crazy
about you? You had to lead my brother on, too. Not to mention my
mom has replaced me with you.”

“Lily, I didn’t lead Cooper on, and your
mother could never replace you,” she lightened up a little. I
grabbed her arm and dragged her over to a rack. “This would look
amazing on you,” I handed the dress to her. It was green, and it
sparkled. I almost wanted to try it on myself.

“You’re right,” she smiled. “I’ll go try it
on.”

“Scarlett?” Elizabeth said as she walked up.
“Haven’t you found anything yet?” I looked across the room and saw
the perfect dress.

“Yeah,” I said as I walked over. I held it
up.

“It’s a bit plain,” she said. “Try it on,
I’ll see if I can find anything else you might like.”

It was baby blue with a black satin ribbon
around the waist. It went down to my knees and flew up when I
twirled. It was simple, but still pretty. I came out of the
dressing room; Grace came out at the same time. Her dress was
short, black and extremely tight.

“Oh, that does look nice on you, but before
you decide try this,” she said to me as she handed me a shiny
purple ball gown. She looked over at Grace. “Oh wow, uh, Grace
maybe you should try on one of those.” She pointed over to some
longer dresses.

“Oh, I think I like this one, but thanks.”
She walked away.

“I don’t know…” I said with skepticism.
“Besides, are all of your guests going to be wearing dresses? If
they weren’t, I would feel really out of place in this. I mean,
don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful… But—”

“What, you think because we live in the
woods, we can’t host parties for which it would be appropriate to
wear a nice dress?” She stared at me with crazy eyes like I had
never seen, I felt my face flushing. “I’m kidding,” she laughed.
“You thought I was serious?” She asked, still in disbelief.

I laughed back. It was real, but more of a
nervous laugh than anything.

“I just figured if it was to introduce us to
your friends, it would be more…” I stopped to think of the right
word, “…casual.”

“Do you know what day it is?” she waited for
an answer. I didn’t. It felt like I was caught in some kind of time
warp. “It’s Halloween. Every year, we invite our friends over on
Halloween. It just turned out to be perfect timing to introduce you
to everyone.”

“So why aren’t we at a costume store?” I
asked.

“Weren‘t you listening when I told
Annabelle?” I shook my head. “The younger kids wear costumes. My
friends and I decided to take the opportunity to wear fancy dresses
that would seem silly if it were any other day,” she waited for my
response.

“That’s pretty cool,” I admitted.

I couldn’t see anyone in the woods, wearing
the dress Annabelle was, or the one Elizabeth had picked out for
me, but for Halloween, I guess it kind of made sense.

“Right? It’s not as fun for the guys; they
just follow our lead and wear suits.”

“Ooh, how about this one?” Annabelle chimed
from across the room. I looked over. I was mortified.

It was black lace intricately designed to
cover only the most necessary places. It was beautiful, but I could
never….

“Try it on!” Annabelle urged, she started
whistling, and Lily joined in.

“Okay, okay,” I grabbed it and went into the
fitting room. When I got it on, I was surprised, I looked… good.
Even better than that, what seemed revealing on the hanger covered
everything. I walked out of the changing room.

“You have to get this one,” Annabelle said.
“You look amazing!”

“I agree,” Elizabeth said with
excitement.

“You do; you look great,” Lily complimented.
She was wearing the green dress I pointed out to her.

“Well, at least no one will be looking at me
with you there,” I complimented back.

Once we all found shoes, we went to a more
casual store. Everyone got a few pairs of jeans and some shirts. I
felt awful letting Elizabeth buy all of this for me, but she
wouldn’t take no for an answer.

On our way home, Annabelle and Elizabeth
chattered on and on about the party. Decorations, hairstyles,
makeup, they covered it all. When we got home, Annabelle started
dragging me back to the house.

“Let’s get ready together I can do your hair
and makeup….”

“Wait a second,” I said, noticing Lily
walking back to her house. “Lily!” I yelled.

“Huh?” She turned around.

“You can come back and get ready with us;
Annabelle’s offering to do hair and makeup.”

“Okay,” her eyes lit up. I didn’t think
Elizabeth would be interested, but I figured I would offer
anyway.

“You can come, too, Elizabeth,” I shouted as
Annabelle tried pulling me and Lily along.

“Actually girls, the party isn’t until nine,
and I wouldn’t mind some help getting everything ready.”

Annabelle wasn’t happy; she was too excited
about putting on her dress and getting ready to concentrate on
anything else.

“Come on, she just bought us all this stuff,
the least we could do is help,” I snapped.

“Okay, okay, you’re right,” Annabelle
groaned.

We caught up with Elizabeth; she was in the
garage looking through some boxes.

“Here are some lights, hang them wherever you
can. The guys and George will set up some tables out here, and I’ll
handle inside the house,” she said.

Annabelle grabbed some lights and walked over
to a tree.

“Wait a second.” I imagined all the lights
wrapped around the trees. Every other tree was covered in orange
and green lights. That was too easy. I imagined more lights, dark
purple, hanging from the trees and leading to the house. It was a
beautiful canopy over where all the tables would be.

“Wow,” Annabelle said in awe.

Grace looked paralyzed with fear; I
remembered this wasn’t normal for her, not that it really was for
me.

What else could I do? I had an idea; I was
sure everyone who would be wearing heels, would thank me. I
imagined the ground flattening out, and then, taking it a step
further, I imagined the dirt around the house turning a bright,
beautiful orange.

“I’d say our work here is done.” Annabelle
started walking back to the house.

I glared at her. I was feeling exhausted; I’d
never done something like this.

“Let’s go see if Elizabeth needs help
inside.” I grabbed Annabelle’s arm and dragged her along, just as
she’d done to me a few moments earlier. “Hey do you need any help?”
I asked as we walked through the door.

“Are you done out there already?” she asked
disappointed. I understood. I wouldn’t have thought we could have
gotten much done in five minutes either.

“Come look,” I suggested. She followed me to
the door.

“How did you do this?” she asked. I closed my
eyes and imagined all the trees turning orange and black. “Your
power? I had no idea…” she stood there frozen.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?” I
asked.

“No, no, no. I love it. It’s just… it all
makes sense now,” she said, frightened.

“What? What makes sense now?” I wondered.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she
whispered to herself.

“Please tell me what’s going on,” I
begged.

“If the Alliance ever got ahold of your
power, it could be catastrophic.”

Elizabeth dragged me into the house, telling
everyone else to stay outside. I was horrified; I didn’t know what
was going on, or why I was so dangerous.

“Where are we going?” I asked as she dragged
me through the house.

“In theory you can imagine anything, and it
will just be. Thank God your dreams are reality, otherwise the
world could have been plagued with your nightmares,” she was
starting to sound crazy. “Your dreams are not imagination, so
that’s not a worry.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I asked.

“The Alliance, if they don’t know about this
yet, they will.”

“So, I could just imagine them all dropping
dead, or imagine a crack in the earth and let them all fall in it.
If your theory is correct that is, this is the biggest thing I’ve
ever done with my power, and I’m exhausted so….”

“Never, ever underestimate the Alliance or
your power. They recruit people with extraordinary powers just like
yours. Some can cancel out other people’s powers. You know when
they use that?” she asked, not waiting for a reply. “When their
recruits deny them, they cancel their powers and take them for
themselves.”

“How could they take them?” I questioned.

“Do you know how we came about?” Elizabeth
asked.

“No,” I choked, I never even thought of
anything like that.

“A necklace,” she stopped. “A woman found it
one day, buried in the sand. It called to her, and she couldn’t
ignore it. The story has some holes. No one knows how it got its
power. She put it on and immediately felt different. When she woke
up the next morning, she was curled up on the bed. She wasn’t a
woman anymore, she was a tiger. She could change into almost any
living thing she could dream of, but she couldn’t change back into
herself. She learned how to return to her human form—but she still
would never be the same. When she did, she locked herself away,
afraid she would be called a witch and be burned alive. She met a
man a few years later, when she touched him, she bestowed power
onto him. His power wasn’t great, but it allowed him to communicate
with her without ever saying a word and as time went on, he gained
more power. She was the most powerful of our kind, and only he
could receive her power. The two of them fell in love, and their
children were born with various powers.”

“What does this have to do with me?” I
asked.

“Back to my point, once the necklace she wore
gave her its powers, it was an empty vessel. One of her children
found it years later. She was eighteen, and it took away her
powers. When she put it on again they were restored.”

“I still don’t see where you’re going with
this,” I said, confused.

“There have been many more of those necklaces
found throughout history, millions. If someone got one of them on
you, there would be little you could do to get it back. You’re not
eighteen yet though, are you?”