Fire And Ash (3 page)

She doesn’t look like Cassie but both of them have the same springy and uber friendly personality.
 

She leads me by my arm down a hallway and into the kitchen. “My son has grill duty and I’m responsible for the sides and the sweets. Cass should be back soon but in the mean time I’d feel bad about leaving you sitting in the living room alone. I was in the middle of making a fruit tray when I heard the doorbell. Would you like to help me?”

“Um, sure,” I answer awkwardly, hoping that it doesn’t entail anything to intensive. If what she says about Cassie’s cooking abilities is true then we have something in common. I would definitely burn water if left alone with a boiling pot.

I relax when the woman playing hostess in Cassie and her mother’s absence hands me a cutting board and a knife and directs me to slice a cantaloupe. That I can do. I am pretty good at anything that involves sharp objects.
 

I have sliced two cantaloupes, and entire watermelon, three pineapples, and am just starting on the kiwis when Cassie walks into the kitchen.
 

She groans as she drops the plastic bag on the kitchen table. “Really mom?! You did not put Ash to work already. There is no way she is going to come back over again if I invite her.”

Okay so maybe he is her brother and she just didn’t mention him. I wouldn’t either if he were mine.

“I am so sorry,” she says turning to me.

“It’s cool. It’s actually kind of fun.” I don’t say the words to make her feel better or to be polite. I mean it. In the last ten minutes I’ve fallen into a kind of enjoyable mindless rhythm as the kitchen knife sliced through one kind of fruit after another, cleaving two by two chunks of fruit.
 

“Liar,” Derek, the jackass, snorts as he steps through the partially open sliding glass door that leads from the kitchen to the fenced in backyard.

I stop cutting the kiwi in front of me and pretend to just happen to hold the knife in a way that it comes level with the spot between his eyes as he crosses the kitchen towards me. “No really. It’s fun to cut things.” I smooth my face into an innocent mask and make my voice drip with sickly sweetness.
 

He sits the foil pan with patties in it down hard on the counter beside me and glares at me straight on.

“Derek!” Cassie and his mom hiss at the same time.
 

His jaw clenches tight. I know he wants to respond to my none too subtle poke. But he doesn’t. He shoulders past me and heads for the sliding door. “The rest of the food will be off the grill in a minute. Is everything else ready? The sooner we eat the sooner
she
can leave,” he calls over his shoulder as he walks out.
 

Their mother’s mouth hangs agape and Cassie’s cheeks redden.
 

“I am so sorry,” she starts to apologize for his ill manners but I cut her off refusing to let her.

“You don’t have to apologize for his colossal rudeness.”

“Was he nice when she first got here?” She asks her mom. The suspicion in her voice makes it clear she is asking a question she already knows the answer to.

“You know how Derek can be. But don’t be too hard on him about it later. We both know the reason for his newfound attitude,” she says sighing. The oven chimes and she takes a pan that looks like it contains some sort of casserole out of it and puts a round pan that holds the cake batter she used the eggs to make in it.
 

“I know Mom but it’s starting to become a poor excuse. Him and his attitude is the reason we keep having to move. This is supposed to be our last clean start.”

“I know Cass. I’ll talk to him about it. I promise.”

“If y’all are done talking about me like I can’t hear you, can we eat already? I’m starving,” Derek calls from outside.

Cassie rolls her eyes and their mom gives her an indulgent smile.
 

I don’t stay long after we eat. I tell Cassie I have to get home because my dad is expecting me not to stay out too long. Truthfully, the way her brother spends the entire meal stone-faced and tight-jawed makes me feel like I’m imposing and I decide to go sooner rather than later.

“Ash!” Aunt Farrah screams upstairs. “Mom says to come eat!” My aunt can’t help but to be loud. She grew up in a house full of boys.
 

I pull on a pair of sweats over my sleep shorts, make a quick stop in the bathroom to brush my teeth, then head downstairs.
 

Today is the first time I’ve woken up to my family in residence and having breakfast together in days. Everyone’s time except mine and Grandma’s have been consumed by the search for the missing girl. I thought I missed everyone being around, but I rethink the sentiment when I open the refrigerator and am greeted by an empty carton of orange juice.

I scowl at Sean and raise the empty carton in the air. “Would it kill you to throw it away?”

“Why bother?” He says over a mouthful of pancakes. “That’s what I have you for,
princess.
”
 

Aunt Farrah spits out the sip of water she’s just taken when the carton hits him in the face. Even Gerard doubles over in laughter and they’re thick as thieves. My grandmother doesn’t think it’s so funny.
 

She thinks it’s even less funny when the steak knife on the table beside Sean hurls itself at my head.

“Sean!” She shrieks at him. “That was uncalled for!”

“And her hurling an orange juice carton across the room at me wasn’t?!” He whines sounding more like a twelve year old than a twenty year old.
 

I stick my tongue out at him behind my grandmother’s back. But I swear she has eyes in the back of her head because she calls me on it without ever turning around. “Ash! If you bleed all over my freshly mopped kitchen floor you’ll be cleaning it and every other floor in this house! So I suggest you move on from aggravating your cousin and go wrap your hand before it starts dripping blood.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I mutter and leave the kitchen, but not before shooting Sean the finger who has a triumphant smirk on his face

“I saw that too!” Grandma yells after me.

“Good catch,” Aunt Farrah whispers to me conspiratorially when I return to the kitchen and sit down beside her at the table.

I load my plate up with what’s left of the food after my cousins have demolished it. Two pancakes, a slice of bacon and a scoop of eggs. “Where are Dad and Granddad?” I ask with a mouth full of food.

Grandma narrows her eyes at me for my bad manners. I pretend not to notice.

“They left for Highland Village earlier this morning. The rest of us are meeting them there after I get a few things squared away here. I don’t like leaving you by yourself, but you’re responsible enough to do so and your grandfather could use the extra help on this one. We will be gone for a couple of days until the search for her wraps up. It doesn’t make sense to keep driving back and forth when we are helping the sheriff’s office look for her by day and hunting for the phoenix that are responsible by night.”

“Of course
the rest of us
doesn’t include me,” I say bitterly.

Sean and Gerard both snort.

 
“Of course not squirt,” Gerard says. “You’re being left behind.”

I force myself not to let on how much his comment gets to me.
 

Aunt Farrah picks up on it anyway. She nudges my shoulder with hers trying to lighten my mood.
 
“Look at it this way. We’ll all be out of town for a few days. You can throw a party or invite a boy over. You know do something a normal teenager would for a few days. You need balance kiddo, and you don’t have enough of it.” Of course Aunt Farrah would say that. Her motto is work hard, play harder.
 

“Ash has to actually have friends other than Becca to do those things,” Gerard, Tweedledum, quips from his seat beside Tweedledee.
 

 
Aunt Farrah is about to rip into him and I’m about to along with her. This is how things have always been. Them against us. The girls versus the guys.
 

Grandma intervenes before we can. “It’s about time for us to leave. Boys go get ready. Farrah you too.”
 

My aunt and my cousins push away from the table without a word and follow the directive.

I’m chewing a mouthful of eggs when Grandma initiates a conversation I’d purposely been avoiding having.
 

“Ash, how’s your summer reading coming along? Did you ever make it to the library to get your books?” She asks taking another sip of her coffee.

 
I open my mouth to lie, but then think better of it. Just like she has eyes in the back of her head, she also has a sixth sense when it comes to all of us lying to her.

“No,” I mutter.
 

“It’s already July Ash. The end of summer will be here before you know it. When do you plan on completing it? You have six books to read before September right?”

“Yes,” my shoulders slump and my head hurts just thinking about it. As a junior I’ll be taking AP Literature, Physics,
 
Algebra II, and AP U.S. History for core classes. My two advanced placement teachers have assigned me three books a piece to read over the summer in preparation for their classes. No doubt, there will be some type of project or test over the material in the first few days of school. I like reading but not when I am forced to and not when I don’t have a choice as to what I read. “Since I’ll be here alone for a few days, I will make it to the book store in Highland Village. It will give me something to do. I can turn it into a shopping day and pick up a few new outfits for school from the mall too.”

“I would prefer that you not go to Highland Village alone until this whole mess with the girl that was abducted is resolved. The library in town has the books you need. I already checked.”

“What does that have to do with me going to Highland Village? It’s not like I’m going to get abducted too. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you think you can Ashley and if we were sure that it is the average sick bastard behind the girl’s abduction then I would believe that too. But all evidence points to not just one phoenix but a group of them being responsible which means she will not be the only one.”

I want to tell her that I can still take care of myself, but I know my insistence will fall on death ears. When my grandmother feels some type of way about something it’s final.
 

“Fine I will go to the library,” I say instead.

After my family takes off I use my laptop to look up the details of the missing girl’s abduction out of boredom, wondering what evidence made my family so sure a group of phoenix were behind it. I find
 
the initial amber alert and headline of the abduction with a picture of the girl. She looks about my age and was last seen when she left her house to meet a couple of friends at the movies. Her friends claim she never made it and she never returned home either.
 
I also come across several byline updates that say the search for the girl and her abductor is still ongoing. But I don’t find anything else. Whatever my family knows, hasn’t been disclosed to the local media.

I close my computer screen when my stomach grumbles. It hasn’t been too long since breakfast but my inconsiderate cousins ate most of the food and what was left wasn’t enough to fill me up. My stomach grumbles a second time and a craving for a chocolate milkshake and a cheeseburger hits me. I change into a pair of loose black running shorts and a purple tank top and head to Cal’s Diner. It’s the same place I recommended to Cassie and it’s legendary all over Colorado for its artery clogging, but beyond delicious burgers and milkshakes.
 

Halfway through my double cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake I look up and groan.
 

Why did I ever tell Cassie about this spot?

 
I don’t mind that she is walking through the door. It is the person’s presence beside her that I mind. After dealing with my cousins this morning, I’m not in the mood for dealing with another jackass of the male variety.

She sees me after the waitress walks them to a booth four places away from the one I am sitting in and the pair slide into it. Derek sits with his back to me, thank God, and Cassie faces my direction. When she spots me I’m looking at them so I can’t pretend I haven’t spotted her too. She waves and I wave back. Derek turns his head, sees who she is waving to, and without any acknowledgement turns back around.
Rude
Jerk
.

Cassie stands and walks over to say hi.

“Hey, Cassie,” I say returning a smile. Derek whips his head around again and the smile reshapes into a hard pressed line.

Cassie’s gaze follows mine then she turns back to me looking sheepish. “I know you told me I didn’t have to apologize for Derek, but I still feel like I do. I would have texted you but I didn’t know if you wanted to hear from me after the way he acted at our house. Or if you wanted to hangout again.”

“Your brother is a dick, but I’d be an equal one to hold that against you so we’re cool.”
 
It is childish and inappropriate I know, but I make sure my voice carries enough for him to hear me.
 

 
Cassie breathes out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad you feel like that because you’re the first, well really the only friend I’ve made here. This move is supposed to be another fresh start for us. We’ve had a lot. And I want it to be different than all the last ones. Oh and Derek’s not my brother. He’s the uncle I told you about. I know that sounds weird but I promise it’s not hillbilly weird,” she rushes to explain after a confused look crosses my face. “If you don’t count me, Derek is technically the baby of his parents. Their oldest child was Derek’s brother and my dad. So Mom is really his mom and my grandmother. But my real mom and dad both died when I was a baby and I’ve lived with Derek’s parents who are my grandparents since then. Derek and his siblings called them Mom and Dad so I grew up doing the same.”