Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series)

CHAPTER ONE

Pilot sunk into the cool cherry-leather driver's seat of James' silver Aston Martin DBS Volante and inserted the key plate into the dash. The plate glowed stoplight red and the engine hummed to life. "This is a bad idea," he muttered to himself.

Brie, his younger sister, eyed him in his rear view mirror. "At least I didn't wear my hair down today."

The right side of Pilot's lip twitched uncomfortably. A messy mop of a ponytail hung loose from Brie's head, as unkempt as Brie's smudged make-up and wrinkled clothes. Before their mom died, Brie spent hours every morning getting her dark brown hair to lay in soft waves along her delicate jaw line. But Brie never wore her hair down anymore—not since they had moved to Honolulu almost two months ago to live with their dad.

Brie pressed the small black rectangle to open the four-car garage door and the temperature-controlled room filled with the staunch, humid air of the island. It was another warm, beautiful day in the middle of October. Pilot inhaled his surroundings greedily—he still hadn't gotten used to the clean oxygen and the ever-present summer weather of his new home.

Pilot shifted the car into gear and pulled out of their winding driveway toward the street. The van Rossum property spanned five acres with a circular, three-story split-level house at the center. A privacy fence along the perimeter kept out prying eyes and the paparazzi. They hadn't had an encounter this week, which Pilot hoped meant the media had found someone new to harass.

The morning sun glared on the windshield as he cranked the stereo. The top was down, and Pilot took a minute to appreciate the fact that he was even driving himself to school—driving was impractical on the upper east side of Manhattan, where they used to live with their mom. He knew he shouldn't be speeding through the close-knit residential streets, but the rush and whirl of the wind was exhilarating. He imagined it blowing away his problems during the four-mile drive to pick up Rykken.

The white house where Rykken lived sat on a carport containing a broken aquamarine-blue 1969

Chevelle. It didn't seem like much of a place, but Pilot guessed there were worse foster homes to live in. Rykken seemed happy enough, though Pilot knew the money—or lack thereof—made Rykken feel like an outsider among their group of friends at Punahou.

When they pulled up, Brie pulled her earbuds out of an over-large purse she used to carry her schoolbooks. Rykken jetted down the steps from the second story entrance and tossed his backpack and athlete's bag in the backseat next to Brie. She didn't look up. He jumped in on the passenger side without greeting her.

"Annie let you drive the Aston?" Rykken asked, his eyes dancing with excitement.

No." Pilot shifted gears and the car lurched forward. "But she's the house manager, not our baby-sitter. I'm sixteen. I can take care of us when James isn't around."

Rykken's eyes crinkled, giving their natural slant even more definition. "He's gone already?"

"Left on Saturday," Pilot said. "I told you Annie lives with us for legal reasons."

Rykken scrunched his nose. "You mean, because you can't leave your under-age kids alone for months while you record a new album in Los Angeles?"

"That would be the reason." Pilot twisted his head back and forth, rubbing the muscle where his neck and shoulder met. Annie said the pinching along his spine was probably stress. But the pain had gotten worse since their mother died.

As they made their way through Rykken's neighborhood, the houses got smaller and the roads windier, until there were few houses at all. The jungle of palm trees thickened, closing in on the shoulder of the two-lane road. Twisting vines wrapped around the palms and trunks with finger-like tentacles, creating a web of greenery that looked like it could be trampled by an army of men with machetes and still win.

Brie shouted something from the backseat, but Pilot couldn't make it out with all the wind.

"What?" he asked the rear view mirror, slowing down slightly. They were only going forty miles per hour, but the top was down. One word came back with exaggerated emphasis:
pah-puh-rah-zi
!

"Paparazzi?" Pilot looked further in the distance of his rear view mirror and saw two people dressed like midnight, riding black motorcycles and pointing video cameras. They were gaining quickly on the Aston. Behind the motorcycles was another slimmer figure driving a white Vespa.

Pilot checked his side mirror. "I can't let James see us driving this." There were few rules in James' household, but the Aston was his dad's favorite car. Pilot wouldn't dream of driving it if his own Camry hadn't been out of fuel.

"Better hit the gas then," Rykken said, holding on to the top edge of the door.

Pilot slammed the metal beneath his foot, but the cyclers approached them quickly, flanking the left side of the car.

Brie popped her head in between the front seats. "Slow down and we can put the top up."

"Put your seatbelt on," Pilot said, swatting her hand away from the control panel. Brie fell back into her seat with a huff. Pilot shifted gears and hit the button to put the top up, but nothing happened.

"That's why I told you to slow down!" Brie wailed.

Pilot remembered the speed had to be under twenty to put the top down, but they were going too fast now. The dark riders on their two-wheeled stallions kept pace with the Aston, training their cameras on the siblings. Rykken pulled his backpack in front of his head to shield himself from view. An oncoming Honda Civic swerved to avoid the two cruisers that were now straddling the dividing line.

"You'll get hit!" Pilot shouted, but his words were lost to the wind. He drove onto the shoulder and slowed down as much as he could to give the cruisers room, though the less-forgiving side of him wouldn't mind much if another car erased them from the road.

Brie shouted something. The two men tossed their cameras to the ground. Pilot heard metal colliding concrete and saw scraps of electronic devices strewn behind them.

Pilot watched the men zoom off with unexpected fervor and wondered what Brie said to them. He shook his head; it was impossible. Paparazzi didn't leave because you
asked
them to.

Brie shook Pilot's shoulders violently. "Pull over! It's Mom! Stop the car!" The desperation in her voice caused Pilot to turn completely around in his seat. He looked to where she was pointing, but all he saw was the third paparazzo gaining ground. The tight white leather outfit showed off the rider's feminine curves, and the white motorcycle helmet vaguely reminded him of the storm troopers in Star Wars.

A split-second later the Aston screeched against the side of a palm tree. Pilot slammed on the brakes and steered the car to a stop on the side of the road. He saw the white Vespa jet off the road to his left, but he didn't have any energy left to figure out why the paparazzi would respect his privacy now. Pilot laid his head in his hands, wishing he could reverse time.

"Is everyone okay?" Rykken asked. Pilot heard Brie mumble a yes.

Anger brewed inside Pilot. "What the hell was that, Brie?" He didn't get a response though; Brie had hopped out of the Aston and was chasing down the woman on the white Vespa.

*****

Brie heard Pilot calling after her in the distance, but she didn't turn around. Her ears were still full of the booming, unearthly sound that chased away those men with cameras. Brie was nearly positive that the woman on the white Vespa was responsible for it, and for harassing the men into leaving their equipment shattered in the middle of the road. But it didn't make sense, because Brie had also seen her mother's eyes, light swirls of coffee, peeking out from under the white helmet.

Up ahead, she heard an engine sputter. The neighborhood was one she didn't recognize—mid-sized homes, interspersed between seas of green foliage with bright pops of yellows, pinks, and reds, disoriented her. The colors made her long for New York; she wasn't sure she would ever get used to the lack of metal and glass buildings towering over her, reflecting the sun back into the sky and keeping her skin and clothes from dampening with sweat. The houses here were stout and their walls reminded her of wet paper left out to dry in the heat, never to be flat again.

She spotted the white Vespa and the white woman beyond the street, concealed by a cluster of trees in one of the resident's yards.

"Mom!" she cried. "Mom!" Her words seemed empty though, as if they were swallowed by the vacuum of empty space between them. If she could only scream a little louder her mother would know she was there.

But the figure revved the engine.

Brie reached down and tossed her heels aside. She ran as fast as she could barefoot toward the yard.

"Stop! Stop!"

She tripped and fell to her knees, scraping her elbows and getting dirt under her fingernails.

Pawing at the ground to regain her footing, she tried to yell again.

"Stop!" she shouted. But this time, the words that emerged were not her own. The deep syllables that escaped were much more foreign and powerful than any other sound she had produced in her life.

As if she'd commanded it, the Vespa jerked to a halt and her mom flew over the handlebars. Brie sprinted toward the scene. Her mom had landed on a soft patch of dirt and grass and rolled into a ball, somersaulting and landing safely on her feet in one fluid motion. Brie slowed down, her lungs gasping for air and her skirt torn. She spotted blood between two of her toes. Her mother turned slowly, facing Brie and looking her dead in the eyes.

At that moment Brie knew she was mistaken: though this woman's eyes looked the same, her face was youthful and unblemished with age. These eyes were familiar yet foreign, like a caricature of her mother's own eyes, as if an artist had drawn them but purposely changed two or three details.

Brie stumbled backward, tripping over the roots of a trunk as the figure moved toward her. She fell into a palm tree, leaning against it to hold herself upright.

"That sound—" Brie stammered. "What did you do to those men on the motorcycles?"

The woman's eyes darkened, pinching at the corners. "You heard that?" The woman's voice was eerily familiar and the sun reflecting off her waxy outfit wrapped her body in a halo of blinding light. She moved closer to Brie. Why hadn't Brie run when she had the chance? She parted her lips, preparing to scream for help, but it was too late. The woman covered Brie's mouth with her balmy hand, silencing any hint of mutiny.

"Relax. It's me." The other hand came up over the front of the white helmet, pulling it off and shaking out a single, dark blonde braid. "See?"

Brie raised her hand to cover her squinted eyes. "Sirena?" Brie couldn't believe it. On the first day of school, they had sat next to each other, two new sophomore girls in a sea of childhood friendships. Sirena knew who Brie was, but hadn't asked any prying questions like the other students had—

she never acted like Brie had a famous family with a tragic story.

Sirena tilted her head to one side quizzically. "You're one of us?" Brie was beyond confused by the question, but shockingly, it was the other girl who couldn't seem to get a grasp on the situation.

Brie shook her head, jostling Sirena's hand out of her face. Sirena was the one stalking the Aston on a motorcycle and then running away to hide her identity. What right did she have to be confused?

Brie pushed away from the palm tree, side-stepped Sirena, and brushed the sand off her skirt. "Have you been spying on me this whole time?" Brie felt the anger inside her, but she refused to let her tears surface.

Sirena's eyes widened. "I can explain. It's not what you think." She stared at Brie in... awe. This should have been calming, but it only frightened Brie more. A paparazzo posing as a student she could handle. The truth... maybe not. Brie's imagination was already in overdrive trying to understand.
You're
one of us?

"What did you mean?" Brie asked, backing away in the direction she came. "I'm one of you. One of what? What are you?" In the distance, Brie heard footsteps and swearing. Sirena cocked her head at the sound, snapping out of her trance.