Stained

Copyright
(c)
2012 by Ella James.

All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

The monster clawed the dark sky, hissing and spitting and belching ash. Its fat orange talons twisted the little house until it cracked, until the walls caved and the roof collapsed.

Neighbors sprang from their quiet homes and stumbled to the yard, drunk from the light, shouting for help. And for nothing. No one inside was alive.

Julia knew this.

She watched the fire as it swelled, as it swallowed glass and gulped brick. She watched while her clothes and books and,
God
, the bodies of her parents, stoked the beast.

The wet Memphis wind whipped smoke through her hair as the remains of the little house on Galloway Avenue rained over the street.

Sirens wailed, frantic screams interrupted by the sound of a million kettles screeching:
The end! The end!
And it was the end.

But not for the sirens. They wailed and wailed and wailed--God why were there sirens, hurrying drivers running red lights, when no one was alive?--and lo, the Angel of Death appeared in the air above her home. All black skin and white teeth and red, red eyes. She thought he was laughing, but before she could be sure, his long wings beat the dirty air and he was gone.

Julia staggered into the shadows between her yard and the next. The path behind her led to Dirk and Dwight's house, through two tidy yards and down three doors.

She shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut. It hadn't been late. Not that late. Dirk had Ms. Botch for pre-cal. Ms. Bitch. He couldn't do math, and Dwight just plain couldn't do school, so Julia had laced up her new pink All-Stars, slipped her notes into her pocket, and sneaked out the window. She hadn't bothered peeking into her parents' room. They were snorers, so she knew they were asleep.

Julia had sat on the boys' front porch and explained trigonometric functions, her cereal-box watch reading 12:40 a.m. when she arrived. Now it read 1:08. Twenty-eight minutes. Twenty-eight minutes and this.

The neighbors stayed near the crumbling curb, bobbing heads together, palms pressed over eager mouths. Soon they would be talking. That foster girl and that poor, sweet couple. Such a shame.

Julia searched for a cue in their script, but she couldn't find her lines. Because she didn't have any. Because she would be gone.

She couldn't go back to the state, not after five years of paradise. Harry and Suzanne had been her parents since she was twelve, and she would follow them into the annals of the neighborhood's folklore.

As red and white and orange light jumped across cotton gowns and tragic faces, and the sirens out-whined the noise of the inferno, Julia walked away.

It was the water that startled her out of it--startled her awake. Somehow, she'd gone to sleep standing, and when Julia came to, she was a long way from home. The girl who could barely do two miles for PhysEd had walked--well...her brain didn't seem capable of guesstimation, but it was a stretch. From Overton all the way to the muddy Mississippi.

She was a gunshot from downtown, her bare feet bunched over the short grass that fringed the river. She took a few wobbly steps back, almost into Riverside Drive, and someone's import horn reminded her of her place.

Heart pounding, Julia crossed the street. She followed the sidewalk past a steep hill bearing a row of river-view homes, until the neighborhood folded into itself and the pretty painted houses became old gas stations, abandoned buildings, and squalid apartment complexes.

Julia sank her nails into her palms as she passed a patch of deserted warehouses. One, a white brick ruin with a faded pecan mural, caught her eye. She ripped three weathered boards off a window and shimmied inside.

Suzanne always bought a giant bag of roasted pecans for Christmas, and that's what the place smelled like: Christmas. And plastic.

It looked like a nightmare. Crates and boxes and overturned chairs littered the floor. Thick cobwebs covered the corners, and every surface sported a layer of grime.

There were three locked offices and two bathrooms; the men's had a cracked porcelain sink that worked, and the women's had a toilet that still flushed--barely. Julia found a torn gray tarp covering a stack of crates and, thinking blanket, ripped it off.

The boxes tumbled down, spilling bucketfuls of rotten, black pecans.

Julia stared at them and her skin came alive, jumping over her bones like a horse's jittery coat. Once the shaking started, she couldn't make it stop. She fumbled to her feet, gasping for air. She tripped over a piece of plywood and crawled the rest of the way outside.

She fell asleep under a scrawny oak tree and slept through the night--a stupid thing to do anywhere, much less in Memphis. She woke up cold, confused, and aching.

Julia thought about the twins as she rubbed her neck. If it went right, the cops would think she was dead, so she couldn't see Dirk and Dwight again. Not even at school, which she suddenly realized she would never again have to attend. Suzanne and Harry would have knocked her a good one for dropping out, but she didn't care. School was nothing. Not really. She was smart enough already.

To celebrate, she relieved a convenience store of two candy bars, a can of Grapico and, on a whim, scissors. Back in the warehouse, she chopped her waist-length black hair to her shoulder blades and frowned at the cloudy mirror.

The girl frowning back was a stranger. Without the ebony curtain hanging to her hips, Julia's smallish mouth and unremarkable nose stood out. Her big brown eyes looked even bigger. She could see too much of her high cheekbones and honey-colored skin. And without the weight of her mane, she felt too light.

The difference in her appearance made her feel faint, so she fled the bathroom and tucked herself into her tarp.

The sleep was beautiful. Lying half-awake was a new kind of heaven, though its wonder was relative. The next thing she stole was a bottle of NyQuil, and she spent an entire day asleep.

She might have slept forever, but a loud thud woke her sometime late that night. Julia jerked up, heart pounding, senses scanning though she had no idea why.

Then she heard it: a series of thuds on the warehouse roof. She pulled the tarp to her chin as clouds of dust rained over her. The banging continued for probably half a minute before it stopped. Julia counted to ten before she opened her eyes, and several more seconds passed before she dared to breathe.

"What the--"

The roof exploded. Julia covered her head as wood beams and chunks of concrete crashed down around her. She pressed against the wall until the racket became a whimper. When the dust cleared, she peeked over a pile of rubble and gasped.

Dozens of glossy charcoal feathers settled around a hole in the floor at least half a foot deep. A guy was inside. She swiftly registered broad shoulders, hard muscle, and dark hair.

A hot guy. Very hot. He had, too literally, fallen at her feet.

Chapter 2

He lay awkwardly on his back, one arm across his wide, thick chest. His knuckles were raw, like he'd been fighting. She stared at his face over the shallow rise and fall of his chest, struck by how stunning he was. Statuesque.

Even flat on his ass, he had a sort of presence; she half expected him to stand up, dust his rugged blue jeans off, and saunter outside to a waiting tour bus.

Sorry mates. Just a tour prank.

A mop of shaggy chestnut hair splayed around his pale, scraped face--a face that seemed jaded and wise, even without the light of consciousness.

Long lashes fluttered below dark brows, above generous lips and a straight-line nose. His emerald gaze found Julia. Then his eyes slipped shut, and he deflated with an airy whoosh.

Oh no!

Julia opened her Sight as she scrambled to his side, wincing when she reached him. Injuries were usually glowing white chains that knotted wherever someone was hurt. His chain was brilliant, beautiful silver, and bursting with gnarls. They seemed to cover every inch of him.

Julia stroked his damp forehead as she noted each knot. One, over his heart, was tightening fast. She snatched it, and her chest began to ache. She crisscrossed and unlooped until it hurt to breathe.

As quickly as she could, she moved to the knot over his skull. It was a frightening mess of tangles--tangles made of tangles, throbbing brighter every second. She tried to be careful, to be gentle, but she was working fast, and his face twisted.

It was intense; more than anything Julia had tried to do before. Just half a minute in, and her nose started to bleed.
She should have stopped then, but there were so many knots, each one urgent, pulsing for attention.

She dove deeper, mixing her aura with his, and caught impressions of him in color: the red flare of anger, the riptide orange of vengeance, a shameful green regret.

Confusion was prevalent, a blinding pink. But the black was strongest: rage and sorrow, an almost even blend that stained him.

And over that, translucent scenes. A worn adobe home, slanted and steaming under the summer sun. Splotches of gray sky, and below it a wide log cabin heaped with snow. Fistfulls of stone. Agony. Purple pain that made her weak.

For too long, the ripping ache was all she knew.

Then she saw skin like rich mocha. Beautiful, amber eyes. She felt the sting of muscle straining, heard screams so real they stung.

Oh
. They were coming from her throat.

She was spinning, too much energy in a battered body.

It's never... been like this.

When she could, she lifted her head from the cradle of her hands, and the ramshackle warehouse blinked to life. Those heavy-lashed green eyes were open, frantic jade searching her own.

He was still pale, but not sickly sallow like before. She noticed a jagged white scar across his throat and felt a wriggling warmth deep in her belly.

"Are you okay?" she panted.

"You gotta get out of here," he groaned, rolling onto his side. Julia shied back, as startled by him as she was attracted.