He'd risen above the terrible circumstances of his upbringing to selflessly provide protection for another. It didn't matter if I hadn't liked his delivery of said protection, he'd given it. And it had saved Jade.
More than once.
In the end, he hadn't even begrudged me that I would be with her.
He'd simply died, peaceful that she'd be happy, even if it wasn't with him.
Unconditional love.
If Brett Mason could give that, feel that... maybe there was hope.
For everyone.
The priest stopped the drone of his words of atonement and the ever after. Just as the rain started in earnest and with a small squeal, we left the gravediggers to their chore.
We ran to the Camaro, myself, with Jade's hand in mine as we fought sliding on the slick grass that grew between the tombstones. Death whispered as I jogged past, the rain smacking fat drops on my exposed skin, the chill of it sinking into my flesh.
I heard Sophie squeal from behind us and when I looked she fell on her butt, she and Jonesy going down in an unbalanced tangle of limbs.
I opened the door for Jade and she slid into the Camaro and turning back, I jogged to Jonesy and Sophie. I picked her up by a slick arm, fighting my balance on the sodden grass.
She started complaining about her outfit was full of mud but I wasn't listening.
Because off in the distance I saw a figure I'd recognize anywhere.
Howie Frazier smiled at me and tipped his imaginary hat. He pointed a finger at me like a gun and pulled the trigger.
I knew what his message was, see ya around, Hart.
I swiveled my head to the Camaro, making sure Jade was tucked in there and safe.
Her face, a warped image through the glass of the window, stared back.
I shifted my gaze back to the border of the forest where Frazier had been.
He was gone.
My friends gathered around me, their eyes trailing my stare. Seeing nothing, Alex asked, rain plastering his hair to his head, "What's going on?"
"Nothing," I said.
"Right," Jonesy said, tapping his forehead. "I don't have to be psychic to hear my bullshit meter go off."
"Nice, Jones. Can't a guy stare?" Tiff said, her bubble not popping for the rain.
"Him, no."
They looked at me, I stared back.
I shrugged. "I'll let ya know when there's something to worry about."
"There's always something to worry about, Caleb," John said, giving me serious eyes.
Eyes that weren't fooled.
"True," I conceded.
I walked off to the Camaro where Jade was waiting, rain running inside my collar, soaking the shirt so it lay like a wet blanket against me.
Their burning inquiry following me all the way there and well after I pulled away from Scenic Cemetery.
I drove into a future of uncertainty and questions unanswered. Why did the Graysheets allow me to live if I was such a threat? Why was Frazier cruising around like a lab rat gone bad? What had happened to Parker? And lastly, what could be done to stop the agenda of the Zondorae brothers?
I looked at my girl next to me and she leaned into my shoulder as I drove, smelling delicious.
I knew one thing, I was gonna get to the bottom of it all.
Even if it killed me.
THE END
Read on for the exciting first chapter of book six, Unrequited Death, available now!
Unrequited Death
Book Six of the Death Series
by Tamara Rose Blodgett
Unrequited Death
by Tamara Rose Blodgett
Copyright © 2012 Tamara Rose Blodgett
http://tamararoseblodgett.blogspot.com
ISBN-10: 1475210507
ISBN-13: 978-1475210507
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 purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved.
Edited by Stephanie T. Lott
For:
My four sons, without whom, it would have been impossible to write~
Unrequited Death- CHAPTER 1
KPH graduating class of 2029
I adjusted the cap on Jade's head and she ducked away from my nimble fingers, a frown puckering the smooth mocha perfection of her forehead.
"Come on, babe, come here." I reached to scoop her back to me and she huffed. "No, Caleb, you're going to wreck my hair!"
Wreck. The. Hair. Uh-huh.
We couldn't have that. I mean, graduation and all. Monumental.
I couldn't have cared less but this was Jade's day, John's day. The prison doors were opening with a whisper and closing with a clank.
We were free.
"It's hanging crooked," I argued logically. The deep royal blue of the cap contrasted with the naturally black hair that flowed down her back in an artful silken waterfall.
It was a mite distracting as Clyde would say. He had given me a level of vocabulary that even my Grammar-Nazi mom couldn't compete with. I dug that.
Clyde would be here today with Bobbi. He wouldn't miss it.
Jade shrieked as I raced after her, my arms going around her waist and I lifted her as she squealed.
Alex came in and saw the two of us doing a staggering dance of hyperactivity. "What... is this like a porn thing here?"
What? I looked at him, bodily turning around to face him with Jade in my arms.
Her embarrassment was tangible.
I hadn't been thinking that way but now that he mentioned it....
Jade was dying, I noticed, a flush creeping up on her cheeks.
"No man, she won't cooperate with a hat fix," I said, saving the moment.
Alex's eyes shifted to the crooked graduation cap, the tassel swinging in Jade's face like a pendulum gone bad and smiled.
"Yeah, that bad cap. I hear that." Mucho-sarcasm.
I let Jade down and gave a chuckle. Perv-Alex was right on board as usual. Then Randi came up behind him and goosed him in the ass and it was his turn to get embarrassed.
Randi peeked around his big body and looked at Jade. "See how that works?"
Jade nodded, grinning. "I do, yes."
The girls looked at each other smugly and Alex grunted. "The girls have the power man," he said, only half-teasing.
"That's smart that ya just figured that out," I responded and gave him a sly smile, suppressing a girl-worthy eye roll.
"Merranda?" Principal Chen popped her face into the room where many graduates gathered, the talking like a low din of white noise in the background. Her hair was so tightly slicked back from her face she looked like a refugee from a forty MPH wind tunnel.
I blinked and Jade laughed, she'd gotten the full Empath blow by on that. I'd always wondered if she got it like a pulsescreen visual of my thoughts or what? Sometimes I just wanted to own my weirdness with no witnesses.
"You grumpy that I saw that?" Jade whispered, her lips tickling my neck and making me shift my weight. She knew how she affected me. Jade was a walking sexsicle. She knew it, I knew it and she was being evil now.
I glowered at her. "Yeah, now let me fix your hat."
She smiled, giving my neck a soft peck and I turned to capture her lips, giving an internal groan of satisfied bliss.
I completely forgot about Chen. Jade sometimes had that Mind Blanking Effect on me.
"Mr. Hart," she said in a low voice full of warning.
It cut through my fog like a lighthouse beacon.
I swiveled my head and Alex whispered, "Busted."
How could I be busted? I'd be nineteen in a matter of a few months.
Randi made the slicing the neck gesture behind her gestapo mom's back, which clearly said don't blow it, not today, we're this close.
Then something happened that surprised the hell of me. Chen gave me a break.
"Don't do the PDA spectacle when we get out there in the auditorium."
Right. I nodded. "Hey thanks." My surprise must have shown because she gave a low laugh.
"I was eighteen once," she explained.
We all looked at her and she laughed again. "I was... you'll see." She turned to her daughter, dwarfed by my friend the Body. A guy so massive he was his own zip code. Not defined by name but by area.
"I need you to be in your seat before the other students, Merranda."
"Okay, Mom," Randi responded on the barest side of neutral.
I think all of us had about had Enough of Parents.
We filed out, Jade with her crooked hat and perfect hair, me with the I'm-so-glad-this-is-over-I-could-shit-myself look.
I saw that same look on about half the guys and a good number of the girls too. Universal School Scorn.
Nice.
We were alphabetical so my hands fell away from Jade reluctantly when she went to the L section.
It put her really close to Carson Hamilton. There was only a skinny girl still in braces sitting between them.
I felt that familiar anger wash over me, thinking about our senior year. The near misses. The intensity of my anger was barely held in check. I'd just missed getting that probation reinstated. I'd finished my Reactive Management class by the skin of my teeth and I used the skills I'd been taught and barely mastered now.
Our world had become so politically correct that even criminals graduated. Thankfully, Tiff was in the W section.
Jonesy came up behind me and clapped me on the back. He'd grown over the summer between junior and senior year, his frame an inch shy of my almost six feet two. We'd all become tall but Terran and Alex were giants. Alex was all due to the Graysheet cocktail. But Terran was just him. He was six feet five inches of lean mean fighting machine.
John was also the valedictorian. Of course.
"Jade is by Hamilton," Jonesy said, like that little fact would escape my notice.
"Yeah," I responded, my anger deepening. My intellect told me he wouldn't try anything. That primitive beat of guyness was on point all the same. I thought males would always be this way. It was a natural thing.
We stood there contemplating that fun occurrence when Tiff came up and stood between us.
"Well that's a fuckburger," Tiff said casually, eying Jade's seating.
"Language, Weller," Griswold hissed, sans whistle. Tiff lifted a narrow shoulder, the satin of her white gown making a slithering sound against her hair. "Okay," she replied, utterly unruffled. I held in the walrus bark with an effort.
Jonesy didn't, giving a raucous guffaw that made Griswold's brows drop into a unibrow above her eyes.
Griswold stalked off muttering as Gramps walked up to our group. His eyebrows popped as he watched Griswold circle us ruffian teens like a shark on the blood scent trail.
"She a hard charger?" Gramps asked knowingly.
Tiff turned her head to look at him. "Huh?" she asked, giving Griswold the look as she got in someone else's grill.
I instantly translated Old Guy Speak, "She gets 'er done."
"Hell yeah," Jonesy muttered, wiping fake sweat off his forehead and Griswold hissed from across the room, "Language, Jones."
Gramps laughed. "Good hearing too."
He had no idea.
Mia came up with Bry, their hands laced intimately. They'd finally gotten together and the group had given a collective sigh of relief. Although, if Bry didn't get his act together and start to think again we were going to be driven insane.
Mia had graduated last year and was attending today just for us. Bry was here with his one hundred and one siblings en mass. He leaned down, using the tip of his nose to push Mia's hair away from her ear and she tilted her face so he could get better access and smiled in response to something only she could hear.
Gramps looked on and said nothing. His face said so much.
The scars from the beating he'd taken in the sphere world were still on his face and he claimed they were character marks. He had a lot of character then.
Jezebel the Organic hadn't been able to fix him totally and he still limped when the weather turned cool.
It made me feel guilty as hell.
I saw Gramps' hand stray to the pocket of his perfectly pressed shirt. He was itching for a smoke but I knew he was finally trying to quit.