Lost Seraphine (Seraphine Trilogy #2)
Published November 24th 2013 by TriGate Press
Caleb Wood now knows the Dark Seraphine's true identity.
Life should be a little more sane now, right? Wrong! It’s kind of hard to ignore the walkers, fallen souls taken by the Angel of Chaos. Oh yeah, only Caleb can see them.
After saving his girlfriend from the wrath of a sea witch, Caleb finds himself faced with a new problem…understanding the strange tattoos showing up on his body. He must also deal with his Lost Seraphine, the girl who left her family behind to save the boy she loves. The same girl who just happens to be the daughter of a mythological god.
Gia gave up one of her powers to be with Caleb. She knew that she was connected to the Dark Seraphine in some way. You see, there’s a prophecy, something she always believed to be a fairy tale linking her with the girl who also wants Caleb. Haunted by visions of her dead brother, Gia realizes she has made a terrible mistake. The ability she gave up is the one thing she will need to keep her boyfriend safe.
Will Caleb be able to accept the things he will learn about his real father while trying to save the girl he loves from herself? Book Two of the Seraphine Trilogy and prequel to the Lost Immortals Saga is coming soon
Life should be a little more sane now, right? Wrong! It’s kind of hard to ignore the walkers, fallen souls taken by the Angel of Chaos. Oh yeah, only Caleb can see them.
After saving his girlfriend from the wrath of a sea witch, Caleb finds himself faced with a new problem…understanding the strange tattoos showing up on his body. He must also deal with his Lost Seraphine, the girl who left her family behind to save the boy she loves. The same girl who just happens to be the daughter of a mythological god.
Gia gave up one of her powers to be with Caleb. She knew that she was connected to the Dark Seraphine in some way. You see, there’s a prophecy, something she always believed to be a fairy tale linking her with the girl who also wants Caleb. Haunted by visions of her dead brother, Gia realizes she has made a terrible mistake. The ability she gave up is the one thing she will need to keep her boyfriend safe.
Will Caleb be able to accept the things he will learn about his real father while trying to save the girl he loves from herself? Book Two of the Seraphine Trilogy and prequel to the Lost Immortals Saga is coming soon
I have really loved all of KaSonndra's books, and this one is no different. I first fell in love with her writing when I read When Copper Suns Fall and When Silver Moons Rise of the Lost Immortals series which ties in with this one. This Seraphine series takes place before the Lost Immortals. SO am excited to see how that all will connect. There were more names and groups mentioned from the Lost Immortals, so find it really interesting. I can't wait to see how it all will play out with Caleb and Gia, and wonder what will happen to set it up for the Lost Immortals. We will see I guess.
I liked reading this book alot more than the first, now that doesn't mean i didn't like it. I just didn't enjoy being in Caleb's head as he was quite immature. At times he had seemed even younger than his 17 years. He did grow and mature alot in this book, and found I got into more.
I do not want to say too much, but to say this book was really exciting and I really enjoyed it.
I look forward to the next in the series. I give this 5 out of 5 stars. I Highly recommend this book and series. I hope to be able to read Torn Seraphine soon, the 3rd in this series.
I was provided a copy of this book for my honest review.
I liked reading this book alot more than the first, now that doesn't mean i didn't like it. I just didn't enjoy being in Caleb's head as he was quite immature. At times he had seemed even younger than his 17 years. He did grow and mature alot in this book, and found I got into more.
I do not want to say too much, but to say this book was really exciting and I really enjoyed it.
I look forward to the next in the series. I give this 5 out of 5 stars. I Highly recommend this book and series. I hope to be able to read Torn Seraphine soon, the 3rd in this series.
I was provided a copy of this book for my honest review.
Author Bio
Author of the Lost Immortals Saga and the Path Seekers Series. I’m also a mother, blogger, reader, gardener, home renovator, and a slayer of undead Egyptian mummies in Tomb Raider. I believe in karma, coffee, and seriously wish that the producers of Xena would bring my favorite show ever back.
I was born in the race-car city of Charlotte, NC, and now live in the City of Alchemy and Medicine, NC, when I’m not hanging out in Bardonia (Lost Immortals). Most of my characters are based on people that I’ve met throughout my travels and adventures. People tend to stop and start conversations with me as if I’ve known them my entire life. Does this freak me out? Not really. My mom says that one day I’ll get kidnapped by one of them. I told her that if it weren’t for these lovely people then I wouldn’t be able to create the stories that I do.
Some other common tidbits…hmm. I’ve watched the movie Under the Tuscan Sun almost 200 times. Seriously, the way I see it is if I keep watching it enough, then suddenly the house that Diane Lane lives in will magically appear in my backyard. I know. I have a huge imagination!
Authors Links
Website | Facebook YA | Facebook NA | Twitter @kasonndraleigh
Buy Links:
(Enjoy an excerpt below, and forgive the formatting, it is messed up, its an ARC review copy so has flaws.)
Chapter One
That’s it.
I’m putting a for-sale sign on my parents. Ok wait. Perhaps I overreacted.
The situation wasn’t as miserable as I made
I’m putting a for-sale sign on my parents. Ok wait. Perhaps I overreacted.
The situation wasn’t as miserable as I made
it sound. I guess it could be worse.
Last night my parents told me that we were moving to a place in the Blue Ridge Mountains next year. Great, right? Wrong! I mean, what were they thinking? Did they seriously expect me to just pick up and leave during my senior year? Yeah, I know. Freaking nuts!
The unstable weather here along the New Bern coastline finally got to them. I figured if I send them to a hypnotist or something like that, then he can make them change their minds. All right, that probably sounded extreme. But a boy’s lifeline consisted of his friends, his posse, and the list of phone numbers programmed into his Droid. No, I wasn’t only talking about the ones I collected from my old girlfriends that I kept stashed away.
When I first saw the new girl walking down the hallways of Ashley-George High School, I lit up inside. I mean, everybody knew how much I loved girls. I was a Ladies Man, the kind of guy who was starving every day and night. What do my hunger pangs cry out for? Girls! I know—a shocker for a seventeen-year-old boy, right? Hey, go tell my hormones that. I don’t swing on fences of any kind. I craved food all day. Sex crossed my mind at least every ten seconds. Trust me folks, I didn’t have any doubts about my playa’s factor. Ask me about my girlfriends any day. I’ll tell you what you want to know. The only thing I would never mention was how my ex-girlfriend broke my heart when she moved away three months ago.
This girl, the one strolling down the school’s hallway, wasn’t your average female, though. Nah. But then, I figured out she was one of them, the Walkers. That was what I called these strange ghostly people, the ones that nobody can see but me.
Almost instantly, my skin started to crawl. It wasn’t like I could help it. It was just natural. At least for me, because usually when I ignored them, they kind of drifted away.
“Hey, Caleb. Do you think she wants me?” my friend Kyle Wilkinson asked, nodding his head toward Erica Jensen. I wanted to ask if he could see the other girl, but then decided against it. Do I honestly need him thinking that I’m crazy? “Dude! Erica is so freaking hot.” I love Kyle. He always had something stupid to say. We’d been friends since the beginning of time. Well, that was what we always said, anyway.
“If you were a girl, wouldn’t you want me?”
Kyle asked.
“Wait. Are you coming on to me?” I said.
“‘Cause, you’re honestly not my type.”
Kyle punched my arm. “You know what I
mean. And you wouldn’t be my type either, for your
info.” We bumped against each other’s shoulders
and shuffled down the hall until we got to class. I
turned back to my locker. Erica passed by us,
holding her nose up in the air as usual. “Just look at
the way she moves. Here, kitty kitty.” Kyle formed
a frame with his fingers, staring at Erica’s backside
as she walked, and made a little squeal like a
tortured tomcat.
“All I can see is the way her nose hooks
when she holds it in the air like that. But maybe
you’re into witches. And what is that noise you just
made?” I asked, still trying to ignore the Walker girl
standing in front of the lockers on the other side of
the hallway. She stood and stared without opening
it. Somebody besides me had to be able to see her. “It’s called the screech of death. As in, being
killed by hot looking cheerleaders such as Erica
Jensen,” Kyle faked a heart attack.
Snobbish girls with snooty noses just didn’t
do it for me. I don’t care how gorgeous they looked,
or how much self-tanner they applied each morning.
Conceit can’t be covered up or caked over with
makeup—zits maybe, but definitely not snobbery. I glanced toward the Walker girl’s direction.
She disappeared the way they always did. Figures.
Sighing, I focused on Kyle as we headed toward the
gym.
People who walked by us were lively. They
laughed, stood in groups, and shared pictures from
summer adventures. I’d experienced this scene
every first day of school. It was the normal of
an everyday life in the 21st century. Everyone
around me was your average kid. None of them
could see the spirits of strangers standing and
staring the way I always did. I guess that made me a
freak, but to me that was the typical way of life. I
wanted to enjoy my senior year in high school. Just
one ordinary year without the weird ones showing
up was all I asked for. But it didn’t look like I was
going to get it. My life wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t see them standing around and following me
everywhere.
“What’s your schedule look like? I hope you
don’t have Old Barracuda Browning for Physics.”
Kyle grinned, showing all of his teeth in a wicked
smile.
“Nah. I’ve got Honors Trig first,” I said. “Ooh-oh. Look at you all fancy and overachiever like. Wait. Let me see if I’m still allowed
to touch you.” He moved a finger toward my arm,
poking it the tiniest bit as he made a sizzling noise.
“Yep! Just like I thought. You’re hot, man.” “Why don’t you go ahead and make that
death screech the way you did a few minutes ago?”
I teased back.
Erica and her groupies stood just outside the
double doors. They were acting all bubbly and full
of school spirit while they pinned flyers up on the
activity board across the hallway. Kyle’s eyes
almost bulged out of his head. “Okay, man. This
would be my stop. Anyway, you’re smokin’, so,
you don’t even need me around.” He wagged his
eyebrows.
“Whatever, dude,” I said. He gave me a
mischievous grin. “What about Shani? How does
she feel about all of this?”
His face fell. “What about her? She’s doing
her own thing now.”
“Okay, right.” Shani Thornton was Kyle’s
girlfriend. Or at least she was at the end of the last
school year. Something funky happened between
the two of them over the summer. Now theyweren’t
speaking again. Drooling over other girls wasn’t
going to help smother his feelings for Shani. Kyle’s desire to be a glutton for abuse
amazed me. It was a school fact that Erica Jensen
didn’t acknowledge anyone outside of “the circle.” I
knew that, and so did Kyle. Her prominent family
moved down here from a place called Barrow,
Alaska. I swear her chilly attitude was probably just
like the weather in her old home town. For the last
fiveyears, she’d made it a point to ignore us. No
matter what we did, or what we said, she always
ended up giving me and Kyle the cold shoulder.
And it was with a great amount of honor that I made
it my official duty to return the favor one day—but
not Kyle. He and I had different opinions when it
came to Erica Jenson. She has never in her life
spoken to him because that would be
acknowledging his existence. But Kyle was
somewhat of a dreamer. If I were being truly
honest, he also had a little bit of an inflated ego. It was like he woke up this year and started thinking
that being a senior suddenly made him sexy. Kyle’s desertion left me with no choice but
to head into my Trig class too early. Nobody blazed
a trail to be the first one sitting around and waiting
on the teacher. Because of Kyle’s hormones, I faced
looking super un-cool and nerdy. When you put
those words together, you never came away looking
sexy.
Stepping into the room, I immediately
noticed that I was right. I headed straight for the
back row, turned around, and almost wet my pants. The new girl was sitting in a desk at the
front of the room. She wore that same faraway look
they always have, these Walkers do. I gave them
that nickname because sometimes a ghostly film
trailed behind them. It always reminded me of angel
wings. Otherwise, I guess they might be considered
plain old ghosts. To label them as spirits kind of
took away from their magic. The mystery people
were always super gorgeous, like this chick: slick,
dark hair that stopped just below her shoulders, a
long oval-shaped face, and nice skin. And they
always wore something dark: black jackets, jeans,
and a tee shirt.
To admit this girl made my skin crawl
sounded sissy and weak. This wasn’t the time to be
a wuss. Manning up, I squared my shoulders before
I sat down. The little kid in me wanted to run away
like a baby. But then she laughed. It was a highpitched giggle, a normal girl’s chuckle. It surprised
me. That wasn’t right. I couldn’t ever remember the
Walkers laughing before.
“Go ahead and run. I’ll just simply find you
like I always do,” she said, her face still turned
toward the teacher’s wipe board.
Her voice was smooth like a forgotten song,
a hypnotic one. I could listen to it all day long. But
even a super sexy voice didn’t change the fact that
she pretty much read my mind.
“Have you decided whether you’ll run or not
yet? I have an awful lot of things to take care of.”
She turned her head the slightest bit to the side. My underarms prickled. I was glad that
Mom forced me to start using the clinical strength
deodorant this morning; to say I was nervous wasn’t
even close to how I felt.
“Are you an angel?” I asked, my voice
squeaking on the last word. What a dork. She didn’t
frighten me too badly, but I wasn’t exactly ready to
get her phone number either. As a little kid, I remember talking to a few of the Walkers. As soon as I hit my thirteenth birthday the ability to communicate with them disappeared. This was the
first time I’d spoken to one in years.
“I hate to tell you this, but I’m not a ghost an
angel or a zombie. Sorry.” She turned around to
face me, an amused expression on her ridiculously
gorgeous face. I inhaled sharply and held my breath.
The word beautiful didn’t do this Walker-girl any
type of justice. Her strange, dark eyes with the
specks of blue and green inside the irises pierced
into me.
I swallowed hard and found my voice. “So
then, what are you? You’re not the only one I’ve
seen or talked to. And why do I have the honor of
being the stalked one?”
She made a light laugh and tilted her head.
Her slick black hair flowed around her face as if it
were made of silky thread.
“Others have come before me?” She seemed
to have said it to herself rather than asking me. One
thing I did know for certain. I was probably going
to be committed to the loony ward after all of this.
“I’m going to need your help soon, Caleb. So be
ready.”
“Be ready for what?” I asked, crossing my
arms and feeling just a tad flirtatious. Desperate
idiot. Kyle was chasing Erica the Stiff. And me, I
got some sort of angel girl sitting in front of me. A
good man always knows when to aim for the right
goal.
She glanced behind my head just before a
sudden crash thundered behind me. My heart leapt
into my throat. I jumped up and spun around
thinking it sounded like gunshots. But I was being
paranoid. It wasn’t a gun or anything at all
threatening. The classroom clock had fallen. Bits
and pieces of it lay all over the floor.
I groaned. “Oh hell. They’ll think I did this.” “What in the world did you do, Caleb
Wood?” a girl’s nasal voice asked me. I turned
around to find Jillian Bowman and her tortoise shell
glasses grinning at me. She was the last person I
wanted to see. What, or rather who did I not find?—
the Walker girl. She’d vanished. Something hitched
inmy chest. I wanted to know more about her. I’d
never gotten so intimate with them before. She told
me to be ready. Exactly what did I need to get ready
for? The curiosity stung.
Jillian stood there smiling at me while I used
a folder to sweep up the glass fragments of the broken clock. I shrugged. “What? I didn’t make this
mess.”
“What a way to start the year, Caleb,
screwing up school property. You did it just in time
for the teacher to walk in the door, too. Bravo.” She
nodded her head toward Mrs. England walking
through the doorway. She hadn’t noticed me on the
floor yet.
I sighed and shook my head. “And how was
your summer, Jillian? Did you find any dweebs, oh
I’m sorry, any other guys as smart as yourself to
annoy?” I asked with sarcasm.
Giving me a smug grin, she said, “No, you
clumsy ox. I bet I know what Mrs. England found
on the first day of school, though.”
Our gazes travelled over to where the
teacher stood glaring down at me, her hands resting
on her hips. I turned on the charm and said, “It was
like this when I came in. I swear.” That wasn’t a
total butthead lie. Would my dimpled grin work on
the Ice Queen of Trigonometry who also just
happened to be our assistant principal? Um, nope. Mrs. England pressed her lips into a thin line
and folded her arms. More students shuffled
through the door as I sat in embarrassment hell.
“Class, it seems that we already have our first candidate for detention.” If the floor were
quicksand, I’d gladly sink inside it. My face burned, and an uncomfortable sense of being watched by the entire room made me feel hot. Again, I found
myself thanking Mom for the new deodorant. Standing among the kids gathered by the
doorway was my Walker. I thought she had left.
Seriously, I didn’t get why she just stood there
watching me and kind of shaking her head a tad.
That silky hair of hers flowed around her shoulders,
highlighting the deep red of her lips. I narrowed my
eyes at her, hoping my smirk came across just as
sure of myself as I was embarrassed.
* * *
“So, I heard that you’re the first person in
detention this year,” Kyle announced. His mouth
was filled with bread. “Come on, man. Get through
the first day, won’t you? What happened?” I glared at him for a short moment. My
situation wasn’t his fault, nope, even though he
made me want to pound him. It was Walker girl’s
fault, the one with the gorgeous hair, wicked brown
eyes, and the nice, um yeah, I’ll just stop right there.
Let me add to that: the Walker chick that suddenly
started talking to me. That took them off of the ghostly list like I always figured. Nope. This girl
belonged to something else entirely.
“I seriously do not want to talk about it,” I
muttered, my mouth filled with pizza that tasted like
cardboard. I glanced around the cafeteria, half
expecting to see her. I didn’t though. I did see
everybody else that I hadn’t seen over the summer. I
spent most of the past couple of months working
with my uncle at his surf shop. The strange thing
was I didn’t see any Walkers while I stayed at his
place.
Kyle had studied my profile a while before
he said, “Okay. So how about we discuss something
a little more, ehem, interesting.”
“No. As in, I don’t want to talk about Erica
Jensen.” I bit into half of my roll so I didn’t have to
say anything else.
“She’s single again,” he sang out.
I smirked. “Just where do you think that
information will get you? Repeat after me: Erica
Jensen is not…for…me. Even better, Erica probably
isn’t for anybody except Thorne. Somebody with a
name like that will probably beat you to death for
looking let alone speaking to her.”
He scoffed. “Why you gotta be that way?
Always bringing me down when I want to try to get
close to someone?”
“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just trying
to have your back. The jealous type was a term
somebody made using Thorne’s face as the ideal
example.”
“I’m not worried about any of that. Besides I
got a chance to speak with Erica…alone.” He
emphasized the word alone and wagged his
eyebrows. Yeah, I was slightly impressed. Erica Jensen and Thorne Wiggins were an
on again, I-hate-you-again type of couple. Where
Erica had this disgusting love affair with the color
pink, Thorne balanced her obsession out with his
brutal track record. His father was an international
heavyweight boxing champion, and Thorne was
training to follow in his footsteps. He led the recent
formation of the school’s first junior boxing league
to victory. That was how he got his nickname. He
jabs an unsuspecting punch into his opponent, and
they fall. Usuallyhis victim didn’t get back up for a
long time. End of story. Why would Kyle want to
mess with somebody like that? His actions proved
to be way beyond my thought process.
“Hello, my people.” Shani clanged her tray
on top the table, slid over to the seat beside me, and
sat down. Kyle and I both perked up. “Hello,
handsomely Caleb with the smoky gray-brown
eyes. Did anyone ever tell you how much of a pretty
boy you are?”
“Yes, actually, Shani you say it almost every
day,” I smirked. She was purposely ignoring Kyle.
Over the summer, the two of them fell out over
something serious. Although the three of us had
been friends since elementary school, the rules
tended to change when a relationship worked its
way into the mix.
“Yeah, real smooth trying to use my best
friend to make me jealous,” Kyle said to Shani. She
glanced around like she couldn’t see him. Her waist
length braid almost swung over into my salad. “Did you hear that, Caleb? I think I heard a
voice that should be apologizing to me,” Shani said. “All right. Look you two. Get it out and get
it over with, real fast. Whatever crappy things you
need to say, now is the time to talk about them. I’m
not going to be the victim of your lovey-dovey
issues all year. Understand?” I glanced from one
best friend to the other, looking for some sign that
they did at least realize how I felt.
They glared at each other over the table.
Neither one intended to be the first to give in it
seemed. I’d had enough. Between the Walker and
my embarrassing moment in trig and the lover’s
quarrel between my two best friends, I was ready to
hit something. And we were only halfway through
the first day of school.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m heading out to the
gym. I need to pick up the list of students I’ll be
training in my defense class. Maybe you two can
smooth out your differences by the day’s end.” “Fat chance,” Kyle blurted.
“Ditto!” Shani replied without looking at
either of us.
“You two are hopeless. See you after the
bell,” I muttered and walked out of the cafeteria. On my way into the gym, I glanced at the
sign-up board just outside the doorway. I’d taught
self-defense classes to girls, and even a few guys
after school for the past three years. Hey, it looks
good on the college apps, alright? Mom and Dad
made me take jujitsu lessons when I was a little
boy. A couple of years ago, I stopped going.
Although I had earned the brown belt, a respectable
midlevel ranking, the status qualified me to train
others to defend themselves. The energy I burned in those classes kept me calm and focused. To tell the truth, I looked forward to releasing the negativity pent up inside me. What better way to do that than to toss around a few tack heads.
Glancing over the list, I stopped at the last names that started with a J. Crap! Boy was I wrong when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse. At the bottom of the page and written in curvy girlish
looking letters, was Erica Jensen’s name. I don’t know who was against me, but it
totally looked like the last year of school was going
to be my worst.
“Wait. Are you coming on to me?” I said.
“‘Cause, you’re honestly not my type.”
Kyle punched my arm. “You know what I
mean. And you wouldn’t be my type either, for your
info.” We bumped against each other’s shoulders
and shuffled down the hall until we got to class. I
turned back to my locker. Erica passed by us,
holding her nose up in the air as usual. “Just look at
the way she moves. Here, kitty kitty.” Kyle formed
a frame with his fingers, staring at Erica’s backside
as she walked, and made a little squeal like a
tortured tomcat.
“All I can see is the way her nose hooks
when she holds it in the air like that. But maybe
you’re into witches. And what is that noise you just
made?” I asked, still trying to ignore the Walker girl
standing in front of the lockers on the other side of
the hallway. She stood and stared without opening
it. Somebody besides me had to be able to see her. “It’s called the screech of death. As in, being
killed by hot looking cheerleaders such as Erica
Jensen,” Kyle faked a heart attack.
Snobbish girls with snooty noses just didn’t
do it for me. I don’t care how gorgeous they looked,
or how much self-tanner they applied each morning.
Conceit can’t be covered up or caked over with
makeup—zits maybe, but definitely not snobbery. I glanced toward the Walker girl’s direction.
She disappeared the way they always did. Figures.
Sighing, I focused on Kyle as we headed toward the
gym.
People who walked by us were lively. They
laughed, stood in groups, and shared pictures from
summer adventures. I’d experienced this scene
every first day of school. It was the normal of
an everyday life in the 21st century. Everyone
around me was your average kid. None of them
could see the spirits of strangers standing and
staring the way I always did. I guess that made me a
freak, but to me that was the typical way of life. I
wanted to enjoy my senior year in high school. Just
one ordinary year without the weird ones showing
up was all I asked for. But it didn’t look like I was
going to get it. My life wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t see them standing around and following me
everywhere.
“What’s your schedule look like? I hope you
don’t have Old Barracuda Browning for Physics.”
Kyle grinned, showing all of his teeth in a wicked
smile.
“Nah. I’ve got Honors Trig first,” I said. “Ooh-oh. Look at you all fancy and overachiever like. Wait. Let me see if I’m still allowed
to touch you.” He moved a finger toward my arm,
poking it the tiniest bit as he made a sizzling noise.
“Yep! Just like I thought. You’re hot, man.” “Why don’t you go ahead and make that
death screech the way you did a few minutes ago?”
I teased back.
Erica and her groupies stood just outside the
double doors. They were acting all bubbly and full
of school spirit while they pinned flyers up on the
activity board across the hallway. Kyle’s eyes
almost bulged out of his head. “Okay, man. This
would be my stop. Anyway, you’re smokin’, so,
you don’t even need me around.” He wagged his
eyebrows.
“Whatever, dude,” I said. He gave me a
mischievous grin. “What about Shani? How does
she feel about all of this?”
His face fell. “What about her? She’s doing
her own thing now.”
“Okay, right.” Shani Thornton was Kyle’s
girlfriend. Or at least she was at the end of the last
school year. Something funky happened between
the two of them over the summer. Now theyweren’t
speaking again. Drooling over other girls wasn’t
going to help smother his feelings for Shani. Kyle’s desire to be a glutton for abuse
amazed me. It was a school fact that Erica Jensen
didn’t acknowledge anyone outside of “the circle.” I
knew that, and so did Kyle. Her prominent family
moved down here from a place called Barrow,
Alaska. I swear her chilly attitude was probably just
like the weather in her old home town. For the last
fiveyears, she’d made it a point to ignore us. No
matter what we did, or what we said, she always
ended up giving me and Kyle the cold shoulder.
And it was with a great amount of honor that I made
it my official duty to return the favor one day—but
not Kyle. He and I had different opinions when it
came to Erica Jenson. She has never in her life
spoken to him because that would be
acknowledging his existence. But Kyle was
somewhat of a dreamer. If I were being truly
honest, he also had a little bit of an inflated ego. It was like he woke up this year and started thinking
that being a senior suddenly made him sexy. Kyle’s desertion left me with no choice but
to head into my Trig class too early. Nobody blazed
a trail to be the first one sitting around and waiting
on the teacher. Because of Kyle’s hormones, I faced
looking super un-cool and nerdy. When you put
those words together, you never came away looking
sexy.
Stepping into the room, I immediately
noticed that I was right. I headed straight for the
back row, turned around, and almost wet my pants. The new girl was sitting in a desk at the
front of the room. She wore that same faraway look
they always have, these Walkers do. I gave them
that nickname because sometimes a ghostly film
trailed behind them. It always reminded me of angel
wings. Otherwise, I guess they might be considered
plain old ghosts. To label them as spirits kind of
took away from their magic. The mystery people
were always super gorgeous, like this chick: slick,
dark hair that stopped just below her shoulders, a
long oval-shaped face, and nice skin. And they
always wore something dark: black jackets, jeans,
and a tee shirt.
To admit this girl made my skin crawl
sounded sissy and weak. This wasn’t the time to be
a wuss. Manning up, I squared my shoulders before
I sat down. The little kid in me wanted to run away
like a baby. But then she laughed. It was a highpitched giggle, a normal girl’s chuckle. It surprised
me. That wasn’t right. I couldn’t ever remember the
Walkers laughing before.
“Go ahead and run. I’ll just simply find you
like I always do,” she said, her face still turned
toward the teacher’s wipe board.
Her voice was smooth like a forgotten song,
a hypnotic one. I could listen to it all day long. But
even a super sexy voice didn’t change the fact that
she pretty much read my mind.
“Have you decided whether you’ll run or not
yet? I have an awful lot of things to take care of.”
She turned her head the slightest bit to the side. My underarms prickled. I was glad that
Mom forced me to start using the clinical strength
deodorant this morning; to say I was nervous wasn’t
even close to how I felt.
“Are you an angel?” I asked, my voice
squeaking on the last word. What a dork. She didn’t
frighten me too badly, but I wasn’t exactly ready to
get her phone number either. As a little kid, I remember talking to a few of the Walkers. As soon as I hit my thirteenth birthday the ability to communicate with them disappeared. This was the
first time I’d spoken to one in years.
“I hate to tell you this, but I’m not a ghost an
angel or a zombie. Sorry.” She turned around to
face me, an amused expression on her ridiculously
gorgeous face. I inhaled sharply and held my breath.
The word beautiful didn’t do this Walker-girl any
type of justice. Her strange, dark eyes with the
specks of blue and green inside the irises pierced
into me.
I swallowed hard and found my voice. “So
then, what are you? You’re not the only one I’ve
seen or talked to. And why do I have the honor of
being the stalked one?”
She made a light laugh and tilted her head.
Her slick black hair flowed around her face as if it
were made of silky thread.
“Others have come before me?” She seemed
to have said it to herself rather than asking me. One
thing I did know for certain. I was probably going
to be committed to the loony ward after all of this.
“I’m going to need your help soon, Caleb. So be
ready.”
“Be ready for what?” I asked, crossing my
arms and feeling just a tad flirtatious. Desperate
idiot. Kyle was chasing Erica the Stiff. And me, I
got some sort of angel girl sitting in front of me. A
good man always knows when to aim for the right
goal.
She glanced behind my head just before a
sudden crash thundered behind me. My heart leapt
into my throat. I jumped up and spun around
thinking it sounded like gunshots. But I was being
paranoid. It wasn’t a gun or anything at all
threatening. The classroom clock had fallen. Bits
and pieces of it lay all over the floor.
I groaned. “Oh hell. They’ll think I did this.” “What in the world did you do, Caleb
Wood?” a girl’s nasal voice asked me. I turned
around to find Jillian Bowman and her tortoise shell
glasses grinning at me. She was the last person I
wanted to see. What, or rather who did I not find?—
the Walker girl. She’d vanished. Something hitched
inmy chest. I wanted to know more about her. I’d
never gotten so intimate with them before. She told
me to be ready. Exactly what did I need to get ready
for? The curiosity stung.
Jillian stood there smiling at me while I used
a folder to sweep up the glass fragments of the broken clock. I shrugged. “What? I didn’t make this
mess.”
“What a way to start the year, Caleb,
screwing up school property. You did it just in time
for the teacher to walk in the door, too. Bravo.” She
nodded her head toward Mrs. England walking
through the doorway. She hadn’t noticed me on the
floor yet.
I sighed and shook my head. “And how was
your summer, Jillian? Did you find any dweebs, oh
I’m sorry, any other guys as smart as yourself to
annoy?” I asked with sarcasm.
Giving me a smug grin, she said, “No, you
clumsy ox. I bet I know what Mrs. England found
on the first day of school, though.”
Our gazes travelled over to where the
teacher stood glaring down at me, her hands resting
on her hips. I turned on the charm and said, “It was
like this when I came in. I swear.” That wasn’t a
total butthead lie. Would my dimpled grin work on
the Ice Queen of Trigonometry who also just
happened to be our assistant principal? Um, nope. Mrs. England pressed her lips into a thin line
and folded her arms. More students shuffled
through the door as I sat in embarrassment hell.
“Class, it seems that we already have our first candidate for detention.” If the floor were
quicksand, I’d gladly sink inside it. My face burned, and an uncomfortable sense of being watched by the entire room made me feel hot. Again, I found
myself thanking Mom for the new deodorant. Standing among the kids gathered by the
doorway was my Walker. I thought she had left.
Seriously, I didn’t get why she just stood there
watching me and kind of shaking her head a tad.
That silky hair of hers flowed around her shoulders,
highlighting the deep red of her lips. I narrowed my
eyes at her, hoping my smirk came across just as
sure of myself as I was embarrassed.
* * *
“So, I heard that you’re the first person in
detention this year,” Kyle announced. His mouth
was filled with bread. “Come on, man. Get through
the first day, won’t you? What happened?” I glared at him for a short moment. My
situation wasn’t his fault, nope, even though he
made me want to pound him. It was Walker girl’s
fault, the one with the gorgeous hair, wicked brown
eyes, and the nice, um yeah, I’ll just stop right there.
Let me add to that: the Walker chick that suddenly
started talking to me. That took them off of the ghostly list like I always figured. Nope. This girl
belonged to something else entirely.
“I seriously do not want to talk about it,” I
muttered, my mouth filled with pizza that tasted like
cardboard. I glanced around the cafeteria, half
expecting to see her. I didn’t though. I did see
everybody else that I hadn’t seen over the summer. I
spent most of the past couple of months working
with my uncle at his surf shop. The strange thing
was I didn’t see any Walkers while I stayed at his
place.
Kyle had studied my profile a while before
he said, “Okay. So how about we discuss something
a little more, ehem, interesting.”
“No. As in, I don’t want to talk about Erica
Jensen.” I bit into half of my roll so I didn’t have to
say anything else.
“She’s single again,” he sang out.
I smirked. “Just where do you think that
information will get you? Repeat after me: Erica
Jensen is not…for…me. Even better, Erica probably
isn’t for anybody except Thorne. Somebody with a
name like that will probably beat you to death for
looking let alone speaking to her.”
He scoffed. “Why you gotta be that way?
Always bringing me down when I want to try to get
close to someone?”
“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just trying
to have your back. The jealous type was a term
somebody made using Thorne’s face as the ideal
example.”
“I’m not worried about any of that. Besides I
got a chance to speak with Erica…alone.” He
emphasized the word alone and wagged his
eyebrows. Yeah, I was slightly impressed. Erica Jensen and Thorne Wiggins were an
on again, I-hate-you-again type of couple. Where
Erica had this disgusting love affair with the color
pink, Thorne balanced her obsession out with his
brutal track record. His father was an international
heavyweight boxing champion, and Thorne was
training to follow in his footsteps. He led the recent
formation of the school’s first junior boxing league
to victory. That was how he got his nickname. He
jabs an unsuspecting punch into his opponent, and
they fall. Usuallyhis victim didn’t get back up for a
long time. End of story. Why would Kyle want to
mess with somebody like that? His actions proved
to be way beyond my thought process.
“Hello, my people.” Shani clanged her tray
on top the table, slid over to the seat beside me, and
sat down. Kyle and I both perked up. “Hello,
handsomely Caleb with the smoky gray-brown
eyes. Did anyone ever tell you how much of a pretty
boy you are?”
“Yes, actually, Shani you say it almost every
day,” I smirked. She was purposely ignoring Kyle.
Over the summer, the two of them fell out over
something serious. Although the three of us had
been friends since elementary school, the rules
tended to change when a relationship worked its
way into the mix.
“Yeah, real smooth trying to use my best
friend to make me jealous,” Kyle said to Shani. She
glanced around like she couldn’t see him. Her waist
length braid almost swung over into my salad. “Did you hear that, Caleb? I think I heard a
voice that should be apologizing to me,” Shani said. “All right. Look you two. Get it out and get
it over with, real fast. Whatever crappy things you
need to say, now is the time to talk about them. I’m
not going to be the victim of your lovey-dovey
issues all year. Understand?” I glanced from one
best friend to the other, looking for some sign that
they did at least realize how I felt.
They glared at each other over the table.
Neither one intended to be the first to give in it
seemed. I’d had enough. Between the Walker and
my embarrassing moment in trig and the lover’s
quarrel between my two best friends, I was ready to
hit something. And we were only halfway through
the first day of school.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m heading out to the
gym. I need to pick up the list of students I’ll be
training in my defense class. Maybe you two can
smooth out your differences by the day’s end.” “Fat chance,” Kyle blurted.
“Ditto!” Shani replied without looking at
either of us.
“You two are hopeless. See you after the
bell,” I muttered and walked out of the cafeteria. On my way into the gym, I glanced at the
sign-up board just outside the doorway. I’d taught
self-defense classes to girls, and even a few guys
after school for the past three years. Hey, it looks
good on the college apps, alright? Mom and Dad
made me take jujitsu lessons when I was a little
boy. A couple of years ago, I stopped going.
Although I had earned the brown belt, a respectable
midlevel ranking, the status qualified me to train
others to defend themselves. The energy I burned in those classes kept me calm and focused. To tell the truth, I looked forward to releasing the negativity pent up inside me. What better way to do that than to toss around a few tack heads.
Glancing over the list, I stopped at the last names that started with a J. Crap! Boy was I wrong when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse. At the bottom of the page and written in curvy girlish
looking letters, was Erica Jensen’s name. I don’t know who was against me, but it
totally looked like the last year of school was going
to be my worst.
