Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy Read online

  Dust and Roses

  (Book Two of the Dust Trilogy)

  V.B. Marlowe

  The Dust Trilogy

  A Girl Called Dust

  Dust and Roses

  Blood and Dust

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used factiously.

  Copyright © 2016 by V.B. Marlowe. All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be copied or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Printed in the United States of America.

  Cover design by: Rebecca Frank Art

  Dust and Roses

  (Book Two of the Dust Trilogy)

  V.B. Marlowe

  Dust and Roses

  (Book Two of the Dust Trilogy)

  V.B. Marlowe

  Contents

  Part 1

  Bandigo

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part 2

  The Gemini Curse

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part 3

  My Gemini

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Part 1

  Bandigo

  Chapter One

  I would never tell anyone what I did last night.

  Once my family was fast asleep, I climbed over my bedroom balcony and down the rose trellis. After making sure the coast was clear, I darted down my street and toward the woods, staying in the shadows so no one would see me.

  I spent an hour in the woods, just running. I didn’t get tired or winded. I sprinted through the trees, dodging roots and limbs. It felt like freedom—like being able to stretch after being trapped in a box for days.

  Terrifying things happened in those woods. People had been mutilated—killed by a Wendigo.

  Death by Wendigo had to be one of the worst ways to go: razor-sharp talons tearing through your skin and blade-like teeth gnawing down to the bone. Wendigos had an unquenchable hunger for Human flesh. Once a Wendigo got a taste of it, it would never stop killing. Ever.

  Everyone had been warned to stay out of the woods. The warnings weren’t necessary; people were too scared to go there anyway. I wasn’t afraid, though. The carnivorous creature responsible for the murders was dead. I could state that with certainty because I was the one who killed it. The blood drained from its body while the soil absorbed it like a sponge right before my eyes. I witnessed its last, painful breath. Now the woods were safe again. Sometimes I pretended they were my woods, mine alone. Of course other animals resided there, but when I was present, they stayed hidden and out of my way. They knew exactly what I was. Animals were smarter than people in some ways.

  Every few moments the wind would pick up and my hair would trail behind me like an ebony cape, making me feel like a superhero. With my white-as-snow skin and flowing ivory nightgown, I must have looked like a ghost.

  If it were up to me, I would have stayed in the woods for hours racing the darkness, playing tag with the wind, dodging the moonlight, and feeling like a carefree child again. The woods could be my home, like it was for so many other creatures. But I couldn’t stay. Eventually the sun would rise and my mother would be shouting at me through my bedroom door to turn off my alarm clock.

  Honestly, I wasn’t a ghost or a superhero. I was a beast pretending to be a girl.

  ***

  Imani Hughes grimaced, poking her hamburger patty with a straw. I couldn’t blame her. It resembled a coaster rather than something edible. She furrowed her perfectly-arched eyebrows. “Does this burger look gray to you?”

  “Yep. But they’re always that color. You’ll get used to it.” I bit into my own burger. It didn’t taste as bad as it looked. Even if it had, I would have devoured it anyway since I was starving. I was always starving. No matter how much I ate, my stomach rumbled constantly from emptiness. Despite my unquenchable appetite, I was practically skin and bones. Looking at myself naked in a mirror, I could count every one of my ribs.

  Imani put the bun back on her patty. “I feel like this greasy burger is a forehead of pimples waiting to happen.”

  That was the last thing she needed to worry about. Imani was flawless—tall with tawny skin and jet-black braids that reached her waist.

  She had moved to Everson Woods from Houston a few weeks before so she was still adjusting to the unappetizing lunch menu. Sighing, she pushed her tray away. “I don’t know how you guys eat this stuff. I give up. I’m bringing my own lunch from now on.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” I told her, finishing my own burger and reaching for hers. Good thing she didn’t want it because my stomach complained of hunger once again. “Anyway, I need a new best friend. You interested?”

  Imani ripped into a bag of barbeque potato chips. “What? What about Fletcher?”

  I wiped a dribble of hamburger juice from my chin. “Fletcher will be dead by the time lunch is over.”

  “What?”

  I looked toward the school parking lot. “Fletcher hit Ranson in the head with an apple, so Fletcher is going to die. Ranson chased him out to the parking lot. He might be dead already.”

  Imani’s jaw dropped, revealing a mouth full of chewed potato chips. “Wait. Why did Fletcher hit Ranson in the head with an apple?”

  I chuckled to myself, replaying the scene in my head. “He wasn’t trying to. The apple had a bruise on it so Fletcher threw it across the hallway, aiming at the trash can but Ranson’s huge block-head got in the way. The apple bounced right off it.” Even though Fletcher was in danger, the apple incident had actually made my day. No one deserved to get hit in the head with spoiled fruit more than Ranson Duvall.

  Imani blinked several times before putting her chips down. “Do you think Fletcher’s okay? I mean, he’s a small guy and Ranson is gigantic. I don’t see how this can end well for Fletch.”

  If Imani knew Fletcher the way I did, she wouldn’t have been worried at all. I’d seen him get whacked by a city bus, only to be fine moments later, but Imani could never know that.

  I swallowed another huge bite of burger. “Don’t worry. Fletcher is super-fast. Ranson will never catch him.”

  She bit into another chip, but she didn’t seem too convinced.

  I glanced at the time on my cell phone. Fifteen minutes had passed since I’d last seen Fletcher and he should have made his way to our table by then. Before I had been joking, but maybe something really was wrong.

  I shoved the last bit of burger into my mouth. “I’ll be back. I’m just gonna check on him, but I’m sure everything’s fine.” I only half believed the last part.

  Imani slung her purse over h
er shoulder. “I’m coming with.”

  I knew she would say that and I didn’t have time to convince her to stay put. Hiking my long dress up around my thighs, I jogged toward the school, thinking about Fletcher. Whenever Ranson punched him, a bruise would appear and then seconds later, it would be gone along with any pain that had come with it. Mostly all it did was make Ranson look stupid and weak, so he had taken to assaulting Fletcher when no one else was around. Fletcher would be all right, but still, I didn’t want Ranson to take things too far.

  “Where are we going?” Imani asked, racing to keep up with me.

  “There’s a maintenance closet in the boy’s locker room. Ranson likes to take his victims there so he can kick ass in privacy.”

  Imani groaned. “I’ll kick his ass if he hurts Fletcher . . .”

  Imani had never judged Fletcher and all his weirdness like other people did. I was the only friend Fletcher had because he was so profoundly strange. He was extremely blunt and blurted out whatever thoughts popped into his head, mostly things normal people would never think of. When we first met, I’d had to teach him a lot of social skills, almost like a toddler, but he learned fast. When Imani met him, she just accepted him for who he was. “Fletcher Whitelock, you are an anomaly,” was all she said. I was relieved because Fletcher was a take-me-or-leave-me type of person. He would never change for anyone, not even if he could.

  The hallway of the main building was fairly empty since most kids ate their lunches in the cafeteria or outside at the picnic tables. We raced down the hallway to get to the gym.

  I pushed the door that led to the locker room open and poked my head in. Thankfully, it seemed to be vacant. The room smelled like a mixture of sweat, Axe Body Wash, and chlorine from the pool. Shiny, silver lockers lined the walls. It looked exactly like the girl’s locker room, but ours smelled better. Imani and I let the door fall closed quietly behind us just in case someone was inside.

  Ranson’s gruff voice came from somewhere not far away. “I’ve been trying really, really hard not to kill your dumb ass, but you keep testing me.”

  “Hey!” Imani shouted.

  The door of the maintenance room flung open and Ranson stuck his head out. His blond hair was combed back and plastered to his head like a helmet. He looked back and forth between the two of us, frowning. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  “Let him go, Ranson,” I demanded in the firmest voice I could muster, which wasn’t intimidating at all.

  His lips curled into a cruel smile. “Are you kidding me? You came to save him?” He turned his head back toward the maintenance room. “Wow, man. You really are a bitch.”

  Fletcher wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t supposed to get angry so he couldn’t let Ranson get under his skin. Fletcher’s anger could result in Ranson being ripped to shreds—literally. No matter what Ranson did to him, Fletcher simply swallowed it. If he didn’t, well, I didn’t want to think about what would happen.

  I had to control my emotions too or else something might be set into motion that I couldn’t stop. Ranson had no idea that he was playing a dangerous game. I stepped toward him. “Ranson, please—”

  He dragged Fletcher from the maintenance room by the collar of his shirt. Fletcher’s chestnut hair looked like a bird’s nest. He already had a blue-black mark under his eye, a purple bruise on his cheek, and a swollen bottom lip. That was bad. What was I going to tell Imani when Fletcher’s bruises suddenly disappeared?

  Fletcher struggled to stand on his feet. “This locker room is for boys. You guys should go. Coach Walker will be pissed. Last week one of the Ambers came in—”

  “Dude, shut up!” Ranson shoved Fletcher away. He bounced off a locker and fell forward moaning. A strange warmth traveled through my body, inch by inch, like my blood had suddenly turned into lava. Although it felt good, I wanted the feeling to go away, but I didn’t know how to stop it. Every muscle in my body stiffened and my throat tightened. Imani moved forward, but I grabbed her wrist, pulling her back. Something was happening and she didn’t need to be in the middle of it.

  Ranson squared his shoulders, looking very proud of himself as he watched Fletcher crawl away from him. He looked like a bear fighting a defenseless squirrel who had no desire to fight back. I’d never hated him more than I did at that moment. Ranson kicked the bottom of Fletcher’s sneaker. “You’ve proven this locker room is for bitches, too. They can stay.”

  Crack. A locker door swung open, whacking Ranson square in the face, sending him backwards onto the cement floor. “Aw, shit!” he wailed, covering his face with his hands.

  Taking advantage of the moment, Imani and I grabbed Fletcher and pulled him into the hallway just as the bell rang, ending lunch period.

  As the hallway filled with students, the three of us stood together, breathing heavily. The warmth I’d felt before was gone and my muscles relaxed. I watched Fletcher, waiting for his bruises to disappear. I touched his face, but he jumped back. He didn’t want me feeling sorry for him.

  Imani picked a piece of lint from Fletcher’s hair. “You shouldn’t let him do that to you. It’s okay to fight back. Even if you might lose.”

  Fletcher shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I shouldn’t have hit him in the head with an apple. Anyway, I didn’t get to eat. Have change for the vending machine?”

  Imani and I both fished for some coins and handed them to him. Fletcher took the money and smiled as if he hadn’t gotten his ass kicked moments before. “Thanks guys! I’ll see you after school.”

  I didn’t know how he did it. He’d already erased it. In Fletcher’s mind, the whole incident between him and Ranson had never happened.

  After school, Imani and I stood by the trophy case waiting for Fletcher. In PE, everyone had been talking about how Ranson had left school with a broken nose. No one had any information on he’d earned that injury.

  Imani unwrapped a grape-flavored Tootsie Roll Pop and stuck it in her mouth. “That was crazy, huh? Talk about karma. How that locker door just popped open and smacked him in the face?”

  I nodded. “Crazy. Funny. Hilarious. Strangely enough, locker malfunctions happen all the time at this school,” I lied. “I guess Ranson just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time—or the right place at the right time, depending on how you look at it.”

  The two of us giggled for a moment and then Imani’s expression turned serious. “Lacey bumped into me this morning, or should I say rammed into me. She knocked my books out of my hand. Then she tried to look all big-eyed and innocent like she hadn’t done it on purpose. I’m gonna drag that girl before the year’s over.”

  Imani was one of the most laid-back people I’d ever met, but Lacey Chapman could make Mother Theresa resort to violence. I found it best to keep my distance. She’d always given me a hard time, but over the past weeks she had left me alone. Imani wasn’t so fortunate.

  The first day Imani showed up at Everson High, all eyes were on her. Lacey wanted to sink her claws into her immediately and for good reason. Imani was stunning. Even her name had people talking. “E-mah-nee. It’s Swahili for faith,” she announced and everyone thought that was so cool, Lacey included.

  Lacey, the self-proclaimed queen bee, needed her worker bees to survive. Usually Lacey traveled with three minions, but since Bailey Benson, my former best friend was no longer with us, Lacey had an opening that needed to be filled. Imani would have fit in perfectly.

  Lacey liked to choose her girls so that everyone in her clique had a completely different look. Lacey was blond with green eyes. Marley Madden had flaming red curls and Trista Pimentel’s hair fell in long chocolate waves down her back.

  We were in biology when Lacey first approached Imani. That day Imani wore a fitted leopard-print shirt dress, purple leggings, and black knee-boots. Super chic. I was distracted by the fact that our regular biology teacher, Ms. Melcher was still missing and that her replacement, Mrs. Lang, had no clue what she was doing. Mrs. Lang was deep int
o a one-on-one debate about the validity of evolution with Mary-Kate Youngblood, while the rest of the class looked on, glassy-eyed. We’d witnessed this argument between the two of them so many times. Ms. Melcher would have never forgotten that she had twenty other students in the room like Mrs. Lang did. The debate was just getting heated when I noticed a commotion beside me.

  Lacey, as usual, was paying Mrs. Lang no attention. “You should totally sit with us,” Lacey told Imani, who was desperately trying to copy someone’s notes from the previous week’s lessons. I could only imagine how hard it had to be to transfer in the March of your junior year. There was so much to catch up on. I wondered what had caused her family to move so late in the school year.

  Imani shrugged, flipping a page in the borrowed notebook. “Thanks for the offer but I don’t really do the girl-cliquey thing. Just not my style.”

  Lacey’s jaw dropped. She had been expecting Imani to leap for joy at the chance of becoming a bee. She hadn’t been prepared for rejection. The feeling was probably foreign to her. Lacey composed herself quickly and laughed it off. “You’re new here, so I’m sure you don’t know how any of this works, but Trista, Marley, and I are the most popular girls in our class.” She was speaking to Imani as if she were stupid.

  Imani kept writing, unimpressed. “I’m sure you are. Still not interested. Thanks.”

  Lacey’s green eyes flashed in my direction and it was only then that I realized I was grinning from ear to ear. I turned away quickly, pretending to read from my biology book. I waited for Lacey to throw a jab at me, but she never did.

  After class, Imani and I reached the classroom door at the same time. She smiled at me so I figured it was okay to talk to her. “I hope you know you just pissed off Satan herself.”

  Imani waved her hand dismissively. “I’ve handled worse. She’s so not my type of girl.” We filed into the hallway and joined the sea of students headed to their next classes.