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  Alone (#1 Flamestone Trilogy)

  Alone

  (#1 Flamestone Trilogy)

  By Holly Hook

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Holly A. Hook

  Alone

  Copyright © 2016 Holly A. Hook

  Chapter One

  Missing

  The bold text eats up my smartphone's entire screen, screaming and punching me in the stomach.

  And below it, there's a picture of my best friend, Talia. She smiles out at me as I scroll up and down over and over, catching my breath.

  She can't be. This must be a mistake. I clutch my phone tighter. Blink. If I clear my eyes enough times, maybe I can make this vanish.

  I lean against the row of lockers. It's freezing in the hall today, so cold that even with the entrance doors shut all the way, the chill blasts in. Reality is bitter. The late November air invades, creeping in underneath the door and hugging the floor where I sit. Even my sweater can't keep it at bay.

  Talia. She smiles out at me from last year's yearbook picture, surrounded by stable gray. Her hair shines under bright lamps, complete with hot pink highlights. She has her favorite magenta and black bow in her hair, the one with the skull. Her nose ring glints.

  How can it be?

  Talia only moved away two months ago, leaving me at Crap High. I even Skyped with her on Wednesday night and even offered to take her to the mall so she could get out of her awful new foster house for a while. I told her about my stepfather never being home and my mother's new obsession with getting the kitchen to look like something out of a magazine. She told me about the scratching noises in her walls that keep her up all night. Her house has a lot of mice, or something.

  My thoughts spin. She never mentioned anything about wanting to run away, even though her foster mother had put her in charge of all the chores and worked her every hour she wasn't in school.

  I let out a breath. Somewhere, a door slams. The band kids must be leaving for the day. It's past four. The school's almost empty now. Most of the after-school activities have wound down.

  I scroll down past her picture and read the text on the Facebook news feed. Talia Johnson, a foster child of Lily Abner, was reported missing by her social worker on Tuesday, news reports. Lily has been arrested in possible connection with her disappearance, but has told authorities that Talia has run away in the middle of the night and that she does not know of her whereabouts. Authorities are exploring all possibilities and leads at this time. Detectives suspect Talia may have gone missing several days ago, as early as Wednesday night, as she has left no traces of Internet activity since then. Police also found suspicious material inside the Abner home that lead them to believe that Talia may have been the victim of neglect or abuse. Authorities remain suspicious of Abner due to her failure to report Talia missing for several days. She is being held without bond.

  Rain pounds down outside, unforgiving.

  Today is Tuesday.

  Talia may have been gone almost six days now.

  I can't believe it.

  Talia would have told me if she was running away. Lily Abner is lying. I know it with every fiber of my being.

  We tell each other everything. She even told me about the abuse her biological parents put her through before the Protective Services took her from her home at the age of ten. I opened up about my own dark family history. If Talia had planned to run away, I would have been the first to know.

  The story has no more information. I let my phone drop to my lap and tilt my head back, hitting the locker. It makes a hollow metallic thud. I study the ceiling tiles. There's a hole in the one right above my head. It seems to grow bigger as I watch, like it wants to swallow something. The rain pounds down harder. The football team has got to be getting soaked right now.

  I uncross my legs. Scream and throw my phone across the floor.

  It slides over and hits the wall, then bounces back at me as if it wants nothing more than to shove that news back in my face. Your friend could be dead, it seems to say. Look. She's gone.

  I don't understand.

  Would she have vanished if the court decided that she didn't need to move to the next town after all? This might not have happened if her former foster mom didn't end up having to take care of her aging parents.

  This might not have happened if I'd somehow convinced my mom and my stepfather to let her stay with us. If I had fought harder to get them to understand. If I had yelled and screamed and convinced them to open up one of the spare rooms.

  I grab the phone again. I want Shawn, but he won't be in from practice for another few minutes. This is all I have right now.

  I return to the post to see if there are any comments. Melissa Farley shared this story. My stomach ties in an even tighter knot. She went out with Shawn for a few weeks earlier this year, before the two of us got together. I know where this is going to go and why she posted this. It's another chapter in the story called my life.

  The door swings open and Travis, the captain of the football team, walks in. Cold, damp air blasts in with him and his Cougars jersey is drenched. He picks his own phone up from the spare desk, the one next to the boys' locker room door. It casts a bluish-white glow on the wall by the trophy case. “Hey, Elaine,” he says. “You're lucky you're not a dude and expected to go out and tackle other guys in this crap. It sucks out there.”

  My throat locks up. I can't even tell him what I've just seen. “Where's Shawn?”

  “He's coming in a few minutes. I think even he thinks it sucks out there, too.” Travis checks something on his phone.

  I'm shaking. I check Talia's Facebook profile.

  She was last active five days ago. The police were right about that. It's like she's dropped off the face of the planet. I spot the last thing she's written on her wall.

  I hate this house. It sounds like a million rats are running through the walls of my room all the time and it's freaking me out. It's like they're throwing a rodent convention. Why can't they go somewhere else? Like in my foster mother's room? Gotta go. She's yelling at me.

  That was Wednesday night. She's never spent more than twelve hours off Facebook. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen her posting anything these past few days. Why didn't I notice sooner?

  Something horrible has happened to her.

  Travis swears. It's clear that he's seen the post that Melissa is sharing with everyone. “Um, Elaine? Have you seen this? It looks like Talia has run away from that crap house or something.”

  “That's not the case,” I say, rising from the floor. My back pops from sitting on the dirty linoleum. “She wouldn't have done that and not talked to me first.”

  “Good point,” he says, setting his helmet down on the desk. “This is weird, man. I mean, she was just here, you know? We were just standing at the Homecoming parade together.”

  I set my phone down by his helmet.

  Lily Abner must have something to do with this.

  Talia hated—no, hates—her new home. I'm not going to tell myself she's dead. You know what? She told me once. I heard her last foster kid ran away and burned down her old house.

  I laughed when she told me that, but I'm far from that now.

  The door opens again and Shawn walks in. Even though he's even more drenched than Travis, he smiles, leans down, and kisses me on the cheek. He smells like cold, merciless winter and dampness, even though he's anything but. “Afternoon, Elaine,” he says. His green eyes sparkle and his face falls as he takes me in. “Is something wrong?”

  I embrace him. “Just hug me,” I say. “I need it. I don't care how soaked you are.”

  Shawn kneels and wraps me up. I rest my arms on his shoulder pads and let my body fall on him. He wraps his fingers in my sweater. I want him to em
brace me forever, but I know that soon, I'll have to let go and face the world again.

  We stand in silence in the hall. Travis stands there, waiting. The doors come open again a couple more times as the other players head into the locker room. I don't even look to see who's going in and out. I just want to melt into Shawn and pretend none of this has happened.

  At last, we break apart. “What's happened?” he asks.

  I pick up the phone and hand it to him. “Just look,” I say.

  He stares at it, puzzled. His hair's plastered to his head. “This is a video of another cute kitten. I see.”

  “Oh.” I take the phone back and scroll back up to where the horror waits. The post has six likes now. Six. Why does someone feel the urge to click the thumbs up button over something so horrible? Why can't there be a dislike button? Or a hate button?

  Shawn's face falls as he reads. “We knew that she hated that place,” he says. “Elaine, it's totally possible that she just got out of dodge. I would have done that if I had a foster mom like her.” He hands the phone back to me.

  “Something's not right,” I say, leaning on him to see the post again. There's a seventh like now.

  I want to punch whoever's doing that.

  And there's a comment. The first, I know, of many.

  Probably some troubled teen who ran off with her boyfriend. Big deal. It's from some guy I've never heard of.

  And another. This one's from Melissa.

  Wonder who killed Talia? Any guesses?

  I breathe out slowly, trying to keep my anger down. I can't just sit here while my best friend is missing. “Shaun, we need to try to get ahold of her.” I hammer out a text, asking how she's doing and asking where the hell she is.

  “I don't know if that's going to work,” Travis says. All three of us lean over my phone now and I stand against the wall. The weave of my sweater clings to the brick.

  “We need to try.” I tap harder and send a second text. What if someone's using her as a prostitute or something? That happens to teens that run away. They even did a talk show about it not too long ago. Talia wouldn't let that happen to her—would she? She isn't stupid. She even gets mostly B's in all her classes. Maybe Lily Abner sold her.

  I wait.

  And wait for the familiar buzzing of a new text.

  It never comes. Talia's never away from her phone, especially after her move. It was her only key out of her new world.

  I face Shawn, then Travis. “Do either of you remember exactly where her foster house is?”

  The three of us went out to the movies and dropped her off one night over in Badwater. Her new foster house was a tiny ranch over in some suburb. I remember an overgrown lawn and a mailbox that someone might have hit with a baseball bat. Not exactly an inviting place or in the best neighborhood. Talia got out of the car and dragged her feet to the front door while the shadow of her new foster mom waited in the kitchen window. I only remember the street name. Willow's End. The name sends a shudder down my spine.

  “I think I do,” Shawn says. “Do you want to drive out there and see if she's around?”

  “The police have her foster mom,” I say, looking at the text again. “I still don't want to go out there by myself.” The thought sends butterflies through my stomach. I'm a coward. I didn't even want to go to summer camp alone when I was little. Facing someone who might or might not have buried Talia in the backyard or sold her out to some weirdo isn't high on my to-do list.

  “We can go with you.” Shawn leans close to me and he’s as adorable as ever. “I don't want you going out there alone, either.”

  My palms sweat. I need to go out there and see if Talia has left us any clues. I need to see what the police have found in the house, if they haven't taken it away. We can't just sit here while she's missing. I pick up my backpack, which weighs a ton with all my school books. I want to dump them off at my locker, but I need them for homework tonight.

  I tuck my phone in my pocket.

  The rest of the comments will come sooner or later.

  People are cruel and they won’t care what a terrible day we’re having.

  “Let's go,” I say. “I just need to go home for a bit to drop off some crap, and then we head to Badwater.”

  * * * * *

  We leave Travis at the school. He has to go home to help his dad get a bunch of floor tiles out of the truck and then he's going to join us at the corner of Willows' End. My backpack sits heavy in my lap. I keep one hand linked with Shawn's on the way to my house. He drives his Honda and has the radio on the classic rock station. Jimmy Hendrix sings something about a watchtower. The rain patters against his windshield. I want to be at home before the Internet storm comes. But my hands tingle around my phone and I can’t help but check my Facebook page.

  I gulp. Shawn wraps his hand around me and pulls me close to him. He's changed out of his football jersey and into a T-shirt that hugs his form, the one that I like. “Don’t look at them,” he says. “People are crap. You don’t need to see this on a day like today.”

  I can’t help it. “It’s going to be there no matter how long I wait, so I might as well get all that crap over with now.”

  I scroll down for the story. The comments are there, all right. There’s five of them so far.

  Wonder who killed Talia? I don’t think we need to look very far. Melissa is having fun reposting that comment over and over.

  One below it, from Shana Farrington. Like father, like daughter, huh?

  There's a reply from Melissa right below it. Just like her father. I’m sure Killer Klaver is going be in the news with him soon enough. Like later on this week. And Melissa has posted a link to an old news story. Jonathan-Klaver-murder-case-verdict-announced-today.

  I'm shaking. I throw the phone down onto my lap. “When are people going to realize I am not like him?” I ask. “I haven’t even seen my father in like, seven years. I don’t even remember what he looks like. Even when he was home, he was always gone on business trips.” My voice rises. I know I should listen to Mom and Garrett's advice to not check Facebook so much, but I can't help it. It kills me not to look.

  “Elaine.” Shawn holds me closer. He turns a corner. “I told you. These people aren’t worth it. It doesn’t matter what they think of you. Especially Melissa. Watch. She'll go on and get stuck at some crap job doing dishes for the rest of her life and you'll get into some great college. Just block her.”

  “I can't.” A horrible thought hits me. “One of them could send the police after me. I’m Talia’s best friend. People look at who your family is and they make assumptions about you. You're lucky you don't have this problem.”

  “Well, my grandfather was a drunk who liked to hit my grandmother. Not the one I spend time with or anything. My other one. She had to leave him and raise my mom by herself.”

  “Well, my father broke into some guy's house and stabbed him to death. While he was supposedly on a business trip.” I still don't even know why he did it—only that his fingerprints were on the knife. I've never had the bravery to read about the trial, or the victim, or the details. My mother had a hard time telling me that much. Most of what I know came from the other kids in elementary and junior high. They were happy to taunt me and tease me. And run away from me in the halls.

  “Well, I know you're not like that. People are idiots to judge you.” Shawn kisses me on the top of my head, brushing my hair. “You won't even step on bugs.”

  My house isn’t far from the school. Shawn pulls up and the gate automatically opens onto our perfect, green lawn. My house towers over square shrubs and little lion statues, a huge, empty shell. I've always thought our house is too big. Too empty. It's such a far cry from the small, cozy one I used to share with Mom and Dad when he was still home.

  We had plenty of room to have Talia, if only Mom and Garrett wanted to take in a foster kid.

  If only I had fought harder.

  Shawn pulls up into the driveway.

  “Remember
to take off your shoes,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “I know,” he says. “I should have worn my muddy ones here. I left them in the locker room. Darn.”

  “Mom should consider you acceptable to come in, since, you know, you're on the football team and your parents both have good jobs. Therefore, you're a good person unlike Talia and you'll never, ever want to steal our things.” I mean it to be funny, but I can't help but let a flare of anger rise inside me. Talia's never stolen a thing as far as I know, but Mom never listens.

  My chest hurts by time I enter the front door. Mom is in the kitchen, rearranging her towels while her radio plays some classical throughout the house. It’s her afternoon routine. The kitchen is too white. Too open and too big and too lifeless. I wish she'd paint it.

  “How was your day?” she asks. She looks up and sees Shawn standing there with me and relaxes. She’s always liked Shawn. Never once have I been able to bring Talia here while she’s home.

  “Splendid,” I say. “My best friend is missing and the police don’t know where she is. It’s been fantastic.”

  “Which one?” Her eyes get big. “That foster one?”

  That foster one. That’s all Talia is now. “Talia,” I say. “You know—my best friend who had to move away because the courts suck?”

  “Oh,” Mom says. She wipes the counter off, even though it’s already sterilized. It's almost like a compulsion, an urge to remove every bit of dirt from our lives, but some always hides there in the cracks and crevices of our house and she's never happy. “That's terrible. I hope they're able to find her.”

  “So do I.” I'm bristling. “I wanted her to live here. She would have helped out with the chores and kept quiet.”

  Mom stiffens. She drops the towel. “We can't be taking in fosters, sweetie. I told you that those kinds of kids always run away and get into trouble. I'm not saying this is a good thing and I hope she's safe, but look at what happened. Your friend is probably out on the street somewhere.”