Strangers Among Us by Kelley Armstrong

Author:Kelley Armstrong [Forest, Susan and Law, Lucas K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9939696-1-4
Publisher: Laksa Media Groups Inc.
Published: 2016-08-08T04:00:00+00:00

Weeks passed. Tensions climbed. Gretchen pushed Fat Melissa down the stairs and Jake caught her in mid-fall. Then Marianne turned on one of the other Prettygirls, Irina, supposedly over her boyfriend. Irina almost caught a wickedly spiked volleyball with her face that day, but Jake flapped a wing and gusted it off-target.

The kraken and the Basketball Boys had switched their attention to the outcast Goth, Andy Holmes. Even with Jake running interference, the taunts of ‘fag’ kept coming.

“Kraken wants Andy now, doesn’t it?” Eddie asked one day, looking worried and guilty, but Ling walked away without answering. After that she avoided everyone, spending her breaks reading plays, playing Face with Xian, cutting classes with the other Drama Queens and using the time to rehearse the spring musical.

Not seeing was all she could do. Raven would keep saving people. Or he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t, it wasn’t her fault.

Weeks passed. Nobody died.

One afternoon when she had the stage to herself she and Xian danced, the two of them whirling around each other without quite touching. The deer’s hooves struck against the wooden stage, sending off sparks, a fiery stream of gold that drifted between Ling’s fingers and through her hair as she spun.

She couldn’t give this up. It was seeing that had caused their mother’s breakdown, when Ling was only ten. Polly saw the death in everyone she touched. Their younger sister screamed so much and spoke so little that Daddy had put her into a school for autistic kids.

But Xian loved her. The qi-lin made seeing bearable.

Collapsing in a panting heap to the stage floor, she was startled by the sound of clapping. Jake was perched up on one of the stage lights, watching.

She fought to still her breath as Xian glared up at him.

“If you got the stone from Marianne, Xian would be solid,” he said.

“Her prince spirit wouldn’t let me near her.”

“So you have thought about taking it from her?”

“Why don’t you grab it, Jake?”

“You think being a visionary’s hard to deal with, kid? Try being at ground zero if a couple of us Old Ones go at it beak and claw. The whole damn blanket will come tearing up.”

“You’ve been keeping everyone safe.”

“Just bartering for time.” He caught a ghostly spark with his beak, adding it to the clamshell necklace. “The spooks need that death every year, Ling. It’s fine for you kids to fight and never resolve anything—you get out of here eventually. The haunts can’t leave. Xian can’t leave.”

“You don’t know what they can do!”

“They’re stuck in a nightmare. You wake ‘em up in the fall with your noise and your lust and your angsty pubescent hum. They jockey for position, they play your games, but winning means nothing if there’s no prize. Bloodshed siphons off enough tension to put them to sleep while you’re gone for the summer . . .”

“It’s your spook garden, Jake,” she interrupted. “You planted them here.”

“Who gave Eddie the Sight?” His eyes were dark as storms. “You dealt yourself in the game when you decided to save him.

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