Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy Read Online Free

our weirdness. A small part of
me was waiting for her to show us that she wasn’t so normal after all.
    The first couple of days, I’d had my guard
up with Imani. The last girl friend I had, was not who I thought she was. I had
known Bailey since the second grade and up until a couple of months ago, I had
no idea that she was a creature. Fletcher assured me that Imani was Human. He
could tell from her scent.
    I pushed the olives away, weighed down by
thoughts of Bailey. Mom hated that I ate so many olives and I wanted her to be
proud of me sometimes, so maybe I would start eating them less. “Everything’s
going to be okay, Mom. I’m going to fight this.” I knew my transformation was
something she worried about all the time, and even though it wasn’t my fault, I
felt guilty. I wanted to set her mind at ease.
    She nodded but she didn’t look like she
believed me. “I know. I know you want to and you can try, but this isn’t cancer
or some disease, sweetheart—this is just . . . different.”
    My mom and sisters were Human, so they
didn’t understand. They had no idea what I was going through.
    I would have appreciated a little more
encouragement from my mother, but she was right. I had two entities living
inside me—Banshee and Wendigo. One of them was destined to come out by my
eighteenth birthday which was only seven months away. A Banshee could predict
death. A mature Banshee could cause death with just her thoughts, she could
even receive warnings of other people’s deaths. A few months ago I had seen a
purple and black cloud around my biology teacher, Ms. Melcher. The cloud was an
omen only I could see. Shortly afterward, she disappeared and hadn’t been seen
since. Fletcher was sure she was dead, but I thought she could still be out
there.
    The house remained quiet until my sisters
came home, then it came alive with the sounds of televisions, blaring music,
and jibber-jabber about school days. My relationship with my sisters wasn’t
very sisterly. I was seventeen so having some distance between myself and
ten-year-old Quinn and thirteen-year-old Paige was to be expected. But it was
more than that. We had nothing in common. Ever since the girls learned the
truth about me, they had become more standoffish than usual. I didn’t think we
would ever be close.
    My sisters were blond and blue-eyed just
like Mom. They fit together perfectly.
    Paige entered the kitchen and headed
straight for the pantry without acknowledging me. She grabbed a bag of Chips
Ahoy and settled down on a barstool at the kitchen island. “Mom, the spring
dance is coming up and I need a dress.”
    “Let’s go shopping this weekend. We’ll
make a day of it,” Mom called from the living room, where she filled out a
field trip permission slip for Quinn. Mom loved to take the girls shopping.
That was one thing she never did with me because I always made my own clothes.
Dresses specifically. Long dresses with frilly sleeves and sashes that looked
like they belonged in another time period. I always added pockets so I wouldn’t
have to carry a purse. Wearing homemade dresses to school was a sure way to get
made fun of, but I didn’t care. I didn’t feel right in anything else. I
wouldn’t be uncomfortable just so people would like me.
    Paige eyed me as she bit into a cookie.
“Hey.”
    “Hey,” I said back. I didn’t know what
else to say to her. School dances weren’t my forte so I had no big-sister
advice to offer her.
    “You should come dress shopping with us,”
she mumbled with her mouth full of cookie.
    I shrugged. “I probably won’t.” But she
already knew that. Her invite was just going through the motions. I guess I
should have appreciated that she even did that.
    Paige looked down at the package of
cookies, wide-eyed. “O.M.G. Dress shopping. No more cookies.”
    That comment hurt my heart a little. I
wanted to tell her that she was being silly and to go ahead and eat the
cookies, but I knew she wouldn’t listen