Anomalies (Anomalies #1)

Lucina

My trust fund ran dry five years ago. Which is why I’m dragging a scrawny man through the bar by his ankles, some rock song pumping through the busted speakers.

Whoever my parents were, they must have been well off.

The hefty pouch of silvers I was abandoned with bought me fifteen years of a roof over my head and food in my belly—never enough to be full, but enough not to starve.

Once it ran out, Catherine and the monster she married began charging me rent.

So here I am, trying to afford it.

I’m halfway to the door with Bobby’s ankles when someone cuts the music.

My head shoots up, and an unimpressed Frankie bursts through the door behind the bar. Her stare falls to Bobby, who’s squirming in my grip, and when she looks back up at me, the corner of my mouth kicks up.

“Morning.” I drop Bobby’s ankles, and he groans when his legs hit the floor. “Just taking out the trash, Elodie left for me. She does know where the dumpster is, right?”

“She knows,” Frankie sighs, folding her arms over her chest. “But our customers are not trash, Lucina.”

“Not all of them,” I reply, and Bobby snickers. “Just the ones that—” Sticky fingers glide up my calf, and a heartbeat later, I have Bobby’s wrist pinned to the floor with my boot. “Touch me again and I’ll break every bone in your hand,” I snarl in his face, and his glassy eyes widen.

“Cin!” Frankie snaps, but I push my boot down a little harder. Bobby’s face turns crimson as he struggles to get free.

“Lucina,” Frankie warns again, but I only shift more weight into my foot, the thick tread of it digging deep into his skin.

“LUCINA CARMINE,” Frankie shouts this time, and I snap back into myself with a jolt, lifting my foot enough for him to get free. Bobby scrambles to his feet, cradling his wrist as he hurries out the door.

“Sorry,” I tell her. But I’m not.

And judging by the skeptical look on her face, she knows this.

Despite five years of working for Frankie, I know very little about her.

She doesn’t drink, which is ironic, but what she doesn’t drink, she smokes.

Cigarettes, by the carton, enough that her voice has gone deep and raspy.

She’s barely five feet with a rounded belly and wide hips, previously bleached hair that she keeps tucked behind her heavily pierced ears.

Faded tattoos litter her arms, melted and morphed into black blobs that likely used to be words or pictures.

She can’t be more than forty years old, and I’ve never outright asked, but I don’t think she has any family.

At least none that she cares to talk about.

We share very little when it comes to our personal lives, and I’m thankful for that.

“I need you to work tonight,” Frankie murmurs around a cigarette poised between her lips. “Elodie quit.”

“Elodie quits once a month.” And she always comes back. This place is like quicksand. “Let me guess, some old money hotshot from West Draycott came in last night and promised Elodie a new life on his sprawling hundred-acre estate.” I mimic Elodie’s light-as-air tone, and Frankie chuckles.

“Two hundred acres.” She flicks the lighter and inhales deeply.

“You think it’s real this time?”

Frankie throws me a side-long glance, drawling through a plume of smoke, “His credit-card declined when he went to pay his tab, and he convinced her it was because he’d just come from making a massive donation to charity.”

“Gods help her,” I sigh, and Frankie mumbles her agreement.

“She’ll be back by Monday, I’m sure.” She taps the butt of her cigarette into the nearest ash tray. “I just need you to cover her shifts—”

“Nope.”

“No?” Her brows shoot up. “You’re my only other employee, Cin.”

“I’m not working on a holiday.” I start flipping chairs off tables.

“Aura’s Crossing is not a holiday.”

I slam a chair down—a bit more aggressively than I intended. “Yes, it is. Elodie’s coming back, she always does.”

Sure enough, Elodie came bouncing through the front door for her shift as if nothing had happened. Her black mascara was smudged, her eyes swollen and puffy, but she managed to plaster on a rather convincing smile.

Elodie’s tried more times than I can count to ditch this place, but she always winds up back here. Like her life plays out on a constant loop; fingers grasping the edge of freedom just to be ripped back down again. Over and over.

But at least she’s dared to try.

Imagine that. Sweet, dewy-eyed, Elodie’s got more guts than I do.

I zip the silver charm across my necklace chain, frowning as I survey the parking lot. She’s not normally this late. I’m about to start the long walk home when a navy-blue Jeep barrels over the curb.

Ivy has pulled the top back, and her auburn hair bristles over the windshield, glowing a deep red in the afternoon sun that drenches Draycott. The brakes squeal as she skids to a halt beside me.

“I mean it’s a miracle you haven’t killed anyone driving like that, Ivy,” I tell her, yanking open the passenger door and tossing my bag into the backseat, praying it doesn’t get lost in the sea of things she keeps there.

She groans as I slide into the seat; it’s nothing she hasn’t heard before. “Well Cin, it’s a good thing I haven’t killed anyone, cause with me in Jail,” she throws her hands in the air, the colorful rings she wears on every finger, catching the sun, “who do you think would drive you everywhere?”

I pull out the gold sunglasses I keep in her glove box, smiling deeply as I put them on. “I’d manage.”

“Yeah, right,” Ivy laughs. “You’d be lost without me.”

This is true. Painfully true.

I would be undeniably and irrevocably lost without Ivy.

We were twelve when we met. She caught me trying to skip school through the window in the girls’ bathroom.

I was fumbling with the lock on the window when she walked in, and I thought for sure she’d rat me out, but instead, she reached up and pulled on the rusted crank.

She knew just how to maneuver it, and the damned thing sprung open instantly.

We tumbled through the window together, but before we could pedal to freedom, our history teacher wrapped his meaty hands around our handlebars, and we were given detention for two weeks.

We’ve been inseparable ever since.

Ivy might be my soulmate, should I never find someone who gets me quite like she does.

Who loves me quite like she does—the dark parts and all.

But we don’t tell each other things like that; it’s too mushy.

Too…real. So, I keep it to myself as we drive, letting the music she cranks drown out those bittersweet truths.

This time of year, all the rich folk from West Draycott come east to our salt-covered side of town, but it has never made sense to me why people come here to relax.

In East Draycott, the speed limit is only a suggestion, and the alleyways are full of roaming drunks and drug addicts, but hey, at least there’s a nice view of the coast. It’s the only ‘vacation’ spot for those who can afford one, unless you want to cross the Barrier.

And no one crosses the Barrier.

Everything in the backseat jostles when Ivy turns onto the road that leads to my house. The worn cream-colored paint is chipped around the windows, and vines creep up one side, winding through the cracked chimney bricks.

To anybody else, it might look peaceful. A small cottage, tucked into the outskirts of town, and protected by the forest behind it. But to me, and my brother Jude, there are demons in that house that we will never be able to outrun.

My eyes scan the woods when Ivy puts the jeep in park.

Somewhere through those trees is the Barrier, the shimmering boundary that protects our land.

It’s only a few miles west through these woods, but no roads lead to it, because you’d be stupid to leave.

There’s too much we don’t know about the continent, and we haven’t a damn clue what’s out there.

Still, I used to love playing in the woods when I was a kid.

Catherine let me stay out there as long as I wanted; she never seemed to care what I did, so long as I was out of her way.

I’d pretend the forest was hidden from the world and I was the only one allowed in it.

I’d run through until my lungs ached and my cheeks grew rosy, winding between the trees in whatever direction felt right.

But I’d always end up at the Barrier.

When things were the hardest, I’d throw my few belongings into a bag and run to meet it, letting its song swell in my heart—a soft encouragement to cross.

I almost did, too many times to count. But when the shimmering boundary came into view, I’d freeze; my feet stuck in the dirt as if someone had glued me there.

I’d look out to the barren plains beyond, and I’d quickly forget the tune to my song, the warmth fading into a frigid ball of fear that would settle deep in my gut.

Sometimes, I’d turn right back around, accepting defeat quickly and without a second thought. But other times I’d stay; feet frozen in the dirt, watching the violet iridescence ripple. It reminded me of ocean waves—the way the wind blew through it—and when I was really young, I’d wave back.

But I was never brave enough to cross.

No one knows what’s out there anymore, not since the north went dark over twenty years ago.

Ivy’s nana told us stories of Streatham before she died—she called it The City of Light.

She said there was magic there, witches bathed in starlight, blessed by the Chiaros and the Matrons themselves.

The Sol, Morwenna called them. They were the reason the north shone like a bright gold beacon off the horizon line.

But now the north is pitch black, no one knows why, few are willing to venture out for answers, and magic is a distant memory.

I think it died with Nana and the whimsical stories she used to tell.