Inferno, p.1
Inferno, page 1
part #2 of The Teen Witch Series
THE TEEN WITCH: INFERNO
THE TEEN WITCH CHRONICLES BOOK TWO
LAURA MARIE
THE TEEN WITCH: INFERNO
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Copyright © 2018 Sable Syndicate.
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All rights reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For information contact:
eBooks@lauramarieauthor.com
Facebook.com/LauraMarieAuthor
www.LauraMarieAuthor.com
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
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PROLOGUE
Previously on
The Teen Witch Chronicles
When we finally arrived in Safety Beach, when we finally arrived in Safety Beach, I was stiff from sleeping with my head against the window.
“I think you're going to love it here, sweetheart,” my mom said, getting out of the car and looking up at the house she’d rented.
“Honestly, I always thought this place was a fairy tale,” I said.
My mom smiled at me. She had talked about Safety Beach, Virginia, since I could remember. It had been the place of dreams, the place where romance was born, where everyone was allowed to be themselves.
I’d been arguing with her about starting school right away since we had left California. But I wasn't just a spoilt brat. I didn’t want to go to school here. Everyone seemed to think I was a freak back home. I had burnt down the science lab with my bare hands, I didn’t want that to happen here, too. I just wanted to be like every other sixteen-year-old and blend in until I disappeared.
Safety Beach was a small town. The properties were all large with houses at the back, away from the street. The town was all holiday vibes as if it was an eternal spring break, but the people I saw on the side of the road were carrying on with business as usual. Still, the town was the kind of place I would want to go to for a holiday.
On my first day at Safety Beach High I met Chloe and Reece, little did I know they both had their own hidden secrets.
“She’s new. All the way from Cali.”
Chloe looked me up and down. Her eyes were a pale blue, her pupils dilated even though it was bright in the hallway.
“Craven will eat you,” she said.
The way she said it didn’t sound like it was a joke.
“Luckily, she’s in good hands, right, Chloe?”
Chloe nodded with a smile. “The best.”
Reece reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “Good luck. I’ll see you around.” He walked away. Chloe stared after him. It gave me a chance to study her.
She had long black hair that hung straight down her back. She was one of the it-girls. It wasn’t hard to see. If the low-riding jeans and the tight top didn’t give it away, the makeup caked on her face did. Chloe swallowed hard, opening and closing her mouth as if she was thirsty. She turned her head to me.
When my mom’s best friend disappeared I felt I needed to investigate with the help of my friends, until it all went horribly wrong.
I couldn’t anchor the magic and draw it back so that it disappeared. The fire had gotten away from me.
I was a freak again. I’d lost control, and there was no way I could cover it up. Chloe and Reece both stared at me, shocked.
“Emily, it’s okay,” Reece said. His voice was calm, too. Didn’t they see what I had just done?
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My name is Emily Frank, I’m sixteen years old and I’m a Teen Witch.
CHAPTER ONE
“Show me again,” Chloe said.
We were in my room. She sat on my bed. I was at the window with a bowl of water, just in case. I cupped my hands together and closed my eyes, focusing on the energy I felt buzzing inside me on my hands.
When I opened my eyes, I kept watching my hands, slowly opening them. An orb of fire floated just above my palm. The fire was perfect—orange on the edges with blue in the center that looked like it held it all together. The flames did not burn upward like normal flames. It was as if the fire was perfectly contained.
“Holy shit,” Chloe said in a soft voice, “that’s amazing.”
I grinned. If Chloe forgot to put on her cooler-than-you voice, she was very impressed. That was what I had been going for. And I hadn’t lost control, either.
Point for me.
A couple of months had passed since I had found out that I was a witch and that I had firepower. No pun intended. It had been weird at first, and I had felt very alone. Who wants to be the only freak on Earth?
But since then, I had found out that no one here in Safety Beach was normal. The whole place was full of supernatural creatures, Chloe included, and I wasn’t so weird, after all.
I had started practicing my fire magic, and even though I couldn’t say I was as good at it as I would ever be, I felt a lot more confident with it. I didn’t lose control anymore.
There had been a time when I had had no control over my fire at all. It had started when I had nearly burnt down my old school. My friends had witnessed it, and there was no way around it—I was labeled a freak and practically cast out. My mom had moved us here to Safety Beach, the place where she had met my dad and where I had been born. We had newly had a repeat of the past. I had nearly lost my control again, but thanks to a series of events that I tried not to think about, everything had worked out in the end.
“So, how are you dealing with this whole Maggie thing?” Chloe asked.
I stifled a groan. So much for not wanting to think about it. My mom’s best friend, another witch, had been kidnapped and killed. I had been the one to find the body. It had all been part of my journey to self-discovery. Characters with power always found out in a fun way that they were superhuman, somehow. Spiderman got bitten and woke up the next morning with great powers. Superman knew he was an alien from the start. Batman literally created himself.
Me? I had to stumble across the body of a dead witch to figure out who and what I was. I guess it served as a great reminder that I wasn’t a superhero, just another teenager with complicated identity issues.
“I’m okay,” I said, “better than before. And I think my mom is starting to cope with it, too.”
The first while after Maggie had died had been rough. I had been paranoid about what would happen to me. Why had they been after her? What had they wanted? Would they be coming for me when I had stuck my nose in their business?
And my mom had lost her best friend. What a way to make a new life in a new town.
But days had turned into weeks, and weeks had turned into months, and no one had come for me. Nothing had gone wrong again. My life had continued, and I was starting to settle in, starting to get to know the kids in my class, getting to know my way around town.
“That’s good,” Chloe said, lying back on my bed. She pulled up her knees and crossed one leg over the other, kicking her foot in the air. “I have to say, your finding out that you have this magic has only been fun. I know it’s been a shitty ride, but your fire is really cool.”
I nodded. It was cool. I knew that I wasn’t the only witch in town, but I was happy not being a part of the bigger picture. My magic was fun, I had it under control, and my life was finally going in a direction that I was happy with.
The next morning, I walked into school with my backpack slung over one shoulder. The summer was over, and I was officially a junior now. Chloe waited for me in our usual spot. We had created a bit of a routine, and I liked having somewhere to belong. All wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was surrounded by people who were all different from each other, each with their own magic. Being weird wasn’t out of the ordinary, and that meant that I could focus on the things that mattered—like friends and my grades.
When I walked through the halls, I didn’t feel like an outsider anymore. I was probably still the newest student in Safety Beach High, but I felt like I was like all the others now.
During one of our off periods, Chloe and I sat at the picnic table outside the cafeteria where we always sat. Chloe sat on one of the benches, painting her nails. She had chosen a color called midnight black.
Big surprise.
Chloe was a vampire, but before she had started feeling anxious in crowds, she had been a part of the popular group. She still dressed in preppy clothes, wor e thick layers of make-up, although now I knew it was because she was sensitive to the sun, and she always put a lot of time into her appearance.
I sat on top of the table, my feet on the bench next to her, and leaned back. I closed my eyes, tilting my head to the sun. It was still hot, but it would start cooling down soon. The first leaves had changed orange, and Halloween was on its way.
“What are we doing for Halloween?” I asked.
Chloe chuckled. “You should see what this place is like when the monsters are allowed to crawl out of their holes. Safety Beach can be the scariest place you’ve ever seen.”
I shivered. I could just imagine it. On a good day, this place was crawling with supernaturals who didn’t quite know how to hide their power.
“We should do something,” I said. “I think it will be fun.”
“You bet,” Chloe said. She lifted her hand and studied her nails, nodding.
“I haven’t seen Reece,” I said to Chloe a moment later.
“He’s probably doing some important senior thing,” she said with a shrug. She concentrated on the nail she was painting.
“Is it full moon yet?” I asked.
Chloe shook her head. “Not for another week. He won’t skip class at the beginning of the year, anyway. I think he’s getting better at controlling himself.”
Reece was a werewolf, and once a month the moon called his animal out. Usually, he took a couple of days off from school. Not all the werewolves lost control, but some were better at it than others. The school was lenient about it. No one wanted to know what it would be like if students ate someone.
Before I had come to Safety Beach, before I had found out that creatures like the supernaturals here were real, I had read stories about vampires and werewolves just like any other teenager. The myths were all about how vampires were the undead and werewolves were cursed with a lycanthrope strand that turned into monsters who could not control their bloodlust.
Since I had come to Safety Beach, I had learned that vampires and werewolves were just another species, born and raised the same way humans or witches or Fae were. I was yet to meet the Fae and, apparently, there were other creatures, too. But knowing werewolves and vampires and witches was enough for now. It had only been a few months since I had arrived here and taking one step at a time wasn’t a bad thing.
“So, what’s is going on between the two of you?” I asked.
Chloe glanced up at me, blowing on the nails of her one hand.
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“You know exactly what I mean,” I said. “Would you ever date him?”
Chloe pulled up her shoulders. “For that, there would have to be an affection of some kind. I mean, we’re great friends and all, but it’s not like we are dying to fall into each other’s arms.”
I narrowed my eyes at Chloe. I knew that she had a good relationship with Reece. They had been friends for a long time. I could never tell if they liked each other and if there was potential for more.
“Besides, I’m not his type,” Chloe said.
When she had told me that the first time, I had thought she meant he wouldn’t like her because he was a football player and she wasn’t one of the popular girls anymore. I had thought it was a pity, but it was understandable. If anyone knew about high school cliques, it was me.
Only recently had I realized that when Chloe talked about “type,” she was talking about the fact that Reece was a werewolf and she was a vampire.
Who would have thought that dating would become even more complicated than it already was? As if being a teenager wasn’t hard enough.
I looked around the school ground, bored.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
Chloe looked up to see where I was looking. The younger girl was walking across the school ground, her head down, bag over her shoulder. Her blond hair was a tangled mess, and one shoelace was untied.
“I think her name is Valentina,” Chloe said. “She’s a freshman. Or a sophomore now, I guess. She’s never really friends with anyone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her talking to anyone.”
“That’s really sad,” I said. If anyone knew what it was like to be alone, it was me. After the incident at my old high school, I had been shunned, and those had been the darkest days of my life.
I hopped off the table. “I’m going to talk to her,” I announced.
“Emily,” Chloe called after me, but I ignored her.
“Hey,” I said when I walked to Valentina. She looked up at me, confused. When I came closer, she looked around as if she was unsure what I would do to her.
“You’re Valentina, right?” I asked.
She nodded. She had striking eyes – aqua, jade, or something in between.
“Why?” She asked, and she sounded suspicious.
I shrugged. “I’m new in Safety Beach. My mom and I moved here a couple of months ago. I guess I’m just trying to make new friends. It can get pretty lonely when I don’t know anyone.”
Valentina glanced past me at Chloe. She knew I had a friend. But when she looked at me again, she smiled.
“Welcome, I guess,” she said. She held out her hand.
When I took it, warmth flowed from my palm to hers, and something sparked between us. We yanked our hands back, and I laughed.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Are you a witch? Fire, right?”
I nodded, surprised.
Valentina chuckled. “Me, too.”
CHAPTER TWO
I sat on my bed, playing with fire. The last couple of days, I had been doing it without water nearby or any other way to deal with me losing control. It was a thing of the past that I couldn’t control my power and I felt like I was on top of the world.
I created the same ball of fire I had been working on all summer and bounced it between my hands, throwing it back and forth. The fire danced over my hands, and I was mesmerized by it. Of all the powers I could have had, I was glad it was fire. I had always been fascinated by fire, about how it lived and breathed and died but it was never alive.
When I created fire, it felt like it was alive. It was a part of me, and I felt like the more I developed my power and the stronger I became, the more beautiful my fire became.
I killed the flames, sucked the energy back into me and created a naked flame on my palm. I let it dance between my fingers, weaving it back and forth like the kids at school did with pens and pencils.
The light danced on my walls as the sun started to set and the room grew progressively darker.
My mom wouldn’t be back for a while. It was a Thursday. I had homework to do, but I didn’t feel like calculus or my history assignment. It was only a week into the new school year, and we were already overloaded with work. I guess that came with the territory. We were juniors, so we had to work like we meant it.
Whatever.
I concentrated on the fire, growing the flames larger and larger, trying to see how far I could go before I burned out.
If I burned out.
The flames grew on my hand, dancing to the ceiling, and I didn’t run out of energy.
The magic felt different this time. I was getting better, that had to be why. The flame was as if it was alive, with a soul of its own. Maybe it was an extension of my own soul. Or I was poetic about it when I shouldn’t have been? But it felt different than it had before.
The sensation was strange, too. The heat on my skin was almost searing, which it wasn’t usually. When I played with fire, the heat never affected me. I had even imagined that I could be in the middle of a fiery inferno and step out unharmed.
