Revenant: Black Rose Files Book 2 (The Black Rose Files) Read online

  "Look, Bart, I know I haven't been reliable." She leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. "I apologize. I really do. But I don't lecture me on what my duties are."

  "I'm not mad," he replied, his face sympathetic behind the small beard he wore, "I'm concerned about what's been going on. You can talk to me, you know."

  She nodded, though she looked down to the dull red carpet. There was a time when she thought she could tell him about anything, especially after their mother died. Her life took so many different turns after it, and Bart always made sure she had a shoulder she could lean on.

  But that had been over a decade ago, and so much changed between them. He was not only her brother. He was her boss, he was the Sheriff, he was so many things more than merely there for her when she needed him.

  How would she even start? "Oh, hey, by the way, I think I am going crazy." Yeah, that would do her a world of good.

  "I've just not been sleeping very well." She sat back again, smoothing out the front of her uniform.

  "You've seemed stressed." He scratched his beard. "Maybe that's it? You could go to the clinic and see if they can give you something to help you sleep."

  She shook her head. The last thing she wanted to do was rely on pills. "No, I'll be okay. There's just been a lot on my mind."

  He nodded, the two small bangles near the brim of the hat jiggling. "Well, there're some things I need you to do today for the festival." He opened the top drawer and pulled out a small piece of paper. He handed it across the desk.

  She glanced at it, taking in the list at a glance. Most of it had to do with making sure security checkpoints were set up along the main thoroughfare.

  She flipped the paper toward him. "We done?"

  He nodded, and she stood when he did. "Maybe it will help you, having something to focus on."

  Sam pursed her lips. She doubted it, but the work needed done, regardless.

  She left the door open when she walked out of the office.

  Chapter 2

  The smell of spiced meat frying in the skillet did little to help her keep her eyes open.

  Sam let her head rest against the cool of the wood table in her kitchen, closing her lids while she waited until she could flip the burger in the pan again. She was tired enough to not be hungry, but she had to eat something before letting herself go to bed.

  She would need the rest if she was going to make it through the next day. With the festival happening, she would be on her feet for most of it, and the last thing she needed was to have another night lacking in sleep.

  It did not bother Sam to help get things set up for the festival; it went on every year, a celebration of the harvest that hearkened back generations. The lethargy she was dealing with, however, made a difference in her attitude.

  She took less than an hour to make sure the small bit of security they set up would be enough. Most was spent checking the supplies in the joint security and first aid tent they put together at all of their festivals.

  The rest of the day was taken by other people who needed help, especially the older folks. She could have said no, but she would have felt worse if she passed them by without lending some kind of assistance.

  What was she going to do otherwise? Go back to the station and sit at her desk to stare at the walls?

  By the time it was all done, exhausted, she just wanted her own four walls surrounding her.

  A clarion jerked Samantha to her feet, adrenaline surging through her. Her bleary vision filled with haze as the alarm rang out.

  It took a few seconds for her to realize the sound was the smoke alarm warning her something was wrong. She crossed the kitchen to the stove and reached for the handle on the skillet. Fumes poured from it, the alarm drowning out the hiss of the burning meat.

  Pain shot through her hand as she touched it. Her sleepiness made her foolish and the intense heat woke every nerve in her fingers.

  She grabbed the hot pad from beside the sink and used it to switch the pan from the stove to the basin; it clattered against the metal and the charred bits of burger scattered around.

  "Shut up!" Sam shouted at the smoke alarm. The grating intensity of it was more than her nerves could handle.

  She pulled it from the wall and ripped the battery out of the back. It fell silent.

  She tossed it, and the battery, on the table and turned off the fire on the stove. The small vent fan would not make much difference, but she hoped it could clear some of the smoke. It was so old and gummed up, though, it would do little good.

  Sam ran water over the pan and pulled as many of the broken up pieces of burger she could find out of the drain, hoping nothing went in. The pipes in the house were aged, she did not want to deal with them clogging. They already had enough issues.

  The last went into the trash with a sigh. The intense stink of the burned meat nauseated her, but the fan seemed to get at least some of the haze out of the room.

  She had not wanted to eat to begin with, let alone have to spend an hour cleaning everything up.

  Sam rolled her eyes as she inspected the pan. There was so much gunk and char embedded into the metal she did not know if it would ever come clean again.

  Screw it.

  She threw it in the trash. She had another one, though it was smaller and she did not like to use it as much. They had a replacement at the grocery store, anyway.

  Samantha left the fan on as she went to her living room and sat heavily in the La-Z-Boy chair she bought used years before. It was old, but comfortable, and, other than the couch and end table, made the majority of the furniture she owned.

  She considered turning on the TV, but it would just be noise to distract her. The long day pressed on her, and the headache from the smoke haze making its way out of the kitchen into the rest of the house was already kicking in.

  Her fingers played with the fabric of the chair and she closed her eyes, letting herself relax. The subtle drone of the fan in the kitchen reached her even this far away, helping Sam feel more at ease.

  Soft washes of colors and shapes, random motes sparked behind her closed lids. Sam brought her hands to her face and rubbed it. With each bit of pressure, the randomness increased.

  She stopped and pulled her hands back, popping her eyes open. It took a moment for her vision to clear, but the sensation of someone watching her came on swift.

  She looked around but saw no movement beyond the last remaining sparks of light she created by rubbing so hard at her eyes. Small hairs on her arms and the back of her neck crept up, passing across her skin to her shoulders.

  But as quick as it came, it faded, leaving only a small trace in the back of her mind that something had been there.

  Her body gave a brief shudder as the remains of it dispersed.

  What the hell?

  Had she actually fallen asleep and dreamed some presence there? With her being so tired, Sam had to acknowledge it.

  She nodded to herself, sure that was all it was.

  She managed to stand, though her legs wobbled beneath her, then went to the kitchen and turned off the fan. It got most of the odor out and the haze would fade with the passage of time. Letting it go on for the rest of the night would just make noise.

  She clicked off most of the lights in the house, leaving only the small night light in the bathroom and the lamp above the stove on in the kitchen. The one on her stand next to her bed shed a bit of illumination into the room while she changed out of her uniform and hung it up against the closet door.

  She was already most of the way to sleep by the time she turned the light off again and covered herself in her blankets.

  A slight glow of white and green vaguely illuminated the trees around her as she walked, crossing between patches of undergrowth. Those plants, thorns and vines, vied for space beneath the boughs of the branches above, cutting off most of her ability to walk.

  She had to step carefully to avoid being tripped up, but the glow ahead kept most of her attention.
r />   Sam had to get back to the group, somehow. They became separated as the evening wore on, but the pressure to keep going was so strong. The girl had to be found.

  They had so little time left; Cassie had been missing for far too long.

  Her feet kept moving, pushing her through the brambles, and though exhaustion flooded her, she had to go on.

  A small clearing made her steps cease, and the white and green glow brightened when she did.

  It coalesced, whirling around as it focused into one spot ahead of her. She took a step toward it, drawn to it. But she stopped again when it brightened more and formed into a figure.

  It was as tall as Sam, and became more distinct as the light formed arms and legs. She squinted against its brightness, and her eyes watered. But it let her distinguish some of the features of the thing.

  Sam opened her eyes wide again, however, when she noticed the thing's face looked like her own.

  It launched itself forward, pounding against her. The heat of it overwhelmed her, burning her skin. She gasped as the pain poured through her.

  It rocked her backward, shoving her until her back came to rest against the hardness of a tree. Sam cried out from the shock of it. When she did, the figure of light forced its way into her being and disappeared, leaving her in darkness.

  Samantha inhaled deep she awoke, her hair across her face. She sat up in bed, letting the blankets drift down.

  She managed to calm her shaking hands enough to turn on the light, but it took her a few tries.

  Sam opened the drawer on the stand, slipping out a small notebook and the pen she kept with it. She flipped to the first empty page and wrote the highlights of the dream, etching it into her memory.

  When she finished, she turned the pages back, glancing through the notes she made before, on the other nights the same dream woke her.

  The words were all much the same.

  It happened at least once a week since the day they stopped looking for Cassie Barlowe.

  Samantha put the notebook back in the drawer and turned off the lamp. As her body shivered under the blankets, the memory of the light wound its way into her consciousness.

  It followed her into sleep once more.

  Chapter 3

  The din of hundreds of people crossing back and forth along Main Street made Samantha's already tired brain hurt, but she did her best to smile at those who greeted her.

  The music blaring from the speakers attached to the rides did little to help her, and the screams of bodies on those machines, the shrieking and squealing as they tipped upside down or rotated around enhanced the ache.

  At least it was loud enough to jar her awake, though she wished there was a better way.

  A queasiness in her stomach grew through the day, but Sam thought it might be due more to all the coffee she had to drink since she woke up than anything else. Exhaustion could not keep her from having a fitful rest, after the dream shocked her system into motion.

  Hours later, glittering lights brought the memory of the dream to her, as it had the times it roused her before.

  But that was probably because it was not imagining for her. That night she spent in the woods, though over a month ago, stuck with her. The brightness, the figure, the clearing, it all seemed too real to be merely a dream.

  So much of that night was gone from her. Sam tried many times to recall what she saw after encountering the light, but so little of it remained to her.

  When the glow first appeared, she thought it was swamp gas or something. Perhaps it was even a product of her imagination. But anything after she stepped into the clearing was closed off to her memory, leaving only her reviving in the woods, covered by detritus of the forest floor and the sensation that something happened.

  What that was, Samantha did not know.

  She finally made it out of the trees, in the middle of the day, filthy, tired, and confused. When Bart asked where she had been, Sam could only say she had gotten lost.

  He let it go at that, and she knew she should have told him the truth, but he would not have believed her. He never did, not even when they were kids.

  "Crazy" he would call her in those younger days, sticking his finger to his temple and circling it around. "Conspiracy theorist in the making" he would say as he got older and no longer listened to her.

  It had been a common theme between them for so long, she wondered how Bart could have ever trusted her enough to make her a cop. Maybe he only did it to keep an eye on her, to keep her in a box he could watch over, ensuring she did not go off half-cocked on "one of her theories."

  Maybe there were moments Sam thought a little too far outside the norm. Times like, after 9/11, when she suspected there was more going on than what was being said, or believing there was an inside motive to why John Kennedy was taken out of the political equation.

  But her mind followed the trail of breadcrumbs, no matter where it might lead. She wanted the truth about things, and if that truth brought her to places people would not normally go, then so be it.

  But for all of her passion about it all, Bart would have none of it. He refused to listen to the things that led anywhere but the easiest explanations, and if she pushed him on it, she would get the brunt of his ire.

  So how could Sam tell him anything she went through that night in the woods? He would write it all off as a figment of her imagination, some paranoid theory brought about because of fear and the dark.

  She did not want to deal with that, so she kept quiet about what she saw.

  For all his protestations about concern for her safety and wanting her to be happy, he sometimes did more harm than good.

  She wished things between them could be better, but until he acknowledged she had a right to think how she wanted, that would never happen.

  She passed Noah as he made his own rounds through the crowd. He waved and she smiled back, but she did not stop to spark a conversation, and he seemed distracted enough on his own.

  Both were there to make sure no one was too drunk at the beer tent or got out of hand and caused problems. Two of the guys from the night shift were around, though she had not encountered them for at least an hour. The last she saw, they were both following a group of pretty ladies, trying to get their attention.

  She lost sight of Noah as the crowd moved, flowing in waves from one stand or display to the next. Just as well; she had problems tolerating him for the past six months, since their two trial dates ended badly.

  They agreed to give it all up and still be friends, but it was not easy for her to view him in that light anymore. Trying to be with someone romantically, especially when it failed, made it hard to go back to normal afterward.

  She hoped it would get better with time. He seemed to want to try to let things go, himself, but it was not as easy for her to do that.

  Most of the businesses in town had a display, all lined up close together along the street. Everyone made a big deal of the Harvest Festival, going all out with displays and stalls, each one vying for the money and attention of those who passed by. Smells of greasy food and old vegetables mixed in the air, sometimes interrupted by the breeze dragging the exhaust from the motors on the rides.

  None of it helped her head.

  Samantha made her way to the edge of the street and went between two of the vendors. She walked between the buildings they sat in front of, looking for a moment away from it all.

  She leaned against the back of the building, letting the cool brick face support her body as she rested. It muffled some of the noise coming from the nearby road, enough so she could feel the ache in her head subside a bit.

  She checked her watch and saw she still had a few hours to go before she could go home, though she thought, if she really wanted to, she could convince Bart she needed to duck out early.

  That would leave him needing to call someone else in, and they were already strained enough, with most of the force working overtime to make sure everything went off without a hitch. She did no
t want to have another person come in for her, forced to work more just because she had a headache and tired.

  She had dealt with worse.

  A high pitched and intense cry interrupted the din of the crowd on the other street, bringing Sam to her feet, her eyes wide and alert. The brick wall scraped against the palm of her hand, instinctively ready to push off if she needed to move.

  The sound came from her left, but when Samantha looked that way, she could discern nothing out of place. It had been so quick, though, and she had not been paying attention. Had it been a random screech from the festival?