Forks, Book Two Read online

  forks

  book 2

  a.e. davis

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 A.E. Davis

  Excerpt from Forks, book three © 2016 by A.E. Davis

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book with the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Forks Series Copyright © 2013 by A.E. Davis

  Printed in the United States of America

  contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty one

  twenty two

  twenty three

  twenty four

  twenty five

  twenty six

  twenty seven

  twenty eight

  twenty nine

  thirty

  thirty one

  thirty two

  thirty three

  thirty four

  thirty five

  forty six

  thirty seven

  thirty eight

  thirty nine

  forty

  forty one

  forty two

  forty three

  forty four

  forty five

  forty six

  forty seven

  forty eight

  forty nine

  fifty

  fifty one

  fifty two

  fifty three

  fifty four

  fifty five

  epilogue

  PHOTO ALBUM

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  preface

  Mom was really screaming.

  I jumped from bed, ran down the stairs at a breakneck speed, and came to a skidding halt at the bottom.

  Ken was down on his knees, holding Mom’s hands. She was hyperventilating.

  “Mom!” I yelled, terrified, my heart pounding from my chest. “Ken, what did you do?”

  “Amber,” Ken said in a placating tone. He was using his official police officer voice. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Oh really, then what is it?” I snapped.

  Mom turned tear filled eyes on me and my heart dropped.

  Did she somehow find out? “Mom, what’s going on?”

  She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “We’re getting married.”

  “You’re what?” I asked, shocked.

  “We’re getting married,” Mom repeated.

  “Ken?” I needed some clarification.

  “It’s true,” he said, smiling broadly. “I’m going to be your new dad.”

  I wasn’t sure what to feel. I felt like I had whiplash or something. Everything was happening so fast.

  “See,” she said and held out her hand. And sure enough, there was a big busting diamond on her third finger.

  “Wow, you outdid yourself Ken,” I said.

  “I know, didn’t he?” Mom could barely stay still she was so excited.

  Ken struggled to stand.

  Mom helped him stand since his leg still wasn’t healed completely from Jason attacking him.

  “Come on,” Ken said, and held out his arm. “Family hug.”

  I walked into his and Mom’s outstretched arms and gave them an obligatory hug.

  Ken leaned back and ruffled my hair. “Can you believe it?” he asked, his exuberance clearly showing on his face.

  “No, I can’t.”

  He frowned.

  “It’s just so sudden,” I tried to explain. His brows touched in the middle. I felt like a jerk. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Ken’s feelings. He had been really great to me about all the Jason and Kirk stuff. It felt like I had a Dad, a good one, for once. “And …awesome,” I covered and gave him a winning smile.

  Ken looked relieved and pulled me back in for another hug.

  I washed the last dish from the huge celebratory breakfast Ken made and placed it in on the towel by the sink.

  “So how are you feeling?” Ken picked up the plate, dried it off, and stacked it in the cupboard.

  “Pretty good, considering,” I said and wiped off my hands on a dishtowel. “Did you find out any more about Sandy?” She was the other girl Jason had mentioned the night at the Timber Museum when he was slipping off the deep end into Whackoville.

  “It doesn’t look good.” He shook his head sadly. “But there’s always hope,” he added. “We still haven’t found a body, so that’s something, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. She may not have been my favorite person but I didn’t wish any ill will on her either. “What about the two other girls you found?”

  “We haven’t found a connection yet.” He shook his head. “It’s the darndest thing,” he sighed. “Jason had an alibi and so did Kirk.”

  “Maybe their alibi’s lying,” I said hopefully.

  “I doubt that,” he said. “Both alibis are pretty solid.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know.” He set the dishtowel on the counter.

  “So what does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means we don’t have any answers right now.”

  “But what about Kirk?” I asked. “Has he turned up?”

  “No, not yet,” he said and rubbed his forehead.

  If Kirk was still out there, did that mean he was going to be coming after me?

  Ken seemed to sense my distress. “Don’t worry Amber,” he tried to reassure me. “If he’s out there, we will get him.”

  “Of course you will,” I said. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Ken but I just wished I could be as sure as he was.

  “He’s probably in Canada by now.” He shifted his weight off his bad leg.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Where do these go?” He lifted up the glasses we used for Mimosas.

  “They go in the other room,” I said. “I’ll take them.”

  I grabbed the glasses and left the kitchen to put them in the China Cabinet in the dining room. Maybe Ken was right. Maybe Kirk was in Canada by now. I walked back from the living room and passed the kitchen.

  Ken was wiping off the counters, humming a familiar tune. I leaned in the doorway. “What song are you humming, Ken?” I asked.

  He turned and his eyes glittered strangely under the florescent lights. “It’s an old song from my family’s homeland.”

  I couldn’t breathe. “Where’s that?” I somehow managed to ask.

  “Romania,” he said. A weird smile drifted across his face. “Why do you ask?”

  My heart hammered in my chest. “Oh, no reason…just curious.” It was the same song Kirk had been humming the night he pulled me through the woods.

  Love will find a way through paths where

  wolves fear to prey ~ Lord Byron

  one

  September had dwindled away, bringing October in with a bloodthirsty zeal. The excitement surrounding Halloween here in Forks was comparable to Christmastime in Sunshine, with talks of haunted houses, macabre walks through the mos
s-ridden forests, and yes, even pumpkin carving contests. The kids at school even took it a bit farther and walked through the halls outfitted with fake Vampire teeth. I didn’t really see a difference in how they normally looked with the exception of the fake teeth. It rained often and when it wasn’t, the sky was a dismal gray with low hanging clouds and brought with it a bone chilling frigidness to the air that only autumn weather could bring.

  “Did you see this?” Glinda lifted a blue flyer out of her bag. She had been back at school for few days now. She looked better but not great. She was still really pale and had a tendency to space at inopportune times. Like when the teacher called on her to answer a question and then I would ultimately be called on to answer in her place. I was beginning to wonder if she pulled that crap on purpose.

  I took the paper from her pale outstretched hand. “Psycho Social?” I read. “It sounds a bit ominous to me.” I handed it back to her.

  “It’s for Halloween, silly.” She took the flyer back and shoved it into her notebook. “It’s supposed to sound ominous.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I wasn’t too sure about going to anything with the word psycho in it. I had already encountered two: Jason and Kirk—two too many if you asked me.

  “We should totally go.” She bounced in her chair, reminding me of a small child.

  “Who’s going?” I couldn’t mask the expectancy from my voice, and by the look on Glinda’s face, she hadn’t missed it either.

  “Who do you want to be there?” She gave me an inquisitive look, then her eyes drifted down to my notebook and her brows creased.

  “I don’t know.” I looked down and quickly covered my doodle on the side of my paper. It was the letter ‘V’ with vines and flowers twirled around it. Funny, I didn’t remember drawing that.

  “Still haven’t made up your mind, I see.” She smirked at me.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She shook her head and gave me another one of her staple eye rolls. “You can pretend all you want but I know you have the hots for two boys with the letter ‘V’ in their names.”

  “I do not,” I adamantly denied, but my face burned.

  “Ah-Ha!” she hollered, which drew a few stares from the other kids in class. “I knew it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I played dumb.

  “Amber loooves V….”

  “You’re crazy,” I cut her off and stuffed my books in my bag, as my face burned brighter.

  “You’re crazy.” She giggled. “In looove...”

  “I am not.” Glinda was getting on my nerves.

  Luckily the bell rang and saved me from another moment of her torment.

  The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I hadn’t seen Vincent for a while and Viktor was missing from the Turtle’s…i.e., Ms. Campbell’s class, once again. And even though I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, I felt a strange pang of something akin to remorse that Jason wasn’t here to bug me any longer.

  It was weird.

  I hadn’t known Jason Fletcher for that long before he went off the deep-end into batshit Crazyville, with a capital C. He had tried to do me in at the Timber Museum, also shot Ken, who was a police officer here in Forks and my mom’s latest and greatest squeeze. But regardless of that, I still kind-of missed him. Kirk on the other hand, Jason’s even crazier friend, who had quite a few screws missing, I could care less about. He was gone and all I could say to that was good riddance.

  Of course, Vincent and Viktor’s overly sparkly sister Viola and her sidekick Cressida were still around to cause havoc in my life. They were both in class today but thankfully, for once, neither of them seemed to take notice I was here. They were too busy whispering and shoving notes back and forth during the movie.

  Monday’s were quickly turning into my favorite day at school. I figured all the teachers must have hangovers because they either turned on movies or had us reading quietly as they sipped hot coffee or tea out of their glorified teacher mugs.

  When the bell rang, I gathered up my books and put them in my messenger bag. My skin prickled and I looked up. Viola was starring right at me—so much for my momentary reprieve.

  Cressida walked up, nudged her in the arm and only then did she turn away. Quickly, I lifted my bag over my shoulder and headed out the door before Viola shot me another one of her death dagger stares.

  Rain came down so hard it bounced off the pavement, causing puddles to from in mass, and I somehow stepped in almost all of them. When I finally made it to my car my feet were drenched and so were the bottoms of my pants. Unlocking the door, I jumped inside and shut the door. Pulling off my drenched slicker, I pushed it over on the floor.

  A group of kids passed in front of my window, twirling around with their hands up in the air—once again dancing in the rain.

  “What is with these people?” I didn’t get it. On the east coast if it rained, everyone ran for cover, afraid of melting or something equally devastating. Here though, the kids seemed to embrace it, revel in it even, which was too weird to even contemplate the why’s behind it all.

  Reaching forward, I turned the key and ole Peggy Sue, my mom’s piece of crap car, sputtered to life. Feathering the gas, I got the idle to drop back down to normal and pulled slowly out of the lot. The wipers squeaked loudly on the windshield slapping buckets of rain off the glass.

  It was almost dark by the time I got home. It wasn’t late though, it only seemed that way because of the torrential rain.

  Throwing the car in park, I killed the engine. Leaning over, I grabbed my coat off the floor. “Get the Funk Out,” by Extreme blasted from my phone as I sat back up. It was my new ringtone. Reaching in my bag, I pulled out my phone and stared at the name that flashed up on the screen. I contemplated answering it but after the third chorus, I chickened out. Instead, I hit silent, shoved my phone back into my bag, and climbed from the car. I slammed the door shut. The heavy rain beat down against me, spurring me to move but the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I had the weirdest feeling someone was watching me.

  Instinctively, I looked across the yard to the tree line. In the dense foliage, I could swear I saw someone watching me. Lighting cracked and I jumped. My bag slipped from my shoulder. Reflexively, I made a grab for it before it landed in the puddle at my feet. I was too late. Pulling up my wet bag, I looked quickly back toward the tree line, but whoever I thought I’d seen was now gone.

  two

  Pulling off my slicker, I hung it on the hook by the door along with my wet book bag. Water dripped down on the striped rug as I kicked off my wet sneakers.

  “Amber, is that you?” Mom called from the kitchen.

  I tensed. Who else would it be? I hated when Mom asked me obvious questions like that. “Yep, it’s me. Big surprise,” I mumbled under my breath as I slipped across the floor to the kitchen, leaving a trail of water in my wake.

  I stopped in the doorway. Mom was all dolled up. Now I knew why she asked if it was me, she probably thought I was Ken.

  “Why are you so wet?”

  Seriously? “It’s raining out, Mom, like buckets, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “What’s with the attitude?” She frowned at me.

  “Sorry.” I exhaled, feeling bad for being so short with her. It wasn’t her fault I was so wet. “I’m just tired and I want to get out of these.” I plucked at my sopping clothes.

  “Didn’t you have fun at school today?” She washed out a wine glass and set it on the towel she had laid out on the counter beside the sink. I noticed there was an empty wine bottle in the trash. No wonder she was so chipper. She probably had a buzz.

  “Mom,” I sighed. “School isn’t fun.”

  “Well, of course it isn’t.” She waved her hand dismissively in the air. “You are there to learn, not socialize.”

  “Yeah, so I’ve been told,” I mumbled under my breath thinking of how the teacher called me out earlier for talking with Glinda.

  “What was that?”r />
  “Nothing.” I walked past her and grabbed a can of ginger ale out of the fridge. I shut the door and popped the tab.

  “Well hurry up and get changed,” she said. “Ken is coming to get us soon.”

  The can was halfway to my mouth… “Wait…what?” I lowered my soda and set it on the counter.

  “Don’t you remember?” She crossed her arms and started tapping the toe of her patent leather pump on the linoleum.

  “Remember what?”

  “We’re going out to dinner?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “You didn’t tell me.” That was the last thing I felt like doing tonight.

  “Come on Amber, we talked about this…” She gave me her staple hairy eyeball.

  “Can’t I stay home?” I coughed and sniffed, playing like I was coming down with something.

  “No. You can’t,” she said, and opened the cabinet door and pulled something out. “Take two of these and you’ll feel better in no time.” She tossed the box to me.

  I caught it and made a face at the box of cold medicine. My shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay.” I turned to leave.

  “Amber, wear something decent,” she called after me.

  “Where are we going again?” I had no idea, probably because she forgot to tell me in the first place.

  “Ken’s taking us into Port Angeles.”

  I pulled up short. “Why?”

  “We’re meeting his family for dinner.”

  “Why are we meeting his family?”

  “Amber.” She rolled her eyes.

  “What?”

  “I think he wants to see, you know…” Her brows lifted to her hairline.

  No. I didn’t know but right now, I didn’t care either. “Who are we meeting, exactly?”

  “His sister, her husband, and their kids, I think.” She chewed on her lip, looking freaked by the prospect.

  “What about his parent’s?”

  “Amber!” Mom screeched.

  I flinched. “What?”

  “His parents are no longer with us.” She gave me a reprimanding stare.

  “OH! Sorry.” Funny, I didn’t remember hearing that. “What happened to them?”