Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) (50 page)

Pilot sighed. "Just open the damn mail Brie. It looks important."

Something in Pilot's tone made her sit up. He sat next to her on her bed as she ripped open the envelope.

She pulled out the contents, a magazine with her picture on the front, rehashing the stunt she pulled on the cruise.

She barely looked at the cover before tossing the magazine across the room and falling back onto her pillow, burying her head in the slight arch of its shape.

Pilot walked across the room. "There's something else in here," he said, shuffling around beyond Brie's line of vision.

"I don't give a shit," Brie said, wishing she could reach her iPod without getting up. She wanted nothing more than to blast music, tune everyone out, and cry into her t-shirt some more.

Pilot sat down on her bed again, bouncing her roughly. "Wake up! Stop feeling sorry for yourself and look at this."

She threw her pillow at him. "What do you want from me?" she asked. She threw another pillow, and another.

He grabbed her hands, pressing her arms into her sides. She could have broken free with her powers, but something about his grip caught her by surprise. He had always been stronger than her. He had always been the older one and the one in control. She realized now that she wanted him to keep trying to control her.

She was afraid of pushing him away, like maybe he would give up on her too, the way Rykken had.

When she stopped struggling against him, he released his grip on her. She yanked the magazine from his hands. The magazine was open to the main story, featuring James, Pilot, and her, but was obscured by black, permanent marker written all over it.

"This was my signal," she read out loud. She picked up the eight by ten photograph that bookmarked the page. In the picture, Brie and Adele sat with pale makeup pressed into their skin, wearing the most ridiculous dresses. Their photographer posing next to them as Shakespeare. She turned the photograph over.

"This is yours," she continued reading out loud. At the bottom there were six words:
New York City. I'm expecting you.

*****

Sirena hated digging through Thessa's private thoughts, but she had no choice. The day that Thessa had taken Brie's blood—after Brie, Pilot and Rykken had left—Thessa had walked over to her dresser and pulled a strange contraption from one of the drawers.

"I want to give you this before you leave," she said. "It's called a Mnemosyne and I invented it."

"Nee-MAH-sin-nee?" Sirena said.

"It's a diary," Thessa said, "but it also contains all my thoughts over time, as I reflected back on each of the memories. I've lived so long, I thought it could be useful, if something were to happen to me."

She unfolded the mnemosyne and flattened it on the table.

"Touch it," she said.

Sirena placed her hand on the object. In her mind, she saw images of memories flashing. She could hear the words, similar to a video, but there was also an additional audio layer of reflection over the original track. It reminded Sirena of watching a movie with the commentary feature on.

Sirena pulled her had away from the pad.

"Pretty neat, huh?" Thessa folded the mnemosyne up and held it out to Sirena.

"Do you expect something to happen to you?" Sirena asked, taking the device from her and slipping it into an inner pocket of her jacket.

Thessa cocked her head to one side, with a slight smile. "Best to be prepared," she had said.

Now, the mnemosyne was Sirena's only hope to help Brie. Sirena felt naked without Thessa's counsel.

She had avoided the New Order for nearly one hundred years, but only because she had help. Her oldest friend Margarita had helped her once or twice, but Thessa was the pro at survival—she could think her way out of any situation. She was Sirena's safety net.

Sirena sighed, setting her fingers on the mnemosyne again. She kept returning to the scene of Rykken and her speaking on a platform to an audience of Hallows. The way she was looking at Rykken in the vision... well, it wasn't a friendly look.

It was hard for Sirena to imagine loving any man, but if she were to choose her future husband, it wouldn't be Rykken. His connection with Brie was one of the only reasons she tolerated him; otherwise, she found him quiet and full of angst, with an average ability in using his Hallow gifts and a weakness for her niece. It was hard to imagine Rykken growing up to be the warrior in the vision, the leader who would lead the Hallow people into a new, less volatile government.

Brie burst into the room, startling Sirena out of her thoughts. Brie was showered and dressed, holding a magazine in one hand.

Sirena quickly shuffled a stack of papers over the device. "Your hair is still wet," Sirena observed, hoping to provide some distraction. Brie's hands went automatically to the tips of her hair, to Sirena's relief.

"Never mind that," Brie said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She walked over to Sirena, slamming the magazine on Sirena's desk. "It's the stones," she said. "I think I've found one of them."

The book doesn't end after Chapter 21!

You can access additional and deleted scenes online. Go to:

http://forms.aweber.com/form/00/446944400.htm

Or, if that link isn't working for you, go to:

http://monicaleonelle.com/seven-halos-extras

About the Author

Monica Leonelle is a 27 year-old writer living in Chicago with her husband and Westie dog. She started writing the Seven Halos series in 2008. When she's not working on a Seven Halos book, she can be found working on her YA cyberpunk trilogy, starting with the first book, Socialpunk.

Acknowledgments

Books, like relationships, can't happen in vacuums. (Sorry Pilot!) A TON of people helped make this book possible, starting with the amazing and ever-supportive Tanya Fraser, who read some truly terrible first drafts of this book and kept encouraging me to write more. Without her, I doubt this book would have been completed. Thank you to Jay Wigley, who edited this book when it was incredibly broken, and Matt Gartland, who took the book to a whole different level. Thank you to my brother, Matthew Crupe, for the inspiration behind Brie and Pilot's sibling relationship and the perspective on Barcelona. Thank you to all my high school and college crushes, dates, and boyfriends, for inspiring many of the clueless interactions Pilot and Rykken have with girls. (And the sweet ones, of course!) Thank you to my parents, for helping with both the marketing and the editing process.

Thank you to all my Kickstarter supporters! I was so amazed by the outpour of love from this group.

Thank you to Steve Meister, Susan Pogorzelski, Krams, Lauren Burns, Mike Forst, Tiffany Monhollon, Michelle Carter, Jessica O'Brien, Amethyst Kemp, Todd Richards, Kenneth Lim, Greg Rollett, Roman Zelvenschi, Juveria Mozaffar, Brendan Crain, Christine Thompson, Angela Farabee, Andy Drish, Rachael Perrault, Louisa Balich, Ilui, Molly Wenberg, Mike Scalise, Grace Boyle, Adam Baker, Colin Wright, Jun Loayza, and Lennie Leon Guerrero. Special thanks to Natassia Cherne and Margarita Crupe for letting me create what I have dubbed "fan-inspired characters" within my book. Look for the minor characters named after them in Silver Smoke, and keep reading to learn the backstories as these characters develop. I'm looking forward to having more fan-inspired characters in the future!

And lastly, thank you to my husband, Eric, for putting up with my never-ending shenanigans and creative outbursts. It's not as easy as it looks!

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