Smolder by Abigail Livinghouse (best young adult book series TXT) 📕

I made my way to one of the registers where I ducked down, miraculously finding some candles hidden amongst the trash. Some of them had enough wax left to burn for a few days, and there were about five. I grinned. I hadn't seen candles like this in ages. They were dark red with black wicks, the body of the candle now reduced to stumps, but they had probably been beautiful enough once to place on a table some years ago.

Heading back into the kitchen I found Dimitri huddled on the floor, his arms wrapped tightly around his legs and his jaw taught.

"Are you cold?" I asked him.

It was November, the beginning of the cold months was just upon us. If Dimitri got sick, I wasn't sure what I'd be able to do to help him. I wasn't a nurse, I had only taken care of Cassandra for two years. I knew virtually nothing. The most I could do was create a campfire. Which at this point was probably a good idea, if it wouldn't burn the whole place down.

"I'll be fine." Dimitri responded, even though his teeth were still clenched. "Find anything useful?"

I showed him the small candle sticks. "They'll be good for some light."

He shook his head in disagreement. "Light, smell, sound, all attracts the Dead. Better not take any chances. It's best if you get rid of them. The less you need to carry the better, seeing as you don't have a bag."

I grimaced, tossing the candles to the ground. I hated it when I was wrong, but what I hated even more was when someone else was right about what I had been wrong about. Confusing? Well I'm a complex fucking individual.

I sat down in defeat across from Dimitri, holding my legs to my chest in the same fashion. It was pretty cold, cold enough that I wished I could set up a fire. My flames were present, but doing nothing to warm me up tonight. And a fire would only cause more trouble than anything else in an extremely flammable restaurant. I was practically useless again. That was the thing about fire. It didn't heal anything, and on rare occasions helped. It mostly destroyed.

Dimitri looked up at me, offering me a soft smile. My eyes widened slightly. When he smiled like that, all bone structure and straight teeth, he was pretty . . . good looking. A fuzzy feeling stirred somewhere deep in my belly. It was familiar, a lot like the feeling I got when I was near Trenton. But at the same time different. Trenton and Dimitri were like night and day, and right now, I was more than happy to be in the dark.

"Are you cold?" Dimitri asked me, a teasing glint in his eyes. Were they brown or were they green? I just couldn't decide.

Oh god. I had to stop myself. Was I really pondering what color Dimitri's eyes were? What the FUCK was wrong with me? I had gone from wondering about survival, to wondering about a boy's eyes. I needed some sort of medication that is no longer in existence.

"Come here", Dimitri unzipped his coat and began to slide closer to me until he was right by my side.

I gave him an odd look and he chuckled. "For body heat."

And then, he pulled me against his chest and into a cocoon of warmth, with his arms wrapped around my shoulders. I shivered against the new feeling, leaning against the welcome heat.

"Damn, you're really warm. Are you sure you're not burning up?" He asked, and then quickly shook his head. "I keep forgetting who I'm talking to. Sorry."

I looked down, embarrassed for probably the first time in a while. No one really knew who I was, except for the whole damn population of the Haven. Well, maybe I was exaggerating. Hopefully only Felix, this Cal guy, and Dimitri knew who I was, but that was if I was lucky. To have someone talk about it, even tease me about it like what he was doing, was something I was not used to.

"It's strange." Dimitri said, pulling my attention towards him and farther from my wayward thoughts.

"Being different from others. It's something to accept and even be proud of, and yet you wonder. What would it be like if you weren't different?"

I wasn't exactly sure where he was getting this or why he was saying it. How could he know how it felt? I answered him reflexively anyway.

"Dead. I'd be dead. What I can do has saved my ass more times than none. I'm more grateful than anything else that I'm able to do what I do, especially in the world that we live in."

Dimitri looked at me, his features sharp considering our close proximity. I could feel his hot breath on my cheek, and see very deeply into his golden brown eyes. I wish I knew what he was thinking right about now, because the look on his face was giving nothing away.

"Very true." He agreed darkly.

Before I could react, Dimitri assessed my eyes, then they wandered down to my lips. My heartbeat picked up as my palms became sweaty. Not hot from fire, but sweaty from nervous . . . excitement.

Dimitri bit his full lower lip slightly, and then leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on mine.

My eyes widened and I took a sharp intake of air. A jolt of pleasure spiked from my lips, and heat flushed my cheeks. My whole body stiffened as he kissed me, but he pulled away quite quickly.

"I'm sorry." He apologized immediately once he saw the shocked look on my face. "I didn't mean to do something you didn't want me to do. I mean-I'm really sorry Siren."

Dimitri went to move away from me, but I grabbed his shoulder to stop him. I shook my head, licking my lips where Dimitri's had just been. They throbbed deliciously from his touch.

"No, it's okay. I liked it." I whispered.

His eyebrows rose in registered surprise, and I couldn’t help being a little surprised at myself too. My first kiss from a guy . . . And it had not been from Trenton like I had expected or even hoped, but from a mysterious wanderer I had just met no more than twenty four hours ago.

"Well that's good." Dimitri smiled, and for a moment I thought that's all he was going to say. But then after a pause he leaned in to whisper in my ear. "Because I liked it too."

Dimitri's voice sent shivers up my spine, the really, really good kind. And I smiled in return. 

They say the first known case of the Plague started in Europe. Someone had been buried and the corpse began beating its way out of the coffin. After the thing had been taken out from the ground it was immediately examined. A corpse rising from the dead? Impossible. Only such preposterous cases had been discovered in Russia, and who knew if they were really telling the truth or not? After a few hours of poking and prodding, the Dead had finally had enough and attacked one of the scientists, feasting upon his flesh.

It had gone on from there. One after the other people fell like dominos, sick and infected by the bite of a friend, family member, or even a complete stranger infected with the Plague.

People had stopped searching for a cure years ago. I can remember when the first outbreak of the Plague hit in Frederick, my hometown in Maryland. I remember the rush to find a cure and to heal everyone infected, even though some were eating the living, scientists still had hope.

I was only six at the time so I didn't really understand what was going on. I figured I would just get some mass produced shot and be on my way. Safe from the Plague, and the havoc it was wreaking.

That's the thing about being a child. You're naïve and you're ignorant, and you're happy being so. But when you grow up, it's harder to handle the stuff that as a kid you believed was so solid and concrete, is really as delicate and flimsy as a cloud up in the sky, floating farther and farther away from your sightlines.

The theories were thrown around that maybe this was some sort of terrorist weapon, bent on destroying the U.S. and claiming it for their own. If that would've been the case, then it definitely backfired, because it claimed terrorists' countries just as it did the U.S. The Plague definitely didn't limit itself to where it did or did not spread.

Others say that this was the work of God, seeking his revenge on his people who fucked up the world one too many times to go unnoticed anymore. I'm not religious, but that would be some sadistic shit God would be pulling if that was the case.

If you ask me, I don't think it's either of those things. I couldn't say if it was a manmade disease or not. If it was, then I'd really like to find the dumbass who created and released a disease without producing a cure beforehand.

Being totally honest I don't have a clue what the reason for the Plague is, if there is a reason for it at all. Maybe it’s a natural disease, maybe not. Many would argue both sides. I don't see any sense in arguing about it. What truly defines us and outlines our survival is living in this new fucked up world no matter what, because it's the only world we're ever going to get.

That's how I see it and that's how I'll always see it. No one really knows if the Plague is ever going to end, if this is going to be the end of the human race or if we'll defeat it and find a way to rebuild the world.

Either way, I'm taking it one day at a time.