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

She cocked her head to the side, her eyes, however blank, travelling back to Felix. "It's the fire girl, isn't it? I can feel her heat."

My blood ran even colder at the sound of her dainty voice. She was so thin and fragile looking, as if she was ready to break at any second.

"Yes, it is. Sirenia."

I grimaced when Felix said my full name once again, but didn't object like back at Aurora's apartment. Lilith nodded.

"I've heard so much about you." She took a step forward and reached out for me to shake her hand. I did, feeling all of her bones, and then releasing her, her cold extinguishing my fire.

"I think you and Lilith will be great friends. Opposites attract, after all." Felix said with a curl of his lip. An inside joke it seemed only he, and Lilith apparently, understood.

When I looked at Dimitri his expression was blank, but I got the feeling that he knew exactly what Felix was talking about. It annoyed me in an unexplainable way as to why he didn't let me in on the joke, but before we knew it Lilith was quietly saying goodbye and we were on to the next apartment, on the second floor.

The next apartment was home to triplets. Girls named Rachel, Rachelle, and Raegen. All having bright green eyes and brown hair. They were as tall as me, and even though they were triplets, I could tell as soon as I met them that they were all completely different. Rachel preferred to be called Rach. Raegen liked to be called Rae, and Rachelle was just fine with her full name. How anyone could tell them apart, I would never know. I assumed that once you got to know them and their individual personalities better, it's easier to tell who is who.

The last was a pair of twin boys on the third floor, and the one boy Felix was just as surprised to meet as we were. Isaac and Isaiah. Apparently Isaac had been searching for his twin brother for about a month since he had arrived at the Haven, and he had finally found him. It was no mistaking the boys, with blonde hair and blue eyes and the exact same features, anyone could see that the brothers were meant to stand next to each other. The only difference was Isaiah preferred his nickname, Izzy.

Izzy was clearly the talkative one. While his brother stood quiet and brooding, Izzy went on and on and gushed when he found out who I was. Isaac was quiet and calculating, obviously much more enclosed. Especially when it came to people he didn't know, like me.

Once the tour was over, Maddie and Matthew went into their apartment on the fourth floor. Felix's was on the sixth, and mine and Dimitri's were on the fifth. Dimitri followed me into my apartment, which had a small loveseat surprisingly free of mold, a bathroom with running water, a tiny kitchen with a working gas stove, and a bedroom with a large king size bed in it. I hadn't experienced running water in years. I sat down on the couch, dumbfounded, Dimitri next to me. I looked at him and waited in silence for him to explain about the Prophets. He chuckled at my curious expression and nodded a few times, holding up his hands.

"Alright, alright. I'll tell you about them." He brought his legs up on the sofa and crossed them, now completely facing me. I did the same and smiled at him, as if to say challenge accepted. Dimitri began.

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed the setup here yet, but each set of siblings occupies their own floor. Aurora and Lilith are twin sisters and closest to the ground because Aurora is very, very trusting. The complete opposite of her sister who is a completely paranoid wreck living so close to where 'the undead are able to easily invade'." He shrugged.

"Like I said, some people have been through a lot and they don't trust the precautions we've taken. Even with a giant concrete wall surrounding them."

"She's the one who stacked everything against the doors downstairs?" I asked.

Dimitri nodded. "Part of it was her and part of it was others. Not everyone in this building is so quick to put their lives in a stranger's hands, like Aurora."

My mind went to Isaac, cold and cautious. I nodded, waiting for him to go on.

"Aurora can control the elements, earth, water, air, and fire. A lot like you except she can't produce it, only manipulate it. Often her hair changes color, a whole other ability that is a complete mystery. Usually the colors range from purple, pink, and blue. No one really knows what they mean either."

"Now, Lilith is altogether different. Felix wasn't kidding when he said she's your complete opposite. Just like you produce fire, she produces ice. It's obvious she's blind, but don't underestimate her.  Even though she can't see, she can sense where a person is with her exceptional hearing and feeling. She can feel a person's body heat when they're within a few miles proximity to her. Lilith's ability to feel is just like sight, only without it."

My complete opposite. I laughed, because the things Dimitri was telling me were so ridiculous and yet so not. I was here, experiencing it, and realizing all of it. I wanted to believe it, however strange and farfetched it sounded. Dimitri waited for me to pay attention before he kept going.

"Rach, Rachelle, and Rae shape shift into whatever form is necessary. They have mastered animals and are working on people. Felix believes with enough practice they should be able to change into people without difficulty. They are the only siblings who possess the exact same power as each other."

He paused for questions, but I remained silent, so he continued.

"Isaac can read minds, Izzy I've heard can move objects with his mind. Since Izzy is new here, Felix will probably teach the two of you together."

A muscle in Dimitri's jaw clenched when he said this, however he moved on as if it wasn't noticeable. I barely kept a smile off my face.

"And Matthew possesses the power of invisibility. Since he and Maddie have been trained at the Haven all their lives, they're very good at what they do. He can turn his power on and off whenever he wants."

"That's why he seemed to 'appear' on the stairs when we were walking." I said putting two and two together. Dimitri grinned and nodded.

"Exactly. But is there anything else you notice about things here, Siren?" He inquired, his expression wiped clean of all amusement.

My brows came together and I worked to understand what he meant, but I couldn’t find an answer. "Um, no not really."

Dimitri didn't seem disappointed, although he wasn't impressed either. "The ones who have abilities have siblings who also have abilities. Three sets of twins and one set of triplets, and yet here we are. Siren, we are the only two individuals who do not have a brother or a sister that have special powers like the others."

I blinked, my eyes widening as something from my memory began drudging itself up and out of the muddy past. "That's why Felix had been interested in my sister." I whispered, thinking back to Felix's mention of Cassandra, my long dead sibling. "He thought she might've been like me."

Dimitri's expression didn't change, but he reached out and took my hand, squeezing it between both of his. "For a long time he believed Prophets only existed if there was a sibling who also had unnatural abilities. When he found out about you, it made him curious, but when he found out about me, it baffled him. I'm an only child."

I nodded, finally understanding many bits and pieces of things Felix had once said to me. Of course he would expect Prophets to only come in related groups, it was probably the only way he found them. It made sense. That's why he wanted to track me down so badly, he was worried I would be like Dimitri and his search for Prophets would become nearly inconceivable.

"How many more Prophets does he want?" I asked a question I had been wondering about for a while.

Dimitri sighed, shaking his head. "An army."

It pissed me off to no end knowing full well that we were all pawns in Felix's ridiculous mission to save the dying world. It infuriated me even more to know that we had no other choice but to stay. Felix was the only one we knew of who could teach us how to use our abilities. Most likely there were others like him out there, but it wasn't worth the risk of travel to most of us living here. We were safe here, and even though I'd traveled before, I'd lost my sister and Dimitri had been bitten. Even though I hated to admit it, the Haven was the best place to be in this world filled with the living dead.

I realized at about midnight when Dimitri hadn't left and he said he was going to bed soon, that he didn't have his own designated apartment. He had been assigned to live with me. I knew that this could be easily fixed and so did he, but neither of us wanted it changed.

Siblings could live apart or with one another. The only reason Aurora and Lilith didn't live together was because Lilith refused to live in the first apartment near the stairs, and Aurora loved the place. They lived separate by choice. Maddie and Matthew lived together, the triplets lived together, and Isaac and Izzy lived together for the time being. Odds were that Isaac would move into his own apartment now that he had found his brother. He seemed to be the type to want his own place.

So, even though Dimitri and I weren't siblings we were the only ones that would ever occupy the fifth floor. And, we wanted to be together. Snuggled up in the king sized bed with thick-only slightly ripped and patched-blankets on top of us, I couldn’t have wished for anything else. I