Defiant (Blaze Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  DEFIANT

  Blaze Trilogy #1

  H.G. Lynch

  Defiant: Blaze Trilogy: Book One

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Text Copyright ©2015

  All rights reserved

  Published by Vamptasy Publishing

  Edited by CLS Editing

  Cover by H.G. Lynch

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  The building went up in a roar, bricks shattering apart as the fire burst from the inside. Snakes of flame coiled and reared amidst the wreckage, lighting the blackened, dust-choked air with a hellish glow. Shards of glass rained down like glittering confetti—the sound of it like the tinkle of sweet, delicate chimes. Smoke curled up into the sky like a dark plume of ash, a scar on the starry night that alerted the city to the violent destruction.

  I didn't look back at the remains of my life. I picked up my bag, damp from the wet concrete of the street, and walked away with the pitiful shreds of my only remaining possessions slung across my back. The sound of sirens wailed into the night, noble men racing to save the scorched ruins of a stranger's world. I smiled as I fled.

  It was no longer my world. Not my life. Not anymore. Why? Because I was no longer alive. That's what being undead means.

  Chapter One

  ** Anson **

  It didn’t matter how much I hoped, how much I prayed to God, or how much I begged fate; English never got any less boring. So far, today was no exception. The teacher to our small class of twelve people, Mr Adams, had just announced that we would be watching, hell of all hells, Romeo and Juliet. Why was it always Romeo and Juliet? Why couldn’t it be Macbeth or Hamlet? It was always R and J. It was torture.

  The handful of girls in the class shifted their plastic chairs across the room to huddle together in the back corner of the darkened class, where they could giggle over magazines and gossip without repercussions. The guys scattered around the room, groaning and grunting unhappily. Three of them, the biggest wankers I’ve ever met, moved so they could sit as close to the girls as possible, trying to see down the gaping collars of their shirts as they leaned over their copies of Glamour magazine. Nothing ever changed. Every year, it was the same slutty, shallow girls, thickheaded jerk guys, and me. Oh sure, I could have had friends, could have joined the football team or basketball club, could have had any of the girls I wanted. I used to have to shoo them off with a baseball bat and bug repellent until they got the message that I wasn’t interested. The guys, since then, had decided I was gay, and therefore a prime target for five-day-a-week torture sessions that lasted every waking minute from 8:45am to 3:15 pm.

  I suppose it didn’t help that, in my self-appropriated lonerdom, I had chosen to spend my time doing something every other teenage male in the vicinity regarded as the miserable hobby of an Emo or, yes, a homosexual—writing poetry. The kind of brooding poetry that I’d once been told would attract girls like flies…and it had in the beginning. But once I figured out that none of them understood the poetry, they just liked the rhyming words and the ability to say, ‘I went out with a boy who wrote gorgeous poetry for me,’ I got tired of them and bought bug spray.

  Now, sitting in the dim, stuffy classroom that smelled faintly of coffee and sweat in the afternoon heat, I kept my seat by the window and leaned my chin on my hand. It really was a tiny classroom, the smallest in the building, and there were only two free seats available besides the teacher’s swivelling office chair that he never sat in. He always sat on the desk at the front of the class, resting himself amongst the shambles of papers, books, and chewed pens.

  The paint on the walls, a sickly pale green that always made me think of hospitals, was cracked and peeling in the corners near the ceiling, right where the spiders liked to cultivate their wispy, cobweb homes. The school had been built in the 1800s, so it had the typical Victorian high ceilings, which some idiotic architect had thought would make up for the twenty by twenty foot space of the floor down below.

  The late June sun beamed through the blinds, gold stripes layering across the desks and lining the walls. It was irritatingly hot, and I already had my sleeves rolled up and my top three shirt buttons undone. Anymore, and I’d be just as well going shirtless. The idea didn’t appeal to me. I put my head down on the desk and blindly shuffled my MP3 out of my trouser pocket, turned it on, and discreetly plugged one ear-bud into my left ear, the side the window was on, so the teacher wouldn’t see. Instantly, the pleasantly obliterating screaming of one of my favourite rock bands roared into my skull and blocked out the horrendously gag-worthy sounds of Romeo’s fickle heart dragging him along to Juliet’s window.

  I settled in for forty-five minutes of tedium and Slipknot. Mr Adams had his head bent over a book, ignoring the class, as he propped his feet on a chair in front of the desk he was perched on. I fixed my gaze on the round, white clock hanging above the door, watching the narrow red arm ticking off the seconds until I could go home and pick up the copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray that I’d been reading until late last night.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Mr Adams suddenly look up. Following his gaze, I realised he was staring at the door. Through the blare of my music, I hadn’t heard anyone knocking, but he got up and went to see who it was. He cracked the door open a bit and spoke to someone, and my eyes drifted back to the clock. The door swung open wider, and Mr Adams stepped back. There was a rush of whispering behind me that couldn’t really be called whispering, and I lowered my gaze again, curious as to what had the girls suddenly so chirpy.

  Immediately, I saw her standing by the door with a notepad clutched to her chest, listening to Mr Adams. Bright lines of sunlight bent across her slight body and caught strands of fair hair, lighting them to gold. I pulled out my headphone and stared like everyone else. A new girl.

  There hadn’t been a new girl in my year since Lucy Crawford moved here two years ago, and she’d been just like all the other girls. She’d attempted to get my interest to begin with, but I think the other girls warned her off because, one day, she just started giving me the same look everyone else did. The look that said, You are totally hot, but you are too weird, so you are not interesting. But this girl didn’t look like the others at least.

  She was slighter and shorter but pretty. Very pretty, but not in the kind of very obvious ‘look-at-me-aren’t-I-gorgeous?’ way. She had pale, smooth skin and long strawberry-blonde hair, and a kind of oval face with slender brows over nicely shaped eyes. Instead of the black mini-skirt and tight blouse that I’d come to think of as customary school uniform for teenage girls, she was wearing black skinny jeans and a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up in the heat. Her hair was pulled back in a silky ponytail that I really wanted to stroke my fingers through.

  That thought brought me back from my staring a bit, and I blinked. Don’t get ahead of yourself, I thought, pushing down the pang of hope that had risen in my chest before I could stop it. She might be like all the other girls. Her skirt might just be in the wash or something. Somehow, I didn’t think that was it.

  Before I could plug my ear-bud back in and return to watching the clock, the teacher finished speaking to the new girl and pointed in my dire
ction. It took me a moment to realise that he was pointing to the open seat next to me. Then, Mr Adams cruelly gestured toward the only other free seat in the room, on the other side of the class. He left her to choose her own seat and perched on top of his desk again, picking up his book and pushing his glasses further up his thin nose.

  My heart beat a little faster as I slyly tried to watch where the new girl was thinking of sitting. She hesitated by the door for a long moment, eyeing the seat on the wall nearest her. I felt my hope beginning a slow descent into hell where it would once again be obliterated, and I’d be back to being the freaky loner boy with nothing better to do than write poetry about finding a girl who would understand the lines I wrote about her.

  I picked up my pen from the desk in front of me and tapped it against my lip, considering lines and words, and the way they might flow together. Feeling eyes on me, I looked up. The new girl was staring at me. I met her eyes, hers the pale blue of the summer sky outside; mine the darker shade of the night sky. A shiver rolled down my spine and sank into my stomach, a not-unpleasant feeling. It could have been seconds or hours that we stared at each other, her face alight in the shaft of sunlight she’d stepped into. Then she smiled, ever so slightly, and I felt my heart skip a beat. She made her way toward me and slid into the seat next to mine, and there was a sort of collective gasp from the girls behind me at the bold stupidity of the new girl.

  Her arm bumped mine as she set down her notepad and a blue pen, and goosebumps rose on my bare skin. I shifted my arm away slightly, so she wouldn’t notice. She turned to me and her lips moved. I watched her blink twice. Her lashes, long and dark, batted her cheeks, and a shy, nervous smile curled her mouth. Even in the dimness, I could see colour rising to her pale cheeks, and I realised she’d been talking to me.

  I blinked, smiled what I hoped was an apologetic smile, and said, “Um, sorry. What did you say?” I tried not to wince at my own voice. I wanted to hit my head on the desk. God, I was a moron. She had probably already put me firmly in the ‘freak’ category of her mental catalogue.

  She smiled a little wider, showing perfect, white teeth, and the butterflies in my stomach turned into large, angry moths.

  “I said, hello,” she said softly, her voice almost a whisper. Lowering her gaze shyly to her hand resting on the edge of the desk, she lifted the other one to tuck a loose lock of fair hair behind her ear.

  Up close, I could see it wasn’t plain blonde, but tinged with strands of red so pale it was almost pink. When she moved, I caught a whiff of some faint, delicious scent that made my gut clench with sudden, breath-taking desire. Whoa. That had never happened before. Not even seeing Lacey Silverman in a wet bikini last summer had made me feel so intensely. Then again, I’d known Lacey since I was twelve, so there was no mystery about her to intrigue me—especially not when she wore that tiny bikini.

  The new girl tilted her head, her smile falling. Once again, I’d zoned out in my thoughts, and I hadn’t yet replied to her. Too late, I said, “Uh, hi. You’re new here.” Oh. My. God. Could I get any denser? Just point out the obvious, Anson, why don’t you.

  The girl nodded, and I smelled that lovely perfume again. Like honeysuckle and freesia. I wondered, briefly, agonisingly, if her lips would taste like sugar. Stop that. You just met her. You don’t even know her name yet.

  She solved that issue a moment later. “Good guess, Sherlock.” She nodded, smiling gently, “I’m Poppy.”

  Poppy. An unusual name. A pretty name. It suited her. Someone behind us snickered, but if Poppy heard it, she didn’t react. She just kept smiling at me patiently. If she’d been like all the other girls, I’d have blown my chance four times over already. Clearly, she was different. Hope rushed up inside me again, so fast I nearly choked on it, feeling my lips stretch into a grin helplessly.

  This time, I didn’t wait an eternity to reply. “Hi. I’m Anson.”

  I raised a hand in a somewhat shy wave to her and she returned it. Right then, something clicked. I felt it, something between us, practically heard it click. I knew, with a certainty that astounded me, that this year, summer was going to be different from last year, and the year before, and the year before that. This year was going to be good. This year, summer was going to be exciting. This year, just maybe, I would finally find the girl who would understand me.

  Then something smacked into the back of my head, bounced off, and landed on the desk between us. I snatched up the ball of paper before Poppy could see ‘Dear Freak’ scribbled on it. I unfolded it without really wanting to, and saw the bubbly, girly handwriting that I was sure was Lacey’s—.

  The note read:

  Could your staring be any more obvious, or more creepy? Isn’t she a bit too, you know, female for you?

  I almost rolled my eyes. There we were in English class, and Lacey was writing grammatically incorrect notes. It should have been ‘any creepier’, not ‘more creepy’. But whatever. The message was supposed to be mocking and insulting. I crumpled it up and shoved it in my pocket, but when I looked up, I looked directly into Poppy’s blue eyes. She was staring at me with pursed lips, a thoughtful, considering look on her face. I’d never seen a teenage girl wear a look like that before unless she was holding two pairs of identically disgusting shoes and saying, ‘I just don’t know which ones I want…I might as well get both. It’s Daddy’s credit card anyway.’

  My mouth went dry, and I squirmed under her intense gaze. “What?” I asked, trying not to sound petulant.

  Poppy blinked and one side of her mouth quirked up. The sun outside had shifted positions, so the light now slanted through the blinds onto our desk and illuminated one side of her face. It was still stiflingly hot, but I didn’t think that was entirely because of the sunlight. My body seemed to be trying to cook me from the inside out, starting somewhere in my gut. It was an achingly good feeling. I needed to get away from this girl, soon.

  “Are you gay?” she asked suddenly, the bluntness of her question like an arrow to my chest. The worst thing was, she was still smiling, but it wasn’t a cruel or mocking smile. It was irritatingly beautiful.

  My voice came out a little frostier than I’d expected. “No. I’m not.”

  Poppy didn’t frown at my tone, didn’t laugh sarcastically, didn’t react in any of the ways I’d expected her to. Nope, she smiled wider, her blue eyes lighting up as if she was pleased with my answer. Lighting up in a way that made me think of the glow of the setting sun on an autumn evening.

  Another note hit me in the head, and this time it fell to the floor. I bent to pick it up, but Poppy snatched it up first and held it in her little fist. Her eyes locked on mine, shockingly even, determination clear in their crystal depths.

  “If you’re not gay, why do you let it bother you so much?” she asked, holding the fresh note up between her fingers.

  I reached to take it from her, and she pulled it back, shaking her head.

  “Tell me, why do you let it bother you?” she asked again, her voice light but edged with sadness.

  I hesitated, considering, before reaching for the note again. With a sigh, she crumpled it up and dropped it into the collar of the loose white shirt she was wearing under the unzipped hoodie. I froze, swallowed as my mouth went dry, and licked my lips. I opened my mouth to say something, but shut it again without saying anything, my eyes still on her chest. Slowly, I raised my eyes back to her face and sat back. I turned my face away, feeling my ears and cheeks burning.

  Poppy laughed softly and said something under her breath that sounded like, “Definitely not gay, then.”

  It made my ears burn hotter, and I groaned, dropping my head onto the cool, hard surface of the desk.

  “Don’t let them get to you. They’re just jealous you’re prettier than them.”

  For a minute, I thought for sure she was mocking me, but she was still smiling that innocent, playful smile, and I realised she was making a joke. She was making a joke out of their bullying. It made me want to smile
so hard my cheeks hurt. I laughed, for possibly the first time in weeks. I laughed a genuine laugh, and she laughed too. Oh, it was a moment of pure bliss.

  Until another note hit the table. This time, Poppy grabbed it and spun around in her seat, her eyes narrowed to glare at the girls behind us. Unlike her, those girls were all fake blondes, their roots showing through the platinum dye. All four of them were attractive in a tacky way, with lots of mascara and bulging cleavage spilling from their low-cut shirts. And they were all mean as alley cats.

  Lacey was smirking dangerously, her green eyes cold as ice. I wanted to tell Poppy just to forget it before she got herself into trouble. If she pissed off Lacey and her crew, she’d be doomed to lonerdom forever, like me. Then again, we could be loners together…it was a nice idea.

  I didn’t get the chance to decide how selfish I wanted to be because Poppy lifted the hand with the note in it and looked directly into Lacey’s icy eyes. “I’ve got a tip for you,” she said in a cool voice. Her eyes flickered down to Lacey’s chest, where she was spilling out of her shirt, and looked back up. “Actually, two tips. Number one: Grow up.” Poppy flicked the note back at Lacey. It bounced off her excessive chest and landed on the table.

  Lacey growled while the other girls gasped. There was even a mutter from some of the boys, who were all riveted to the scene, possibly hoping for a catfight.

  “Number Two,” Poppy added, “Find a size eight, ‘cause I don’t think you can really squeeze into a six anymore.” Then she turned around and grinned at me.

  I gaped in astonishment, just as everyone else in the class did. Nobody had ever, ever insulted Lacey Silverman before—not in the last four years at least. The last girl who had done so had ended up moving schools a month later. But Poppy didn’t look in the least bit worried. She looked proud of herself. I wanted to applaud her.