What if he was a serial killer? She glanced at the two. What if they were serial killers? Did mass murderers hang out bantering after killing people? Probably in Quentin Tarantino films.
“Hey,” she shouted, startling herself as her voice echoed in the silence.
They both turned to her at exactly the same time, fixing her with identical expressions.
Creepy.
“Uh, not that I’m not grateful for the…rescue, I guess, but,” she pointed at Mace, “is he dead? And, if so, does that make me an accessory to murder?”
Movie guy sighed, raking his hands through his hair, “Despite my sister’s best efforts, he’ll live. It’s apparently not his time to go…but it was almost yours.”
Ember’s face contorted, and the girl whacked him on the arm, “You should really look up the word tact, bro.”
The girl stepped forward, smiling like it physically hurt her, “My name is Tristin and this is my brother, Kai. Do you remember us?”
She didn’t. “Um…”
“We’re your cousins,” the girl-Tristin-said.
Ember frowned at them. The three of them couldn’t have looked more different, where she was pale they were dark, her orange hair wild and crazy next to their gorgeous dark locks. Her wide eyes looked nothing like the tip tilt eyes of the two before her. There had to be some mistake. “I don’t have any cousins.”
The two exchanged looks before Kai said, “Listen, I know this sounds crazy but I swear we’re telling the truth. It’s been a long time. Maybe you’ve just forgotten about us. It’s been twelve years.”
Even if what they were saying were true, she wouldn’t remember them. She’d spent years in a therapist’s office trying to remember her past but she didn’t think there was a way to explain dissociative amnesia in a sound bite. “I don’t-”
Tristin cut her off, “Our last name is Lonergan, like yours.”
Her heart sank. It really was a case of mistaken identity. “My last name is Denning. My name is Ember Denning.”
The two exchanged a confused look for a full minute and Ember had the uneasy feeling they were having a conversation she couldn’t hear. Kai gestured emphatically at Tristin in a sort of go-ahead motion and the girl pulled out her cell phone. With the push of a button, her flashlight blazed, blinding them all. When her vision cleared, Tristin held her cell phone to her face and waved her forward, “Come here, look,” the girl’s pupils contracted in the light, revealing the same brilliant violet eyes that Ember looked at in the mirror every day.
“But my name is Ember Denning,” she repeated.
“No,” Kai smiled at her like she was a simpleton, the second time she’d gotten that look in one day, “Your name is November Lonergan. We’re your cousins. That thing was going to kill you and you need to come with us.”
She was getting a migraine. There was no way she was going anywhere these people just because they shared the same eye color. This was completely nuts.
“You guys are all crazy.”
From his spot on the ground, Mace’s hand flinched spastically and he groaned.
“What did you hit him with,” Kai asked.
She shrugged, “Hellebore. Quinn gave me some stuff just in case we ran into any baddies that were immune to everyday violence.”
Mace was making another valiant effort to rise from the ground. Secretly, she was rooting for him.
Kai leaned into his sister, his whisper carrying, “It’s getting late. Isa is going to kill us. We can’t leave her here.”
Tristin eyed her up and down. “Can’t we?” she asked, “Because right now we can still walk, Kai. It’s her choice.”
Kai tugged his sister aside but she could still make out their conversation. “Seriously? We already talked about this. She’s family, Trist.”
Tristin’s gaze fell to the ground before she said, “Once we do this, we can’t go back. Everything changes. This is a really bad idea, you get that, right?”
Ember wanted to believe they were just two