Zodiac Academy: The Awakening
The Awakening: Chapter 1

I WAS HALFWAY through the window when the police sirens sounded.

Pause. Breathe. Wriggle hips.

The window was a tiny thing with a metal latch digging into my belly. But I was under fed and had the determination of a pitbull. You’ve met your match Mr Window.

Sirens again.

My heart thumped a warning tune in my ears. I lifted my head, the bathroom below me familiar and haunting. I didn’t have to do this. Breaking and entering. Although technically I wasn’t breaking anything.

My sister was way better at this kind of thing. But maybe that was why I was here instead of her. I wanted to prove I could do it. So I was damn-well going to try.

Sirens. Closer this time. And whoosh, I was mentally carried away to a jail cell. Then weeping dramatically on a stand in court. “Guilty!” the jury chimed then bam, a metal door slamming in my face while I turned to my cellmate Patrice who had a gut the size of a beach ball and a menacing gleam in her eye.

At least she’s well-fed.

Maybe prison was the answer to my prayers. Tory would kill me though. Although, to be fair, she was one mistake away from ending up behind bars herself. We’d be a force to be reckoned with in jail, queens of the condemned. Like Thelma and Louise if they hadn’t driven themselves off a cliff.

Mental note: ask Tor if jail is a decent Plan B.

For now, prison wasn’t on my to-do list. My senses were alive with adrenaline and okay just a little bit of fear.

Can I do this?

Or am I really just the useless twin?

I took a bracing breath. The chances were those cops weren’t coming for me. I just had to be fast as a precaution.

I braced my hands against the ice-cold tiles and pushed, my hips getting jammed and my butt waving like a flag as I hung out the back of the house. The midnight blue tips of my ebony hair were waving around like a sheet in a storm.

Push – wriggle – yes!

I clambered onto the toilet without grace and jumped down, my beat-up Converses as quiet as air as they hit the tiles. I took a moment to internally celebrate what I’d just achieved, rocking my ass to a silent tune.

I did it!

I yanked the door open, darting further into the house which I knew was empty and yet…

A knot frayed and tugged apart in my chest. A floorboard creaked beneath my feet as I moved and the sound was a thunder crack in my ears.

Pete’s at work. No one’s here.

His name in my head sent a violent chill through me. Up until three months ago this house had been mine and Tory’s home. If you could call it that. Pete had never thought of us as his kin. We’d been stuck here for our final year in foster care. And the day before we’d turned eighteen he’d shoved us out on our asses, since he was no longer entitled to the state fund for ‘looking after us’. But the only thing he ever looked after was a bottle of Jack and his precious fifty eight inch TV.

I slipped into the room which had been mine and Tory’s. Stripped bare already. He wouldn’t be getting any more foster kids now that Darla had left him. Nearly two months before our birthday she’d walked out and I couldn’t blame her. He’d conveniently forgotten to mention that to our social worker and we’d been too close to freedom to kick up a fuss.

There hadn’t been much to remove from the room except the bunk bed that had been too damn small and too damn degrading for a couple of grown-ass girls. Oh no, did I forget to thank you for that set-up Pete? I’ll be sure to do it on my way out.

I threw caution to the wind and jogged loudly across the room. I pressed my palms flush to the wall, moving, searching. I grinned as I found the right spot and my heart bounced with hope. I gripped the edges of the brick and pulled, the masonry coming loose until I revealed the little cubby hole Tory and I had used to stash stuff.

Reaching inside, I bit down on my lip in concentration as I tried to feel out what I was looking for.

Cash. A whole wad. We’d been thrown out of Pete’s house so hard and fast we hadn’t had time to grab it. And it wasn’t the type of thing we could have asked Pete to hand back to us. He’d have spent it on one night at the local casino. But we’d been saving for years. While I’d been hustling for money from students at school, buying and selling their unwanted crap for them and taking a profit, Tory had been doing something much more illegal. She never really went into it because she didn’t want to implicate me but I could hazard a guess at what it was. She always came home at ungodly hours of the night smelling of gasoline and adrenaline.

I couldn’t replace it in me to care about the source of our funds. This money was our future. In this precious brick hole was nearly two thousand dollars. Enough for six months rent on our apartment. And a shitheap it might have been, but it was certainly better than a cold sidewalk.

Knuckles rapped against the front door – hard.

My gut plummeted. Pete didn’t have friends. He was a loner. A loser.

Cops imminent.

My fingers brushed the pile of cash and I snatched it in my fist, bundling what I hoped was the whole contents between my fingers.

A crash sounded as the cops battered the front door down. No no no no.

Heart in throat, I ran like there was a fire up my ass.

A door burst open down the hall.

“Freeze!” a male voice shouted. I threw a glance over my shoulder and all I saw was the barrel of a gun.

“Holy shit – don’t shoot!” I crashed into a wall in my panic, my shoulder bruising on impact.

“I said freeze!” the cop yelled.

Desperate, I lurched toward the bathroom, slamming the door shut and shoving the bolt into place.

No shots fired yet. That’s gotta be a good thing. Cops don’t shoot unarmed teenage girls, do they?

I shoved the cash into the back pocket of my pants, scooped up Pete’s toothbrush and dunked it in the toilet bowl. A thump sounded on the other side of the door but I was already halfway through the window and Pete’s toothbrush was back in its holder. Totally worth the five seconds it had cost me.

I squeezed out and hit the ground running, fleeing toward the back fence where I knew for a fact the neighbour’s Rottweiler had dug a sizeable hole. More shouts followed me. But the wind was tugging at my hair and my lungs were expanding with freedom. It was pure ecstasy, tumbling through me like a drug.

I pictured Tory’s face when I told her what I’d done to Pete’s toothbrush and couldn’t wait to hear her laugh over it. I’d doubted whether I could pull this off. I was usually the one who tripped over her own feet on a regular basis- but not today dammit.

“Hey – stop!” a female cop this time.

My dream died and my heart turned to ice. I dropped into a flowerbed and hauled myself through the hole under the fence. My jeans snagged on the underside of the sharp wood. It scratched my skin and I yelped as the sound of footsteps closed in.

“I need this money – it’s not even his!” I shouted, my heart wailing just as loudly in my chest.

Hands caught my ankles and my heart nearly combusted. I unhooked my belt and in that minute, I felt it. All of it. The cash cascaded down to the mud, brushing across my torn skin and falling to the ground.

I hadn’t tucked it in my pocket. I’d stuck it in my damn belt.

“No!” I kicked out at the cop, but she didn’t let go, her nails digging in.

“Sarge!” she yelled for back up and I could see my life fading before my eyes. Screw jail – it was a terrible Plan B!

A forbidding male voice filled the air which cut into me like a knife. “Let go of her.”

The cop released me and I thanked my lucky stars as I scrambled onto my knees. I turned back but a pair of large male hands were already wrapping all of our lovely green cash up in a ball.

That’s our life you’re taking!

I booted the fence hard, yelling my rage before turning and running as fast and as hard as I could in the opposite direction.

Whoever that guy was, he’d both saved my ass and ruined my life.

Thanks asshole.

I trudged up the four floors to our apartment, caked in mud and furious as hell with myself. My hands were jammed in my pockets and I was soaked through from the downpour I’d just experienced for ten blocks. Chicago was having mood-swings. If it wasn’t the wind, it was the rain. It was September dammit, they were still sunbathing in Springfield!

I shivered as the cold trickled into my bones and made every single part of me numb apart from the pain of losing that cash and the shame that I’d failed us so deeply.

I twisted my key in the lock, marching into the forty square foot studio with flaky green paint on the walls and exposed brickwork which didn’t look hipster, it looked like a half-finished job.

Tory was stretched out on the couch, thumbing her cellphone which had a jagged crack up the centre of the screen. At least she’d secured herself a smartphone, I was stuck with a Nokia from the 90s which did nothing but make calls – as if that was what a phone was for.

I shed my leather jacket with a dramatic huff and she glanced up, arching a brow. Her face transformed as she pulled herself out of technology brain and sprang to her feet.

“Where have you been?” she asked, confusion gleaming from her olive green eyes which were the exact same shade as mine. Like everything about us. Bronzed skin, our lips full and wide. We were a mirror version of each other except for my hair’s dark blue tips. Maybe that was why we drove each other crazy sometimes.

I threw my jacket on the floor without answering, tempted to stamp on it but Tory sucked in a breath, pointing at me. I looked down, replaceing my hem stained red with blood from the fence catastrophe.

“It’s fine.” I tore the shirt off, dumping it in the garbage bag we’d strung up in the two foot kitchenette which didn’t even include a toaster. I swallowed my pride and prepared to tell Tory just how much I’d failed us. “I decided to get our money back from Pete’s but the cops showed up. I ran…then I dropped the cash.” I was so angry with myself that I bashed my fist down on the counter. Clumsy idiot.

“That was two grand,” Tory gasped.

“I know.” I shut my eyes, my embarrassment devouring me from the inside out. I had to keep my head. I had to figure this out. Because we were so effing screwed if we didn’t. We’d only managed a few month’s rent here because we’d sold the single item of value we’d had when we left Pete’s. A Gucci handbag I’d spotted in a thrift store labelled as a knock-off. Pete hadn’t known that it was the real deal or he would have gotten his greasy palms all over it the second he could.

“Did they see you?” Tory demanded.

“Yes,” I sighed. “Pete must have gotten cameras installed…or maybe the neighbour. Who knows? It all amounts to the same thing. I messed up and we’re screwed.”

“They don’t know where we live,” Tory said thoughtfully.

“It’s the money though, Tor.” I flung myself on the threadbare couch we’d found down an alley – yeah things were that shit – and groaned. “How are we going to pay the rent?”

Tory perched on the edge of the couch, punching my shoulder in the way she always did to say she loved me. Tory wasn’t much for the feelings type, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. And though I sometimes wished for a few more warm hugs, she always showed me she cared in her own way. “It’s cool, Darcy. I’m doing a job tonight. We’ll figure it out after that.”

“You are?” I glanced up at her with a hopeful look, my eyes anime wide.

“Yep.” She grinned, but I could tell she was still disappointed about the cash.

Dammit, if only I’d pocketed it. Why do I always mess everything up?

The rain was slowing to a drizzle as the evening rolled in and my stomach growled for a meal it wasn’t going to get.

“Sorry,” I sighed as Tory stared out of the window to the street. “But one good thing came out of it.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me, giving me a curious look. “What?”

“I wiped Pete’s toothbrush around the toilet bowl. The rim and all.”

Her mouth opened then she burst out laughing. My anger finally fizzled away as my own laughter joined hers and our hollow little apartment was filled with something good for once.