Flawed

  FLAWED

  by

  Darci Darson

  The Legend of The Seven Flowers Book #1

  (A Cherry Devita Novel)

  Edited by Ali.

  Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Darci Darson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  “True love stories never have endings.”

  Richard Bach

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 1

  SHE WAS SAD like a sculpture in a medieval church. The girl got off the bus numbered 864, a petite teenager occupied with her nail biting. It was 4:25 pm. She crossed the road and hurried home; her black canvas shoes trampling the scattered fallen leaves that lay like mummified autumnal bodies on the ground. As she lowered her head, she came to an abrupt stop and watched eerie, scarlet, sparkling smoke wrapping around her ankles. The sweet scent of decay hit her nostrils, causing waves of bizarre and intense nausea. Sudden impressions of corpses in a morgue appeared in her mind as an urgent, primeval fear jabbed her heart like a needle. The emotions were distanced as if not hers. A minute later the whole odd occurrence vanished.

  The girl shook her head, a timid smile curving her lips. That was nothing. Stupid smoke. Nerves. She turned into Daisy Close, rushing towards her three decades old, crumbling red brick house.

  “Hello,” she said as she passed her nosey neighbour. But the greeting must have been too quiet as Mr. Tittensor did not notice her. Being invisible was an important part of her life. Nevertheless, incidents like that always caused her the same, uneasy tightness in her chest.

  As she climbed the stairs leading to the front door, she looked up at the sky. Ominous clouds had gathered. Their dense, fluffy heaviness pressed with claustrophobic gloom. Still silence warned of the upcoming threat.

  A sudden gust of cold wind tore at the girl’s satin, blue-black hair, which fell loosely all the way to the curve of her lower back. She opened the door in an instant and inhaled the cool musk of her house. She entered quickly, relieved to be in a safe shelter. Her heart leapt for no reason. She switched on the light in the narrow hallway, and the bulb flickered for a few seconds before stilling. The girl hesitated a little, intrigued by the phenomenon, but then she eyed the carpeted floor and picked up two letters addressed to Madison Devita. She walked towards the lounge and took off her navy, zipped hoody, her eyes scanning her clothes. The front of her dusty pink t-shirt and the pockets of her acid wash, skinny jeans were stained with black ink.

  “Mum?” the girl called.

  A middle-aged woman, wearing a white patterned dressing gown, came down the stairs into the lounge. The room was furnished with two white, vintage cupboards, a worn-out dining table with four chairs, a green sofa, and a large flat screen over the fireplace.

  “Happy nineteenth birthday, Cherry,” the woman cheered and took a step towards the table, stopping three metres away from Cherry.

  “Thanks, Mum,” Cherry said and threw her hoody towards the sofa.

  “I’ve bought a delicious cake for you!” The woman pointed her finger at a brown and red box on the table.

  “Chocolate cake. My favourite!” Cherry felt a thrill of excitement. She let herself have an inkling of hope, once more.

  “Did you get any presents from your friends at college?” The woman’s expression showed an honest, childish curiosity.

  “I’ve only got one card, from Anna. There are two letters for you, from the bank. Did you pay off the credit card debt?”

  “Only one birthday card? You should find yourself better friends.”

  “I’m a nerd, Mum,” Cherry muttered. “Nerds spend lunchtime break in the library and have no friends.”

  “Nonsense! Try to be more approachable. When I was your age I was very popular.” Madison looked agitated. She placed her right hand flat across her face and shook her head.

  “Whatever. Did you pay off the debt?” Cherry asked with the irritation in her voice as she clenched her hands in front of her stomach.

  Madison came closer, and the girl noticed her glassy eyes and the flushing of her cheeks and neck.

  “You are drunk again,” Cherry sighed. Anger bubbled inside her.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I’ve had only two glasses of wine.”

  “I read the leaflet and you shouldn’t mix your medicine with alcohol.”

  “Stop it, Cherry. I’m fine. Let’s celebrate!” Madison started pacing around the room.

  “Right. Let’s celebrate. Should I pour myself a glass of wine as well? We'll get drunk together,” Cherry said sarcastically, suffocating the urge to destroy everything.

  “You are rude and ungrateful!” Madison shouted and burst into tears. “I’m… I’m sorry… I’m not well.”

  “Go to bed, Mum. You need rest,” Cherry murmured, defeated.

  The woman climbed the stairs and disappeared into the dim grey evening spread across the first floor.

  “I’ll tidy up and do the dishes,” Cherry whispered and grabbed the box from the table. She moved towards the kitchen and tried to repress the tears flowing from her eyes like tiny streams. They were like moist diamonds against the flawless porcelain of her skin. As she switched on the light, the bulb flickered again, sending chills down her spine.

  Cherry washed her hands in the kitchen sink full of dirty plates. The ink stains on her skin were stubborn and malicious, and they did not want to abandon her like the proof of her clumsiness. She cut herself a piece of the birthday cake. Her hands shook as she sat on the floor next to the fridge. She ate slowly, every mouthful like a huge lump in her throat. Sticky silence plastered her with its suffocating hug. The feeling was unpleasant but so familiar, having been her most faithful companion since she had been twelve. She thought about dialling her father’s number, but the idea was discarded at once. He would have been busy with his three-month-old son and his young, stressed wife, which was why he had not called or sent her a birthday card. Why he had not introduced her to his son yet.

  Somebody knocked on the front door. Cherry froze. She did not want anybody to see her puffy, red eyes. The knocking repeated.

  Cherry wiped her nose with a piece of kitchen towel and slowly opened the door. She glanced at two people: a blonde woman in her forties, and a slim, tall, young man wearing an overused, navy hoody. The humid chill of the early night bit down to the marrow of the bone. The woman took her hands out of the pockets of her black puffer coat and folded them as if praying.

  “You are gorgeous, my Satin Bowerbird with unearthly eyes,” the blonde said with her deep, warm voice. Her face and electric-blue eyes emanated a youthful charm, yet were tinged with some translucent sadness. “I’ve found you at last!”

  Cherry felt her throat
tighten. Something was wrong about the greeting. Strange. She had never been able to handle strange situations properly, like a normal person. Those situations seemed to block her mind, temporarily erasing her intelligence.

  “Yeah… everybody asks about my purple eyes,” she explained politely, avoiding direct eye contact.

  “What’s your name, Birdie?” the boy asked and tossed his shoulder-length brown hair, gifting her with an arrogant smile as she lifted her eyes for a second.

  Something fragile stirred inside Cherry, on the edge of her consciousness. An ethereal joy as if she had found the precious item which she had lost long ago. She felt a delicate emotion of coming back to a loving home after a long journey. It was as though the boy's voice had brushed a forgotten particle in her soul.

  “Cherry… Cherry Devita,” she answered. She lifted her head again and noticed the unnatural pallor of his face and the disturbing glow of the red sparks in his boyish, brown eyes. She shuddered and her long, black eyelashes flapped. Her berry lips trembled. She stepped back and stood speechless with her mouth open. And he just stared at her with impertinence.

  “They are inside,” the blonde said. She turned back and ran away, clicking on the cracked and dirty steps with her kitten heels.

  “Invite me in,” said the young man sharply.

  Cherry’s heart raced. She could not bring herself to react.

  “Invite me in, you foolish Maiden!”

  CHAPTER 2

  UNNERVING COLDNESS RAN through Cherry’s veins. She slammed the door shut and ran to the lounge, looking for her phone. She checked her bag. It turned out to be a black hole, impossible to look for anything. The knocking got louder. An alarm bell rang, as loud as bells in a cathedral, in Cherry’s ears. She looked under the sofa and spotted only a disgusting colony of old bread crumbs. She could not find her phone anywhere. Her hands shook, the panic inside her had gathered in strength, sending her into a cold sweat and giving her stomach cramps. Her heart pounded. Her mind felt as though it was dying.

  Cherry sprinted upstairs towards her mother’s bedroom, but her legs were like concrete blocks. Every step posed an extreme challenge to her. The distance seemed to be tripled. Her breath was as though trapped inside of her chest. She stopped at the doorway of the bedroom for a few seconds, rooted to the spot. Madison lay in bed. Her mum trembled, coughing up foam-like, pink mucus. She looked grotesque in the dim, yellow light of the bedside lamp.

  Cherry rushed towards where her mother lay on the double, divan bed and kneeled beside her on the old, red carpet. She gently stroked Madison’s curly, chocolate-brown hair.

  “Mum! Mum!? Are you ok? There are two dangerous people outside. I can’t find my phone. Where is yours? We need to call 999!”

  Madison did not respond. Her wide, imperceptive eyes indicated that her mind had found a hide-out deep inside her head.

  Cherry heard a strange noise, like something scratching on glass. She froze and raised her eyes towards the window. Immediately outside the glass, the pale boy repeated, “Invite me in!”

  Cherry crawled back about half a metre. That was impossible. That was insane. All of a sudden she felt a repulsive, rotten breeze strangling her neck. She tried to catch the deadly coolness with her fingers, but there was nothing. It was just the air like a tightening, invisible noose. Her heart paused painfully and started beating again, a hasty race. Her eyes widened. She wheezed. Destructive sadness flooded her mind, but the emotion was definitely not hers. And then emptiness took over her head. Cherry stopped caring for anything. She did not want to, but she was forced to. The last spark of her identity was burning away.

  “I’m inviting you in,” she whispered. Her vocal cords produced a strained, rough, and quiet groan as the last particle of her will flew away. Blackness narrowed her vision. She swam away into a void and came back in a fraction of a second.

  Initially, Cherry's head contained absolutely nothing. Her hollow brain recorded only flashing images, interrupted by short pauses of darkness. A pungent, perplexing force pulled her out from drowning in the void, like a string attached to her mind. Then her perception began to imitate a silent, black and white film. In the span of a few minutes, her vision regained its colours.

  The slim, pale boy leaned over Madison and spoke quietly into her ear. The blonde woman helped Cherry's mother get up and walk out from the bedroom. After that, she returned and sat down on the floor beside Cherry. She hugged the stiff girl and told her something yet Cherry's ears were still numb. The blonde rehashed the sentence.

  “… is Felicia Reese.” The sound, at last, managed to get through a heavy curtain into the girl's head. The herbal aroma surrounding the woman’s body irritated Cherry’s airway and made her eyes and nose run. She wiped the thick mucus pouring out from her nose down to her chin with the back of her hand. She hoped this would go unnoticed by the blonde woman.

  “My name is Felicia Reese,” the woman repeated.

  Cherry straightened up rapidly and freed herself from Felicia’s warm, caring arms.

  “Where is my mum?” she asked anxiously. She looked around, noticing wild rose flowers covering the floor like a carpet. The mixture of sweet and oriental scents clouded Cherry’s head.

  “She’s fine. I cleansed all the negative energy from her body and reversed the large heart attack she had suffered. The cells were not damaged though. Madison's brain received false signals as if there had been a real, extensive necrosis. She’s ok now,” Felicia soothed.

  “Madison is cleaning the mess in her life,” the pale boy said in a sarcastic tone. His foreign accent informed Cherry about his presence in the bedroom.”Do you want a tissue?” he asked with a hint of humour.

  Cherry gasped, feeling her cheeks heat up as her ears caught something else; the sound of bottles banging together drifting up from downstairs. She stood up and hurried down to the kitchen where she stopped abruptly, enchanted by Madison’s behaviour.

  “What are you doing, Mum?” Cherry asked, her voice was coated with confusion.

  “I’m getting rid of all the alcohol. Imre told me to do so. Make some tea for our guests,” Madison ordered. She seemed to be totally fine with the whole situation.

  Cherry blinked, taken aback by her mum’s response. Imre. That must have been the pale boy’s name. The girl’s lips repeated the name noiselessly as if tasting its unusual and rough sound.

  “Mum, they are strangers and may be dangerous,” Cherry said; her words were loud and tinged with uncertainty.

  “Cherry, stop talking this nonsense and look after our guests.”

  “But, Mum... they are a threat.”

  “We are here to protect you, Cherry,” Felicia said from behind Cherry’s back. ” Don’t be afraid of us.”

  Cherry jumped up nervously and turned around. The odd couple peered through the narrow doorway of the lounge.

  “There is not much time,” Felicia continued. “You have to find a small bag and pack necessary clothes and toiletries. We will take you to a safe place.”

  “No, no way!” Cherry protested. She folded her elbows and waved her palms, forming a shield. ”I don’t know what is going on here, but I need you to leave now! I’m sure this is one of my crazy nightmares or maybe I’ve got first symptoms of a mental illness. And certainly the neighbours must have called the police a long time ago. So, please, go. Now! Mum, tell them to go!”

  Madison grinned, exposing her small teeth.

  “Would anybody like a piece of my daughter’s birthday cake?” she asked with her sweet and welcoming voice.

  Cherry moved back through the hallway, her steps tiny and slow. This was all too much for her. The weirdness of the whole experience shocked her. She wanted to vanish, to escape, to wake up. She passed the strangers, nearly adhering to the opposite wall as her glance met Imre’s. His gaze was intense like he was hungry for her, assessing, immobilising and he also seemed to be annoyed with her. She felt detached for an instant, her focus directing to those eerie red fli
ckers dancing in his eyes. It was as if the whole space filled with her and him. Nothing else existed. Another second passed and she caught her breath with a desperate effort.

  Dropping her eyes, she hit the glass in the front door with her back and head. Her dead hand held the door handle and opened the door. The familiar, cool, rotten fear blended with the midnight air and invaded her lungs and mind. She shut the door in an instant. Her legs felt like jelly and her knees bent. She had the impression that she would collapse in a moment. With her back pressed against the door for the support, she tried to clear her thoughts.

  “They are close,” said Felicia.”We’ve sent them away, but they will come back.”

  Cherry took another deep and shaky breath. Her forehead wrinkled and her right eye twitched. Her hands were sweaty. A hundred thoughts fought for her attention in her head. She began to accept that the police might have been useless against whatever sinister power was outside. She did not want to define the threat, though. Not yet.

  “Imre, thank you for my mum,” she said. Her voice faltered. It was not her voice but the sound of a mouse squeaking. ”I don’t understand any of this and my mum is weird now, but I’m grateful. For whatever you did to coax her to get rid of her wine. I think we should go with you.” She turned her head towards Madison. “Mum, we have to pack a few things.”

  “We are not taking Madison with us, Birdie,” Imre interrupted. His statement was firm and lacked any positive emotion. He sent her another arrogant smile.

  “It’s all about you, Cherry,” Felicia added. “They want to hurt you. They will follow you everywhere. You are a threat to your mum now. If you stay with her - sooner or later she will die. Leave her for her own good.”

  “But I can’t leave her. Not now. She needs me to help her. She’s not coping well with... different things.” Cherry shook her head. “What about my college? What about my plans, my future? It’s insane! I can’t just leave. When will I come back or will I come back at all?”

  “I’m so sorry, Child, I cannot guarantee that you will return to your life soon,” Felicia said. ”But I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. Madison will be fine on her own. She will be stronger and more independent. Imre did a good job with his hypnotism.”