Free The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade by A.P. Kensey Page A

smiled as she walked up to the
table, happy to meet Kayla’s new guy. Kayla noticed her when she
was still a couple steps away and stopped laughing immediately. She
stared at Haven like a deer caught in headlights. Her mouth was
slightly open as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t force
out the words. She just sat there, dumbfounded, while Haven walked
up, smiling.
    The boy turned around in his seat. It
was Jason. “Oh, man…” he said. He turned back to his food and
stabbed at some french fries with his fork.
    “ Haven, I—I’m sorry,” said
Kayla. “I know I should have told you…”
    Haven walked past the table
quickly.
    “ Wait!” said
Kayla.
    “ Let her go,” said Jason.
“If she can’t grow up, then that’s her problem.”
    Haven felt blood rush to
her face. She ran toward the exit and planned to keep running as
soon as she was outside. She wouldn’t stop until she was far away
from that place—from those people. She wanted answers. No more
waiting, no more uncertainty; she would make the police find out who killed
her parents and kidnapped Noah.
    Haven was halfway to the cafeteria
door when an unusual heat blossomed on the back of her neck and ran
down her spine. It spread outward, stretching to every part of her
body. The blushing warmth in her face paled in comparison to the
boiling heat that coursed beneath her skin. Arms, legs, torso, and
head—every part of her felt like it was burning. She stopped
walking and looked down at herself to make sure she was not
actually on fire.
    “ Hey, what’s wrong with
her?” someone said from a nearby table.
    Haven tried to run, but her legs
wouldn’t move. She tried to call for help but her voice caught in
her throat.
    She looked down in horror as a bright
blue ball of light formed around her right hand.
    Not
here , she thought. Not now .
    Another sphere of light grew from the
palm of her other hand until it completely encompassed her wrist
and fingers. It looked as if she had stuck her hands into two large
balls of blue light. Haven tried to run again, then realized that
her feet weren’t touching the ground. She floated into the air and
hovered next to a table, still rising toward the
ceiling.
    The students in the cafeteria screamed
and backed away. Several of them held up food trays for
protection.
    The blue light from Haven’s hands
turned to flames and spread to cover her entire body, like fire
crawling over gasoline-soaked wood. She felt a tingling sensation
on each of her shoulder blades and looked behind her as two huge
wings of blue energy unfolded from her back. The tips of the wings
touched the ceiling and burned black holes into its smooth
surface.
    In the shiny plastic reflection on the
bottom of the food trays that were being held up for protection,
Haven saw a blue angel hovering above the tables of the cafeteria.
Her hair floated around her head as if she were submerged in calm
water.
    Her vision filled with light and she
reached up to feel the energy pulsing from her eyes. The flames
covering her body cracked like lightning and whipped back and forth
violently—a thousand dancing snakes made of blue fire.
    Haven’s back arched and she screamed.
A flat circle of blue energy shot out from the middle of her body.
Nearby students dove to the ground as the ring expanded and passed
overhead. It shattered every window in the room and burned into the
walls, leaving behind a black strip that ran completely around the
inside walls of the cafeteria.
    By that point the students no longer
cared to see what happened next. They pushed each other out of the
way in a mad scramble to leave the cafeteria.
    The blue energy faded from Haven’s
vision. Darkness clouded her sight and she felt weak. Her body
dropped from the air and fell to the hard ground. She looked up at
the ceiling until the world around her faded to black.

 
     
     
    14
     
    C olton sat with Reece in the back of a dark SUV and fidgeted
nervously with the window