Ashes, Ashes (READ THIS ONE)

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

It’s not perfect here between us, even angels have their demons.

Lea Michele, ‘Burn With You’

The next day I hit the ground running. In less than five minutes I'm dressed, wide awake, and ready to go. Since it's only around nine -and a weekend- Addison's not awake.

I nudge her with my arm once I walk inside her room. It's relatively dark, as usual so I stumble around in the dark for a few minutes. "Addison," I say.

She doesn't move at all. "Addison," I say louder. "Quiet, I'm sleeping," she tells me. "Wake up," I tell her.

"Sleeping. 9 AM is too early to be awake when I don't have to be."

"I'll make you breakfast," I bribe her. That makes her perk up. I might not be good at many things, but I'm pretty good at cooking. "Promise?" she says, sitting up suddenly. "You have to earn it first."

She groans. "I hate loopholes. What do I have to do to earn my breakfast?" she asks, sitting up. Her blankets are falling off the bed, falling into a pool on the floor. "Research."

"I'm not in school for precisely this reason, Abbi. The weekends are not for research. The weekends are for laziness and sleeping."

"For you, maybe, but not for me. I want some answers."

"Let me get dressed, and then I'll be your slave. But I better get food."

In around fifteen minutes, Addison's in my room armed with her laptop. "Let's start," she says. She sits down beside me on my bed, and she opens up her notebook to a clean page.

"So, what should we start with?"

"Mortalitas was already pretty explained to me. They hunt people."

"Should we look up what Mortalitas means?"

"It means hunter."

"And you knew that, how?"

"I might've done some research."

She writes down the definition and a few other things in her notebook. Our handwriting is very similar, with only a few habits differentiating our writing. "Virtus is next. Eliza didn't tell me anything about Virtus. I couldn't find anything about it either."

"I'll look it up," Addison volunteers. "I'll do Agnosco."

A few minutes later, Addison has some more information stuck in her notebook. "Did you find anything about Agnosco?" Addison asks once she sets her pencil down.

"Nope. Nothing at all."

"This was harder than I thought it would be."

"Wonder if it's a better idea just to wait for Eliza to tell us everything."

"At least we have a few things." I say, keeping up the optimism.

Later that day, Addison and I are in the front yard, with a few notebooks and textbooks, studying for some of the many tests we'll have to make up once we go back to school. "Who was the founder of New York?" I ask Addison, but she's not paying attention. Something's caught her eye in the cluster of trees at the bottom of our acre. "Addison? What are you looking at?"