Autumn Flame (Seasons #2 )

Chapter 1: Red

It's a bright fall morning on the Upper West Side in New York City when I catch a glimpse of red that sets my world on fire.

You see, on this particular morning, I'm mooching off my parents for breakfast as I often do—perks of going to college where your family live—and I'm running late to meet my friends downtown. If I'd just gone five minutes later, or five minutes earlier, maybe none of this would have happened. Fate, however, typically has its own plans for me that have nothing to do with my preferences.

I run out of my childhood bedroom, leaving chaos behind, and rush to catch the A train, losing half my pastrami sandwich in the gap between the train and the platform.

"Come on..." I groan. It was a damn good sandwich, too. Had to fight my brother Jake for it. He's on another growth spurt and hungry all the time.

The subway's not busy this late in the morning, so I have plenty of seat space. It's not manspreading when the train is empty. Fact.

I shuffle out of the subway and exit onto 4th Street, approaching the soon-to-happen calamity. My earbuds drown out the noises of NYC: cars honking, cabbies, and chatter in many different languages. But they cannot drown out the smells, both the bad and the good.
And I love the fall for that reason: it's by far the nicest smelling in NYC. Mixed in with pretzels and coffee and exhaust you get whiffs of the park, crabapple and magnolias.

And it is then that, in the hustle and bustle around Washington Square Park, I catch a sight of red.

Red curls and dainty hands on the hood of a car as a girl enters a town car across the street. I don't see her face or much else, but it's enough to send my heart racing.

"Get it together, Rhys," I mutter to myself.

It's not her. It won't and can't be her because she left for London. She lost her whole family and is now living with her uncle there.

I often wonder what kind of life she's leading. If she's happy. I hope she is, but a small, petty part of me hopes she misses me and thinks of me as much as I think of her. I know it's not true. As I said, it's the petty part. I've tried to squash it, but it keeps hiding like a NYC roach. Those things are indestructible.

The bell above the door dings and I enter Starkey's. That is, the NYC Starkey's. Mr. Abernathy's son opened a second one here, and all of us who love Peregrine Hollow made it instantly our second home.

My best friend Preston is already here, head down over a laptop with Clement. The latter of the two looks like a giant sitting on a baby chair. I thought I was tall, but Mr. Future Basketball Star got huge since high school. It's crazy to think we started off on the wrong foot and almost missed out on a great friendship. But ever since I saved him from drowning in our stupid swim race in the middle of the winter in Peregrine Hollow—yes, I know how idiotic it sounds,—we've been something like inseparable. All three of us: me, Preston and Clement.

"What's up," I greet them and pull up a chair, flipping it backward and straddling it. "What are we doing?"

"Preston is saving my basketball scholarship," says Clement, head in his hands, an intense and desperate look on his face.

"Calculus?" I ask.

Clement nods solemnly.

"I'm just in it for the court-side seats," says Preston, his burly frame chuckling like a bear. He's lost a bit of the muscle since he's not playing hockey anymore, but he's replaced this with powerlifting and now his neck is twice the size it was. "You said you had something for us?" he asks me.

I slam a poster on the table. "I'm entering it."

The two of them study it. "A marketing competition?" asks Clement in his French accent.