A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 66 Moving Pieces 1

Chapter 66 Moving Pieces 1

"C'mon Carmen. It's another beautiful day! Waky waky!" Ami chirped, poking her head into the makeshift bedroom in the backroom of the clothes store.

Carmen groaned and flapped her hand like a dead fish at Ami, everything limp except her upraised middle finger. It must be still the middle of the night!

"Need help getting out of bed?" Ami asked brightly, obviously looking forward to the opportunity.

At this Carmen forced her reluctant body into an upright position, not wanting to entice Ami into pulling the same stunt she had the other day when she had refused to get out of bed. She still had a lump on the back of her head. Who would have figured the tiny, dark-haired, happy angel would have a sadistic enough streak to literally drag her out of bed by her ankles? Ami's laughter at Carmen's groaned threats when her head nearly left a dent in the wooden floor hadn't helped.

"I'm up!" Carmen growled, her blonde hair a wild, frazzled mess hanging down in front of her face.

"Good. Mother says breakfast will be ready in five minutes. See ya there!" Ami said, still bubbling with good-natured energy, spinning and dashing away with her natural silent footsteps, as if she moved so lightly that not even the creaky, old floorboards noticed her passage.

Carmen muttered under her breath, offended at anybody who could be so happy at this unforsaken hour. She glanced at the alarm clock, baring her teeth in a snarl when she saw it was 5:55. That was still the middle of the night! What insanity possessed people to wake up and start staggering around at this hour?!

She forced herself into rapid, yet inefficient motion, throwing her clothes on and yanking her hair back in a ponytail, barely biting back a shriek when she stubbed her toe on the leg to the chair in her room. When Mother said breakfast would be ready in five minutes, she meant exactly five minutes, ragged hair and stubbed toe or no. Carmen had learned quickly that if you were a minute late, you got no breakfast.

She hurried through the clutter of the backrooms, her nose waking up her stomach at the scent of cinnamon French toast and scrambled eggs and fresh coffee. Real food, a tantalizing scent making her mouth water immediately. Especially the coffee!

She still felt like she was moving in a daze, still found herself looking around at different times during the days, as if she was in a dream. She had been here, essentially adopted by Ami and the fierce, older lady only known as Mother, for what felt like months, but in reality couldn't have been more than a week.

She wondered what creative, new ways to make her hurt Mother would cook up today. A quiet part of her mind almost looking forward to the challenge of meeting her expectations. She wasn't sure why, but the harsh demands of Mother and her rigid discipline was welcoming. And Ami, always there with a smile and encouraging words, helped her get back up and keep trying.

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The smell of the salt water greeted Callin as he sat up in his massive bed, a powerful scent, ageless and unchanging. He was beginning to enjoy it, even though it still unnerved him how much it clung to everything and masked other scents from him through its sheer presence. It was a single scent that described an entity so massive, so powerful, it dwarfed all around it, boggling his imagination, making him simply relax in wonder at it.

He scowled at the soft tapping sound at his door. It was what had woken him. It was still dark outside, just the faintest glow on the horizon suggesting the sun was soon to begin its climb to sear the ocean and the cruise ship that bobbed along on top.