Branded

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1 - The New World

  Chapter 2 - Get Your Freak On

  Chapter 3 - Off the Cliff

  Chapter 4 - Sweet Dreams

  Chapter 5 - Small Towns Suck

  Chapter 6 - Poisons and Penguins

  Chapter 7 - Beds and Bottles

  Chapter 8 - The Execution

  Chapter 9 - Fried Chicken

  Chapter 10 - Catching Fire

  Chapter 11 - Corpses

  Chapter 12 - Like A Candle In The Dark

  Chapter 13 - A Bonding Experience

  Chapter 14 - Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

  Chapter 15 - On the Road Again

  Chapter 16 - Slipping

  Chapter 17 - Icy Heat

  Chapter 18 - Getting Closer

  Chapter 19 - Crossing that Bridge

  Chapter 20 - Taking the Fall

  Chapter 21 - Interview with the Fox

  Chapter 22 - What's Been and not Gone

  Chapter 23 - Sleepless Dreams

  Chapter 24 - The Bat and the Fox

  Chapter 25 - Deadly Deals

  Chapter 26 - Crashing In

  Chapter 27 - Every Step Counts

  Chapter 28 - Last Order

  Chapter 29 - Breaking Down

  Epilogue

  Back Matter

  Branded

  By Ana J. Phoenix

  (anajphoenix@gmail.com)

  http://anajphoenix.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

  Cover Art by Ana J. Phoenix

  Dedication

  This one’s for Kuea. Love you, girl.

  Acknowledgment

  Janine, Patti, Masha, Alex, Jill: this book would not be what it is without each and everyone of you.

  Chapter 1 - The New World

  Both smoke detectors in Asher’s room went off as if announcing the god damn apocalypse. Well, maybe not the apocalypse, but they were going to alert his mom, which, on a bad day, was kind of the same thing. Quickly, Asher waved the burning post card in his hand to put the fire out and then pocketed the half-burned thing. It had been stupid to light it, but whenever he got mail from his dad, his brain stopped.

  Asher stepped over the dozens of broken and empty lighters strewn across the floor and grabbed a chair from his desk. The smoke detectors were installed on the high ceiling, so he had to stand on top of the chair to shut them off. He hated doing that.

  It wasn’t like he was scared of heights or anything, no, but it was stupid to stand on chairs. Chairs were meant for sitting. And what he felt as he unscrewed the lid of the first detector wasn’t vertigo. No way.

  “Asher!” His mom’s voice rang through their apartment—and probably over into the next two. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The door to his room flew open, but Asher didn’t look at his mom. He had to focus on getting the second smoke detector to shut up before he tumbled off the chair and broke his neck.

  “I put it out again,” he said. “Nothing happened.”

  He turned the alarm off, and the room went quiet. Until his mother started up again. “What makes you think you can start a fire in here? I’ve told you time and time again, if you have to act on your insane obsessions then take them out the house. Burn yourself for all I care! But do not play with fire in my apartment!”

  Asher wanted to say something, but then the world seemed to pulse. It shook suddenly, like an earthquake, but without the noise. Adrenaline kicked up in Asher’s blood, but nothing else happened. Had he imagined that? He hadn’t even had any booze today. Not yet. He had a feeling he might need some later, though.

  Carefully, he stepped off the chair and turned to face his mother. Anger carved deep lines into her face, making her look ten years older than she was.

  “Screaming makes you ugly.”

  Her mouth opened wide. Asher felt for the lighters in his pockets, readying himself for another round of her screaming. “How dare you, you—”

  But the world shook again, and Asher couldn’t listen. A pain stabbed through his head that had nothing to do with the volume of his mom’s voice. It felt like something was trying to tear his brain out of his scalp.

  “Fuck, what…” Asher clutched his head as the weird sensation brought him to his knees. Something was pulling him out of his body, and he curled in on himself as if he could hold on to himself that way.

  “Oh, you really think I’m falling for that?” His mother’s voice seemed to come from behind a wall of glass.

  “Shut up,” he groaned. He had to focus on keeping his shit together, but his grip slipped and his vision darkened.

  ***

  When he woke up, he was lying on a beach. Maybe the one outside town?

  A warm breeze blew over his skin, carrying the salty smell of the sea with it as he sat up in the sand. His head didn’t hurt anymore. He felt fine, actually. Maybe a little confused. How had he gotten to the beach, though? How was he going to get all that sand out of his hair? And why was the sky purple?

  Seriously, the sky was a bright violet. Asher jumped to his feet. Had he been hit on the head too hard? Carefully, he stroked a hand through his hair. Sand stuck to his fingers, but he found no blood. Something funny on his arm caught his eyes. He raised it to get a better look.

  What the actual fuck…

  Some of his skin had turned a weird red color. He scratched at the hard spot, but it didn’t go away. It almost felt like scales.

  It was true that he put a lot of product on his skin, but damn, if he found out what caused this, he’d sue the hell out of that company.

  He looked at his other arm.

  Oh God, no…

  And then someone screamed.

  Asher whirled around, following the high pitched sound. There was a woman just a few feet behind him. A woman with snakes for hair. Actual living snakes. Asher had to look twice. If that was where fashion was going, he wanted no part of it.

  The woman seemed freaked out by the snakes too, staring at the slithering things wide-eyed. Asher took a step back toward the water.

  Looking around, he spotted another freak to his right. Maybe he’d stumbled into a video shoot for some pop band. He couldn’t see any cameras, though.

  The new freak was a boy who looked to be around Asher’s age, maybe a little younger. It was a little hard to judge because the kid’s entire body seemed to be made from dirt and stones.

  Maybe Asher was high on something. Only he didn’t take drugs. Maybe he was dreaming. Yeah, he was probably dreaming. He often dreamed of beaches anyway. But he had no idea why his brain was making up ugly people. It was time to demand some answers.

  “Who are you? What are you?”

  Stoner stopped inspecting his own body and faced him. “I’m… whoa, are those scales on your arms?” He came closer. “I’m Jonas. And I don’t, I mean I don’t normally look like this.”

  “You’re not normally a freak?” Asher took another step back, searching his pockets for his lighters. Whatever that kid had could be contagious, you never knew. Even if this was all just one weird dream, there was no need to take the risk.

  Stoner glared at him. “No. Are you?”

  “Dude. I have a few scales. You’re made out of freaking stone.” And Asher was going to find a way to remove those scales at the earliest opportunity. The red just did not go well with his eyes.

  Snake Woman interrupted his thoughts. “Hello?” she threw her arms
up. “Lady with snake hairs here. I clearly win the freak prize.”

  “Yeah, that is pretty fucked up,” Asher admitted. His fingers closed around the lighters in his pocket, and a sense of calm filled him. At least he still had those.

  “I’m Maya.” The woman came a little closer. She seemed to have cooled down a bit since the snakes weren’t attacking her. Her skin tone was dark, and the shimmering green reptiles might have suited her if they hadn’t been so disgustingly real.

  “I’m Asher,” Asher offered, although he made no effort to remember either Stoner’s or Snakes’s names. He didn’t plan on sticking around with them. He only wanted to know where he was, what had happened, and where he would find fire wood. Now that he thought of it, where had the town gone? Riverside should have been visible from here. But all he saw were sand dunes with a couple of large rocks mixed in. A forest stretched out to the far right, and he couldn’t remember that ever being there before.

  “Where the fuck did Riverside go?”

  “Riverside’s a whole world away.” A new voice spoke and Asher turned to the stranger who’d approached them from behind. He must have come from the seaside. His long black-red hair was still wet, and drops of water ran down in thin lines over the tanned skin of his neck. Drenched pants clung to his hips in a way that made Asher forget, just for a moment, everything else. Now this was dream material.

  “I thought I heard someone scream,” the stranger said. Asher let his gaze trail back up to the stranger’s face. His ears were pointy and his eyes were hidden behind a blindfold.

  “That was me,” Snakes said. “I was a little shocked to find snakes on my head. Very sorry for breaking out the alarm.”

  “Snakes? Well, that does sound a bit scary.” The stranger tilted his head to the left. A small ball of fire was floating in the air next to him. Asher had to squint to see a small person with wings contained inside. She looked like a tiny fairy he had seen in a picture book once.

  “What did you mean about Riverside being a world away?” Stoner asked. “I was just there. Where are we? Who are you? What happened to my skin? What happened to her hair? How—”

  “Calm down,” the blindfolded stranger said. “I still don’t know that much about this world myself.”

  The little fairy fluttered over their group and Asher’s eyes stuck to her. What was that?

  “This world?” Snakes asked.

  “Well, yes. I believe this country is called Altasia.”

  Only half-focused on the conversation, Asher looked around for something to poke the fairy with but couldn’t find any sticks in the sand. There was some driftwood, though. Driftwood burned pretty.

  “You expect me to believe…” Snakes’s voice trailed off, and Asher looked up to see what had stunned her. Flames shot out of the stranger’s hand up into the sky.

  Asher stared. “What the hell kind of freak are you?”

  The stranger frowned at his tone, but Asher didn’t care. That there warranted cursing.

  “José Rodriguez, honorary fire elf,” Blindfold-Guy said eventually. A little flame appeared above the flat of his palm, like magic. “Nice to meet you,” he added. “And you are?”

  “Asher Davidson, full-time pyromaniac,” Asher said, staring at the fire. He didn’t listen as Stoner and Snakes introduced themselves again. His attention was on the fire elf. “What’s that there?” He pointed at the little fairy. Without waiting for a reply, he picked up a small piece of driftwood and held it to the burning creature. It caught on blue and lavender fire. Asher threw it away before it could burn his hand.

  So pretty, though.

  “Oh,” Blindfold said. “You shouldn’t annoy her.”

  Too late. Embers sparked off the little fairy as she flew up and down, making Asher take a step back.

  “Congratulations, you pissed her off.”

  “That’s what I do.” Asher ducked away as the little creature rained tiny flames down over his head. He clasped his hands over his hair. “You stupid little—”

  “Stop it, both of you!” Blindfold’s voice had something decisive to it. The fairy flew back to his side, glaring down at Asher like a stuck-up diva.

  “Listen,” Blindfold addressed all of them, “the lavalight here,” he pointed to the ball of flame, “has been helping me out for the last couple days and she says she knows someone who can help us. I figure we should all stick together and—”

  “Why doesn't she tell us herself?” Asher interrupted him.

  Blindfold stiffened while the others shot Asher annoyed looks.

  “You're kinda rude,” Stoner said. Asher proved his rudeness by making a hand gesture at him.

  “She says she's not talking to you,” Blindfold said then.

  “Bitch.”

  “Anyway,” Blindfold went on, ignoring him, “I figure if we stick together we have a better chance at getting out of here and back home. We can combine our powers and—”

  “Powers?” This time it wasn’t Asher who interrupted, but the one who’d called him rude for doing so earlier.

  “Yeah, like what I do with the fire. You all can do something, too. You’re not just human anymore, that’s why your appearances changed. I don’t know how it works, but that’s what happens.”

  Asher checked himself over again. He was still wearing the same pair of jeans as before, and no shirt. Luckily he couldn’t find any more scales aside from those patches on his arms. He opened his belt to pull his pants down and check his legs. Nothing there. But just to be sure, he should check inside his boxers, too.

  “Asher!”

  He looked up at Snakes’s voice. “What?”

  “Put your pants back on.”

  Asher rolled his eyes at her. Women…

  Blindfold went on talking: “The lavalight tells me you're an earth elemental, Jonas. And Maya, you're a medusa. Asher's a… dragon.”

  “I’m not a dragon.” Asher stopped fiddling with his belt. “Do I look like an overgrown reptile to you?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea what you look like. You sound like an idiot with attitude problems.”

  “Yeah, maybe you should take off that blindfold and take a look around yourself.”

  “I still wouldn't see a thing.”

  Asher quieted, churning the answer over in his head.

  “So you are blind,” Snakes said into the silence. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Stoner added.

  “Wow,” Asher said finally, “sucks to be you, huh?” Just thinking of all the beautiful things he couldn't see almost made Asher feel sorry for him. Almost. With their useless eyes, blind people ruined all the effort he put into his looks.

  “I think I'm just fine the way I am, thank you.”

  Asher shrugged. “If I was you I'd want to be someone else.” Well, apart from the fire abilities. Those were cool.

  “I don't think so,” Blind Guy said.

  “You do look like an overgrown reptile, by the way,” Snakes said.

  “Fuck you,” Asher said. At least his hair wasn’t as messed up as hers. “How do we get home?”

  “We start by walking,” Blind Guy said, then paused for a second. “That direction,” he added, pointing his arm right.

  “The little bitch tell you that?”

  “The lavalight told me, yes,” Blind Guy said with a patience that seemed forced. There was something amusing about his politeness. Asher was itching to find out whether he could make him freak before this dream was over.

  But his thoughts were interrupted when trampling noises thundered from the other side of the beach. A group of freaks was running up to them along the coast. At the front Asher saw a woman with green hair and skin, and beside her, a guy with blue scales all over his rather scrawny body, almost floating over the ground. It looked as if they were running away from the people behind them, the woman pulling on the man’s arm.

  “To the forest!” she shouted.

  The other freaks were catching up to them,
though. Small lizard-like creatures with disgustingly green skin on small horses. Only one of the horses didn’t have a rider. It didn’t need one because it was half man itself—and horse from the waist down.

  Asher had time to think that he didn’t want to know what that guy’s parents looked like, or how they’d done it, before Blind Guy cursed beside him.

  Blind Guy could curse. Wow.

  “Everyone back!” he said as if he’d somehow become their boss over the last few minutes. “Get to the forest.”

  Asher couldn’t rip his eyes off the horse guy, though. Horsey had almost caught up to the strange couple, who’d almost caught up with them. The guy and the girl ran past Asher, and damn, they were fast. Unnaturally so.

  A wall of fire shot out of the ground and erected itself between the couple and their pursuers. Asher glanced at Blind Guy. His doing, definitely.

  “What’s going on?” Stoner asked.

  No one replied. The half horse man stopped just in front of the flames, and turned to spot them. He looked pissed.

  “You really should run,” Blind Guy urged. A concentrated look on his face. More flames appeared in front of the other horses.

  The sounds of half a dozen horses nickering in panic rang in Asher’s ears. Some horses threw off their riders. Still rooted to the spot, Asher watched as one of the lizard-like creatures tumbled to the ground not too far away. Its large pupil-less eyes glowed red.

  “Asher!” an impatient voice called his name. He turned to see all of the others already running. He sprinted to catch up as they headed for the woods. This would have been a good time to wake up. Why the fuck wasn’t he waking up?

  “Criminals!” The half horse guy’s voice boomed through the air. His hooves thundered on the ground behind them.

  Asher ran into the shadow of the first trees behind his companions. He wasn’t going to make it, the freak was too close and way faster. Four legs against two was really unfair. Asher risked a glance back. Branches grew and moved themselves into the gaps he’d just run through, forming a solid wall behind him.

  Asher’s eyes widened as he watched. The horse guy growled outside the woods. A voice in the wind whispered, “Thank you.”