Eliza Nolan [Nolan - Phoenix Awakens: A Young Adult Paranormal Romance (The Phoenix Book 1)

Phoenix Awakens

By Eliza Nolan

Published by E.N. Publications

Copyright 2015, 2017 Eliza Nolan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover Design: Yocla Designs

Editing by Kate Foster

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Racing through the forest under the cover of night.

Thick foliage blackens out the moon and stars, leaving me to stumble in near darkness. Heart pounding, I shove my way through the brush and trees.

I run.

I have to get there.

I have to stop them before it's too late.

Chapter One

The bus lurched to a stop in front of West High. My brain wasn't awake yet, but my body knew the drill. I followed the other kids off the bus, zipping up my hoodie to shield my body from the September wind. I should've worn a coat, but that meant admitting summer was over. I wouldn't give up on my favorite season so easily. Sure, I was born and raised in this nearly arctic city, but my olive skin proved this climate was all wrong for me - too far north.

I wrapped my arms around my small frame and scurried up the school steps.

Pushing my way through one of the steel doors, two security guards dressed in full rental-cop regalia greeted me on the other side. West High might be the best public school in Minneapolis, but it wasn't in the best neighborhood. I plunked my bag down on the table for the guards to search and flashed my ID.

One of the guards sifted through my textbooks and pens as well as tampons and other things too private for a stranger's hands. School had only been in session for three weeks, and I was still readjusting to this mandatory invasion of privacy. This morning, however, I was almost too tired to care. After a few sweeps with his hand, he slid it back to me.

Heaving my bag over my shoulder, I moved to head toward class and slammed right into someone.

"Watch it!" a female voice barked.

"Sorry," I mumbled, as I steadied myself and faced them.

Crap. It was Libby Thompson. I shrank back and braced myself for the onslaught of insults.

She glared at me through her cover-model, high-def eye makeup. "Walk much?" She opened her mouth to say more but abruptly clamped her lips shut. Her nose scrunched up in irritation and she stormed off.

Samantha had to be behind me. I'd no idea how she did it, but my best friend always managed to chase Libby off. I spun around.

Okay, so she could be a little intimidating with her spiked blue hair and nose, lip, and eyebrow piercings. Add that to her height - the girls' basketball coach spent freshman year begging her to join the team - I could see how she might instill fear in others.

For me she was a welcome sight.

"Hey, Julia!" she said, pulling me into a bear hug and lifting me way off the ground.

After setting me down she took a step back, eyeing me sideways. "You look like hell. Did you go partying without me last night?" she asked, even though she knew my dad never let me stay out late on a school night.

"No, I had another effed up dream." I tried to wipe the sleep from my eyes as we headed down the hall. "They're so exhausting."

I'd been having the same dream for the past few weeks - me racing through woods near a swamp. I had to stop something from happening. I didn't know what, let alone what I could do to stop it, which was fine since the images always faded before I got there. But I always woke up winded, heart pounding, and more exhausted than when I'd gone to bed, like I'd actually been running all night. Sometimes it was hard to believe it was just a dream.

"You should see a shrink. Those dreams are taking over." Her voice danced with sarcasm, yet she avoided looking me in the eye.

I appreciated her concern; I'd been worried, too.

Still, brushing it off as a bad dream was easier than dealing with it, so I forced a laugh and came back with the expected answer. "I know, right?" We stopped in front of the door to my first class.

"Save me a seat at lunch?" she asked.

I snorted. Save her a seat? Last fall our lunch table overflowed with colorful hair and facial piercings. With my long, naturally black hair, dark clothing, and combat boots, I was by far the most normal looking of us. In the spring, our friends started transferring to this alternative school called Como. Just a few at first, but within no time, moving to the new school became the new thing . By the end of the year, Samantha and I were the only ones left. We decided to stick it out because, let's face it, West High would look much better on a college application. We promised each other we would hang on and make it through together.

Last year I needed to save her a seat in the cafeteria, but so far this year, we'd had the whole table to ourselves.

"Of course." I smiled, waving her off as she rushed to make her own class before the bell.

I shuffled up the row of desks to my usual seat, digging in my bag for my calculus homework. I needed to ask Nate what he'd gotten for one of the answers. As if on cue, Nate's signature blond, curly hair popped up in my peripheral vision.

Nate was more acquaintance than friend. We'd known each other since kindergarten, and he was a math geek like me, so we always sat together and compared answers.

Thumbing through the crammed mass of papers in my bag, I almost missed the person sitting in my seat talking to Nate.

"Hey," Nate mumbled in his standard hushed tone.

"Hi," I said, raising my eyebrows and glancing at the new girl.

She was young - maybe a sophomore - with long, brown hair. Her clothes looked all trendy and perfect, as if she'd jumped out of the latest "It" catalogue. If I had to place her, I'd have gone with athlete or on yearbook staff. Though, if she really was a sophomore in calculus, she could also be Queen of the Nerds. One thing was for sure, she wouldn't have hung out with Samantha and me.

But her friendly smile was somehow disarming and when she turned it on me, I actually found myself smiling back.

"Julia." Nate cleared his throat. "This is Clara. She just moved here from South Carolina." He blushed, and the lost puppy-dog look he gave Clara was enough to explain why he'd let her sit in my seat. I bit back a laugh and took a seat on the other side of her.

"Hi, Julia. It's so very nice to meet you." Despite being seated, Clara somehow bounced with pep. However, mid bounce her forehead wrinkled. "Have we met?"

I shook my head. I'd have remembered meeting someone as perky as Clara. "Don't think so."

"Oh." She pursed her lips for a moment, but then her huge smile returned. "What year are you?"

"Senior," I said, my one-word answer a testament to my lack of sleep and the time of day. Also, I sucked at carrying polite conversations with new people, period.

"I'm a junior," she continued. "I guess I'm kind of a nerd for being in calculus and all, but our school in Charleston had a great math program, plus I just like math." She giggled. "But heck, I guess we're all math nerds, because, here we are, right?" Her sentences ran together, and it was hard to tell if she normally talked that fast or if it was just nerves. Either way, she talked enough to carry the conversation for both of us, and I was happy to let her.