Ember (Constant Flame Duet Book 1) Read online

  Ember

  Book One of the Constant Flame Series

  Christi Whitson

  Copyright©2018 Christi Whitson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in cases of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  It seems fitting that my first novel should be dedicated to my first daughter. Lara, you’re a work of art far more beautiful than anything I could write.

  Acknowledgments:

  I’ve been blessed with guidance and inspiration from so many amazing people! I would especially like to thank my first-line proofreader, Judy, the fabulous ladies of my beta group, and the Writers Who Read. I couldn’t have done this without your help and support!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  October 1996

  Celia Gardner’s eyes darted anxiously to her restless daughter through the rear-view mirror before returning to the dark road in front of her. The white and yellow lines gleamed brightly in her headlights, and the tail lights of the traffic in front of her glowed like tiny red beacons in the darkness. They’d been driving for days, en route from Seattle to Toronto. Travel with a four-year-old was tedious, but there hadn’t been time to purchase flight tickets, even if she had been able to afford them. A friend had promised them a place to crash, and Toronto seemed as good a place as any to start over.

  With every passing mile, Celia questioned her decision to leave Seattle. Her mind was full of the last argument she’d had with her husband, and she knew there was really no one to blame but herself. She’d always known, at least on some level, that they’d been heading for this. When her first husband had died, she’d panicked, terrified at the thought of raising her daughter on her own. So, when Nate had offered to take care of her and even adopt Eleanore as his own, Celia had been relieved, but she’d never felt more than a passing affection for him.

  Nate had always known that she’d never been in love with him. Their marriage was one of convenience for both of them, though for very different reasons. Celia hadn’t wanted to be a single mother, and Nate had been Tom’s best friend for the majority of his career in the Air Force. When Nate had heard of Tom’s death and the infant daughter he’d left behind, he’d reached out to Celia to offer his support as a friend. It had seemed the honorable thing to do.

  But Nate hadn’t expected to fall in love with her daughter. Tom’s brilliant blue eyes had stared back at him from Ellie’s tiny face, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away. She had wrapped her tiny hand around his finger and stolen his heart.

  Celia’s marriage to Nate was primarily a long-distance friendship, which had suited them both just fine. He hadn’t wanted to risk leaving Celia and Eleanore on their own again if he were injured or killed while on deployment, so he’d opted to end his career as a fighter pilot when Ellie was two. Once he’d left the Air Force, he’d obtained his commercial pilot’s license, and while he was still away from home frequently, the job wasn’t nearly as dangerous as his previous one.

  With his increased physical presence, Nate and Celia’s relationship had grown steadily more awkward, eventually devolving into petty arguments and pointed silences. Now three years into their marriage, Celia knew that marrying Nate had been a terrible mistake. She wasn’t happy, and it was obvious that he wasn’t either. It wasn’t fair to Eleanore to burden her with two parents who could barely tolerate one another.

  Despite the state of their relationship, Celia wouldn’t have been surprised if Nate was trying to find them at that very moment. She’d waited for him to leave for a shift before packing up her daughter and a car load of their belongings, but she was certain he would know by now. He would’ve come home from a long shift of flights and walked into a dark, empty house. She knew that legally speaking, Nate had as much right to Ellie as she did, but she wasn’t his blood. A girl belonged with her mother. Celia could only hope that once she was settled and served Nate with divorce papers he would simply let them both go.

  “I want Daddy,” Eleanore whined, breaking her mother’s train of thought. She’d been restless and eager to be free of her car seat for the past hour, and her patience was rapidly dissipating.

  “It’s alright, Ellie,” Celia soothed. “We’ll be able to stop soon. Where’s your unicorn?” She tried to distract her daughter from her impending tantrum, but Ellie wasn’t having it.

  “No, I want Daddy!” she shouted.

  “I know. Just a little while longer, and we’ll be able to take a break, okay? Maybe we can get a snack!” Celia said with exaggerated excitement.

  “Where the chicken nuggets live?”

  “Yes, I’m sure we can find a McDonald’s,” she grinned. “Do you want fries too?”

  “Yeah. Daddy’s getting me a Happy Meal?”

  Celia hesitated, not wanting to lie to her. Ellie was very much a ‘Daddy’s girl,’ and she knew the transition was going to be difficult.

  “Mommy’s going to get it for you this time, Ellie. Are you thirsty? Do you want your juice until we get to McDonald’s?” She reached into the bag that sat next to her in the passenger seat, retrieving a small cup with a lid and handing it somewhat blindly into the backseat. “Here, be careful. Don’t drop it.”

  “No! I want Daddy!” Ellie pushed the cup away irritably, twisting against the seatbelt that confined her to her booster seat. The cup fell to the floor behind the passenger seat, and Celia hurried to retrieve it from the floorboard before it leaked.

  She took her eyes off the road for just a moment, but it was a moment too long.

  She didn’t see the car in front of her slam on its brakes to avoid hitting a deer. She didn’t see the distance between the two cars growing shorter until the front end of her vehicle slammed into the bumper of the other. Ellie and Celia gave near identical cries of alarm as the momentum threw them forward against their seatbelts. Celia instinctively stomped on the brakes, causing them to lock, and her grip on the steering wheel wasn’t strong enough to prevent the car from spinning out of control.

  The world was suddenly rotating around her, punctuated by a cacophony of sounds. Metal screeched and thudded as it twisted into unnatural shapes and bounced against the pavement. Glass shattered in a clashing symphony of minor notes, like a hand smashed against the highest keys of a piano. Celia could hear the terrified shrieks of her daughter as well as her own voice emanating from her chest in involuntary screams of pain and
fear.

  The law of gravity seemed to be completely suspended as the car flipped and rolled, and it was impossible to discern which way was up or down. For several terrifying moments, there was nothing but chaos, ear-splitting noise, and pain. So much pain. And yet, Celia realized as the car finally settled with a crunch onto its bent wheels, there wasn’t as much pain as there probably should have been. For that fleeting moment, she thought that perhaps they might have defied the odds.

  She could hear her daughter crying from the back seat. In a panic, Celia attempted to twist her body to check on Eleanore, but something was preventing her from moving. She looked down and saw that the steering wheel was missing, and the exposed steering column was embedded in her abdomen. Celia gazed at it in shock, and a distant, muted part of her brain wondered why it wasn’t more painful.

  “It’s okay, Ellie,” she groaned, trying to crane her neck around for a better look at her daughter. The little girl was clearly terrified, confined to a small space between the back of the passenger seat, the now-unnatural shape of the back door, and a pile of their belongings that had been thrown around the car. “Are you hurt? Do you have ouchies?”

  Eleanore nodded and continued to cry, reaching beneath her voluminous red curls to pat the back of her little neck. She felt wetness on her hand and was startled by the blood covering her palm and fingers.

  “Mama,” she whined, reaching toward Celia with outstretched, bloody hands.

  “It’ll be alright, baby. Someone will come help us get out. We’ll be okay. Shhhh. Daddy will come get you,” she promised, hoping it was true.

  Celia could feel the numbness spreading, and she knew instinctively that she had very little time. Eleanore was still crying, and Celia felt tears leak from her eyes, wishing she could hold her baby just one last time. She could see Ellie’s face though, and she drank in every precious feature.

  “Shhhh… It’s alright,” she crooned again. “Baby mine… Don’t you cry… Baby mine… Dry your eyes…” Her weak attempt at their favorite lullaby was interrupted by a sputtering cough, and droplets of blood sprayed the dash in front of her.

  “Mama… Help…” Ellie whimpered, reaching for her mother again. Celia twisted her arm awkwardly until she could reach the tiny fingers and squeezed them gently.

  “Don’t be afraid, Ellie. Mama loves you so much. I’m so sorry, baby,” she groaned, her voice becoming fainter as her lungs struggled to expand. “I’ll always be with you. Even if you can’t see me. Be a good girl for Daddy… Take care of each other, love each other…”

  Celia’s grip on Ellie’s small fingers began to slacken, and the edges of her vision began to dim. She kept her green eyes trained on her daughter’s terrified blue ones, wanting Eleanore’s sweet face to be the last thing she saw of this world.

  “Be a good girl for Daddy…”

  Ellie continued to whine and whimper, straining against her confinement as she watched her mother’s expression change. It was subtle, but something was definitely different. Celia’s eyes were still fixed on her, but she wasn’t really looking at her anymore. Her jaw was slack, and there was a thin trickle of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

  “Mama… Mama!” Ellie fought harder against the seatbelt and the objects trapping her in place. It was eerily silent now, and the chill of the October air seemed more pronounced.

  Her whimpers grew steadily louder until she was no longer crying but screaming. She didn’t stop screaming even when the darkness was illuminated by flashing lights and a group of paramedics managed to cut an opening into the car to pull her out. She fought against the confines of their arms as well, diving and reaching stubbornly toward her mother as she continued to wail.

  The men in the black coats frightened her, and she didn’t understand why they were taking her away from her mother. They put her into an ambulance and urged her to lay down, but Ellie shrieked and fought against the hands that held her in place, shrinking away from the medics as they checked her over for serious injuries.

  “Shhh, it’s alright, honey,” one of the men said, attempting to ease her panic. He was shouting in an effort to be heard above the sound of Ellie’s screams in the small space. “Can you tell me your name? How old are you?”

  But Ellie could not be consoled. She continued to scream until her voice became hoarse, and when they wheeled her into the Emergency Department of Advocate Sherman Hospital near Chicago, the on-call pediatrician did a quick exam before sedating her. As her eyes drifted closed, her shrieks subsided, leaving only a residual ringing in the ears of the medical personnel around her.

  “Do we know her name? Age?” the ER doctor asked the room at large.

  “Jane Doe for now. Couldn’t get anything out of her on the scene or en route, and the police are still checking the car for the mother’s ID,” one of the medics answered.

  “Status on the mother?”

  “Dead at the scene. This little one was screaming when we got there, and we couldn’t get her calmed down.”

  “Can’t say I blame her,” the ER doctor shook his head, checking the depth of the gash on the back of Eleanore’s neck. “She’ll need some stitches here, and we’ll get her to radiology before she wakes up.”

  The medic left to file his report, and a pair of interns wheeled Ellie off to radiology. Her scans revealed no broken bones or internal injuries, but she was admitted for an overnight stay since there was no known family member to contact. Her doctor had hoped that the police would be able to determine the little girl’s identity, but her mother’s purse had apparently been thrown from the car during the accident.

  When Ellie woke from her medicated slumber, she didn’t recommence her screaming, but if her doctors had hoped to get any information out of her, they were sorely disappointed. She didn’t make a sound. She refused to speak at all and didn’t even whimper when the nurses carefully prodded the stitches on the back of her neck. She stared blankly at the pastel-painted wall of her tiny room, her gaze steady and unfocused.

  “Anything yet?” a male voice asked from somewhere near her. The nurse who was sitting with her shook her head sadly.

  “No. The poor thing is in shock. It’s like she doesn’t even hear us.”

  “Don’t make assumptions; watch what you say around her. She’s had a very rough night, and I’m afraid it’s not going to get easier any time soon.”

  “They still haven’t ID’d the mother?”

  “No. The police will run the dental records and license plates, but that will take some time. They think the car was a rental.”

  “What will happen to her while they’re searching?” the nurse asked, eyeing the little girl in concern.

  “Social Services will find a temporary place for her once she’s discharged tomorrow. She was pretty lucky, all things considered. Nothing but bumps and bruises and only one cut that needed stitching. Hopefully they can locate her family quickly,” he sighed. “Anyway, page me if she says anything. I’ve paged Psych for a consult; maybe they’ll be able to get something out of her.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ellie’s eyes and expression remained blank as more medical personnel buzzed in and out of her room. The pediatric psychologist was unable to reach her behind the wall she’d built in her mind, and he diagnosed her with acute shock that could possibly evolve into PTSD. Unfortunately, as a temporary ward of the state with minor physical injuries, Ellie would have to be discharged to a foster home until her family could be located. They still referred to her as Jane Doe, and she refused to open her mouth to tell them her real name.

  The little girl was hiding safely behind her fathomless blue eyes, and she understood far more than any of the strangers around her suspected. She knew full well that her name was Eleanore Rose Gardner. She knew her birthday and her parents’ names and birthdays. She knew their favorite foods and colors. She could recognize the uniforms of her father’s favorite baseball team when they played on TV. She could even read a little, though she had j
ust turned four years old last month.

  And although Ellie had no real concept of death, she knew that her mother was never coming back.

  Ellie’s apparently vacant gaze remained unchanged as a social worker transported her carefully from the hospital to a temporary foster home in the suburbs of Chicago. The Colemans were nice people, the woman told her kindly. They would take care of her until her family came to get her. The little girl gave no sign that she’d heard or understood, and she didn’t fight when the social worker carried her to the Colemans’ front door.

  The Colemans were both in their upper forties and had no biological children. They kept a clean, modestly-furnished home and had as many as six foster children staying with them at any given time. Two were long-term placements, but the other four were rotated in and out depending on the needs of Child Protective Services. They were listed as an emergency foster home, and as such, they often ended up with severely traumatized children. They were indeed very kind, but their gentle voices failed to penetrate the barrier in Ellie’s mind.

  Ellie was introduced to the other children, who ranged in age from six months to twelve years. They regarded her with wary curiosity, but she maintained her silence and didn’t make eye contact with anyone. Mrs. Coleman carried her to the bedroom they’d set aside for the girls and placed her gently on the bed, keeping up a steady stream of idle conversation as she changed Ellie’s clothes and checked the dressing on her wound. She explained each step of the process as she went, not wanting to startle the little girl.

  “I have to go start dinner, sweetie. Would you like to come sit in the kitchen with me?” Silence. “You can stay in here, if you want. One of the big kids can keep you company, and we’ll come get you when it’s time to eat…” Nothing.

  Mrs. Coleman called the oldest girl, who was ten and went by the name Sam, into the room and told her to stay with the nameless toddler until dinner was ready. The girl huffed in irritation at being pulled away from the TV show she’d been watching, but she settled herself onto her own bed nonetheless. She stared with pursed lips at the new little girl, wondering what her story was. Not five minutes after Mrs. Coleman had left the room, a few of the other children came in to gawk at her.