black milk [RILEY]

[ROWAN SAMANTHA ELLIS]

Rowan, where are you going? Lately it felt like she was under house arrest, but her mother meant well. She just had to be honest and tell the older woman where she was going and when she would be home. Things were tricky as of late. Her curfew was shorter and she had to have her phone and a whistle of all things with her at all times if she left the house alone. “I wanted to go visit Riley.” She didn’t even have to say anything more than that. It was like code or something but without having an alternate meaning. “I wanted to buy him flowers and then see him and I’ll be right home. I promise.” She tried to smile at the older woman who seemed to have paled considerably. There was no protest however, something she was thankful for. Just if anything happens you call someone, family. Understand? Another nod and smiled and Rowan was outside and on her bike.

Their world was upside down in more ways than the young girl cared to count. Death was something that hit them all personally, but now the looming idea of ‘who was next’ was causing everyone to be on edge. Maybe going out alone wasn’t the smartest idea, but Rowan always went to see her brother. Every week she tired to see him and every other week she brought him flowers. She peddled her way into the city area of Manuka to stop by the flower shop she always went too. The woman was always so nice to her and knew why she was there without having been told. People like that were nice, no words were needed just a look of the eye and you had an understanding. Rowan looked all over for a different sent of flowers this time. She spotted peach colored roses with dark red tips. It reminded her of fire, which sent a chill down her spine. Riley was a boy, but surely he would understand the reason why she felt roses were appropriate.

Rowan often still acted as though Riley were alive. It upset her mother, but Rowan just couldn’t make it seem like he was dead. That would make it permanent. By keeping him like this, Riley would never actually be dead. He would just not be there with her. Her mother didn’t understand that logic, or maybe she just didn’t try too. Rowan wasn’t pushy so she didn’t force the issue, but brought it up as little as possible. Once leaving the flower shop, Rowan made her way to the large cemetery. Thankfully in the middle of the day it was less creepy, it felt so peaceful and calming. Parking her bike outside the gate, she took the bouquet and walked further inside. Her legs knew by heart which path to take to get to the tombstone she hated seeing. Yes, she hated it. How could someone not?

The young girl bit her lip hard and set down the flowers against the polished marble. Slowly she sat down in front of it and sighed. “I don’t think Mom likes me coming here anymore. Not since everything got… scarier? I don’t know how else to put it. No one really tells me much. Maybe they think it’s for my own good.” She sighed and looked at the clear blue sky and just kept talking. Yes, talking what the right thing. This was her brother, she had to talk to him. She wanted too. “She’s even making me carry this whistle just in case I get snatched up.” The young firetamer pulled out the whistle from the rope around her neck and showed it off, as though the tombstone actually had eyes. “I’d show you it’s mighty hunter warding powers, but I don’t want to be rude.” She laughed weakly and looked down at her hands. “I’m not going to lie to you, Riley… I’m scared. Not for myself so much, but Mom and Dad, Aphrodite and even Damon.” Rubbing her slowly misting eyes she shifted in the grass. “I started taking martial arts, I’m pretty tough too. You’d be proud to see me kick a guys ass.” Another laugh, but it was soon cut off by a small sob. “Riley, I really miss you.”

No, no crying right now. She had to keep talking but the girl was finding it difficult to defeat the growing lump in her throat. Why did she do this to herself? It felt like torture but at the same time when she went home she was happy to know she got to talk to her brother. The conflicting emotions didn’t help anything right now and she let out louder sob. Her hands moved quickly to silence it less she disturb anyone else around her. But how could one disturb the dead? Rowan was always worried about bothering others.

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[RILEY PRESTON ELLIS]

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And I wanna cry, I wanna learn to love

But all my tears have been used up

Most of his un-dead life was spent trying to dodge people and stay away from all of the people in his past life that he had loved. His family was the biggest in town of course so that was really hard to do. He had done a fairly good job of it though. But Riley was tired now. He was tired of having to look behind him every few seconds to make sure no one he was close to before his death was behind him. He was done with checking around every corner to make sure his brother wasn’t there to see him. He hated this. He just wanted things to go back to being the way they were before Remy had killed him. Riley wanted peace in his life again. The only way to do that was to finally reveal himself to his family. It was with a lot of Julian’s help that Riley was finally taking this step. Riley had already shown himself to Darby, though accidentally, and Julian had persuaded him to let the others in his family know of his existence.

Calan had been one of the top of his list and his cousin had been shocked and relieved among other things. He knew he was going to get a lot of hell from his family for doing this to them, but no one understood what it was like to fail so incredibly at something that they were ashamed to show their faces. At first when he was still Darby’s guardian he had thought that it would be easier for everyone if they just learned to live without him. One day he was going to have to watch every member of his family die and he would have to live with that. He thought it would just be easier if they didn’t know of him being around. But then he became a demon because he had killed Tobias, a retaliation to killing the only person he had ever loved, Issy. And then it was because he had failed as his own cousin’s guardian angel. He didn’t want to face the disappointment from his father or the shame that came with falling from heaven.

But Julian had insisted that no one would even care. Him being back would be more important to them than what he had done to get cast out of heaven. So he was taking that with him. He knew that if he didn’t do it now that he never would. So next on his list was his sister. Riley knew it should be Damon, but he was building up to that. Maybe he could take Rowan with him to meet their brother so that Riley could have the courage to show himself to him. But for now he had to muster up the courage to tell Rowan.

Both Riley and Damon had always been insanely protective over their baby sister. They wanted the best for her and nothing less and they wanted her to always be protected and safe. Riley didn’t even want to think about her with boys when he was still alive. But he knew it would one day be inevitable. Riley wondered if there was anyone in her life that she cared about. He admittedly hadn’t been looking into that part of her life because he still didn’t want to admit that she was old enough to make those kinds of decisions for herself. He still thought of her as his baby sister and didn’t want any dumbass teenage boy trying to corrupt her.

He had searched everywhere for his sister. Finally he ended up going by the Ellis mansion (invisibly of course) to see if she was home. But he heard his mother talking on the phone saying that Rowan had gone to Riley’s grave. His stomach dropped when she said the word again and Riley’s eyes swelled with tears. As he watched his mother he couldn’t help but wish he could just run to her and hug her. He wanted so badly just then to be able to hear her soothing voice tell him that everything would be all right like she did when he was a boy. She had done so when Julian had died and when his pet hamster went missing. She had always been able to get Riley to calm down. But he couldn’t do that now. He had to go find his sister.

So he went to his grave. It was weird. Riley hadn’t been there since his death and actually kind of hated it. But when he saw Rowan there he stopped. She sat flowers by his tombstone and then herself in front of it. He stayed invisible as he walked silently towards her. With every word she spoke his heart felt as if it were being pierced with a knife. Riley almost laughed as she pulled out a whistle from her pocket. Of course their mother would do that. Riley let his smile fade as she continued though. He could see the pain in her eyes. He sighed a little, making sure it was silent. His guilt tripled when she told him that she was scared. If he had just been there for her all this time he could have told her that he would protect her that nothing bad would happen to her. But she said she wasn’t scared for herself, which made him smile a little. She was a fearless one. He should have known as much because she had always been that way. Even if she was shy she always held her own.

Riley’s smile grew more when she told him about her martial arts classes. I’d be damn proud of you, he thought. His smile was quickly removed at her small sob. His heart broke into a thousand little pieces just then. He felt himself crying even before he realized that was what he was doing. He wiped his tears away and looked at his sister with puffy eyes. He took a few deep breaths before he finally said something.

“I bet you could kick my ass, too now.” Riley slowly made himself visible so he wouldn’t spook her by just suddenly showing up. He smiled at Rowan trying to make it seem like this was the most normal thing ever.

THANKS ❤

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[ROWAN SAMANTHA ELLIS]

There were so many legends and explanations for the feeling she had. The timeless old feeling of being watched but never actually seeing the person or thing that was watching her. The typical response for this would to feel frightened, but Rowan felt everything but fear. The young firetamer didn’t know how to explain it, even to herself, but the small sensation began to relax her and caused her tears to lessen. Whatever it was, she wished she could thank it or them. Rowan couldn’t help but snort at herself. This feeling could be anything, but attaching it to something real and tangible in a sense made her feel peaceful. She took in a breath and finally calmed herself down. Rubbing the tears away from her eyes she looked at the gravestone for a little longer, trying to find anything else she should tell her brother about.

“I also was able to get into all honors courses for this year. Mom and Dad were really proud, one of my teachers even suggested AP but I told them I wanted college level classes to happen when I was in college.” So long as she kept talking she wouldn’t cry. It’s not that she didn’t want to cry, but lately she had been doing enough of it. To much and she would pull herself into depression again and she had worked so hard to get out of it. Quickly she shook her head and began to speak again, but another person cut off her words. Her body tensed and she slammed on her guard. Hunter? Another supernatural? All her parent’s warnings began to let a small tinge of fear swell up inside her. ”I bet you could kick my ass, too now.”

The girl slowly turned to look at the man behind her. “Impossible.” She murmured. Her body moved without her knowledge and she stood up before the man. Riley stood before her, the same brother whose grave she was at. Her mind began to reel and her body felt like it would start to panic, but she pushed all that away for now. She ignored all possible warning signs that this might be a trap to harm her and the girl ran over to embrace the male as tight as she could. He was still taller than her so her face made it only to his chest. She buried herself in him and felt more tears come up. “Are you… you?” That sounded like a silly question but for all she knew he could be a ghost. Rowan realized she couldn’t hug a ghost, so he had to be something else. Trick or not, for the moment the girl was completely thrilled but confused.

Hugging him again she noticed he felt warm, but not as warm as other firetamers felt. With fire in their veins, by touch she was much warmer than he was. Rowan wanted to ask so many questions but she figured now was not the best of times. Right now her brother was with her, she didn’t know how but she felt like she was dreaming and she didn’t want the dream to go away. “How? Riley, how are you here? I saw…” She paused and bit the inside of her cheek hard. “I saw you… when we had the viewing. You were… “ She shook her head and rubbed her eyes free of tears. Was she the first person he’d come to see? She doubted it, but so long as she wasn’t forgotten that was good enough for the young girl.

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