Alive & Hexing (Hexes & Hazards Series) Read online

  Alive & Hexing

  Hexes & Hazards Series Book One

  Shay Cabe

  Cover design: Paradise Cover Designs

  Copyright © 2019 by Shay Cabe

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  I’m all for sharing books with other people, but do it legitimately. If I starve to death because people are only reading pirated copies, my cat might eat me. No one wants to clean out that litter box.

  Contents

  Note to reader

  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

  Acknowledgments

  Find Shay Cabe

  To the girls who pushed me through the dark times, you know who you are!

  Note to reader

  This is a slow burn, Young Adult Urban/Paranormal Fantasy with Reverse Harem Themes.

  I hope you like going down the yellow brick road fast, cos Dorothy fell out of the car three miles back.

  Chapter One

  Life has a way of making you into a cynic without even trying hard.

  Something it did to me before my age even hit double digits.

  I stare at the front of the house with every bit of trepidation I’ve felt since Dad told me we were moving back to Singe. But the house in front of me doesn’t have the same peeling white paint and discolored, patchy roof. There aren’t broken concrete stairs that lead to an overgrown side-yard, brightly decorated with scattered wildflowers that grew from seeds that a little girl carelessly threw when she was sad. The front gate isn’t hanging by a single hinge with a stick figure teddy bear painted on it in faded yellow paint.

  This isn’t the same house, but this house—no matter how new, is in the same town. The town that I’ve tried so hard to forget, but can’t. This place and what happened here haunts me. It’s where my life changed forever.

  This is where I lost mom.

  “Nora, I know this is hard on you,” begins my father. Of course, it’s hard on me, but that never stops him from doing anything different. Like normal, I hold the words back and let him continue uninterrupted. “At least we’re in a nicer house. We can make new memories here,” he says, coming up to put his hand on my shoulder. The touch, no matter how simple, is nothing but awkward and when I remain tense beside him, he drops his hand to his side.

  He doesn’t actually care, and we both know the words coming out of his mouth are as hollow as the emotion behind them. His true feelings are that we should move on with our lives, move past mom’s death—forget that she ever existed. He has and expects me to do the same as easily as him. I know this because he told me and that entire conversation was made worse when he went on to say that he prepared for her death the minute he met her. I walked off and he hasn’t brought it up since.

  I think that would require him caring enough to know.

  Both of my parents are magic gifted, mom way more than my Dad. He thinks he’s a real wizard, like that famous Harry guy, but he’s only handy with old things and tools in a slightly more than normal sense. Mom is—was so much more, and something of a seer on top of it. She was the coven leader when she was alive, and a good one.

  Late one sleepless nice, we were both snuggled up on the couch watching movies when she told me she had a feeling she would not see me graduate high school. Months later she was dead, and to this day, the small flash of sadness in her eyes, is still as clear in my memory as if it happened yesterday.

  Dad overheard us that night, and they got into this huge fight about her being sad.

  When she was sad he always seemed to get angry about it. I never understood it, but she used to say that it was him being upset because he felt helpless.

  I’m not so sure about that.

  Mom was—I always forget the was part—one of the sweetest, most accepting people I have ever met. It took a special person like her to care about someone like my Dad—cold, selfish creature that he is. They were ill suited as a couple and I can’t remember a single instance of them ever being affectionate and happy together.

  Sticking that out for whatever reasons she did, makes her a much stronger person than I’ll ever be. The minute I get the chance to leave him, I’m gone—and I’m never looking back.

  Almost like he senses the negative thoughts about him circling in my mind, he gives me a dark look and then plasters on his ‘politician’ smile. Without a word, he heads towards the movers and I’m dismissed from his thoughts. He doesn’t like to face me when I think about things like this. Not that what I think is bothersome to him—he doesn’t give two shits about my opinions. It’s more that he doesn’t want other people to know what I think. Regrettably, he’s a social climber and the only opinions he cares about are of those people who can help him gain status.

  Something I have no interest in. Most of them are snobbish idiots who only have power because they have money or they were born with a name that carries weight. None of those people matter to me, so their opinions don’t either.

  Dad takes keeping up appearances to a whole new level. When we still lived in the city, he made a new ‘friend’ that was an assistant to one of the council members. That afternoon he bought new furniture for the living and dining room. All to impress a guest that stayed maybe fifteen minutes.

  Yet, he doesn’t buy food or clothes for me—or pay any of the bills. That falls on my shoulders and has since mom died. I’m positive that she paid all the bills before me. These purely selfish traits of his have always gotten to me, even as a kid. Mom always told me to be more patient with him and sometimes I hear her voice in my head when I’m about to lose my temper with him.

  I’m trying Mom, I swear, but I think I’ll end up failing more often than not.

  Dad wasn’t even there the day that she died. He was off doing some mysterious job for his unknown company that he never talks about. He didn’t see her face… didn’t look into the glee filled eyes of the man who took her life. Shivering, I absently rub one of the quarter-sized scars on my forearm—one of twelve sets to be exact. That’s how many times that murderous bastard bit me.

  Twelve.

  Those thoughts lead me down the path to others, that then lead me to the day it all happened. I fought back hard and somehow miraculously drove him off, but I was badly hurt and she was still dead; the only thing that saved me that day was the Hazard boys. They showed up and found me before death had its claws in too deep.

  Those four foster boys are my friends from a lifetime ago—at least, it feels that way—we were as close as family and always together. Ms. Hazard, the best foster mom on the planet adopted all of them. But because I’m a bad friend, I haven’t spoken to or seen them since my Dad and I left here five years ago.

  It was her and the boys’ faces I woke up to that awful day—not Dad’s. I fight the dirty look I want to give him for something he should’ve been there for, but because of his supposed job—wasn’t. It was days later that he took me away from the hospital in the middle of the night and we’ve be
en moving all over the country ever since then until now.

  To say he and I don’t get along is an understatement. Yes, I guess he loves me—I mean—he’s my Dad, but our personalities clash all the time, hard. He pretends like none of it happened. Ignoring me mostly, he spends all his time piddling with his rich friends and his artifacts. He’s constantly gone on trips all over the world while I raise myself in whatever craphole he’s moved us into.

  Until two weeks ago when he barged into my room and said, ‘We’re moving back to Singe,’ and promptly left on a weeklong trip leaving me to pack everything.

  I was so angry I spoke to a lawyer about leaving but was told I can’t. There’s no such thing as emancipation anymore, not even in the witch community where they expect us to act like grownups even at my age. It sucks, hard because I don’t turn eighteen for two years, so I’m stuck staying with him.

  It’s the last place I want to be.

  Most of it stems from the fact that I resent him and I’m mature enough to admit it. He emotionally abandoned me when I needed him the most because he refused to face what happened. Instead, he claims he was off on a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn new magic, something he sucks at on any level, and he didn’t learn a damn thing from his ‘special’ trip.

  The only things that matter to him are his status and his junk. As far back as I can remember he’s always obsessed over old magical items that no one else wants, and rubbing elbows with anyone with prestige at their coven parties, or the failure ones he sits up.

  Those are the only things in his life that have ever seemed important to him.

  My overpriced therapist, Rhonda, helped me figure out the resentment part out, then she slept with my Dad and I fired her. She’s one in a long line of many. Women flock to him like flies to a big, old pile of poop. Something that has never made sense to me; he isn’t exactly charismatic or good-looking. His light brown hair is typically drenched in hair gel, his clothes—although expensive, rarely match correctly or fit right. Plus, he has total dad-bod. Which doesn’t stop him from wearing too those tight shirts that pooch out when he moves a certain way. And his brown eyes are always bloodshot like he’s had one too many sleepless nights.

  Not to mention the evidence of his multiple plastic surgeries. I think he got those because he’s rather vain about himself. The last one had his eyebrows stuck up in surprise for a month. If it isn’t obvious yet, he also loves spending money. He filled most of our old places with expensive crap that reminded me of something you’d find in an old antique store. I guess it was to impress but to me it looked trashy.

  The only reason his wasteful spending habits stopped were because his share of mom’s money ran out and he can’t touch mine. This is a recent event and one that pisses him off daily. He can’t make me give him money and he lets me know how ungrateful a daughter I am at least once a month.

  My thoughts move onto more pressing concerns. The Hazard boys.

  None of the crap that’s happened in the last five years explains or excuses why I didn’t keep my promise and keep in contact with them. That was all me playing my avoidance game to keep from dealing with what had happened. Some of it was me being… ashamed.

  I worked through that some of that too. Rhonda was a great therapist, just a terrible person. Still even with her advice, I didn’t try to contact them in any way.

  That shame I felt—feel, didn’t stop me from missing them horribly for the last five years. Too many times to count, I started an email or a letter, but then deleted it or threw it away. After what happened I couldn’t face them. Not then. I’m not even sure I can do it now. Even though a big—bigger than I’d like to admit—part of me really wants to see them. Has always wanted to see them.

  My tangled emotions always get in the way.

  In two days, I won’t have a choice about it anymore. I have to go to school and there’s only one school here. Since I’m only a sophomore, that leaves the rest of this year and two more after. There’s no way I’m dropping out and ruining my one shot at going to college and getting away from this cage of guilt and resentment that my Dad calls home. Mom’s life insurance policy ensures all my expenses are covered and my tuition will be paid. College is my getaway plan, and in two years it’ll be a reality. Honestly, I’m not even sure my absence will be noticed, just my bank account.

  I guess it sounds awful when I think about it that way, but it’s nothing less than the truth.

  The slutty therapist insisted on how much my father loves me; that he just can’t look at me because of his own guilt. I don't feel like that's good enough and probably not the total truth; he’s the adult in this situation, the parent. A parent should get beyond those things for their child.

  Especially a traumatized child.

  With a sigh, I walk towards the front door, ready to get busy unpacking and maybe be able to pull myself out of the emotions knotting my stomach. I will work through them. I won’t let this town or the memories that come with it beat me. This is a temporary place for me, a rest stop in the life journey I have planned for myself. The day I graduate, I’m leaving, but I refuse to be miserable while I’m here.

  Dad isn’t entirely wrong. I can make better memories here to overwrite the bad ones, or make do with softening the ones that already exist.

  Holding my breath, I step through the door and then feel silly for doing it. What do I expect to happen? A lightning bolt to strike me down or a choir of heavenly voices to announce my entrance? The vice in my chest eases. It’s just a house, in a stupid little town. It doesn’t even look the same as our other one. I shove the pain down, way down and even stomp on it a few times.

  I refuse to cower to brick and mortar; looking around me, I amend my thought—or plywood and cheap drywall.

  With more confidence, mostly stemming from the fact that I need to pee, I head upstairs. This house is bigger, with a more open and inviting floor plan. I can’t help but appreciate the space. We’ve lived mostly in cramped apartments since we left Singe. This is everything but. The bedroom Dad had the movers shove all my stuff in is enormous, probably the biggest bedroom I’ve ever had. From what he told me in the car, as he talked at me instead of to me, he had the walls between two smaller bedrooms torn down to make it one big room. Doing a one eighty in the center of my new room, I find the brightness of it pleasantly surprising. Purple walls surround me, stunning in their brilliance. A beautiful, vivid purple that almost makes me cry, in a good way.

  The therapist was right, something I hate admitting considering what she ultimately did to me. He does listens to me. Purple is my favorite color, this specific shade in fact. As a child, I asked him several times to paint my rooms that color; I wanted everything to be purple.

  It’d be nice if he listened to more important things than paint colors, though.

  Spotting the attached bathroom, I check for the necessities and quickly take care of the bravery bolster that drove me up here. When I come back out into the room, I freeze in my tracks. Dad is standing in the doorway looking at the walls with annoyance on his face. When he turns to me the confident, fake smile replaces it.

  “Hope you don’t mind the color, Nora. When Maggie suggested I let the boys do the remodel, I couldn’t turn it down. They did it for free.” Disappointment leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. So, he didn’t listen and paint the walls my favorite color. I can’t believe I was dumb enough to even entertain the idea. Without another word he turns and walks out of the room, whistling.

  Ignoring the small, but sharp sting of hurt, I shove it aside. The desire to be busy and not think too hard draws me to the boxes. The movers already brought everything up, so I can unpack it all in one go. Reluctantly, I look around me at the lovely bright color taunting me and realize that I’ll need to thank the ones who had been thinking of my favorite color. Maggie is Ms. Hazard and the ‘boys’ are the… Hazard boys.

  Eventually, I’ll get around to it.

  I’m not sure they will know what to do
with me. I don’t know what to do with me half the time. I’m not the devoted little girl who followed them around mildly hero worshipping them. Not even close. I’m not like everyone else my age anymore and I know it. A fact that I’ve accepted about myself and the complications it brings into my life every single time it involves other people.

  Relationships aren’t my forte.

  I blow a breath out to move the hair that’s sticking to my face. Monday, I start school, and I’m determined that this will all be done before then. Plugging in the stereo sitting against the wall, I sigh and put my phone on the dock attached to it. Music is a must have for me and when it starts to play, some stress melts away.

  I love music. I think sometimes it’s one reason I remain sane.

  As the bass of the song playing sinks into my skin, my foot taps on the floor, the flip-flop rhythm of it makes an echoey smacking sound on the wood beneath it. More energized, with a reluctant smile on my face, I tear open the first box.

  Time to get to work. With a solid plan in mind, I get to it, sort of. Despite my attempt at self-distraction, I think of the boys a dozen times or more over the next few hours.

  My will power is phenomenal.

  Being a relatively organized person who’s adept at packing, I placed things in a tidy manner that’s easy to unpack. The task takes me less time than I expected, leaving me a little disappointed. Busy hands give me an excuse to try to not think about how much I’m dreading starting school while simultaneously looking forward to seeing the boys.