Order of the Omni: A Supernatural Romantic Suspense Novel (The Immortalies Book 1) Penny Knight (100 best novels of all time TXT) 📖

Scared, I ran back to my room, past the broken desk where I had put my house project on the night before, and straight into the air vent. Where I had spent many nights curled up hiding from her when she was on a bender or from random men that had peeped their heads into my room.

“Where is she?” I heard them say. They were getting closer. Three men entered my room.

The small breaks in the vent made it hard to see their faces. I sat there quiet and still. I had practice.

They looked behind the door, under my bed, anywhere they thought I would be hiding. Angry, the tall one with long dark hair took his hand and smashed my house. The sticks broke apart, shattered as the house crumbled to the floor along with my young wounded heart. Before he left, he swiped the only picture of my mother and me.

I stayed in the vent for hours on end, sobbing silently. The day had passed, then the night. It was the next morning when I found the courage to crawl out. I ran straight to the back door in our kitchen. I ran for what felt like hours from the back of our property. I did not stop, I did not look back, the thought of the men chasing me fuelled me to keep going. Until I landed on the doorstep of the Gottschalk family.

“I remember,” I sit straighter. “I don’t know who they were though.”

“You came to my sister, you were frightened. She had noticed the mark on your neck. We both decided to send you to me, where I could look out for you, protect you,” she says.

I am feeling numb, listening.

“Our family, I..” She swallows hard. “Elita, We are what some people might call witches.” Her eyes land on me for my reaction.

“Witches?” I ask dumbly. I heard her. But really, witches? I’m no longer going to say it isn’t possible. I can hear people’s fucking thoughts. Why wouldn’t the woman who raised me be a witch? How could I not have known? She has kept so much from me.

“Yes, we practice the art of magic. We use it to protect us from the dark, the evil in the world. It is our gift, and it runs in our blood. That is why you cannot hear me,” she says. “I have cast a shield around me, to protect my thoughts.”

“How did you know I even could?” I ask. That has been bugging me ever since I first arrived here.

“My sister, her granddaughter Evie, she has visions, too. Evie had seen it happening. She told us the change had taken place. Your magic, your gift has come to life.”

“How?” That still didn’t answer how or why it happened.

“There is much we don’t know about you. For years you were with me and there was nothing. Nothing to show us that there was anything to fear, nothing supernatural about you. That’s why it was safe for you to leave.” Her eyes settle on me. “What happened my dear? Something must have triggered the change.”

My dream. I have thought a lot about it this morning and on the drive here. I know Leo affected me, caused me the intense pain, but it was my dream, the little girl that gave me the gift, so to speak.

“I’m not sure. I had a dream.” I tell Franziska about my dreams I was having, the little girl and what happened. I leave out Leo, there’s something inside saying that I should keep that to myself.

“There are things in this world, Elita. They are dark and sinister.” Ok, I’m thinking that is true.

“I have something for you. Wait, I will get it for you,” she says as she leaves the room.

I feel as though she is holding back. This is the first time I have wanted to jump into someone’s mind and find what I am looking for. There is something she isn’t saying, and that’s what I wonder all the way home. I clench the amulet hanging from my neck she gave me. Leaving the place, I had felt most safe as a child. But now filled with trepidation as it hits me. I have been purposefully left in the dark by someone I had trusted. Let down. Again.

“A witch?” Topher scoffs. Sitting in our small office at work I play with the new amulet around my neck that Franziska had given me.

“That’s what she said.” I shrug. As crazy as it sounds, the truth is I’m realising I know nothing.

“Okay, a witch.” He takes a deep breath as it sinks in. “And that necklace stops you from hearing everyone’s thoughts?” He looks at it with disdain.

“Yeah, she says that the amulet is charmed and it will give a barrier between me and others’ minds.” My eyes are fixed on the black obsidian crystal in the centre.

“I can still hear,” I say. “But it will help me learn to control it, or so she says.” I tear my eyes away and look up to Topher, letting the long gold chain fall down as the black crystal hangs low.

“This is all so crazy,” he says as he runs both hands through his hair.

“Yep,” I agree. “She says not to tell anyone about my gift. If you could call it that. She says to go about my life as normal and she will try to get more information about what’s happened to me. Normal? There is nothing normal about my life at the moment. How the hell am I meant to do that?”

Topher lets out a chuckle.

“You, sit back and wait for information?” He shakes his head, eyes twinkling. “It’s like she doesn’t know you at all.” He smiles and I smirk. “What have you got planned?”

“I don’t know yet.” I lean back in my chair. Topher knows me like the back of his hand. “I think I am still processing, but there is no way I’m just gonna not