Blood and Roses

Chapter 1

Rosalia

"You've been standing there for fifteen hours now. Are you done yet?"

"You can't rush perfection," I told my best friend, Tamara Snow.

She sighed, "I don't even know why I agreed to this."

"Because I asked, that's why," I said, picking up the tube and squeezing out more gobs of paint onto my finger. "Finger painting is fun. I don't know why you're complaining."

"Because I've been your model and I haven't been able to move," Tami complained.

"This painting could define my career--I just know this is going to go for over a million at an auction."

Tami snorted, "You're a good painter and you can read tarot cards like no one else I know, but there's no way this is going to be worth over one million dollars."

"I am Brooklyn Terrace," I said, putting on my overly confident tone. "Everyone in this town loves my work. There's no way this could ever fail."

I drew squiggly lines in the paint, "Done!"

"Oh, thank God."

Tami stood up from her perch on the stool, "I'm going out to a party. And you are coming with me."

"Go on ahead without me."

"Oh, come on, Brook," Tami said. "You have to have fun sometime."

She came around the edge, looking at the painting.

"Holy shit," Tami said. In the painting, she was standing on a beach. Swirls of orange, pink, and yellow took up most the background with navy blue toward the edges mixed with purple. White dots were mixed in all over. Tami looked badass--almost like a goddess, her midnight blue eyes seeming unnaturally huge as she peered into the soul of the viewer. Her brown hair blew in the wind, tangled into knots.

"I know, right?"

"You have to submit this--it belongs in an art museum. Or something like it."

"I was going to submit the other one, that painting of the violin that I did earlier this year in art class."

"But this is incredible. There's no way anyone can refuse you."

"I don't know about that," I said. "There are better artists than me. Just ask Jenny."

Jenny, our friend Tris's foster mom, was an incredible artist. She ran a bookstore downtown and was always a bit on the eccentric side, but she knew a good work of art when she saw one.

"I don't know," Tami said. "There's something haunting about this...I can't put my finger on it."

She looked down at her feet, "Ugh, I'm going to go and change."

She disappeared down the hallway and I walked into the kitchen, washing my hands. I wouldn't admit it, but I felt dead on my feet. Last night I'd been consumed by nightmares of a pair of gold eyes, looking at me from the shadows. Then there was a castle burning, the night sky gleaming. The city beneath it was engulfed in green flames and plumes of smoke.

I studied the familiar callouses of my fingers. There were those lines on my fingers from pushing down violin strings, the indentations where my pencil or paintbrush belonged. But they could be something else--something different.

I shook my head. That would never happen, not if I had anything to say about it. But there were persistent people out there who wanted me on their side. They'd do anything to convince me to join them. And I couldn't agree to that, no matter what.