Going Nowhere Read online

  Going Nowhere

  Lena North

  Copyright © 2018 by Lena North

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover design: Copyright © 2018 by FAB Publishing.

  Illustrations on cover: Copyright © 2018 by Lena North

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Discover other titles by Lena North:

  Birds of a Feather series:

  Wilder

  Sweet Water

  Picture This

  Black Snow

  Reaper

  The Islands:

  Seaborn

  The Dreughan series:

  Courage

  Reason

  Joy

  My thanks

  To my parents for providing my genetic makeup, and everything else.

  Dear reader

  This book was a project I started on Wattpad a while back, mostly to do something different, and differently – I have enjoyed myself thoroughly, and I hope you do too as you dive into the crazy world Kitty lives in!

  If you at the end of the story are eager to read more about Kitty and the others, please let me know by adding a review where you picked the book up, on Goodreads (www.goodreads.com), or let me know via my web-site and social media (@lenanorthbooks).

  Thanks!!

  /Lena

  Chapter One

  And so it begins

  “What in the everloving fudge did you do?”

  “Nothing,” I said, wishing I didn't sound so guilty suddenly.

  “You got fired from the cushiest dog-walker job in the whole state. You clearly did something.”

  “I did not,” I said, switching quickly from guilty to defiant.

  And yeah, that was pretty much a lie but seriously? The dog had totally started it.

  “Is Pookie still alive?” Elsa asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

  Elsa.

  The sweetest girl with the biggest heart in the whole world.

  My best friend.

  And a unicorn.

  At least when she wants to be one, which isn't very often. Elsa works in a library and having a big, white unicorn stomping around would make her boss give her a death-glare over her glasses. Or shush. Since no one glares and shushes like a librarian, most of the time she's just a regular homo sapiens like me.

  Except, of course - I'm a witch.

  Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way the gnarly, grey-haired and wart filled kind of witch. They live over in Hanksville. I am a white witch from the covenant of Nim, which means that I have no warts at all.

  I have black hair, a tall and willowy body, translucent, white skin, and dark brown eyes.

  Or, yeah. No.

  But I should have.

  The thing is; my witchiness comes from my mom but my dad is a huge, white-haired werewolf of Scandinavian descent, and his genes were pretty dominant in the whole creation of me, probably because he's a pretty dominant kind of guy. And since I'm partly a wolf, I got brownish, wavy hair, green eyes, and skin that tan quickly in the summer. There's a faint band of freckles across my nose, and no one in their right mind would call someone with my booty willowy, although that could have less to do with my wolf part and more with the fact that I deal with all the shit life keeps throwing at me by gobbling down unfortunate quantities of anything Reeces. And cookie dough.

  “Of course the stupid thing is alive,” I snapped.

  “How in the hell could you get sacked, Kitty? You're a dog yourself.”

  That last bit came from Joel, my other best friend.

  Joel is a widget, which is the coolest thing because they are super rare but super useful. And popular, which isn't much of a surprise since widgets communicate with anything controlled by computer code, and changes that code as they wish unless it's protected by another, stronger, widget.

  “Am not,” I snapped

  “Half dog.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but we'd had that particular argument since the three of us met en route to detention, outside the principal's office in Saint Honoria of the Immaculate Transformation High School, so I shut it again and glared at him.

  He glared back.

  When this had gone on for a while, I gave in.

  “I just growled, okay?”

  I'm not a shifter like daddy, and the three spawns of Satan also known as my brothers, but I have enough wolf in my blood to heal quickly, run fast - and growl in a way that scares the bejeesus out of virtually anyone.

  The only animals in our part of the world that don't leave an embarrassing puddle behind when the wolves growl are bears, so of course my darling daddy had to go and get re-married to one. I love my stepmom Janie to pieces, but it would have been a lot easier to get away with shit if he'd picked, say, a fox-shifter or even one of the cats.

  “So,” Elsa murmured. “You now have no job, no money, no way to pay rent, and as a consequence absolutely no other choice but to move back home.”

  Crap.

  That was an uncomfortably clear, and accurate, summary of my situation.

  Double-crap.

  I'd have to move back home.

  I grew up with my dad, stepmom, and brothers in an enormous house on the outskirts of a small town called Nowhere, and yes, I've heard every stupid joke there is about that name.

  Yes, even .

  And .

  My parents split up two hours and fourteen minutes after I was born, and I rarely see my mom, so no one in town hesitates to call her, “the witch that starts with a b,” in my presence. I actually find that hilarious, considering my dad's furry persona, but it's also not wrong.

  Two days after leaving dad, and me, Mom got married to a wizard with the fantastically unspellable name Aïdan Azdjakzian. Aïdan is a snooty, highbrow, wave your wand in the face of anyone kind of man that I do not like. My friends and I refer to him as “the Az,” and needless to say, he does not like me right back.

  Mom and the Az decided to procreate with an embarrassing speed and provided me with four half-sisters. They're also witches, which quite possibly indicates that the genetic makeup of his Aziness isn't as superior as he likes to think.

  As is the custom among the witches of Nim, my sisters have names from mother nature, and they're called Rose, Poppy, Lily, and Iris.

  I, on the other hand, am called Hibiscus.

  Giving me that ridiculous name was probably the bitchiest thing mom has ever done when she so easily could have called me something like Hazel, which is a really whitchy name. It's also my grandmother's name so it would have been completely fitting, but Grandma Hazel has a well-developed and highly sophisticated sense of humor, which means I love her, but Mom doesn’t.

  So yeah, my mother is Fuchsia de Chamontelette-Azdjakzian, and I am Hibiscus Brown.

  My dad is called Biff. Biff Brown. No joke. And he populated the world even quicker than Mom because my brothers are triplets. This is uncommon among the wolves, and unheard of with the bear shifters, which makes it a source of great pride with Dad, who talks way too often about the speed and agility of his swimmers. Since I really don't want to think about semen and my father at the same time, or even in the same millennium, I have learned to zone out when he starts bragging.

  My brothers are young enough to still get away with acting stupid, and they used to call me Biscuit. This was cute when I was five
, but since everyone else abbreviates it to Kitty, I guess I should be grateful to them.

  “You can crash at my place for a while,” Joel offered, knowing that moving back in with my dad sat right at the top of a long list of things I did not want to do.

  Since he sublet a shoe-box condo and dated a long string of ridiculously dimwitted girls, it was nice of him, but there was no way I'd take him up on that offer.

  “Nah,” I said casually. “I'll be fine. Dad and Janie will be happy to have us all under one roof again.”

  They absolutely would be. Super. Fucking. Happy.

  Dad because then he could pretend that I was five again, and hence could pretend that I spent absolutely no time at all being more or less naked with anyone.

  Janie because she's a bear, and her sole focus are on her cubs and her mate. Lucky for me, she claimed me right away as her cub. Or pup. Or cup… or whatever. And yes, she calls Dad her mate, which is sweet and ridiculous in equal measures. It also means we have to tell the few visitors finding their way to Nowhere that Janie is from Australia.

  “You could stay with Fuchsia and the Az,” Joel said, grinning widely and wiggling his brows to indicate that it was a joke.

  As if that was needed.

  From the first time they met, which unfortunately was whilst I was exiting detention, my mother and Joel disliked each other. Mom because she never seems to like anyone. Joel because she told him he looked like a carrot.

  To her defense, she probably meant it as a sort of weird compliment because anything coming from nature is worshiped by the witches of Nim. Also, Joel did look a little like a carrot back then. He grew into his height though, and the longish red mohawk he keeps tied to the back of his head looks über-cool. Hence the string of silly girls chasing him around.

  “Mom would alternate between moaning about my lack of ambitions and making me chant weird shit. The Az would offer me money to move out which is something I won't be able to say no to,” I said. “And then I'll owe him.”

  “Not good,” Elsa said. “Never good to owe a wizard in general. The Az…”

  She trailed off because there really wasn't any need at all to share how not good it would be for me to owe that particular wizard anything at all. Ever.

  “Right,” I sighed. “Gotta go.”

  “They know you're coming?” Joel asked.

  I shook my head and sighed again. “I'll surprise them.”

  My car started coughing out a clunky rattle as I drove out of the suburbs and when I was going up the mountain, it escalated to the sound of severe car-bronchitis. By the time I turned to my parents' driveway, it felt as if the car was skipping its way forward like a seven-year-old with a rope.

  It died a quick death right outside the big brown double doors where a group of people was waiting.

  Biff Brown. Janie Cameron-Brown. Bill, Joe and Tom Brown.

  And Hunter Brown. My darling and totally outrageous Grandpa.

  What the hell was he doing there? And what was that on his head?

  “Welcome home!” Dad shouted happily before my feet had even hit the ground. “Your room is ready and waiting.”

  Shit.

  Pookie's owner would have called the police to help find her missing dog.

  Dad was the sheriff. And not stupid.

  My life truly sucked. Hugely.

  Chapter Two

  It’ll be like summer camp

  “Hey Daddy,” I wheezed out as my ridiculously overprotective father squeezed me with his strong arms.

  He smelled of the outdoors, and soap, with a little hint of last night's grill coming from his flannel shirt. The badge on his chest felt cold against my cheek, and I wondered if it'd leave a mark, just for a little while. That would probably please Daddy, who would have tattooed a big sheriff's star on my forehead if I'd let him.

  Dad's official title was actually chief of police, but he'd early on in his career shared widely how using that title would be disrespectful to the Native Americans and that he was the goddamned sheriff and nothing else. I'd never figured out if Dad meant that as a joke or not, partially because Dad's closest friend, Robbie Blackbear, always chuckled and wiggled his brows when he heard it. Also, Daddy was a huge fan of old western movies in general, and Clint Eastwood in particular, so his wish to be called Sheriff Brown could come from a genuine desire to be like “the Clint." Either way, it didn't matter because Dad was elected to perform his duties, so it actually made more sense for him to be called sheriff.

  The elected part of his appointment wasn't as much an election as the whole population of Nowhere county showing up at City Hall every four years to nod when Robbie Blackbear asked them if they wanted to keep Biff Brown as chief of police. Dad had a ten-year streak of zero unsolved crimes, and everyone wanted to move on to the whiskey-laced upside down cake Tina Blackbear made specifically for these events, so the whole thing usually took less than a minute.

  Biff Brown was also the alpha of the local werewolf pack and had been since Gramps decided to retire twenty years ago. According to the lore among regular people, this should have involved a massive fight to the death between them, something that always made the wolves crack up because really? Why would we do something like that?

  In reality, Gramps came home one day and told Dad, “Going to Florida for the winter, Son. You're it.”

  Then he left and spent the next three months soaked in raspberry margaritas, earning his living by singing Jimmy Buffet covers in a bar in Key West. I'm not supposed to know that he came back because of an angry husband or twenty, and a need for a hearty dose of penicillin. Both for Gramps and a few of the husbands apparently.

  “You shouldn't have growled at that dog, sweetie,” Dad admonished me gently.

  “He shouldn't have peed on my leg,” I retorted.

  Dad stepped back to stare at said limb with a look of horror on his face, and I moved to the back of my car to get my bags.

  “He -” Dad paused and tried again, “He peed?”

  “I was standing there, minding my own business, texting Elsa. Pee. Leg.”

  My brothers were giggling like the stupid morons they were. Janie shook her head in disbelief, and Gramps barked out laughter.

  “Jesus. Were there no trees around? Bushes?”

  “I was in the park.”

  Another laugh came from Gramps, although it sounded mostly as if he choked on something.

  “But you're a wolf,” Dad said.

  “Apparently Pookie missed the memo.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  Since I didn't want Dad to say the words which so very clearly were at the tip of his tongue, I turned toward the porch and murmured casually, “Hey everyone.”

  “Welcome home, Kitty,” Janie said with a sweet smile. “Dinner's ready in ten. Pork chops.”

  My casual smile turned genuine.

  “Mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy?”

  “Of course.”

  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stay with my parents for a while, I thought. Rice Krispies and fast food had only been fun the first few weeks after moving out, and my cooking skills were nonexistent, to the point where I sometimes burned eggs when I boiled them.

  “Hello there, Kitty my darling,” Grandpa Hunter said. “You're moving in too, I hear.”

  Too? Gramps lived in the only apartment building in Nowhere, where most of the old folks preferred to spend their golden years. It was close to the stores and the small health care clinic, and they had the community center on the ground floor where they could meet and play Parcheesi or whatever else they did to amuse themselves.

  “Lovely hat,” I said instead of asking about his residential difficulties because I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know what had happened.

  “It's not a hat, silly. It's my skivvies.”

  I was neither blind nor stupid, so I'd seen that.

  “Okay,” I said, forcing myself to not ask about that either.

  I was pre
tty sure any answer would be embarrassing, and I was not wrong.

  “Keeping them warm,” he said with a grin and an eyebrow wiggle I suspected he thought was lecherous. I could have told him that except for the drunken months in Florida, his time as a womanizer was over and had been for more than fifty years. The grin widened into a smile showing the gold teeth at the back of his mouth, and then he added, “Good for the balls.”

  “B -”

  “Let's eat,” Janie cut me off in a voice that was eerily calm. “Hunter. No headwear at my table, you know this. Boys, wash your hands. Mate, if you want a beer then go get it.”

  No one argued with Janie when she sounded like that. She might be five feet four and cute as a button, but she was still a bear, so we trooped inside and had dinner.

  “Let me see if I got this right,” Dad said, pushed his empty plate forward and leaned back.

  Oh crap. I knew that voice.

  “You got a job as a cashier at the supermarket. And got fired.”

  It didn't sound exactly like a question, but I nodded anyway. I could have told Dad that the old lady had been really offensive and totally deserved to have her cake smashed. Maybe not into her face, but that had been her fault. Completely. I'd meant to wiggle it a little, and if she hadn't leaned forward to poke me in the ribs, I would have put it down again.

  “Then your mother set you up with that office-job,” Dad went on. “I know,” he cut me off when I wanted to protest. “It was a stupid thing to do, but Fuchsia has never been -” He cut himself off and winced, which meant Janie had kicked him in the shin. Hard. “Anyway. You got fired.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  The job had been one endless and mind-numbingly boring shuffle of papers, and there was no A/C in my small office in the basement. As a consequence, I mostly spent my days sleeping, leaning my head on the desk in front of me. Then the big boss walked in unexpectedly on a warm summer day to say hi to his dear friend Fuchsia's daughter, and I straightened just a little too quickly.