Page 1 of The Art of Us

Chapter One

Ireland

Being a homeless teenager wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

“Totally one of your top-ten lies,” Ireland Raine muttered to herself. She scowled into the dark and tugged the sleeping bag she’d bought from the thrift store more tightly around her. The cold of the public bathroom seeped from the poorly painted cement floor beneath her and the cinder block walls around her and into her bones. She chuckled darkly. So many metaphors applied to her situation. The one that made her laugh was “my life is in the toilet.” It shouldn’t have been funny, but ...

The bathroom floor was big enough for her to stretch out on while lying down—which was good because even though at five feet, eight and a half inches she wasn’t exactly the tallest human alive, she wasn’t the shortest either. And she had never been able to sleep while curled up. The bathroom allowed her that space even if it didn’t offer much more. It sat at the edge of the woods located on the outskirts of the town of Arcata, California. The bathroom was practically forgotten since it wasn’t on the primary trails. Ireland had been sleeping there for the past several weeks, and, so far, no one had bothered trying to use it—at least, she didn’t think so. So she kept going back, finding a routine in her circumstances that were not exactly ideal but not as bad as she had first thought.

Sure, the dirty walls and spiderwebs in the corners by the small windows near the roofline were not fantastic. And, sure,if the devil showed up with his horned head and fanged mouth offering her a deal to trade her soul for a comfortable bed, a hot meal, and a hotter bath, she’d consider it a bargain. “At least I’m safe,” she whispered to herself. Safe-ish, anyway.

Not everyone in the world could say that.

The first day after Ireland’s dad left her had passed in a blind panic. The opened letter on the counter next to the bowl of cold, congealed ramen noodles gave her all the information she needed: the landlord was done with her dad’s excuses. A couple of guys would be coming that night to remove them from the apartment. By force, if necessary. The landlord was the criminal sort of greasy, weaselly guy who would consider busting out kneecaps and breaking fingers “necessary” if anyone was still found within the walls of the apartment when they showed up.

So her dad had done what he did best. He skipped town.

He just forgot to take Ireland with him this time. Her chest tightened at the betrayal she felt when she thought about it too long.He’d left her.Just left. Like it was nothing.

She knew he was gone for good because his stuff—meager and insignificant as it all was—had also disappeared. Some of her stuff had turned up missing too. She was sure he’d scavenged through her belongings in the hope of finding a few bucks or something valuable enough to sell.

Joke’s on him,she thought for the millionth time. He hadn’t found her money before he’d left. She’d kept her extra cash in a jar outside behind a rock that was almost invisible due to the overgrown weeds. Experience had taught her that her dad couldn’t be trusted around her money. He’d used it to buy cigarettes, alcohol, or both when she’d left enough lying around.

So what if he’d left? He hadn’t gotten his hands on that last bit of cash. Her chest swelled with satisfaction.

Of course, there would be more satisfaction if she’d managed to squirrel away more in her jar.

Eighteen bucks and a handful of pennies that didn’t even add up to a quarter.

Ireland had remembered the jar after the first wave of panic over her father leaving had passed and she was able to think rationally. Her current school was a good one. She was doing well, the teachers liked her, and her dad had done her the favor of applying for the free lunch program, so she was guaranteed one meal every weekday until she graduated in June. That was six months of food. Staying and finishing school would go a long way toward securing her independence. She would turn eighteen in a couple of months, so at least no one could put her in the system if her situation were discovered. Being a homeless legal adult was better than being a homeless child.

Lie?

Maybe.

Ireland had found the sleeping bag at Goodwill for six dollars and forty-seven cents. When she’d first seen it, the slightly suspicious stains, the zipper that didn’t work so it could never be unzipped, and the fact that it would take a third of her available finances made her turn up her nose at it.

She went back for it the next day, praying it was still available and almost weeping at the many degrees of gorgeousness that it still sat unclaimed on the shelf. A night of shivering without it and waking up so cold it took half of the next day to thaw out had also drastically thawed her frosty opinion. Of course, that had also been before she’d found her outhouse apartment, complete with electricity, running water—albeit cold—and a flushing toilet.

Ireland looked around in the dark and counted her lucky stars. At least she had shelter when it rained or got too windy—which, since it was January, was half of the time. At least she had a locking door.

As if to remind her that the lock wasn’t exactly substantial,something scratched around outside the bathroom door. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut.

There is no such thing as vampires, she thought to herself. There was no werewolf wanting to chew on her jugular. There was no public-restroom poltergeist rattling chains of eternal toilet torment.

And, okay, therewereserial killers and rapists and people who were the worst, but she’d decided not to think about them either. She was as safe from those societal monsters in this locked bathroom as she’d been in her locked apartment. So what if this door led directly to the outdoors? Didn’t all houses have doors that led to the outside? This was no different.

Total lie. Maybe not on the top-ten list, but it was up there. Top twenty. Maybe twenty-five.

The scratching sound, which was probably just a raccoon, finally stopped. Ireland let out the shaky breath she’d been holding despite telling herself there was nothing to be afraid of.

“I need a job,” she whispered to the dark. She whispered in case there was someone outside her door. Just in case a vampire, werewolf, specter, or serial killer decided to answer that they were hiring.

She needed a job that would allow her to save enough money to live somewhere near the college campus, where rentals were slightly cheaper and her being on her own would be just like everyone else instead of something strange.

She would rise above this situation. Her last name, Raine, was French for “queen.” At least, that’s what her dad had always told her. Whenever she felt like she was drowning in her situation, she reminded herself that she would rise above it, the way a queen was meant to do.

Of course, her dad was probably lying about what their name meant. And then there was the chance that Raine wasn’t really her last name but something he’d made up one day and thendecided to make official by changing the paperwork. He was the kind of guy who changed the world around him to suit whatever mood he was in.

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