FicWad

Ember Redfern had always been a strange little girl.
Impossibly kind and naive, but strange.
She saw the world differently to most; through her alert amber eyes she was able to see the good in everyone, even in the very worst of humankind. She was trustworthy, the kind of girl that just radiated innocence and goodness in a doomed world that grew darker and more troubled with each passing day. It wouldn’t be the first time that her Madonna loving Mother had compared her to the golden sun; ever shining and so important to life, yet sadly so overlooked. Like a shadow, Ember often was forgotten and over the duration of her short fifteen years she just blended into the background. There but never noticed, never seen.
Overlooked by so many, this odd little girl`s destiny was tied with unbreakable knots to group of others. Misfits, outcasts like her. Only she could save them, free them of their curse. The only downfall was that the saving of them would most likely be the ruin of her.
…
“Eat Mikey.” A stern voice ordered, a shiver of fear going down the mousy haired, lanky boy`s spine as he sat hunched over a bowl of untouched cereal.
The seventeen year old wasn`t hungry, in fact the mere thought of putting the limp looking wheat flakes into his mouth repulsed him, but you just didn`t say no to Echo. Though of slight build, with flimsy pale legs and weak arms, the flame haired woman was ruthless and cruel and sat at the head of the cursed Way family, ruling over the Zodiac members like an all powerful Queen. An all powerful evil, merciless Queen.
“I think that it is time you return to the main house, there is no use for you here, now is there?” her berry coloured lips curve upwards to form an amused smirk, contrasting against her sickly white skin.
“I am happy here.” he lied meekly, knowing all too well that the twenty six year old blue eyed girl would get what she wanted in the end. She always did.
“The foolish,silly little Cat is not coming back, not after all these years. I am sorry, but it is something that you have to accept.Build a fucking bridge and get over it.” she didn`t sound sorry at all, not in the slightest. She had hated Gerard, his long absent older brother, for no reason in particular, simply because he was the Cat.
And as the Cat, Gerard was an outcast even among the outcasts.
Mikey hated thinking of it that way, but it was the truth. No one ever said that the truth was kind; more often than not it was the most painful thing imaginable.
“How do you know that?” Mikey mumbled as he forced a mouthful of cardboard cereal down his throat, grimacing at the papery taste and the way it half choked him. How he wished it would. Then he would be free of this dreadful cursed life.
“Oh Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. Poor little Mikey. Gerard,” Echo pulled a disgusted face at the name, ignoring the glare this earner her, “has been gone since he was fourteen. We do not even know if he is still alive.” She grinned at that, enjoying the way it pained the young man to hear it. Echo took great pleasure form other`s pain. She always had. Some people liked the adrenaline rush that accompanied a rollercoaster, other enjoyed pain. And some, like her enjoyed other`s suffering.
“He is,” Mikey glared at her, throwing his spoon onto the tiled kitchen floor, a large crack appearing from the force and speed he had thrown it with, showcasing just how different he and his family were to normal people.
“Gerard wouldn`t die and leave me alone in this hellhole. He promised he would return to me.” Mikey bites his chapped lip to hold back his childish, shameful sobs, not wanting to give the cold, evil woman the satisfaction. “He will be back. He promised!”
But with each day that melted into the next, with each month that blurred into a new year without his older, wiser brother, Mikey began to lose just that little bit more faith in his long ago promise.