by Laura Winter
By the time we reached Jeanie’s cabin, the sun had ducked under the horizon and very little light was left to illuminate the rocky path up to the door. We wouldn’t be able to search tonight.
The fireplace burst to life as we walked in. I could see a tiny bathroom behind a cramped kitchen. The old fridge whirred loudly, completing the picture of a worn and outdated place.
“Wow, Jeanie made House and her library so nice. At least she got us a fire,” I said. I turned my nose in disgust as Nate sat on the bed, hearing it creak. Actually, I’m pretty sure dust puffed out of the comforted.
“Better than an operating table,” Nate replied. He dropped back and sent more dust flying. He coughed and sat back up, waving his hand through the air.
“Why do you think it was so important we come here?” I asked. I joined him on the bed and pulled the book out of my bag. The pages were still blank, but I guess I sort of expected that.
“Maybe there will be something to sue against the Cold Souls. Assuming they just have our memories, they probably don’t know about this place,” he said before laughing to himself. “My mom is going to have a field day with all this if we find answers.”
I frowned. “Do you think they are okay back at The Complex?”
“Probably. My mom can talk her way around almost anything.” He stood up. “Come on. Help me shake out these blankets. We have to get up early.”
58
Nate
The morning light made the cabin look even more pathetic from the outside. We were out the door just as the sun started to rise, mostly because neither of us had slept well on the lumpy mattress. It didn’t help that the fridge started to make a clanking sound in the middle of the night.
Dried and cracked trees scattered the rocky ground. Some were completely splintered while others were bent and tilted, facing away from where we were walking. The farther we hiked away from the cabin, the more damage the trees seemed to have taken. Jeanie was right about the old Complex being destroyed. Whatever did this was insanely powerful.
After about forty minutes, we stumbled into an opening. Trees had been completely uprooted from the rocks, littering the ground around our feet. The blast seemed to originate in the center of the clearing. We climbed and scrambled over the rocks until we stood in the middle, observing the mess around us.
“What the hell happened here?” Clara asked, her mouth hanging open as she looked around.
“How could this have been a Complex? There’s nothing left,” I said. What sort of answers were we going to get from a place that looked like this.
“There’s no proof that there was ever anything to begin with. What are we supposed to write in the book? ‘All that’s left is absolutely nothing’?” Clara growled, throwing the book down in anger.
The spine hit the rock at an angle, popping the cover open as it settled on the ground. The pages were still blank as they started fluttering in the breeze.
Wait, there wasn’t a breeze.
Clara’s eyes got wide and I saw her knees buckle. I didn’t have time to make it over to her before mine did the same.
“I swear, if I pass out again—“ Clara heaved and slapped her hand over her mouth, stopping her sentence before she threw up. The same nausea punched me, spinning the horizon until I couldn’t figure out which way was up or down. I gave up trying to steady myself and just shut my eyes.
Something brushed against my nose. I flinched my hand up as a reflex, grabbing grass between my fingers. My eyes opened to the bright sun, but it didn’t blind me. Sitting up, I tried to put the pieces together. I was in a meadow, scattered with trees, but none of it was familiar.
I felt a hand press into my shoulder and I spun, grabbing the wrist of the person and twisting them to the ground. Clara wiggled under my grip, pissed. I tried to open my mouth but nothing came out. Not even my thoughts could get through to her.
She yanked her hand away and pushed me off of her, annoyed. I tried to mouth ‘sorry’ to her but she just rolled her eyes and picked herself off the ground. She rubbed her wrist while her eyes focused on something behind me.
I turned around to see a small village in the distance. People were walking around, going about their morning, but it was anything but normal. We watched an old woman lift an entire wagon of fruit off the ground and over her head with incredible strength. A father picked up his child before turning invisible, letting the child squeal as it looked like he was flying off the ground. Another young man entertained a group of children by shapeshifting into different animals, letting them chase a cheetah, a monkey, and then a dog through the buildings. These people all had powers.
Clara stepped in front of me so I could see her face. ‘Complex’ she mouthed, nodding toward the village as she started walking. I followed closely, letting her lead because she looked like she knew what she was doing. Maybe this was what her memory was like back at the cave. It explained why she didn’t want to pass out. That wasn’t fun.
The village people didn’t notice us as we walked directly up the aisle of their buildings, though they were all acting strange. Some looked nervous, their eyes dodging between the people around them and back to one of the buildings. Standing at the head of the plaza, similar to how our Complex was designed, was a large stone structure, tall and threatening against the meadow backdrop.
Clara stuck her arm out and I followed her finger. She was pointing to the side of the structure where a boy our age had stuck his head around the back. He looked about as nervous as the rest of the village. We moved toward him, but as we made it to the front, his head yanked back like he had been pulled away. I took off running, dragging Clara behind me.
I skidded to a stop after turning the corner. The boy was pressed against the back of the building, making out with a girl. Clara leaned her head on my shoulder and watched them, squeezing my hand. Of course she thought this was cute. I just felt uncomfortable watching two people kiss who didn’t know we were there. The girl pulled her lips away and pressed her forehead against his.
“Don’t be nervous,” the boy whispered, reaching his hand up as he held her cheek.
“Right, why would I be nervous?” she groaned. “They’re only asking me to completely recharge all the power sources. No big deal.” She rolled her eyes along with her mocking tone.
Clara and I stiffened.
“Kins, you know what to do. It’s not that big a deal.”
“Of course it’s a big deal, Isaac. All I’ve been told my whole life is ‘Kinsie, you won’t get to have powers because it’s your job to make sure everyone else gets to have them in the future.’ It’s bullshit,” she snapped, folding her arms.
“But you do have powers,” Isaac said, pulling her arms away.
Clara hit my side to get my attention, as if I hadn’t just heard what they had said.
“Yeah, and so do you, but neither of us have gone through The Trials. It doesn’t make sense,” she replied, pulling her hands out of Isaac’s to rub her temples.
“Look, all you have to do is use the Soul to power the rest of the sources. They said the object would tell you what to do when you touched it.”
Kinsie shook her head. “Isaac, I’m telling you. I’ve been hearing these voices and I’m not sure it’s a good idea. No one has ever done this before.”
Isaac slid his arms around Kinsie’s waist and pulled her close again. “Kins, you play with shadows and darkness. I’m sure there are all kinds of monsters hiding in there, saying things. It’s probably nothing.”
“If you can read minds, why can’t you hear the voices in my head? Please, Isaac, you have to believe me.”
Clara shot her hand over her mouth in reflex, even though we couldn’t make sounds and they couldn’t see us. These two had our powers before The Trials. They were us.
“I’m sure you’re just nervous. Come on, they’re going to be looking for you,” Isaac said, picking up her hand. He pulled her through us and walked around the corner.
Ouch.
At least I believed Clara. Poor Kinsie.
Clara yanked my arm and chased after them. They had been stopped at the front of the building as an older woman pulled a reluctant Kinsie toward the entrance. Isaac stood still as Clara studied his face, standing directly in front of him. She looked upset at him, shaking her head as he looked right through her, watching Kinsie disappear into the structure. I pulled Clara away and followed Kinsie and the woman inside.
The building was just a giant stone room, each of the three walls in front of us a tall monolith. Small cracks in the walls let sunlight creep in, scattering the reflections of the power sources that sat on a stone table against the back wall.
“The Soul will tell you what to do,” the woman said, lettin ggo of Kinsie’s arm as she turned to leave.
“Wait!” Kinsie said, wringing her hands together. “If no one has used it before, how do you know what it does?”
She smiled. “It’s written in the stars.” The woman slipped out the front as the door shut behind her.
“Great, that’s not vague or anything,” Kinsie groaned and turned back around, stepping up to the table.
Clara and I walked closer. Power sources scattered the table, glinting with faint color in the sunlight. I saw The Ruby in the corner, a weak red glow lighting the surface, the only source besides two marbles that had light left in it. The Blue Soul sat on the right of the table, shining bright blue without the sun.
Clara leaned in closer for the same reason I did. The Soul Kinsie was looking at wasn’t actually blue. The light was black somehow, humming and rattling gently on the table. It wasn’t the Blue Soul she was going to pick up. It was the Cold Soul.
Kinsie shot her hand out as I tried to grab the source to stop her. My hands slipped right through hers as she gripped it between both her palms. Clara and I watched in horror as the black light crept up her arm, shaping and forming in slivers just like our lightning scars. Kinsie realized what was happening and started to fight back. The mark sank back toward her palms, shaking as she started to push her hands closer together as light around us started to fade.
No, the entire room was fading into blackness. Kinsie was creating the darkness that I had once made by accident.
But the Cold Soul was too strong. The black light exploded back up Kinsie’s arms, the blast sending the other power sources slamming into the stone wall in front of us. The other walls crumbled and crashed to the ground, dust clouds blanketing our surroundings. Even though Clara and I didn’t feel the rock falling around us, we lost sight of everything.
When the rumbling noise finally dulled, faint screams could be heard echoing. The dust cleared slowly, revealing where we were standing… right where we had fallen when the book opened. This was the center of the destruction we saw.
Kinsie stood facing the wall that had caught the objects. They were all glowing again, embedded in the stone and full of power. She smirked and turned around, revealing her arms dripping black blood onto the rocks under her feet. She was the Cold Soul now.
The village around us had been completely decimated. Screams came in louder as we saw the people who were crushed between the rocks and ground that had just been uprooted. Their voices faded into the sky as their lives left them. The old woman we saw earlier pushed in vain against a rock that had pinned her down before finally slipping into death. The young man who could shapeshift dangled from the branches of a tree, unable to change form before the branch snapped and sent him falling into the crevice below. Their powers were gone, and they were helpless against the Cold Soul.
I turned as movement caught my eye. Behind the Cold Soul, Isaac, covered in blood, dug through the rocks and stone. He must have been using what little strength he had left ot move the large rocks as he finally pulled a body out from the rubble. It was Kinsie, the real Kinsie.
She struggled to keep her head up as Isaac wrapped his arm around her waist to hold her up. The Cold Soul was busy observing her mess, not noticing Kinsie and Isaac limping over to the wall of sources. He picked up her bloody palm and pressed it into the empty Cold Soul marble as his fingers ran over the identical blue one. He was channeling the power of the Blue Soul for Kinsie to use.
The Cold Soul finally noticed, spinning around in fury, but Kinsie had her own trick with her newfound strength. We watched as the Cold Soul stumbled, unable to stand as Kinsie pulled its shadow from under its feet. It hissed and clawed forward, trying to fight against Kinsie’s power, but tripped and slid deeper into the black shadow. It crept along the ground and into Kinsie as she guided it back into the marble.
When the Cold Soul was back in its prison, Kinsie collapsed, her hand smearing blood down the wall. Isaac was using the wall to keep himself, slowly sliding down as he lost consciousness. He sucked in a breath and swung his arm back before slamming his fist into the Cold Soul. His force rippled through the air before getting sucked into the marble. Blue light swirled and spun, filling the marble as the black light disappeared. The original Blue Soul was emptied, now swallowing the Cold Soul completely in the single cage.
Isaac sank toward the ground, his head pressing into Kinsie’s chest. The heavier his eyes drooped, the more I started to get dizzy. Clara started to sway as we felt the pull of gravity. Our knees finally gave way and we crashed to the ground.
59
Clara
The best description for how I felt was sleep paralysis. It felt like my mind was awake but the rest of my body wouldn’t respond. There was no feeling.
Nate and I had just seen exactly what we needed. The marble given to me as a child had both the Cold and Blue Soul, and that’s what the Cold Soul Finnley had meant when she said the Blue Soul liked me. Isaac had the same power as me, and maybe the Blue Soul remembered that. The only problem was that the Cold Soul went into me instead, waiting for me to turn eighteen so it could recharge the rest of the power sources like it did before. The Blue Soul was waiting to react to my power, and it did that the night I ran away.
But when Nate rescued me, he took the rest of the Blue Soul and left the Cold Soul unguarded. It shattered the cage, but if we could find the original Blue Soul power source, we could lock it inside. We could stop it. Kinsie and Isaac had shown us how to trap it.
Feeling crept back as I felt the weight of my body pressing into something soft, but that couldn’t be right. Nate and I had passed out on the rocks.
I jolted upright from a bed. The room was dimly lit, but it definitely wasn’t the cabin Jeanie had sent us to. The bed wasn’t lumpy and the sheets were dust free. The lamp on the nightstand was the only light, barely strong enough for me to see a chair in one corner, opposite from a closed door. The crack around the frame was lit from the outside, seeping light over the carpet.
Something kicked under the blanket and I felt a figure move next to me. I quickly identified Nate’s groan as he reached his hand over his face. If Nate was just now waking up, who had gotten us here? And where the hell was here?
“Nate, get up,” I whispered harshly, trying to shake him.
“Rude. I’m trying to sleep,” he groaned. He tried to roll away from me but I grabbed the collar of his sweatshirt and yanked him up, holding him in front of my face.
“Nate, I didn’t get us here and neither did you.”
“Shit,” he blurted, his eyes widening.
“Yeah, exactly.”
We scrambled out of the bed and crept up to the door. Nate pressed his ear against the door but shook his head. “I don’t hear anyone. Should we use a shadow?”
“Not if you think something else is in there. I’ll defend if we have to. Grab the book and let’s go.”
He looked around the room, unable to find it. Whoever had brought us here must have had it. I opened the door slowly, peering out into the empty hallway. The walls were bare, just a small lightbulb hanging from the middle. A few feet to our left was a dead end, while the right hallway turned a corner with another light shining.
I stayed in front of Nate as we shuffl
ed quietly along the wall. The closer we got to the corner, I started to vaguely hear someone’s thoughts, whispering in the back of my head. I pushed my finger up to my mouth as I looked back at Nate.
I hear someone.
Nate held up his fists, unsure if he’d need to fight without using his powers. I hoped whatever we were about to find wasn’t strong enough to fight my power. Leaning against the wall, I inched closer to pick up more of the person’s thoughts. They were still quiet but the voice… it was familiar.
I spun around the corner and stood in the open. Nate’s eyes widened as he tried to reach out and pull me back but I knocked his hand away. I dug deeper into her thoughts, letting the voice echo in my head. The woman stood over the table, leaning over the book and flipping through the pages that were now full of text. She didn’t seem to know any difference, and I had learned not to be surprised by anything going on now.
