by Lucy Auburn
That sobers me up a bit. I refuse to like Grayson, but Eve has a point—I'm stuck with him and the other Fuckfaces now, like it or not. Wyatt, I might learn to like, and Mason at least has a pretty face to go with his poor choice in friends, but Levi and Grayson can eat a bag of dicks as far as I'm concerned. Still, as long as they don't hunt me again, I can train with them—especially if that involves getting to hit them a few times.
I already beat them each once in the arena. I'm sure I can beat their asses again.
They'll see soon enough that you don't fuck with Ellen Arizona.
Just as I'm nearing the end of my meal, about to admit that I got twice as much food as I can stuff in my stomach, I feel a familiar, large presence at my back. Eve's eyes go behind me, and I swallow what's in my mouth, wiping my face and running a hand through my blonde hair.
"Ellen." Mason's voice is smooth; turning around, I meet his eyes, then glance to Wyatt, who stands silently at his side. "Headmaster Shu told us about our new shared classes and... training."
"Yes, it was very exciting for me. I can't wait to begin," I deadpan. "Maybe this time, you won't try to capture or kill me."
He has the good sense to look embarrassed; Wyatt is frowning at me, but doesn't say anything. Mason is a tall, broad, strong man, but next to Wyatt he looks half as big; the two of them together could probably beat a dozen guys. I'm glad not to be on the opposite side of a battle with the two of them, though I wouldn't put it past Grayson to convince his friends to fuck with me some more.
"So," Mason continues, jumping past my irritated words, "when do you want to do surveillance?"
I frown at him. “I just barely got that assignment. How do you know about it?”
“Headmaster Shu told us,” he says, which confirms that the others know too. “We’re supposed to hunt down potential targets with you and help find a Mark.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure about that.” I stab my food with my fork, ignoring Eve’s frown in my direction. “Maybe I won’t take the four of you at all.”
“That’s not an option.”
“Isn’t it?”
He shakes his head. “Headmaster Shu told us something else—maybe she neglected to mention it to you. She’s linked our ability to graduate. We all graduate together, or we don't graduate at all."
“And if I don’t graduate…”
Looking at Eve, I don’t finish the sentence.
If I don’t graduate—with the Fuckfaces—I die.
Chapter 17
"Promise me you'll be back as soon as this target of yours is dead." Standing with Eve at the gate, I check the setting sun overhead and hate how quickly the thing I dread most is coming. "I don't want to go a single day without you unless I have to."
"Calm down," Eve soothes me. "It'll be okay. I'm sure now that you've proven yourself in the arena and shown that you're no cold-blooded killer, Grayson will have calmed down."
I raise my brows at her doubtfully. "Really? Because he's been after me since the beginning, and somehow he's convinced Bernard saw me kill Mom and Herb. He's not lying about that—there's a warrant out for my arrest, after all."
That was something Eve and I double-checked after lunch, since my new class schedule doesn't start until tomorrow, and she has access to the surveillance labs here, as a member of the Shadow Fold. The perks of that include the ability to look up arrest warrants and even tap into the police system, which revealed that they've been actively looking for me, going so far as to take tips from the general public and stakeout places I've been known to frequent.
"Headmaster Shu will help me take care of that," Eve reassures me. "You'll be able to go to your mom's funeral this weekend, I'm sure. Just... until then, lie low, and try not to kill Grayson Hughes. He's an asshole, but if he's your Conduit, you'll be glad one day to have him around."
"The only use I can imagine for him is as a human shield," I quip, "but if you say so. Just get back here ASAP, before I wring his neck—or try to."
"I'll be back before you know it."
I watch her stride down the long driveway in front of the campus gates, black bag full of weapons in one hand. Stopping at a spot that seems significant to her but just like any other to me, she raises her left hand and fiddles with the ring on it, turning it back and forth a few times. Like a fog settling in, the two doors that I walked through just the other day—which now feels like a lifetime ago—appear at the end of the gravel drive, glowing with that impossible warm light.
Eve turns over her shoulder and gives me a jaunty wave, then steps through the doors. For a long moment after she leaves, they stay right where they are, and the temptation to run through them is overwhelming. But I know that it'll cost Eve if I run away, and more than that, there's something for me here, even now that she's left campus.
I want to know the truth about who, and what, I am.
And I want to know who killed my mother, if he’s a member of the Shadow Fold, and what I have to do to make him pay.
This place has the answers to all my questions on both topics. So I turn around and walk back through the gates, prepared to face my biggest enemy.
The combat training instructor at Cain University is a willowy woman with white, braided hair, and dark skin that contrasts. She wears a simple black fighting outfit, and roams the perimeter of the training gym, watching students spar off after class for extra credit. A long cane held in her right hand is used not to support herself, but to reach out and whack students whose forms aren't up to snuff.
I watch her warily, wondering if she's the one I should worry about, not Grayson. She certainly seems formidable. Every step she takes is like a lioness prowling through the Sahara. But as I observe her, she also takes breaks to give students encouragement and advice. So not a needlessly critical teacher, but rather a strict one to guide them. She is, after all, training future professional killers—not the sort of task to take lightly.
I'm supposed to meet the Four Fuckfaces here at six, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why I showed up early. At the time I thought it would be a good idea to scout the area out in advance and plan my assault against the lead Fuckface himself, but now I'm not so sure I made the right choice. Coming early makes me seem eager—if I'd sauntered in twenty minutes late, forcing them to wait for me, maybe that would've sent a stronger message.
I consider leaving and coming back, but just when I'm about to do it, Wyatt walks in. There goes that. Spotting me, he paces over to where I stand and cautiously stops a few feet away, clasping his hands in front of him, feet shoulder width apart.
Maybe this is my chance to learn more about the quietest of the Fuckfaces. Wyatt is the only one who refused to battle me in the arena, standing up to Grayson and showing he has a mind of his own; he might be willing to act as my ally against the jerkiest of his friend’s impulses.
Licking my lips, I ask the first question on my mind, and immediately regret it. "How tall are you?"
"Six five."
For some reason I was expecting taller. But it's not just his height and breadth that gives Wyatt his presence; there's also the bulk of his muscles and the deliberate way he moves, as if aware of his body and in complete control of everything he does with it. I feel like a stumbling newborn calf next to him.
I bet he never accidentally knocks things over.
"I'm sure everyone's first question to you is how tall you are, so I must be a cliche," I observe, watching his face. He has a light stubble across his brown skin that stretches up to his mostly shaved head. Now that I'm standing close to him, studying him instead of fighting or running away, I realize that some of his hair is a little bit longer and forms an intricate tribal-like runic symbol on his head. "That haircut must take a while to get done."
He nods, and I wonder if his quietness is an innate trait, or if the physical strength of his Affinity has made it hard for him to talk, just like it's difficult for Eve to lie. It seems like it would be rude to ask him—Eve acted as if weakness
es are some kind of taboo—so I try a different tact.
"What's the biggest number of words you've said in one day—seven? Twelve? Twenty-two?"
His mouth curls up in a rare smile, making him look closer to his age, which is similar to mine. When he speaks again, I'm struck by the fact that his voice is a soft treble rather than the rough baritone I expect. "I used to tell entire st-stories. But now... it's ha-ha-harder."
A stutter. And the way he says used to makes it clear that he wasn't always this way. His Affinity did this to him.
I wonder what my weakness is. I haven't discovered one yet. Maybe they only come with time, as you train your Affinity, or maybe people with four Classes don't have one. Worse, maybe we have four weaknesses to go with our powers—a terrible thing to imagine. Knowing me, I'd wind up with bad breath and clumsiness.
"You should talk more," I tell Wyatt, watching the doors behind him. "I like your voice."
"Thank you."
I add, "And I'd rather listen to you speak instead of Grayson. He's a real ass."
The tightness in Wyatt's mouth seems to disagree, and he cocks his head to one side, just a little. "He grows on p-people."
"I guess." Somehow I doubt that. "Maybe he'll grow on me."
And if he does, I'll have him removed, like I would any cancerous growth.
There's no more time to get this conversation going; the doors to the training center are opening, revealing the other three Fuckfaces as they stride in. Meanwhile, the instructor is winding down this round of practice, which means we're up next.
I hope one of my mystery powers turns out to be the ability to curse people with bad luck, because Headmaster Shu deserves all of that and more for doing this to me. Just the sight of Levi's smirk and Grayson's brooding stare makes a hot, inconsolable rage ignite in my chest, the heat of it like flames licking up towards my neck.
Wyatt, observing me, says in a low voice, “Anger.”
"Yeah, I'm pretty fucking mad right now."
"Weakness."
I raise my brows at him. "Anger is a weakness? I guess that's one way of looking at it. Not in my book, though. My anger is what got me through some dark times—and out of them alive."
I don't mention that Jack didn't get out of those dark times alive. Wyatt went with Grayson on his Ellen-hunting mission; he knows all about my past sins. Let him fill in the blanks and what I did, and try to figure out why.
The whole media knows about parts of the abuse—at least, the parts I talked about on the stand. My attorney wanted me to play up the miscarriage, really convince the jury that I lost a precious baby because of abuse-induced stress, but I refused. That pregnancy was a secret I kept, at least from everyone except the man hired to defend me, who was sworn to keep it a secret too. The last thing I ever wanted was for people to know too much, and feel too much pity.
I'll give Grayson one thing: he doesn't pity me. No poor Ellen or sad little abused Ellen from him. It would almost be refreshing if I didn't hate his fucking guts.
As the training room empties of everyone but the five of us, the instructor studies us one by one, a keen expression in her eyes. She lands on me for the longest, and I get the uncomfortable sense that she's seeing far more than I want her to see.
"I'm Instructor Koda Abarra, and I'll be leading your training today. I already know four of you, but soon I'll know you too, Ms. Arizona." Something about that doesn't thrill me. "The goal of these first few practices is to observe your strengths and weaknesses, discover what hidden Affinities you have, and attempt to create a combat-driven bond between you and these four suspected Conduits."
Grayson makes a disgusted noise, his hands folded over his cane, looking far better than I want him to given what I did to him in the arena this morning. "There's no way the four of us are her Conduits, just like there's no way she has four Affinities. No offense to Headmaster Shu, but this woman isn't special like that. Whatever trick we all saw in the arena was just that, an illusion."
I spot a tightening in Mason's jaw, and the way he and Grayson stand further apart than normal, both of them stiff. I wonder if the head Fuckface himself accused Mason of the very thing I suspect him of: creating the illusions that made us all see ghosts. Based on the grimaces they're shooting each other, it seems like they might have just argued about it.
"I'll be the judge of all that, Mr. Hughes. You're here to train, not to share your opinion—so keep the latter to yourself." Grayson nods, jaw tight with tension, and the instructor seems to take that as proof enough he can behave. "Now, the first thing I want to do is see your strongest Affinity in action, Ellen, so please show me your Physical Class telekinesis. Once we've done that, we'll move on to other types of training—as well as a few tests that should give us insight into your true nature."
I don't love the sound of any of that, but I'm not exactly in a position to refuse. At least Koda doesn't seem to be as tightly wound or prone to fits of violence as I feared. She may be a member of the Shadow Fold—the ring on her left hand proves as much, confirming my suspicion that the organization makes Eve wear the tacky thing—but she doesn't give off the constantly dangerous air of an assassin.
The first part of her training drills go well enough. I've already practiced using my force field on targets with Eve; this is similar. What changes things is when she calls for a stop, and has Levi come to the center of the training area, sporting a smirk I wish I could wipe off his smug face.
"Now, Mr. Ward, I want you to hold Ms. Arizona's hand while she uses her Physical Class Affinity." We both protest at the same time, but she cuts us off with a shake of her head. "These tests are exactly what you're here for. In the arena, Ellen showed an ability to increase her power while in contact with you, which is how Conduits work. We need to see if the same holds true here and now under direct study."
Great, just great. The only thing worse than having to train with the Fuckfaces is having to touch them to figure out if they're the fuel that burns my particular fire. I was hoping that I'd get to punch them today. Technically that is a type of touching, but Koda doesn't look inclined to allow it. Too bad—Levi would look so much better with a crater in his model-handsome face.
Turning towards the targets, I watch him pace towards me. His steps are light, but the sound they make impossible to miss. Eve was right—he couldn't sneak up on anyone but the deaf and elderly. Even teenage shitheads with airpods in would be able to hear that heavy footfall.
Looking over at me, he arches a silver brow. "Going to let me take your hand?"
"Maybe." I've got my arms crossed, fingers firmly shoved under my armpits. "You're up and walking again. Too bad—I was hoping to give you a permanent injury to match your friend over there."
Levi scowls at this, cutting his eyes at me. "That's a low blow, going after Grayson's weakness. It's not like he chose to be that way."
"Yeah, well, it was a low blow when he used his cane to cheat and draw a sword during my initiation. Too bad it didn't work for him." The instructor is watching us, so I sigh and let my left hand drop, but make no move to reach for Levi's fingers. "Let's just get this over with quickly, okay?"
"You know, they say the stronger the Affinity, the worse the weakness." Levi makes no move to take my hand. "That's why Grayson has such a terrible limp, and I'm about as sneaky as a herd of buffalo. But you? You must have an incredibly powerful set of Affinities, since your obvious weakness is that you're a huge goddamned bitch."
"Aw, I'm charmed."
Snorting, he takes my hand, and the instant he does a crackle of power surges inside me. It's like there was a dam between me and my force field, and now that Levi's warm palm is against mine, it falls to his touch. I resent my powers for that, new as they are—they're like a two hundred dollar whore spreading her legs for a pocketful of change. Levi is the last sort of guy they should be surging towards with baited breath and panting heat, but here they are nonetheless, an impossible power at my fingertips.
Resigned, I ra
ise my palm and let a rippling wall of energy leave my hand. It pushes outward, visible to the eye just barely, like a wave of heat rising off hot pale pavement. As it hits the targets on the wall, it takes them down—all eight of them at once. Half splinter, and the other half just sigh and collapse inward, wood and stretched canvas painted in a bullseye that's no more.
The instructor whistles, the sound low and appreciative, looking at me with something like pride or trepidation. Maybe she wasn't expecting me to be this powerful this quickly. I wasn't expecting it either.
"Impressive. And much more powerful than I'd expect so quickly. Clearly his touch is doing something for you."
There's an innuendo in her words that she doesn't seem to hear, and it makes me yank my hand away from Levi's grasp. As our skin parts, and cool air touches my palm, I feel my powers shrivel inside me like old fruit on the vine. It isn't fair—they feel so diminished, even though they're just returning to normal. But I feel cold and lost without them surging to the surface within me, like a toddler denied her favorite toy.
Levi is staring over at me. I refuse to look at him, worried that the heat inside me remaining from my powers is going to make me feel things I shouldn't. He has soft, silvery pale hair, a sharp jawline, and plush lips set above a pointed chin, like some kind of character from a fairytale movie I would've loved when I was young.
There's something uncomfortable about that; his soft, easy handsomeness, the kind that girls like as they're turning into women, reminds me of Jack. And I never want to let myself feel something for a man like Jack again. Not for the rest of my days. No matter how boyishly handsome he is, or how much fate tries to drag us together.
Thankfully, the instructor seems satisfied by this little demonstration. "Alright, that proves Levi's Spiritual Class awakens your Physical Class, just as we hoped. Let's move on to the next one: Emotional Class to strengthen Mental Class. Mr. Kincaide, you're up."
