by Ella James
“Do you like me yet?” he joked, winking.
“Definitely,” Julia said weakly.
“Har har,” Meredith patted his spiky hair. “This guy, Charles—” she pointed to the lanky brown-haired guy who’d slapped Julia’s back— “is from Chicago. He can manipulate energy.” She smiled.
Carlin, a pretty girl with an oval face, chocolate-colored curls, and big hazel eyes, introduced herself with a slight Spanish curl. She smiled, a small quick thing that showed a certain reservedness. “I’m from Ronda, Spain.”
“She can fly,” Meredith added.
Carlin’s eyes slid to Meredith; her cheeks were red. “Only sort of.”
Another blonde, this one stocky and muscular, like an Olympian, raised her glass to Julia. “Anise,” she said. Her accent was unmistakably German.
No one mentioned what Anise could do, and Julia thought it rude to ask. Of course, the next second, Herbert pinned her with his blue eyes and asked, “What do you do?”
“I sprout scales.”
Marilee’s eyes widened. Carlin’s lips twitched. Herbert said, “What color?”
“Glittery silver,” Julia told them.
“Do it!” Marilee said, so excited Julia felt disappointed to admit she only saw auras and healed people.
“A healer,” lanky Charles said. “You’re a good one to have around.” Like she was a trading card.
Meredith grabbed a gray plastic chair and pulled it to the table. “Tell me what you want to eat.”
She glanced over to the counter, where three aproned Chosen their age were serving steaming plates.
“You can have anything. Seriously, anything.”
And that’s when Julia noticed—everyone’s meal was vastly different.
Marilee was having a burger and macaroni with a chocolate shake and a side of gummy bears. Carlin’s plate was an unfamiliar meat and veggies dish, while Anise was eating sushi. Her eyes flew to Meredith’s plate—some kind of soup.
“Anything,” Marilee told her.
Meredith escorted Julia to the counter, where the only thing she could think of was pizza. “Hawaiian,” she said. “With ham and—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the aproned guy pulled a plate out from under the counter. On it was an enormous, fragrant slice of Hawaiian pizza.
“How did you—”
“Magic.” He smirked.
Dinner was decent enough, Julia figured, considering she didn’t want to be there and was beginning to go crazy with claustrophobia and Cayne-concern.
Despite her bad attitude, she learned that Charles was nice but kind of dry. He was a fan of Tim Dorsey books and Jimmy Buffet, and in that meandering way of his, he confessed that he really wanted to have a house at the beach one day. Marilee was charming and sweet, the twelve-year-old Julia had never had the chance to be. She seemed sheltered, which made sense when Julia learned that she and eighteen-year-old Herbert were the children of a poet and a playwright—who, naturally, were both killed tragically (scaling a mountain in India).
Anise was the kind of girl Julia had a little trouble relating to. The blonde was so quiet and serious, Julia was worried she seemed inane in comparison.
A few minutes into dinner, she decided she really liked Carlin, who seemed sincere and sharp and funny. In another life, she thought she, Carlin, and Meredith might have made a good trio.
None of these people matter.
Neither did being a Candidate.
Which was unfortunate, because Candidates were an even bigger deal than Meredith had described. The One had been, if not prophesied, expected for an alarming number of centuries. Once Candidates turned eighteen, their candidacy was considered over. According to Herbert, Chosen were deemed Candidates based on their “potentiality.”
“It’s a matter of capability. Kind of like an IQ score for ability. It doesn’t matter what you can do at the moment, just what you could do.”
Herbert had been a Candidate until July, when he’d turned eighteen. Julia was surprised, then not, when Carlin said that Nathan had also been a Candidate.
“It probably killed that guy not to be The One,” Charles said. “He really does love being Chosen.”
Julia noticed Meredith open her mouth, but she quickly closed it and went back to her soup.
By the end of dinner, Julia was having a hard time not liking these people. It got even harder when Meredith pulled her into the humid, blue-tiled dish room.
“Who is he?” she whispered.
“Umm, huh?”
“Your man.” Meredith wiggled her eyebrows and lowered her voice to a whispered hiss. “I heard something about a Nephilim. Is he…”
Julia couldn’t get her mouth to move. She shook her head.
“Julia,” Meredith groaned. “I’m your bro.”
“I’ve only known you for three hours.”
“Read my aura!”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“So trust me.”
Julia brought a hand up to her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. Through the shelter of her fingers, she said, “Yes. He is a Nephilim.”
Meredith snorted. “No wonder Nathan’s got his tighties in a wad.”
Chapter 7
Standing there with her hand still covering her face, Julia murmured, “Please don’t…tell anyone else.”
Meredith held out her pinkie. “Promise.”
When Julia didn’t extend her hand, Meredith grabbed it and linked their fingers together. “Pinky swear. Here’s how you know that you can trust it: I had a feeling earlier, that you were thinking of a prison. Thinking of getting someone out of a prison,” she said pointedly. Then she mimed zipping her lips.
Julia kept her face blank, shifted her thoughts to Charles’ beach.
Meredith laughed, a little hoot. “Good job. If you’re around anyone else, say…Dizzy or Adam, just do that.”
“Okay. But how do I know Dizzy and—”
“Meredith!” A loud voice bellowed into the room, echoing off the damp tile walls, followed milliseconds later by a tall, dark guy with slender shoulders, gently curling hair and a sweet-looking face. Julia thought he might be Indian.
“Meredith—”
“That’s Adam,” she hissed behind her hair.
“—where were you for serving duty?”
Julia glanced from Adam to Meredith. Her new friend stood a little taller. “I was talking with Julia. Julia, this is Adam.”
Adam nodded. His eyes met Julia’s. “Hello. Glad you made it.” He sounded bored, and Julia tried to reconcile his hoodie-and-jeans, hands-in-pockets appearance with Meredith’s implication that he was threatening.
Adam waved at both of them. “You’re washing. Get going.”
He looked over his shoulder as he turned to go. “I’m asking Nathan about this, Meredith.”
She smiled sweetly. When he was gone, Meredith grabbed two packs of green rubber gloves and tossed one of them at Julia.
As Julia wiggled her hands into the gloves, she said, “I hope you’re not in trouble.”
“Me? Oh, heck no,” Meredith said.
She shrugged, and Julia saw the smallest, briefest flame fan out around her. Julia opened her mouth, surprised and intrigued. She didn’t ask her question.
She didn’t know Meredith. She just didn’t. She didn’t know anything about anyone here—who was friendly, who was on whose side. As she grabbed a sauce-smeared plate, she shut her eyes, praying she hadn’t already messed things up.
Meredith flitted around the tiny dish room, talking animatedly as she and Julia worked their way through a giant pile of dishes. There were too many for them to do without reinforcements, but as it happened, they were joined by a deaf 11-year-old girl named Shea.
“So she can’t hear? At all?”
“Nope,” Meredith said.
“How does she learn? Like, there are classes here, right?”
Meredith nodded. “I think they work around it.”
/> “That sucks. Seems like she should be at a school that has at least a little experience with deaf kids. Who does she have to talk to here?”
Meredith shrugged. “I think there are a few students with hearing aids and that kind of thing. She usually hangs out with another girl who knows sign language.”
“If she’s not a Candidate, why is she here anyway? Why is anybody here?”
Meredith huffed. “I can’t imagine, personally. Shea is from someone in Quebec, I think. She has a younger brother, and their parents live in the Hall of Bishops—”
“That’s a rank or something, right?”
Meredith nodded dismissively. “So are you gonna tell me about jail-break boy?”
Julia shook her head. As they’d talked, Shea had started sorting the clean dishes. Julia couldn’t remember how, but sometime in the last few minutes, all the dishes had been sorted and shelved.
“That’s her talent, isn’t it?” she asked, pointing at the pig-tailed girl. “She’s good at sorting things or putting things away.”
“Illusions,” Meredith said. “I don’t know how she puts them up, but she uses magic so we don’t notice.”
“That’s cool.”
Only it wasn’t really. Everything felt wrong. She had a fleeting memory of that Disney movie, The Little Mermaid. How Ariel sacrificed her voice to get her human form, and she didn’t even know it till she found she couldn’t speak.
*
As it turned out, school-aged Chosen were housed by age, and Julia’s hall was for “seniors”: 16, 17, and 18-year-olds. Her neighbors were Anise and—oddly—Andrew.
“Girls and guys together?”
“I know,” Meredith said. “You wouldn’t expect it here. But I’m not complaining. Sometimes one of them will leave their door cracked. I’ve seen Monte’s buns of steel and even though the doors are ‘frosted,’ they are still glass...”
“Meredith!”
Her new friend—friend?—shrugged. “Just saying. Hey, do you want to come to my room later? No one will notice. Well, probably not, anyway.”
“That’s okay. Maybe tomorrow. I’m kind of tired.”
Meredith swung her hair over her shoulder. “You can trust me, you know.”
Of course she didn’t. “I know.”
Meredith’s shoulders slumped; Julia had never seen her look so upset. “I think I know why you don’t. I’m worried that I do. Do I know?”
Julia gave a little awkward laugh. “I don’t know.”
Meredith looked over her shoulder, dropped her voice. “I’m on your side,” she hissed. “I have no real friends here. Well, except for Herbert and Carlin. But Carlin liked to keep to herself. Herbert and I stick together, but he’s a guy. And then there’s Andrew. I love Drew, and he’s a lot of fun…but I was waiting for you.”
“Why?” Julia had that weird feeling again. Like butterflies, but less pleasant.
“We’re going to be best friends. Drew is never wrong.”
Julia tried to smile and failed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Let’s do a re-do tomorrow.” She slipped into her room and curled up on her bed, staring at the middle of the wall, where normally a window would be.
Chapter 8
On their tour of the seniors’ hall, Meredith had pointed out everybody’s rooms. Nathan’s was four doors down from Julia’s, so when she chose a wall to walk through, she picked the one to the right of her bed—the one she felt should have a window. She didn’t want to go to Anise’s room or her bathroom, and she could not risk bumping into Nathan in the hall.
She held her breath as she “Floated.” When she felt her feet on solid ground, she waited a full second before opening her eyes.
Finally she did, and she found…linens. Lots and lots of blankets, sheets, and towels. The metal shelves and airy scent of detergent resurrected a startling memory of being in group home—AKA the Haven. The towels there had been small and rough, the washcloths stiff from many uses. All the sheets were stained with sweat and darker things, and when she’d snuggled the blankets around herself…
It didn’t matter now.
It never would again.
She steeled herself, then found the door and stepped into a large, softly lit square room. She saw several women holding— babies? The room was filled with rows of cribs and rocking chairs and changing tables, and whining cries rose to the dappled ceiling.
The Chosen nursery…
Julia had a fleeting thought that this would have been better than the foster system. Then one of the ladies noticed her. Julia didn’t bother with the door. She Floated back into the linen closet—at least that’s where she thought she was going. Evidently she’d Floated through a different wall, because instead of a linen closet, she found herself inside a boxy, shadowy room where someone was speaking Latin, and someone else was crying. She saw a curtain, smelled incense, and then a dark head looked up. It was the crying person—a middle-aged male Chosen.
Julia gasped and jumped back.
But not into the nursery. She found herself in an enormous, dark room. At least, she thought it was a room. If there were walls, they were spaced so wide she couldn’t actually see them; she couldn’t see anything but darkness, but when she looked up to orient herself, the far-away ceiling reminded her of a cathedral. The whole place, from the floor to the glass-and-arches ceiling, was filled with a dense steam, which didn’t make any sense. She was standing in water, but it was cold, not hot. The steam was cold, too.
Julia had the mighty sense that she was somewhere she didn’t want to be. The place didn’t just feel scary—there was more to it than that. She felt something…exciting and unnerving. A kind of energy.
Tingling with it, she edged back, hoping to bump into the wall she came through. Instead she tripped on something. Or maybe she didn’t. All she knew was that in that instant, her head ached terribly, and the pain was so distracting she found herself falling. She opened her mouth to scream as she fell through the chilly fog, but her jaw was locked. She could feel her hair flying out around her shoulders. Her fingers grasped at the fog’s tendrils; her legs scissored.
I’m going to die.
And without knowing where she was or what was happening to her.
As quickly as the sensation overtook her, it fell away, taking the awful headache with it. And she found herself…nowhere.
She should have been back in the fog cathedral—or Anise’s. If the walls worked the way she had thought, her legs would have taken her to one of those two places before the freaky headache-falling thing had started. But clearly they didn’t. Julia thought about the trip to her room earlier with Nathan. He’d opened a hole in the floor, and the spot had seemed random. Which meant getting where you wanted to go was probably more about where you wanted to go than actual location.
Standing there, in the bright, pale space that felt and looked a lot like…nothing, she thought about Cayne. She thought about the night she’d cut his hair. The feel of it in her fingers. It was one of her favorite memories.
And she started Floating. Through what wall, she wasn’t sure; it was first her hands and then the rest of her, suddenly corporeal and stepping backwards, Cayne’s dark hair falling around her feet. A piece landed on her toe, and it looked so real, she didn’t want to move her foot.
Cayne Cayne Cayne take me to Cayne.
And, incredibly, it did. Or started to. The weird stone walls knew what she wanted—she knew they knew—and the walls were rearranging themselves, taking her there—taking her to Cayne! She could feel him moving closer and closer, and her mind lit up with recognition, not of how he looked but how he felt. She could feel his aura, sans colors. Something more like his essence. Gladness shone through her; she was reaching out her arms, already more relaxed and happy.
“Cayne…”
Then suddenly she felt herself jerked back the other way. She felt walls whizzing by her—or maybe they were possibilities. She felt like she was standing in the center of a rol
odex, the little pages flying, cold and windy, around her. She stumbled hard through one of the cold, soft walls into a larger space, knocking her head against…a bed frame?
“Ow!” She looked down, found herself on her hands and knees on the floor of— Where? Was this her room? She looked around, startled to realize that if she hadn’t left her towel hanging on the bathroom doorknob, she might never know; all the rooms here probably looked the very same.
