by Ella James
The Common area was swarming with people—mostly people college-aged and younger. A banner stretched across a large portion of the wall on one side: Autumn Social!
Julia frowned, distrusting the festive, curly letters. Nathan had told her something about a Gathering, not a social. She looked all around her, at the tunnel openings people were still pouring through. She thought again about going back to her room, to her bed (the only thing in this whole place that she liked). Would anyone notice? At that very second, someone thumped her gently on the back, and she turned to face Carlin.
“Hi,” the girl waved. She had her hair pulled back into some kind of elaborate braid, and her hazel eyes shone kindly. “Nathan sent me to find you. Come over here,” she said softly, motioning Julia behind a stone sculpture of a man aiming a bow and arrow. “Let me tell you about Gathering.” She leaned her head closer to Julia’s. “For everyone else, this is just a regular social. We have them twice a year. But this is where we Candidates test our abilities. Everyone does their own thing, except for me. I can’t really use my ability after the banner is hung.”
“So that was you?” Julia waved up at it.
Carlin nodded. “I can levitate. Some people say fly, but it’s not really flying.”
“Sounds cool anyway.”
“Well…” The word sounded like a musical note; the girl’s voice was a beautiful alto. “Nathan wants you to look at auras.”
“Whose?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t say, so I guess it doesn’t matter. If he has a preference, he usually tells us.”
“So I’m just supposed to do this?” Julia waved her arms, unfairly aiming some of her irritation at Carlin. “I’m supposed to like…perform because Nathan says so?”
Carlin shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I doubt he would make you. But I’m really not sure. I haven’t been here long.” Something about the way she said it made Julia think she didn’t want to be there, either.
Andrew—was it Drew or Andrew? Drew fit him best, she decided—peeked around a statue, wearing a gray beret and wiggling his brows. He said hello to Julia (with his accent, it sounded like hullo), and dragged Carlin off without an explanation.
Julia didn’t feel insulted. She didn’t care enough.
It wasn’t long before she spotted Meredith working behind a booth, serving balls of fire to people who took them and threw them at the glass ceiling. She waved. Meredith smiled, slumped to mime tired, and waved back.
After a moment’s hesitation, Julia slunk to a stone bench out of the way, sat, crossed her legs, and stared at her gray shoes.
She hadn’t intended to think about Cayne while she was here, but it didn’t seem that she could help it. Her brain was like a cyclone—information whirling together, clashing. Cayne, her protector and murderer of innocent Chosen? Thinking about the Chosen brought another contradiction, because despite her like of Meredith and warming to some of the others, the rest of the setup made her want to renounce her Chosen-ship forever. Another contradiction, because she no longer knew how to escape. It had always been her and Cayne, and now she didn’t know what she would do if she decided to leave. Could she really leave him in that awful place? Could she really just be done with him?
Another contradiction. Julia always considered herself so independent. Not like all the other kids at group home (she could see people’s “colors”). Not like everyone in her high school (she didn’t care about cliques; she’d survived foster homes; high school didn’t really matter). She hadn’t even allowed herself the usual response to the death of Harry and Suzanne. (She couldn’t; a murderous Nephilim had been on her tail).
She’s set off on some crazy chase with Cayne, and she’d thought no one would ever have her pinned in again.
Except here she was in the dumb gray uniform, looking like everybody else. And she wasn’t independent, unusual, immune. She was probably the biggest idiot in the compound.
She wondered how she looked to others. She was sure the story had spread, the Candidate with a Nephilim crush. Did they despise her? She figured Nathan did. Did she care?
No. So at least there was that, but the flip side was what she did care about: Cayne.
She rubbed her aching eyes, her mind a battlefield for two different Caynes: one, the Cayne she’d healed back in the warehouse—the one who’d used his mind-control power to get her a sleeping bag and a wardrobe of cute new clothes, the one she’d taught to drive, the one whose hair she’d cut, who had wrapped his arms around her inside the Chosen meeting place in Salt Lake City. The one who held her as he flew, who’d tried to go away when he’d remembered who he was—and what he’d done. The one who’d told her about how he’d become what he’d become. He’d only been a kid when Samyaza had gotten him… And yet he’d never made excuses. She knew him—knew his eyes and knew his aura—and she’d seen his misery.
This Cayne—her Cayne—couldn’t be a murderer.
So what Cayne had been?
Somewhere inside of him was the shadow of some other self: one who used his blood dagger the way Samyaza did. The one who thought—had thought—Chosen deserved to die. The one that made Nathan go pale. One like the one who’d killed Nathan’s brother. Who’d killed Harry and Suzanne.
And that one stood before the other one, the one she’d known. She wasn’t sure she could ever push him back out of the way.
She was probably crazy for even thinking about it.
A Hunter was a Hunter. They didn’t change. Isn’t that what Nathan had said?
The thought was so painful, she banished it and looked around the Commons.
She sat there for at least an hour, cataloguing people by aura, watching them use the balls of light in dodge ball, baseball, and the game where they threw them at the ceiling (and then competed to catch them as they fell). Everyone was dressed the same, and though they were all doing their weird Chosen version of hanging out, there was something strangely choreographed about their movements. They were so in sync…
She’d decided she was going back to her room—forget Nathan and his crew of tools—when he strode over, scowling. She quickly replaced her frown with the most neutral expression she could muster.
Not that she should have bothered. Nathan seemed in as bad a mood as she was. Without much preamble, he asked what she had seen.
“You mean in terms of auras? I can’t tell you.” She mimed zipping her lips. “Not till you take me to see Cayne again.”
Stupid her. Had she really thought that would work? Did she even want it to? Nathan just blinked at her, like don’t try this crap with me. She felt her shoulders sag, a la Charlie Brown.
She straightened them out. “You must not want to know very badly.”
And he said the last thing she expected: “I can’t. The Hunter Cayne is being…questioned.”
“What!” Julia was on her feet, filled with an amount of concern that probably shouldn’t have surprised her. She felt the room tilt. “What are they doing to him?”
“Questioning. After that, I don’t know.” He crossed his arms. “Now tell me who you’ve watched.”
“I watched everyone. I saw a lot of things. None of which you’ll know until I see Cayne—safe. He has to be unhurt.”
She caught the merest glimmer of emotion—some indecipherable combination of anger and wonder; wonder, she thought, that anyone could care for a Nephilim—before Nathan’s face went blank. He straightened, looking tall and strong in his uniform, like the G.I. Joes Harry had collected from his childhood. “I have no control over his fate. How many people would you say you saw?”
“I told you, everyone.”
“Oh.” The way his eyebrows arched told her this was enough information to keep him occupied, and she was seriously disappointed when he nodded, almost eagerly, and left her alone in the crowd.
*
“Okay, guys and gals. We’re doing something different today. Something special.” Just the sound of Dizzy’s voice made Julia edgy. Meredith, stan
ding next to her, bumped her shoulder.
“We’re going to stage a battle. Some of you are going to be Nephilim, others will be Chosen. And sometime during the fight, there’s going to be a twist.” Dizzy arched her skinny brows, reminding Julia of a stern sixth-grade teacher she hadn’t liked. “That means you need to be on your best behavior. Fight hard, like it matters.” She threw up her hands, looking as loose and jovial as Julia had seen her. “Get started! If you have questions, ask me. Nathan’s occupied.”
Dizzy strode over to a corner of the small, glass-ceilinged room, yammering more instructions and swinging a contraband magazine. Julia wondered where she’d gotten it.
I need to see Cayne. She pictured herself saying so to Nathan. Not just saying. Demanding. I’M GOING TO SEE CAYNE OR I’M LEAVING. She’d been up all night, trying and failing to Float through any wall, driving herself crazy worrying about what was keeping her from Floating what had happened to Cayne. And when she’d gone to look for Nathan this morning, she couldn’t find him.
“Earth to Julia.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Did you hear?” Meredith asked. “We’re both Nephilim.”
She grabbed a metal basket from Charles and handed Julia a long, curved knife. It was dull, but it was real. “What do we—”
“Nephilim!” Dizzy bounced on her heels, clapping her skinny hands. “What you do with the daggers is your choice. Just partner with a Chosen and start sparring when I blow the whistle.”
Dizzy sank to the floor, thumbing through her magazine under the crystalline glow of the ceiling while the Candidates buzzed. Most everyone seemed confused.
“Is she saying we fight each other with a real knife?” Poor little Marilee looked horrified, although she was assigned to be a Nephilim.
Charles was rubbing his forehead. “No way am I getting stabbed with one of those things.”
Julia looked at Meredith. “Why doesn’t Dizzy have to do this? I mean, she is a Candidate, right?”
“Yeah. But she doesn’t always do the stuff we do.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not,” Anise said.
And then a whistle shrieked.
When everyone just stood there, Dizzy jumped back up and waved her arms. “Go, go, go!” She pulled out a twisted blade of her own, and when still no one moved, she lunged at Monte.
Within seconds, Monte’s forearm was bleeding, and everyone else was backing away, open-mouthed.
“You’re a Chosen,” Dizzy taunted, moving toward Anise. “Why don’t you act like one?”
She took a swipe at Anise as Julia heard Monte say, “The cut’s gone.”
Charles heard that and started going playfully for Carlin’s blade.
He got it, and Carlin turned and went for Julia’s. She seemed surprisingly adept for someone so passive-seeming, but Julia wouldn’t give it up without a fight. Dizzy had taken Meredith’s blade, leaving Mer with a bright red slash across her hand.
“There are more Nephilim than Chosen!” Meredith shouted, and she lunged at Dizzy.
Julia had slowed to watch, so she didn’t see Drew coming at her. He had her blade in seconds, but he didn’t cut her—just hopped around her, smiling in a way that seemed almost sympathetic.
“So this is kind of freaky,” Julia said, needing to raise her voice to speak over the eerie school-yard sound.
“Dizzy can be intense.”
“No. I mean the fact that this is even acceptable.”
“Oh, of course.” But to Julia it was clear that he hadn’t considered it odd; and what did that say about this place?
“That’s even freakier,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s weird. And probably not as weird to me. But believe me, this is a first.”
Julia glanced at the others, to get their take, and realized Drew had been leading her away from the group. She turned back to him, and his face was serious. Future-seer + Intensity = OMG. She went insta-tense. “What?” Her first thought was Cayne, something with Cayne, Oh God Cayne—and she was right. Kind of.
Drew’s eyes were flat. “I saw your Nephilim somewhere…strange.”
“Strange? What? Where? What was he doing?”
Drew shook his head. “Just be careful.”
Julia opened her mouth to scream at him when she heard Dizzy’s voice nearby. “Watcha guys talking about?” Dizzy asked, and Julia jumped ten feet. The nasty girl stabbed Drew under his arm, then turned for a quick lunge at Julia. Julia jumped out of the way (she had tangled with real Nephilim, after all), and was able to bury her blade in Dizzy’s shoulder.
She barely had a moment to feel sick with herself before her vision cut in half and turned on its side. She saw Dizzy stand, but her legs were up top and sideways, and Julia felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder.
She gasped, and forced herself to see the world the way it was. Dizzy swiped her upper thigh, but she returned the favor, jabbing Dizzy hard in her side. The other girl curled over on herself, and Julia snatched one of her daggers.
She felt another burst of confusion. But she didn’t have to take it, so she didn’t. She felt jittery and nervous, but she was intent on besting Dizzy. She started going for the girl’s remaining dagger, and pretty soon Carlin was helping her. When Julia finally wrenched it from the insane girl, she allowed herself the indulgence of a victor’s pose as Dizzy crumpled. Then everything went crazy.
Literally. First, Julia couldn’t breathe. She fell to the floor, gasping, and saw Carlin do the same. She rolled, looking for help, trying to speak but she couldn’t do that either, and besides, everyone seemed to have vanished.
Then the ground started moving, a rolling wave that made Julia sick. The others had returned, and she could see them bobbing, struggling like she was. Everyone but Dizzy.
Suddenly all Julia could see was green-black—the ugly green-black of Dizzy’s aura. It had expanded, filling the room. Julia was terrified, panicked as she tried to right herself and determine basic things like up and down. She knew this was an illusion, told herself it was, looked for the others.
She saw Drew across the room, or what she thought was Drew. He was a smear of amber, leaning on the floor, clutching his head. Carlin was hovering off the ground, hands over her eyes. Julia saw Meredith to her right, but her friend looked like static, fuzzing in and out, one minute beside her, the next across the room.
Julia’s world went toppsy turvey again, and. Dizzy was over her, a writhing mess of green-black, and Julia felt something. Pain. Again, and again, and sharp and horrible enough that Julia realized she was getting stabbed—REPEATEDLY—and the dagger didn’t feel soft, it didn’t feel charmed, the cuts felt very real.
Julia screamed and thrashed, trying to get the crazy girl off of her. She tried to slam her Sight closed, but everything kept getting bigger, more intense, the pain more real and Julia wondered if she was going to die. Really wondered.
And then she saw it, the pinpoint of bright light, the one that had messed things up for her so much when she was living with the Raysons. But she wanted it this time, and it was like she was moving toward it—no, it was moving toward her, no, it was in her, coming out.
Julia embraced the light; she pushed it out of her, until everything was white, white like the sun, and Dizzy was gone and everything was.
And just as suddenly the light was gone. Julia felt like she was waking up. First she heard voices, frantic. Someone was shaking her—Drew. People were crying.
Julia sat up, and Drew’s rich brown eyes were roving over her. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t try to get up too fast.”
And then he was gone, to a group that included everyone else who was up: Carlin, Drew, Monte, Charles.
Julia saw Meredith roll into a sitting position. She walked over to her on legs that felt like plastic and, shaking, pulled her up. Holding onto each other, they joined the rest of the group.
Marilee was in the
center, on the ground. She was curled over on her side, her blonde curls smeared with blood. She wasn’t moving.
Stunned, Julia looked around and spied Dizzy across the room. She was rising onto her knees, clearly dazed.
“There she is,” Anise shouted, and almost as one the group moved toward her. Meredith stayed with Marilee, and Julia lingered in between, feeling frozen.
“What’s going on?” Dizzy asked when she realized what was happening. “You people better back up. I’m serious.”
“You killed Marilee,” Monte accused.
“What! She’s not dead!”
