Secret Keepers: The Complete Series

by Jaymin Eve

  I followed enough of her lecture to know they were focusing on algebraic equations, but since I hadn’t made it past eighth grade math with homeschooling, the finer concepts were gibberish to me. With math, I knew enough to work out my groceries and pay someone for a job.

  My body remained in a semi-tense state as I waited to be singled out or called on to answer a question. But the teacher didn’t say a word. In fact, she never asked a single question of the class; she just taught her lesson. Wrote everything on the white board. Handed out a few pieces of paper. Then dismissed us early.

  As everyone filed out, I headed toward Emma. She was waiting by the door, her friends had already left the room. I had to ask: “Is this sort of class … normal? Shouldn’t she, I don’t know, ask some questions? Check to see if everyone understands the work?”

  Emma shook her head. “It’s weird as hell. I’ve never even had homework. Or anything more than a little pop quiz. Most of the classes involve frank discussions about life, and then when you get to one like math, which is more technical, they just hit you straight up with the facts but never check to see you’re actually learning it.” She took a deep breath. “I’m getting used to it now, but honestly, I’m getting straight A’s here, and I haven’t even had a real exam.” She swung her head around and glared at Lexen. “That’s nothing to do with you, right?”

  Her question was soft, but there was a ton of undercurrent there. Which Lexen definitely picked up on, if his somewhat amused expression was anything to go by. “Whatever grades you’re getting have nothing to do with me. There will be exams closer to December, and then again before we graduate. But for the most part, you’re getting the good grades because you participate. You take notes. You demonstrate your understanding throughout the class discussions. Teachers use their own judgment with that sort of thing.”

  She gave him an extra-long measured look, before nodding. “Another reason to love this school. That and the food.”

  My stomach growled then, despite the fact it hadn’t been that long since breakfast.

  “What time is lunch here?” I asked, suddenly starving.

  “It’s after the next class,” Daniel said. “But if you need to eat now, we can go grab something. I’ve made my appearance today. They won’t mark us off again until this afternoon.”

  Emma reached out, smacked him in the arm, and then yelped and shook her hand in the air. “I need to learn to never hit you overly muscled ali—" She cut herself off but continued to wave her hand.

  Daniel smirked, and my eyes went to his dimple. Stupid perfect dimple. “Lexen needs to toughen you up,” he said to Emma. “Got to keep your badass title.” She flipped him off and he full-on laughed. “That’s more like it.”

  Ignoring that, Emma turned to me. “You can’t leave until we try this experiment with the four houses sitting together at lunch. We need to get that ball rolling.”

  I agreed with that. “No worries. I think I can last another class before expiring from hunger. I’ve never been a huge eater, but the last few days I feel like I’m starving all the time.”

  As I said that, I caught sight of Lexen and Daniel exchanging a look, and I let out a huge sigh. “What?”

  “Your body is adjusting to the new bond,” Daniel told me. “It’s using a lot of energy, especially while you’re not in House of Imperial. You’ll need to keep your food intake up. I should have thought of that and brought you some snacks.”

  Emma quickly grabbed her leather satchel, opened it, and pulled out two bars. “It’s not much, but hopefully they help.” She held them out to me and I shook my head.

  “Wait, no, I can’t take your food.”

  She laughed. “Don’t even stress about it. I was hungry a lot before I met Lexen.” She took a really deep breath and her eyes grew haunted, shadows dancing over her face. “My parents … they were killed in a fire set by Laous. I had to move in with old family friends, and we never had much money.” She hugged herself closer to the massive guy at her side. “But everything is different now. Firstly, Lexen feeds me all freaking day. And secondly, my guardians, Michael and Sara, work for House of Darken now. We have plenty of money and lots of food at home. It’s great.”

  She went on to explain why her guardians used to move all the time, chasing rumors of Daelighters. But since they’d found out the truth – and almost died because of it – they were happy to give that lifestyle up. By the time she finished her story, I’d eaten the first bar, and we had arrived at the next class.

  I knew that not all of us were supposed to be in art class, but again the teacher did not ask a single question when we filed in. It was becoming very clear who ran this school, and it definitely wasn’t the humans.

  I had no experience with art. Supplies were expensive, and my mom had never been interested. Today the class was on pottery, but it wasn’t hands-on yet, just learning about the property of the clay, temperatures, movement to shape, setup of the kiln, and more information like that. It was much easier for me to follow than math, and I was surprised when the bell rang.

  Nerves had my stomach jumping. It was lunchtime. We were about to try the great overlord minor experiment. Maybe we would start a riot. Or maybe, just maybe, this would be the beginning of something better for Overworld.

  Change was coming no matter what. It was time to see which way the dice rolled.

  Chapter 10

  The cafeteria was unbelievable, bigger, brighter, and more luxurious than I would have ever expected. There was a long buffet on the ground level, and the line of kids moving through it was almost mesmerizing. They had it down to a fine art, hundreds of students moving through and collecting food without any issue.

  I started to head in that direction until I realized Lexen was leading us away from it, toward a set of stairs in the center of the room. Stairs that led up to the first level. As I stepped out onto this landing, my eyes got very wide. Holy fancy pants.

  It was a six-star restaurant up here: black and white linen tablecloths, wine glasses, cutlery. There were no waiters I could see, but there was another long buffet. Their own private buffet.

  “They call them the elites,” Emma said to me. “The humans think all Daelighters are from the families of the “founding fathers,” because their last names are the houses’ names. There are about fifty of them in the school, and they all get special treatment.”

  “Your friends don’t eat up here with you?” I asked, wondering if this new life she had with Lexen had caused issue for her.

  Emma shook her head. “No, this is elite only.” Her face screwed up, eyes sad. “It caused a lot of problems at first, with my human friends. The words “traitor” and “stuck-up-bitch” might have gotten thrown around a few times, but eventually we sorted it all out. I try and spend time with them in class, but they know Lex is my priority. Neither of them blames me, they both think he’s hot as hell.”

  Lexan’s lips twitched, but he refrained from saying anything.

  We were not the first ones on the elite level. There were a few small groups already eating. It was immediately clear that they had split themselves into houses. In one corner they were almost all blond, tanned, and broad shouldered, just like Xander.

  “House of Royale,” Emma confirmed.

  In the opposite corner were the brown-skinned, brown-haired individuals. High cheekbones and lots of pretty eyes were a common trait there. I mean, they had unique and individual looks, but you could tell they were from the same house.

  “House of Leights,” Emma said, following my line of sight.

  Which left House of Imperial and House of Darken in their own respective corners. Imperials were glaring absolute daggers in my direction, and I realized that this was the first time I would come face to face with a group of Daniel’s people.

  Outside of passing through the egg room.

  So far, it was going as well as expected.

  My dreary thoughts were cut off as we arrived at the start of the buffet. I wiped
at my mouth, just in case any drool escaped while I stared at the array of dishes artfully displayed in stainless steel trays. Normally I had simple tastes in food. As I’d told Daniel, grilled cheese was my favorite, but I was more than a little impressed with their selection here.

  “Daelighters don’t eat much meat,” Emma told me. “But they make fruit and vegetables into the most delicious meals.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve never been a huge fan of meat. Especially red meat.”

  Her eyes widened. “Me neither. I think it’s because we were born in Overworld.”

  Hmmm, that would make sense; we’d definitely taken on other traits from that world.

  When it was my turn to walk down the line, I started to scoop food onto my plate. A creamy sundried tomato pasta, pumpkin and spice salad, fruit cup, and to finish it off, mashed potatoes with a creamy mushroom sauce.

  I skipped most of the next dishes; my plate was pretty much full anyway, but right near the end I hesitated over the vegetarian pizza. Daniel, who was behind me in the line, laughed when I pouted. “You can come back if you finish what you have and want more. We’ll stay here until you’ve had enough.”

  I blasted him with my brightest smile. It actually hurt my cheeks and made me realize how rarely I used to smile. I needed to work on that, finding the joy in the small things – once we dealt with Laous, and I found my mom. My smile faded away, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to just feel happy without guilt. I supposed that was pretty much life; happiness and guilt often went hand in hand.

  Daniel and I were the first to finish filling our plates and took a seat at a large round table right in the center of the room. I had no idea who usually sat there, since territories were very clearly designated. The moment Lexen, Star, and Emma joined us, the entire floor went deadly silent. We ignored this, continuing to talk normally while eating the mouthwatering food.

  It took a while, but eventually ninety percent of the Daelighters surrounding us went back to their conversations as well. A few of the Darkens even threw smiles in our direction and gave slow head nods to Lexen. The Imperials had the most attitude, especially when Xander and Chase joined us, but no one said anything outright.

  “Well … that went okay,” Emma said after about twenty minutes. She looked between the four overlords. “Right?”

  Xander, who had one eye on the blonds over in Royale’s corner, shifted his body back toward her. “They’re actually taking it quite well.”

  Daniel, who had hardly touched his food, more focused on the Daelighters around us, crossed his arms, leaning back in the chair. “Only time will tell,” he said. “If there is any fallout, we won’t know about it for some time. But at least this is a step in the right direction.”

  I agreed with him. It was time for this change. I just hoped their people were able to deal with it. I only had the potato mash left, having finished everything else on my plate. Scooping up a mouthful, it slid across my tongue and I let out a low groan. “Holy sweet heaven above … this is amazing.”

  Amused expressions were directed at me, but I didn’t care. They could laugh all they wanted; this was me enjoying the little things. When the bell rang fifteen minutes later, I could barely move, dreams of a food-nap playing in my head.

  I perked up a little when Emma started to whine. “Seriously, why is gym class mandatory? Why? And right after lunch … surely they could give us some time to digest our food.”

  Lexen, clearly used to her hatred of gym, just pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “We have a study period first. You’ll have plenty of time to digest.”

  “Besides,” Star piped up, “today is self-defense classes. You keep saying you want to learn how to defend yourself...”

  Hell, yeah. “I love training in self-defense. Is there an advanced class?”

  Star nodded at me. “Yep, advance students mix between defense and fight training. I think the teacher said it was a M-style of fighting or something.”

  Oh, fingers crossed it was MMA. I adored mixed martial arts.

  Emma picked up on my excitement and let out a choked sound. “God, no, you’re athletic, aren’t you? And we had such a beautiful friendship going.”

  A snort of laughter escaped me. Her dry wit was perfect; it matched my own sarcastic tendencies. “I do enjoy pushing my body to its limits. I’ve been fight training most of my life. It was the only activity outside of the home that my mom allowed me to do.”

  It was the only thing I had to stay sane.

  Sympathy and revulsion warred in Emma’s dark blue eyes. “Sorry about your mom, but nothing you say will convince me that exercise is good for you. Scientists are wrong. Doctors are wrong. Everyone is wrong.”

  “What if I can prove you wrong?” I said to her. I had no idea where those words had come from, but they were out now, and I couldn’t take them back.

  She gave me a suspicious look, one eyebrow raised in my direction. “Listening…” she replied.

  “I’ll do some fight and self-defense training with you, and once you learn how to take control of your own body … own your power … kick Lexen’s ass when he needs it … I bet you’ll love it. Once your body is strong, you’ll feel stronger in all ways.”

  The raised eyebrow wasn’t going anywhere, but I knew she was thinking about it. Finally, she nodded. “You know what, I am going to take you up on that offer. I know I’ll always be weaker than most Daelighters, physically at least, but it doesn’t hurt to arm myself as much as I can. A few skills might have come in handy when Laous kidnapped me the first time.”

  As we all turned the corner then, heading toward study hall, I really should have known my world was about to go to shit. The karmic scale only allowed so much happiness before yanking it away.

  It started with a whisper of my name.

  At first I thought I was hearing things, but as I turned to follow the sound, I locked eyes with a set of familiar dark ones.

  “Mom…” I said slowly, swallowing hard as I took a step in her direction. She was thirty feet away from me, just visible at the end of the hall. Her long mousy-brown hair hung in matted strands, her too-thin body swaying visibly as she tried to remain standing. She was much shorter than me, about five-foot-four, and right now she seemed even smaller.

  Melony Channing was in her late thirties, having had me young, but she looked like she was sixty, her face haggard and lined, head drooping forward as she gripped the side rail.

  “Mom,” I whispered again, with more urgency. I lurched forward, ready to take off in her direction, but before I could, Daniel reached out and captured my hand.

  “Wait,” he said, murmuring in my ear. “This is probably a trap. We need to move cautiously. Laous is no doubt somewhere close by.”

  Of course it was a trap, but that didn’t mean I was not going to help her. Daniel had a minute to come up with a plan or I was taking my chances. Turning from me, he said something to the group and Lexen immediately moved Emma and Star back. The four overlords changed positions, so they were surrounding us protectively.

  “I need to go to her,” I bit out, at the end of my already limited patience.

  A hand landed on my shoulder and some of the tension inside of me eased. I waited for him to order me to stay. That’s what I was expecting. In my head I was already formulating an argument.

  “Go slow,” he warned, surprising the hell out of me. “We’re right with you. Laous will not get his hands on you or Emma again. I promise.”

  Thank you, I mouthed at him, grateful that he was acting like we were a team. Doing this together.

  As I took the first step toward my mom, all of the food I’d just eaten swirled in my stomach, threatening to come up. “Callie, I’m so sorry,” my mom said as she took a step forward. One of her arms had been crossed over her chest, and she let it fall forward now, billowing out her sweater.

  That’s when I noticed the device strapped to her chest. My feet halted. I blinked and blinked, trying to wrap my mind around the fact
that my mom was standing there, her chest covered in wires and metal.

  “I think it’s a bomb,” I said, my voice low and wavering.

  I heard curses from behind, and my hand was suddenly in Emma’s, who gripped it tightly, and I squeezed back, grateful for the support. “We need to get everyone out of the school,” she choked out in a panicked wheeze.

  “What do you want, Mom?” I called out. She almost fell as she stumbled another step forward. We were about ten feet apart now. “Why are you here? What does Laous want?”

  I’d never seen her look this weak; it made me sad in a way I didn’t expect. This was a woman who had never loved me … never hugged or comforted me … who did nothing except lecture, and hurt, and belittle me … but I couldn’t stop the tears from silently tracking down my cheeks. Inside there was a young girl who just wanted her mom to love her, who had no one else in the world and needed someone in her corner.

  “He needs you, Callie.” Her voice was thin and reedy. She sounded nothing like her normal self. “Your blood was tainted last time. The floor must have had a substance on it which degraded the blood. He promises that if you come with me now, he will not hurt anyone in the school.”

  We were starting to attract a lot of attention. Students milling in the hall realized something was going on, and when someone noticed the bomb, screams rang out. Bedlam erupted as students started running and pushing, everyone panicking as they tried to escape.

  Except for the Daelighters. Members of the four houses started to gather, some behind my mom, others to my left and right. For once, none of them were segregating themselves. The four houses were mingling, forming an alien barrier.

  “All of the houses have minor powers,” Emma murmured, reiterating what Daniel had told me this morning. “Each is different, and they’re pretty weak this far from their network, except if you’re an overlord. But they might be able to help contain the blast if Laous does detonate.”