by Sarah Jaune
She shook her head, but smiled before taking his hand. He appreciated that she was indulging his over-protectiveness.
Tomorrow, they’d begin the process of packing up to move out. They were heading to the outskirts of the Santa Fe Zone. He really, really hoped they’d find more Pursuers to replace him. He didn’t want to keep leaving his family behind, unprotected.
Especially not now.
CHAPTER 1
THE RIVER WALK
October, Year: BTE221 – Seven Months Later
“Wake up!”
Eli shook his head, looking up from the wall where he’d rested his head for a moment. He turned to stare at Ivy, who was sitting next to him in the small, crawl space of a store above the River Walk in the San Antonio Zone. It was dusty, hot, and cramped, despite it being well after four in the afternoon, but it would work beautifully for their purposes. “I wasn’t sleeping,” he lied as he studied her shadowed face while she gazed through the slatted vents down onto the world below them. Her blonde, curly hair was pulled back from her face, and the light from the world outside caught her eyes, making them dance green, like newly budded leaves on the trees in spring.
The River Walk was like no other place in their world, at least not that Eli was aware of. The river was more of a wide, bricked up channel that snaked along through the heart of the city. The channel kept the river from shifting places, and typically meant that the river never overflowed. On either side of the canal were buildings of various shapes and sizes. It was, to put it simply, stunning; a mosaic of charm, ruin, and the well-tended all blending seamlessly together.
Ivy only gave him a look that clearly said, ‘sure you weren’t.’ “You’re getting old, man.”
“Old?” Eli laughed, trying to ignore the twist in his gut, and stretched, working out the kinks from their long drive the night before. “I only just turned sixteen, where as you have been sixteen for months now.” Since June, in fact. “You’re practically ancient.”
Sixteen…
He’d thought about his twin sister, younger than him by a few minutes, all day on his birthday. He’d been a beast to be around. It had been so bad, in fact, that his foster brother, Oliver, had punched him. Eli had punched back. Then his other foster brother, Graham, had jumped into the fight. They’d fought, hollered at each other, getting out the anger that they all struggled with.
That was until Ivy had shown up and drowned them in ice water. Well, not literally drowned them. But it was really difficult to keep fighting when they were all shivering.
His foster mother, Maia, who was a saint, just shook her head at them and told them to clean up the mess they’d made.
Then she’d made them all go running. It made him smile. He adored Maia.
“We’re on our first mission as Pursuers,” Ivy reminded him with a poke to the shoulder. “You should stay awake for it.”
“I did drive all night long,” he reminded her. “And most of yesterday.”
They’d left the Portland Zone two days before to head to San Antonio. They both lived in the small township of Redmond, which was in the outskirts of the Portland Zone, but they had a tip, so Eli and Ivy had set off on their first job. It seemed to be an easy one, too. Drive to San Antonio to check out the Overseer’s family here. They lived on the River Walk in a beautiful mansion. It was, unfortunately, difficult to get close to. The family owned most of the eastern end of the River Walk and there were few buildings along either side with a view. The one they’d broken in to, though, afforded them a small window to watch the front door of the mansion.
“It’s all that orange clay around here,” Ivy commented. “It’s funny how different everything looks, depending on where we go. At home it’s a lot of log houses and siding.”
She was right, of course. Everything seemed to be made from bright, reddish-orange clay that melted in well with the desert around them.
“My legs are killing me,” Ivy complained softly. “Running five miles yesterday morning was a stupid idea.”
“It was your idea,” Eli reminded her. She’d been tired of being in the car and had decided they needed a run before getting back in the car.
“And I’m admitting it was stupid,” Ivy smirked. She’d changed so much in the last seven months that it was almost unbelievable. Her looks were still pretty much the same. She wasn’t any taller, and Eli didn’t think she weighed any less. That definitely bothered Ivy, not that she’d complained about it to him. He’d been walking to the kitchen for a snack and was halted in his tracks when he’d heard Ivy saying o Maia, “I thought I’d get skinny!”
“You’re in shape, which is more important,” Maia had informed her. “But, I know what you mean.”
Ivy had snorted at that. “You’re thin as a twig, Maia!”
“It’s more the principle,” Maia had told her. “You worked really hard for a goal and your goal was to get in shape and lose some weight, but Ivy, this is the way your body is built. You probably have relatives with the same build, so there’s no point in trying to escape it.” At Ivy’s heavy sigh, Maia had added, “Is this about a boy?”
“No,” Ivy’s voice had grumbled out. Then, “Yes. There’s a dance tonight and I wasn’t asked to go. Again.”
“You could always ask someone.”
Eli had remembered turning straight back around and away from the kitchen as quietly as he could. He really hadn’t wanted to interrupt that conversation. Or worse, be asked for his opinion.
Ivy was just Ivy, which meant her nose was straight and not too long, and she burned easily in the sun. Her eyes were maybe a little too big for her round face, but the color was so striking that Eli wasn’t sure most people would notice. She wasn’t ugly, or anything, she was just… Ivy, which Eli thought summed her up nicely.
Eli had, finally, grown some over the last few months. He’d gained a few inches, gained a few pounds, and had finally started to feel like he might not be short his whole life. Eli’s birth father was tall and broad, but Eli doubted he’d ever be that way. He still appeared scrawny and weak.
Which was weird, because Eli could pick up a car.
That was one of Eli’s magical powers. He was strong, he was fast, and he could move objects with his mind. He’d thought that he didn’t have any magical powers at all. The powers typically came in completely when a kid was thirteen. Often, in the years before that, a child might show tendencies to what power they were going to have, but Eli hadn’t seen anything like that for himself. It hadn’t been until after they’d escaped from his father’s house the previous winter that his power had come in fully. He’d been fifteen, and so sure he had no power that he’d resigned himself to it. He’d learned karate to protect himself, thinking that would be his only chance.
It was sort of laughable now, except that the lack of powers had meant he’d been a sitting duck for his father.
Eli was sure Campbell Hunt wouldn’t come after him, not now. Eli had beaten his father so badly that he’d left him in no doubt that Eli could take his father’s seat.
That was, Eli knew, what this whole thing was about. The rules of their world were very strict. The Overseer could only be in his or her own zone. They couldn’t cross into another zone without permission from the Overseer of the zone they wanted to enter. The Overseer would rule until one of two things happened; either their oldest child turned thirty and the seat was handed over peacefully, or the Overseer’s child challenged the parent to take their seat. The child couldn’t do this until they’d reached their majority, which was age eighteen.
Eli was only two years off from that now, but he knew he could if he wanted to.
The only problem was he really, really didn’t want to. Chicago was a mess. His father was ruining the zone, driving out the people who could leave, and leaving everyone else to slowly starve. Only the elites in the zone, the ones who Campbell and Eli’s mother, Noelle, liked personally were able to survive well enough.
“Hey,” Ivy’s soft voice interr
upted his maudlin thoughts. “You okay?”
He turned to stare into her ivy colored eyes, so unlike his own pale blue. “I’m fine,” he lied.
She nodded once. “I forgot the sunscreen.”
“I didn’t remember either,” Eli admitted. He didn’t need it. With his olive skin that tanned, and dark hair, he never burned.
Ivy stared back out the slatted vent shaft and said, offhandedly, “You can tell me if you’re not okay.”
The weirdest thing was Eli knew he could. For as short of a time as he’d known Ivy, he’d grown so close to her. They ran together, trained together, spared together, mediated together, and laughed together. Of all of those things, it was laughing that was the biggest struggle. They’d both been through so much in their lives that finding anything funny was a challenge. Eli had been abused by his birth parents, then rescued when he was ten. Ivy had lived with a mother who slowly went crazy before she died, a grandmother that didn’t love or want her, and somewhere in the mix was Ivy’s father. She’d never met him. He was the Overseer of Portland, and he hadn’t wanted Ivy. He had a wife and kids, kids he actually wanted. He’d never tried to help or see Ivy. Now Ivy lived with a magical foster family just a short distance from his own house, but most of the time she was over with him, training.
Eli knew just how much her father’s rejections hurt her, even if she never said it. “I know,” he replied as he reached out to squeeze her hand. He could talk to her, if he wanted to talk. “You, too.”
She shot him a quick grin. “Enough being sappy?”
“Please,” Eli laughed as they continued to watch the mansion. Stake out work was, by design, really boring. “This is the family that was going to see Zen’s family, right? They were hoping for an alliance with Zen’s older brother, Pistol, and one of the girls.”
“I believe so,” Ivy replied as she repositioned the binoculars. “It’s four girls.” She pulled a slip of paper from her jeans’ pocket and read off the names. “Coral, Jade, Opal, and Amethyst. Wow.”
Eli peered over her shoulder just to make sure he’d heard her correctly. “I cannot imagine having three sisters all at once.”
Ivy turned to look at him and their faces were so close their noses brushed. She leaned back so she could see him clearly. “There’s nothing wrong with girls.”
“There’s nothing wrong with girls,” Eli agreed quickly, because he did completely agree, “but having two is enough.”
He missed his sisters like he’d missed his arm if it were suddenly cut off. He had two foster sisters, Ava and Alexi, but it wasn’t the same. Ava was now five, but Alexi was still two. Baby sisters weren’t quite the same as ones who were closer to his age. Ava was afraid of bugs and wanted Eli to get them out of the house for her. Alexi mostly wanted piggyback rides and to be picked up. Alexi’s motto seemed to be, ‘Why should I walk when there are three big foster brothers to carry me?’ Because she was adorable, with her nut-brown hair and blue eyes, she could get away with it. Ava was equally cute, but her hair was a little darker and her eyes brown. Her eyes seemed so old sometimes, wiser than her years. She was a sweet kid.
He’d had a big sister at one point and she’d bossed him around much of the time, except towards the end.
It was difficult and painful to think about now, so he tried not to dwell on it, but by the end of his time living in Chicago, his big sister had flinched around him. He didn’t know what, if anything, he’d done to her, but Naomi had told him he was getting to be more and more like their father.
That was reason enough to leave the Chicago Zone. The only thing Eli never wanted to be was his father, which meant never, ever, becoming the Overseer of Chicago. He’d promised his birth mother he wouldn’t take the seat unless he had to, and Eli meant to keep that promise.
Ivy also had younger foster sisters, but she was home so little that she didn’t have to deal with them much. Eli actually thought she preferred not being home because of the little girls. They were sweet enough, but a huge handful. Ivy had once told him she preferred lock picking, one of the skills they’d both learned, to babysitting.
“I don’t see any ways into the house that are obvious,” Ivy said as she went back to studying the house. “If they don’t come out in a few days we’ll probably need to break in one night and try to find the oldest kid’s room. I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Eli did, as well. It was risky to break into the house. Ideally, they’d prefer to speak to one of the girls when they were out and about in the town, but if they were really being mistreated, they might not leave the house. Eli certainly hadn’t.
They were missing school for this, too. They were excused, of course. Schooling was optional for them. They could have a job right now, or be working in a trade school. High school past a certain age was only for those with the aptitude, who wanted to continue on. There weren’t a lot of jobs that required more education. Teachers, scientists, and doctors were the main ones. If a kid wanted to go to a university there were a few of them. Eli’s oldest foster brother, Naim, was at a university for his first year in the San Francisco Zone.
Their absence from school was excused by the simple matter of their parents excusing them, but Eli knew they would have to make up the work once they were back. If they were in San Antonio for too long it would be a nightmare to catch up.
“Do we even know why they were reported?” Eli wondered.
“I think it’s just because it’s four girls and no son,” Ivy said as she stretched her arms up in the cramped, stuffy attic. “Most of the families would have a problem with that.”
The oldest boy typically took the Overseer’s seat. In the more ruthless families, like Eli’s, the girls would have been married off to whichever zone made the most strategic sense. Things like love, or even liking, were often ignored for political gains and aspirations.
No Overseer could take another zone. It was not allowed, and there was a council that regulated such things, but it didn’t mean that there weren’t other advantages to having close ties with another zone. They could, for instance, make better trade agreements for goods, or secure resources that the zone might need.
No, on the whole, Eli was glad that he was out of that life. He was glad his sisters were out of it, too. Eli’s mother had told him once that she had an attachment, a magical bond which Eli hadn’t even known existed, to another man that wasn’t his father.
She’d shrugged it off and told him she’d overcome it and moved on to marry Eli’s father because it was what made sense. It was so coldblooded and calculating that Eli still couldn’t wrap his head around it.
He’d learned later that Maia and Pablo had an attachment. They adored each other. It wasn’t perfect, or easy, but they made it work.
Eli really wanted that for his sisters. They deserved better.
“Eli!” Ivy nudged his shoulder and pointed out the window. “We’re in luck!”
CHAPTER 2
CORAL
Eli stared down as the front door opened, and a short, regal looking woman with perfectly curled light brown hair came out with a tall man. Behind him, like ducks in a row, came four girls. The youngest girl, who appeared to be about three, was being walked along by a uniformed nanny.
The girls all had their mother’s hair, and all appeared remarkably similar from what Eli could gather.
Their father had slightly darker hair, but he was thin as a rail and walking with a cane.
“Do we know what his power is?” Eli asked Ivy. “I wish we were closer so you could sense them.”
“We will be soon, I don’t remember what powers…” she admitted as she checked the paper again. “Father is… oh hey, he’s also strength like you.”
Eli blinked down at the man. “He’s using a cane.”
“You don’t look like you’re all that strong, either,” Ivy reminded him. It would have stung if she’d meant it to, but it was a simple statement of fact.
“True,” he agreed. “What about
the mother?”
“She’s… oh daggers,” Ivy swore. “Telepathy.”
Eli groaned. They were in serious trouble. If the mother caught sight of them, she’d know they were from the Guard and might give them away. Mind reading was one of the most dangerous magical powers out there. If one of the kids had her power… “I was hoping our first assignment would be an easy one, you know? Let us get used to doing this.”
“No such luck,” she blew out a breath and dust motes danced around them in the sudden current of air. “We just have to risk it.”
It wasn’t that simple, though, and Eli knew it. He stared at Ivy, who studiously ignored the look he was giving her. “Ivy…”
