by Bree Moore
Tyson tapped his mental resources, trying to come up with someone else with motive. Unless Tom harbored some secret anger no one knew about, it couldn’t be him. James was Violet’s husband and could be in on it with her, though it was a stretch. They both loved Fletcher. They were supportive of his Naturalization, and they had no reason to want the camp shut down. Lilith…
Could she have aspirations for leadership of the coven, of the camp itself? She had been here a long time, always happy to go along with whatever others wanted, never putting up a fuss, quiet and likeable… Tyson swallowed. The profile his mind was generating of Lilith Adiel. If Lilith created enough chaos, the camp would fall apart, giving her the perfect opportunity to put her plans into motion, whatever those plans were.
Fletcher’s death had put everyone into a state of grief. No one would be watching for something to happen.
Harper. What part did she play in all of this?
Tyson’s feet pricked with pins and needles but finally released. He ran to the door. He knew it was useless, but he had to try anyway. As soon as his flesh contacted the metal doorknob, an acid-like substance burned into his skin. He yelled and stumbled back, holding his red, blistered hand. The office chair hit the back of his legs, and he slumped into it, staring at his burned skin. It throbbed, the skin red and shiny-looking. Tyson bit back tears, breathing deep against the pain, and stared at the door. How would Quinn and Becca get through that?
He didn’t have a first-aid kit in the office, so he had nothing for the burns. Just hand sanitizer, and he knew that wouldn’t do any good. His eyes landed on the long, spiked leaves of the plant next to Tom’s books. Aloe vera. That was the stuff they used on sunburns, right? He grabbed the plant from the shelf and set it on the desk. He pinched the thick arm of the plant, his nail piercing the waxy flesh. Some juice stuff squirted out, and the inside of the leaf glistened green. He needed to cut it open.
Tyson’s eyes landed on his back pack. The ulu knife was inside. He rummaged through until he found the dark, velvety package, and he unwrapped it on the desk. Bone and blade gleamed in the bright electric lights of his office. He picked it up in one hand, holding his breath. Besides feeling awkward holding it in his non-dominant hand, nothing happened. No strange dreams, no ice, no northern lights. Tyson sliced at the plant and the end came cleanly off. That knife was sharp.
The inside of the plant gleamed, slightly translucent. He set the knife down and squeezed just below where he cut. A chunk of the plant’s insides fell out, plopping to the desk. He scooped it up and rubbed it into the burns on his left hand. It felt soothing, so he kept rubbing, squeezing the plant to get more. The gel created a tacky barrier on his skin.
Tyson eyed the plant. He was getting broken out of here soon, and it would be wise to bring something for the burns. He picked up the whole plant and placed it in the top of his backpack. There was no way it would fit. He cut one of the stalks off and slid it into a side pocket. The ulu knife followed, after Tyson did his best to clean the blade with a tissue from the desk. He wished he had some bandaging, but wasn’t willing to sacrifice his spare shirt to the cause. The burns weren’t as serious as that.
A thunder clap, or a gunshot, sounded outside. Tyson ran to the window blinds and peeked out between them, but saw nothing. If that was Becca and Quinn, they were at the border of the camp, too far away for him to see from there. He had maybe ten minutes.
He glanced around the office. Like Tom, he hadn’t done much to the place. There was nothing personal, except the picture of Tyson’s sister and her kids. After a moment, he opened the back of the frame and slipped the picture into his backpack, then slung the strap over his shoulder, being careful of his injured hand. The last thing he did was log out of everything on his account, cleared the internet cache, and shut down the computer.
Tyson stood ready by the door. Any moment, either Violet or Becca would come through. He bounced impatiently from one leg to the other. Did he hear shouting outside, or was he imagining things? He resisted the urge to look through the office window again. He needed to be ready to run.
The front door, just outside the office, banged open. Muffled voices outside. Tyson leaned toward the door, then thought better of it and stepped back.
“Tyson? You in there?” Becca’s voice came through the door.
“Yeah.”
“Step back. And cover your ears.” Tyson heard an electronic whirring sound and slapped his hands over his ears just before it went off. That same gun shot sound was deafening in close proximity, and his ears rang despite covering them. Becca opened the door without getting burned like Tyson did. Her device must have disrupted the warding. Becca returned the device to a bag swinging at her side and smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Hey, cuz,”
“Hey,” Tyson replied, stepping through.
Quinn nodded in Tyson’s direction. “You ever blown a joint like this?”
Tyson rolled his eyes. “No.”
“Well, time to run. Most everyone is outside that we could see. It’s all gone to hell. The rogues are attacking. It’s the only way we got through to you, with all the chaos. Where’s Harper?” Becca said it all in one breath.
“She headed downstairs, last I saw.” Tyson shifted his backpack strap, uneasy at the thought of rogues invading the camp. Too much was happening at once. His run-in was the last he ever wanted to see of them. “What’s the plan to get out past everyone once we’re outside?”
“Run like hell.” Quinn spoke up from behind Becca, still tall, dark, and brooding.
They were both familiar with the cabin, but they let Tyson lead the way as they all ran down the stairs. It took Tyson’s eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. Water lapped against the pool on the other side of the basement, otherwise the air was silent.
“Which way?” Becca hissed, coming to a stop behind him.
“What are we looking for?” Quinn asked after a minute. Vague shapes appeared in Tyson’s vision, but it wasn’t enough to make out the features of his companions.
“I’m not sure.” Tyson didn’t get to talk to Harper, so he didn’t know why she would be down here. Would she have gone to the pool? He didn’t think so, but… A sensation nudged him in the opposite direction, down a maze of hallways he knew held unused classrooms and the staff shower room. The sensation alerted his mind as if he’d heard a quiet sound, except he was certain he hadn’t heard anything. He motioned for Becca and Quinn to follow.
When Tyson rounded the second corner, a soft light emanated from an open door halfway down. Rushing down the hall, he peered around the doorframe.
Harper’s face was illuminated by a magnificent glowing ball, almost like a bowling ball, but something about the luminescent object felt distinctly other-worldly. Her hands hovered over the surface. Tyson stepped fully into the doorway, letting that silver light wash over him. Whatever she was about to do, it felt wrong. Fear twisted in his gut.
“Harper, don’t—”
A flash of light cut off Tyson’s words as Harper brought her hands down on the orb. She glanced up, saw him, recognized him.
Tyson’s head screamed with pain, and Quinn and Becca both doubled over, hands clasping their heads. Tyson faced Harper, taking a vast amount of effort to perform the simple task. Her short hair flew behind her in an invisible wind, and silver light shone through her open eyes and mouth, casting her skin in negative darks and lights like a setting on a camera.
Tyson’s muscles wouldn’t obey him. He shuffled at a snail’s pace to get to Harper, fighting an invisible force. Lines on the floor glowed faintly, and he recognized a giant pentagram shape sketched onto the concrete. A pentagram that protected Harper and the orb, preventing him from getting closer.
Harper, what the hell did you do?
Chapter Nineteen
Harper
“Lilith. Lilith. Lilith.” Harper felt like an idiot chanting the name in the dark hallway, but Lili
th had said that was the way to contact her. This was Harper’s third time chanting. She’d stood there for at least fifteen minutes, and that was after getting lost in the tangle of hallways in the basement. She jumped at every sound from upstairs. Getting twitchy wasn’t a good sign.
A whisper sounded behind Harper, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She turned, but saw nothing. A shadow flickered in the corner of her eye, near the ceiling. Her gaze darted around until it landed on a mass of curling, pale smoke to her right. The smoke billowed, then settled over the invisible figure of a woman who gradually became solid.
Lilith.
The witch smiled. “I am pleased, Harper. You will be praised by many for this.”
Harper didn’t care for praise, she wanted justice. Lilith unlocked the door and let Harper through. The same shelves, strewn with lit candles, and the pentagram on the floor. Everything looked the same as Harper had seen before. Even the orb, to her shock, waited on the table.
“You knew I would come?” Harper’s skin tingled, and the center of her chest went cold at the thought.
“Harper, you and I are people of similar convictions. I knew you would come because it’s what I would do.” Lilith smiled again, her words pricking a warning in Harper’s heart. Harper brushed the sensation away, stepping toward the orb.
“Do you know what you will say?” Lilith asked.
Harper swallowed, eyeing the orb. “I think so.” She stood before it. “Lilith, how will this change me?”
No answer. The hallway stood empty. Lilith wasn’t going to stay, to make sure Harper didn’t mess this up?
Harper stared at the orb’s surface, taking deep, shuddering breaths. It was now or never. Sooner or later, someone would come looking for Harper and try to stop her from what she was about to do.
Her trembling fingers moved toward the orb’s innocently glinting surface, fingertips sliding across the smooth surface. It was warm.
“Harper, don’t—”
Harper’s head shot up, and she caught a blurred glimpse of Tyson before the world collapsed on itself.
Tyson stood, a reaching, gape-mouthed ghost, unable to come through the door. The orb bled to gunmetal grey beneath Harpers’ fingers, and the whole room beamed with white light. Furniture and items on shelves became a wispy grey. The pentagram on the floor lit up like a Christmas tree, pulsing in rainbow colors along the thickly drawn lines. Her hands remained glued to the Beryllium Orb, quivering with the vibrations that came off it.
Harper King.
A graveled voice whispered in Harper’s ear, tickling the eardrum. She shuddered, unable to move a finger to rub away the itch. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her vocal chords were seized, but the words came through as thought. What are you?
I am Creator of the past, I am Author of the future. What have you brought for me?
A request. The words sounded hollow in Harper’s head. She ignored the voice of her conscience telling her to let go of the orb. She had to do this. For Fletcher. She steadied herself, focusing on the orb in her grip.
Name your request.
Harper breathed deeply, but her lungs locked up, unable to draw the air in fully. She took another quivering breath before projecting her thoughts. I want the powers of James and Violet Petrov removed permanently.
Righteous anger curled within Harper, like a snake waiting to strike. Her thoughts seethed at the memory of what they did to Fletcher. How many deaths like his were they responsible for?
Black tendrils of the orb reached into her mind, searching for their faces. Harper gritted her teeth at each memory that flashed up from the day she arrived at camp. She tried to clench her fists, but her hands remained glued to the orb’s gleaming surface. The smoky tendrils wrapped themselves around the memories, clinging to the folds of her mind like sticker weeds.
A price must be paid, Harper King.
Harper breathed in. If the price only affected her, she would pay it without question.
I’m willing to pay.
Ahead, two figures joined Tyson in the doorway, gesturing to Harper and down the hall, talking in slow motion animation. A woman and a man. Harper’s eyes lingered on the blurred grey lines of the man’s form.
Quinn.
He was here. Harper opened her mouth to shout, but she couldn’t convince the muscles around her mouth to move. The orb reached toward her memories of her brother.
Not him. You can’t take him from me. Harper couldn’t move to shriek and throw herself to the floor to beg like she wanted to.
He won’t be dead to everyone. Only you. The voice in the orb said.
Harper cried out and struggled to break the connection of her hands on the orb, but she couldn’t. Having named her desire, she was forced to accept the price the orb had chosen. This was what Lilith had meant. Forever changed.
The intelligence within the orb began with Harper’s very earliest memories, blurred images from infancy that she never would have been able to summon consciously. It was the sweetest torture she could ever experience, seeing each moment relived as it was stricken forever from her mind. Her sense of Quinn narrowed, her feelings weakened. Quinn existed on two planes, in her mind’s eye at age eight, and in front of her at twenty-four. Her brother. What would happen when she forgot him entirely?
Harper yanked again at her hands, desperate to get away, to keep the orb from taking everything from her. Her limbs quivered with the effort. She yelled internally, pulling with all of her paranormal strength, muscles burning.
Her right hand twitched, and the orb flickered back to crystal for a brief moment.
No! The orb’s voice shrieked in Harper’s mind. It increased its efforts, slicing through memories without giving her a chance to live through them. Quinn sheltering her while a foster parent yelled in the background. Quinn teaching her to fly. Quinn raising fists to a playground bully. Quinn hard-knuckling her head. The last day Harper saw him, his seventeenth birthday, saying goodbye with her arms wrapped around his waist and her head on his chest. She’d heard he got sent to juvie only a few days later and wondered if she would ever see him again. She promised herself that she would. She wouldn’t lose that chance now.
Harper redoubled her efforts, eyes and muscles bulging. Her left hand quivered. The tendrils reached for the last memories of Quinn, greedy and hungry. They flickered.
You. Can’t. Have. Him! With an internal scream, Harper yanked her hands away from the glassy surface of the Beryllium orb and clenched her fists at last. The grey light disappeared, and her vision of the room tunneled. Her legs collapsed. Harper breathed heavily, her head ringing and her eyes screwed shut against the pain.
The forms at the door rushed toward Harper. Tyson reached for her, but her eyes went to the other faces beside him, searching. Nameless faces. She’d lost something. If only she could remember what.
“Harper, wake up!”
Harper murmured and stirred, eyelids blinking open. She was on the floor of the pentagram room in the basement, the orb glinting, dark and innocent from the table above. She shook her head, pushing concerned hands away and standing on her own. She tore her eyes away from the orb, glancing toward the person crouching next to her. Earnest brown eyes gazed at her, framed with long black hair. He had a beautiful face.
“God, Harper, I thought you were…” The man swallowed. Harper squinted, and her head ached.
Do I know him?
“We need to get out of here, Quinn. Grab her and let’s get going.” A female voice. Harper tipped her head back and blinked at the blonde woman with hair to her waist and delicate features. Harper had never seen the woman before.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Her voice slurred, like she’d been drinking. Another face dipped into view. Finally, someone she recognized. “Tyson.”
“At least we know she hasn’t got amnesia,” Tyson said, glancing at the others.
“There they are,” a man barked. Their head
s all jerked toward the doorway where two men in black suits stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the only exit. From the floor, Harper couldn’t see more than their legs and torsos. She moved to stand, but the man with the black hair crouched next to her put a hand on her shoulder, holding her down. Harper was pissed he touched her but glad for the intervention. Her head spun and throbbed at the same time, and she wasn’t entirely certain she wouldn’t have fallen down immediately.
“Who are you?” The man stood and addressed the two intruders, moving around the table. He gestured to the woman and Tyson to stay back, but the woman ignored him and came to stand next to him. The men didn’t respond. They came forward, and their hands pulled something from their suit coats.
Guns.
Well, one looked like a gun. The other seemed like some sort of electronic reading device. It beeped like a metal detector as the one suit scanned the room. He gestured at Tyson’s two companions, the dark-haired man and the blonde woman.
“There’s two of them.”
“The witch called about one,” the other suit said.
“I’m not picky. Readings this high? We take both.” The first suit shrugged.
Harper scoffed. No one would take anyone if she had anything to say about it. Now, if she could only stand…She pushed off from the floor with her hands, but her arms wobbled alarmingly, still weak as jello. She heard a click and froze. A crackling sound filled the air.
Tyson’s companions yelled and their limbs jerked as they fell stiffly to the ground. Wires coming off the guns were stuck in their backs. Not guns. Tasers.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Tyson ran around the table and right at one of the suits, but the suit threw a punch and Tyson was thrust back against the wall. He crumpled to the ground.
They weren’t wearing Stiff uniforms, Harper realized. This was a whole different faction. Aberration Management? She frowned, trying to remember what Tyson had said earlier in the office.
