by KC Kingmaker
I was getting annoyed at our extended stroll through the castle and was ready to ask where the hell they were taking me. Just before I could, we came to a small room set in the middle of the basement. It had a few chairs and a couch and seemed like a lounging den. I was surprised to find a lobby in the middle of this cold, labyrinthine place.
“Why have you brought me down here?” I asked, my voice cracking from disuse.
Jace Hudson motioned for one of the chairs. “Please, Miss Hargrave, take a seat.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, looking at each man in turn. I was exhausted, so I sat.
Jace’s graying facial hair and demeanor made him look at least twice as old as anyone else here, while Dax and Sunny looked like they could have been my age. Because of that, Jace had an air of command and respect around him—like a father figure to these other guys—and he didn’t seem as threatening.
I calculated all that before my butt hit the chair.
Jace sat across from me, taking up all my attention. Dax and Sunny stayed behind me and off to the sides. It seemed like a proper interrogation setup.
Jace gave me a small smile through his beard. There was no doubt he was still a very handsome man, aging like fine wine and all that. I bet some women would have pounced on him quicker than the other guys my own age. It was hard to be angry at his disarming smile.
“Coralia Hargrave, I’d like to be the first one to welcome you to Shadowblade Academy,” he said in a thick, low voice. He settled his hands on his lap and studied me for a reaction.
“I’ve never heard of the place,” I replied flatly.
“Then your sister has done her job.”
His words stole my breath. “What? Myri? What has she got to do with this?”
Given that I had pushed Sunny into a freaking wall and he’d vanished like fog, and Venn had walked through darkness with me in his arms and we’d ended up here, and I knew my own sister’s powers, I wasn’t too surprised that this was a school for Abnorms.
I just hadn’t expected Jace Hudson to mention Myria to my face.
“We like to keep things under wraps around here,” Jace said simply. “I only mean to say that students vow to keep their attendance at Shadowblade a secret. It’s part of the rules.”
“So you’re admitting Myria is a student?”
He furrowed his brow. “Didn’t I just say that?”
“Well aren’t you breaking her vow of secrecy then? Breaking your own rules of conduct or whatever?”
Jace shifted his weight in his seat, growing momentarily flummoxed at being called out. Behind me, I heard either Dax or Sunny stifle a chuckle.
Shaking his head, Jace said, “Well, no, not exactly. I’m different.”
“How?”
“Because I’m what we call a Wrist. I’m also a professor.”
I shrugged nonchalantly, enjoying watching him backpedal. “As a professor, I feel like you’d be held to an even higher standard than the students.”
He sighed, his lips thinning. “I think we got started off on the wrong foot. I’ll let it slide because you don’t know any better, but Ghosts get punished for this sort of disobedience.”
“Disobedience? I’m only trying to clarify what you said is a rule.”
“You’re being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.”
I looked away and shrugged again. He was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it. I just wanted to get an overall vibe of these people. So far Jace seemed like the honest type, yet also the type who hated it when things didn’t go his way.
“I’m not a ghost, by the way,” I muttered. “So maybe you should just let me go, since it sounds like you’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Huh?”
“You said ghosts get punished for disobedience.”
“Oh. Right. Ghosts are what we call cadets here.”
“And Wrists?”
Jace waved a hand through the air. “You’ll learn all the terminology during orientation, Miss Hargrave.”
“Cadets? Orientation? You make it sound like I’m attending Shadowblade Academy.”
“Well . . . you are.”
Frustration boiled inside me. “Says who? No I’m not.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
“And where is here, exactly?”
“At Shadowblade Academy.” He leveled me with a flat smile, like he thought he’d won.
“Now who’s being the petty one?”
His face twisted. “Excuse me?”
“Never mind. You said I’m going here, I said I’m not. One of us is wrong.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “And I’m afraid it’s you.”
“I’ll escape the first chance I get. You can’t make me attend this silly school.”
Jace Hudson stood from his chair, clearly having had enough of my bullshit. I gulped and scooted back in my seat, all the snarkiness flooding out of my body as he towered over me. “Enough, Miss Hargrave. You won’t escape because we can’t allow it. Your sister attends, and so will you. Clearly you’re misunderstanding. This isn’t an invitation.”
I gaped. “You’d force me to go to some private school with people I hate?”
“Well, we did kidnap you to bring you here.”
As he trailed off, I let out a dismayed tut.
Jace put a palm up, apparently trying to start over. “It’s a privilege to attend Shadowblade Academy, Miss Hargrave.” He sighed and looked over my head to Dax and Sunny behind me. “You see? This is why it’s hard keeping this place a secret. New recruits have never heard of us, so they don’t know how excellent the school is.”
“Look,” I said, waving my hands frantically in the air. “I don’t care if this is the Harvard of supernatural schools. I just want to go back home to my shitty little town and my friends and my cat.” Speaking of, I haven’t seen Brucey in a while.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. We can’t just let you roam the streets now that you’ve become who you’ve become,” Jace said.
My brow pinched together. “Uh, cryptic much? What the hell is that supposed to mean, guy? I was the unlucky sister, man. I never got my powers.”
“You have now.”
“What?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Miss Hargrave? Your powers have been unveiled. It’s how we found you—what we call a power signature. We watch for those sorts of things. We were pleased to find out it came from a sibling of one of our very own, but not too surprised. Myria is a potent Phantom.”
His words baffled me into silence. Not sure where to start, I started at the end. “Phantom?”
“If a Ghost is a cadet, a Phantom is one step above. A student soldier, basically.”
Everything he’s saying would help to explain the crazy day I just had. “Look, I’m not saying you’re right, but I’m curious: When do you think my powers came into fruition?”
“It seems like your twenty-first birthday, doesn’t it?”
“But Abnorms”—animalistic growls behind me cut me off—“sorry, supernaturals are supposed to have their abilities revealed on their eighteenth birthday. Like Myria.”
He shook his head. “Everyone is different, Miss Hargrave. The supernatural timeline doesn’t work on a manmade, formulaic scale. I guess you could call yourself a late bloomer.”
I blinked in astonishment. I didn’t know what to say.
“Congratulations, Miss Hargrave,” he said with a smile that almost looked sincere. “You’re one of us, whether you like it or not.”
I tried to backpedal before I became overwhelmed. So many emotions were rising up inside me and I had to keep them stuffed down. After being treated like I was unworthy and third-class because I wasn’t a supernatural, by my own family, no less! And now I find out I am one?
My voice was shaky when I spoke. “If I’m going to do as you say and attend Shadowblade Academy, I want to see my sister. Where is she?”
“I’m afraid she’s on an important mission right now. She’s away
for the time being. That shouldn’t be a problem in the future as long as you’re positioned in the same Glove as her. Which seems likely.”
“Glove?”
“Never mind. We’ll get to that later. And look, we’re not trying to replace one sister with the other. That would never fly and it’s not what’s happening here. You have shown promise on your own accord and will be treated as such.”
I nodded, not really hearing him as I picked up on something he’d said earlier. Mom told me Myria was missing. So who’s telling the truth here? It’s not like my mother would know the specifics of Myria’s whereabouts or condition—she wasn’t a student here. Maybe I shouldn’t have ousted her before being able to press her for more answers. I wondered who had told her Myria was missing from the Academy.
In truth, I had wanted to come here in order to find Myria. Never mind all the wild schemes I’d been concocting to try and find where she went to school. It had landed at my feet, no trickery necessary.
Here I was.
But a vague “she’s on a mission and isn’t available” wasn’t enough for me. I needed to get to the bottom of Myria’s whereabouts. At that moment, I decided I would stay at the Academy and play along, at least until I figured all that out.
Step one of my mission—infiltrating the Academy—was a success. A surprisingly easier success than I’d expected. Now I just needed to stay alive and use my sleuthing abilities, however nonexistent they might be, to uncover the secrets of this place.
“Fine,” I said.
“Hm? ‘Fine’ what?”
“I’ll attend the Academy.”
Jace scratched his bearded cheek. “Um, I know? Did you hear nothing I just said?”
“Yeah yeah, tough guy, I know—I have no choice and blah blah blah. But I’m telling you I’ll attend willingly. I won’t be a nuisance.”
“Oh. Well that’s good. Because it wouldn’t end well for you.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
He crossed his arms over his burly chest and I realized he was more ripped than I’d noticed. “Look, you were chosen because you have shown great power within you. We had to take you before you could get in the wrong hands. Coercive, evil hands.”
“You had to snag me and recruit me before someone else could.”
“Basically, yes.”
“And you’re sure Shadowblade Academy isn’t the evil one?”
He frowned but let my comment slide. “What I’m trying to say is this, Coralia: I apologize for the violent, clandestine way you were taken. Subterfuge is our trademark here and our people don’t know any other way. And though this conversation might have seemed civil, Shadowblade is not all rainbows and unicorns. Everyone attends this school because they are special—the cream of the crop—and they’re out for themselves. You will be pushed, shoved, and trampled on. The question is whether you will get back up.
“People here take what they want and show no mercy. These are supernatural lifers. They didn’t have to go this route, but they have. If you can’t keep up, you’re toast.”
He paused his monologue, which I was sure he’d rehearsed in front of the mirror at least a dozen times. I could tell he was trying to frighten me. I hated to admit it was working. I couldn’t just willy-nilly skip along to Shadowblade Academy—there was a reason this place was kept a secret from everyone.
“To that end,” he continued, “I’ll have Dax and Sunder escort you to your room.” The way he said “room” made my skin crawl. “If you can prove yourself worthy, then you’ll receive better, warmer accommodations.”
“Huh?”
I felt Dax and Sunder descending on me, their shadows looming.
They grabbed my arms and I yelped.
As they dragged me away, out of the lobby, I shouted over my shoulder: “Don’t get it twisted, Professor Hudson! You Shadowblade assholes are definitely the fucking evil around here!”
Chapter 7
Coralia
DAX AND SUNNY UNCEREMONIOUSLY pushed me into the cell. I stumbled, falling to my knees as the bars behind me slammed shut.
Whipping my head over my shoulder, I bared my teeth like an animal. “You sons of bitches! You can’t lock me in a cage like this!”
There was no other way to put it: I had been caged like an unruly beast, by men I’d known less than an hour. Dax and Sunny hated me before even meeting me—I heard their bitching and moaning when I was paralyzed—but I had no idea why. For some reason, I got the strange hunch Venn would have at least felt bad about throwing me in a prison cell.
I ran up to the bars and closed my fists around them, gripping so hard my knuckles turned white. Only half my face would fit through the bars, the cold steel pressing against my cheeks. The room I’d been thrust into was dark, chilly. Zero amenities, no windows, and no clocks. My cage was about six-by-eight and looked exactly how a jail cell would look: tiny steel toilet, tiny hard cot, nothing else.
I tried to rein in my anger and replace it with pity. “Why are you doing this?”
Sunny crossed his arms over his burly chest. He made sure to stand out of arm’s reach, which was smart because I wanted to lash out and rip his pretty fucking face off. He fixed me with a glare. “Just because you’re Myria Hargrave’s sister doesn’t mean you get special treatment.”
“So you just lock me up? What did I ever do to you?”
“Oh please, don’t be so dramatic. Stop taking everything so personally.”
I let out a choked bark—laughing to keep from crying—and threw my arms up to vaguely gesture at my surroundings. “How the hell could I not take this personally?”
“Because we’ve all had to do it.”
My brows pinched together. “Do what? Stay in a jail cell?”
They both nodded.
“If you truly are a Hargrave, and possess even an ounce of your sister’s power, you’ll be able to escape,” Sunny said.
Dax grunted. He said nothing to add to my humiliation, simply watching with hooded eyes and a stoic, unreadable expression.
“What do you mean? How will I escape?”
Sunny unfolded his arms. “That’s on you.” He reached into his pocket and produced a small silver key, which he wagged in front of me like a piece of candy in front of a toddler.
My eyes widened. I instinctively stretched my hand between the bars and tried to grab the key. He jolted his hand back, just out of reach.
“No,” he said, like he was chastising a dog. “This goes right here.” He delicately put the key on the stone floor in front of my bars.
I eyed it like a hungry wolf, then went to my knees and again tried to stretch my arm as far as it would go before the bar knocked against my shoulder blade. I stuck my tongue out as I struggled. “It’s too far!”
Sunny chuckled and ran a hand through his luscious blond locks, his eyes boring down on me. “That’s the point, princess. I will say, you look lovely down there on your knees . . .”
I craned my neck and scowled at him from the ground. When my eyes accidentally landed on the prominent bulge between his legs, and he shifted his weight as if to make it more noticeable, my cheeks flamed with color. Oh shit. Whatever type of creature this bastard is, he’s definitely a red-blooded human in some ways.
“You’re an asshole,” I rasped, trying to hide the weakness in my voice as I peeled my eyes away before he could catch me gawking. “That’s not fair. Just kick the damn thing to me! I won’t tell anyone you let me out.”
He continued chuckling and shook his head, apparently in disbelief I would even ask.
When the two of them turned to start walking away, back down the hall, I yelled, “Wait! How am I supposed to get it?”
Sunny paused. “Oh, I don’t know, princess. Why don’t you think of the name of the school, look at your surroundings, et cetera. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
I gritted my teeth as I stood. “Why do you keep calling me princess?”
“Because it pisses you off.”
I blinked at him. “You really are an insufferable dickwad.”
“I never denied it.”
He turned to walk away again.
“Wait!” I cried, desperate to keep them talking. Or at least Sunny, since Dax was definitely the strong silent type. I couldn’t believe I actually wanted to be in the same room as these tools. It was humiliating. Anything to not be left alone down here in the damp darkness.
They were nearly around the corner when they stopped.
“Every Ghost has had to go through this, Coralia,” Dax said. “Use your mind to think of ways to get out. Afterward, you’ll be rewarded with a more prominent dorm room. You’ll make it.”
He gave me a tiny sliver of hope with his words. The first he’d spoken directly to me.
Sunny brought it all crashing down. “Yeah, you’ll make it.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Or you won’t.” He gave Dax an inquisitive glance. “Who was the last person that failed to escape initiation and died?”
Dax rolled his eyes. “I think you’ve antagonized the girl enough, Sunder.”
Sunny tossed a wave at me over his shoulder. “Impossible.”
“You guys are . . . leaving?” I chirped, hating myself for how meek I sounded.
Sunny’s pout was entirely fake. “You hear that, Dax? She wants us to stay. She needs us.” He shook his head seriously. “This is a solitary mission, cadet. Always has been.”
With that, they shuffled down the hall, out of sight. I punched the bars in frustration, which only hurt my knuckles.
With them gone, it became dead quiet in a hurry. I could only hear the thrum of my own heartbeat in my ears and . . . water? Yes, a dripping sound from a pipe far off. An incessant, frustrating noise.
Plap-plap-plap.
I knew it was likely there purposefully, to screw up my concentration. And it would work. The dripping water, the lack of windows and inability to tell time, the darkness—it would all drive me insane before long.
I needed to use my brain while I still had the energy. I had no idea how long I’d be stuck before they brought me food and water. If they brought me food and water.
My eyes grew big and dewy at the thought of dying in the cold, dark cell. Away from Marlow, away from Brucey, away from Nola. Shit, even away from my mother.
