The Marked

by Inara Scott

  He knew Jack’s because he’d recruited Jack as well.

  Then it hit me, and the warm feeling disappeared in an instant. They thought Jack had done this. They were checking for Jack’s mark.

  I NEVER did see Cam again that night, but I didn’t expect to. Mrs. Callias told us to go to bed and not to leave the Res until breakfast. They canceled the little party we were supposed to have after Initiation. Instead of having us get to know our teachers and learn more about the Program, Mrs. Callias gave us our Program class schedules and told us to save any questions for later.

  I walked back to my room and lay on top of my blanket for hours, unable to sleep. Every time I started to relax, my mind would replay the events of the evening like a movie being fast-forwarded. First, Mr. Judan would smile down at me, then I’d make my pledges, and flames would shoot into the air. Faster then, Trevor would grab my arm, Cam would hold me tight, and we’d hear the explosion. Finally, I’d be running through the wet grass to get that first view of the Main Hall, lights blazing.

  Everything was different now. I had joined the Program, Delcroix had been attacked, and I would have bet money they were hiding the truth about who did it. Not to mention my fear that Jack had been involved. I had always assumed he was long gone. There were too many people here who wanted him dead—or at least watched, for the rest of his life. It was hard to imagine that he’d have been crazy enough to come back.

  I got up early and took a long, slow shower—a luxury I rarely had at school. When I got back to my room, I threw my dirty T-shirt and pajama bottoms onto Catherine’s side of the closet. Another luxury. This made me happy enough to forget temporarily how freaked out I was by everything that had happened.

  I put on my baggiest jeans and the ribbed red sweater Grandma had gotten me for Christmas. There was nothing to be done about my hair, but with the memory of Esther’s voice in the back of my mind urging me to embrace my “natural beauty,” I left it loose around my shoulders. It was still hard to get used to trying to look good—I’d been doing my best to stay inconspicuous for so long that nothing about it came naturally.

  I turned to head down to breakfast and then jumped. A silent, frozen figure stood in the doorway.

  Catherine was back.

  Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and her eyes had dark circles under them. She must have lost weight over the break, because her cheekbones stood out even more prominently than I recalled. She wore her usual white button-down shirt and navy pants, and held a suitcase behind her.

  “Your clothes are on my side,” she snapped, stomping into the room.

  “Catherine,” I exclaimed. “What a lovely surprise!”

  “The first bus left the parking lot at seven.”

  I knew they were running the Silver Bullet every hour over the weekend, but I hadn’t expected to see anyone before breakfast. “And you were on it.” I tried for a friendly tone, even though we hated each other. “Did you have a nice break?

  Get lots of lovely presents for Christmas?”

  “I was trapped in a house listening to my parents fight,” she said, dropping her suitcase beside her bed. She made a point of kicking my pajamas across the room. “They gave me a bunch of gift cards and told me to buy something new to wear, so I didn’t look like a fifteen-year-old nun. So, yeah, it was fantastic.”

  This was an unprecedented amount of information about Catherine’s life. In our four months of rooming together, I had not avoided hearing a few personal tidbits, which centered primarily around money, town cars, and drivers. But Catherine had never shared with me, and she never criticized her parents. She seemed to take their lack of interest in her as a point of pride.

  I grabbed my clothes up from the floor. I had no idea what to say to Catherine when she wasn’t insulting me or trying to make my life miserable. “I guess it’s good to be here, then?” I offered.

  “Right.” She turned to unlock her suitcase, carefully shielding the lock so I couldn’t see her combination, and then began to unpack her clothes. They emerged from her bag perfectly folded. There were four white shirts still in plastic bags and two pairs of navy pants that had tags dangling off the sides. This was astonishing to me. I had assumed Catherine dressed in a uniform because she had a lot of button-downs from her last school and didn’t want to bother buying new clothes. It hadn’t occurred to me that she might prefer to dress this way.

  I’d have given anything for the chance to buy new clothes. Grandma and I barely had money to pay the electric bill, so everything I wore came either from the secondhand store or Walmart.

  “How’d you get here before me, anyway?” Catherine asked. “I thought they didn’t let anyone come back last night.”

  I shifted uneasily. This was the question I had hoped no one would ask. They tried to disguise our participation in the Program by holding events like Initiation when the other students weren’t around. But it fell to us to come up with excuses to explain why we’d been at school. I had thought that because they ran the Silver Bullet at various times on this day, no one would notice when I arrived at school. I should have known that Catherine would notice—and be offended that I had gotten back to the room before she did.

  I gave her the story I’d practiced. “They asked a group of us to come back early for some extra classwork. I guess it was for people who are having trouble.”

  “Grades didn’t turn out like you expected?” she asked nastily.

  I nodded. Actually, I’d been pretty happy with my B’s. But my response seemed to satisfy Catherine. I sent up a silent prayer to Meredith and Virginia, and all the other sophomores, asking them to forgive me for painting them as failures, too.

  Before she could quiz me further, there was a knock at the door, and Esther and Hennie walked in together. A few paces from my bed, Hennie tripped over her own foot and tumbled on top of me with a giggle. Laughing, Esther dived onto the bed too, her cloud of hair surrounding us like a black fog.

  “What are you two doing here so early?” I said, as I squirmed my way out of the crush of bodies. “I didn’t expect to see you until the afternoon.”

  Esther sat up next to me. “Hennie stayed with me for the last couple of days. We figured you’d be here early, so we got on the first bus. Besides, my parents couldn’t wait to get rid of us. I called you last night to work out the details, but you didn’t answer your phone.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. My battery died.” I changed the subject as fast as I could. Luckily, they both started talking at the same time about how they had tried to make cookies to bring to school but burned them because they were also messing around on the Internet, and how they talked all night long until Esther’s mom came into their room at two in the morning and told them they were leaving at five to catch the bus and that they’d better be ready or she’d leave them in the parking lot, even if it was raining.

  Catherine made a sound of disgust and stomped out of the room.

  I grinned. “Thanks for arriving right in the nick of time. She’s even grumpier than usual.”

  Hennie stared thoughtfully at the doorway. “She doesn’t seem happy.”

  “She never seems happy, Hennie. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Something happened over break.” Hennie smoothed her long brown hair around her shoulders. “Something’s upset her.”

  “You got all that from one little snort?” Esther asked.

  “She did mention that her parents were fighting a lot,” I said. “Before you came in.”

  It wasn’t hard to imagine that in a year or so, Hennie could be reading minds. When Cam told me how Delcroix developed Level Two Talents into Level Three Talents, he’d mentioned that Hennie might develop a mind-reading skill, just as Esther might someday be able to shape-shift. But that was not supposed to happen until they started their Program classes next year. Still, I tried to wipe the thought from my head as Hennie swung her gaze back to me.

  She was just over five feet tall and gorgeous—perfect dusky ski
n, long wavy hair, dark eyes surrounded by the longest lashes you could imagine. But her sweetness was deceptive: when Hennie wanted to know something, she could be relentless. “So, how did you get here before us? We were on the first bus.”

  Good grief. Had everyone noticed I wasn’t on the bus?

  I gave her the same explanation I’d given Catherine, but Hennie wasn’t buying it. She cocked her head. “You told me you got B’s in all your classes. Why would you need extra tutoring?”

  I hadn’t practiced a response to that question.

  I looked around the room, seeking inspiration for my next lie, and noticed my Program class schedule folded up on the desk.

  “Physics,” I said hurriedly. “They want me to start taking physics. I told them I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up, so they said I should come back early and get started.”

  “Physics?” Esther repeated. “But you’re already taking chemistry.”

  The two of them had me cornered. I could feel the slow, hot crawl of a blush traveling up my neck to the sides of my face. “It’s for my new focus: science. I’m also going to take a scientific ethics class with Mr. Fritz, and Mr. Anderson is going to teach me biology.”

  Esther sat back, nonplussed. I’d never shown much of an aptitude for science, so this was understandable. Usually, a person’s focus reflected her gift. Like Esther for acting, and Hennie for languages. No one could claim I was a gifted scientist.

  “A science focus,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Did you pick it, or did they tell you to do it?”

  “I picked it. I was tired of not knowing what I wanted to do. I figured I’d always liked the woods a lot, and I’m definitely into the environmental stuff.” I gestured at the window, making a vague attempt to convey some interest in the outdoors. “I wanted to study geology and environmental science, but they said I had to start with the basics, like physics and biology.”

  It was close enough to the truth that I figured I could fool Hennie. I was right. She had a grave expression on her face as she studied me, but then she nodded. “You do have an affinity for the earth,” she said. “That’s why you love running so much.”

  I blinked. “I never thought about that. I guess I do feel especially connected to the earth when I run.”

  “You are completely nuts about the whole running thing,” Esther agreed. “You even love to run in the rain.”

  “Yeah.” I grinned, relaxing once it became clear they believed me. “I’m crazy that way.”

  “But why didn’t you tell us you were doing this?” Hennie asked. “I mean, we talked on the phone a hundred times over break, and you never mentioned it.”

  “I…I didn’t want to make a big deal about it,” I said lamely. “You guys have had your focus all along. I felt stupid for taking this long to figure it out.”

  Esther made a sound of disgust. “Are you kidding me? You’re one of the smartest people I know. Besides, you’re supposed to tell us everything. I don’t care how dumb you feel.” She looked at Hennie for support. “Right, Hennie?”

  Hennie nodded. “Right. That’s what best friends are for.”

  “Now, let’s talk about important things,” Esther announced. “Like, when does Cam get back? Have you talked to him yet?”

  I fiddled with the hem of my sweater, not meeting her eyes. Esther was, to put it mildly, obsessed with romance. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the opposite sex—something she’d gained after a long series of boyfriends—and firmly believed you only got what you wanted if you went after it. “He’s around this morning, I think. But probably busy. You know how he gets. I’ll see him at dinner, maybe.” I turned to Hennie. “Speaking of guys, was Yashir on the bus with you?”

  Talking about Yashir was my tried-and-true way of turning the conversation away from me and on to Hennie. This generally satisfied Esther’s need for romance. They were the cutest couple ever. Yashir was tall, with fierce dreadlocks and lots of piercings. Next to him, Hennie looked even smaller and more adorable than usual. He’d kissed her for the first time in a stairwell just before Christmas. Esther and I died when we found out. So did Hennie, almost. She’d never had a boyfriend before.

  Hennie worried a lot about what her parents would think of Yashir. He wasn’t the sort of guy they’d want her to bring home. He wasn’t Indian, for one. According to Hennie, her parents pretty much assumed she’d marry an Indian guy. And then there was the fact that his mom was something crazy, like a massage therapist or herbal healer, while Hennie’s dad was in international business. Every time I saw him, he was wearing a dark suit. I’d never met a massage therapist, but I was pretty sure they didn’t wear suits.

  And I was pretty sure Hennie’s folks didn’t expect boys to come with earrings. Or miniature barbells in their eyebrows.

  Hennie sighed dramatically. “No, he wasn’t there.”

  “Even better,” I said. “More time to get ready.”

  “What if he changed his mind over break?” She slowly rose to her feet. “What if he doesn’t like me anymore?”

  Esther linked arms with Hennie and me. “Get real. He’s totally fallen for you. And we’re going to make sure it stays that way.” She winked at me. “After that, we’re getting Cam for Dancia.”

  “And then?” I asked. “Will we find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?”

  “Then we find the perfect guy for Esther,” Hennie said.

  “I can only hope,” Esther said fervently.

  We started toward the door. “I was about to head to breakfast,” I said. “Are you guys coming?”

  “Nah. We ate before we left,” Esther said.

  Hennie nodded in agreement. “I’m going to unpack. Come by when you’re done.”

  “Okay.” We shared a three-way hug.

  “It’s good to be back,” Esther said, bouncing off down the hall, Hennie in tow.

  I nodded and waved as I turned in the other direction. It was hard not to be jealous when life seemed so easy for them. All Hennie had to think about was whether her parents would like her adorable boyfriend. I had to worry about pledging my life to a secret organization that killed people it didn’t like.

  Above it all, two thoughts kept swirling around in my head: what would I do if they wanted me to kill someone?

  And what if it were Jack?

  CAM WASN’T at breakfast, so I grabbed the last remaining doughnut and ran back to the Res, where I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Esther and Hennie. By the time dinner rolled around, the three of us were totally caught up, so we didn’t protest when Hennie disappeared on the way to the Main Hall, having caught sight of someone tall and dreadlocked. Ten minutes later, she walked into the cafeteria holding hands with Yashir, with a silly grin on her face and flushed cheeks. Yashir seemed pretty happy, too. It wasn’t hard to guess how their reunion had gone.

  Our table filled slowly as more freshmen came over from the Res. Everyone was happy to be back at school. Allie and I even hugged each other.

  Allie was the one I’d dubbed Perfect Girl last semester because of her halo of wavy, golden brown hair, and her obvious past life as a cheerleader. I’d briefly tried to hate her, but it was no use. She was truly as nice as she was cute, a great athlete, and it turned out, a friend of Jack’s. Her very perfection still irritated me sometimes, but only when I was feeling particularly petty and frustrated by my own out-of-control head of whitish-blond frizz.

  Allie had been devastated when Jack left school without a word. It felt good to know there was another person who cared about him; sometimes I felt like I was the only one.

  Hector and Alessandro came to sit with us, as did most of Esther’s team. She was their unofficial captain, and they tended to congregate wherever she was. Over dinner we threw french fries at one another and generally irritated the teachers. It helped take my mind off the fact that I hadn’t seen Cam all day.

  Allie and I discovered we were both going out for soccer, so we talked about that while
Esther cracked everyone up with stories of her ill-fated cross-country career and Coach Yerkinly’s reaction when she’d walked past the finish line for each of our races. She’d never managed to work up to running three miles; one was about her limit.

  After dinner, we all headed back to the Res. I was talking to Allie over my shoulder as I pulled open the door and nearly bumped into Cam, who was headed the other way.

  “Perfect! I was looking for you,” he said.

  Allie gave me a knowing smile and kept walking. Esther winked as she passed.

  “I didn’t see you at dinner,” I said, when they’d all disappeared into the Res.

  “Mr. Judan had a bunch of things he needed me to do.”

  “Because of last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  I paused. “Do you…um…think they’ll be back?”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” he said confidently. “Especially now that we’ve got extra Watchers patrolling.”

  “Do you know who it was?” I spoke carefully. I kept picturing Mr. Fritz’s face and the disapproval I’d seen in Mr. Judan’s eyes when I’d asked questions the night before. I suspected Cam knew the truth. Not to mention that I was dying to know if he’d seen a talent mark from Jack.

  “Not exactly. We think it’s a gang from Seattle,” he said. “We’ve had trouble with them before. But they’re just regular kids. Nothing to worry about.”

  I searched his face. He avoided my eyes, and my heart sank. Cam was lying. I could see it in the way he refused to look at me, and hear it in his voice. He was talking too fast and too loud, trying too hard to reassure me.

  I tried to tell myself that it was understandable. He was in the middle of an investigation. He could hardly go around blabbing about it to every person he saw. But it still hurt.