The Marked

by Inara Scott

  “Good. Then you’re on your own.” He headed off in the direction of the Main Hall.

  Mr. Fritz sighed. “Of course, Dancia, I didn’t mean to imply that—”

  “Whatever. It’s fine, I’ll walk back with Cam.”

  Mr. Fritz started to walk away, then turned back to me. “I am proud of you. Don’t doubt that for a second.”

  I looked away, wishing more than anything that I could believe him. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “Are you ready?” Cam asked.

  “Sure.”

  The teachers began to walk toward the Main Hall, and we turned toward the Res. Barrett followed.

  “I don’t know what you were thinking, pitting all three of you against her,” Cam said. His words were directed at Barrett, but he didn’t turn around.

  “It could have been worse,” I said. “They actually went pretty easy on me.” Hard as it was to believe, considering how much pain he’d inflicted, I knew Barrett could have done more.

  “I wouldn’t call it easy,” Barrett said, sounding almost like his usual, relaxed self. “I’m exhausted. I won’t be able to do more than light a match for a few days.”

  “You shouldn’t have hurt her,” Cam said coldly.

  “It had to be real.” With two long strides, Barrett caught up to us on my side.

  “What do you know about real?” Cam muttered. “You’ve never taken anything seriously in your life.”

  I tensed, fearing that the antagonism simmering between them was about to come to the surface, but Barrett didn’t respond. He simply walked beside me, more hawklike than ever in the gray afternoon light, with his high cheekbones and hook nose.

  After what felt like a lifetime, the three of us reached the Res. I held Barrett’s arm for support while Cam searched his backpack for his ID.

  “You’re a mess,” Barrett said.

  “Thanks,” I said wryly.

  He pointed to my bare feet. “I guess I owe you a new pair of shoes.”

  “Nah. I’m just grateful you didn’t set the rest of me on fire.”

  He tilted his head, his long black hair falling in his face. “And I appreciate your not dropping me on my head.”

  We smiled at each other, the antagonism of the fight forgiven. Cam swiped his ID and yanked open the door with more force than necessary. I took an awkward step away from Barrett, not sure what to do. I didn’t want to be rude, but I knew Cam was pissed at him. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in the middle.

  “You should go rest,” Barrett advised. “Mr. Fritz is right. You’re still pretty green.”

  “I’ve got a game today. I can rest on the bus.” I made a point of starting toward the door on my own but immediately lost my balance and flailed around before Barrett grabbed my arm and steadied me.

  “I’ll tell them you can’t make it.” Cam glared at Barrett for a minute before turning back to me. “You should rest, Dancia.”

  “There’s no reason to be like this, Cam. We both want what’s best for her,” Barrett said quietly.

  Cam barely looked at him. He took my elbow and guided me through the door. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  I said good-bye to Barrett, and then the door shut behind us. We climbed the steps to the fourth floor, stopping at each landing so I could catch my breath. When we reached my room, I leaned against the door before opening it, keeping tight hold of Cam’s hand. “It’s not his fault—they were trying to teach me something.”

  Cam pressed his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk. But when I thought about you out there…”

  I laughed. “It was a training exercise, Cam. They wouldn’t really have hurt me.” He didn’t reply, and I swallowed nervously. “Right?”

  “Of course not,” he said unconvincingly.

  I pushed back against his shoulders, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Tell me the truth. What did you think might happen?”

  “There was a lot of noise out there,” he said. “Sometimes things go wrong in the heat of battle. Barrett’s got a strong talent, and no one knows exactly what you’re capable of.”

  I slumped back against the door. “You were right to worry. I almost killed us all. I understand what they were trying to do, but it’s all happening so fast. Isn’t there some way to let things develop naturally?”

  “It always feels this way in your first year,” Cam said. “Maybe more so for you than for some, but it’s inevitable. If we let things take their natural course, half of the students wouldn’t even get to Level Three.”

  “But it hurts.”

  He stroked my cheek. “I wish there was some other way—but the sooner you begin, the stronger you become. That’s why we have to push you. Mr. Judan says that all the time.”

  Frustration boiled up in me. Between Anna’s party, the Irin, and Esther’s confession, there had been too many things thrown at me over the past few days. “And you believe everything he says?”

  “What?” He drew back, eyes widening.

  I’m not sure who was more surprised by what I’d said—me or Cam. I clearly should have stopped there, but the words seemed to flow out of their own volition. “I’m sorry, Cam, but when’s the last time you questioned something Mr. Judan said? He isn’t a god, you know. He’s just a guy, and he could be wrong. Maybe you’re pushing people too hard and it isn’t worth it. Maybe you could give people a choice before you mess with their lives.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Somehow, the force of my anger gave me the strength to stand up on my own. I began to tick the points off on my fingers. “The Program. You bring us here and then deliberately mess with us just to see how we will react; you watch us and write reports about us, and then make some kind of grand decision about whether we’ll be trained; you push us to use our talents before we know what our talents are. And then you stick us in some focus class and set us on fire, all so we can have a chance to ‘stretch our wings.’”

  I was breathing hard and my legs were beginning to shake, but I refused to give in to my body’s weakness. Cam paced a ways up and down the hall. “We do give you a choice,” he said. “That’s what Initiation is. You took the oath of your own free will. No one forced that on you.”

  “You really think anyone could say no to the oath?” I asked, shaking my head incredulously. “After all we’ve learned and who we are at that point, do you really think someone could walk away?”

  Cam’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “You’re tired. You should go lie down.”

  “I’m not tired. I’m sick of this.” I turned my back to him and began viciously punching in the combination to the lock on my door. “I’m sick of all the fighting and secrets and mysteries. I just want someone to tell me the truth.”

  “Dancia, stop. You aren’t yourself right now.”

  “Of course I’m not! A few minutes ago, my skin almost spontaneously burst into flame while a bunch of plants attacked me in the forest. You try getting up after that and heading back to school like nothing happened.”

  Cam made a sound of disgust and backed away. “I understand. I’m not going to fight with you like this.”

  “Fine.” I flung open the door. “Fine. Leave me alone, then.” I walked into the room and threw myself on the bed.

  When I looked back at the door, he was gone.

  I DID not move again until I heard a voice calling my name from the doorway.

  I rolled over and squinted at the shadowy figure. I must have been sleeping for some time, because the sun had set and my room was dark, except for the light spilling in from the hall. I sat up abruptly when I realized who it was.

  “Mr. Judan! I…uh…I was just…”

  He flicked on the light at the door; I winced at the sudden brightness. “I’m sorry,” he said courteously.

  “No problem.” I glanced at the clock beside my bed. I’d been sleeping for almost three hours. “I should be getting up anyway. It’s almost time for dinner.�
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  With a monumental effort, I shook off the torpor in my limbs and set my feet on the ground. I didn’t like the idea of being in bed while Mr. Judan stood in the doorway to my room. It made me feel vulnerable.

  “We can have dinner brought to you,” he said.

  “No, that’s okay. I just need a minute to wake up.”

  “Certainly.”

  He continued to hover in the doorway. I was reminded of the stories about vampires and how they couldn’t enter your room unless invited. “You can come in,” I said, with some misgivings.

  “Thank you.” He walked a few paces into the room, angling his body so he could watch the open doorway while talking to me. He looked horribly out of place, a strange, formal figure in a dark blue suit and tie, amid my dirty laundry and cluttered desk. I focused on clearing my head and sending strength into my legs so I could stand as quickly as possible.

  “I spoke to Fritz and Anderson,” he said, his intense blue eyes flicking from me to the doorway and back again, lingering on my scraped and battered calves. “They told me about the afternoon’s events.”

  I tucked my legs underneath me. “Things got a little out of control.”

  “They said you did well.”

  “They did?” I studied him warily. Mr. Judan was probably manipulating Cam, and wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to me. But there was little I could do about it. The title of Chief Recruiter didn’t begin to tell the story of Mr. Judan’s power. I’d seen his picture in the history books I found in the Program library, with a caption underneath full of glowing praise for his efforts to build his army of Watchers. I’d never heard anyone argue with him, even our principal, Mrs. Solom, and she wasn’t exactly a pushover. Principal Solom had steel gray hair that she wore in a tight bun on top of her head, and snapping black eyes, the color of which perfectly matched her blocky, three-inch heels. The heels only brought her to a hair under five feet, but we were all still terrified of her.

  It wasn’t exactly fair to say that Cam believed everything Mr. Judan said. But Cam felt as if he owed Mr. Judan, and because of that, there was no way he would have contradicted him, especially when it came to the Program.

  “A bit destructive, perhaps, but you were pushed. I hope you understand what they were trying to accomplish. The last thing we want is for you to get hurt.”

  I rolled my shoulders experimentally. They were sore, but not so much that I couldn’t move. “I need to learn, Mr. Judan. I know that.”

  “Perhaps.” He picked up a picture of me and Grandma, lightly running his thumb across our faces. “But I’m not sure you understand precisely how critical your education is to the Program. You’re very important to us, Dancia.”

  “Me?”

  Mr. Judan set down the picture and fixed me with his eyes. I fought off a wave of panic. He’d never focused on me like that, and the force of his stare was overwhelming. I took conscious breaths, the way Barrett had told me to do when I became overwhelmed.

  Light glinted off Mr. Judan’s perfectly white teeth. “Yes, you. Of course, you know you’re powerful. We’ve told you that before. But you need to know how important that strength is right now: to Delcroix, and to the world.”

  I stopped trying to breathe. It was futile. “What do you mean, ‘right now’? Did something happen?”

  “Cam told me that the two of you talked about the Irin.” He waited for me to nod before he continued. “And that you discovered they were responsible for what happened at Initiation.”

  “But not the group from Seattle,” I said, hearing Jack’s voice telling me how the Seattle cell had been set up to protect people like him. “Some other cell, right?”

  “We believe so. The explosion you heard that night was actually a powerful burst of sound created by a Level Three Talent. We have reports of a Level Three Talent from the Washington, D.C., cell who has this same ability.”

  He took a few steps closer, and I instinctively recoiled. “The D.C. cell is one of the most dangerous,” he added. “They have a number of powerful agents who we believe work directly with Gregori, the leader of the Irin. This is particularly troublesome because several books were stolen the night of Initiation. They were specific, upper-level texts on training Earth and Somatic Talents. It is likely that those books are now in the hands of the Irin’s top operatives.”

  I rubbed my forearms nervously. “They’re just books, though. They can’t do any serious damage, right?”

  Mr. Judan pulled a slender volume from his coat pocket. “Take a look at this.” He opened it to a yellowed page showing a woman standing in front of a river, her hand raised. The river stopped several feet in front of her and rose up in wavy lines, as if it had turned to steam. “This is an account from Maria Salvoretto of a woman with a talent for changing states of matter. Maria describes here how this woman dissolved an entire river and sent it hurtling into the sky. The cold air in the upper atmosphere caused the water vapor to turn to ice, and moments later the entire area was hit with a massive hailstorm. Hundreds were killed, and farms and crops were destroyed for miles.”

  “I can’t believe someone would do that,” I whispered.

  He snapped the book closed. “They did, and they could again. The books that were stolen on the night of Initiation could provide this sort of instruction to the Irin—instruction they have, until now, been lacking.”

  States of matter.

  Hundreds killed.

  Jack.

  I lurched to my feet, grabbing the desk for support. “Can we get them back?”

  “We tried,” he said, leaving no question about the results. “It’s too late for that. But the books are only as good as the teachers who interpret them and the practice applied to them. At least, that’s what we think. But frankly, this has never happened before.”

  “What can I do?” I desperately hoped he wouldn’t tell me they needed me to go into battle against the Irin.

  “We need you to keep training. I know this was a difficult day for you, and there may be more days like it in your future. But you must keep fighting. You could be in a position to make a significant difference in the world. You cannot let your frustration guide you.”

  I wondered what Mr. Fritz and Mr. Anderson had said about the aftermath of our fight. Did they tell Mr. Judan how upset I’d been? How I’d cried? Would Cam tell him what I’d said? “I won’t, Mr. Judan. I just got tired, that’s all. I thought I’d failed.”

  He walked over to me and touched my chin, raising it slightly so I could look into his eyes. They were crystal blue, flecked with shards of silver, sparkling with intensity. “The only way you could fail would be to give up and run away, like your friend Jack.”

  “J—J—Jack?” I stumbled over the word, imagining my cell phone suddenly flashing and ringing from the corner of my desk. Did Mr. Judan know? Could he tell what I’d done?

  “You’ll never be like him, Dancia.” His eyes bored into me. “We tried to help him, but we were too late. He couldn’t handle the gift he’d been given. You’re different. You’re strong. Don’t ever forget that.”

  My body flushed with heat, fear and guilt mixing together as he stared down, his eyes boring a path right into my soul. Words bubbled up in my head, mine and yet not mine, as if I’d spoken them with a different voice. I was different. Jack had been a coward. He ran away because of what he imagined might happen. Mr. Judan had tried to teach him, had given him a chance when he was sleeping under bridges and robbing convenience stores, but Jack had let him down.

  He’d let me down, too.

  The voice was right. Jack had given up on Delcroix, not the other way around.

  I sucked in my stomach, tensing my whole body so I could stand up straight. “I won’t fail you, Mr. Judan. I promise.”

  Mr. Judan left a few minutes later, and I sank back onto the bed, my body drained, all hope of eating in the cafeteria destroyed.

  I’d been persuaded. I’d never felt anything like it, but it was obvious that this was
what had happened. I should have been furious, but the worst part was, even now that Mr. Judan was gone, I still believed he was right. The thought of Jack’s having access to information that could have been used to kill hundreds of people was chilling. As much as I cared about him, when I pictured the look in his eyes before he left—like that of a cornered animal, panicked and fierce—I knew he would have done anything to stay free of the Watchers. I liked to think he wouldn’t have killed people, but I couldn’t say that that was impossible.

  Catherine came into the room just as I slumped back onto my pillow. She glared at me with her usual hostility, though it was compounded with a distinct layer of confusion. “What’s going on? I saw Mr. Judan in the hall, and he said you weren’t feeling well and I should get you dinner. Have you been bothering him? He’s very busy, you know. You can’t go around calling him whenever you feel like it.”

  I closed my eyes. “He stopped by to talk to me about something. He’d heard I was sick. No big deal.”

  I knew this would be a very big deal to her, and felt a jolt of pure, vindictive pleasure. Mr. Judan was Catherine’s idol, and he’d been talking to me, the girl she believed to be a blight on the good name of Delcroix Academy.

  Catherine sat at her desk, straightening her already neat papers. “What would he have to talk to you about?”

  “A…project. Something I’m doing in my focus classes.”

  “With Mr. Judan?” She picked up a silver pen and began to twirl it between her fingers. “Mr. Judan doesn’t teach any focus classes. I know, because my dad asked him to do one with me and he said he couldn’t. He’s too busy.”

  As much as I wanted to irritate Catherine, I was horrible at inventing lies in the first place, much less keeping track of them. “He isn’t my teacher—he’s more like an…um…adviser. Mr. Fritz is the real teacher. Mr. Judan just wanted to make sure I understood my assignment.”

  The pen twirled faster. “He’s your adviser? How does that work? Did you ask for him in particular, or did he choose you?” I could practically see the wheels in her head turning as she tried to think up a way to score the same deal for herself.