Thief of Lies

by Brenda Drake

  “Stop moving,” Arik hissed. “Your brand shields you. He can’t sense you.”

  Just like a bloodhound latching onto a scent, the hunter hurdled over fallen people and bolted for the train. Afton yanked the opened umbrella from Nick’s hand and threw it at the hunter’s feet. He tripped over it and landed on all fours.

  The doors slid shut. The hunter jumped to his feet and slammed his bulk against the train, and the car rocked on the tracks. The passengers inside screamed and moved to the other side of the car as the train sped off. People on the platform ran from the hunter, screaming and crying. The ones that weren’t fast enough he punched or tossed out of the way.

  The hunter sniffed the air again. His head shifted from side to side as he paced.

  As he neared Arik and me by the bike pile, I struggled to get up again. I had to get away before he found me.

  “I said don’t move. Hunters are nearly blind, which heightens their other senses,” Arik whispered in my ear, holding me tight against him, perfectly still. “It’s a sort of sonar. They can only detect movements and scents.”

  I held my breath as the hunter passed. He growled and bounded up the steps, knocking people down. He crashed through the station doors. Glass clinked against the concrete and shrieks came from the streets above.

  Arik eased away, and I tugged my skirt down to cover my thighs. The cut in my calf was deep and pulsing blood, but I hardly noticed. All I could think about was the way that beast had rammed the train. How could you stop something like that?

  Arik ripped a section from the hem of my skirt and used it to bandage my leg, and I tried to keep my mind off the pain by surveying the destruction the hunter left behind. Several people lay around the platform, moaning and crying, with bashed heads and broken limbs. The scene was horrific, like one of those disaster movies in real life. What kind of world had we stumbled on? And if there were more like him…? What if he got hold of my friends? We couldn’t hide forever.

  I grabbed Arik’s arm. “You’ve got to help Afton and Nick.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “He wasn’t after me. He’s after them.” I opened my messenger bag—twisted around my chest—and retrieved my cell phone. “I’ll text them to meet you.” I slid my finger across the screen to turn it on, racing my fingers over the lit-up keys and typing out a quick text to Nick’s phone. “Um…not at the station. But where?” I paused. “Quincy Market. It has tons of tourists.” I finished the text and hit send. “It’ll take that hunter a while to sniff them out. Do you know your way around Boston?”

  “No.”

  I glanced around for something to scribble directions on. A map stand lay on its side by the steps, the contents littering the floor. “Grab a map.”

  Arik snatched one and brought it to me. I took a pen out of my bag, unfolded the paper, and flattened it on the floor. “We’re here.” I stabbed our location on the map with the pen. “Go down Washington and then jog over to Congress.” I dragged the pen across the route. “They’ll meet you in front of Faneuil Hall, right here.”

  He sat on his heels, his beautiful, dark eyes glossing. “You’re hurt. I can’t—”

  Sirens sounded somewhere outside. “I’ll be fine.” I shoved the map at him.

  “So brave,” he murmured.

  What a joke. I wasn’t brave. But Afton and Nick needed his help more than I did. “Just go already.”

  Arik nodded and brushed my cheek with the back of his hand and my breath caught. As he scaled the stairs, tears gathered on my eyelashes. I blinked and the tears made their escape, running down my cheeks. Before he disappeared through the doors, he looked down at me with worried eyes.

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter Five

  I adjusted on my bed, wanting desperately to scratch the cut in my leg. It’d been thirty-five hours and the stitches stung. Thirty-five hours without sleep. Thirty-five hours since my life had been normal, and all I’d had to worry about were fencing tryouts. Thirty-five hours, and now I was on the Mystik world’s Most Wanted list. I was terrified and excited. Terrified a hunter would find Nick, Afton, or me. Excited to find out more about this other world. A world that seemed familiar to me.

  Arik had gotten to Nick and Afton before the hunter could find them. He’d escorted them safely to their homes. Even though he said we were safe, saying some crazy stuff about erasing our trail, I still worried. He mentioned we had guardians watching us, but I never saw anyone who looked like they could be one. Nothing seemed certain, and I felt on unstable ground.

  No matter how many times I told myself it wasn’t real, the gash in my leg reminded me it was. We were so screwed, and there was no going back to not knowing the truth.

  I wiped the tears away with the edge of my sheet and then lifted my heavy eyelids, blinking at my Hello Kitty alarm clock. Kitty seemed as stunned about the time as I was. “Three,” I moaned, rolling onto my back. Cleo, my calico cat, protested as she dodged my feet.

  I scooted up against the headboard and grabbed the concoction Nana Kearns had made for me from the nightstand. I unscrewed the lid off the jar and inhaled. It smelled woodsy when I slathered it onto my leg. The ointment the doctor had prescribed didn’t work as well as Nana’s gunk. Relief was instant and the itch was gone.

  The memory of the ball of light on Arik’s palm while we were in the gateway came to me again. I kept replaying his actions in my mind with the hopes of discovering the secret to creating the light. I’d seen the same light in my hand before, when I was younger. It had freaked me out at first, but then I struggled to find it again.

  I replaced the jar, held up my palm, and tried to remember what I’d done to make it appear. The first time was when I was four. Even though I was so young then, the memory was still vivid.

  The globe had appeared out of nowhere. I’d been alone in my room, playing with a ball of light, when my mother came to tuck me into bed. She dropped her dishtowel, rushed over, and slapped the ball from my hand. Sparks flickered around me. She begged me to never do it again, warning me that if the bad people saw it, they’d hurt me.

  The bad people scared me. I’d buried my face in my teddy and shuddered. She’d picked me up, sat on the bed, placing me on her lap, and chanted something.

  “I bind you to our secret.” That was what she’d said. Oh hell, she’d spelled me. That’s why I couldn’t tell anyone about the magic.

  I strangled my covers, trying to stop my hands from shaking. Why had she hidden this from Pop? He could have helped me. Prepared me. By not telling him, she left me vulnerable.

  An image of her kissing the top of my head and smoothing my hair away from my face came to me. I begged her to tell me the bedtime story. My favorite one.

  Oh my God. The story. She had tried to prepare me.

  She’d always started it the same way. I glanced at Cleo and muttered, “In a faraway land, a mighty knight…” Cleo yawned and began bathing herself. I was losing my audience.

  “It was a girl knight, Cleo.” Old dreams ran through my head. They were a little girl’s dreams full of vivid colors and a magnificent castle. “She fought horrible creatures to protect humans…” I swallowed hard. Protect humans. Reality colliding with make-believe.

  The story never changed. The young woman fled to protect her baby from an evil that could destroy the entire world. But because the baby was hidden, the world stayed safe. The memory warmed me, yet it ached at the same time. I longed for what could’ve been. A life with my mother in it.

  Would she have told me, as I got older? I’d never know. She died shortly after that memory. There was a connection between her tales and what the Sentinels had said in Paris, though; I was sure of it. I just had to figure it out, starting with the ball of light.

  I sighed and turned on the bedside lamp. Arik had spoken one word to create the light. The second time the light had appeared on my palm, I was ten and practicing my Italian, so it made sense the word was in Italian.

  My eyes bu
rned as I stared at the brightness coming from my lamp, just as I’d stared at Nana’s lamp when I was ten. “Light. Illuminare.” I rattled off the words I had been practicing that day. “Lampada. Lume. Luce—”

  The flesh on my palm warmed. Little flickers of light zapped across it and then disappeared just as quickly as they’d appeared. I bounced a little on my bed with excitement, and I tried again. “Luce.”

  Nothing happened.

  I tried several more times.

  Still nothing.

  Frustrated, I turned off the lamp and flung myself back against the pillows. The hot, humid night thickened the room, making my skin clammy. I kicked the covers off and rolled to my side.

  Curling up under my covers, I was vaguely aware of every noise around me: the tick tock of my alarm, the rustle of leaves on the tree outside, the clanky sway of the fire escape. Through my slotted eyelids, the black pitch of Saturday night turned into the gray light of Sunday morning. A shadow moved across the grayness and I bolted up from my pillows.

  A firm hand landed on my mouth, quieting my scream. “Hush,” Arik said.

  Relieved it was him and not some crazed killer, I exhaled. My breath punching through his fingers sounded like a deflating balloon. “Okay, you can let go now.” The words came out muffled against his palm .

  He removed his hand and plopped down beside me. I scooted up against the headboard, pulling down the hem of my black cami to cover my stomach. Surprised to see him in street clothes, I took a second glance at the jeans and black T-shirt hugging his body nicely.

  “How’s the leg?” He gave me a crooked smile, his gaze dropping to my chest.

  “Did you just check out my boobs?” I whispered. Please say yes.

  “No.” He smirked. “Okay, yes. I am a guy.”

  That you are. I yanked the covers up to my chin and suppressed a smile.

  Cleo hissed at Arik and dropped from the bed. “Way to serve and protect,” I said with a laugh. “You could at least scratch his eyes out or something.” She let out a protesting mew and hopped onto my desk chair, staring at Arik suspiciously.

  His dimples deepened. “Cats have their own agendas, and they don’t include their slaves.”

  “I’m not her…oh, never mind. What are you doing here, anyway? Pop will kill you if he catches you in my room. Wait. How did you get in?”

  “I used the ladder.”

  “You mean the fire escape?”

  “You say it’s an escape. I think entry.” The way he spoke with that accent and showed that dimply smile, sent goose bumps across my skin. “How are you faring?”

  “How do you think I’m faring? I’m terrified. I can’t sleep or eat.”

  “You were sleeping when I got here.”

  Was I? Maybe. Barely?

  We sat there staring at each other, neither of us saying a word. I lowered my gaze; his eyes on me were so unnerving. I didn’t do silence well, so I searched for something to say. Our meeting in the Athenæum came to me. He’d quoted my favorite book. “So you’ve read The Secret Garden?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Several times.”

  I glanced up. “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Because I am.”

  “What’s your favorite part in the book?” he asked.

  My favorite part? Were we really discussing a book? I’d never had a conversation like this with a guy before. “Um, I’d have to say the one where Mary finds a hidden room in her uncle’s house and meets Colin and finds out that he’s her cousin. After that, she no longer feels alone. What’s yours?”

  “When she discovers the garden and it changes her.”

  “That’s a good one.” Did he say that because I’m a girl who just found her secret garden? Will it change me? “Most guys I know would never read it. Why do you like it?”

  “Sentinels are sort of like Mary, aren’t we?” His voice was quiet. “We’re alone in the world, taken from our true parents. I like to think of the libraries as our secret garden. Our escape.”

  The emotions in his voice made my heart ache for him. I was lucky. I knew what it was like to have a real family. I had Pop and Nana, and the memory of my mom.

  Not able to look him in the eyes, I decided we needed a less emotional subject. “So where are you from?

  “I was born in a small market town, Framlingham in Suffolk, England.” Something like a bittersweet smile crossed his face as he mentioned the town. “I haven’t any memories of the place. I was a baby when I was taken.”

  “You’ll have to go and visit one day. I was born here. In Boston, I mean. Not like right here in my room. A hospital.” My cheeks heated at how ridiculous that sounded.

  He laughed.

  Gah. Really, Gia? I glanced around my messy room to avoid his stare, wondering if he got into anything while I was sleeping.

  From the corner of my eye, I spotted him shift to see where I was looking. Our eyes met again and the corners of his mouth lifted. “Don’t worry. I only glanced at your journal on your desk.”

  I stifled a gasp. “You didn’t.”

  He chuckled. “No. I wouldn’t invade your privacy. Besides, it’s too dark in here to read.”

  “Funny.” I tossed my pillow at him. “So what are you doing here? You didn’t come for small talk.”

  “I came to get you. Get dressed. Pack a change of clothes and anything else you may need.” He skulked to the window, turned, and winked at me. “Meet me in the café down the street.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you in the café.”

  My hand flew to my chest. “Am I in danger? Is Pop?”

  “Not if you do as I ask.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I said sourly.

  He straddled the windowsill. “Just hurry.”

  “You know, that window was locked.”

  “Yes, it was.” He grinned and ducked through the open window, barely making a sound as he went down the fire escape. Cleo darted after him.

  A change of clothes? I flung the covers aside, stumbled out of bed, and rushed to the window to ask why I needed to pack an overnight bag, but Arik was already on the street below.

  If I called out, Pop would hear. “Great,” I seethed.

  I packed a bag and tiptoed to the bathroom, listening to hear if my uninvited guest woke Pop. The apartment was still, so I took a quick shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and darted for my room.

  “What’s going on?” Pop asked as I was shutting the door. He held his favorite mug his aunt had sent him from Ireland with some saint on it. Fresh ground coffee beans scented the apartment and steam rose from the coffee, which told me he hadn’t been up long, so he probably hadn’t heard Arik in my room.

  “Nothing,” I answered through the crack. “I’m just late, as usual.”

  “Where are you heading off to this early in the morning?”

  “I’m going to the library with Afton. We’re finishing our summer essays.” I hated lying to Pop after the whopper I’d told him about how my leg got hurt. I couldn’t forget the worry in his eyes when he’d arrived at the hospital as the paramedics unloaded me from the ambulance. I never wanted to do that to him again.

  I tightened my lips to stop my tic. Guilt sickened my stomach. Pop didn’t deserve my dishonesty. It hadn’t been easy raising a bratty me in those early years. I won the stepfather lottery when my mother married him. Some of my school friends’ fathers weren’t as concerned about their kids as Pop was about me. And I was a shit for lying to him.

  “The library, again? Don’t you think you should rest your leg?”

  “It feels fine. I’ve been using Nana’s ointment on it.” I stuck my injured leg through the door.

  Pop bent and examined it. He was a paramedic, so every time I got hurt it was a big deal. “Well, all right, it’s healing nicely. Just don’t overdo it.” He scratched the back of his neck. “You spend a lot of time in libraries. Don’t you ever ge
t bored?”

  “Most parents would be happy about that.”

  Pop just didn’t get my love for libraries. I likened it to his passion for Fenway Park and the Boston Red Sox, which helped him to understand, a little, but he still had his doubts. Libraries weren’t a necessity for him, because he only read sports magazines and the Boston Globe. I wondered if my draw to libraries had something to do with the magic hidden in them.

  “Well,” he said. “I’ll make eggs.”

  “But we’re stopping at the café first.” At least that wasn’t a lie.

  He turned something over in his head. “Do you need money?”

  “No. I still have some of my babysitting money.”

  “Well, be home by six for dinner, okay?”

  “Sure.” I shut the door.

  I listened until he thumped away then I shimmied into my jeans. After layering a couple of tank tops on me, I wormed my feet into my black Converse, threw my wet hair into a ponytail, and did a quick check in the mirror. “Ugh, you’re a mess.” I gave my reflection the stink eye.

  Cleo hopped up on the windowsill, startling me. “Crap! You scared me, squeaker.” I rushed over, shut the window, and locked it. As I ran my fingers across her fur, she arched her back. “You have to stay inside, okay? If you’re lucky, Pop will give you some of his eggs.”

  I slung my backpack over my shoulder and grabbed money from my dresser. The floorboards tried to rat me out as I sneaked into the bathroom and shoved my toothbrush, paste, and deodorant into the pack.

  With my back to the wall, I scooted down the hall and hid my overstuffed backpack from Pop’s view. “Later!” I lifted my umbrella from the stand by the door.

  “Stay in a group,” he said from his old worn-out recliner, the morning paper blocking his face.

  I wanted to be nice, make up for my lies, but he’d get something was up. It sickened me to be so deceiving. Standing in the hall, I tried to think up the best Gia response for the situation.

  “Hello? I’m not five,” I finally said, and then shut the door before he could call me over for a lecture. I glanced back at the door, wanting to go back in and give him a hug. Instead, I zipped up my hoodie and struggled down the steps. The dissolvable stitches pulled angrily at my leg wound with each movement.