I brace myself, breathing through the need to throw up. “Okay.” I hold my breath.
She kneels in front of me, shining a light into each eye. “Your eyes seem to be having a hard time focusing, Kylie. Are you sure you feel okay?”
“Yes,” I say sternly. “I feel fine.” Creations don’t lie, she has to believe me.
She straightens, stuffing the flashlight back into her pocket. “Good, and for the record, your eyes match your brother’s. Have fun with your new looks.” She walks off, her steady steps failing to match her perky tone.
I grab Luke’s arm and tug him as I rush from the building, hopefully not gaining any attention from anyone. We run out of sight.
I buckle over and throw up whatever is damaging my stomach.
Chapter Eleven
It’s all blood. No food. Possibly some stomach acid, burning as it charges up and out.
Luke rubs my back, and I go again.
Straightening up, I use him as leverage. I’m feeling only a little better. Coughing, I hold my stomach, ready to spew again at any minute.
“Here,” he says, handing me his scarf. “Are you okay?”
I take it, covering my mouth. Coughing, I say, “I don’t know.”
“Let me look at you.” He rubs my neck.
I smooth my hands over my hair, take a few deep breaths, and face him. “What do I look like?”
“Same. But nauseated, with ice-blue eyes.” He feels my forehead. “Ky, if you turn into something else, I’m going to be mad as hell because I’ll have to kill you. Tell me you are okay.”
“Hit me. So we can see my reaction.” I wipe my mouth again, not feeling well at all.
“Where?” he asks, shaking out his hands.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say before buckling over to throw up again.
Something’s wrong with me. I don’t know what that vaccine did, but this is awful. I cough as I wipe my mouth, standing back up.
“Okay, you ready?” Luke cracks his knuckles.
“No.” I grab my forehead, feeling clammy. Sweat has beaded along my hairline and my knees shake. “I feel horrible, Luke.” My hands are freezing to my overheated face.
“You want me to beat it out of you?” he asks with a smile that reflects in his eyes.
I glare at him through my lashes. “Don’t beat me. Just hit me so we can see if it triggers a change or anything.”
“Okay.” He throws his fist into my stomach, grabbing my shoulder as I buckle, groaning from the pain of his jab.
Nothing comes up, but I feel my insides move around. I grunt, standing up straight. He gives me a look that asks if I want to go again. I let out a breath, nodding. His fist comes fast at my face, connecting with the left side of my jaw. My head whips to the right. I grit down on my teeth.
That hurt, but it’s taking away the nausea and uneasy feeling I had. I raise my hand to my jaw. “Do you think you hit me hard enough?” I shove him.
“Do you still feel bad?” he asks, as if my response will determine his answer.
“No.”
“Then yes, I think I hit you hard enough.” He moves my hand, grabbing it in his left, and places his right palm over the area of my face that now feels bruised. The area radiates before he drops his hand and examines my face. “If you start feeling bad again let me know. We may have to take you to the labs.”
“I’m not going to the labs. I’ll fight whatever it is.”
“I don’t know, Ky. I don’t want to play with this.” I hand him back his scarf.
Luke crinkles his nose. “Trade me yours. I’m not going to walk around all day smelling your blood.” I hand him my dry scarf and start back to the hall. “Did you feel different during the injection?”
“Yes, but not enough to show the world.”
“That’s why you grabbed me?” I ask, realizing he had already known what I was feeling. Luke drops his arm on my shoulder.
“Yes, Ky. Unfocused, lightheaded, nausea. I think because you’re weaker than me it affected you worse.”
“Bull! You’re not stronger than me.” He attempts to rebut, but I cut him off, saying, “So it didn’t kill us, it didn’t change us, but it did have some type of effect.”
“Yes…” he trails off.
“You think it’s because we’re—”
“Ky.” His arm falls from my shoulder. “Don’t say it and stop bringing that up. Not until they call us.”
I drop the subject, knowing he’s right. “Well, let’s go see who the two strongest boys and girls are.”
“Kylie and Collins. Marcain and Lukahn.” Jord steps to the end of the stage. We each jump onto the stage in one swift motion. The movement inspires me to free run, parkour-style, from here to the lift holding up the pulled back curtains. A quick rush overcomes me, and I’m filled with excitement. I contain it, though, focusing. But after this, Luke and I are going to hit an obstacle course or two. I’m feeling a little better after that weird vaccine has finally worked through my system, and I want to run off the energy.
“We can take volunteers first,” Jord says. “As I stated earlier, boys with boys and girls with girls.”
General Seits steps to his side. “I’m glad to see all of you made it. It shows your strength. And with what we’ll be going up against, strength is what we need.” Her voice is softer than her brother’s. She speaks as a Breeder would speak to small children. “With what we’ll be going up against, if you are weak, I doubt you will last.” She smiles. “Now, let’s see your strength in a fight.”
“And,” Jord starts when she steps back, “as an added bonus, if you can defeat your opponents, you will earn yourselves a day off. That will give you three days of no training this week.” A few cheers creak. He turns to us. “Unfortunately, the four of you winning will not result in any bonus. It is what is expected of you. So,” he shouts at the room. “Who will go first?”
“We will.” The evil twins from my group raise their hands. I smile at them. I’ve wanted to give the one with the mouth a beating since the day I met her.
I meet Collins’s gaze and we both nod. “That’s fine with us,” I say when Jord looks at us for confirmation.
He claps. “Great. Let the fun begin.”
Everyone moves from the stage except Collins and me.
The twins jump onto the stage with evil smirks and dimples in their freckled cheeks. “You ready to feel the pain you brought?” the one with the mouth taunts.
Collins and I take off our vests and remove our weapons. They follow. Their suits are a camouflage pattern. The one with the mouth throws her vest to the side and scowls with hate set deep in her orange eyes. “Right after I break your jaw,” I tell her, wanting to remove her deceptive smirk.
They crouch forward and charge for us. The one with the mouth comes at me. I grab the bottom of her neck and with a swift maneuver, I swipe my leg under the both of hers, knocking her off her feet. She hits the stage hard, causing shocked gasps from our audience.
Backing off, I hold back the urge to take her out too easily. Collins has taken full advantage of the opportunity to beat the brains out of the quiet one. She has her by her neck, repeatedly punching her where her attacks will land.
The loudmouth twin jumps from the floor, smirk gone. She looks at her sister and back at me. She charges again, and this time, I let her ram me. Luke’s punch was worse than this. I bring my elbow down in her back. She doesn’t let go, and I do it again, harder.
She hangs on, jabbing me in my ribcage.
I grab her arms, yanking them behind her back. She stands and I whip her around, yanking her arms until they pop out of their sockets. She groans. Letting her go, I kick her in her back. She stumbles forward, falling onto her knees.
I finish her. An easy swipe of my boot to her face.
We take turns, the boys and us. The entire session didn’t take as long as General Jord intended.
“And with that, now our boys will go against our girls. Luke,” Jord calls. �
�How often do you fight against your sister?” The amusement in this topic is revealed in his tone, causing it to rise an octave.
“Often,” Luke answers sternly.
“Do you think it will be easy for you to bring your brother down, Kylie?”
“Yes,” I answer in the same tone as my brother.
“Great. Not saying Luke and Kylie will fight against each other. But I’m sure we were all thinking it.” He walks off the stage. “Whenever you four are ready.”
Luke will not take it easy on me. But with Marc, I’m unsure. Something in his vibrant purple eyes says he doesn’t want to fight me. There is always something about him I can’t place. Collins steps in front of Luke, claiming him as her opponent, leaving me with Marc.
Great.
I already have an attraction to him. Attraction: the action or power of evoking interest, pleasure, or liking for someone or something. An attraction he does not seem to share, and now, I’m going to be forced to feel his hands around my body. I step in front of him, contemplating the best moves that will help me win this.
I stretch my arms in front and behind me as I stare. Marc cracks his neck. To keep him from touching me, I’ll need to stay out of his grasp or beat him first. That may not go over so well. He was almost able to knock out Luke at the rings back home.
“Whenever you’re ready, Ky,” he says with his hooded eyebrows shadowing his eyes even more than usual. The new purple in his eyes does not brighten the darkness of his gaze, but it allows Marc to steal the air in this room.
Collins has charged toward Luke.
Catching me off guard, Marc takes my distraction as an opportunity to throw a punch at my chest.
I stumble back from his attack, though the jab isn’t as aggressive as I know he can be. He comes for me again, and I knock his fist aside. Taking a step back, I kick him in the stomach.
Marc doesn’t falter, and before he can come back, I jump to give him a two-foot kick to his chest. I flip, landing on my feet, seeing him stumble backward. I rush him, not wanting to punch, knowing my punches may not be strong enough. I go for another kick, twisting to boot him across his face. He dodges it, grabs my ankle, and flips me onto my stomach. I slap the floor, groaning.
I gather myself, rising, ignoring the pain in my neck. Marc’s coming for me. Avoiding him, I slide between his legs, quickly jump to my feet, and kick him with all my might. He stumbles, hands briefly touching the floor to help him regain his balance. I run at him, kicking him again, and he stumbles to his knees.
He catches me off guard, using a kick maneuver which knocks me off my feet. I hit the floor hard on my back, and no sooner than I blink, he pounces on me, pins my legs, wraps a hand around my neck, and uses the other to pin both my wrists over my head.
The grip he has on my neck is tight, but he doesn’t choke me as I expect him to. His roughened palms are the opposite of his smooth fingertips. He stares, eyes fixated, breaths like short gusts of wind as the pulse in his hand pounds against my neck.
Time is at a standstill.
I swear the world has stopped spinning, and sound is nonexistent. With the oddest caution, Marc’s thumb brushes over my chin, taking my breath away as his fingertips smooth along the back side of my neck. The world fades, drawing in on him, feeling him over me, him washing my neck and my face with his glowing purple gaze, his roughened breaths attacking my shaking flesh.
His wavy hair drapes the sides of his neck, brushing against even-toned tawny skin.
My lips tingle, wanting to just barely graze his neck with a kiss. My chest rises in a deep inhale, and I slowly release it through my parted lips, nervous now, yet infatuated, with Marc being this close. I’m caught by surprise by my lack of discomfort. I blink, focusing on that thought, the concept of what I’m feeling. If I’m feeling.
Something changes. The purple in his eyes darkens as they lower in a disapproving glare. His grip around my neck tightens, and I fail to catch my breath. He rises, lifting me from the floor by my neck and throws me across the stage. I hit it, rolling, bending a couple of fingers in directions they shouldn’t go.
My body tingles; a new wave of adrenaline rushes through me. Something I’ve never felt. Awareness I’ve never experienced. And this boy stalking toward me has something to do with it. I retract, stumbling backward.
We do not lose. I hear Luke’s voice in my head. Fight until you cannot fight anymore.
Fight him, Ky, I tell myself. Get past this. I continue to back away as he comes closer, but I want to do the complete opposite. I want to explore the feeling he’s brought on and figure out why.
A punch to my face I didn’t see coming snaps me out of it. I grab my head, shaking it. It’s just what I needed to replace whatever it was I was feeling with anger. I charge across the floor, putting everything I have into my attacks.
Marc and I go back and forth. I hit him with all my might, and he doesn’t use half of his. Still, he beats the crap out of me.
In my defense, he has a few bruises and a broken rib. But my loss in this battle deducts points from my ranking, putting me only two points higher than Collins.
Luke sits in front of me, healing my face. He already took care of my popped arm and my broken ribs. “You lost.”
“Thank you, Luke. I didn’t realize that from him walking away and you picking me up from the floor.” I snatch the bloody towel from him and throw it on the floor.
“You did, Ky, and we—”
“I know, Luke. We don’t lose. But let’s look at this. This same boy almost beat you down back home. Did you expect me to win? I’m a level under you.”
“That’s not what matters; you are as good as you believe yourself to be.” He sits back on his chair, looking over my face. “You don’t believe yourself to be stronger than him, you never will be.”
I roll my eyes and mutter, “Okay, Luke, I understand.” He got no bruises or broken anything from Collins, just a couple of scratches. And I am not healing them.
“Were you distracted?”
I grumble. “Distracted by what?”
He throws his hands up. “I don’t know, you tell me.”
Since Marc rubbed his thumb over my chin like he was fascinated or curious. And his eyes searched mine for an answer or clarity. I was distracted the entire time. “I wasn’t distracted, Luke. Just forget it happened.”
Chapter Twelve
“Push! Push!” I yell. “Jump higher.”
My group makes base jumps from one building to the next for strength training and building stamina. Once they jump from one building, I leap after the last person, following them to the next.
“Building to ground,” I order.
They’re slow. We should have finished ten minutes ago. Three of the other groups have already completed.
A few groan, tired of the work.
Jord demanded we double our training, and I’m tired too. But that means nothing. We are not complainers. We are Creations. We have no feelings and feel no pain. At least, we’re not supposed to.
They jump one by one or two by two, flipping and landing. A gun fires before I jump, calling it a day.
I jump off, flipping on my landing so my balance isn’t out of place. “Okay,” I say when I rise. “Until tomorrow.”
We disperse in our own directions. Private’s homes and halls are on the other end of the base from ours. I walk to my designated house, first going to my room to grab my clothes so I can get in the shower. Today was a long day, and finally, I get to stop and focus on myself. Try to figure out why that serum affected me the way it did.
Freezing cold water spits from the sprayer. I jump back, waiting for it to warm. Each time it’s cold, and each time, it catches me off guard. I stare at my face in the mirror in the shower stall, not recognizing the eyes looking back at me. They’re the same cold blue that looked at me from Luke’s face. They have a soft shine to them, a freezing blue. They don’t look natural. Not like Cory’s. Cory’s eyes have always been green even wh
en we were kids. With him being a Creation too, I wonder what sets him apart from the rest of us born with black, instead of colored irises.
“Ky, that you?”
“Yes, Collins.” I’m not up for conversing. I’m exhausted, ready to lie down.
“What happened to you today?” The water comes on in the stall next to mine.
What does she mean by that? “Nothing happened to me.”
“This morning, it did. You are usually so alert and attentive. But you seemed distracted and hesitated when going against Marc.”
Oh. That’s what she means. “I wasn’t distracted, only remembered the fight between him and Luke back home.”
“Yes, Marc is pretty awesome.”
Yes, he is. The way he makes me feel… I’d also catalog as awesome. I can’t say why or how. It’s problematic. I wash and rinse, quickly getting out of the shower to avoid wherever this conversation will lead. Marc’s an engaging topic, yes, but I shouldn’t show or express interest. “See you tomorrow, Collins.”
“Yep,” she sings.
I leave the stalls and creep across the hall that passes the living room. Cory sits on the couch, talking to Feiney. He’s going to want to talk to me if he sees me. But I’m not in the mood for his playful flirting tonight. Cory’s nice, always has been, and he always says the right thing or smiles the right way and winks with the right eye. Or he does all three at the same time, making himself appealing. But I know there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, and I’m not nearly ready to cross them.
I walk as quietly as I can, creeping around the wall toward the stairs so he doesn’t hear or see me. I escape right into Luke.
“What are—”
I throw my hand over his mouth, cutting him off. “Shh.”
He moves my hand and lowers his voice. “What are you doing? Sneaking?”
“I’m not sneaking. Just walking quietly so I won’t draw attention to myself.”
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