by Elodie Colt
“I made a deal with one of the guards that included a lot of cash and doing the guy’s dirty work for a year. I got transferred into another cell after getting into a really bad fight with Cole.” I skipped the part where I’d nearly kicked Cole into a coma after what that son of a bitch pulled off. She didn’t need to know about the man I once was.
“Wow, that’s fucked up,” she commented, clearly concerned for me.
Then, so suddenly I nearly came too late, the branch she was playing with whooshed up, it’s sharp tip aiming for the center of her palm. Before the stick of wood could pierce her hand, I snatched out my own, closing my fingers around it at the last second. Haylie gasped in shock.
“That was close… Maybe you should try it with some rubber balls for starters,” I advised.
The screeching of the trap door made us turn around, and we saw Chris step out, followed by Lauren.
“Oh, wow,” Lauren exclaimed when taking in the view. “It’s in the middle of a huge cemetery, and you exit through a tree, how cool is that!” Chris laughed, delighted by Lauren’s excitement.
“We didn’t interrupt anything, did we?” Chris asked when they came closer.
“No, of course not. How’re you doing?” Haylie asked Lauren.
“Great. Chris suggested I train with this outside for a little bit,” Lauren explained, lifting the crossbow she was holding. It was Haylie’s.
“You’re already training her with weapons?” I asked Chris, surprised. I’d expected him to teach her some basic defense moves for starters. Chris chuckled, clearly amused.
“No, I’m not. I guess she doesn’t need my help for that.”
“Lauren has a hand for everything that shoots,” Haylie explained with pride. “She grabbed my crossbow the day they cleaned her house. I told her to keep it. She’s better at it than me, anyway.”
“You know how to handle crossbows?” I directed at Lauren, impressed.
“I used to do archery, and I was always one of the best snipers in paintball. I have a talent for aiming. Although, I’ve never tried my luck with a crossbow until a few days ago.”
“Yeah, she still had a hit rate of ninety-eight percent when she tested it out,” Chris informed us.
“Well then, let’s see what you can do,” I suggested, striding forward to a tree about thirty yards away. Taking aim, I punched a fist-sized hole into the trunk at eye level, bark flying everywhere. “Try to hit the mark,” I yelled, taking a few steps back to get out of the target line.
Positioning the crossbow with its shaft on her shoulder blade, she concentrated for a few seconds and pulled the trigger. The arrow buzzed through the air before it hit its mark in the center.
“Impressive,” I muttered.
“Told ya,” Chris chimed in, and Haylie gave Lauren a high-five. I handed Lauren the arrow, and she shot three more times. One flew somewhere into the woods, but the other two also landed in the middle of the hole.
“You sure do know how to aim,” I complimented, walking back toward them. “I don’t know anyone here who is as good at handling long-range weapons as you are. Could be useful.”
“Thank you,” Lauren said with a proud smile on her face.
“Hey, what’s that?” Chris asked, jogging to a spot behind a bush. He bent low and lifted an oval, dirty thing. “That’s the football we lost last year. Never thought we’d find it, ha! Are you game?” he challenged, throwing the ball up and catching it with his other hand.
The trap door opened a second time, and Scott, Josh, Sarah, and Jared crawled out.
“Jimmy told us you were all outside,” Scott said.
“Hey, you found the football,” Sarah exclaimed when spotting the object in Chris’ hands.
“Wanna play?”
“Hell, yeah!” she shouted in excitement.
“You, too?” Chris asked Haylie and Lauren.
“Sure.”
“Okay, let’s make two teams,” Sarah announced, clapping her hands. “How about the ones with active abilities against the rest? Dylan, Chris, and Jared on one team, and Haylie, Lauren, Josh, Scott, and me on the other. I take it you won’t play with your ability, right?” Sarah asked Haylie who shook her head vehemently.
“I’d rather not.”
“Five against three? Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?” Chris complained.
“We’re three girls, and I’m not a Roe, so shut up and start playing,” Lauren snapped, making her point by putting one hand on her hip.
Chris held up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. So, everyone ready?” He waited for us to nod. “Okay, go!”
~~~
Unsurprisingly, our team had the upper hand, although I admit, it turned out to be a challenge. Lauren also proved her talent for aiming in this game. Her passes never missed. However, Josh was unskilled in handling a football, so he lost the ball more times than he caught it.
Haylie was good at protecting it, though. Her flexibility allowed her to outmaneuver most tackles. She once even jumped on Chris’ back, who landed face first in the muddy earth. Lauren laughed so hard, we had to stop the game, everyone chiming in.
But it was Jared who was no match for anyone. He caught most of the balls due to his incredibly fast reflexes. He tried not to tackle any of the girls with his additional speed, but one time he stopped too late, diving into Haylie so fast they both flew in an arc until landing in a puddle of rain water. Lauren gasped in shock, and I feared for Haylie being hurt, but a second later, both emerged unharmed and covered in mud from head to toe.
Haylie took revenge, and before Jared was back on his feet, she yanked his leg away and tackled him back to the ground. Chris cheered Jared on, while Lauren and Sarah cheered Haylie on. In the end, they wrestled over ten minutes, which resulted in both of them panting and calling for a time out.
Haylie wiped some dirt from her eyebrows, scrunching her face in disgust when she tugged a dead earthworm out. We all burst into a fit of laughter until Jared grabbed some mud, throwing it directly in Scott’s face, apparently declaring war. A second of shocked silence, and then everything erupted into chaos as we all lost ourselves in wrestling, tackling, and mud throwing. Lauren even collected some berries, which she then rubbed into Chris’ face, streaking it with purple.
All of a sudden, something landed on my back, and legs wound around my torso.
“Take this!” Sarah shouted and clutched two hands full of mud into my face. I spat out dirt and wiped a hand over my face to remove the mud from my cheeks.
“Oh, you’re going to regret this,” I warned. Unbuckling her legs, I threw her over my shoulder with ease, then grabbed her by one ankle and let her dangle over the ground. Sarah shrieked as her hair dipped into a puddle of mud below her. “Now, apologize.”
Sarah struggled in my grip, but her attempts to free herself were futile. “Never!”
I grinned and dipped her lower until her nose dove under the muddy water. Sarah shrieked louder.
“You were saying?” I challenged.
“How about this!” Haylie shouted from a distance, a coy smile playing on her lips. Her hand outstretched, she used her ability and managed to get some mud off the ground, letting it fly in my direction with one swipe of her arm. Most of it didn’t hit me, but a few drops splattered over my nose and mouth.
“Ha!” Sarah yelled mischievously and used Haylie’s distraction to bite into my shin.
“Ow!” My grip loosened, and Sarah tumbled awkwardly to the ground, landing directly in the puddle. Another ball of mud hit me in the chest, and I just looked up in time to see Haylie charging me.
I sidestepped her attack and blocked her, but Haylie spun around and drove her foot into the hollow of my knee, just as I’d taught the Freshmen class some time ago. Within a second, the mud-throwing game turned into a fighting session.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I challenged, eager to see where this was going.
Tapping into her ability, Haylie threw a set of hard p
unches into my abdomen, making me stumble a few steps backward. Catching her arm, I twisted it so she was forced to bend over. Before she could execute a kick, I gripped her shoulders and made her trip over my outstretched leg, so she tumbled against me, and my arm came up to get her into a headlock from behind.
“How do you plan on getting out of this?” I whispered in her ear, turning the playful fight into a training lesson and trying not to lose my focus by the flowery scent of her hair.
Haylie grunted from the effort, and I saw her eyes close in concentration. I gave her the time she needed, curious as to how she intended to free herself.
Suddenly, my stomach started to churn as she transferred her power to me. She was switching gravity, using it to her advantage. A battle cry came out of her and with one powerful swing, she miraculously flipped me over her shoulder as if I weighed nothing more than a sack of potatoes.
I landed in the mud with my back but rolled forward immediately to get back to my feet just as Haylie pounced on me, landing in the spot I’d occupied seconds before. I aimed for grabbing her ankle, but she snatched her knees back, making a backward roll.
As soon as she was back on her feet, I charged her, but she dodged the fist coming at her. Just as she was about to drive the edge of her hand into my neck, I grabbed her upper arm to shove her away, but in the end—I didn’t know how or why—I ended up pulling her closer.
Close enough for our noses to touch.
Haylie’s face froze in shock, and I stopped short in my tracks as my mind went blank. Her face was streaked with dirt, hair dripping with mud, but it didn’t dim the glow of her jaylior eyes, which were raking down until landing on my lips. My sole focus centered on her mouth, and the need to kiss her while inhaling the breaths coming from her parted lips became unbearable.
A harrumph brought me out of the delirium and reminded me of the fact that, sadly, we weren’t alone. I hadn’t even noticed everyone had stopped wrestling and was now watching us, probably since we’d started our one-against-one combat.
“Well, that was… dirty,” Lauren purred, clearly meaning it in the suggestive sense, and Haylie snorted before she started to laugh so hard tears welled up her eyes, and she let herself fall back into the mud.
The others chimed in, and soon, our game was forgotten.
My abs burned from the body tension I had to maintain, and it was getting harder to breathe by the second. Dylan had set me on one of those balancing tools with a flat, wooden plank I stood on, positioned across a metal pipe. One wrong move, and the pipe would shoot away, resulting in me landing hard on my ass.
The task of balancing wouldn’t have been such an effort if it weren’t for the rubber balls Dylan was flinging at me at regular intervals, most of them aimed at my legs. I scowled, knowing he was doing it on purpose, and given the satisfied smirk on his face, he was enjoying it immensely. I wondered if this was his way of showing revenge for our mud wrestling a few weeks ago.
A rubber ball hit me directly in the abdomen, making me oomph out loud, and I frantically flailed my arms to keep from toppling over.
“How the hell should I dodge the balls if I can’t move my legs?” I yelled through gritted teeth, my legs already trembling from the effort. If I lifted my foot to sidestep the flying objects, I would lose balance.
“Think of something. Bend over, jump, or whatever to get out of their way. And if those are not options, use your ability. You can manipulate gravity. This should be easy for you,” Dylan commented casually, throwing another ball directed at my head. Gathering from the speed it came at me, Dylan had added his Fighter strength for good measure. Ducking low, I made a deep knee bend, the muscles in my buttocks protesting torturously.
“Yeah, nothing easier than that,” I mocked and was rewarded with another ball aimed at my ankle.
This time, it hit me with enough force to nearly smash my foot off the plank, causing one side to wobble dangerously low. I quickly outbalanced with adjusting a few strands of pyramid particles in my center, but I used too much in my haste and ended up tumbling over the other side. The pipe shot away from under my feet, and the plank crashed to the ground, causing me to land with another oomph on the mattress.
“You nearly did it,” Dylan complimented, and I gave him my darkest glare. I’d heard those words at least ten times already, and as far as I remembered, I’d always been on the ground. “Here,” he said, tossing me a bottle of water. I caught it mid-air, opened the clip, and drank greedily to rehydrate my drained body.
Today, we were training in the main hall where the parkour was set up. Dylan had closed the double doors after students started to mingle by the entrance for a chance to catch a glance at the famous Natural in training. Ridiculous…
“I hate that exercise,” I whined.
Dylan chuckled. “Then it’s a good exercise.”
“It’s too much to concentrate on… maintaining balance, keeping an eye on the shots, and using my ability at the same time. I can’t do everything at once.”
Dylan nodded but countered instead with, “Let’s go back to the night of your first attack. Cassie fought on top of that playhouse, right? Switch places with her. You stand on top of the house. Dorian shoots at you with his weapon while you’re fighting a Hunter. If you lose balance, you’ll fall. If you don’t concentrate on your opponent, you’ll get hit. If you don’t keep an eye on the shots, you’ll die.”
I swallowed heavily around my next gulp of cold water. Everything was easy down here compared to a battle out in the real world. “You’re right.”
Dylan inclined his head, eyeing me intensely. “What did Cassie do in that case?”
I let my thoughts wander back to that night my life as I knew it ended. It felt like years had passed since the attack. “She kicked her opponent down the slide, jumped off the house, and flung herself onto a branch of a nearby tree.”
“Smart move. Use your brain and find a way. There’s always a solution. Wanna try again?” No, I wanted to say but forced myself to nod. Everything I learned could be useful.
Two hours later, I was able to dodge most of the balls, but Dylan was relentless, shooting them faster than before. He even made me balance on one leg but finally showed some pity when I slipped and nearly sprained my ankle in the process.
“Okay, enough balancing for one day, I think.”
Thank God, I thought, rubbing my ankle. I retrieved a granola bar from my bag, yearning for a sugar boost, and took a bite while watching Dylan preparing stuff for the next training round.
I debated whether or not to bring up the topic that was gnawing at me for some time now, but I knew I’d have to ask sooner or later, so I started with a harrumph followed by a tentative, “Dylan?”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to ask you something.” Averting my eyes, I stepped from one foot to the other. Dylan must have heard the uncertainty in my voice and lowered the barbells he’d been arranging, giving me his full attention.
“What?”
I swallowed heavily around my last bite of chocolate, hazelnut, and caramel. “It’s about the Awakening…”
I watched with dread as Dylan’s face drained fast, leaving him a few shades paler. God, I didn’t want to speak with him about this, but there was no one else to talk to. Sure, I could go to Chris for advice but strangely, confiding in him instead of Dylan felt like a betrayal on my part. “I just wanted to know where to go when it starts,” I explained in a low voice.
Dylan stared at me, blinking a few times. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I can’t stay here when the Awakening sets in,” I mumbled, looking everywhere but at the man in front of me. “I was told it would get more intense for me. When my ability gets activated, I won’t be able to control it. I can’t stay here in the compound when it happens.”
Dylan gulped but regained his composure and closed the distance between us with a few strides. “Are you afraid the compound will collapse?”
I threw my hands in the
air. “Hell, I don’t know. No one knows, that’s the problem. Still, it’s a possibility, and I can’t risk it.”
Dylan pondered over this for a second, crossing his arms and scrutinizing me with his hard gaze. “Where would you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, scratching the scars under my bracelets. “Somewhere outside. Apparently, it’s too dangerous inside a building.”
“Outside?” Dylan asked in disbelief and scoffed. “You want to go through the Awakening in the open?”
“I don’t want to, but I don’t know where else to go…”
Dylan’s face softened, and he bit his lip before saying, “You can’t go outside, Haylie. We don’t know how long the Awakening will last. It could take hours. You will be completely exposed. The Hunters would find you, for sure.”
“Well, what about the forest next to the cemetery? We’ve got guards outside, now that Cole and his team are here. They could look out,” I suggested, but I, too, knew how stupid the idea was. I didn’t miss a vein in Dylan’s forehead pucker at me uttering his archrival’s name, and I swear the scar crossing his brow became more pronounced.
He snorted again, brows raised in disbelief. “You’d go through the Awakening while strangers guard and watch you? Even through the Revival?”
I hadn’t thought about that, though. I pictured Cole standing watch while I… No fucking way.
“No, of course not,” I quickly defended, blushing fire red before conceding, “I just don’t know what else to do.”
Dylan’s features softened when he noticed my misery. “I’ll think of something. Maybe we could transfer you to your training room in the tunnels. Although it’s pretty cold in there, I might add. It would be hell to go through the Glaciation.”
I shook my head. “Too dangerous. I can’t stay underground.”
“It’s safer than anywhere, and it’s not in the main building. You can’t go outside when it starts. Promise me you’ll stay here and… call me if you need my help, okay?”
