His hand was warm, but firm. He spun me around toward him, and dazedly, I saw that he was grinning. I had no idea what he was doing until it was too late to stop it. With aching care he stepped forward, still holding my hand. He placed his other hand on the small of my back, gently pressing me forward.
Other students knew we were together—or something, however undefined it had been. He had told Vanni that we were dating, but public displays of affection were a big no no, especially from elementals in different dorms. It wasn’t so much that it was forbidden outright, but unless you ended up like the Valedication children, it was just something that you kept private.
But as it turned out, I was dating someone who didn’t really care for the rules. Most of the time that was a good thing, but when I found his mouth on mine, softly, so softly, in front of the entire student body of Public and all the professors, I was initially shocked and worried, until his lips chased every other thought from my head.
I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him back as he let go of my hand to wrap both arms around my waist. He lifted me off of the ground and spun me around, safe within the protective circle of my friends.
All around us I started to hear muffled noises of surprise. My friends, Sip first, started to clap and laugh. Then the clapping increased, until it was almost a roar in my ears.
Keller finally let me down again. We broke apart, but he was still grinning and he still kept a firm grip around my waist.
I felt lightheaded and was grateful that he was holding onto me. The shock of kissing in front of everyone was wearing off and worry was taking its place. I never would have been brave enough to do it if Keller hadn’t kissed me first. Cale was standing next to Camilla, with a mixture of amusement and some other emotion—irritation?—on his face that I couldn’t read. Camilla herself was glaring daggers at me. No doubt she thought that I was deliberately courting everyone’s attention, and in her world all that attention should rightfully be directed at her. Vanni was standing with other fallen angels, trying to look pleased.
I looked at Zervos, whose black eyes were hard and unreadable. I looked for Professor Erikson, but she was nowhere to be seen. I guess if she didn’t know that Keller and I were together before she certainly did now.
“Are you okay?” Keller whispered in my ear. “You look dazed.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I told him, making a show of flipping my brown hair over my shoulder. “Just surprised, that’s all.”
“I want you to know I’m not ashamed of you,” he said. “Or this. I’m here. We will deal with it together.”
I nodded. If Keller’s and my make-out session had taught me anything, it was that. Whatever came, we would deal with it together.
“If you two are done with your shameless attention grabbing for no reason,” Zervos hissed, “it is time for Tactical to commence.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Now, the teams for this semester,” said Zervos, rubbing his hands together with glee. I had a hard time not staring at him in disgust. We had been excited not to have a class with Zervos this semester, but now that Risper was gone we were stuck with him again. The other professors—Lambros, Korba, Jenkins, Dacer—were lined up behind him.
The deans were also there, and when my eyes landed on Oliva he gave me a nod of encouragement. I nodded back, wondering who my team would be.
“As was announced,” said Zervos, his voice crackling as much as the fire, “you will be spending a night with your Tactical team outside the protections of Public. This is a trial. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the demons aren’t coming after us. They are. Maybe if we got rid of the elemental it would be different, but unfortunately that is not yet an option. You must and will face what is coming to you. Or you will die.”
Keller’s hand tightened around mine and I saw Sip and Lisabelle both start forward. Zervos turned his malicious eyes on them, gleeful. Lough grabbed their elbows and held them back.
“Don’t make me get mean,” said Lough, seriously. Lisabelle was so taken aback her eyes widened in surprise.
“He’s right,” said Lisabelle to Sip. “Not the time or the place.”
Sip continued to fix her steely purple gaze on Zervos.
“Let us first review the rules of Tactical,” continued Zervos, unperturbed, “for those Starters who are unfamiliar with Tactical, for those of you who just couldn’t be bothered to pay attention the last time around, and for the many more of you with crappy short term memories. We split students into teams. Ideally, we have one student from each dorm on each team. This allows for students to work together and learn from each other. Of course, that can’t always be accomplished perfectly because of the different numbers of students in each dorm. It is my great disappointment to say that it’s an unfortunate truth that one team will get stuck with an uneven five instead of the usual four.”
Zervos took that opportunity to glare at me again, then he continued. “The point of Tactical is to improve your fighting ability while working together, and working against a competent and unpredictable opponent. You win by capturing your opponents. Points are awarded based on how important your opponent is. When that fails, seniority counts. Starters are the most expendable, with some weight being given to special status, such as a princess or the child of a diplomat, or if a Starter has shown exceptional skill in a certain area.”
The vampire professor didn’t mention Lough or me, but I knew that we, along with Trafton, were worth the most points. There was only one of me and only two of them. Princess Dirr was also considered a prize, as was Lisabelle, because although she was a member of Airlee, she was the only darkness mage. The Valedication children were half darkness, but they had opted to join Cruor instead of Airlee. Given that they looked like glorified boiled cabbages (Lisabelle’s description), that didn’t surprise me.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I whispered to Keller.
His face was unreadable as he said, “I wish I didn’t, but so do I.”
“Now, for the teams,” said Zervos, rubbing his hands together.
“He’s not even trying to hide his glee,” said Trafton with disgust.
“Well, well, well, look who found his conscience,” said Lisabelle.
“I never lost it,” said Trafton. “I just usually keep it under my pink bedspread. Between the girly magazines and the bottles of glitter.”
“I had no idea you’d get along so well with Dacer,” Lough muttered.
“The teams are as follows,” said Zervos. “Lisabelle Verlans is with Keller Erikson, Cale Humphry, and Rake Perphara.”
Murmurs went up all around.
“That team is unreal,” Trafton said. “Who could beat them?”
My friends looked at me anxiously. Last semester I had been with a team that good—at least most of us thought it was—because as the only elemental I needed to be protected. I guess that wasn’t how this semester’s Tactical was going to go. And with our overnight beyond the wall looming, that couldn’t be good.
I felt a pair of eyes on me and looked up. Dobrov, who normally walked around with his eyes glued to the ground, was staring at me. I stared back.
“I refuse to be put with the elemental,” a familiar female voice rang out before Zervos could continue. Camilla stepped into the middle of the circle, away from Cale and the other pixies, who were staring at her in shock.
Zervos glared at her.
“You will not makes demands,” Zervos snapped. His eyes, lit from the fire, flashed.
Camilla crossed her arms over her chest, her chin jutting out. Cale, standing behind her, looked mortified and upset.
“She is causing pixies to die. The longer she stays here, the more pixies die, the more danger we are in and the more likely Public is to be overrun. If you put me on her team I will leave her outside the protections to die.” Camilla’s voice was high and shrill, her eyes snapping.
“Please,” said Cale, stepping forward. “She’
s really upset. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
I looked between them. Camilla was greener than usual and sweating. She was breathing so hard, as if she’d been running, that I could see the rise and fall of her chest from where I was standing.
“If I am it’s for GOOD REASON,” Camilla screeched, ringing her hands. “She’s getting my family killed. How could she just stand there like nothing is happening? It’s disgusting. She calls herself a paranormal. But she isn’t. She’s NOTHING but a foul murderer.”
Cale came up behind his girlfriend and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She was staring wildly at me. She probably didn’t even know that tears were streaming down her face.
“Enough,” Dove’s voice rang out across the fields, echoing over the gentle hills and through the buildings of Public. Silence followed that one ringing word.
Even Zervos looked to the vampire dean, who was suddenly taller and more menacing. A part of me had wondered how Dove had become the chosen one to represent the vampires as a dean of Public. I just hadn’t been able to see it. Until now.
Except that it wasn’t respect that all the paranormals around us were directing toward him. It was fear.
He strode into the center of the circle. With one pointing finger, he made Camilla retreat back to the pixies. Darkness gathered around him like black mist. I had known that Lisabelle was a darkness mage, that she had the same power that the demons and hellhounds possessed. But not until this moment, when I saw Dove striding toward the fire like a black avenger, did I understand the magnitude of that power. Darkness will always call to darkness.
Zervos stepped aside so fast he almost stumbled to avoid Dove’s wrath.
“You are out of line,” Dove continued, his voice booming. He looked at each of us in turn, agonizingly slowly. His eyes moved from Camilla and Cale, onward to other pixies like Kia, who had started to cower. On to the fallen angels, where Vanni stood next to Keller’s friend Nate Marcus. Dove’s eyes softened not an iota when they rested on the dorm that represented the shining light of the paranormals.
“I am sick and tired of students stepping out of line and above their place,” he said. And now his eyes found the vampires, including Rake, Dirr, and the Valedications, along with Evan, who was back to guarding his Princess. Dove wasn’t angry with them, though; his eyes just kept moving. When they landed on Airlee, on me and my friends and Keller, they burst forth with brightly lit hatred.
“This will stop,” he said, his voice suddenly low and threatening. “And it will stop now. This is a matter of Tactical. It is not a game of ‘Let’s put all our attention on the elemental in the room.’ I will not have it. This will end and it will end tonight.”
I vaguely wondered if Risper had been right to leave. For the first time since I had met Lisabelle’s uncle, he struck me as the only sane one in the place.
Now Dove pointed at each of us in turn. My heart was beating wildly, and a movement I saw in the corner of my eye made me start. Lisabelle was moving her hand toward her sleeve, where she kept her wand. If she drew that wand there was no telling what Dove would do, but it would be a great betrayal and he would surely react with force. I was about to start forward and risk having Dove’s wrath directed squarely at me when Lisabelle’s hand was seized by a chunky pale one.
Lough was grabbing her firmly, his eyes wide. Lisabelle didn’t move, she barely reacted, but I saw her fingers clasp around Lough’s. It was only then that it looked like he could breathe again.
“This ends now,” Dove cried out, raising his arms wide. “I will not have another disruption. You are students, we are the teachers, you will do as I say or,” he paused and looked again at me, his eyes two black holes boring a hole in my chest, “you will cease to exist.”
With that he swept away up the hill, back toward the center of campus and away from the dumbstruck student body watching him go.
Zervos took a deep breath. His hands, which he had clenched at his sides, uncurled as he walked back to stand in front of the still roaring bonfire.
“The next group is Sipythia Quest, Camilla Van Rothson, Michael Gold, Princess Dirr.” he cried out. I stopped listening after that. I had a bad feeling I would be in the last group. If it had been up to me I would simply have left, because at this point I didn’t even want to see who I was with. I had the terrible feeling that everyone was watching me; eyes flicked in my direction, then away, as name after name was read out that was not mine.
“At least you aren’t stuck with Camilla,” said Lough.
“No,” said Sip bitterly. “I am, but that’s okay. She is going to regret what she just did.”
“Sip, no,” I groaned. “Just leave her alone. She’s insane.”
“Uh huh,” said Sip.
“The last group of the night,” said Zervos. It had taken a long time to get there, even though Zervos had gone through the list quickly. None of the students had gone in search of their teams yet. By then I was pretty sure that every other paranormal wanted to leave, not chase after each other.
“The last team will consist of Vanni Day, Lough Loughphton, Ulrik Ullor, Dobrov Valedication, and Charlotte Rollins.”
I stared at Zervos in numb shock. All around me were cries of surprise. Some, from pixies, were of glee. Sweat had broken out on my forehead, and my stomach felt like it was tossing and rolling, as if I was standing on the bow of a ship instead of firmly on the hard earth.
I should have realized that none of those names had been called. If you had asked me that morning how I would feel to be on a Tactical team without a pixie I would have said that I was overjoyed. Not in a million years would I have imagined a group this . . . bad.
Keller started forward, but my hand on his arm stopped him. I don’t know what he saw in my eyes—defeat maybe—but it stopped him cold.
“And so it begins,” said Sip.
“What begins?” Lough asked.
“The systematic tearing apart of the paranormals,” said Sip. “Isolating Charlotte with a bunch of Starters and Lough? I don’t know why it’s being done, but that is nothing but good for the demons. We’re playing right into their hands.”
Chapter Eighteen
Dobrov and Ulrik found me. I was about to tell my friends that I was going to go in search of my new teammates when they materialized on either side of me instead, like walls I couldn’t move past.
“Vanni?” Ulrik asked.
“No, that’s Charlotte,” said Lisabelle.
“You have a case of sarcasm,” said Dobrov, still staring at the ground. It was the first time I had heard him speak. His voice was shaky, like he didn’t use it much.
“It’s a chronic illness,” said Lisabelle, before she turned and stalked away. Anger was evident in every line of her body, but I knew it wasn’t directed at the Valedication. It was directed at whoever put me with this team.
My friends thought I was in danger.
I knew I was in dangers.
“Hi there,” said Vanni, coming up like a ray of sunshine beaming into a black hole.
“My own personal definition of hell,” said Ulrik, looking Vanni up and down critically. Vanni was dressed in a white shirt and a skirt and she looked chilly. When we had come out for dinner the weather hadn’t been that cold, but now it felt like every minute that passed got colder and colder.
“I’m Vanni,” continued the fallen angel without so much as blinking. “We’re all in History of Death, right? Awesome class, don’t you think?”
“All kinds of awesome,” said Ulrik.
“You hate that class,” Lough said.
“Can we make a plan?” asked Vanni, her smile still firmly in place.
“Sure,” said Ulrik, turning to me. “Where do you want to hide?”
“Why does that have to be the plan?” I demanded. “There are other high value targets here, like Dobrov and Lough.”
I wasn’t sure of that, but I felt like Dobrov surely must be, since he was a hybrid and his dad was powerfu
l enough to get them into Public when no paranormal wanted them there. Then there was Lough, one of only two dream givers on campus.
There were only a few places for us to hide. I knew that a lot of the other students would be heading to them as well, and there was only one that would be empty, because of the shadow cast by the former President.
An icy blast hit me in the face as I turned to follow Lough. My sneakered feet made no sound on the wet earth as we made our way to the lake. It was the place I always wanted to go, and I had been relieved when Lough suggested it. I didn’t know if the deans or professors knew that a dead elemental appeared there from time to time, but if they didn’t I wasn’t going to be the one to tip them off.
“Are you sure the lake is the best idea?” Vanni asked. “It’s wet and cold. How are we going to know what’s going on?”
“We’ll know,” said Lough. “And if we don’t, it’ll be because they can’t find us. When that happens, just come get us. It means we’ve won.”
“Thanks for that. I had no idea,” said Ulrik. “Anyhow,” he continued, “we’ll lead them off and defend you, while trying not to get caught ourselves.” Sweat had broken out on his brow. “You two stay put. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Ditto,” said Lough. “Don’t go after a bunch of seniors. Or Keller. Or Lisabelle.”
“We can’t win that way,” Dobrov pointed out. “We have to do something impressive to win.”
“I’m not sure we can handle impressive,” said Lough. “I’m just looking not to get destroyed.”
“I am looking to win,” said Dobrov.
Once we split up, Lough and I made our way to the reediest part of the grass around the lake. I tried not to think about my mom while I was there, but it was hard, because missing her was a stabbing ache in my chest that refused to go away. I so clearly saw her face in my mind, smiling at me as if I had just left her instead of having lost her to death years ago. I had come to accept that for the rest of my life, whenever I thought of her, it would hurt to breathe.
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