by Anita Oh
"Great," I said, backing toward the door. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
I knew logically that they didn't hate me, but it wasn't exactly a friendly environment. Hopefully, they'd get over it quickly, because it would kind of suck being bonded to Tennyson if he and all his friends didn't want me around.
I was looking forward to a hot shower and maybe some Netflix when I got to my room, but I'd forgotten Katie. Oh, man, Katie. Whose dad worked with my dad. If I'd gotten a frosty reception from the Golden, this was going to be arctic.
She was sitting on her bed, typing on her laptop, but when I came in, she jumped up and rushed over to me. I half-expected a slap in the face, but she pulled me into a hug.
"Omigod, are you okay?" she asked. "I can't believe they took you right off school grounds. I was so mad when I found out." She pulled back to look me in the face. "You look terrible. And you smell terrible. Go have a shower, and I’ll find you something to eat."
She shooed me into the bathroom, and I had no will to resist her. I felt about a zillion times better after a shower, after washing that awful place down the drain.
"What's that smell?" I asked, sniffing the air as I came out of the bathroom, toweling my hair dry.
"Mini pastries," Katie said. She handed me a plate and then sat down on the sofa. "So, is it true you went nuclear and burned the doctors' eyeballs out?" Her eyes were alight with an evil sort of glee that reminded me of Nikolai.
"I'm not sure," I said. "Katie, is everyone okay? I mean, I didn't…" I couldn't even say the words; surely, I couldn't have done that.
She shook her head. "Nobody died, but there's all these rumors flying around. I've gotten like a hundred messages from the other kids in the past few hours alone. You're a legend now."
I screwed up my face in horror. "The other kids?"
"Yep, you know, like us. Well, not like you, obviously, because none of us can explode things with our brains!" She bounced a little in her seat. "So, were you at the main facility? Was it awful? Were there brains pickled in jars and all, like, science experiment mutants and stuff?" She sat forward in her seat, long fingers gripping her knees.
I shrugged. "I was chained to a bed most of the time, so I didn't see anything, really. It was dirty and awful, but they kept me drugged up the whole time. I don't really remember what happened."
She sank back in her seat, disappointed. "Still, you exploded stuff with your brain, right?"
I nodded. "I think so."
"Cool," she said, grinning at me.
I grinned back.
Chapter 18
It was great to have Katie as a friend. When I hung out with her, it felt almost like being a normal teenager, except that she knew all about everything, so I didn’t have to hide anything from her.
I was waiting for the weirdness with everyone else to pass. They were trying not to act weird around me, making an effort to include me and even looking me in the eye when they spoke to me now, but there was a reservation there that hadn't been there before. I couldn't blame them. I remembered the first time I'd seen Sam as a wolf, and how I'd needed some time to adjust.
"We're to meet in two days’ time at sunset," Tennyson told me, stopping me in the hall between classes.
People goggled at us, nearly tripping over each other as they walked and stared.
"Okay," I said, wondering why he hadn't just said it in my brain.
"We were given coordinates which we'll need to fly to," he continued. "We should leave early in case there's any delay."
"Right."
If he was going to be weird and standoffish, I could be that too. I couldn't even sense why or what he was feeling, as if a wall had sprung up between us.
He stared at me for a moment, then gave a curt nod and walked off in the other direction.
I sighed. He hadn't even tried to touch me. Maybe it disgusted him now, to have a bond with someone who could lose control so completely. I wondered if it had hurt him when I'd taken his power, when I'd gone supernova. I wondered if I'd ever get the opportunity to ask.
I wished there were someone I could talk to about the whole thing. I kind of felt like meeting with this Vucari person was a waste of time; I knew he'd just say I needed to find Hannah Morgan. Maybe he could tell us where to find her, and maybe he couldn't, but I wasn't crossing my fingers. I only had one other lead on where she might be, and I didn't think my dad would be giving me information any time soon. And even if he offered me Hannah Morgan gift-wrapped, I wouldn't go near him to collect. I felt like I was stuck in a sort of stasis, halfway between Becoming and Not. My whole life felt as if it was at a standstill.
Maybe I could've talked to Katie about it, but even though she was fun to hang out with, I couldn't entirely trust her. She was part of my father's world, and it was a world I didn't understand. So, I kept my thoughts to myself and tried to catch up with my classes while I waited to do a ritual that might kill me or might just be pointless.
On the day of the ritual, Tennyson showed up at the door of my English class and announced loudly that I had to leave. I turned bright red and rushed out of the room, but he wasn't even a bit phased.
None of us talked as we loaded into the helicopter and flew to the coordinates Vucari had given Nikolai, but it was a normal, nervous sort of silence, not that strained formality that had been the usual thing since I'd gone nuclear. I glanced at their faces, which were all pale and tense, and wondered why they were even there. This wasn't a pack thing. It didn't even have to do with the bond. Then I realized — moral support. They were there so I wouldn't freak out.
"Thanks for coming, you guys," I said over the noise of the helicopter. "I really appreciate it."
Althea smiled at me, and Sam nodded.
"Yeah, yeah. Just don't go nuts and pop us all like popcorn," said Nikolai, and I knew that the weirdness was over. Nikolai could always be relied on as a barometer for awkwardness.
I'd assumed that we'd be meeting somewhere close to the school, just not on the island, because of security, or maybe the thing about magic and running water, but the flight seemed to take forever.
"Are we going to make it in time?" I asked, craning my neck to look out the window. There were a lot of trees. I hoped we'd be able to land.
"We're almost there," said Tennyson.
As he said it, the helicopter began circling to land.
We landed in a clearing in the middle of a massive forest full of fir trees. There was something about fir trees that had always creeped me out. They seemed as if they were whispering secrets.
"Whatever happens, wait for us to return," Tennyson told the pilot, who was already playing Candy Crush on his phone.
There was a clear, wide path to the left that we headed for.
"He sent very clear instructions," said Nikolai. "Down the path until we reach the circle. Once we reach the circle, only you and Tennyson are allowed to enter."
"Tennyson too?" I asked, surprised.
"He thought it would be safer because of your bond."
I nodded. That made sense as much as anything else did.
When we reached the circle, it wasn't what I'd expected at all. I'd thought maybe it was a clearing with markings drawn on the ground or something, but it was a circle of hazel trees with another circle of ash trees inside. Neither the hazel nor the ash had begun to lose their leaves, though it was late in the year and the weather had already begun to turn bitter. There was red thread tied around the trunks of the trees, connecting them in intricate patterns.
"So, do we just step over it, or…"
ENTER THE CIRCLE, said a thunderous voice inside my mind that definitely wasn't Tennyson.
From the look on his face, he had heard it too. He took my hand, and we stepped through the gaps in the thread until we were inside the circle.
As soon as we entered, white flames rose up around the edge of the circle, cutting us off from the others.
"It's for protection," said someone I figured had to
be Vucari, as he appeared before us. "So, nothing can get out into the world."
"And nothing can get in," added Tennyson.
Vucari shrugged as if that didn't concern him.
I didn't know how familiar the guy was with popular culture, but I thought he could've at least tried to avoid the stereotype. He was wearing a long black cloak with the hood pulled over his face so that his features were in shadow.
"I need your blood, drawn with a bone knife," he said, pulling a knife out of his cloak and handing it to me. "Let it fall naturally to the earth below."
Literally everything I'd ever watched or read had said that blood magic was bad, but Tennyson wasn't saying anything, and I couldn't exactly go with a "Netflix says it's wrong" defense, so I held out my arm, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to draw blood.
It just wasn't happening. I couldn't do it.
"Here," said Tennyson, taking the knife from my hand. "Can someone else draw the blood?" he asked Vucari.
"If it's you, that's fine," Vucari said. He sounded amused, but I had no idea why.
"Count to three," Tennyson told me, staring into my eyes.
I held his gaze as I counted. "One… two… omigod, you jerk."
He smirked at me and looked down at my arm. It wasn't a deep cut, across the soft part of my forearm, but the blood was dripping out like crazy. We watched as it dripped onto the ground. Each drip sounded like a loud thud, like a giant's footsteps.
“Your arm,” I said, looking up at him.
He nodded and clasped his own arm where it had also started to bleed. The blood was soaking into his sleeve, but before any of it could fall to the ground and mix with mine, his wound had already healed.
Vucari held out his hand over where my blood had fallen, palm facing downward, and began to chant strange words that didn't sound like any language I'd ever heard. Still, Tennyson seemed fine with it, and I figured he'd know if something wasn't right.
As Vucari chanted, the drops of blood began to glow silver. Then they rose into the air, spinning around like raindrops in zero gravity. Vucari watched them intently, then did a complicated hand gesture. The blood stopped glowing, and Vucari barked out one sharp word.
The blood rushed back into my arm, and before I could blink, the wound had healed.
"The one who did this to you is named Ruby Spencer. I cannot say what she did to cause it or what you will become. These things are unknown to me, for they are covered by a darkness I cannot penetrate. I do not know her location, but I can tell you she is with those whose names we do not know, those who are opposed to the natural world."
"The Others," said Tennyson.
Vucari nodded. "She is neither living nor dead. I don't know what she is, but what I sense tells me that she is someone best avoided."
He looked at me for a reaction, but there wasn't one I could give him. I was in shock.
"Thank you," said Tennyson. "You've been most informative."
"The favor that you owe," Vucari said to me. "I will collect it when it is of most value."
I nodded, because what could you even say to that? With a flourish of his hands, the white flames vanished. I was fairly sure Vucari didn't actually disappear, but he was no longer standing in front of us.
As the other three rushed into the circle to meet us, Tennyson and I stared at each other in dismay.
Sam's mother had done this to me.
She was alive. She was evil. And we had to find a way to tell him.
Chapter 19
It was the most awkward silence ever. Tennyson and I had managed to avoid answering any questions the whole way back to school, but once we got there and were safe within the walls of the Golden House, there was no way out of it.
"My mother?" Sam asked, staring at me blankly. "You're sure?"
I shrugged and picked at my fingernail. "Unless he meant a different Ruby Spencer."
"Seems unlikely," he said.
I nodded.
"And she's alive?" he continued.
I glanced at Tennyson, not knowing how to answer.
"He said she isn't dead," Tennyson said tactfully.
"I don't understand any of this," Sam said, standing up. Then he began to pace the room.
I knew how he felt. Sam's mother had been more of a parent to me than either of my own. She'd always been so warm, so loving. I couldn't help but think there had been some mistake, but then, she had known things. She'd co-written that book with my father. She must have known Sam had the zero gene. Still, I couldn't reconcile this new information with the person in my memory. The rest of the pack were shocked, but it was more out of sympathy for Sam. They hadn't known Sam’s mother. They couldn't understand that this was the worst betrayal of all.
Althea was subtly trying to open a book she'd reached for as soon as we'd mentioned Sam's mother, and I was sure something had given her an idea. Nikolai looked as if he was trying to think up an excuse to leave.
Sam paced until he was standing in front of me.
"I'm sorry," he said, staring at the floor.
"What for?" I asked him.
"If I hadn't turned, if I hadn't attacked my family, this wouldn't have happened to you."
I sighed and stood up so I could hug him. He was putting things together all wrong.
"No," I told him. "Whatever she did to me, it must have started long before you turned. I don't understand what she did or why it's taken this long to kick in, but she must have…"
A series of things clicked inside my brain. All those delicious cookies she'd made me. All those cupcakes. What if she'd laced them with something? My brothers had eaten those cookies too, and Sam's little sister. And that wasn't even the worst of it.
"It never did make sense," I said, picking up the trail that Sam had been pacing. "That night, the night you disappeared."
I looked at Sam, but I didn't want to say it.
He needs to know, Tennyson said.
"There were no bodies," I said. "From the time I looked through my window when I heard that scream until the time I got to your house — it wasn't very long, but no one was there. There wasn't enough time. It was staged, the whole thing. She must have staged it."
The truth of it was too terrible to speak aloud, that his own mother had handed him over to the Others. What was she that made her able to do such a thing?
"They might still be alive," I said, trying to put a positive spin on it, to distract him. "Your father, your sister. They might be…"
But Sam's eyes were cold. "She gave me to them."
I nodded, and it felt like my heart was being torn out. "Probably."
I wondered what part my father had played in it all. If he'd stayed in contact with Ruby Spencer after he'd walked out on us. If he knew she was working with the Others. If that was why he hadn't wanted me to do the ritual. Why what he was doing seemed so much like what the Others did. It was all too much to think about.
"I need some air," Sam said, and I couldn't blame him.
Life went on as usual, but everything seemed surreal, like I was viewing it through an Instagram filter and the colors were all just a bit off. I went to class, studied, researched, but it all seemed like a façade.
A few days later, I was sitting in chemistry class next to Tennyson. We were supposed to be testing the acidity of different household items with pH strips, but it was the last class of the day and everyone was just chatting and mucking around. Troy Hathaway leaned back on his stool to rest an elbow on Britt Pendlebury's table and say something flirty to her. Olivia Hearst and Charlotte Du Pont were looking up different hairstyles on Pinterest. The only person actually working was Fatima, who was bossing her lab partner into doing everything because her arm was still in a sling.
And I saw, with a sudden clarity, that I would never be like them. I'd never be normal. I'd never have the luxury of being ignorant about the realities of this world, whether it was because I was poor or because I had some whacked-out gene. I'd always have bigger problems than late hom
ework or how to do waterfall braids. And that wasn't bad. It just wasn't good, either. It was just what it was. It was my life. Even if I'd gone to Greenville High, I still wouldn't be normal. In fact, I'd probably be even worse off, because I wouldn't have my wolfy buddies to make me feel like less of a freak.
There was no way to stop the Becoming. I had to go through with it. I had to embrace who I was and Become.
I felt better now that I had a course of action in mind.
Tennyson kept giving me strange looks, but I waited until we were all together for dinner to tell everyone.
"I want to go ahead with the Becoming," I said.
Althea nodded and primly cut up her grilled chicken. "You realize that we have no idea how to do that?"
I nodded. "I think if I…" I paused. It was going to sound a bit hokey to say it, even if it felt true. "I think if I just let the power inside me guide my actions, I'll know what to do."
She nodded. "I suppose that makes as much sense as anything."
"Fifty bucks says she'll be a witch," said Nikolai.
"We have no idea what she'll be," said Sam, his voice small. "We have no idea what my mother made her into."
I shrugged. "Well, it's not as if I have much choice. It's literally 'to be nor not to be' at this point."
Sam shook his head and didn't look at me. I'd hoped to have his support on this, since he was the one other person I knew who’d gone through the same thing, but I could understand his feelings.
This will change you forever, Tennyson said.
I shrugged. Probably not in any important way, though.
He'd been more open with me since the ritual, but still kept his feelings closed off. Not now, though; now, I could sense everything he felt. He was worried, frightened. He thought that the Becoming would change our bond, and he didn't want that.
I stared at him in surprise.
You don't want to break the bond anymore.
I didn't either. The panic I'd felt when my father had tried to sever the bond was still fresh in my mind. Even without the risk of death, I hadn't wanted him to do it, to lose this connection with Tennyson. Tennyson had become a part of me, something too important to lose. I'd never realized he felt the same way, though. I'd thought he was just doing what was necessary.
