Pins and Needles (The Chosen Book 1)

by N. M. Santoski

  “What good has it done you?” Jenkins asked. “You’ll spend the next three months in a cell in the basement, then have to repeat your teach year.”

  “What? No one told me I’d have to repeat! I thought you’d let me out to fight!”

  “To fight the girl you just tried to kill? I think not. You’ll repeat the year, Mr. Chancery. I hope you’re satisfied.” He turned to Selocrim. “Captain, you may take him down to one of the cells. Be sure it is one of the Ignis cells—no need to risk an escape.” As Selocrim muscled him out of the chair and down the hall, Jenkins called after them, “Monique is alive, Elliot. I hope she doesn’t decide to challenge you out of principle—I’d hate to see you escape your punishment via an untimely death.”

  Nolan heard the gossip from Pyrrhus, whose room was right across the hall from Monique’s. “She’ll be okay—the hair in that spot may never grow back, and she’s still a bit fuzzy on the details, but she’ll live. I’ve never understood why people try to kill each other beforehand, anyway. Unless you frame someone else, it never works out.”

  “Maybe they’re hoping for an easier or weaker opponent that way.”

  “It’s still luck of the draw, though!” Pyrrhus protested.

  “I didn’t say it was logical!”

  They laughed together. Despite Monique’s situation, Nolan felt fairly confident that no one would overtly attempt to hurt him—not with his uncle on the warpath after this incident.

  He was wrong.

  He was on his way to Sensei’s class one afternoon when someone jumped out at him from a corner, attacking him with a huge butcher’s knife. He jumped back enough that he was nicked with the edge instead of beheaded, but the man kept coming, screaming in almost unintelligible rage.

  Gia and Pyrrhus leapt to his defense. She summoned a gust of wind to knock the knife from his hand and caught it as Pyrrhus set the man on fire, distracting him. Nolan was leaning against the wall, hand against his throat, terrified that the wound was worse than it felt. He could feel the blood seeping through his fingers.

  Pyrrhus forced the man to his knees and then his stomach, putting a knee on his back and pinning him to the ground.

  “Will someone get Captain Selocrim, please?” he snarled at the nearby gawkers. No one moved.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Gia said, the knife still clutched in her hand. She stalked away, bringing back Selocrim and Jenkins within moments.

  “What is going on here?” Jenkins demanded.

  “This lovely gentleman attacked Nolan with a knife,” Pyrrhus said, ignoring the man’s cries as he continued to pin him to the ground. “Nolan may still be bleeding, not sure how well he got him.”

  Jenkins turned to Nolan, who gave him a weak wave. “I’m okay,” he rasped. Sure his nephew would live a few minutes more, he turned back to view the perpetrator.

  “Is that Samuel?” Jenkins pulled away, alarmed. “Sam, you’ve worked here for years! Why are you attacking students?”

  “Just him,” he snarled, face still pushed into the carpet. “How am I supposed to visit my wife and children in the Village if he won’t let us out? I haven’t seen them in almost eight months!”

  “So you decided to kill him?”

  “It was the only way.”

  “Gia, please take my nephew to Liz or Kuriyami.” Once the two were gone, he turned to Pyrrhus. “Let Sam up, please.”

  He obliged, still clasping Sam’s upper arms as if afraid he’d get away.

  “I’ll have to have you put down in the cells, Sam,” Jenkins said sadly. “You attacked someone.”

  “No, he attacked Nolan,” Dr. Castillo said with a sneer, leaning against one of the other walls as she watched the whole thing unfold. “Your precious nephew. If he’d attacked someone else…”

  Jenkins stood up against her, practically nose to nose. “I would do the same for any student in here, Avis. Do not disparage me. A student’s life was in danger, and I have acted accordingly.”

  “You’ll protect that boy however you have to,” she shot back.

  Jenkins forgot for a moment that the entire student body was watching him and shouted, “Yes, I will!”

  Aware of the sudden silence, he turned on his heel and faced Selocrim, still holding the knife Gia had handed her.

  “Captain Selocrim,” he said quietly, “if you would take possession of the prisoner?” She obeyed.

  As the trio disappeared downstairs, Pyrrhus heard Manas turn to Angus and say quietly, “He’ll be a problem. We’ll have to figure something out.”

  He ignored their posturing and headed straight for Liz and Kuriyami’s room, where he assumed he would find Gia and Nolan. He was right; Liz had her hand wrapped around Nolan’s throat and her eyes closed as Gia hovered.

  “Is he okay?” a soft voice asked from behind him, startling him.

  “I can’t remember the last time you snuck up on me,” he acknowledged.

  “Answer the question!” Leiani snapped.

  “Looks like he’ll be fine, but if you wait here, I’ll find out for sure.”

  Not waiting for an answer, he stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. “How’s the patient?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Go to Hell,” Nolan groaned.

  “Just fine, I see!”

  Gia rolled her eyes. “He’s okay. Just a nick. He’s very lucky.”

  “Skilled,” Nolan corrected, then jumped and choked a bit as Liz poked at his Adam’s apple in irritation.

  “Stop talking!” she ordered. “I can’t heal the muscle if it keeps moving!”

  Nolan obediently stilled, letting Gia fill Pyrrhus in on everything. “And what’s going on upstairs?” she asked.

  “They’ve taken him down to the cells. I guess we’ll have to wait for June to find out what will happen to him. He tried to kill a member of one of the Nine Families… that’s usually an automatic death sentence.”

  Nolan’s eyes widened, but he kept his mouth shut as Liz completed her work. Finally given permission to speak again, he blurted, “They can’t kill him!”

  “Nolan, that’s the way it works. Members of the Nine Families are practically sacred.”

  “He was desperate! They can’t kill him.”

  “Well, I’m sure that if you plead for leniency, the Council will take it into account.”

  “Well,” Pyrrhus said. “At least you’re okay. We can deal with all that later. Just be careful, Nolan.” He thought about warning Nolan about Manas, but he didn’t want to do it with so many witnesses. He’d tell him at breakfast, he decided, before heading out to give Leiani the good news.

  “I want to go to class,” Nolan said.

  “To Sensei’s class?” Gia asked sceptically. “With a neck wound?”

  “I’m healed—right, Liz?”

  “I suppose it’s okay,” she said. “Just don’t get stabbed in the neck again.”

  “Come on, then,” Gia said with a sigh. “I’ll pair with you today... you still owe me that sparring match from Christmas.”

  “You only want to spare me now because you know I won’t be able to kick your ass,” he joked.

  She made a noncommittal noise in her throat. “We’ll have to pair up another day, too, then. When you’re able to fight for real.”

  They arrived at the classroom, where Sensei was coaching them through hand-to-hand combat, without numina.

  “Could have used this earlier,” Nolan muttered to Gia.

  “Aeron, Disanza! Didn’t expect you after the Proctor told me what happened, but smart of you to come. Grab a corner and start sparring, I’ll be around in a moment,” Sensei said, turning back to Claire and Noel. “Where’re Pyrrhus and K’Oliu?”

  “No idea, Sensei,” Gia answered, seeing Nolan’s reluctance to get his friends in trouble. Their teacher snorted, but said nothing else.

  “Okay, what do you want to work on first?” she asked him, twisting back and forth to loosen up. Her ponytail swung from side to side, blocking
her face from his view.

  “How about disarming?” he said with a straight face.

  “Fine with me—you could use it!” she shot back. “Offense or defense?”

  “Hmm… defense first, I think. Come at me when you’re ready.”

  They’d never paired together, but he knew Gia was known for her small size and her speed. Her first move was no surprise—she came at him in a blur, reaching for his face. He took advantage of his longer stride to overstep her, making sure her blow landed on air.

  “Very nice,” she said with a laugh, catching herself before she lost her balance. “I can’t believe that the guy nicked you if you can move like that.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it this morning,” he said, lashing out and catching her by the wrist. In an instant, she had turned her wrist against his thumb, forcing it to bend unnaturally. He let her wrist go, but by then she was already swinging at his stomach.

  “Well played,” Sensei said as she passed by. “How’s your throat, Aeron?”

  “Never better,” he said immediately.

  She laughed. “Never let them see you sweat. Good man. You two look pretty good—do a real round.” She crossed her arms and stood, waiting.

  Gia took the initiative, as usual. She took a shot at his head with her fist, trying to connect. When he took her by the wrist this time, she didn’t miss a beat. Instead of freeing herself, she duplicated his grip on her and pulled him closer, taking him off balance. She let one knee buckle and began to pull him toward the ground. At the last moment, she planted her other foot in his lower stomach and tossed him over her head, landing him on his back with a thump.

  He stayed down, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “Nolan? Did I hurt you?” she said, worried that she’d done something to reopen his wound. She scrambled to her knees and leaned over him, frantically checking his neck.

  She was completely unprepared for his upward lunge, flipping her onto her back and pinning her shoulders to the hard wooden floor.

  “Got you,” he said with a smile. She struggled for a moment, but he outweighed her by almost a hundred pounds. He could tell by the disappointed twist of her lips that she was subdued—if only temporarily.

  “Never trust that someone is down until you’ve proved it,” Sensei chuckled before moving on. She ignored them for the rest of the class. By the time they were done, Nolan was feeling beaten, bruised, and just ready for the day to be over. Bypassing both dinner and a shower, he scrambled up into his bunk and was asleep within moments.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Absolute pandemonium in the halls woke Nolan the next morning. His back and throat still sore, he somehow managed to get himself down out of the upper bunk. When he wrenched the door open, ready to holler at the idiots making the noise, he found a crying Leiani outside his door, hand poised to knock.

  "Leiani?" He still wasn't pleased with her, but she would be his sister one day, so he was trying to let his anger go.

  "Nolan—It’s Uncle Robert!"

  "What?" He was immediately on high alert. He grabbed her shoulders. "Dead?"

  "Not yet, but very seriously injured. The Medica students are with him now—Nolan!"

  He had taken off down the hall, crossing the front foyer in about a dozen loping strides before bursting through the doors to the surgery, praying to anyone that would listen. He was sure that his uncle was on the verge of death.

  He was right. Liz and Kuriyami were frantically at work on a barely responding Jenkins, their arms red to the elbows with blood.

  Kuriyami caught him across the chest and brutally shoved him backwards as he rushed to the operating table. "I don't think so, Aeron!" she snarled. "We need room to work—either stay against the wall or get out!"

  She turned her back on him without another word and resumed her place at Jenkins' side, slipping her hands underneath his jaw to cradle his neck. Even from his vantage point, Nolan could see deep rings of bruising circling his windpipe.

  "Head and neck first, Liz," Kuriyami ordered briskly. "Then chest—it sounds like he might have a punctured lung."

  Liz's hands were probing the top of Jenkins' head, searching for something. She made a small sound and suddenly pressed her fingers down with incredible force, literally jabbing her Medica numina into his brain. For the first time, Jenkins made a noise. He moaned, little more than a breath, and then fell silent again.

  It was the first sign Nolan had that his uncle was still alive.

  "What can I do?" Nolan asked, desperate to do something—anything.

  "Nothing!" Kuriyami said, but Liz made a motioning gesture with her head, hands still pressed to Jenkins' skull.

  Giving the furious Kuriyami a wide berth, Nolan skirted the room and went to Liz's side. The injuries looked much worse up close, but Nolan couldn't afford to falter now.

  "What do you need?"

  "Grab me a saline bottle from the equipment closet," she ordered. "We can close him up, but if he gets an infection, we're screwed—those are much harder to fight. Better to clean his wounds out first."

  Nolan opened the closet and searched for the bottle. He finally found it, tucked in a back corner. He brought it back to her, and she nodded in approval.

  "Good—here, while I hold his hair back, you squirt. Be thorough—he’s in pain, but it's worse to have gunk in the wound."

  As she lifted his hair away from his temple with one hand, Nolan got a first look at the wound that was responsible for most of his blood loss. It looked as if Jenkins had been smashed across the side of the head with something heavy—wood, apparently, because there were splinters smattered along his hairline. As he watched, Liz's numina was working them out from the inside, letting them fall to clink onto the table below.

  "Uncle Robert!"

  A glance at the door showed Leiani at the head of a mass of students, all pushing to see their Proctor.

  "What is this, a freak show?" Kuriyami snapped. "K'Oliu, get these people out of here!"

  "Leiani, take everyone up to the dining hall," Nolan said quietly. "I'll come up and let you all know when we have more information. Oh, but send Captain Selocrim down here, please?"

  Wide eyed, Leiani nodded. "Come on, everyone! Let them work in peace." She swung the metal doors shut and Kuriyami promptly barred them.

  "Nolan," Liz prodded, and he began to rinse the wood and blood away from his uncle's temple.

  "Aeron?" Captain Selocrim shouted through the doors a few minutes later. "What the hell is going on in there?"

  "Captain Selocrim, Proctor Jenkins has been attacked," Nolan called back. "Could you seal off his office and begin talking to the students? I'll want to search the office myself when you are done, of course, as this may be a family matter."

  "Am I investigating an assault or a murder?" she asked after a moment of silence.

  When he answered, his voice was grim. "It's an assault right now, but if he doesn't pull through.... better investigate as if it were a murder. Whoever did this didn't expect him to walk away."

  If being ordered around by an eighteen-year-old put Selocrim off, she didn't betray it in her voice. "I'll begin my investigation...and I'll be wanting to speak with you as soon as you're done, Aeron."

  He bit back an angry retort and answered in as bland a tone as he could manage, "Of course, Captain. Whatever you need."

  The three of them worked steadily for almost an hour before the girls declared their work complete. "There's nothing more we can do," Liz said quietly, her hand on Nolan's arm. "Now it's up to him."

  "How long will he be unconscious?"

  "Hard to tell... he took a hard blow to the head, but your family is nothing if not hard headed." She let one corner of her mouth curl upward to soften the possible insult. "We should know in a day or two. It's too bad the baileys are up—he should really be in a hospital, but we did our best."

  Kuriyami was watching his face closely at this last, so Nolan kept the flicker of guilt to himself. "It's terrible, I
know—I wish there was something I could do." The sincerity in his voice was genuine. He did wish he could open the baileys, be he also knew that his uncle would rather die himself than let Nolan betray his position so blatantly.

  Nolan left his uncle's bedside only when Kuriyami threw him out, complaining that he stank of blood and fear.

  "You were just healed yourself yesterday. Take a shower and get something to eat before you come back here—because I'm sure as hell not healing you if you pass out from starvation!" she yelled before slamming the door to the Infirmary behind her. As it was a swinging door, it didn't really give the satisfying slam she was hoping for, but she got the idea across.

  Nolan took the fastest shower he'd ever taken and was on his way up to the dining hall to fill in the students and grab some food when Captain Selocrim waylaid him.

  "A word, Mr. Aeron."

  "I'm on my way up to--"

  "Now. In my office."

  He followed her obediently, almost as eager to find out who had done this to his uncle as he was to find out if his uncle was doing well.

  "Shut the door, please."

  He obliged her and sat down at the chair on other side of her desk, glancing around. The office was briskly efficient, but still bore some personal touches. There were pictures of the Captain in various stages of her life—after her Rite of Passage, missing a tooth but still smiling in triumph through the blood; in some sort of ancient castle, rolling hills behind her as she stood with a gentleman Nolan had never seen before; in her uniform, shaking Lord Artifex's hand as she accepted her Captaincy.

  "Mr. Aeron, I will be blunt. I am not sure I will ever discover the identity your Uncle's attacker. Whoever it was, they were very careful to use no numina whatsoever to accomplish their goal. Almost every student is claiming that they were in their rooms, asleep; the very few who are not all confirm each other's presence at breakfast."

  "There must be something we can do!" Nolan protested.

  Selocrim picked up a small paperweight from her desk and turned it over in her hands. "Mr. Aeron, do you know my affinity?"