by A. S. Oren
Bullock shakes his head. “You may be right, but we don't have time to save him. We have to get back to Spearwood before it gets dark, and by the looks of it, we only have a few hours left."
The guy coughs, blood spurts from his mouth, but his eyes remain closed. Does he even know what's going on right now? "Then go ahead of me. I can't leave him, not without knowing."
Bullock doesn't budge from his spot.
I peer at Dante, who watches from a few feet away. "Can you heal him with the snow?"
He shakes his head. "Not with wounds that deep and extreme. They would have to be shallow wounds or really small in order for that to work."
I bite at my lips in thought. "We just need to heal him enough so that he can walk to Spearwood and get medical attention. They won't heal him if he's near death. The weak don't survive around here, or they become a part of the Outcasts."
Mirren crosses his arms over his chest. "Good. Better to get them out of the families then have them stick around and pollute our world with more weak links."
Bullock growls at the back of his throat. "That's not the only way someone becomes an outcast, so shut your mouth!"
Mirren opens his arms wide. "Want to go another round, pansy ass?"
I grab Bullock's hand before he can stand and take Mirren up on his offer. Touching his hand may just give me the jolt of energy I need in order to pull this guy back from the brink of death.
“Not now, please.” I mutter under my breath. He just sighs and pulls his hand out of my grasp. I gulp as he stays put. At least he doesn’t only think with his manly pride. “Can you help me, Dante?”
He comes to my other side and kneels in the snow. Now that I know Jericho’s not the one in the snow, my sense of feeling returns with a new fierceness. I have to help this guy though. He has to know what Minos did to me. I can’t let him die if he knows the truth.
I place his palm on my bare knee and then press my hands into the warm pool of blood that bubbles from the guy’s slash wounds.
I centre my Angel magic. I don’t want to produce my wings. For all I know, my angel form now has my dragon wings.
The scarlet life-force seeps back into his body, the deep holes begin to close and become more like the surface wounds that Dante will be able to heal. “Get ready Dante, I’m almost done.”
I pull my hands away as Dante starts placing snow on the wounds. His hands ignite with a blue flame. I’ve never seen anything like it.
The guy gasps and sits upright, causing the snow to fall off of him and reveal thick, bright pink scars. He touches his chest and pulls back his hand to stare at it.
I clear my throat. “You’re healed enough to get yourself to the school. What did your leader do to me?”
He looks at the others and then me. One of his brown eyes has a dilated pupil like David Bowie, and I only know that because Jericho is obsessed with him and most other iconic singers of the 70’s. I’ve never seen anything like it in person until now.
His hand wavers as his fingers reach out to my cheek. “Are you an Angel?” I flinch away as his touch shocks me, and not in the good way that comes with meeting one of my Fold.
“What were you and the Knights assigned to do to me. Speak quick, or I can reverse the healing I did on you.” I’m lying out my ass.
He blinks. “I don’t know, honest. I wouldn’t lie to a person I have a life debt with. All I know is what he told me to do, which was to hold you while Triton held off the others. He’s the only one that gets the inside information for our missions. I just follow his orders.”
I sigh and stand. He’s either really good at lying, or he’s telling the truth. Oh well, it was worth a shot. “Don’t die on your way back to Spearwood, or our healing you will have been for nothing.”
With one heavy exhale, my legs move forward. I can do this. I just need to push the pain to the same spot at the back of my mind it has always been shoved into. This is no different, no matter how it affects me.
Dante runs ahead and stops in my path. “Let me help you again.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how permanent these effects are. I can’t be weak in every survival challenge. I know there will be more. No more crying for this girl. I won’t slow you down, I promise. We should be able to get there in the next two hours if we keep a constant pace.”
Bullock and Mirren already stroll ahead of us, and I keep walking, bypassing Dante.
“Hey wait! I can help you!” The guy’s voice calls.
I glance back as the guy stands. He hunches over for a moment with pain, before righting himself and acting as if it never happened. If he can do it, so can I. I stand with Bullock, Mirren, and Dante as we wait to see what he will do.
He jogs to catch up with us. “I know of a faster way to get us all back within twenty minutes.”
I frown. Should I trust him? This could be a ploy by Rosemen or something. Why didn't I think about that before? But how would Rosemen know if we would find him or even help him?
My arms fold over my chest “How?”
"There's tunnels all throughout this land to go from place to place quickly during a survival test. They need to be able to move things and animals at a second's notice. There's an entrance not even a hundred feet from here. I know it." He pushes hair out of his face.
Why didn’t Perlow send Edgar the blueprints for these tunnels? We were never told of them. I knew we couldn't trust him, old friend of my father or not.
I glance at the others; they have the same frowns on their faces. "Wouldn't that be cheating? Wouldn't we get punished for taking an easy route like that?" My teeth bite at my lower lip.
He shakes his head. "The point of the test is surviving. They don't care how you do it, and it's not like you'll have the same layout next time. You won't know where the tunnels are or how to find them. Let me pay you back for saving my life." A grin spreads across his face as he stares into my eyes. They have the same expression in them as when the guys; Paden, Jericho, and Maverick; look at me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
"I don't know." It would be nice to get to the school sooner rather than later. "What about Jericho? He might be waiting for us before actually going to Spearwood."
The guy reaches into the side pocket of his tattered slacks and pulls out a P.A. card. It morphs into a girl about my age. Snow-white hair falls down her back in waves. She wears little more than a pink leotard. A long, white, cat-like tail sways just above her butt, and fluffy cat ears sit on top of her head. I raise an eyebrow. A neko-girl? I only know what she is because I caught the guys looking at pictures online of scandalous anime girls once, and a neko-girl picture led them to a site about them. I used it to blackmail them into doing part of my chores for a week. If Edgar had found out about them looking at images like that, the laptop would've been taken away from them for at least a month.
The girl wipes at her face with her hand, like a cat wipes at its head. "How may I be of service, Mercutio?"
Maybe his mom is a fan of Romeo and Juliet?
"Show me the location of Jericho Flinn. Knight password, Clementine."
What a strange password; simple, too.
She claps her hands together and then opens her arms wide. A screen appears between them, like blueprints or something. A red dot blinks, but I can’t read the layout from here.
"It looks like he's residing in your dorm." Mercutio turns the girl around, and the map faces us, the dot sits in the box with Radcliffe's Dorm underneath it. It even shows the secret passageway leading up to my bedroom.
I point at Jericho's blinking red dot and look to Mirren. "It doesn't look like he's been detained or got in trouble for not coming back with us."
He shrugs. "I'm just telling you what I heard from another guy who had a team member run off during one of these. He didn't show up at the school again, and there was a rumour saying he's stuck down in some dungeon here, getting punished."
Bullock sighs. "Well, he seems fine. They didn't give us
any rules on what we could and couldn't do during this test. I say we take it. It will get us back to school in time. I’d rather not find out what they do to students who are late. I've worked too hard to stay upright here to lose it now."
I cross my arms over my chest. I guess it isn't cheating if they didn't state not to take whatever means we could find, in order to get there in time. "Is there anyone here against this idea?"
No one speaks up. I stare at Mercutio. His eyes shine as he stares at me and a bad feeling shivers up my spine. Every instinct tells me to not trust this guy. But going into the underground tunnels means not walking in the snow. Try as I might to ignore the pain, it still sits at the forefront of my mind, wanting me to acknowledge the way it makes me feel like screaming. There are four of us against one of him. If he tries anything funny, we can defend ourselves. We aren't noobs to this type of life, after all.
I sigh, and against my gut instinct, I nod. "Okay. Let's do this."
Mercutio grins. "I'm so glad I can help you out after you helped me. C'mon, follow me. A tunnel is over here."
He reaches out and grabs my hand. Energy drains from me in an instant. I almost want to take a nap here and now. As gently as I can, I pull my hand back. I don't want to offend him, we need his help, but he does the exact opposite of what touching one of my Fold members does.
"My hands are so cold, I'd like to leave them in my pockets, if possible." I shove them into the deep stomach pockets of Dante's hoodie.
He nods. "Okay, warm up."
At least he doesn't realise I can't stand his touch. He leads the way, only a few meters. I manage to walk it by myself without falling over, but I come close a couple times.
He stops and looks to his P.A. I didn't even realize she was still in her humanoid form. "Come open the tunnel."
She bows and snaps her fingers. The ground rumbles under us. If they aren't careful, they'll start another avalanche, and I’d rather not have that happen again. It wasn't fun the first time.
"Good, now I need my car, but make it big enough to fit all of us."
She crouches low to the ground before transforming into a small white car. The headlights resemble a pair of cat eyes. My P.A. won't be able to turn into cars until I’m sixteen, and only if I choose to upgrade it for that option. This thing is going to fit all of us? At least it has four doors, but three of us will have to sit in back.
Mercutio opens the front passenger door and gestures for me to enter the car. I don't want to sit next to him. What if he touches me again?
"I'll sit in the back, in the middle. I'm small so it'll be a better fit. Mirren, you're the tallest, you take the front seat?" I reach back for his hand and pull him forward.
I open the back door and climb inside to the middle seat before anyone can argue a different option.
Mirren shrugs and takes the front seat. Bullock and Dante sit on either side of me. Mercutio gets into the driver seat. A seatbelt automatically comes out to fasten at my waist as he starts the engine. We descend down a ramp and into the dark tunnel. The headlights shine the way into the darkness, but it doesn't go as far as I'd like it to. I close my eyes. The dense darkness brings forth memories of the Watchers and other monsters that tried to take me into the Voids as a child.
Don't freak out. Nothing is going to pop out of the darkness and get you. I reassure myself.
A hand slips into mine, Dante's, and his thumb rubs soft circles on my skin. My anxiety shrinks by several notches. How did he know? With hesitation, I open my eyes. A yellow line shines on the windshield showing Mercutio what way to turn as we come up on a fork in the road. He revs his engine and takes the turn with lighting speed, the tires squeal against the ground.
I swallow hard as my stomach feels like it hits my spine. "How do you know you won't hit something down here going at this speed?"
Mercutio glances back at me through the rear-view mirror. "Only official Spearwood Watchers ever roam these tunnels, and since this survival test is almost over, it's doubtful anyone is down here." He grins. "Don't worry, you're safe with me."
I grip Dante's hand even tighter, his touch filling me with good sensations and energy. I only have to be around Mercutio for as long as it takes to get back to school.
The lights illuminate metal walls on either side of us. Constant forks keep appearing, but he only follows the way the yellow line tells him to go. A web of tunnels must make up this place. We should've been able to study and memorise these maps with Edgar.
Holding Dante's hand has returned my energy, and I'm all but a twinge away from being pain free. He only just found out about the Fold thing. How can he be so understanding? Probably because he doesn't fully comprehend what it means yet. He hasn't had time to think it over. He'll wake up tomorrow and never want to hang out with the guys and me again.
"I never introduced myself, did I? I'm Mercutio Net. No need to introduce yourselves, I know who you all are.” The car slows to an almost crawl. "We're at the entrance of the school now. Kit, open the tunnel."
Daylight streams into the darkness as a hole opens above us and a ramp comes down. He drives up it and pulls the car onto the grass in front of the main school entrance. The weather is beautiful, not a fleck of snow anywhere in sight. I never thought I’d enjoy a notion like that. But, I’ve never dealt with what Norms must feel every winter.
Perlow stands in front of the entrance, arms behind his back. The four of us exit the car. Mercutio no longer holds himself with pain, even though his wounds haven't fully closed. Bits of dry blood stick to the still glossy scar tissue. I stare at the X, Dante's snow magic and blue flame did well at healing him. If he still wants to hang out after realising the truth, I'll need to ask him to tutor me.
I refocus my attention on Perlow as he clears his throat. "Did you bring the key you were supposed to retrieve before returning?”
Dante reaches into the pocket of his pyjama pants and hands over the silver key. “Here you go, sir.”
He takes it and then hands it to me. I stare at the key. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
He shrugs. “Keep it as a souvenir? It doesn’t have any value to anyone here at the school. Interesting way of choosing to return. I suspected you’d use your dragon form and be back well before now.”
I hold my tongue. Does he know what Minos did to me? I’m not sure if I can trust him. The guys and I will figure out what’s going on with me. “Thank you.” That should be enough.
He just stares at me with those green eyes of his before they turn to look at Mercutio and the wounds across his chest. He raises an eyebrow. Did he not expect him to still be alive, or does he not know what happened to him?
“Mr. Net, Rosemen wants to see you, now.”
Mercutio gives a stiff nod. “Yes, sir.” He nudges me in the shoulder with his. “I’ll see you around. He winks one of his brown eyes and walks off.
“You are all dismissed. Get some food and rest. You will start classes again in the morning.”
I sigh as he walks away. Time to go talk to Jericho. Hopefully I can finally get him to understand how I feel.
CHAPTER TWO
I shut my eyes and place my hand on the door to my dorm, but the classic beep I've become accustomed to doesn't sound. Of course, I don't have Enid, my P.A., with me. They didn't give them to us to use during the test. Enid must've let Jericho into my room; he's on the list of people allowed access inside. I wet my lips as I lift my hand to knock on my own door. It's time to face the music. I just hope I can get him to understand he's not worthless to me and never will be.
I knock four times. The door opens. Jericho looks at my face and then to the empty space behind me. Did he think I would come here with the guys in tow, ready to hang out, and do nothing? I know better than that. I know this is the time for me to have a one-on-one with him; I need that with each of them a few times a month. It keeps our separate bonds fresh.
He steps aside to let me in. His throat clears as he closes the door again. My h
ands rest in the pockets of the hoodie. I really should change.
"You're still wearing that hoodie."
I nod. "We just got back, and all my clothes are here. I don't think it would've been good to walk the halls bare ass naked." I move my hands now to play with the zipper. "I'll go change."
I leave the room before he can say something to stop me. I can't breathe. I need to get away from him for a second in order to collect my thoughts. Something has changed in the last few hours, and I don't like it one bit.
I throw on a pair of black yoga pants and a shirt he gave me. It has the Pi symbol on the front, and I’ve cut the neck out. Perhaps it will diffuse his ire some to see me in it. I glance in the standing mirror I had placed in my closet a couple days ago. At least now I look more like myself. My hair will need so much conditioner later to get these knots out, but for now, they'll have to stay. I toss Dante's hoodie onto my bed; I can't forget to give it back to him.
