Inception (The Marked Book 1)

by Bianca Scardoni

  “How do you like me now?” I sassed, feeling all smug.

  His lips curled into a smile as he stared back up at me from the ground. “There may be hope for you after all, Jemma.”

  “Thanks...I think?”

  He rose quickly to his feet, the movement registering only as a blur. “And had you not just driven your imaginary stake through my left lung, it would have been an impressive kill,” he added, straightening out the creases on his black T-shirt.

  “Come again?”

  “The heart would be about here,” he said pointing to the center of his chest. “Between your left and right lung.”

  “Oh. Right. I knew that.”

  “Let’s just hope you strike better than you lie,” he said with just a hint of ridicule as he moved to reposition the mat.

  “I wasn’t lying. I just forgot…that…I…didn’t…know…that piece of information. There’s a difference, you know.”

  Smooth, Jemma. Talk about a face-palm moment.

  Julian and Gabriel both stared at me like I had three eyes.

  “What? There is a difference,” I insisted. It was too late to quit now.

  Gabriel looked like he was going to say something, maybe impart some more wisdom on me, but decided against it. “I think we’re about done for the night. Get some rest. We’ll continue this tomorrow evening.”

  “Actually, I can’t tomorrow,” I said following him over to the back bench while Julian gathered his things. “I’m busy.”

  “You’re not scheduled to work. I already checked.” He didn’t look up at me as put on his shoes.

  “It’s not that. I’m going to the Carnival tomorrow. I promised my friends.”

  He straightened out and faced me. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea. You’re not ready.”

  “I’m not ready for the Carnival?”

  “You’re not ready to be exposed to potential danger.”

  I swallowed the sudden ball of nerves that had formed in the back of my throat. “And when you say potential danger,” I began, lowering my voice so that Julian couldn’t hear us. “You mean Dominic, right? Are you saying he’s going to be there?”

  “It’s always a possibility.”

  “Great. So how much longer am I supposed to hide away from the rest of the world?”

  “You shouldn’t look at it that way,” he said as he started for the door. “You need to train. That should come first.”

  I sighed and followed him out into the corridor, leaving Julian to lock up behind us. The truth was, I was really looking forward to this day off, to getting a break from work and training and vampires, and well, reality. And I promised Taylor I would be there. I didn’t want to let her down. Not again. There had to be a way to make this work.

  “Couldn’t we start training earlier tomorrow, like at sundown? That way we could finish early and I’d have enough time to do both.” It seemed like a fair compromise.

  “I suppose we could do that though I’m not sure I feel comfortable with you going to the carnival by yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t be,” I piped up quickly. “I’ll be with friends.”

  He didn’t seem comforted by this.

  “Of course, you could always come with me,” I added with an innocent smile. “And then you wouldn’t have to worry about it at all.” Not that that was very likely. Gabriel didn’t have an off switch and was always worrying about one thing or another.

  He arched his brow as if to express the same sentiment.

  “So?” I pushed, drunk on the fumes of my own exhaustion. “What do you say? Is it a date?”

  He gave me another disapproving look and then finally conceded with a nod. That was all the response I needed.

  It was on like Donkey Kong.

  24. THE CARNIVAL

  The scent of buttered popcorn and cotton candy mingled in the air like a childhood relic, filling me with a heavy dose of nostalgia. It made me long for a simpler time. A time when I was expected to be nothing more than my father’s daughter. When I was still allowed to be just a kid. Looking back on it now, it seemed like such a long time ago—a lifetime ago.

  I buttoned up my jean jacket as Gabriel and I headed towards Starry Beach to meet up with Taylor. The boardwalk was breathing life, lit up with game booths and fair rides as far as the eye could see. Gabriel’s eyes scanned the grounds like a soldier doing reconnaissance, weary of everyone and everything around us. I told him to relax (twice already since we arrived) though it was like trying to tell a bird not to fly.

  It didn’t take us long to find Taylor and the others huddled together in a messy circle over by the Ring Toss game. Everyone was accounted for, including Nikki who had her arm twisted around Trace’s bicep.

  The sight of them together like that sickened me; mostly because of the strange urge it incited in me that made me want to run over there and rip her away from him like a bad dream.

  “Are you alright?” asked Gabriel under his breath. He must have noticed the rigid turn my walk had taken.

  “Perfectly,” I lied, though it was drowned out by Taylor shouting my name as she left Carly’s side and rushed over to greet us.

  “I’m so happy you came!” She threw her arms around my neck and waltzed us into that jackrabbit dance again. And by us, I mean her. I just sort of got dragged along for the ride.

  Gabriel’s cell phone rang, breaking up the moment.

  “I have to take this,” he said and then ticked his chin towards my friends—his way of telling me to wait for him in a crowd. After all, there’s safety in numbers, though he’d probably think twice about the crowd he was sending me into if he knew anything about witchy Nikki Parker.

  Taylor laced her arm through mine as we meandered back towards the Ring Toss game in no particular hurry. Her eyes blazing with anticipation and delight.

  “Oh. My. God!” She tugged my arm playfully. “Gabriel Huntington? What the heck happened to Dominic?”

  Crap. What was I supposed to tell her? He turned out to be a vampire and attacked me in the middle of a make-out session? Right. That should go over well.

  “It just didn’t work out,” I shrugged, aiming for vague.

  “Oh.” She blinked at me, the disappointment filtering in over her eyes. “When did this happen?”

  I could tell she was hurt that I hadn’t confided in her about the “breakup” sooner. She took things like that pretty serious.

  “Last week,” I mumbled. “I was going to tell you. I wanted to. I just…I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.”

  “Gosh, Jemma, you sure do move fast,” heckled Nikki. “What is that, like a brother a month you’re averaging? You may want to think about a bigger city. I don’t think this town has enough guys to hold a girl like you over.” Her hyena cackle rattled my ears. “I hear New York is beautiful this time of year.”

  Morgan and Hannah snickered in unison like an exclamation mark to her public lashing.

  If the urge to knock her over wasn’t strong before, it was damn near uncontrollable now. “Are you really one to talk?” I shot back before thinking good of it. It felt like the rage was manifesting itself in my face, burning up my cheeks and firing off my mouth like a weapon of mass destruction.

  She unlatched herself from Trace and swarmed over to me in a cloud of her over-the-top designer perfume. “And what pray tell is that supposed to mean?”

  “What does it mean?” I repeated with my own brand of sardonic disdain. “I think you know exactly what it means,” I said and glanced over her shoulder at Trace.

  He buried his hands in his pocket and pumped his jaw muscle, entirely unaware of what was going on, or of what was coming. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He really didn’t deserve to be thrust into the middle of this.

  Even though I wanted nothing more than to call Nikki out on her two-timing ways (especially after everything she’d done to me), I wasn’t sure I could do it if that meant hurting Trace in the process. I couldn’t do that to him, not
like this. Not in front of all these people.

  I turned to Taylor hoping she had some sort of viable exit strategy ready, but she just stared back at me dazed and confused like she didn’t know where any of that had come from, or where I was trying to go with it.

  “If you have something to say, you better just go ahead and spit it out,” snapped Nikki, her brow arched high and mighty.

  “Forget it,” I finally mumbled, dejected. It had to be one of the most anticlimactic moments of my life.

  “Forget it?” she parroted, laughing. “Seriously, I can’t believe I ever wasted a second worrying about you. It’s like you’re completely clueless.”

  I bit down my anger and tried to steady my voice before answering, “Well let’s just hope for your sake that’s true.”

  “For my sake?”

  “Yeah, I mean, hypothetically, how bad would it be if it turned out I wasn’t as clueless as you thought I was? That I actually knew a few things and was just waiting for the perfect moment to drop them on you?”

  “Oh my God, drop them!” cheered Taylor beside me.

  Nikki narrowed her eyes as though she were summing me up, wondering what information I could possibly have on her and why in the world I wasn’t outing her with it.

  “Is everything alright here?” asked Gabriel, appearing on my free side. His timing was kismet—every time.

  I nodded, “Everything’s fine.”

  Nikki’s scarlet lips twisted into a smile as she drank in Gabriel from head to toe, who in turn, proceeded to ignore her completely and perform a quick crowd-sweep instead. I felt my own grin deepen with satisfaction as hers faded out. She turned on her heel and walked back over to Trace who was talking privately with Ben.

  I noticed he was holding fast to his promise to stay away from me, physically, though his eyes were a different story.

  “I think you need to kiss,” said Taylor.

  My head snapped back to her, eyes gaping.

  “The kissing booth,” she clarified. “Nothing cleanses the pallet like a good make-out session, and it just so happens that you’re signed up as an official Kisser.”

  “I’m what?” I laughed, because it was that absurd.

  “I signed you up,” she beamed, her eyes drifting casually between Gabriel and me. “Well, both of us actually. And Carly.”

  “Well, you can just un-sign us up because there’s no way I’m kissing strangers in a kissing booth after getting called a—” I broke off, preferring not to rehash the sordid details of my scarlet letter in front of Gabriel. “I’m not doing it.”

  “Come on, it’ll be fun, and besides, it’s for charity. And it’s tradition. And it’s for charity!” she repeated sans eloquence.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I smiled and shoved my hand into my pocket, wrangling out a twenty dollar bill. “Here’s a twenty. Let’s not and say we did.”

  She shook her head decidedly. “I’m not reneging on tradition, and you shouldn’t either. Do you really want the ghosts of Carnival’s past haunting you until graduation?” The glimmer in her eyes told me this had nothing to do with spooks and everything to do with kissing hot senior boys.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  She turned to Gabriel, eyelashes fluttering in full-flirt-mode. “How about you? Care to volunteer those fine lips in the name of charity?”

  “Taylor!” There had to be laws against this sort of thing.

  Gabriel cleared his throat, looking wholly uncomfortable.

  “Alright, never mind,” she said with a sad frown that almost made me reconsider. Almost. “I can totally take a hint.”

  That had yet to be proven.

  “Meet back up in thirty?” she asked, hopeful. “Those bumper cars have our names written all over them.”

  “You got it.” I gave her a quick hug and then hauled Gabriel off by his jacket before she had a chance to change her mind.

  A medley of animated songs and sound bites filled the airwaves as Gabriel and I traipsed through the crowd of carnival goers, side by side. The moon hung low in the distance, plumes of mist slithering over its crest like a band of wandering ghosts. Otherworldly in every way.

  “Are you going to tell me what that was about back there?” asked Gabriel. I could feel his eyes boring into me.

  “What? With Taylor?” I shrugged. “She can be a little pushy sometimes, but it’s harmless. You’ll get used to her.”

  “No, not her. The other one.”

  “Nikki.” I shuddered for dramatic effect.

  “There was a lot of tension.” He placed his hand at the small of my back and steered us around a pack of idle bystanders.

  “I guess you could call it tension. Personally, I think pure unadulterated hatred is much more fitting.” I met his solemn eyes and smiled. “It’s been like that since the first day I met her. At first I thought it was just some territorial thing over Trace, but now…I don’t know,” I said, flashing back to her tryst with Caleb. “I’m not sure what it’s about.”

  “He was supposed to be your Keeper, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah. Supposed to being the operative words.”

  “And she’s also Anakim.”

  I looked up at him. “Are you going somewhere with this?”

  “There’s a very unique bond between a Slayer and her Keeper,” he explained, his voice low. “She may have felt threatened by your arrival.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. I could’ve accepted that. “Except that Trace left the Order months before I got here. He had no intention of being my Keeper, then or now, and she knew that.”

  He considered it. “Then what do you think it stems from?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” The cool air pressed against my cheeks as a sinister feeling washed over me. “All I know is, I don’t trust her. Something about her gives me the creeps. And you know she’s a Caster, right?”

  He nodded, unmoved.

  “I still don’t know what that even means. Am I supposed to be scared of her? Can she actually hurt me? Half the time I’m sitting there wondering if she’s going to turn me into a freaking toad. It’s no way to live.”

  His lips curved into a smile. “She can’t turn you into a toad,” he assured. “The amount of power needed to do something like that would probably kill her.”

  “Well, she looks at me like she’s contemplating it.”

  His grin deepened.

  “So what exactly can she do?” I asked, turning serious.

  “It depends, really, on her bloodline and how well she’s honed her Craft,” he said, his eyes scanning the area again. “Most Casters her age already have a fairly good grasp on controlling the elements and manipulating energy, though I wouldn’t put it to the test anytime soon. It’s best if you just try to avoid any conflict with her. Besides, you have more important things to concern yourself with.”

  “Believe me, you’re preaching to the choir. I don’t want any more trouble than I already have. Problem is, trouble seems to find me even when I’m running away from it.”

  “I’ve noticed,” he said grimly.

  “Sometimes it feels like the more I wish for peace and quiet in my life, the more chaotic my life becomes.” I laughed a little though I didn’t feel it in my heart. “Guess I should probably stop wishing for that then, huh?”

  He didn’t answer. Something in his weary eyes told me he’d given up on wishing a long time ago. Like he had seen and done too much to ever go back to that childlike state of wishing. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if my own eyes would end up looking that way someday. If I, too, would outgrow my wishes. The thought of it depressed me.

  “Look at us, this is supposed to be our night off and what are we doing? We’re talking shop.” I shook my head, disappointed.

  “What would you rather we do?”

  “I don’t know, anything but this,” I said as I scanned the area and spotted the Ferris wheel at the end of the boardwalk. “There! I want to go on that!” I pointed, despera
te to salvage whatever was left of my night off. Of my youth.

  “The Ferris wheel?” He faltered slightly.

  “Don’t tell me you’re scared?” I goaded.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then come on!” I laughed, grabbing onto his lapel as I dragged him clear across the boardwalk.

  We took our place at the end of the line and peered up at the massive roulette. Each of its carriages illuminated in bright neon colors, dangling weightlessly above us. My stomach bottomed out—in a good way—just looking up at it.

  “Shoot, we need tickets to get on,” I realized as we progressed further into the line. I pointed at the admission sign beside the ride operator.

  Gabriel glanced over his shoulder and then ticked his head. “There’s a ticket booth right over there.”

  “Hold on,” I said, grabbing his arm as he began to lead us out of the line. “One of us should hold our place.”

  He looked back at the booth apprehensively as though it were miles away from where we were standing. “I’ll get the tickets,” he offered and then grimaced. “Stay where I can see you.”

  I gave him a little salute and continued following the line, keeping a close watch on him as he crossed over to the Ticket Booth. He walked just the way you’d expect him to walk—controlled, determined, militant. There was nothing casual about it.

  The line started to move again, quicker now, and within a couple of minutes, I found myself near the front of it. I looked back at Gabriel who was still stuck behind the same group of people since the last time I checked and decided to let the couple behind me pass. And then another one.

  When I faced forward again, I noticed that the Ferris wheel operator (a young man with dark blond hair and a really bad complexion) wasn’t alone anymore. There was a man in a baseball cap and black coat standing with him, leaning forward with his back to us and whispering something privately. The tour operator looked up at him wide-eyed but otherwise expressionless and then nodded slowly. Something about it seemed...unnatural.