Dark Abandon

by Nicole R. Taylor

  “No, we’re not,” Greer said, her eyes narrowing in warning. “The council is ordering you because it’s a valid threat.”

  “Both of us?” I looked at Wilder, who’s scowl had deepened significantly.

  “It’s imperative you learn to control your Light,” Greer said, jutting out her chin. “After the events at the Necropolis, it’s clear you have an ability that can be both useful and dangerous. Attending the Academy will give you the opportunity to learn more about being a Natural.” She turned to Wilder. “And you’ll be the new combat instructor.”

  My breath caught. I wasn’t sure if I was being handed exactly what I wanted or I’d just unwrapped the booby prize. They wanted me to go back to high school? It was traumatising enough the first time around, but this was the super elite Natural school of the bad-arse demon hunters.

  And to state the glaringly obvious, I would be at least ten years older than everyone else. Talk about humiliation central, population me.

  “Are you serious?” I asked, glancing between Greer and Aldrich. “You want me to enroll as a student?”

  “You wanted out, Purples,” Wilder drawled. “You’ve got your wish. I’m the one who’s drawn the short straw.”

  “It’s the perfect cover, Scarlett,” Aldrich said. “You need to learn, and we need to make sure this threat is neutralised, if indeed there is a threat to begin with.” Two birds, one stone.

  “You’ve proved yourself to be a gifted instructor, Wilder,” Greer said. “You’d be an asset to those students.”

  “When do we leave?” I didn’t react well to snap decisions that sent me back to high school.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Aldrich said. “Everything has been arranged.”

  I groaned and slapped my hand against my forehead.

  “It’s not that bad,” Greer said with a smile. “The instructor’s are first rate. They’re the best of the best.”

  “I know,” I said, my shoulders sinking. “It’s just… I wasn’t the most popular kid at school the first time around.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Aldrich said, hiding a smile. “But you’ll have to keep your eyes and ears open. We can’t let any of the students and staff know the underlying reason you’re both there. If anyone’s been compromised, the last thing we want is to tip them off.”

  “We’re putting our trust in you,” Greer added.

  I hated that they were right. I was the perfect candidate to be a double agent. The embarrassment of being the first ever mature age student in Natural history was just an added benefit.

  “Is that all?” Wilder asked, clearly annoyed with his newest assignment.

  “Be ready to leave at oh-seven-hundred hours,” Aldrich stated with a sharp nod.

  Wilder stood and strode away, not even looking back at Greer. I smiled at them and followed him out of the library and into the hall.

  Something was happening between Wilder and Greer and my jealous streak flared. He’d challenged her in front of me and Aldrich, and she’d cut him down brutally. His pride—and manhood—was obviously dented. Add a trip to the Academy into the mix, and I had an unstable nuclear reaction on my hands.

  Knowing I’d be risking my life if I asked him about Greer, I went for the less explosive trigger. “I get the feeling you don’t like this Islington guy,” I said.

  “I don’t like anyone, Purples. You should know that by now.” He was being evasive. Typical.

  I blew through my lips and rolled my eyes. “As much as I love arguing with you, I will slap you down.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  I mulled over it for a moment. Wilder wasn’t a fan of authority figures and his favourite pastime was flipping them the bird before doing whatever he wanted to get the job done. Until I came along, he barely followed any orders and was on the verge of being thrown out of the Sanctum entirely. I vaguely remembered someone telling me that his position here was tenuous at best, but Islington wasn’t stationed here—he was at the Academy. People just didn’t get appointed headmaster of educational institutions, which meant he’d been teaching there for a number of years prior.

  Of course!

  “You were at school together, weren’t you?” I asked, the pieces clicking into place. “He was the school bu—”

  “Purples,” he snapped.

  “Well aren’t we a pair of losers,” I declared, flicking my purple hair over my shoulder. “I’m the twenty-five-year-old high school student, and you’re the guy whose new boss was the kid who made your life a living hell.”

  Wilder growled and stalked off, causing me to run a few paces to catch up.

  “If someone at that school is compromised, then we’ve got bigger problems, Purples,” he stated. “They’re going after kids now. They’re the future of our species, if you want to get technical about it. If there aren’t anymore Naturals being trained, then—”

  “There’ll be no one left to fight,” I finished. The war was getting dirtier and dirtier.

  “Greer and Aldrich are right. Someone has to go, and you need to learn. It’s the perfect cover, and since I always seem to get lumped with you—”

  “Arsehole.” I flipped him the bird and spun on my heel. Stalking down the hall, I swallowed my anger. Just when I thought we were getting closer.

  “Where are you going?” he called after me.

  “If we’re leaving tomorrow, then I want to say bye to Jackson.”

  “Scarlett…”

  I glanced over my shoulder as I rounded the corner, catching one last glimpse of my mentor. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he looked almost sheepish. Good.

  I knocked on Jackson’s door, punctuating the rap with my forehead.

  His voice echoed from inside. “Yeah?”

  I pushed inside and slammed the door behind me. My best friend was laying on the bed with a PlayStation controller in his hand. I couldn’t believe they let him bring his console and gave him an internet connection to go with it. It was encrypted up the wazoo, but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t even allowed to have a mobile phone.

  “I know that look,” he said.

  “What look?”

  Jackson had always been this lanky, nerdy guy but after his mutation, he’d grown into his body and then some. He had muscles on top of muscles, enhanced strength and hearing, and had ditched his glasses for good. The six-foot bean pole was looking more like an underwear model than the professional gamer he was six months ago.

  He made a face. “Are you and Wilder still fighting?”

  “What do you think?” I pouted and flopped down on the bed next to him.

  He was playing an open-world RPG. Some post-apocalyptic thing. I hoped it wasn’t an omen, or a glimpse into humanity’s imminent future if Light failed.

  “Have you told him about your fe—”

  “No.”

  My cheeks flushed and I stared at the paused screen on the TV. How did I tell Wilder that joining my Arondight sliced Light to his ordinary Natural Light, had only fanned the flames of the unobtainable lust I had for him? I didn’t, that’s how. The only logical thing to do was pick fight after fight and let my jealousy percolate.

  “If you told him—”

  “No,” I snapped, “I can’t tell him anything.”

  “He already suspects,” Jackson stated. “You know he does. Besides, he kissed you.”

  “Like six months ago.” I rolled my eyes. “The window for following that up has well and truly closed.”

  He clucked his tongue and shook his head, clearly disapproving. “You know how I feel about it, Scarlett. I’m not going to keep hitting you over the head with it.”

  “Maybe going back to school will be a good thing, then,” I mused. Learning from new teachers in a new environment. No more close quarters with Wilder would hopefully cool things down before they embarrassingly exploded in my face.

  “Wait,” Jackson tilted his head to the side, “what?”

  “I’m leaving on a mission tomorrow
,” I said. “Well, I’m not sure it’s a mission or one of those crazy do-overs like Freaky Friday or that Drew Barrymore movie, Never Been Kissed.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “I’m going to the Academy. To learn.”

  Jackson snorted, then started to laugh. “You’re going back to high school?”

  “Demon hunter high school,” I corrected. “It’s like Hogwarts, but a thousand times more deadly. They give the kids knives.”

  “You wanted to learn how to use your Light,” he reasoned. “Now you’ve got a chance to learn from a certified teacher.”

  “And one who’s not scared I’m going to melt him from the inside out.” I sighed, my chest rising and falling.

  “Can you really blame him?” He patted me on the shoulder. “After what you told me about blowing up that tosser, Markzoth…” Not to mention everything else I’d done—facing the druidess and her overpowered runes, healing Jackson’s mortal wounds, and practically syphoning the Light out of my mentor. “I wonder if he just doesn’t know how to help you. Like, a pride thing. He seems the type of guy who hates losing.”

  I grunted and picked up the controller. “What game are you playing?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “Party pooper.”

  “I love you, Scarlett, but you’re infuriating when you’re on the heartbreak spiral.”

  He was right, which made me feel even worse. I was such a Negative Nancy lately. “Careful, or I won’t send you any owls when I’m away at school.”

  Jackson smirked and took the controller out of my hands. “This sounds like a good thing. You need to learn how to control the piece of Arondight inside you, and…” he trailed off. “There’s something else happening, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure I’m supposed to say.”

  “That’s cool.” He shrugged. “I know you guys have to go out and do your super secret spy thing, but just be careful, okay?”

  “Always.” Except the times I was recklessly running headfirst into danger. Which was pretty much at every opportunity.

  “Hey.” He picked up a strand of my hair and twisted it around his fingers. “Is your hair more purple, or is it just me?”

  Plucking my hair out of his grasp, I squinted at the flecks of violet. “Na, it’s just the light in here.”

  Jackson shrugged and said, “Anyways, since you’re going away…” he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed, “wanna hang out for a while?”

  “Sure,” I smiled, watching the screen as he unpaused the game, “I’d love to.”

  2

  The Cotswolds were a two-hour drive directly west of London.

  Nestled between Oxford and Glouster, the landscape was full of rolling hills, grassland, forests, quaint little Medieval villages, and stately homes. There were even ruined castles and ancient Roman amphitheaters and forts amongst the wilderness. It was nice to be out of the city—the heaviness of the urban sprawl was even more depressing now that I knew what was lurking within it.

  I sat in the front passenger seat of a black sedan, my bag stashed in the back seat. Wilder was behind the wheel, taking the corners on the narrow country road a little too fast for my liking.

  The coin the druidess gave me weighed heavily in my pocket, and I ran my thumb over the surface. I hadn’t told anyone about it, not even Wilder. That night was a burden on my mind, knowing she’d been waiting for me to return. The coin was something that related to my past, but it was also a symbol of the extinction of the Druids. Jackson argued that it was self-defence, but it didn’t feel like it to me.

  I couldn’t tell Wilder that the sweet—yet frustratingly selfish—woman who he’d brought seeds and chocolate bars to was dead. Though, I wondered if he already knew. Wilder always knew when something was up, which made my unrequited crush even more embarrassing than it needed to be.

  I ran my fingers over the rough surface of the coin again. I’d hardly looked at it, yet I carried it everywhere I went. “Do they have a library here?”

  “It’s a school,” Wilder replied, “of course they do.”

  The car rounded a corner and the trees parted, giving us a breathtaking view of the patchwork landscape. In the distance, I caught a glimpse of a manor house and gardens. It was a big grey building with tall windows and turrets—a mix between the red brick Tudor and dreary Victorian styles of architecture.

  “Is that the Academy?” I asked, plastering my nose against the window.

  “Some of it,” Wilder replied.

  “Some?”

  “It’s protected by powerful cloaking and illusions,” he explained. “Only a small section is visible to maintain appearances with the locals.”

  “How big is it?” Staring at the grounds from this distance, it was difficult to tell where the illusions began.

  “About five times what you see.”

  “Five times?” My mouth fell open.

  “Don’t worry, Purples, you’ll see it up close soon enough.” He swerved around a bend in the road, narrowly missing a car coming the other way. The left-hand mirror sideswiped the hedge and I snapped my head away from the window.

  “Seeing you drive is weird,” I said as my heartbeat returned to normal. “I didn’t know you had your licence.”

  “I don’t,” he replied, turning off the road and onto a gravel driveway.

  I tensed as we drove through a large pair of wrought iron gates, glad we’d arrived in one piece.

  The illusion hanging around the grounds shimmered as we drove through it, revealing a house much larger than I’d seen from the road. It was just like Wilder said—the Academy was massive.

  The manor house stretched into several different wings, the central portion of the complex surrounded a courtyard, and outside the main entrance was a large fountain with a marble statue of none other than the Lady of the Lake. The rest of the grounds were hidden by the imposing grey structure, but I knew there were acres of gardens, sports fields, grassland, and woods that all belonged to the Naturals.

  “Great,” Wilder drawled.

  Looking up, I noticed there were several figures standing outside the main building, obviously waiting for us.

  “Who are they?” I asked, craning my neck.

  “Faculty.” He didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood, which had been the tone he’d set the moment we’d left the Sanctum.

  “How much do they know exactly?”

  “The bare minimum.”

  “So don’t go around talking about Human Convergence, then?”

  “No.”

  Wilder pulled up beside the welcoming party and killed the engine. He gave me a pointed look that warned me not to let my tongue loose before he got out of the car.

  We had our briefing at the Sanctum. I knew we had to keep quiet about the mutations, but it didn’t make it any easier. It was like I was the new agent at MI6, and this was a clandestine operation into arms dealing or something equally as diabolical. But I supposed it was in a way.

  Climbing out of the passenger seat, I rounded the bonnet of the car and joined Wilder and the people waiting for us.

  The first was an authoritative-looking man who looked as if he was trying to pull off the hip, relaxed teacher vibe. He wore back jeans, boots, a light blue business shirt with an unbuttoned collar, and a navy suit jacket. His hair was precision cut and combed into place with a sharp side part, and his jaw was clean shaven. Looking him over, I wondered who he was. His jacket even had leather patches over the elbows.

  The woman next to him was dishevelled in comparison. Her curly chestnut-coloured hair was dragged up into a messy topknot, her glasses had a smudge across the right lens, and she was dressed in an assortment of colours and patterns. Her black corduroy pencil skirt reached her knees and underneath, she had on a pair of black- and purple-striped tights. She had that whole art teacher vibe going on.

  Both didn’t look a day over thirty or thirty-five, though I wasn’t a good judge of
age. The way Wilder was glaring at the man was an indicator that he must be the dreaded headmaster.

  “You must be Miss Ravenwood,” the man said. “Welcome to the Academy. I’m Liam Islington, the headmaster.” Bingo. He thrust his hand towards me, and I was forced to take it in my own. Shaking, I glanced at the woman next to him. “This is Adelaide Hawthorne, Director of Student Affairs.”

  “Oh, don’t be so formal, Liam,” she said smiling at me. “I’m the guidance councillor.”

  Wilder snorted, drawing Islington’s attention.

  “Mr. Wilder,” he said, gazing at him coolly. “When Greer said you’d be the operative accompanying Miss Ravenwood, I was surprised you agreed to the assignment.”

  Wilder leaned forwards, towering over Islington. “What’s so surprising about it? If I remember correctly, I was best in our class.”

  “You had a rebellious streak and a disdain for authority that I can see still exists. I don’t want that rubbing off on the students,” he replied. “You’re here to teach them combat. I expect you to leave the lessons in analytical thinking to their Ethics classes.”

  Burn. It was my turn to snort. I was beginning to see why they’d been rivals at school. The two men were polar opposites in the worst possible way—the stabby kind.

  “This place is massive. Is there time to see the grounds before we go inside?” I asked, attempting to defuse the tension. “Or am I required to start classes straight away?”

  “Of course,” the headmaster replied. “I can take you part of the way and Adelaide can assist with settling you into your accommodations. Official classes began a month ago, but you will both begin tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.” I nodded as Islington gestured for us to follow him around the side of the main house. I glanced over my shoulder at the fountain in the driveway—the Lady of the Lake’s stone eyes seemed to follow our path.

  Our boots crunched on the cream-coloured gravel as we passed under several large windows. Inside, I could see a handful of students milling about and my curiosity tingled.