Huntress Claimed

by M K Masterson

  So, I took my seat and thought about what was so important about Mr. Myles’ disappearance. I didn’t know what it could mean, but it kept me distracted through the rest of first period and through second.

  When I entered third period Science, I sat down immediately, waiting for Meredith. Carly came in shortly and took her seat. I smiled and said my hello; then began tapping my foot impatiently for Meredith. When she came into the room, I was only able to wait until she got to the table before I blurted out what I had learned.

  “Mr. Myles is gone.”

  Meredith set her books on the table and gave me a look. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

  "I actually don't know what type of ‘gone.' Just that he has sub again and Mrs. Pearson said that ‘no one knows' what happened to him."

  Meredith sat down slowly, not taking her eyes off me. I could see her trying to analyze what I meant.

  “Oh, she’s not a sub,” Carly responded, making both of us look at her. She shrugged. “People underestimate me. They think I’m just some quiet, shy girl. They have no idea how much information I am actually collecting as they talk around me.”

  “I am so sorry for underestimating you, Carly,” I said to her, swallowing an uncomfortable lump.

  She blinked in doubt and pushed her round glasses up her nose. “You’re just apologizing to me now because you want to know if I know anything else, aren’t you?”

  I smiled sheepishly, and she rolled her eyes and sighed.

  “He didn’t show up yesterday or today. So from what I heard, he is a no call, no show. And no one can get ahold of him.”

  Meredith and I shared a glance.

  “Is this important?” Meredith studied me with big eyes.

  “My brain is telling me it is,” I replied.

  “Sorry about your sister,” Carly whispered, turning her head toward Mr. Ringler.

  “Carly, do you know anything about me that you probably shouldn’t?” I questioned in a hush.

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Probably. But your stuff seems a little too weird for me.”

  Mr. Ringler cleared his throat, trying to get our attention. “Ladies, is it okay with you if I start class now?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Ringler,” Meredith and I mumbled in unison.

  "Thank you. Now, this class can start," Mr. Ringler replied as we quieted so he could begin to teach.

  My brain was still putting together the pieces of Myles’ situation in my head as Mr. Ringler lectured about frog anatomy. I knew Myles was involved in some way. He could have become a victim since he was dating Sera. A vampire could have attacked him to get information from him. Or perhaps it was something similar to Korina. She was still missing.

  My mouth dropped open when Jesse came strolling into Science fifteen minutes later. I heard Meredith’s pencil drop on her desk. Neither one of us thought we would see him again. We were pretty sure he and Ajax scattered.

  “Nice to see you, Mr. McGowen,” Mr. Ringler said as he scanned Jesse’s pass. He looked up at the empty desk next to Meredith and pointed for him to get into his seat.

  Jesse walked to his desk as if nothing in the world could be the matter as Meredith and I stared daggers at him. He sat in his desk, took out a notebook and pencil, and turned to Mr. Ringler, ready to carry on with the lesson. Meredith and I looked at each other in disbelief.

  I took out a piece of paper from my notebook and began writing furiously, while Meredith took out her cell phone and started to text underneath her desk. I was assuming it was probably to Nate, letting him know that Jesse had just come to class.

  I passed the note to Jesse, and he scowled when he read it:

  Where the hell have you been? We have been trying to contact you and Ajax.

  Jesse wrote something short on the paper and handed it back: It’s a long story.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, just as the city tornado sirens went off. It wasn’t a testing day for our city, so that meant something serious was going on. Looking outside, I saw storm clouds circling and churning, as lightning was striking in the short distance. Trees were bending to the ground.

  The school tornado alarms went off, and Mr. Ringler was giving the directions of where we were to go, and what we needed to do in a quiet and orderly fashion. But then a very good sized tree smashed through the classroom windows sending shattered glass inward, and the rest of the students and Mr. Ringler scattered, screaming from the room.

  Meredith, Jesse, and I had been standing with the other students when Mr. Ringler was giving directions, but we stayed put when everyone else tried to push their way out the door. Something about our recent events had kept us calm, but left us with scratches on the parts of our body that were exposed when the tree was forced through the window.

  “Do you think this is part of Obscurus?” Meredith screamed over the wind that was blowing through the hole in the window around the tree.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” I shouted back as a dark mist funneled into the room from the opening and crept toward us, slithering around the tree.

  “I’m going to say this is Obscurus.” I panicked, pulling Meredith with me as we started backing up toward the door.

  Jesse went to follow us, but tripped over a chair and went down. The mist must have sensed a potential victim because it hurried around Jesse, soaking into him.

  Meredith pulled away from me for a second with an arm outstretched toward Jesse. I was able to grab her other arm and drew her toward me.

  Jesse stood up and brushed himself off as if the swirling wind howling through the opening was nothing. And then he looked at me with a vague expression on his face and his eyes completely black.

  “Caden, it’s nice to see you in the flesh.” His voice was a deep, hollow sound that bared no semblance to the body he had possessed. He shrugged a shoulder. “Well, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Obscurus?” I rasped.

  Meredith then scurried away from Jesse quickly, and turned to hide behind me, and pulled me in the direction of the door.

  “I must admit that I have missed visiting you in your dreams,” he continued. “It was so unfair of your aunt to have found a way to block me.”

  Meredith kept whispering in my ear for us to run and tugged on my sleeve. I stood though, not necessarily in fear even if a part of me felt shaken to the core, but because I was suddenly curious. This darkness had been haunting my dreams forever, and I was somewhat face to face with him in an awakened state.

  He seemed interested in my less than shocked state as well.

  “I didn’t know my little apprentice had picked you for his initiation.” He folded his hands together and brought them up to his chin. “It’s quite a conundrum. I was hoping to have you as part of my collection, but my follower would like nothing better than to rip your heart out.”

  “She would never join you,” Meredith spat at him from behind my shoulder; her anger pushing her and me forward.

  "She might in order to stay alive after the council finds out her little secret." He gave a small smirk.

  “How do you know my little secret?”

  His smile was cold and chilled me to the bone. “You think I have tried to collect you from the beginning because you were some little Venatrix?" He took a step forward, immediately making me step back and Meredith with me.

  “I have known what you were from the minute your mother’s soul left her body.” He kept moving forward, while we kept edging back toward the door.

  “She thought she took her secret to her grave. She couldn’t have been more wrong.” The look in those black eyes was chilling and darkly determined. “I will have you. It's just a matter of killing two birds with one stone." He took one more step forward and then Jesse's body shook. He dropped to his knees, and the black fog expelled from his body and was sucked out the hole in the window.

  When Jesse looked up at us, it was his own eyes that glared angrily. And when he stood, it was his own hands that clenched in rage.

  “Th
at’s it. Fuck a long life. I am done,” Jesse growled grinding his teeth and marched past us out the door as a light from the ceiling crashed to the floor, making Meredith and I jump. Once we gathered our senses, we ran out of the room after him.

  Meredith caught up to him first rushing past terrified students and debris flying through the air from windows that had been shattered by the storm. She grabbed onto his shoulder. He spun around, rage still on his face.

  “Where are you going?” She asked, barely dodging a student’s desk that was tumbling down the hallway from the wind tunnel made by the shattered outside windows of the library hallway. It stopped a couple feet next to me.

  “To tell Ajax that I am done,” he snarled, pulling away from Meredith.

  I stopped a little further away from him, still a little weary from seeing Obscurus possess his body.

  “Did you or Ajax have anything to do with the attack on Sera?” I inquired, not a trace of friendliness in my voice.

  Jesse looked at me with sincerity, losing some of the anger that had previously rocked him. “No. We had nothing to with that. I am sorry about Sera.”

  He pulled away from Meredith and turned, walking on through the chaotic halls. More debris blew down through the hallway toward us.

  “We need to get out of this area,” I shouted over the wind, pushing my air out of my eyes and mouth.

  Meredith looked in my direction, her own hair whipping around her head. “Yeah. This is nuts!”

  “There!” I pointed toward a small alcove underneath the stairs. We started in that direction just as the library windows exploded. I pushed Meredith behind the desk that had tumbled down the hall earlier and covered her with my body. My back was being pelted with shards of glass, but I knew I would heal.

  I made a small move to look slightly over my shoulder, allowing strands of hair to cover my eyes and keep them protected. A mighty tornado-like whirlwind was making a sweep from one end of the school to the other, coming toward us. I allowed our desk to push us against the lockers next to the library and tried to make us as small as possible without crushing Meredith as the deafening wind hurled on through.

  Meredith’s hands were on her head, covering her ears. My hands that were gripped on the metal insides of the desk were aching from the tumult as I braced us against the onslaught of debris and wind, making me cringe and ache, every time I got hit with something.

  The wind howled around through the hallway, and I heard the tables and chairs from the library moving into the hallway; along with the loud bangs from the computers falling off the desks and the bookshelves being knocked over. Books flew through the hall like a flock of birds.

  I ground my teeth and tightened my hold on the desk, not sure how much more my body could hold its position as the wind and wreckage kept hitting me. Then just as I was about to give in, everything just stopped. The silence made my ears pound from the previous cacophony, and my body shook after letting go of my protective position. I sat on my butt and scooted my back against the lockers while Meredith was looking around slowly.

  I took in my own version of the damage. It was incredible. Books, papers, desks, tables, chairs, and computers were on the floor throughout the hallways. Some lockers had been ripped from the walls. Lights and beams were dangling from the ceiling. There was even water spurting out of the water fountains.

  Meredith looked over at me. Her face that had held so much awe turned to worry and concern as her eyebrows knit together. “You’re hurt.”

  I looked down at my arms, seeing all the cuts and bruises that had begun to form. I shrugged my shoulders, still feeling exhausted from earlier. “I’m okay. No broken bones.”

  Meredith scowled and gave me a stern look. “Honey, you look like you went through the blender with additional razor blades.”

  “I don’t think you’re too wrong.” I tried to crack a small smile, but she narrowed her eyes at me.

  “I’m fine,” I promised. “How about you? Are you okay?”

  She waved her hand like she was discarding the question. “Of course I am fine. You kept me shielded.”

  “Are you angry at me?” I felt slightly confused.

  She held back tears that started to form in her eyes. “No. You just keep taking these risks. You could have gotten killed.”

  “We both could have gotten killed.”

  “You wouldn’t have let anything happen to me.”

  “I think it’s ingrained in my body to protect.”

  She gave me a sidewise look and the uplift of her lip.

  I smiled back. "But even if it weren't, I would have done everything in my power to keep you safe."

  She hugged me suddenly, making me wince over her shoulder.

  “Is this how it always is in the Mundus Noctis?” I asked, giving her a comforting pat on the shoulder.

  “I hope not.” She pulled away from me, blood from my face rubbed off on hers.

  Before I could say anything, I heard crunching down the hallway as someone was running toward us. Relief eased a tightness in my chest that I hadn’t known was there as I saw Nate coming toward us. He slowed to a walk when he saw us, giving us time to stand as he approached.

  Shards of glass and other small pieces of debris clinked to the ground as we stood. We tried our best to gently swipe it off our bodies and out of our hair when Nate finally reached us.

  “Are you guys okay?” His face was strained with worry.

  “We’re good,” Meredith replied, exhaustion on her features.

  “Are you?” He looked at me, his eyes so full of concern. I already knew he saw all the cuts on my body.

  “Yeah, I'm fine.”

  Nate raised his eyebrows at me. “Really?” He took his finger across my cheek.

  I felt myself start to melt at his touch.

  “You're bleeding.”

  I pushed his hand away and rolled my eyes. "I'm fine! Are you okay?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “I’m a little shook up, but I’m okay. We were safe on our end. There weren’t any major windows.”

  “How about the rest of the school?” I asked, feeling a little guilty. This storm had come on from Obscurus, who wanted me. I was sure of it now. And innocent people had been put in the path of his ambition.

  “Nothing serious that I saw. Some bumps and scratches, but I haven’t heard of anything serious rumored through the school. The school is a disaster zone though.”

  We heard sirens coming from far off in the distance.

  “There’s no way they are going to let us go right now, are they?” I looked around at those that were in the hallways. Teachers were going through their students checking for injuries but looking bewildered themselves.

  “I don’t know.” Meredith pursed her lips, and then grabbed both of our hands.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, but I did not pull away.

  “Shh. I’m going to try something.” She put her head down as if praying and began mumbling some words.

  I felt a rush of magic wash over my skin. It was a light prickly feeling that fell over us like a light blanket; nothing like the heavy wash of Fae power. And when it settled, she looked at us, more tired than before.

  “We only have about ten minutes.” She began walking forward through the opening from the wall of windows that the storm had made.

  “What did you do?” I questioned, Nate and I following her.

  “An invisibility spell. But it’s only working on willpower. That’s why it won’t last that long. But it should get us away from the school.”

  As we walked away from the school, I looked around. It was clear that Obscurus had set his sights only on the school, where I was at. The school was a disaster. Part of the roof was blown off, windows were gone, and in some areas, even the walls had been pushed in. But it was just the building. Nothing else, the trees or other structures, were touched.

  I felt disgusted looking back on the carnage of the remnants of the school as we walked toward Underhill. We woul
dn’t have had time to walk around the school to get Nate’s car before the spell wore off. I looked up at the sky. It was still dark and cloudy, but it had at least stopped raining.

  We made it to the mansion, looking whole, but some of us more exhausted than others. On the way, my cuts had healed, only leaving dried blood as any evidence that I had been hurt. Meredith looked like she could collapse, her spell taking more out of her than what she had initially led me to believe.

  I felt the welcome of the Fae magic as I punched in the code for the gate and we walked through that and the front door, heading to the family room beyond the stairs to the basement and next to the kitchen. We collapsed on the couches as we heard feet coming our way. Some from the basement; another set from the other wing of the house. Finn reached us first, tension in his shoulders, but relaxed once he looked us all over.

  “What happened?” Zane interrogated, bursting into the room first, scanning all of us from head to toe, looking at me the longest. I was quite aware of all the blood that was staining my skin and clothes.

  “The school….bsh.” Meredith made a motion with her hands.

  “It blew up?” Anahita questioned in shock, standing near Zane.

  “It got hit by a tornado,” Nate clarified.

  “It got hit by Obscurus,” I mumbled, clasping my hands and hunched over.

  Everyone but Meredith and I was stunned into silence for a moment.

  “How do you know it was Obscurus?” Finn’s question was almost inaudible.

  I looked at Finn’s tense face. “Because I met him.”

  “He took possession of Jesse’s body,” Meredith explained.

  “Is Jesse okay?” Nate asked quickly, hearing this for the first time.

  “He’s okay,” Meredith continued. “Obscurus didn’t stay long. Just long enough to threaten Caden.”

  “Wait.” “What?” “What did he say?” Anahita, Zane, and Finn were talking over each other.