When they departed the Residence Tower, the frigid air smacked his senses back into place, clearing his mind, heightening the burn in his throat, and alerting him that two Regg guards, in their dark suits, escorted him toward the Mentals Building.
Four had a hold on Nero, probably because no suit was immune to being picked up and thrown across campus. The Rosses led the pack, and then, when Ackerly peered over his shoulder at the tower, he found Calder bringing up the rear, a guard at either of his elbows.
“Lost, primie?” he quipped, his smirk radiating even as the guards jerked him along. For someone who was about to be reamed out by the principals, he seemed fairly chipper.
By the time they reached the Rosses’ office, Ackerly’s initial headache had faded into a fuzzy high. Without this lighter state of mind, he probably would have been apprehensive to enter the room Hastings had died in for the first time since that morose afternoon. Instead, he waltzed in with curiosity, naively wondering how this meeting might play out.
“Sit,” Artemis commanded the teens once she and her husband stood behind their desk. The eight guards remained stationed by the doors, quashing any hopes of escape—unless Nero decided to smash the office’s back wall of glass, of course. Ackerly wouldn’t have been surprised if he did.
As the big bully assumed the worn chair on the left and Calder plopped into the pristine one on the right, Ackerly blinked and scanned the room, befuddled. “There are…only two chairs.”
“Tough luck, primie.” Calder inclined his head toward the patch of discolored wood on the floor. “Looks like you’re stuck standing in the circle of shame.”
“Adara’s circle?” Ackerly squinted down at the spot she’d plummeted through a few weeks ago.
“Do you doubt she’d be mocking you right now for getting caught?”
Positioning his feet at the center of the circle, Ackerly was about to reply, but William spoke first, his tone indicating he’d had enough of the banter.
“Do you understand the severity of what you’ve done?”
Ackerly’s eyes darted between Nero and Calder; the former glared at the desk, refusing to meet his masters’ eyes, while the latter drawled, “Is there some sort of number scale you’re referring to? I’d put this at a seven out of ten. You have to admit it could have been worse. No one died—”
“But many were injured while engaging in your little brawls,” Artemis interjected coldly. “The injuries are the least of our worries, though. The problem is that you’ve directly broken a law—and in front of the entire school. How can we permit you to enforce rules when you can’t follow them yourselves? How can we endorse a student who has publicly committed a crime?”
“Is this the wrong time to point out this isn’t the first time Nero’s gotten in trouble with the law?” Calder asked, eyebrows arching.
“Cheeky today, Mardurus.” Nero’s gray eyes narrowed threateningly. “Almost like you don’t care that we’ve gotten caught.”
“You’re the only one who’s gotten caught, Nero,” Artemis cut in. “Every other student in this school might have been drinking, but we put you in charge of the students, and given you’re not a minor anymore, this is a serious offense.”
Nero puffed up his muscles defensively. “I don’t turn eighteen ‘til tomorrow.”
“No,” William said, consulting his watch, “you turned eighteen thirty minutes ago. It’s half past midnight.”
For the first time Ackerly had ever witnessed, Nero blanched.
“Which means,” the man continued, “that not only are you in trouble within this town, but also with the state of Ohio.”
Clutching the arms of his chair, he leaned forward, seething. “I wasn’t the only one over eighteen drinking.”
“We know, and we plan to punish all of them, but, Nero…” Artemis trailed off, staring down at her hands, folded neatly on her desk. “We’re disappointed in you. We had such hope for you. We don’t plan to stay in Periculand forever. Once this business with Angor is settled and the town is to Mr. Ventura’s liking, we plan to leave—and we planned, at that point, once you’d graduated, to bestow power on you—to, perhaps, give you the title of principal. Now, that notion has withered, all because of a stupid mistake on your part. A stupid mistake, but a public one, one we cannot brush under the rug.”
Calder leaned into his hand, covering his mouth as if in grief, but Ackerly saw the light sparkling in his eyes, the sadistic triumph of vengeance. Maybe he was happy about Nero’s harsh demotion. The brute wouldn’t have noticed either way; his previously white face now filled with blood as wrath boiled in his veins.
“You’re joking.”
“Unfortunately, no,” William sighed, folding his hands like his wife’s. “The punishment won’t be unjust—likely just a few hours of community service—but you won’t be able to lead training anymore; you’ll have no more sway over anyone than this green kid does.”
Ackerly raised one hand in a trembling wave. “A-Ackerly—hi.”
Rolling her eyes, Artemis chewed on the inside of her cheek, studying Nero solemnly. It took her so long to say anything to him that Ackerly grew distracted, his vision settling on a television against the wall, displaying the news. The volume was muted, but the headlines were loud enough to stop his heart: WACKOS BLOW UP CLEVELAND APARTMENTS, OVER 300 INJURED, 100 DEAD.
“Um—guys,” he croaked, interrupting an emotional speech from Artemis. They all stared at him, he knew, but his eyes were glued to the television. “The…Wackos…”
Artemis whipped her gaze around and then scoffed dismissively. “Not uncommon. They pull these stunts at least once a week—which is why we are so adamant about training other Affinities to combat them. Don’t you agree the Wackos are to be annihilated, Terrier?”
Seeing that the Wackos had killed so many people with such ease—and that they did it so frequently—Ackerly couldn’t not agree. Risking a few hundred teenagers to prevent thousands of deaths seemed logical, but before he could say so, the telephone on the Rosses’ desk began to ring.
Artemis’s eyes continued boring into his, ignoring the obnoxious chimes and prompting him to respond to her inquiry.
“Aren’t you…gonna answer that?”
“I want you to answer me,” she insisted, and when the ringing ceased, he had no choice—until the caller’s message permeated the office.
“Hello, rulers of Periculand,” the unctuous voice cooed, and though Ackerly didn’t recognize it, he knew with sickening clarity that it had to be the leader of the Wackos: the man named Danny. “My spies haven’t seen Angor released from prison yet, so I assume it’s still the Reggs: Artemis and William Ross.”
The latter swallowed with trepidation, but the former remained stony, glaring at the phone like it was a disease.
“That it took me an entire week is really an embarrassment on my part,” Danny mused without any hint of shame, “but I’ve finally discovered that those who escaped me are in Periculand. I didn’t think my little Ashna would be stupid enough to trigger her tracking device. She figured out what points of pressure were necessary to turn it off; surely she’d also discovered that the use of her super strength would turn it back on.”
The Rosses exchanged a confused look, probably because they were of the few at this school who still didn’t know of Ashna’s infinite Affinities. To Ackerly, it made sense; Ashna had appeared discombobulated after using her super strength, rubbing her arm as if something had changed there. It had probably been the tracking device, somehow turned on by the abnormal strength of her bicep.
“Nevertheless, we’ll be there shortly to retrieve what is ours. This is a prerecorded message that I have set to send a half hour after we depart, so we should arrive an hour or two after you receive it. I hope you see my destruction on the television. Periculand isn’t the only place I plan to raze tonight.”
Ackerly heard the vicious grin in his voice, and he shuddered at the thought that this man would be here within a matter
of hours. The prospect of fighting Nero had been daunting enough; how was he supposed to save Ashna from the Wacko leader?
“It’s morning, technically,” a dry voice droned, the sound muffled since he was likely farther away from the receiver.
“Shut up,” Danny snarled, the aggression making both Ackerly and William jump. “I am this far from throwing you in a cell, Zacchaeus.” Clearing his throat, the man put on a pleasanter tone as he said, “Don’t fret, Periculand. My brother will not accompany us on our mission tonight. You won’t have to suffer the might of his cleaning Affinity. Now—”
They didn’t get to hear what would happen now, for a commotion of shuffling interrupted his words, followed by a piqued, “Shards!”
Then guttural screaming, mixed with a dark blend of instruments, flowed from the phone, causing Ackerly to smack his hands on either side of his head. It was clearly intended to be music, but his ears had never endured anything so grotesque.
“Your dog broke the remote, Danny,” the other man, Zacchaeus, said faintly, his voice overpowered by the screaming music.
The Rosses looked as disturbed as Ackerly felt, but Calder listened intently, his fingers stroking his chin until he abruptly bolted upright. “Pause it.”
“Pause…?” William echoed, but Artemis fumbled with the phone until she’d halted the message.
“Bleeding Brains,” Calder said, his eyes protruding in disbelief. “This guy likes Bleeding Brains.”
Ackerly scratched the back of his head. “Well…I feel like most terrorists like bleeding brains.”
“No—no, it’s a band,” Calder corrected, sparking a memory in Ackerly’s mind. “They’re too intense even for me, and I like that kinda stuff… Not even Nixie likes—”
“Holy seeds—that’s Ashna’s favorite band,” Ackerly blurted out, recalling their conversation in the Naturals Building’s basement earlier that afternoon. “She said she always used to listen to them with her…brother…”
Calder slowly pivoted toward Ackerly, who couldn’t stop gawking at the phone.
“No, no—it’s not possible—Ashna said—she said that her brother’s dead—that the Wackos killed him—”
“Metaphorically, I’m sure they did kill the boy he once was,” Calder said through gritted teeth. “Did she ever say exactly how her brother died? Ever say what his name was—or what her last name is?”
“N-no…I never thought to ask!”
Groaning, Calder rubbed his forehead and spun back toward the Rosses. “We need to find Ashna. If she’s the Wacko leader’s sister, she definitely knows his weaknesses.”
“It also seems likely that she would know his exact plans…” Artemis tapped her fingers on the desk, contemplating. “Perhaps—perhaps she was sent here on a secret mission to infiltrate the town and give her brother our secrets. He said he had spies in Periculand, did he not?”
The note Kiki and Eliana had found pressed on Ackerly’s mind, but he still couldn’t believe Ashna was a Wacko spy—that she’d lied to him so intensely. “The Wacko leader also said he was coming here to retrieve Ashna and her friends because they escaped.”
“Do you believe every word this psychopath says?” William demanded, pushing out of his chair to pace about the office. “He’s clearly trying to distract us—to make us think Ashna and her friends are innocent when they’re not. She gave us one hideout location that we raided, but you know as well as I do that they were only able to apprehend one Wacko—”
“Only one?” Calder injected, even though William’s words had been intended for his wife. “I thought you said they got a bunch of Wackos.”
“Sometimes the facts have to be skewed to appease the public,” Artemis said tartly. “The Wacko Headquarters location Ashna gave us was also fraudulent. We assumed it was simply abandoned, but now…it sounds like she gave us a decoy location instead of the real one, saving her precious Wackos—her precious brothers.”
Ackerly’s head spun, but it wasn’t the alcohol anymore; it was Ashna. The Wacko leader was her brother, and she’d come here not to destroy the Wackos but to destroy Periculand—to destroy Ackerly. He’d thought for the past week that she might actually care about him, that she might actually like him, but instead, she’d fed him nothing but lies, making him vulnerable for the slaughter that was sure to unfold.
“Play the rest of the message,” Ackerly commanded, his voice calm but infused with venom. Artemis didn’t question him before pressing the button.
The noisy music resumed, but this time Ackerly let it fill his core with rage—an emotion he’d never experienced before. This must have been the heat that built in Adara’s gut every time someone made a snide comment, every time her red eyes flared with fire. He’d never succumbed to it before, but now, if Ashna were in this room, he would have sacrificed a hundred plants to make her suffer.
He really should have believed Tray.
After a few moments, the screams and clamorous instruments came to a halt, and Ackerly’s anger dimmed with it. A deafening silence ensued, only to be ended with a familiar voice saying, “Well, that’s one way to do it. Just blow up the speaker, yeah?”
It didn’t add up, but Ackerly was fairly certain the voice had been Jamad’s—Avner’s friend.
Danny disregarded his comment and went on to say, “Periculand, surrender and open your gates to me, or we will ravish you.”
“Are you threatening to rape someone or demolish a city?” a sardonic female voice intoned from afar. Ackerly didn’t recognize this one either, but he was sure he heard Nero grumble, “Salt bitch.”
“I’m metaphorically threatening to rape a city,” Danny replied to the woman before redirecting his attention to the receivers of his message. “See you soon,” he sang tauntingly, ending the recording.
The Rosses’ office remained suspended in time for a few brief seconds before Artemis finally stood from her chair and addressed everyone in the room. “Ashna must be found and detained. Guards, signal the others—tell them to search for a girl with rainbow hair. Terrier, you’ll find Fraco and inform him of what we learned here. Mr. Ross and I will gather the other students. Drunk or not, they will engage in a fight tonight. We haven’t trained them for the past month for nothing.”
Ackerly cringed, but he couldn’t see any other option; if the Wackos were truly coming, everyone in this town would need to defend it.
“Hopefully, since Daniel will be here, we can finally put an end to the entire terrorist organization… Oh, and, guards,” Artemis added, glancing at the men whispering into their communication devices, “I need six of you to escort Mr. Corvis and Mr. Mardurus to the police station.”
Nero’s eyebrows shot upward. “You want to let Periculy and Stromer fight?”
“No, I want both of you in cells until this is over. After what you pulled tonight, I cannot allow you to lead the student army. If we survive the night, the students of this town cannot be disillusioned into thinking underage drinking is acceptable—”
Nero and Calder both jumped up from their seats in unison.
“A horde of Wackos is about to invade our town and you want to put two of your best fighters in jail because of underage drinking?” Calder questioned.
“You can’t put me in jail!” Nero roared, not at all miffed by the group of soldiers closing in on them. Ackerly scurried out of the way, knowing he should leave before the impending violence but finding himself too intrigued to depart. “You two are Reggs—normies. You don’t stand a chance against the Wackos. I’m the one who’s been training the students—I’m the one who should command—”
“You lost that privilege when you decided to throw a party in our absence,” William stated as he padded back to his desk. “If we can’t trust you during times of peace, how can we trust you during times of war? We will command the students. Guards.”
The six Regg soldiers grasped the two boys, four on Nero and two on Calder. Nero thrashed and swung his big arms around, but the Reggs took the blo
ws like a docile summer breeze—until one particularly impatient Regg smashed a fist against Nero’s thick skull, actually dazing him. Calder didn’t bother resisting; he simply glared at the Rosses and then at Ackerly, as if this were somehow his fault, too.
Despite his animosity, Ackerly swore he saw a tinge of relief on his face as the guards dragged them out—or perhaps it was excitement, because they wouldn’t just go to jail: They would go to Adara.
The lounge erupted in chaos the moment the Reggs hauled Nero, Calder, and Ackerly away. Students scrambled to clean up the cups littering the floor and correct the furniture strewn out of place. A large group staggered outside in a lame attempt to puke up whatever alcohol they’d consumed, lest the Rosses returned to exact punishments.
Perched on the spiral staircase, Tray watched it all with an air of smugness.
This was what they deserved for hosting an underage drinking party in a town occupied by Regg soldiers. He was content with the knowledge that these rebellious teenagers would finally learn about consequences. The only aspect that bothered him was that Ackerly had been dragged off as well. Yes, he was the only student the Rosses had seen physically drinking, but still, he shouldn’t have received the same treatment as a menace like Nero.
Tray had decided that if Ackerly didn’t return after an hour, he would confront the Rosses and testify on his roommate’s behalf. Even if the kid had plummeted to Adara levels of stupidity with his adamant belief of Ashna’s innocence, he was still Tray’s…friend—perhaps the first person he’d ever willingly called a friend.
Ashna, the object of Ackerly’s irrationality, was a whole other problem entirely. The girl had recovered from her Nero-induced flight across the room, and half the students now fawned over her, admiring her super strength as she moved massive couches with those skinny limbs. Tray probably should have done the same, but he couldn’t organize his thoughts when in motion, and he had a lot of thoughts to organize.
Like the question of how this incident would affect tomorrow’s trial—and if the public knowledge of Ashna’s multiple Affinities would result in her detainment and, consequently, thwart her Wacko-related plans—or if, with her newfound popularity, she would gather the other students onto her side: the Wackos’ side.
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