by Lucy Auburn
It's true that I'll be blind again if I get my powers back. But I still feel like I'm missing something without them. I can't let fear hold me back from greatness.
"Your weakness goes away for a while when we all use our powers. Mine went away for a moment when Wyatt touched my face while we were in that classroom. I think—no, I have to believe that it'll be like that if I get my powers back. Besides, I can always use Penny's eyes. Or Killer's eyes." Looking around me, I frown. "Where are the miscreants in training, anyway?"
As if on cue, Eve saunters into the courtyard, five recalcitrant students behind her—one of them sporting a black eye, no doubt from her convincing him to show up to this little speech—and a dog on a leash trotting next to her, while a certain Siamese cat perches on her shoulder.
"I believe this is yours," she says, handing the leash over to me. I take it sheepishly, coaxing Killer over towards me, where he leans against my leg, his eyes wide as he takes in the crowd around us. "You should be more careful with your pets, Ellen. Especially now that you can't summon them at will. Your dog was digging in the old cemetery out back full of unmarked graves. If I hadn't fetched him he might've wound up snacking on a human skull."
"If anything, that just proves he's my dog," I point out, reaching down to palm the top of Killer's head and scratching the short hairs there. "Thanks, Eve. I'll pick up a bag of dog food from town as soon as possible."
"What have you been feeding him up until now?"
"Uh. Definitely not your pot roast or that glazed chicken in the fridge." Eve narrows her eyes at me. "You can't kill me, remember? I'm powerless. It wouldn't be fair."
"As soon as your powers are back I'm going to put my hands around that neck of yours and—"
Wyatt clears his throat behind her. "Move. Chairs."
I send him a grateful look. Even I'm not foolish enough to think that Eve would never follow through on her threats. Sure, she wouldn't kill me, but a light maiming and torture are always on the table. She hasn't climbed to the top of the Shadow Fold by painting rainbows and butterflies on the walls of nurseries, after all. And she knows I've had sex in her bed. Anything could go as far as her imminent revenge is concerned.
I help Wyatt set the chairs down in the courtyard, while Levi takes Penny and tries to convince her to play with a yellow-orange leaf he picks up off the courtyard stones. Grayson watches him with narrowed eyes, his look-at-this-dumbass facial expression clear. I can't help imagining the internal monologue that must be going on in his head as Levi flits and flutters the leaf around my cat, making ridiculous noises to get her attention. As he does so, his grace and athleticism is clear, but he still sounds like a box full of pans banging together.
"You l-look... sad." Wyatt frowns at me, putting two chairs down at once while holding four more over one of his arms with ease. "We'll g-get her. Your powers wi... will come b-back."
"It's not just that, though that's a big part of it. I feel like I don't belong here." Grabbing a chair off his arm, I place it next to one he's setting down. "I'm nothing but a janitor now."
"You're st-still a killer." I sigh, and he insists, "N-no powers when y... you k-k-killed Jack."
Jack. That's a name I haven't thought of as much lately. The world I'm in now is so different from the one where I killed him. Very little reminds me of his soft hair or his hate-filled eyes these days.
Wyatt is right. I had no powers when I killed Jack. Just that ancient anger that rose inside me, instincts that took over and saved my life.
"I'll try not to mope around too much," I tell him, adding, "Maybe you can show me a few combat moves. After all, I'll need to be able to do more than just bat my eyelashes at our enemies."
Grinning suavely, he murmurs, "Oh, I think th-that'll work on... some of-of them."
"Really?" Stepping forward, I bat my eyelashes up at him exaggeratedly and cock my hip out to the side, breathing deep until my cleavage almost exists. "What about my Jessica Rabbit impression?"
"B-best self-defense m-move... ever."
I laugh, and we finish setting up this side of the courtyard with chairs. On the other side, Mason and Eve have turned the task into a competition, and of course they're bickering like old church ladies over how close together to put the chairs. Thankfully the whole issue is settled when the teachers and students start to stroll in and sit down, filling the courtyard with more and more people.
I motion for Killer to join me at a seat on the outside aisle, and have him sit by my knee, settling beside me. Wyatt takes the seat next to me, while Grayson sits in the aisle seat in front of us, and Levi defiantly leans against one of the columns. Mason eventually settles down next to Wyatt, and I can't help but feel comforted by the fact that I'm not alone even without my powers—especially as Penny runs beneath the chairs and presses her head against my leg, sociable and loving even without my Emotional Affinity to sense the inside of her head.
Maybe I do belong here, no matter what. It still feels like the only home I've had in a long, long time.
Headmaster Shu's voice interrupts my reverie. Apparently it's time for things to begin. "Alright, everyone—Martin, roll me up to the high ground! I want to see their faces."
Poor Professor Covington is put in charge of getting her to a spot in the middle of the fountains where the paths converge and a little platform made of brick and tile rises a few inches off the ground. He has to tilt her chair to get it over the steps, which makes her grit her teeth and glare at him even though she's the one who asked for it. Once there, she rolls her chair next to the bench where students usually makeout or lament their low grades. Looking over us with narrowed dark brown eyes, she somehow manages to tower over everyone despite being a short Asian woman sitting down.
"Alright, students. As you all know, our campus was attacked today. Thankfully the presence of an unexpected intruder triggered an alarm, and your professors were able to evacuate almost all of you to the underground fighting arena and seal off the staircases."
I try not to think about all the sex I've had down there. What a place to be in a crisis.
She continues, "What you don't know—what we've never told you—is who attacked you. Or why we have a special magical alarm to alert us to his presence. It may surprise you to find out that this isn't the first time this assassin has attacked our campus. The truth is, the identity of this assassin has been kept a secret within the Shadow Fold for a long time, so much so that even many Shadow Fold members don't know his name."
I look over at Eve, who shakes her head. Apparently she wasn't one of the people in the know. It makes sense—she can't outright lie to anyone, at least not without a great deal of effort, just like Wyatt can barely speak without a stutter. The inability to keep Shadow Fold secrets easily must make it hard for her to move up in the organization.
"I want to break this secret now." There's a flutter, and the professors look alarmed, but Headmaster Shu narrows her eyes at them until they settle down. "I've gotten clearance from within the organization to finally tell you all the truth, because it's time to put an end to this. Once a generation, he arises to take students' powers, their bodies, and even their sanity. But only recently has he somehow gotten himself a partner and infiltrated our very ranks—something we must put an end to now.
"You know this assassin well, because we've always taught you that he was the first to be so powerful, and the greatest of all of us. But Marcus Junius Brutus wasn't just the first killer to have four Affinities. He was the first to discover a way to become immortal—no matter the cost."
A commotion begins in the courtyard, but Headmaster Shu speaks over it.
"Every generation since his first disappearance, Brutus has found another killer to steal as his new body. His latest appears to be a thought-dead member of the Shadow Fold by the name of Vincent Arizona. If we don't finally band you all together, hunt him down, and stop him, one of you will be next. The strongest of you. This time, we won't let it happen.
"No more secr
ets. Brutus is our next Mark, and the entire student body's next assignment." The commotion rises, and the headmaster sighs, taking out her flask and swigging from it. "If you have any questions, address them to Professor Covington. I'm over and out."
Then she rolls her wheelchair off the platform, ignoring the way it thumps to the path unsteadily, and manages to get herself out of the courtyard and down the hallway towards her office in record time. I blink after her, stunned and confused, but somehow it all makes just as much sense as anything.
Sighing deeply, Professor Covington walks up to take Shu's place on the platform and faces us all with a grim expression. "Ask me anything you want to know."
Dozens of hands go up—including mine. He doesn't call on me, but I get up out of my chair anyway and demand to know, "If Brutus has taken his body, what's happened to my father's spirit? Is he really dead? What will happen to him if we kill him?"
"The truth is, we don't know what happens to Brutus's victims," Covington answers, "but I imagine that your father truly is dead, Ellen. Otherwise another man's soul wouldn't be in his body right now. Next?"
"And if we kill him?" I ask.
"Whatever it takes to stop Brutus," Covington answers, after a moment of thoughtful silence. "I'm sure your father, wherever he is, would understand the need for urgency."
I hate to admit it, but he's probably right. There's a reason why my dead dad's ghost kept telling me to find his body. If I get the chance to speak to him again, I'll ask for forgiveness in advance for what I'm going to do to his body—and the man residing in it.
Because we have to kill him. No way in fuck is the man who murdered my mother going to be an immortal asshole—and he definitely won't be getting Wyatt's body or any other, if that's the plan he and Vervaine have in mind.
I just wish I understood why he killed my mother, and why he chose that night, in particular, to do it.
The sooner we track him and his little partner down, the sooner I can put my hands around his neck and squeeze the answers out of him.
Chapter 5
"I don't like leaving something this important to someone I've just met," I tell Eve, pacing back and forth in her loft, a throwing knife in each of my hands. "We're just supposed to sit on our asses while Covington hunts down Vervaine? How does that make sense?"
"We're not sitting on our asses. You're taking a break from being nearly killed," she points out, walking over to me and gently taking the knives from my hands. "Also, these things are for throwing. Not for holding like they're those stress relief dummies or whatever."
I sigh. "I just have all this energy inside me, and I can't figure out what to do with it."
"You could walk your dog," she suggests, and I roll my eyes. "Fine, if you don't like my PG suggestion: fuck one of the four guys who follow you everywhere. Just not on my bed."
To punctuate the sentence, she throws one of the knives at a target on the wall and hits it right in the bullseye. Cool, got it: best friend will kill me if I have sex in her bed. And the guys share rooms, so. Maybe I need to get my own place.
Except there isn't a dorm in this campus available that's nearly as cool as Eve's place. I know because I checked. No one has her fully-stocked fridge, either—though if I keep nabbing her nice food she might actually use me for target practice.
"Having sex with the guys has gotten complicated," I tell her. "I mean, before the attack it seemed like things might be settling down. We were on the same wavelength. They were cooperating. But I still don't know exactly where I stand with Wyatt or Grayson... or Mason, really. And it's not like I have room in my heart to love all four of them."
"Who says you don't? And who says they want to be loved? Pretty sure Grayson Hughes just wants to get his rocks off." She throws the other knife, which lands maybe a millimeter at the most away from her first throw. "Either figure your shit out or stop complaining about it. Or maybe fuck that big guy who barely talks. Tons of girls have said he's good in bed, and apparently he hasn't screwed a single one of them ever since you showed up. If he's got half the skills rumored, I bet you'll forget all about the drama once you're under him."
"Wyatt isn't just a casual lay," I point out, pacing back and forth until Eve impatiently gives me a knife to throw. "He wants more, I can feel it. And I know Mason wants more. He told me as much. Kissed me and said he'd wait for me, even. But I..."
Swallowing, I try to balance the knife like Eve showed me, and throw it a one of the targets. It lands in the outer ring, which is better than it sinking into the wall. "Eve. What if I'm not good enough for them? What if... what if I'm broken?"
"I'm absolutely sure you are, at least a little," she says calmly. I scowl at her, and she shrugs. "Don't ask if you don't want the truth. It's me you're talking to, after all."
"I know you can talk your way around a question if you want to."
"I can. But this time I didn't, because you need to hear this: yeah, you're a little broken, Ellen. Anyone would be after what you've been through. But I can guarantee you that every one of those four Assfaces is at least a little broken too. How else would they be here? We're not just killers with powers. We have weaknesses for a reason. It's the universe's way of balancing us for what we're given—and punishing us for what we've done."
As she throws another round of knives, I get up the courage to finally blurt out, "Who was your first kill?"
Eve tenses. Her shoulders move up towards her ears, and she flips the throwing knife around in her hand, like a nervous tic. Swallowing, she meets my gaze, her mouth a thin line.
For a moment I think she's going to kill me instead of answering, and I consider taking the question back entirely.
Then she abruptly says, "I killed an eight-year-old girl."
"What?" Nausea and dread curl around in my stomach. I find myself walking over to the guest bed situated up here and sitting down on it abruptly, all the power gone from my legs, eyes wide as I stare at her. "How... Eve, you can't just leave it at that."
In a voice so calm it's chilling, she tells me, "I put myself through undergrad by bartending at this swanky restaurant downtown. The hours were terrible, but the tips were good. I hardly slept, though. It took a lot out of me. There was this one lady who'd always made such a stink reporting us to the manager for stupid shit that didn't even matter. So one night, after she ordered some dumb non-alcoholic drink, she asked if it had citrus in it, and I lied and said it didn't.
"I thought she was on some dumb fad diet. Doing a Dry January or whatever. But it was for her daughter." Her eyes are as bleak as the story. "The little girl had an allergic reaction. They used her EPI-PEN. She was still alive when the EMTs came. I told myself to just leave it at that, but I had to follow up. I had to know. She didn't even make it to the hospital in time."
I feel like my heart is squeezing so tight that it's a lead rock in my chest, dragging me down, making my ribs ache. "It wasn't your fault."
"Liar," she says accusingly. "It was and we both know it. Afterwards, I tried to excuse it away: that lady was always such a bitch. She was so particular about everything. She never said it was an allergy. We had completely different preparation standards for when someone said they were allergic to something. But that girl didn't have to die. I killed her with a lie. So now I don't get to tell any at all, even though every mission my very appearance is a lie, an illusion. How's that for karma meeting irony?"
"You make it sound like your weakness is some kind of punishment from fate."
Eve shrugs, looking away from me, her face pensive. "Maybe for some of us it is. I don't know. It certainly makes me appreciate certain things. Kind of like your boy Wyatt must appreciate every word he speaks, and Grayson must appreciate... elevators or some shit, who knows. Fate is random. She has a sense of humor. In my case, though, I don't think she could've been any clearer."
I don't know what to say. There's an entire well of grief beneath Eve's story, clear in her eyes and voice, that will never be wiped away. She'll always
live with that little girl's death. It's nothing like my first kill at all—not even close.
Since there doesn't seem to be anything I can say to comfort her, or change what happened, I spring off the bed, walk over to her, and throw my arms around her. She squirms inside my grip for a moment, then sags inside it, knives and all.
"You know," she says against my hair, "tonight would be a good night to stay up late watching movies and drinking that cotton candy flavored vodka I stole from my Mark during my last mission."
"Sounds like a plan, Stan."
"Not Stan. Eve."
I rub my cheek against hers until she makes a gagging noise, then let her go and step back, grinning.
"Let's get so drunk on flavored vodka that we regret it in the morning!"
I'm regretting all that cotton candy flavored vodka I drank last night.
It keeps producing cotton candy flavored bile in the back of my throat every time I hiccup, or think too much about how much I drank, or walk too quickly, or... well, breath too deeply.
That vodka is a scourge. It's no doubt for the best that Eve killed whoever bought it. I mean, a whole two liter bottle? Who has that much cheap novelty vodka lying around? A sociopath the world is better off without, that's who.
I just wish I'd remembered that I agreed to meet up with Wyatt in the morning and practice my combat moves. The hallway to the training room seems so long now that my limbs are twice as heavy as normal, and my head is stuffed with, well, cotton candy.
People who like flavored vodka should all be exiled to an empty island somewhere with crates of the stuff. They can see how much they like it when they have to survive off it for months. Serves them right for drinking the stuff like it's not vile.
If I learned anything last night, it's that my best friend can drink me under the table and then some.
"Ellen." Wyatt peeks his head out of the training room and smiles at me. A full wattage, absolutely excited smile that makes me want to lie down. How dare he be so energetic so early in the morning. "I was st-starting to think y-y-you wouldn't... make it."