by Lucy Auburn
"She got loose from you? Another one?“
There's irritation in the headmaster's tone. She snaps her fingers at Grayson, and suddenly I'm unfrozen, but unsure what to do about it. Now that I realize what I'm up against, my flimsy hunting knife seems like a bad idea rather than a good way to protect myself.
Also, the Hulk is standing in the doorway, scowling at me in general, and he looks like he could snap me in two with a thought. Odds are basically ninety to zero that I get eviscerated for moving, with a ten percent chance of dying another, more random way.
"She's... something." The man with the cane is frowning at me now. "All the news reports made it seem like she was just some mad woman who kills people in the moment, but she has at least one Affinity. I just don't know how to reconcile that with killing her mother and stepfather in cold blood."
"I did not kill my mom. Take it back!" I start to lunge for him, then pause, glancing over at the headmaster. Probably best not to wind her up again. "Well, I didn't! And if anyone is reporting that on the news, they're lying."
"Quite a temper you've got on you." Shu frowns in my direction, then looks over at the four men. "Your Mark is denied. You don’t have permission to assassinate her. She'll be brought through orientation and tested instead."
"With all due respect, Headmaster Shu, a member of the Shadow Fold has to vouch for her before that happens."
"And?" She looks him up and down disdainfully, until his cheeks color in embarrassment. "You're not a member of the Shadow Fold. None of you four are. It's your job to hunt reasonable targets together until you kill an approved Mark and become a member—not decide who does and doesn't get to enroll here. So shut your flapping mouth before I fucking shut it for you, Grayson Hughes."
"Yes, ma’am.” He stiffens, frowning at me, but says nothing else.
The headmaster continues, "And you three? You gonna open your foul mouths too?"
A chorus of denials rings out, though the Hulk merely shakes his head, mouth stubbornly closed. There's something about the way he refuses to talk that interests me, but there's no way I'm getting close enough to ask him what he's all about.
Eve's voice distracts me from staring down the four guys. "I'll vouch for her, Headmaster Shu. I know Ellen didn't kill her mother—or her stepfather, for that matter. I can't say whether or not she has an Affinity, but she's certainly no cold-blooded killer, and the doors sought her out for a reason, whatever it may be. We went to college together, and I know she's smart. She can handle this—she can shine here. The graduate program is the perfect place for her.”
"Fine. It's been decided." Headmaster Shu claps her hands together once. "Ellen Arizona can officially enroll in the Cain University graduate program and receive her Masters in the Killing Arts, pending verification of her existing bachelor's degree and contract signing, and has been vouched for by a member of the Shadow Fold. No more questions."
Sullenly, I point out, "I have a few questions. No one seems interested in hearing them, though."
Shu snorts, aiming a scornfully arched eyebrow in my direction. "We're not here to hold your hand, Princess. If anyone wants to enlighten you, Eve can—or these four, for that matter, who are welcome to test you for specialities in the training arena if they want, even if it kills you. You have forty-eight hours to prove your worth before we decide if you get to enroll. Now, get the fuck out of my sight."
Objections and insults prickle up the back of my neck and threaten to spill from my mouth, but I clench my teeth tight, drop my hunting knife back into my jacket pocket, and decide to save any curiosity I have for Eve. She seems much less likely to stab me to death for daring to ask why the fuck I should want to stay in this strange and unknown place without even having it explained to me.
Also, Eve has her hand on my elbow and is gripping it tight, ushering me out of the room behind the four men, who file out into the hallway and head to the left. Eve pulls me to the right, but I dig my heels in, staring at the four with my eyes narrowed.
Eve says, "Ellen, calm down," but I barely hear her.
"You fuckers tried to hunt me to death." I scowl in their direction; the guy with the braid reaches back and tugs on it, as if nervous. "What was that about, huh? I want an explanation before I stab you all to death—after all, according to Mr. Asshole over here, that's all I'm good at."
"Delightful," Grayson mutters in a dry tone. "She's got temper issues and no clear Class or Affinity. Can't wait to test this one in the arena. How long do you give her?"
The silver-haired guy pipes up, "One hour. I bet I could take her all on my own."
I jerk out of Eve's grip, even as she warns me, "You don't know what you're doing." It's true, she's right, but I do know that I'm not taking shit from four half-baked assholes whose faces alone make me angry.
"I'll take your bet." Advancing on the silver-haired guy, I point out, "You didn't take me down before. You won't be able to do it now. Don't underestimate me."
He whistles, grin mocking. "I'm impressed. She’s got fire in her. Even if she doesn’t know what she’s up against at all.”
Up close I can see that his eyes are grey, like his silver hair, his cheekbones sharp and chin pointed. Only a few inches taller than me, he has almost fae-like qualities, reminding me of some kind of grownup Peter Pan—except with a dirtier mouth and broader shoulders. If I didn't want to slap the know-it-all right off his face, I'd say he's handsome in a wicked way, but as it is right now all I can think about is how he sent me to my knees with a wave of his hand.
"You're just like he was," I tell him, my eyes traveling to the other three to include them as well. "Jack thought he could bring me to my knees and make me beg for mercy. He failed, and so will you. You won’t get to kill me. Ever.”
"I think there's been a misunderstanding." The man with the braid steps forward, his face contrite, the tattoos up and down his arms stark in the sunlight filtering in from the courtyard. "We weren't trying to kill you. We were testing you, to see what you’re made of, and looking for evidence you needed to be taken out. Not a hair on your head would've been permanently harmed unless Headmaster Shu signed off on the Mark. Students at Cain are only allowed to use lethal force in self-defense or when hunting someone who’s been Marked—a rule we follow. We’re not cold-blooded killers.”
Grayson mutters, “Unlike you.”
I stare at them, incredulous. "You've been hunting me! And you nearly killed me in the mausoleum. I'm also pretty sure one of you slaughtered my mom and my stepfather. Was it you, Braid Boy? Did you slash her to death?”
Eve grabs my elbow again, reeling me back. Quietly, she says, "That's Mason Kincaide, and he's no cold-blooded murderer."
"Oh yeah? Then what is he?" I try to shake her hand off again, but her grip is tight this time, her nails digging into my flesh. "You weren't there, Eve. They were relentless. Also, didn't the headmaster say this was some kind of school for training in the killing arts? She seemed pretty certain I'd killed someone. Which begs the question, what the fuck are you doing here?"
"You don't know?" Grayson steps up, hands resting on his cane, his voice overlapping with Eve's as she tells me we should talk in private. Mockingly, he shakes his head in dismay. "To think, you've been sponsored by one of the best members of the Shadow Fold, and you have no idea who she really is. Evelyn Lionsdale is an assassin like no other, with a kill count to impress even the most hardened, and at the mere age of twenty-five."
Stunned, I stare at Eve. She doesn't deny what Grayson said, just pulls me down the hallway, away from the guys. They all stare at me, and the silver-haired guy starts to stalk forward, but Grayson stops him with a tap of his cane.
So he’s the leader, clearly.
He hates me.
But not as much as I hate him.
"We have to talk," Eve says, and suddenly I find myself agreeing with her. "First of all, you shouldn't be provoking the free agents—they have too much to prove. Second of all, we need to find out your Class
and Affinity, stat. But most importantly—you need to know what's going to happen in the next forty-eight hours, because you won't survive it without guidance, and I'm the one who sponsored you, so it's my job to make sure you stay alive."
"Stay alive?" Panicking, I stare at her with my mouth open in horror. "This place was supposed to be safe! At least that's what I was hoping when I walked through those doors. Now you're telling me I might die in here?"
"You probably won't," Eve says, which does nothing to reassure me. "Just stop provoking Grayson Hughes and his little gang of hellions. They can't go after you inside these halls unless you attack them or square off with them in the arena, but I wouldn't put it past him to get underhanded. You have no idea what he's capable of."
I glance over my shoulder down the hallway, but the four guys are gone, and they've left a dozen questions behind them. As Eve makes me follow her up a set of winding stairs, the crowd of strange and unusually dressed students thinning considerably, I ask her, "Who were those four? And what is he capable of? Also, what the fuck is this place? No one has made that clear."
"Cain University is named for the first killer, according to Abrahamic religions,” she says, which confirms what I suspected but thought I was crazy for believing. "It's a place where people are trained in the deadly art of assassination."
"Great, no thanks then."
She sighs. "You can't turn down enrolling here now that you've walked through the doors, Ellen." The stairs come to an end, and she leads me down a narrow interior hallway, near a balcony that overlooks the courtyard. "Once you learned that Cain University existed, two paths were laid out in front of you: enroll and survive to graduation, or have your memory wiped and forcibly removed."
"I choose option B, then."
"Too late. The doors followed you, meaning you were chosen. That means there's no way to wipe your memory—that's why I vouched for you, why I brought you to the headmaster and tried to keep you safe from that option. If they can't wipe your memory, they'll get rid of you in other ways."
I go cold all over. "Deadly ways, obviously." She says nothing, confirming my suspicion. "But why the hell would I be chosen?"
"I don't know," she confesses. "That's what we'll figure out in the next two days. The only thing I can tell you is that the doors to Cain University only appear to those with blood on their hands. Killers can see them and walk through them, but no one else."
Which means... "You've killed someone. What that asswipe was saying is true."
"It is." Her voice is calm, but her eyes flick over to me anxiously, and I wonder what she thinks. I'm not one to judge without more information, though; I know what it feels like to be the monster on the nightly news. "Listen, Grayson Hughes isn't just a pompous asswipe. He has a very strong Affinity, and you're lucky that he's prohibited from using it except in extreme cases of self-defense, because you wouldn't even know he was using it until too late."
"You keep saying that word. Affinity.”
"It's a special, magical ability—something that helps the assassins here in their missions. Grayson is capable of mind reading and control."
I stop short, goosebumps raising on my flesh even though the air around me is warm. "So you're saying he can Jedi mind trick people?"
"Basically. Worse, though.” Eve's mouth thins out into an unhappy line. "He's not the only dangerous person you pissed off today. That silver-haired kid is Levi Ward, and he's a prodigy, enrolled since he was sixteen. He can poison people with his mind. The tall man, Wyatt Brown? Could crush you to death in his fist. And the guy with the braid, Mason Kincaide, weaves masterful illusions. Together the four of them can convince you that the floor is lava, force you to jump into it, boil your blood until you're nearly dead, then crush you into ash."
"Wow." I swallow. "They didn't do all that to me when they were hunting me."
"That's because they were testing you—trying to see what you were made of. They're free agents, so they work without the directive of the Shadow Fold, trying to prove themselves. If you'd shown yourself to be a dangerous serial killer, they could've gotten a Mark—that’s permission to kill a target—and earned favor for taking you out. By escaping them, you may have saved your skin, but you also made them look bad, and there's nothing free agents hate more than that."
We've come to the end of the hallway, where a large oak door is bracketed by deep built-in shelves full of old books. Eve sounds worried for me, and worse, she's made me worried for myself. Shaking her head, she grabs a key from inside her buttery-looking leather jacket, and unlocks the door, its hinges creaking as she pushes it open.
On the other side is a warmly decorated, wide-open room with a loft. In the bottom level, a spacious bed, several book cases, and a comfortable-looking armchair give the place a lived-in quality. Up in the loft, enough weapons to kill an invading hoard are hung on the wall, the area cleared as if combat might begin at any moment.
"This is my room here when I'm on assignment," Eve says, making me wonder just how many amazing bedrooms one badass woman needs. "It's where you'll stay while we figure out what's going on with you. If I can, I'll train you. If not..."
I swallow. "Just tell me one thing: what happens if I make it? What if... what if I'm good at killing?"
Quietly, she says, "Then we'll find the bastard who did kill your mom, and you'll show them what you're made of. But to get there, you need to survive orientation long enough to officially enroll."
"Let's get to it, then."
Chapter 11
It's a wonder I didn't figure out sooner that Eve was lying about what she does for a living. Now that I’m looking, it’s obvious she’s a warrior.
Pacing back and forth in front of me, looking at the weapons on the wall, her muscles ripple and flex. Her body is strong. She looks like she was meant to take men's heads in her hands and twist until they pop right off. A nerdy number cruncher she is not.
"Get out that knife you've been skulking around with." Pulling an axe off the wall, Eve turns to face me, a grim expression on her face. "I want to see what you're working with."
"That's dirty," I quip, and she doesn't even crack a smile, which just proves she's undeniably wound up about all this. "You're not really worried that I'll die, are you?"
Instead of answering she lunges at me with the axe.
Its blade sings in the air as I dance back, frowning at her in alarm. "Hey! You could've sliced me open."
"That's the point." Tossing her red hair over her shoulder, she assesses me from head to foot. "No supernatural speed that I can see. I wonder if you have healing abilities. Let's find out, shall we?"
Grabbing the knife from my jacket pocket, I pace towards my left, watching her warily. There's not much I know about combat, but I do know that a knife only six inches long won't do me much good against the full-length axe she has. I won't be able to get close enough to do anything with it—not that I want to stab Eve.
Though I may change my mind and decide to poke her with the pointy end of my knife if she keeps coming at me.
"Fuck!" I swerve away from her sudden downswing that comes out of nowhere, barely managing to find space behind me to get away. "Watch it with that thing. You could actually hurt me, you know."
"I will. I promise you."
Something about her words rings in the air, and I frown. "Why do I get the feeling that you're telling the truth?"
"Because I am." Eve cracks her neck. "Every Affinity comes with a weakness. Mine is that it's hard for me to lie. I usually hide it with dry jokes and humor, but believe me when I say that people don't like it when you tell them their nose is ugly or they've got bad breath and spinach in their teeth."
Remembering the way she told me that she killed dictators, among others, I realize that was the truth as well. If she has a weakness, that means the four men who hunted me—a group I've decided to call the Fuckfaces—have weaknesses as well. Maybe if I figure out what they are, I can make them regret ever scaring the living dayli
ghts out of me and accusing me of murdering my own mother.
Eve comes at me again, but this time I'm ready for her. I watch the way she shifts her weight, her feet rocking back, hip pivoting, and her shoulder leaning forward. I have the feeling she's going easy on me, moving slowly and broadcasting her intentions in advance, but I don't have time to appreciate it. I only have time to duck her overhead swing, scuttle awkwardly to the side, and leap back so that I'm behind her.
She spins on the balls of her feet, watching me with eyes narrowed. "I guess we can cross grace off your list of possible Affinities, too."
"Fuck you!" Anger flares within me, something I hate feeling towards my former best friend. "My mom just died, I've barely been out of prison for a day, and now somehow I'm about to face a fight to the death just because some stupid fucking doors followed me everywhere. I didn't ask for this, you know. It wouldn't kill you to be nice."
"You did ask for it. All those who feel the call of the doors ultimately desire what's on the other side."
"Yeah, well, not me." Surveying the weapons on the wall, I find myself wishing for one of the guns up high, but settle for a long, thick baton lower down. If nothing else, I should be able to use it to block her axe swings if she comes at me again and there's nowhere left to dodge. "The last thing I want to do is be a killer. I'm not interested in putting more red in my ledger or staining my hands with blood."
Eve cocks her head to the side, eyes curious. "Your weakness may not be an inability to lie, but I still know when you're not telling the truth, Ellen. There's a thirst for vengeance inside you—and it won't be quelled until you take another life."
Before I can answer, she comes for me. This time she does it lazily, slowly swing the axe once and wait for me to get out of the way. First she drops down and comes for my side, and when I dodge that by leaning into it, she knocks the blunt butt of the axe into my calf so hard that I go down on one knee. As she rises and swings the axe around, I raise the baton to meet it with a block, then go for a swing of my own with the knife.