by Lucy Auburn
Eve sees me coming, and grabs my wrist, disarming me with a twist of her hand that makes my bones scream in agony. Wincing, I watch as the knife skids across the loft floor, heart suddenly in my throat.
When I look up at Eve and meet her eyes, I don't see the friend who let me crash in her house shortly after I was released from prison and my mother murdered. I definitely don't see the girl with the pixie cut who rebelled against authority and taught me how to smoke weed.
All I see is the killer with a body count to her name. Eve's mouth is a harsh line, her eyes emotionless, her movements calculated and determined. Throwing the axe into her other hand, she evades my swipe of the baton by dancing back, then comes for me again.
Frustration rises up in my throat. I grit my teeth, incredibly angry that she would do this to me. I'm going through enough already, and I deserve better than a friend who adds to my stress. With a shout of anger, I throw my hands up, baton forgotten, and push at her with everything within me.
A solid wall of force slams her into the wall so hard that she drops the axe.
As she slides towards the ground, wincing in pain, shame and panic replace my temporary anger. I run forward and crouch in front of her, frantic and upset.
"Are you okay? I didn't mean to hurt you. I just wanted to get you back for coming at me, but I didn't think... I didn't even know I could do that."
Head rolling back, Eve opens her mouth and laughs so loud that it stuns me. As the peals of joy fall from her lips, she wipes tears from her eyes, then eventually quiets and grins in my direction.
"That was phenomenal."
"Really?"
"Truly fucking amazing." Reaching out, she grabs my shoulder and uses me as leverage to get to her feet, stiff but seemingly unharmed. I stand in front of her, hands behind my back, afraid now of what they can do. "As soon as we can, we're getting you to the arena. If that's what you can do against me with no experience, imagine what you'll be capable of tomorrow against the free agents."
Hope rises within me. "You really think I can prove myself against them?"
"I know you can, with my help. Grayson and his posse won't know what hit him."
Grinning, I tell her, "I've decided to call them the Fuckfaces."
She chuckles. "Perfect name for them."
"What was that?" I ask, staring down at my palms in wonder. "I didn't even know I could do that."
"That was your Affinity. You're a Physical Class, clearly, your power rooted in the physical force. It's the reason why you're here, why you saw the doors. Everyone at Cain University has an Affinity."
"Everyone?"
"Yeah. They're how we're recruited for the Shadow Fold. That's a group of assassins—hired killers."
She says it so casually, like it's nothing at all, and maybe it is to her. But to me, this new information clicks into place and sucks the breath right out of me.
"Do the people here have any kind of power? Could they... create fire, or see the future, or even turn into fog?"
If Eve notices anything in my voice, she doesn't react. "Seeing into the future is a very rare ability. The others, though, yeah, sure."
"Huh." If what she's saying is true, and I have no doubt it is, then that means the man who killed my mom went here, or is at this school right now. Hesitantly, I ask, "Is there a list of the powers somewhere, and who has which?"
"Nah. That kind of information would expose us if it got into the wrong hands. Besides, older members of the Shadow Fold like to keep it secret what they can do. They're very tight-lipped." There goes my hope that I could find the killer just like that. Eve changes the subject quickly, as if uncomfortable with all my prying. "Now, c'mon—let's clear this wall and set up some targets. Next time, I want you to give it all you got. Just not against me. I'm not sure my ribs will survive another onslaught of your power."
As the third target falls, I begin to wonder why it is that I didn't have this power back when Jack was beating me around. Or in the prison, when guards gave me heavy looks and other inmates called me the Arizona Killer and Ellen the Felon—not very creative.
All I have to do now is hold my hand up, palm out, and push mentally towards my target. The power is inexact—there are marks on Eve's wall that prove how wild my aim is. But when it hits, it hits hard.
"Wow. Never would've guessed you're a Physical Class." Eve whistles. "And a powerful one at that."
Curious, I ask her, "What's your Affinity?"
"Thought you'd never ask. I'm a Mental Class, with an Affinity for illusion." Snapping her fingers, she changes herself. Suddenly she's got short blonde hair and a long black dress on. I blink, and she changes back to the Eve I've gotten used to, wearing form-fitting black clothes. "I can only really affect how I look, though. Mason is the one who can make whole scenes out of nothing. He's an Emotional Class—his scenes can make you feel things, whereas I just play tricks on your brain."
That explains how she hid her injury from me the night that Levi was in her house.
"Physical, Mental, Emotional... are those all three?"
"There's one more: Spiritual. It's the rarest class. Levi is a Spiritual Class—his abilities affect the spirit, or lifeblood, directly. He can poison people so thoroughly that it shaves years off their lives."
Alarmed, I tell her, "He did something to me when they were hunting me. It was so painful that I fell down to my knees. You don't think..."
"Levi can hurt people, even put them in the hospital for a few days, but he's forbidden from shaving years off a life without permission. Not that I'd put it past him, or any of the free agents, to break the rules. But if he'd stolen some of your life force, you would know. The first, and only, time I saw him do it to someone, they aged ten years overnight."
I shudder. "That's a pretty terrifying ability."
"There are a lot of those at Cain." Pacing over to the weapons wall, she takes down a long, thin dagger and balances it in her hand with practiced ease. "People don't come here unless they have a supernatural skill that makes it easier for them to take lives. Most of them develop later in life—that's why this is a graduate school strictly for adults, and not some boarding school for sniffling children. Killers come with baggage."
Part of me wants to ask her who her first kill was, the blood that stained her hands dark red enough that she could walk through those doors. But I keep my mouth shut, certain that if she wanted me to know, she would've told me by now. So much has changed about Eve since I last saw her—and I've changed too. If we're going to get as close as we used to be, it'll take time and patience.
"Alright." Raising the dagger, she eyes me with a grin. "Let's see you use those powers to repel an attack. After all, in the arena tomorrow you'll need to be able to defend yourself, not just smash others to smithereens."
"Who am I even fighting in the arena?" Falling into a balanced stance that Eve taught me, I put my hands up, knowing she won't warn me before she comes at me. "Tell me it's not the Fuckfaces."
"Anyone can challenge a potential first year student in their arena time. Mostly it's just done as a show of skills." She throws the dagger at me, and with a wince I hold up my hand to propel it away. My wall of force goes wild, but I manage to toss the thing in the air point first, and even though it looks awkward, I whoop in triumph. Eve tells me, "Any free agent at the school not pledged to the Shadow Fold can challenge you to show your Affinity and prove yourself worthy. Challengers aren't allowed to kill prospective students, but they can draw blood—and plenty do. So yeah... you'll probably have to go up against the Fuckfaces. And I doubt that they'll go easy on you. Grayson has convinced the others you're a cold-blooded killer, and there's nothing the students here hate more than someone who uses their powers to kill innocents."
"I didn't kill my mom or Herb. They have to get that through their thick skulls."
"They will." Eve gets another weapon off the wall, this time a black throwing star that looks wickedly sharp in her hands. "Once they get to know you, t
hey'll accept that you're not what the media says. Tomorrow, though, they're going to come at you with all they've got. So I need to make sure you're ready."
Grimacing, I fall into a fighter's stance. "Let's do this, then. I want to show them what I've got. Hit me."
"Oh, I will."
Chapter 12
This is the most comfortable mattress I've ever laid my head down on, and I can't sleep one single fucking wink, which is unusual for me. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is the past few days flying past.
The killer turning into fog as I tried to touch him. Cheesecake laying on the ground, blood on his white fur, his annoying little bark silenced forever. My mom slipping away from me before I even got to tell her that I love her.
That asshole Grayson Hughes looking at me with clever eyes as I called the crows down to fly at his head.
There's something inside me I don't understand. A woman who was woken up the day that Jack tried to kill me. Another Ellen, the one who put her shoulder back in its socket without even crying out, the one who knew where to leverage the saw to separate tendon and part bone, paces in my mind tonight and claws at her confines. She wants to be released on the world, and I don't know what will happen if she is.
Tossing and turning, I tell myself that I need to go to sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to face a threat I have very little preparation for—even though Eve did her best to get me ready. If I don't at least close my eyes and drift off a little bit, I have no hope of surviving.
Unless I run away.
From this strange place, the challenge I was roped into, powers I now have that I didn't ask for, and from Eve, who vouched for me and helped me out. I walked through those doors because I thought I had no other option, and believed that at least on the other side I would be safe. Little did I know I was running in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go to rid myself of the Fuckfaces hunting me.
That wasn't the only danger I lived with, though. There's one thing I seem to have escaped on this side of the doors: judgment for killing Jack. People who know what I did just from hearing my name. I've found a place by Eve's side, and there might be other people here, people like me who were backed into a corner and discovered there was something dark inside them waiting to wake up and end another's life.
There's a reason why they named this school after killers.
But I never wanted to be one.
Resolved, I throw the covers off me and slowly ease out of bed. Eve gave me her room, and she's sleeping on a foldout mattress in the loft; apparently the hard ground isn't something that bothers her at all. She promised she would stick around here to see me through my first few weeks and make sure I get off on the right foot.
Guilt nips at me as I walk as silently as possible towards the door, but I don't let it stop me from grabbing my bag and slipping out into the hallway. Eve was fine before I landed on her lap and upended her life; she'll be fine after I'm gone, too. Especially with that amazing house to keep her company and a day job I can't begin to understand.
It takes me a moment to orient myself in the darkness of this place, going over my memory of Eve leading me down the hallway yesterday. Breath tight in my chest, I pad quietly down the stairs and around every corner, holding my shoes in my hand, keenly aware of what I'm risking by doing this.
But just because they say they'll kill me doesn't mean they will. You have to catch someone to off them, and I don't plan on getting caught. This isn't my first time sneaking out in the middle of the night, and it won't be my last I'm sure.
The air in the courtyard is sharp and cool as I skirt past it, eyes on the front doors, wondering if I'm really going to be this lucky. You'd think a school full of killer assassins named after the first murderer would have more creepy nighttime activities.
Just as I'm thinking that, the sound of some kind of training drill happening down the hall filters to my ears. Pausing, I glance towards the source of the sound. A steady glow of light filters in through the bottom of the double doors, along with the sound of weapons clashing and bodies falling to the floor. A loud, booming male voice gives out instructions.
Something in my heart squeezes. It's like theater rehearsal or stunt practice except ten times more real. I want nothing more than to be on the other side of those doors, learning how to do what they do here. Studying how to kill.
I shake the thought off, grimacing. It's one thing to kill a man who was about to kill me—it would be another thing entirely to study killing full-time. While Eve explained to me last night that every target killed by a student at the university or a member of the Shadow Fold has to be Marked by death, I'm not so sure I trust the system that does it. A dozen shadowy figures, declaring who is so terrible that they deserve to be bloodily offed? Sounds like a system ripe for abuse.
Besides, I'm not fit for this kind of thing, no matter what powers may have mysteriously appeared or what Eve says about me seeing the doors. She can traipse around the world slipping poisons into dictators' wine bottles and offing CEOs who use their money and connections to facilitate human trafficking; I'll stick to getting a part-time job at the local community theater and scraping by until I figure out what comes next.
The front doors of the school are all clear. One of the doors is even propped open by a heavy vase; no doubt some students escaping to frolic and fuck in the moonlight, or smoke where no one is watching. So much is different here, but one thing is for certain: college students everywhere are the same.
Walking out into the darkness, I'm struck by the absence of, well, anything to see around me. When I walked through the doors, I didn't realize just how much land there was leading up to the university gates. It stretches out into the ink black night, impossibly wide and empty.
Frowning, I slip through the gates and pace down the gravel drive, looking for any sign of the doors. They followed me before—you'd think they would do the same on this side. I'm still a killer, after all, and that should be the only secret.
Voices catch my attention. I'm not the only one on this side of the university gates. Curious, I walk towards the source of the sound, eyes slowly adjusting to the dark.
There's a wide, flat field on this side of the brick walls leading to Cain University. Figures silhouetted by silver moonlight face each other in a darkness lit by pools of glowing light emanating from electric lanterns set on the ground. Over a dozen or more students, dressed in everything from black jumpsuits to their pajamas, congregate around the circle of light created by the lanterns. They're all facing two figures in the middle.
A girl with a gap between her teeth and sharp freckles faces off with a skinny beanpole of a boy, the two of them pacing around each other warily, like feral cats about to go at each other. The girl looks like she's not much older than twenty or so, the boy the same, at the peak of just graduating college and showing up here. It's impossible to imagine that either one of them ever killed anyone, but here they are, in a place only the bloodstained can visit.
I watch from a distance, hanging back in the darkness, uncertain what's going on. Then, before my disbelieving eyes, the two students jump into a fight. The girl cries out and claps her hands together, bolts of electricity jumping from her skin. But the boy pivots and spins, effortlessly missing her attack and advancing on her with fire in his eyes.
He grabs the back of her shirt with inhuman strength, bellows, and pulls her up above his head. Screaming, she reaches down, fingers dancing with sparks, and tries to gouge his eyes out. Gritting his teeth against the pain, lean muscles flexing, he throws her to the ground—and she slides out of the confines of the circle of light that I'm only just now realizing marks the edges of a battle arena.
They're preparing for tomorrow.
For fighting me.
Nausea rises in my stomach, and I back away from the scene. The students gathered around the edges of the circle whoop and holler. A hulking figure—Wyatt, I realize as he enters the territory of the light—steps forward and high-fives the beanpole
of a boy. There are groans as the girl gets to her feet, bruised and shaking. No one helps her up; no one even looks her way. They only have eyes for the victor, who they cheer on. His inhuman, hidden strength made him capable of defeating even a girl with lightning roaming beneath her skin and obeying her will.
That's what I'm going to be up against. I don't know which one of them scares me more—the girl or the boy. It seems impossibly cruel for me to be thrown into this, not even having chosen this path, but there it is.
Panicking at the thought, I spin on my heels and walk quickly back to the gravel drive, pacing down its length in search of the doors. They have to show up again. They were there when I needed a safe place to go to; they should be here now that I need to return. I need to go back, to make arrangements for Mom's funeral and find out if Herb's house has been released from processing so I can live there again. I'd even face Jack's mom herself if it meant not having to walk into an arena and fight that kind of power.
As if summoned by my desperate need, the doors appear again. They glow at their edges, no ornate wrought iron scrollwork visible from this side, just the heavy oak and carved reliefs of figures locked in deadly battles. I find myself opening my mouth to say thank you to them for appearing, then realize how silly that is. They're still just doors, even if otherworldly magic I don't understand makes them possible.
Glancing over my shoulder to make sure I'm not being observed—the makeshift arena, thankfully, is around the corner and past the bend of the campus walls—I walk up to the doors and place my hand against their carved surface. They're slightly warm to the touch, comforting and coaxing, thrumming with energy as if a heart beats beneath their surface.
A little twinge of guilt goes through me at the thought of leaving Eve behind. But she'll be okay; she has all that money, after all, and she'll figure out where I am pretty quickly. Once she thinks about it for longer than a minute or two, she'll realize that it's a good thing I left. I may be a killer, and I may even have strange powers that awakened to protect me, but I'm not cut out for a place like Cain University. I just don't have the strength or the skill to survive.