This is Tori, your friend, and Lucas’s sister. You must only do the bare minimum. I walked through the door and turned to face her.
“I can’t fight you,” I said under my breath.
“We don’t have a choice,” she said.
The door shut behind me, locking us in.
“If one or both of you chooses not to fight, I will fail you both,” Vonlowsky said over the intercom.
I had no choice.
End this quickly.
I swept my foot under her in a flash. She fell back and vanished into thin air. Shit, I’d forgotten she was a teleporter. The next second, I felt myself being pulled back by my hair.
I grunted. “Do not grab my hair.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t fail this class,” she whispered as she brought me into a headlock.
“Neither can I.” I reached up to grab the back of her neck then squeezed tightly, putting pressure on it until she let go.
I was moving to flip her over my shoulder when a void enveloped me, sucking me through a vortex. I found myself lying flat on my back with Tori pinning me.
“How—” Then realization dawned.
“I just teleported with you.”
I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I just got caught up in the moment, but I actually punched her. I didn’t really get that I’d hit her until she fell back, clutching her stomach. She rolled off me and onto her side as she vomited.
“I-I didn’t mean to,” I stuttered. What could I say?
“It’s fine,” she gasped but started vomiting again.
Blood.
Shit.
I knelt over and held her hair back as she finished throwing up.
“Take her to Love. Try to get the vomiting to stop,” Vonlowsky said, and Aaron appeared in my line of sight.
He reached down and picked her up like she weighed next to nothing. The door closed, and yet Vonlowsky was still there, and I was still staring at my hands, wondering why the hell I was even born.
“I’ve dismissed class early. I think we need to have a talk,” he said from behind me.
“I have nothing to say to you.” I got up from the ground and walked toward the door.
“Don’t even think about walking out of that door. I’m not one of your silly little peers who you can ignore. I’m your professor, and you will treat me like it.”
“Maybe you should act like it,” I turned and shouted at him.
“You’re angry. That’s good.” He nodded, watching me with cold calculation.
“No, it’s not.” I gritted my teeth.
“Anger is power. That’s one reason you’re so good at boxing.” He motioned to the blood and vomit.
“Don’t you dare talk to me about boxing,” I spat. I put my hands on my hips to try to control how badly they were shaking.
“It’s true.”
“Anger does not equate to power. It’s terrible. Anger causes death and destruction. Nothing good comes from it.” I knew from experience. I turned away from him, fighting the flashbacks threatening to make their way to the surface.
“That’s where you’re wrong. It all depends on how you use that power.” He made a tsk sound, and I realized that I wanted to kill him. For what he’d made me do. For feeding my demons. I wanted to destroy him because he was right.
“Get to the point—I have somewhere to be,” I snapped.
“You’re powerful yet weak. Why do you refuse to use your ability? They say you have enhanced senses, but I know better. I see through you, Foster.”
My blood ran cold, and I knew I needed to shut this down now. “Why do you care? In fact, why does anyone care? It’s my ability, my choice, and my life, why can’t you butt out—”
“Because you’re making a mistake. You could be great.”
I couldn’t believe I was actually listening to this. “But it’s my choice! You might be my teacher, but you don’t have that right. It’s one thing that you make me fight, but this is none of your business!”
“Why are you so scared of yourself?”
His analysis was too close. This needed to end. “What?” I asked, both exasperated and desperate. I hoped he couldn’t tell.
“You’re scared. I have no idea why, but it’s the reason you won’t fight—not really. The reason you refuse to use your ability.”
“Let’s just get this straight. You know nothing about me. Stay the hell away if you know what’s good for you.” He thought he saw potential in me. A prodigy in the making. What he didn’t realize was that if he wasn’t careful, he would find out just how powerful I was.
“You’ll regret this,” he called after me.
I stopped dead and turned my head to the side. “I’ve had regrets in my life, but I can promise you this won’t be one of them.”
Lock it up and throw away the key. The anger. The resentment. He can never know the truth. No one can. If they knew . . . they would come for us. They would fear us. Then they would kill us.
With a look as cold as the weather, I left to seek the blessed heat of blood and sweat on a gym mat.
Chapter 39
“Ugh!” I grunted as I lashed out.
The air left his lungs as he grasped his throat.
I turned and swung again, this time breaking his nose
Aaron groaned. “Can you not control yourself?” he snapped, clutching his bleeding nose.
“Can you not fight better?” I retorted angrily as I stormed out of the ring.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler and downed it in two gulps. I was burning, and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. I still hadn’t cooled off from my confrontation with Vonlowsky.
I dropped the bottle in the trash and pressed my palms to my temples; the headache wasn’t going away.
“Selena, what’s the deal today? You just broke Aaron’s nose, and that’s only fifteen minutes after you fractured Michael’s shoulder,” Coach Avery said from behind me.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” I lied.
“Foster, something happened. Is there anything I can do?” He was offering to help me, but I was well aware that he was also trying to push me to talk to him.
“No, there’s nothing you can do, so I don’t see the point in talking about it.” I started to walk to the bench.
“What happened?” He put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.
I took a deep breath and turned to him. “Vonlowsky won’t stay out of my business, and to make me fight, he’s threatening to fail me,” I said quietly, trying to keep Aaron from hearing.
“Why won’t you fight without him having to threaten you?” Avery asked.
“I am, but he doesn’t think it’s enough unless I destroy them like I do in here. It’s not like boxing, and honestly, I don’t think he has a right to ask me to do that to a bunch of inexperienced sixteen-year-olds.” My voice was rising again, and Aaron had most definitely heard me—along with half the gym. I closed my eyes, massaging my temples in a vain attempt to calm down.
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
My eyes snapped open. “You can do that?” I asked in disbelief. I didn’t think he had that kind of sway with other teachers.
“Selena, you have a real reason for being pissed with him, and he knows better . . . hell yes, I can do that,” he said and left me.
I sighed and positioned myself on the bench.
“What was all that about?” Lucas asked, coming up to the side and doing pushups.
“Just some stuff I needed to sort out,” I said, pressing the one hundred- and forty-five-pound bar.
“Did it have to do with you breaking Aaron’s nose?” I could hear the grin in his voice. Nosy bastard.
“Maybe.” I smirked despite myself. I still didn’t like Aaron, even if I felt sorry for him.
“And did it have to do with you fracturing Michael’s shoulder?” he continued.
“Maybe,” I repeated, less enthused.
“So he was asking
you about your aggression issues?”
I outright laughed at that. “If you already know what happened, why ask?”
“I actually wasn’t paying attention. It’s your constant anger that’s sending off flares in my mind.” His voice was deeper and more gruff than usual; must’ve been the pushups.
“Oh . . .”
“We need to go running,” he said suddenly, getting up from the floor.
“I just started bench pressing,” I argued.
He took the bar out of my hands and put it on the rack. “Too bad.” He started for the door. I bounded after him. “What has you in such a bad mood today?” His tone was husky as he led the way out.
“You mean you can tell the difference between my usual heartlessness and bad days?” I mocked.
He glared at me as he held the gym door open. “Usually.”
We walked in silence for a few minutes while I decided what exactly to tell him. “I got into an argument with Vonlowsky today,” I finally conceded.
“About?”
“I refuse to dismember my classmates, but he insists on threatening me so that I will. Which is ridiculous, because it’s not like I’m not fighting at all, I just want them to be able to walk when class is over. Is that really so bad?” I threw my hands up in frustration as I paced. I needed to run—to burn this energy off. I turned and took off down the wall.
“No, I don’t think it is,” Lucas said quietly, matching pace with me.
“I hurt Tori today.” I told him, not able to let it weigh on me any longer. “I didn’t mean to, but it was instinct. She teleported, and I flipped. I punched her in the stomach, and she started vomiting blood.”
Lucas was quiet for a minute. A whisper of panic moved through me. I couldn’t lose him. Not over this. She would be okay. She had to be, because not only had I punched one of my only friends, she also happened to be my best friend’s sister. Ouch. Karma’s a bitch.
“Is she okay?” His voice was concerned but not angry.
“Aaron took her to Love’s right away,” I assured him.
“You shouldn’t be fighting sophomores. You’re too far above them. Maybe if they move you up to a more advanced class, it wouldn’t be as hard to hold back?”
“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t want to fight in class at all; there was no reason for it. Boxing had a reason—suppress the insanity, feed the demons, control the killing gene.
Battle Simulation was to prepare lesser Supernaturals for the killing that comes with being one of my kind.
“I know it sucks right now, but as you get older, it changes from one-on-one. They do teams or use the Simulator.” He was sweating despite the cold, and his ragged breathing made him sound gruffer.
“I’m more upset because he thinks being my teacher means that anything’s up for discussion and that’s definitely not the case. I don’t even like seeing him on a daily basis.” I think I was talking more to myself than Lucas.
“Did he say anything else to you?” He panted.
“No,” I lied.
Lucas thought my ability was my enhanced senses and strength, but Vonlowsky knew better. I couldn’t mention the part about me never using my ability. It would invite too many questions, which meant even more lies to keep up with, and I just couldn’t afford that right now. Not if I wanted to stay dormant.
Chapter 40
“Selena, it’s time to open presents,” Daddy called.
I dropped my baby doll and ran to the door where my father was waiting. He scooped me up in his massive arms and kissed me on the forehead.
“How old are you turning today, my big girl?”
“Five!” I shouted in glee, smiling from ear to ear.
“So how many presents are you getting?” he prompted.
“Five,” I repeated, holding up my hand to show all five fingers.
He set me down inside the dining room where our presents were scattered on the table.
“Honey, can I see you in the kitchen real quick?” Mommy said from the door.
“Be good, girls,” he said as he left with her.
“I’m gonna open this one,” Alexandra announced, holding up a big box wrapped in pink.
“And I’m going to open this one,” I declared, holding up a box just as big in purple.
“Wait for Mommy and Daddy,” Lily commanded.
Alexandra and I giggled. Why wait? We ripped open our presents to find two almost identical dresses in different colors.
“Ooooh, I’m telling Mommy,” Lily yelled as she ran out of the room.
“I like yours better.” Alexandra pouted. She was looking at my pretty purple dress; hers was black.
“So do I,” I gloated.
“I wanna trade,” she whined.
“No.”
“Yes!” she yelled and tried to take it from me.
“Mommy said you’re both in big trouble,” Lily yelled but stopped walking toward the table.
“I said no!” I shouted and stamped my foot as I pushed her. She went flying straight through the wall, and my anger evaporated.
“Alexandra?” I asked in a small voice.
She didn’t answer.
“Alexandra?” I screamed.
I turned back to the door to see my Mother’s face white as the cake that now lay at her feet. I trembled. The room was moving.
“Daddy?” I fainted.
I woke up with the picture of my father’s face imprinted in my mind. The moment it had happened, the moment he knew what I was. The first time I ever saw fear.
I tried to calm my breathing as I looked over at the clock. 3:07. I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to forget.
Chapter 41
I wanted to cry and that was saying something for me. As I hit the bag, all I could think of was them. The two people whose lives I’d stolen.
I swallowed my pain and continued with my training. That was what he would’ve wanted. I hit it over and over again as bruises slowly formed then turned red and bloody. My knuckles hurt. My hands hurt. I couldn’t stop. It was the only thing getting me through today.
“Selena, stop,” Lucas commanded. It was eight o’clock already, and the gym was empty apart from us.
“I can’t,” I breathed and smashed my fist into it again.
“Stop.” He grabbed my hand as I swung.
“I can’t.”
“What’s wrong?”
I stopped fighting and turned to him. “My parents died on February twenty-third, six years ago.” I hung my head in despair. I was anything but rational today.
“Come with me.” He took my hand and led me out of the gym.
“Where?” I asked, but it really didn’t matter. Nothing would for a few more days when, hopefully, I’d start to feel like me again.
“Just on a walk.” We veered off the path and toward the wall where we ran.
I didn’t say anything; I didn’t feel like saying anything. It was cold outside, and the tank top and shorts didn’t help much. Even when I started shivering, I said nothing.
“Are you cold?”
I nodded.
He took off his sweatshirt and handed it me. I slipped it on without protest.
“What happened to your parents?”
There it was. The question had been between us for so long now; never the first thought, but always close behind. Just one of the many secrets I kept.
Why not today?
“Six years ago, my parents left us with a babysitter while they went out. It wasn’t until the next morning when I woke and answered the door that I found out what had happened. They’d died in a car crash on the way back from their date. Somehow, the car swerved, and they went off a two hundred-foot cliff. After that, we were shipped off to the first of the relatives.”
I didn’t remember much of my parents’ deaths. I was young. My aunt took care of the funeral arrangements. We buried them right outside our yellow walls, inside my mother’s beloved white picket fence. I hadn’t been back to that house since the fune
ral, even though I technically owned it. Well, my sisters and I owned it.
“I’m . . . sorry.”
“Why? It’s not like you killed them. I did that on my own.” And there was the crux of the matter.
“You just said they died in a car crash.” I could see his confusion in the way his eyebrows knit together, the slight frown, earnest eyes. He didn’t understand, and I couldn’t blame him. It was only ever half-truths with me.
“They did.” I sighed. I couldn’t completely tell him how it was my fault; he would never understand that I could’ve saved them.
“Then how did you kill them?” Our voices we barely above a whisper, and the wind howled in our ears.
I stared down at the glistening snow in silence. “Before my parents left that night, I’d been getting headaches because I just had this feeling. I knew something was going to happen, I just didn’t know what, and when they asked me about it . . . I said nothing.” My hands clenched into fists as I remembered. “I said nothing . . . ” I whispered.
“Selena, you didn’t kill your parents. They died in a car crash. It wasn’t your fault.”
He didn’t understand. No one did.
“It’s not just the feeling, Lucas. I don’t know how, and I know it doesn’t make sense, but in my heart—I know I killed them.” It was like I was forgetting something; I just didn’t know what. I was the greatest murderer in history—even I didn’t know how I’d done it.
I stiffened when he hugged me. The smell of the outdoors and him overwhelmed my senses. Easing the pain I’d felt on this day for six years. It felt . . . right. I wasn’t alone, and for once, I needed that. I closed my eyes and leaned against him, wrapping my arms around his firm waist.
“You’re not alone. Never again.”
Chapter 42
“It all comes down to today. Everything we’ve worked for this year depends on today. This is the hardest school we’ve faced yet, but if we win, we’ll be invited to the championships.” Coach Avery was finishing up his usual pep talk before the big match.
“First match boxers to the ring. I repeat, first match boxers to the ring.”
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