Daizlei Academy Omnibus Collection

by Kel Carpenter

  The airport was bustling with people, and I had no idea how many were friend or foe, not to mention human. We followed Alec, steadily gaining speed as my legs strengthened. My hearing and eyesight were already back to normal, and the pain was fading fast. As we rounded the next corner, I slipped from his grip, and picked up the pace.

  “Lily,” I said, raising my voice just enough to be heard several hundred yards away.

  Her head whipped around, eyes searching for me. Her left hand trembled violently as the filthy tissue she clutched slipped from her fingers.

  “Selena?” she croaked. Her gaze flicked to the men on either side of me, widening when she saw my unconscious roommate.

  “We ran into some complications, but everyone’s fine.” I pulled her to my side and kissed her forehead. Alec made an impatient noise next to me, but he needn’t have bothered. I was completely aware of the time crunch. “Where’s Blair?”

  “Attempting to feed the hollow leg left in my care.” I turned to see my cousin holding a corn dog with mustard. Her light blond hair was pulled back in a braid, making the tiny scars that covered her all the more visible. She silently held the corn dog out to my sister and stepped back. She was more tense than usual, but I chalked it up to our situation. “We need to board. The first flight is leaving any second, but she refused to get on without you.” She thumbed at Lily and turned to the ‘flight attendant,’ who was glaring at us. I doubted she was actually a flight attendant, given that Daizlei didn’t let humans into our school. Probably just a normal Supernatural who worked for the Council or the school.

  “We can’t leave. Not without Alexandra!” Lily yelled, suddenly pissed and panicking. Mustard flew everywhere, and her eyes turned dark. Oh fuck, we didn’t have time for her mood swings.

  “Lily, get on the plane or so help me god—” I started.

  “What took you so long?” she said suddenly, sighing in relief. She ran to the empty air and threw her arms around herself. What the…?

  “She sees what he wants her to.” Lucas grimaced.

  My sister walked to the flight attendant, now placated, and entered the hallway that led to the plane. I stood, staring in horror. Whatever small slice of peace we’d found in all the chaos of leaving was going to be lost the moment my sister realized she’d been lied to and manipulated.

  “Stop.” My voice cracked with emotion that I couldn’t contain.

  Alec was already pushing past me when he slammed into an invisible wall. He cursed, turning to me. This boy had done nothing but piss me off since I’d met him. I could see why Lucas found him insufferable.

  “We don’t have time for this. We need to get out of here, and she wasn’t going to leave without the redhead.” His eyes turned predatory before shifting to Blair.

  She stiffened, her hands not so subtly moving to the blade on her belt, and he deflated instantly.

  I cocked my head to the side.

  “How do you know what my sister looks like?” I asked pointedly.

  “It’s my job to know things.” He turned his glare back on me, and Blair sighed. She already knew what the issue was. Anyone who’d been with Lily for ten minutes could tell.

  “Then you should have known that she’s already half gone, and when she loses her fucking marbles because she finds out what you did, she’s going to start throwing them at you, and not even your precious mistress will save you then.” I wanted to say more, to let the impact of what he’d just done fully hit him. Lily was in the worst place she’d been since my parents’ deaths, and he’d just screwed with her mind to get her to cooperate. It was unforgivable, because she already couldn’t tell the difference between nightmares and reality.

  Blair grabbed my arm and tugged me toward the plane doors. “Leave it. As much as I would love to see you kick his ass, your roommate isn’t looking so hot, and your sister’s going to unleash hell on that plane as soon as she figures out what just happened.”

  I glanced at Tori. Her face was drawn. She had at least another twelve hours before the transition faded. She could hold out that long, though. Lily couldn’t. I needed to get her back in a secure environment where I could start working with her to calm the madness. Otherwise, someone would pay.

  I loved Alexandra dearly, and I would worry until I saw her, but Lily was running out of time before she snapped again. I had to trust that my headstrong sister would keep her word and make it back to Daizlei by nightfall. She was unpredictable at times, but she wasn’t dumb. If Vampires had killed Aldric Fortescue and the Council had declared a state of emergency, then we weren’t safe. No one was.

  Alexandra knew that. She had to.

  “Let’s go.”

  I ended up giving Lily enough Xanax to knock out a horse, hoping she would sleep for the rest of the flight. She was now drooling contently against the blanket I’d squished into the corner where her chair met the wall. Blair had taken up my other side along the aisle, effectively keeping the others away and giving us room.

  I tugged on the neck of my shirt, sweat rolling down my temple. What was it about tight spaces that bothered me? I could’ve blamed it on the warehouse, but that wouldn’t be true. The lack of escape or maneuverability had always agitated me, long before I’d even heard of Daizlei. It just got worse every time. I wasn’t the only one struggling in the stale air of the airplane, though. Blair fidgeted right and left, her back straight as a board against the seat. The last flight we’d taken had nearly caused a panic, but this time she was prepared. We’d done enough drills over the summer for her to know how to handle her own claustrophobia.

  “When she wakes up, there’s going to be hell to pay,” I whispered.

  “I don’t agree with that bastard’s methods, but at least she’s on the plane.” Her jaw clenched and unclenched.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You know him. How?”

  She continued staring at the seat in front of her. Her eyes glazed over. She got like this when we talked about the warehouse, but never anything else. There was history between them, but not the good kind.

  “Alec Hunter was a senior the year I entered high school. Our paths crossed, and he burned me. That’s all you need to know.”

  I turned forward, giving her a moment before speaking. “If there’s an issue, we’ll take care of it. One way or another.” It was a promise, and one I didn’t make often. She was the exception to all my rules, though, because she was like me.

  Blair nodded once, and I let it be.

  The amount of shit that had hit the fan in the last twenty-four hours was unbelievable. I hadn’t been any closer to finding out who’d sent the demons when the Vampires showed up, Tori was bitten, Aldric Fortescue was killed, and now, to make matters worse, Lucas was involved. I didn’t really care one way or another about Aldric, but I was probably the least happy to see Anastasia ascend to the throne early. I could only imagine the frenzy the Council had fallen into, but all anyone knew were rumors at this point. Apart from Alec, and he wasn’t spilling his mistress’s secrets anytime soon.

  With the heat of several hundred bodies pressing in on me, I was feeling pulled in too many directions, and needed something to ground me among the madness. I settled for blaming Mariana for keeping us out of the loop when the attacks had gotten worse. If she’d at least told us, this might not have come as a surprise, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted Alexandra to leave the States.

  “Your mother didn’t say anything about this the entire three months I was there. She never mentioned the attacks—or that people were being taken. I’ve walked into a world at war nearly blind. If it weren’t for Daizlei and the whispers I heard, I wouldn’t even have known that tensions were running high when the summer began,” I said under my breath.

  Blair sighed. “She’s changed since your mom died. She’s distant now, afraid of the Supernatural and our world. She avoids it, even though she tries to come across like she doesn’t,” Blair said, staring at nothing in particular.

  I knew her well eno
ugh now to know she did that when she was uncomfortable. “When I met her, she was the spitting image of Supernatural wealth and sophistication. You were too,” I said.

  Her mouth tightened, and her lips pursed ever so slightly. “We all wear a mask, Selena. My mother is no different.” She paused and looked at me. “After Elizabeth…I don’t think she knows what to do with herself. You may have walked into this world blind, but you’re not alone. Every break, she calls me back to that godforsaken house and cuts me off from the world. If it weren’t for Daizlei, I wouldn’t have seen any farther than her garden.”

  I wasn’t the greatest at knowing what to say when people were vulnerable. I settled for nodding and changing the subject. “Anastasia’s going to call for war, and the Council is too divided to have a chance of standing up to her. We need to be prepared.” When she just continued to stare at the back of the seat, I assumed she was lost in her own brilliant and terrifying thoughts.

  “We’ve lived through worse. We will make it through this.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  The scars on my palms prickled, and I thought of the other me.

  The one with glowing violet eyes.

  One of us would be here to see it through.

  For the world’s sake, I prayed it was me, because she would shatter what was left of it when the Council was done.

  Chapter 67

  “Where are we?” Lily yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  “Touching down. We should be there any minute now.” I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, already gearing up for a fight. Her volatile moodswings had been the only thing predictable about her these past months.

  “Right…” She drawled it out, frowning to herself.

  I took a deep breath and kept my eyes focused on the back of the seat. I needed to keep her calm until we landed.

  “I was so worried about you and Alexandra making it back in time— Where is she?” she asked, so innocently…except that there was nothing innocent about her. Not anymore. If she knew what they’d done, and that I’d gone along with it, she would tear this plane apart. She wasn’t stable anymore, now that the killing gene was active, and only time would tell if she harbored my particular brand of damning urges and destructive tendencies. Better not to find out here, though.

  “She’s in the bathroom,” I said carefully, considering my words.

  She nodded and turned to look out the window. Daizlei rose up to greet us as the plane descended well within the school’s walls.

  “She’s been in there a long time. Maybe I should go check on her.” She picked at the broken stubs that passed for her nails, glancing back at the bathroom anxiously.

  “She’s fine, Lily. Just grab your stuff, and we can meet her at dinner tonight.” I tried hard to keep my voice nonchalant as I stood and swung my bag over my shoulder then held out a hand to help her. Blair stood next to me, collected as ever. My silent shadow.

  “I really think I should check. Even for her, this is a little abnormal—” She tried to step around me.

  “Come on, Lily.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her before she could process what was happening. Blair followed along with her bag and came up on her other side.

  “What— Selena, stop. What are you doing?” she stammered, panic rising.

  I had to get her out of here. Move, I thought, and the crowd parted. I walked quickly, leaving before people could realize their feet hadn’t moved of their own accord.

  “Oh my god,” she whispered, head flipping back and forth between Blair and me. Ten feet. That was all we had to clear, and then we would be outside.

  “She’s not here, is she?” Her voice was rising. I knew the shift was coming before I saw it.

  “Blair, let go of her,” I murmured, descending the stairs. The crowd only thickened, but Blair stayed a few steps behind us to keep people back.

  “Where is she?” she yelled.

  “Selena?” Lucas probed, but I didn’t have time for him.

  “She’s coming, but I need you to take a deep breath and try to think about this rationally.”

  Her feet slammed into the ground, unmovable. “You told me she was here. I saw her get on the plane. Where is she?” she screamed, consumed by emotions to strong for her to temper.

  I stood facing her with one hand curled around her arm as I contemplated throwing Alec under the bus. “She’s not here, Lily. She’s in Italy, where she’s been the entire summer. She’s coming back, though, as soon as it’s safe for her to leave,” I said calmly, not looking away from her frightened brown eyes. It killed me to see the madness there, both the killing gene and the other. She thought she’d been hallucinating.

  “I-I saw her though. I saw her, Selena. She walked right up to me…” Her voice trailed off as the hurt turned inward.

  I grabbed her other arm and shook it.

  “You weren’t going to leave, and we needed to get out of there. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I didn’t have another choice.” I spoke slowly, watching her eyes change as she realized what had actually happened.

  “You always have a choice, and you chose to lie to me. There was no discussion. You just played me.” The anger was rising again, building to crescendo so strong she wouldn’t be able to control it. Her eyes turned black, and the ink crept through her veins. The darkness was coming.

  “She didn’t play you, I did.”

  I whipped around to see Alec standing on the edge of the circle that separated us from them—the normals, the Supernaturals who didn’t have the gene or great power. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “My sister was attacked by a Vampire yesterday, and your sister,” he pointed to me, “saved her.” Lily watched him with a strange fascination. “She’s going through the transition, which is why I was carrying her in the airport. Do you remember that, Lily?” He waited, we both did, to see what she would do.

  “I saw my sister there. She hugged me and walked with me onto the airplane,” she said, unable to separate real from imagined.

  “You saw her because I wanted you to see her.” His golden eyes were fixed on her.

  “Why? Why would you show me my sister if she wasn’t there?” Her voice sounded small, childlike. It killed me to see her this way, so broken, the damage more than I was sure she could bear.

  “My sister was hurting, and I needed to get her back here. So she was safe. Do you understand that, Lily? That she was hurt and needed help?” He was telling her the truth in the most basic and manipulative way. He was the Fortescues’ servant, though, and I suppose that was the entirety of his job on a good day.

  “But you lied to me. You made me see someone who wasn’t there. Someone who may never make it back here, or be safe again.” Her eyes hardened. I felt the power rise up within her as she glared at him. “I don’t care who was hurt, you had no right to do what you did. You had no right!”

  I gripped her arms in an iron hold as she tried to take a step forward. Her dark eyes swiveled from him to me, and the black tendrils of her power reached out. I threw a wall up around us to keep anyone from intervening.

  “Get out of my way!” she snarled.

  “Not happening. You’re two seconds from killing someone. You need to rein it in, Lily. Control the darkness.” I ground my teeth as the tendrils wrapped around me.

  “It’s so heavy. The pain just weighs on me, Selena. It’s a suffering I can’t see past, no matter what I do. I need someone to understand. To hurt like I hurt,” she whispered, continuing to take from me, but I wouldn’t falter. I wouldn’t fail. I’d already failed once, when the demons took her. I wouldn’t let their ghosts take her again.

  “I know you do, Lily, better than anyone. You have to control it, though. Control the monster. I can teach you to give and take pain in moderation, to never sink this low again. You have to control it, though, otherwise someone’s going to die.”

  She sighed in almost contentment, and then…I felt her shift. Something went wrong, and the black energ
y that had been reaching toward me was suddenly writhing to return to her, but she didn’t seem to know how to stop as she screamed. “Oh my god, it hurts! Take it back! Please. Please! I’ll do anything, just make it end.”

  I tried to pull away, to cut off her feeding, but I couldn’t break the link. She sobbed, hot tears rolling down her face.

  “I can’t break it, Lily. You need to control it. Control the pain. Let it go.”

  She paused, her unseeing eyes staring into nothing as she gripped my wrists.

  “Let it go,” I whispered.

  She took a step back and dropped her hands. Releasing the hold.

  Black tendrils swarmed her. Crawling up her arms and back under her skin, they dissipated until no trace remained but her coal-colored eyes.

  “I thought I knew darkness,” she murmured. Her knees shook so badly she fell to the ground, kneeling before me.

  I crouched down in front of her, but kept my hands to myself. She was calming the storm. She was putting her own fire out. She was learning she could do it.

  “I thought I knew terror. Thought my pain was too great.” Her eyes focused on mine, and I didn’t back down. She needed to know that I was here, that I wasn’t afraid. “I know nothing.” Her eyes cleared, back to the dark, unwavering brown they were supposed to be. “How do you keep it at bay?” she asked earnestly, looking at me like I was the very god she’d been waiting for, the one with the answers, the one who could free her. “How can you laugh with such dark thoughts? How can you smile?”

  “I’ll teach you.” I held out my hand, giving her the opportunity to decide, to weigh her options.

  “You can teach me to do that? You can free me?” Her fear of being disappointed was almost tangible, but for the first time in months, she had hope. If I could stop myself from killing people because of guilt, she could save herself with hope.

  “No. I can only show you how.” I paused, tilting her chin up to make her look at me when her eyes fell. “Because you can free yourself.”

  She wrapped her arms around my neck as I dropped the wall separating us from the rest of the world. Cold eyes stared at me over Lily’s shoulder. Professor Vonlowsky stood proud and arrogant next to Alec Hunter, clearly waiting for me.