by Lucy Auburn
By the time I showed up at Cain University, I'd lost my family and my freedom. I didn't have anywhere else to go. Levi had something to live for outside the campus walls, unlike me, and he had to give it up, all because of powers that he didn't ask for.
Powers that woke within him the day he made his first kill.
Reaching up with my left hand, my right still wrapped in Mason's grip, I motion towards Levi. "Go on," I tell him, arching a brow in challenge. "Take my hand. Let's find out if your weakness goes away, too."
"There's no tightrope nearby," he points out, leaning towards me anyway, his eyes fixed on my hand. "I won't be able to go very far with you anchored to Kincaide over there."
Mason snorts. "I promise to get up and do cartwheels with you as soon as I feel less like dying. Sound fair?"
Chuckling, Levi shakes his head. "This one. So bright and cheery, until you back him into a corner or punch him in the face a few times. Then he gets a mouth on him that rivals mine."
"My hand is getting tired," I tell him. "I'm not going to hold it out for much longer."
Those silver eyes of his are watching me. I wonder what it is that he sees. When I picture myself through his eyes, I see a mouthy blonde psychopath wearing yesterday's dirty clothes, a knife stuck in her hoodie pocket, kneeling on the ground holding onto his best friend's hand to stop him bleeding out.
He probably feels like he's been cursed a second time by becoming my Conduit through no choice of his own, his powers somehow linked to mine, our bodies refusing to reach full strength unless we're touching each other. At least, that's how I feel—like I'm in some kind of horror show. Lady Fate has a sick sense of humor, giving me four very different, broken men to depend on for power.
All at once, Levi takes my hand.
The brush of his fingers against mine, such a simple and easy thing, sends a feeling like lightning arcing through my body. My Physical Affinity pulses inside me to the rhythm of my heart beating, electric and alive. Sensations flow through my body and down to the place where my fingers twine with Mason's hand, his grip strong even as his body grows weak.
Just like I sensed my own body that day in the arena during initiation, I can sense his body. What a strange and marvelous thing a human being is—blood, organs, and muscle laid over bones held together by tendon, nerves running the length of us, giving sensation to our bodies and feeling to our skin. Mason's heart beats fast, like a drum, his fear and anxiety clear as he stares up into the red sky, blood still oozing from his chest wound, though slower now.
Beside me, Levi experimentally takes a little hop forward, and his feet make a quiet sound against the ground beneath us. He breathes out, marveling at it all. "Wow. That's really something."
"Don't let go of my hand," I tell him, as he stretches the limits of our strange attachment to each other, pulling my arm by pacing back and forth in a tiny circle. "Something is happening. I don't know if it's this place, or you being my Conduit, but I think I can heal Mason just like I healed myself when you poisoned me. Or... at least close the wound over enough that he stops bleeding."
"That'd be great," Mason says, voice tired, "because I really need to pee, and I'd rather not do it while you're holding my hand."
Levi quips, "He's lying. I bet he needs to shit."
I roll my eyes. "Shut up already and let me concentrate. I'm not sure how this works. Also—get closer, you're going to yank my shoulder from its socket."
Sighing, Levi stops rolling his feet back and forth on the ground and kneels next to me, light and agile. Now that I'm looking for it, and not distracted by his insanely loud movements, I can tell that he used to be a performer, and probably a good one too.
Switching my focus back to Mason, I give him a shaky smile. "I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but when I forced the poison from my body in the arena, it was all instinct. My instincts are telling me I can probably close over your wound too—your blood wants to coagulate, it just can't when your weakness is activated. But if I'm wrong, I could fuck things up worse, so maybe you want a minute to—"
"I'm in," he tells me, meeting my eyes with his warm brown gaze. "Do it, Ellen. I trust you."
"You're putting your life in the hands of a killer."
"And you're holding the hands of two killers right now," he points out, squeezing his fingers around mine. "Right now, you're the best chance I got. And I bet you can do this."
In falsetto, Levi singsongs, "I believe you in, I do I do!"
"Oh, fuck you're annoying. If it'll shut you up."
Licking my lips, I force my awareness out of my body and into Mason's feeling with my instinct where the ragged edge of the cut is on his body. Then I push my force field out, slowly and carefully, its edges reaching for the broken skin that slashes across Mason's chest.
With a power I didn't know I had, holding both men's hands, I pour my Affinity into the wound until it closes over completely. Mason sighs, the sound full of relief, and Levi whistles, low and impressed.
"Wow," the poisoner says, actual appreciation in his voice. "That was some cool shit, Ellen."
"It was." I jerk my head around, looking over my shoulder at Grayson, who somehow snuck up on us despite his ever-present cane in his hands. "Just in time, too. I found our way out of here—assuming we don't die in the process of escaping."
Wyatt comes running out of the front gates, barely winded, at the end of Grayson's sentence. Looking over at us, he raises his brows a little at our three-person hand-holding chain, and I snatch my hands away, wiping them on the front of my shirt.
Slowly, deliberately, Wyatt says, "I th-think I kn-kn-know where... we are."
"And?"
"The f-future."
Chapter 8
It turns out that when you use an enchanted ring without knowing what it does, sometimes you fuck up a little. I just hope Eve hasn't teleported herself to the year 2043 or 1665 or something, because she'll be very pissed at me when she winds up back here in the present.
Sitting up slowly, Mason looks at Grayson and Wyatt, then asks, "How the everloving fuck did we get into the future? Last I checked there's no clock tower, no DeLorean, and no mad scientist anywhere."
"It was probably something to do with how the ring and the doors interacted," Grayson says, looking thoughtful. "The ring almost certainly has properties the Black Serpent didn't tell you about—did you find out his name, by the way? It feels silly calling him that."
"Lothario." All four men look at me with a mixture of horror and confusion in their eyes. "Unless he was lying, that's his name. And who would lie about such a terrible name? I know I wouldn't, and I'm named Ellen Arizona."
"Good point. So this, uh, I'll just call him the Black Serpent, he has an enchanted ring that brings him through space. The doors also go through space. But somehow, combined, their powers brought us through space and time—how did you figure that out, Wyatt?"
Frowning, the big guy pulls a square piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and shows it to all of us. I stare at it, a little puzzled. The piece of paper flaps in the wind, and Penny sits up on her back feet, trying and failing to bat at it. "A word a day calendar for six months from now... but how can you be sure someone didn't just get curious about words from the future?"
"It's m-mine," he says. "No skipping."
"You're telling me you never skip?" Levi raises his brows. "Never ever? C'mon bud, there could be another reason why it's on a day in the future. I mean, look at the fucking sky."
Grayson nods. "I agree. We'll need other evidence in order to be sure that this is the future. After all, it's pretty dire here, but there could be another explanation: alternate reality, some kind of curse, or just a pocket dimension created by using the ring."
"Exactly." Levi snaps. "Evidence is what we need. You got anything else?"
Wyatt's expression is tired, and I wonder if using all his effort just to focus on speaking wears him out. It must be frustrating, having so much to say but not being able to. Espec
ially when a bossy ass like Grayson and a wise-mouthed idiot like Levi are around. They already suck all the air out of a room, even when that room is the entire outdoors, leaving little time for Wyatt to get his words out.
Licking my lips, I hold my hand out towards him as an offering. "It worked on Mason and Levi. Maybe it'll work on you too."
His eyes jump to my hand. There's a longing in his eyes that he doesn't need to be able to speak clearly to make clear. Once he told me that he used to tell stories all the time. I wonder if, just like Levi lost the thing he loved most in the world when his weakness kicked in, Wyatt lost something precious too. And I wonder what I'll lose when I discover my weakness has awakened.
Standing up, I approach him, making it easier for him to take it. There's apprehension on his face, though, and I wonder if he's thinking it might not work. The disappointment of trying and failing might be worse than not trying at all.
It's Levi who convinces him. "Go for it, buddy. If her hand weren't attached to her body, I'd take it with me everywhere and get back on that tightrope again. Ohhhh—do you think that'd work? Hey Ellen, let me borrow that knife you keep in your hoodie, I want to try something out. Something that's definitely not cutting your hand off to carry it around with me."
I roll my eyes, and so does Wyatt. Reaching out, he takes my hand, and glowers at Levi. "That's not as funny as you think it is."
A little tremor goes through the fingers wrapped around mine. Heart surging at the expression of hope on Wyatt's face, I urge him, "Go on."
"I found more evidence that we're in the future." He seems surprised by every complete sentence that leaves his mouth. "It wasn't just the calendar, but that was all I could bring with me to show you."
Grayson clears his throat as Wyatt falls silent, seemingly stunned by his newfound ability to speak complete sentences without stuttering or stopping to untangle his tongue. "What I found—which I believe to be the way out of this place—may back up your theory, Wyatt. But I'd be interested to see what other evidence you discovered inside."
"Yeah bud," Mason encourages him, "I've got all the time in the world now, since Ellen fixed me up. Just gotta make some new blood to replace all that red stuff I lost, so. Use your new voice and tell us."
Licking his lips, Wyatt nods. His next words are clear, confident, and full of authority—it's like I'm meeting him for the second time, or maybe meeting the real him for the first time ever.
"There were several clues that made me think we're in the future. For one thing, the door to the training room that the Physical Class group destroyed was replaced completely and reinforced. It wasn't just my calendar that had the wrong date—the headmaster's computer is frozen on that date. All the classrooms reflect it, too. But I also don't think we're in an alternate reality or anything like that. I think we're in a pocket time loop, because when I checked for living things, I found none—but I did find a leaky faucet that keeps dripping the same drop, over and over, up and down. It's like we're stuck in a single second, being shown a vision of a not-so-great future."
"How, though?" Grayson wonders aloud. "Did the doors want us to see this, or the ring? Or both? Maybe something to do with the blood magic of the ring, Mason's blood, and his connection to Ellen that supposedly lets them see into the future... all things to consider. Regardless, though, we have to leave, and I think I found the door. It's this way."
Looking down at me, Wyatt says, "Thank you." He leans down until his lips skim my forehead, and kisses me lightly. Surprise goes through me at the feeling of his mouth against my skin, and heat blossoms in my collarbone. As he loosens his hand in mine, he says, "That was the best gift I've ever g-gotten."
By the end of his sentence he's let go of our connection and is leaning down to scoop Mason up off the ground. Biting my lips, I watch him use his strength to effortlessly carry the other man, who's no lightweight himself. Wyatt may have lost his voice to gain his strength, but the strength he gained is immeasurable—and it comes in handy in moments like this.
As Grayson turns to lead us towards the door he found, digging his cane into the ground to keep as much weight off his left leg as possible, Wyatt catches up to and overtakes him, despite half-carrying half-dragging an injured Mason. Levi gallops ahead as well, his feet seeming to make ten times more noise now that I know he can actually be quiet. A little behind them, Penny runs and leaps and twirls, occasionally stopping to pounce on a blade of grass or a leaf.
Instead of going faster, with them, I draw up next to Grayson, wondering if I'm an idiot for offering what I'm about to offer. But he's clearly in pain, and just because he's an ass, doesn't mean I should leave him that way. Besides, it only makes sense to test out this new discovery of my powers with all four of them.
"I could take your hand," I offer. "You might not limp if I—"
"No." The word is firm, clear, and spoken without even looking over at me. "I don't need your help."
I bristle at his refusal. "It's not a favor. I just thought it made sense to test it out."
"Why? So I can remember what it's like not to live in pain?" His face is calm, but there's passion and anger in his voice. "Do you know what that would be like—to feel the pain leave my body, only for it to start again the instant you let go of my hand? Has it ever occurred to you that I don't want to be fixed, that I don't need to be fixed?"
Mulishly, I point out, "You're slowing the rest of us down."
"So leave me behind." He says it so calmly that I almost wonder if he would do the same, were the situation reversed. "If I'm such a burden, go on ahead, with the loudass and the strong-arm. Oh, and don't forget Mason, who you're about to fuck if you haven't already."
"Fine!" Heated by a combination of embarrassment and anger, I throw my hands up in the air. "Have it your way. It's not like I want to do you any favors. Limp around on one leg for the rest of your life for all I care, Grayson. Whatever you're trying to prove, I hope it makes you happy."
Frustration wells inside me, and I jog ahead several steps without looking back. The temptation to full-out run, to catch up with the other guys and leave Grayson behind, is incredible. But then a branch rises out of the ground, twisting and cruel, and I find myself wondering if he might trip on it and fall. Or if his cane will dig into the hole I see over towards my left, directly in his path, and hurt him. Or...
I can't believe that I care. I want to wipe the smug off his face, to punch him in the gut so he doubles over groaning, to sever our joke of a fated connection in any way possible. I hate him for his smart mouth and his smug attitude and the way he pre-judged me, and judges me even now.
I hate, most of all, how often I see pain in his eyes, pain twisting down the corners of his mouth, hurt pride making him look away from the other guys, who are broken in their own ways but not nearly so wounded as him.
He stands on the sidelines and tells them what to do because he can't do it himself. Without Wyatt's strength and Levi's dark powers, Mason would've been lost on the other side of the doors, injured and alone, because Grayson isn't strong enough to beat back the darkness or save his friend—and he knows it.
Kicking the branch, I jump over it dramatically, just enough that he'll see it's in the way without me having to warn him in words. I don't look back. I even try not to hear his voice when he speaks next, his volume pitched low, almost as if he doesn't want me to hear.
"I used to be addicted to heroin." The words are nearly lost on the wind, but there's a dark humor to them, a self-loathing so deep it must run miles below the surface of his skin. "It started with the drugs they gave me, but they were never enough. Nothing is."
A moment, then, "Levi wouldn't cut off your hand so he can do silent cartwheels while holding it. But I might cut it off to make the pain go away. Is that a risk you're willing to take?"
I look back at him. Those ice blue eyes are so dark, so full of wretched misery, they're almost another color entirely, reflecting the red sky back at me. He reaches the branch in the grou
nd, sets his cane down firmly, and swings his bad leg over it with a wince that draws down every corner on his face—his eyes, his lips, all making him look older, filled with a pain beyond his years.
Grayson Hughes has a power beyond all reckoning, and the weakness to match its strength. So much pain. So much power.
I know what it's like to be burdened by something. Once, I loved a boy with soft hair, who grew into a man who caused me pain. Even in the darkest hours, there was something like love there, twisted and perverted. I didn't know how to give up the good in order to leave the bad behind me. It wasn't until I had a knife in my hands and a man I loved looking at me like he wanted to strangle me to death that I realized there was only one path out.
A few feet separate me from Grayson as he tightens his hand on the cane and takes a resolute step forward, flicking his eyes away from my watchful gaze. A few feet, and a thousand miles.
As he moves closer, I reach out. Crook my fingers. Watch his mouth twitch down at the corners.
His voice rumbles with disapproval as he says, "Didn't I tell you what a risk it would be? You can't trust me with that kind of power. If there's no way to turn it off, we'll just have to never touch again. Even during training. The danger is too great."
"You're assuming that you'd be able to make the cut."
"What?" A startled blink. He turns his face to me.
"Cutting a hand from an arm." I raise my brows at him, twitch my mouth up at the corners in amusement. "It's not as simple as you'd think to sever bone and slice tendon."
A moment. Then, wryly, "You would know, Killer Ellen. I heard you cut him into one hundred pieces."
"One hundred and one, but who's counting." I let my hand fall to my side, because I don't think he's ready to take it. Maybe he never will be. But I do point out, "I cut him up after I killed him. It'd be far harder to take my hand while I'm still alive."