by Holly Ice
‘I’m sorry. I tried my best not to give her that impression.’
‘So why call me here? You said research might take years.’ They had to want something.
‘Russell can’t place you, which limits our options. It might mean your link is further back.’
I waited for him to expand.
‘We can try a DNA test. That’d narrow the search.’
‘You have each family’s DNA?’
Was that another side effect of the arranged marriages, or something they’d arranged themselves? Either way, it put a new spin on how they were helping the group’s witches.
‘A small database. But it’s worth a go, isn’t it?’
Absolutely not. Say no. Immediately.
I could’ve sworn Lyall’s voice broke at the start. Why are you so worried?
Don’t do it. This is not something to overrule me on. It won’t end well.
Asking for details was pointless, but the whole setup gave me a bad vibe anyway. It was enough to ken DNA was an option for them.
‘I’d like to continue on the research path for now,’ I said.
McKee’s nostrils flared, and then he put on false concern. He seemed genuine, until you spotted the switch. ‘You’re sure? That will take so much longer. And we’ll have to prioritise students with a higher likelihood of success.’
‘I understand. If I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.’
I thanked them both again and left. Walking at pace towards the back of the school, I texted Shane: ‘Meet me outside. Got news.’
* * *
Shane prowled the grass by the lake. Shadows played against his cheekbones. I should be focused on the news and the mission now that I’d seen a real chink in McKee’s mask, but when Shane pinned me in his gaze, I faltered. He was so intense.
‘What happened?’ he asked, covering the space between us in quick strides.
‘I met your uncle, and someone new.’
‘Who?’ So defensive.
Nope. I couldn’t think about how hot that was. ‘His uncle. Russell.’
Shane squinted towards the school. ‘Why was he there? He should be running the family business.’
‘McKee said he helped identify potential families, but that doesn’t feel right.’
‘You don’t believe him?’
It’s not just a hunch.
You think this is a magical hunch?
I’d bet on it. Spirit is your strongest element.
I hadn’t felt that tugging I had when Shane was up to something. This was more subtle. But then, a lie or a secret was more subtle than a meeting or ransacking an office.
Shane waited, hands in his pockets.
‘I thought it was a gut reaction, but Lyall thinks it’s more.’
Shane and his lynx shared a look. ‘I don’t know Russell well. He lives at the factory, but he came to see me after my accident. I felt uncomfortable. I thought it was the drugs and what he said, but maybe it was a psychic reaction.’
‘Psychic?’ I’d been hesitant to use that kind of word, but he’d put it out there.
‘Another word for a magical nudge, no?’ He sighed. ‘Eugene would have loved it.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s rare. And useful.’
‘Or dangerous.’
‘It can’t hurt you.’
Maybe not. But it told me a lot. If I learned how to use it, and people knew, they’d avoid me. Or worse. But Shane hadn’t.
‘Did you ever get a feeling from me?’
His lips quirked. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You’re trouble. From the start.’
I laughed. Like he wasn’t the same.
Shane stroked my cheek and stepped back, taking his phone out of his pocket. ‘I’ll ask Justin to put a watch on Russell.’ He typed the message. ‘Did they say anything else worth reporting?’
‘Definitely. They suggested I take a DNA test. I declined, but how do they have DNA on file?’
‘Could be from other students they’ve helped, or they could have someone checking the force’s database…’
That’s what I was worried about. Even if Justin was trustworthy, whoever was triggering the throwbacks’ magic had powerful friends to hide it for this long. McKee was looking more and more like a good candidate for this secretive group.
‘Is there anything we can do?’ I hated sitting around, and I didn’t want to leave the WMCF to it. Especially now their own officers might be involved.
Shane’s lynx nudged his hand. ‘Mira’s a genius! We should test throwbacks. Do our own DNA tests.’
That made sense. The families they were linked to were the ones we’d need to investigate. ‘How do we get them to take the swab?’
‘We use something else. Blood, hairs. The WMCF is set up for testing that stuff. Results only take a week or two with dedicated researchers.’
‘We can trust their researchers?’
‘Justin will pick good people.’
Okay, but… ‘How will we get the blood or hair? Witches won’t give it to us.’
Shane grinned.
I sighed, but inside I lit up. Shane knew how to make life interesting. ‘I’ll help, but I’m not doing anything weird, or gross.’
* * *
A week later, and a good number of samples were in the lab. Including the plaster I’d scooped out of the bin from Kaylee’s paper cut. Dumpster diving. So stylish. And Kaylee had no idea. None of them did.
Kaylee checked through her purse.
‘Do you still need to go to that group?’ I asked. She had her answers now, pending the DNA.
Kaylee huffed. ‘My friends go. I’m showing support.’ She shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe you didn’t go the DNA route.’
When had she become so judgemental? ‘I didn’t feel comfortable. Did you ken they’re tracing serial killers from their third or fourth cousins and stuff?’
‘Are you a secret serial killer?’
‘Well, no. It’s the principle of it. My DNA, my business.’ I felt like such a hypocrite. Who knew which WMCF databases she’d be in now?
‘Fine. Whatever. I’m going. McKee has DNA results for a few second-year guys.’ She snapped her purse shut but paused at the door. ‘I hope you reconsider the test. You could find your family overnight.’
‘Maybe.’
Don’t even think about it.
I know! Shut up already.
And do your homework. Your mid-term results could’ve been better. Much better.
Thanks so much, Dad.
‘Bianca?’
‘Aye?’ I thought she’d already left.
‘How often do you have those dreams?’
A shiver tickled my spine. I didn’t think I’d woken her. It’d been months since the last time I woke up crying. ‘Not often.’
Flashes came back. Stealing twenty pounds from Maw’s pay packet so we had enough to eat before she spent the lot on bets and scratch cards. Trying to persuade her that her luck wouldn’t be different this time, this month. Or that one win didn’t mean another was around the corner. And the horror at finding her stash of credit cards with my name on them.
‘Are you okay?’
I waved her off. ‘Fine. Go to your thing.’
She left, but I couldn’t shake it from my mind. So I texted Shane.
‘Want to come over?’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Wanted company.’
‘Leaving now.’
A few minutes later, Shane knocked. ‘Hey.’ He walked inside and sat on my bed. ‘No Kaylee?’
‘She’s out.’
He looked around the room. ‘Did you want to go out?’
‘No.’ I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I didn’t want to be alone.
He caught and squeezed my hands. ‘What’s going on? Did something upset you?’
I sat next to him and stared at my feet. I focused on my breath – in and out – because if I said anyt
hing, the waterworks would start.
Shane put his arm around me. I rested on him, his musky, minty scent surrounding me. My throat clogged. I cursed and pulled away, but he held me.
‘Talk to me.’
Like it was that easy. I never talked about my maw.
Shane tilted my chin until we were only a few inches apart. ‘You can trust me.’
Shit. It wasn’t like it was a big secret. ‘It’s only a dream.’ Tears welled up. I blinked them back.
‘Must be a bad one.’ He smoothed my hair and rubbed the base of my back.
I sniffed, and he put both arms around me, protecting me. And I fell apart. I couldn’t stop crying. Ugly crying, sniffing and choking, but he kept rubbing my back, and that’s exactly what I needed. No solutions. No questions. Only comfort.
Chapter 14
Daria clutched papers to her chest. ‘You’re all making progress. Some of you more than others, or in some elements over others. That’s normal, but you should have an idea where your strengths lie.’
Shane had been more or less right about the order of my elements. Only air and spirit had swapped places, and he couldn’t have known I’d be so strong in spirit.
I looked at his broad back and hid a smile behind my hand. He’d insisted on working with me for every project since we made up. He’d quizzed other students and researched to make sure my spirit strength and my overall power didn’t appear out of place with what the teachers expected from Animalis witches. And after class, he’d coached me in spirit as best he could.
Lyall didn’t even have a snide thing to say since I was doing my homework days ahead of schedule.
Daria walked the rows, placing papers on each person’s desk. She thumbed through the sheets for mine. ‘Good job.’ She raised an eyebrow and then moved on.
Eighty-two percent. Maybe we hadn’t hidden my skills well enough. That was the very high end of what they might expect. ‘Shane?’ I nudged his chair at full stretch.
‘What?’ he mouthed.
I held the sheet and pointed to my score.
‘Good job.’
I tapped the score a few more times, rattling the paper.
‘It’s fine.’
My phone vibrated. I checked it to see: ‘Strong, but not unheard of’. That boy was quick with his fingers, and sneaky. I hadn’t even seen him move for the phone. But if he wasn’t worried, I’d brush it off.
‘Are we seeing Cameron after class?’ We were due another meeting with Justin.
‘No. He’s got ice hockey.’
‘Right.’
Ice hockey was the national sport here, and perfect for blood samples. Cameron didn’t have the ideal build for it, but he was fast, and a good shooter. And it wasn’t like he was trying out for the team.
I envied him. I’d rather pick a fight with a hockey player than root through the bins in the ladies’ toilets, but we each had our strengths. And we’d done well. We almost had the full set of throwbacks for the first two years. The last year and what remained of the other years were standoffish. We’d had to get to them through the groups.
‘Don’t you have a meeting anyway?’ Shane asked. He faced front as Daria spelled out our homework. ‘Don’t be late!’
I locked my screen. The very last thing I wanted after class was a familiar support group meeting, but, stupid me, I’d missed the last one, and this time they were planning a social. I’d get to see Amélie and her older clones for a whole hour. I couldn’t wait to see them go cross-eyed with how hard they tried to look down on me.
‘Come with me.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
Shane turned and rolled his eyes, but I saw him weakening.
* * *
Amélie and the other Cognata stared at the side of my head for the entire car ride into town, barely saying a word. But once we were ensconced in the café with herbal teas and coffee, the silence had to give.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ Amélie said, stirring much-needed sugar into her latte. Though she didn’t touch the biscuit.
‘Why’s that?’ Though I almost hadn’t when Shane said he’d be busy.
‘We thought you’d lost interest. Kaylee said you didn’t test your DNA?’
Kaylee ducked into her drink’s steam. She needed a firmer backbone and to learn when to keep her mouth shut. ‘I have my reasons, none of which I need to explain to you.’
‘But it is odd. Someone like you, refusing the most useful method to find your witch family, however distant the connection might be.’ She scrunched her nose at Lyall.
If only she knew what he was. ‘We all have our own journey, don’t we?’
It was beyond annoying that this bampot was one of the few people I still needed DNA from. No doubt McKee found her at the front of his queue. She’d love boasting about being from a powerful witch family. I hoped she was from a powerless offshoot.
‘Some of us have a much shorter journey than others.’ She frowned. ‘Where did you come from again?’
She talked like the WMCF had dragged me out of a slum on the other side of the world. ‘Scotland.’
‘And your family was absent?’
She was trying for a reaction here, scratching at my rough past. She knew enough to ken it’d hurt. Her minions had that quiet cough giggle going on. They were in on it.
I gritted my teeth. Someone had been talking, and not just about DNA. I hadn’t been close enough, or loud enough, for any of them to overhear in the head’s office. This was all Kaylee.
‘Yes, I was in care until eighteen. But it’s not something I share often.’
‘Oh, word travels. Throwbacks are rare enough to be a talking point, as I’m sure you know. Shane has such interest in them. Perhaps that’s why he’s so close to you?’ She sipped her drink. ‘I can’t see why he’d have much interest otherwise.’
Kaylee pushed her drink away. ‘Stop, Amélie. I asked you to be nice.’
‘Oh, so you need to ask her?’ So much for good coffee. It’d taste like dishwater with this company. I stood. ‘I’m not here for you to mock me.’
Amélie shrugged. ‘Then leave.’
Kaylee stared into her tea like that could save her.
‘Really?’
She wasn’t going to say anything else. Some friend. When had these people become the ones she sided with, the ones she shared my secrets with, despite her knowing I didn’t like them? If her familiar was different, they wouldn’t want anything to do with her. And that was a terrible foundation for a friendship.
‘Do us all a favour and leave.’ Amélie crossed her arms. Her minions backed her, staring me down.
The bell over the door rang behind me, as if calling me back to the academy. Not much point staying where I wasn’t wanted. I’d get little chance for a DNA sample with them treating me like this anyway. But, two steps to the bar, I got a terrible idea. I needed Amélie’s DNA, and she’d given me the perfect excuse. Grinning, I walked right up to her and punched her pretty nose flat.
‘Putain de merde!’ Her hands flew to her nose, her words muffled by blood.
So satisfying. I turned over my knuckles and grabbed a tissue from the bar to wipe the blood. I’d only just shoved it in my pocket when Kaylee wrenched me around. So now she was on the warpath. Yep, our friendship was as done as burnt toast.
‘You didn’t need to do that,’ she said.
‘You pick your times to complain. You had to ken this might be an ambush. And you know I won’t let them treat me like dog shit.’
‘I’ve been trying to persuade you not to come to meetings, to deal with McKee instead. Not only because of Amélie. You have a better chance of finding answers with McKee, if you try. But you won’t listen.’
‘Shit, Kaylee.’
The pleading in her eyes undid me. She actually believed these people were her friends. I threw money on the bar for the meal I didn’t get to eat, and double-checked the tissue was in my pocket. It was safe. And that was the last fi
rst year off my list. Shame I had to strike a friend off along with it.
‘She’s bleeding a lot. You should apologise.’
‘Not happening.’ Now I had Amélie’s DNA, I’d leave her group of bigots to their own devices. And I’d ask for a new room when the next term started. I couldn’t share a room with someone who exchanged my secrets for friendship.
‘Don’t do it for her,’ Kaylee said. ‘Her friends have clout, and so do their families. They’ll cause trouble over this.’
I shrugged. Kaylee may be scared to say anything against these entitled bampots, but I wasn’t. ‘She can do her worst.’
* * *
Shane came by my room late, long after Kaylee had fallen into bed and asleep. I cracked the door a few inches. What had he done for the last two hours? His sample run was supposed to be fast.
‘Do you have it?’ he asked.
‘Where’ve you been?’ I’d been half asleep when he said he was on his way.
‘My witch wasn’t on campus.’
‘Were they as obnoxious as Amélie?’
‘Well, I didn’t break his nose.’ He reached for my hand and checked the knuckles, but I knew how to punch. ‘Are you trying to live up to your nickname?’
‘Got to live up to the hype.’ I took the tissue from my jumper pocket and stuffed it into his hand. ‘Here. Take it.’ I checked on Kaylee, but she was still asleep, turned away from the door. When I looked back, he’d secreted the tissue away.
‘I’m glad you’re happy, because you’re out of action until Amélie gets over her swollen nose.’
‘Justin benched me?’ I grabbed my phone but had no new messages. He’d sent Shane to deliver the news, the coward. I opened a message to him. He needed to know how much that girl deserved what she got. The glee she took in hurting people. It didn’t get me off the sidelines – at least not officially – but it’d stop him lecturing me next time I saw him.
‘I know she’s a bitch, but punching her brings too much attention. She knows people.’
‘That’s what Kaylee said.’
‘Bee, you need to take this seriously. She won’t let it blow over without a fight.’ He pushed my phone down and searched my face.
He’d not find concern. ‘What happens will happen. I’ll deal with it.’ I’d dealt with plenty of people like her, and they didn’t listen to words. They needed fast, physical punishment.