Justin’s eyes narrowed. “You’re always going to miss your mom. A party isn’t going to change that.”
“It’s not the party I’m worried about, it’s getting off track.”
“What track?” Justin asked in a way that didn’t require an answer. “Nothing you’ve ever done in your life is that bad, Pilot. Sex, pot, pills, parties… as long as you’re not hurting anyone, you’re allowed to experience life.”
“It’s not that simple,” Pilot said, thinking back to the last few conversations he had with his mom. He had gotten a girl pregnant, and his mom had to fix it. In that last month, she had never been so disappointed with him.
“What’s complicated about it?” Justin asked.
“Sometimes those things do hurt people,” he said. He remembered one of the last things his mom ever spoken to him, before she’d left on another business trip. What if someone had knocked up your sister? What if she had to go to the doctor to get an abortion?
The girl he had slept with was fifteen, the same age as Brie.
“Just think about it,” Justin repeated. “It’s on Friday. It could be fun. You can bring your sister too, I’ll keep an eye on her.” He smirked.
Pilot chose to ignore him. Justin had officially flipped his jerk switch, reminding him that no matter how smart the guy could be sometimes, he would always need to keep him at arm’s length.
“I’ll think about it,” Pilot said.
Maybe Justin was right. Maybe he did need to get his life back, have a little fun.
And maybe Justin was right about taking the pills, too.
Chapter 8 - Brie
Brie arrived at the school just as the lunch bell rang, thankfully. At least one thing had gone in her favor that day.
As she walked to her next class, her head spun with the information Clara and Cora had given her. On the one hand, what they had said added up—after all, she had seen her own powers, had felt them coursing through her own veins. On the other hand, how did she know she could trust them? And why were they keeping things from her? When they had been present and speaking to her directly, everything had seemed plausible. It had seemed to make sense. Now, as she looked back on the conversation, she had to question whether they knew what was best for her or if they had simply gotten to her first. After all, the blonde girl was running from her, from them, not the other way around. She didn’t quite know what that meant, but she knew she needed to find out.
She entered the classroom and noticed Rykken sitting toward the middle of the rows. She felt his eyes following her as she walked between the desks, but when she looked up, he quickly averted them to his textbook.
But she didn’t know anyone else in the class. So when she reached the row of desks next to him, she sat down awkwardly. “Hey,” she said casually, hoping Rykken couldn’t hear her heart thumping against her rib cage.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You made it.”
She didn’t know what to say; she had forgotten that he had witnessed her insane chase across the campus. Her cheeks burned with humiliation. She didn’t want to think about what he saw when he looked at her—spoiled? Reckless? A terrible sister?
“I didn’t know we had a class together.”
“Me either.” Rykken stared intensely in her direction and she avoided his eyes. Without even looking at them directly, she could still picture them—a natural almond shape, with a rich umber tone to the irises, like hot caramel.
She glanced over for a split-second against her will. He looked confused by her reaction, but she couldn’t seem to form words in his presence. His eyebrows met in a straight line in the center of his head. “So… where did you go?”
She shrugged her shoulders and ducked her head so he couldn’t see how he was affecting her. He was making her nervous because he seemed nervous himself.
The teacher walked in and started class, saving her from answering his question. She opened her notebook to take notes, but as the class went on, she barely heard a word her teacher said. She found herself inking in the small gap between the two pink lines that separated the margin from the writing space. She went line by line, filling in every other rectangle, skipping a line in between each. Then, she started free flow writing, pulling random words and lines from her subconscious, which usually calmed her down.
She could feel Rykken breathing softly next to her, could practically hear him trying to solve her in his mind. Her stomach twisted with dread; she had a feeling Rykken wouldn’t let go of his question about her whereabouts. He would corner her after class and demand that she told him where she had gone. And then, he would rat her out to her brother.
When the class ended, she bolted out of her seat so she could be the first one out the door and hopefully disappear into the sea of students in the hallways, before Rykken could catch up to her.
“Brie!” she heard him call out. Blood rushed through her body as she dodged between two students, hoping the halls would fill up before he could reach her.
“Brie, you left your notebook.”
She stopped, torn between not wanting him to have her notebook, and not wanting to get interrogated by him.
You should talk to him anyway, a small voice in her head said. Avoiding her brother’s best buddy wasn’t going to stop him from telling said brother what he’d seen earlier that day. She was the only one who could convince him not to.
She turned around slowly, facing Rykken as he cut across hallway traffic to reach her.
“You left this in class,” he said breathlessly. “What is it? A poetry book or something?”
Oh, no, she thought, mortified. “Did you read my notebook?"
“Not purposely,” he said, holding up a page. “This just fell out.”
She took the piece of paper from his hand.
She was a winter violet
He burned orange like the sun
And when she tried to bloom for him he knew it wasn’t done
“Who is this about?” he asked. He seemed genuinely curious, but she still felt upset that he had read her notebook at all, even if it wasn’t his fault. Her cheeks grew hot. She couldn’t believe she had been so careless.
“Old boyfriend?” he asked hesitantly.
“No,” she said quickly, because she definitely didn’t want that to get back to her brother. He wasn’t exactly pleasant to her potential suitors, and usually scared them away before they could even ask her out.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend. Not a real one, anyway.” She shrugged uncomfortably. She didn’t know why Rykken was asking about this. She didn’t know why his full attention on her was making her so nervous again. “It’s just a… a love story,” she explained, reading through the words on the paper again. "A sad one.”
His eyes narrowed, but not unkindly. “It has a good ending, doesn’t it?”
She frowned. “She never becomes what he deserves,” she pointed out.
“But he never stops loving her. He never gives up.”
“They’re just lyrics,” she said, pulling the notebook from his hands and stuffing the piece of paper between the folds. “I have journals full of them. None of them mean anything. They’re like… doodles.”
His eyes followed her, like this somehow fascinated him. “How many songs have you written?”
“None,” she admitted. “I see… little scenes dancing in my head. Specific emotions and colors. I can’t explain them exactly—I just try to describe them on paper. But I don’t know how to write songs, not like my dad. These are more like snippets, seconds suspended in time. I never finish them.”
She didn’t know why she was explaining this to him. She had never explained it to anyone else, but Rykken seemed so interested, it had just rolled out of her.
“Maybe you should finish them,” he said softly.
“Maybe.”
She looked up, realizing that the hallway was thinning out, and they were nearly the only two who hadn’t made any progress toward their next classes. “Listen,” she said. �
��You and I both know that Pilot will kill me if he finds out that I cut school at lunch.”
“About that,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. He seemed serious now, all business, completely different from just a second earlier. “Are you going to tell me where you went? Who that blonde girl was?”
“She was nobody,” Brie said. “And I—it was stupid. I’ve been having a tough day—“
“Because of the Zoey Fromme story?” he asked.
“Exactly,” she said, trying not to blush. It was incredibly embarrassing that he knew about that… and if he knew, Pilot had surely heard too. "I just wanted to get away, you know? So I got lunch off campus with a few cool girls I met.”
He pursed his lips, watching her. “It seemed like you were chasing someone.”
She still wasn’t sure exactly what Clara did, but she wondered if she could get Clara to completely wipe this day from Rykken’s memories… if only to keep her from wondering if he was thinking about her chest.
“I—I don’t know who she was,” Brie admitted. “But you told her that you thought you knew her.” Rykken’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.
“What did you mean by that?” she asked, now curious.
He was silent for a moment, as if he had to think his answer over. Finally, he spoke. “She looked familiar, but only because she looked like you.” He shifted uncomfortably, adjusting his backpack.
Brie frowned, confounded by this information. Her own blonde doppelganger? “She was no one,” she reassured him. “It was just a coincidence that she was there at the same time.” She paused, looking down. “I was wondering if you could just… not mention it to Pilot?"
Now it was Rykken’s turn to frown. “I’m not going to lie to you brother for you.”
“Not a lie,” Brie said. “Look, no one knows that I left, and Pilot already worries about me so much. What’s the point of him worrying about this, too?”
A warning bell signaled to them that they had a minute left to get to their next classes.
Rykken sighed. “I won’t tell anyone.” He looked worried. “If you’re in trouble—“
“I’m not,” she said quickly. Her face flushed as she shook her head. “I’m sorry I made you late to class.”
Rykken shook his head. “You can always talk to me, Brie.”
The way he said her name gave her both a jittery stomach and chilled skin at the same time. “Thanks for this. And thanks for returning my notebook.”
Before he could say anything else, she turned and walked in the other direction, hoping she was trusting the right people.
As she walked to her next class, she replayed everything that Rykken had said. She needed to know more about the blonde girl still. Someone who looked like her, like her mother? It was too much to be a coincidence.
She was more sure now than ever that blonde girl had the answers she was looking for.
Chapter 9 - Pilot
Milena walked up the steps toward the club with the huge neon sign, Trinitas. She stood in line, waiting for the bouncer to let her through.
Each person in the line before her pressed his or her index finger to a pad the bouncer was holding. He nodded once, letting each of them in, one after the other.
When Milena reached the front of the line, she pressed her finger to the pad ever so carefully, making sure that not a drop of her own blood escaped. She wore a thin layer under her finger, pre-filled with the blood of another.
The bouncer nodded her in.
She made her way through the club, past the front bar lined with stools and seedy men, each one who turned to leer at her, looking her up and down with obviousness.
She passed the booths where people were drinking, laughing, and having a good time.
She took the stairs down, walked past another two bars, through another weave of booths, until she reached a second bouncer.
“I need an audience with a hunter,” she told him—as she always did, every single night.
His mom separated from him, jumping in front of him. She turned around, making eye contact with him. “We need to find Sigh Reh Nah,” she whispered.
She charged ahead of him, and he ran after her down the winding and twisted hallways. He knew what was coming next, if he couldn’t keep up. He knew she would disappear on him.
“Wait!” he called after her. “Mom, stop, please!” He pushed himself, forcing his legs forward. “Don’t leave me,” he begged her.
She turned again, laughing. “Follow me,” she commanded.
“I can’t,” he told her. “You’re running too fast, I can’t keep up.”
“You have to follow if you wish to lead,” she told him playfully. He hadn’t seen her eyes light up like that in real life for so long, he knew he had to be dreaming.
“I don’t know what that means,” he told her.
She shrugged her shoulders, just as she always did. She started running again, and he pushed himself after her, though it felt like he was pushing against a torrential wind to get to her.
He thought back to what Justin had said earlier that day. Trust me, you need to get rid of these dreams.
“Just tell me why,” he yelled after her angrily, as she pulled ahead of him, so close to disappearing into the darkness again. “Why do I keep dreaming about you? How do I let you go?” He stood up, opening his mouth wider. “How do I make it stop?”
“Stop?” she repeated, as if she was confused. Her voice dipped to a whisper. “Do not fear the unveiling, my son.”
He shot up in his bed, his sheets and pillowcase damp from his sweat. Every portion of his dream was the same as it ever was, except for the last part.
Do not fear the unveiling, my son.
Unveiling of what?!
He was officially freaked out, now.
He threw his comforter and sheets off, completely awake. He walked into his attached private bathroom and twisted some knobs in the shower. He stripped down completely, stepped in, and let the lukewarm water run over his face and head for a minute.
Do not fear the unveiling, my son.
He felt absolutely crazy, puzzling over seven simple words. He had gone through his dream so many times, over and over again, to the point where he had it memorized. It played out in the same vivid detail every few nights and always ended before his mom reached her destination.
He always lost sight of her.
And neither of them had ever gone off-script, until now.
The unveiling… the unveiling of what?
He finished soaping and rinsing himself and turned the water off. He reached for a towel, wrapping it around his waist as he stepped over to the mirror.
He had given up trying to interpret the dreams before, but this new information had completely blown his mind.
He could control the dream… he could maybe even reach the end destination in it,... if he could only figure out the right questions to ask his mother.
It was like there were locked boxes within boxes. He just needed to use the right keys to go deeper.
Or… maybe it was like Justin said, and he was reading way too much into all of this. Maybe he was giving over his mind to something that he had made up entirely by himself. Maybe the whole thing was just a coping mechanism, a way of keeping his mother around, even though she was gone forever.
He wanted it to be a message from his mom… one last message, one last connection to her.
Justin had called it.
He was attached to the dreams.
He hated them… and he needed them.
Like an addict.
He stared at his blurry-eyed face in the mirror, searching for answers, and secretly, deep down, knowing what he was going to do.
He slowly, opened the medicine cabinet where he had hidden the pills earlier that day. He pulled out the small, yellow, unlabeled container, uncapping it, and slowly tipped it toward the toilet.
Each small white pill slid out, landing with soft plunks in the toilet bowl, until the contain
er was empty.
He tossed the container in his trash can and flushed the toilet.
Chapter 10 - Thessa
“Speak lightly,” she said, hiding behind one of the massive pillars in the Great Library. It wasn’t a secure connection, and with so many people around, she never knew who was listening in.
“Why are you still there?” Clara asked. “We need you. Now. Her powers are coming in, and she’s strong, Thessa. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Thessa sighed, her eyes peeling across every inch of space around her. She had been a young Hallow when this library was built, and a little over 300 years old when it was moved underground. She was far more skilled at evading watchful eyes than others of her kind, but the Great Library held so many nooks and secrets. She did not want anyone to know she was there.
“Hello? Thessa, are you hearing me? Kind of need you right now.”
She forced herself to refocus on her hysterical daughter. “She will have to wait a few more days for my return. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not the only problem we have,” Clara said.
“Oh?”
“Her aunt is here. She came to the school, and she saw her.”
Thessa pursed her lips. “Well, I suppose that’s not surprising.”
“And there may be someone else here… I’m not sure. There were markings that didn’t make sense to me.”
“I won’t be much longer,” Thessa said. “A few days. You can handle this situation for a few more days. Just… watch her. Keep her secured.”
“No, we need you. We can’t train her without you, and if there’s someone else who knows about her—”
“I know,” Thessa said. She sighed again. “But the two of you can protect her for now. Si—” She paused. “Her aunt is not a threat to her. She’s likely just curious. And even if there is one other, you and your sister are strong. You can protect her. It’s just a few more days.”
Clara didn’t respond. “What am I missing?” she finally asked. “What could possibly be more important than this?” She paused again. “Or is Vega making you stay? Thessa, if he’s holding you hostage, I can come to get—”
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