I feel as if I’ve grown to four times my size, like every eye—especially Tyrus’s—is on me and he’ll point me out any second. The heat in the gym congregates to my cheeks, and sweat accumulates in my armpits. I fight the urge to break for one of the doors. We never should have gone. I knew it. It was so foolhardy. The tears in my pocket vibrate, and I grab them through my jeans.
Ren is back at my house, but is Devin here? I can’t see him. Before I know what’s going on, the bleachers groan. The kids around me rise to their feet. Like an elephant stampede, feet pound loudly with every descent until we all stand on the yellow court. I try to contain myself, to remain still and calloused like the majority of students around me.
Doors clamor open and purple-handed, brown-suited men and women file in, lining up along the walls of the gym until they decorate every edge. Blocking us in. Trapping us. The Xians at each of their belts tap their claws with subtle yet stabbing click click noises.
Mic in hand, Tyrus moves toward a cart being wheeled in by a shorter woman in the brown cargo clothing. I recognize the cart as something used to support a vid player, but in place of a screen it holds a single, polished-white cement block lying on its side.
“No one leaves the room.” He gestures to the white contraption. “Insert your hands into the machine. If you pass, you have nothing to fear. If not…” He doesn’t finish, though I’m sure we all know the answer.
There isn’t so much as a scar on my palm from the BVIDs, but no doubt, that machine somehow checks. Maybe I can stash the tears, roll them under the bleachers. Put them in someone else’s backpack. Nah. That will give me away for sure. After last night and this morning, I won’t be able to hide the pain of separation.
Linnie Higgins, with her short-cropped pants and boy haircut, is the first to approach the machine. Tyrus speaks to her, but into the mic as well so we’re all sure to understand.
“Insert your hands here. You will receive a painless scan.”
Linnie tucks her hands into the opening. Ribbons of black tether come to life and clasp her wrists. She gives an uncomfortable noise and fidgets, but light blooms beneath her wrists and moves slowly upward, scanning her palms.
The line trickles forward. Every step is torture. My mind has a hard time staying still, as does my body. I force my legs to stiffen, though I know I can’t do that or I’ll pass out. To make matters worse, the tears in my front pocket shake as if they’re scared. Ridiculous things.
Weston Berland is next. Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck, he puts his hands on the scanner. The tethers wrap around his wrists. The light, instead of moving smoothly beneath his hands, pauses and glows brighter. Weston screams. He yanks and pulls, trying to free himself, but the bindings around his wrists are secure.
I bite at my nails. Weston, you were there? How come I didn’t see you? Again, I glance around for Devin. Ren made it out okay—but maybe Devin got caught.
Almost as a natural reaction, I search inside of me, the way I’ve been taught at home and in grade school. I dig for my magic, but as before, a gust blows through me, an empty, magicless vapor in my veins, reminding me of the fact that I must be the only Itharian human born without magic. Not that I can find it with the Prone activated, but I still try.
In his struggles to free himself, Weston’s shirt lifts, revealing a sparkling head-shaped tattoo at the right corner of his back.
I get a flash of the nymph’s face telling Gwynn and me to wait our turns. That tattoo alone is proof enough he was there last night. The lines of the head spark with a silver glow.
By the angels. Weston is using magic through the tattoo, even though it’s blocked from usage at school. How can that be? Is that tattoo outside the reaches of the Prone? That must be why magitats are illegal, and why Wes is able to send a pulsing charge of lustrous magic to the center of the room.
The silver lightning crackles into Tyrus. The Arcaian’s arms windmill as if he slipped on ice. He slams onto his back. Smoke simmers from his chest.
Several soldiers peel away from the wall toward their leader. Tyrus pushes himself from the gym floor, raises a hand to stop them, and signals forward.
“Check him!” he cries, coughing.
A towering black soldier who’s already halfway to Weston detaches the Xian from his belt. My head turns light, my ears ring and panic kicks in. I don’t want to see this.
“No!” Weston shouts, but Big Guy stabs the Xian into his leg. Wes writhes and several girls scream. Wes’s hands are released from the tethers, and he crumples to the floor, his body slumped. He dry-sobs and splutters, but no tears escape from his eyes.
Two other soldiers appear at Big Guy’s side. The Xian glows—a sign that Weston’s magic is no longer his—and they drag his wilted body behind the bleachers, abandoning the door at which they were posted.
Suddenly a boy named Liam bolts for the unguarded door at a full sprint. His hands are stiff, his face hard and determined. Liam was there too? I didn’t see either of them.
“Get him!”
“No!” I can’t help yelling. And I’m not the only one. I don’t want to watch it again. Not another friend. Not anyone.
More screams follow. The majority of students stand stock-still like statues. One or two kids flounder, hugging each other, obviously wondering what to do. One of the larger jocks jumps the Arc pulling the Xian to use on Liam. And before I know it, the smell of leather stuffs over my mouth, a hand slips across my waist, and I’m being dragged below the bleachers.
Waves of confusion and excitement crash in. It’s him. I recognize his messy blond hair, the long scar at his jaw, the square line of his face, and those deep, unsmiling eyes. A shiver ripples through me and then I bristle, remembering how he stabbed and then ditched me. Refused to even tell me his name.
“What are you doing here?” I ask through the loosened grip of his hand. He wears the trademark Arcaian cargo pants and short-sleeved shirt. A Xian hangs at his belt. His scars shout at me, and my breath traps in my throat.
He pushes me against a beam in the back of the bleachers and moves his hand from my mouth to my wrist.
“I knew it, Mr. Dangerous Information. You are an Arc!” I try to writhe free, but his fire-hot grip is like a crab claw. In seconds, a wavering golden string surrounds our silhouettes, just the way Ren did back in the street. I tingle with defiance. Whatever it is, I can barely hear the commotion going on behind him outside the bleachers. This boy’s exaggerated breaths mingle with mine. He smells like sweat, dirt, and the slight, warm hint of cinnamon.
“Why did you even help me last night? Why did you let me go?” I wiggle some more, which moves him about as much as if I blew on him.
“Shut up and stop struggling,” he says. “I need the tears.”
I pin my eyes to his. My thoughts incline to the direction of my pocket, and for a moment I forget my fury. I wonder how he even knows I have them.
“That’s what this is all about? Tears?”
“I analyzed every student while Tyrus was talking. You never took your hand from a lump in your pocket. You continued biting either your lips or your fingernails and you wouldn’t hold still. Fortunately for you, Tyrus is a futz, otherwise he never would have had to go through with this ridiculous search. Your actions were incriminating enough.”
Who is this kid? He can’t be any older than I am, yet he speaks with such authority and demand. A rough gleam lies in his eyes.
“I’m ready for them now. The tears.”
“You’re ready for them?”
His expression remains hard.
“Are you saying all that talk about being somewhere illegal or whatever, the attack last night, it’s all for these?” Without thinking, I pull them from my pocket. His silence is as good as a confirmation. “There were two other jars in that box. Why didn’t they go after those?”
Maybe they did. Have they found Gwynn? Is she okay?
“Look,” he says with forced patience. “I’ve got things to do, and un
fortunately they require having those in my possession. I could kill you and take them, but instead I’ve delayed to ensure your safety. Twice now, actually. If I’d known you had them last night…”
“You want them? You’ll have to take them from me.” I tuck my hand into my pocket and jerk away, trying once more to break free.
Before I know it I’m face-down on the nasty gym floor, my arms bent in awkward, pretzel-y ways. I feel hands or something brace along my back, holding me while another makes its way to my pocket. The jar is gone and I’m lifted back up. I stumble against the cement block wall.
“That was easy,” he says, slinging a lumpy pack over his shoulder. The minute he releases me, the golden outline around us fades, and sound pours back in. Every step he takes away from me beats at my ribs as if chipping the bone one hum at a time. The tears are practically begging me.
His forehead furrows, and he pauses, looking down at the jar as if he’s never seen one before. His confused gaze rises to me.
“You can’t just take them!” I shout. He doesn’t understand. They might be useless to me, but I know I can’t be away from them. The jar shimmers in his fingerless-gloved hand.
“I suggest you run for it,” he says, jogging out the side exit. Sunlight shoots through the door in the brief moment it’s open.
I curse under my breath and follow him, stepping carefully over and around the steel beams in the crawlspace under the bleachers. Even though I’m too late by the time I reach the heat of the sun, I know in exactly in which direction he’s gone. The tears seem to squawk at me. The pain in my skull won’t go away.
The quiet outside is so different from the tumult inside the gym, but I stand there, staring past the grassy field, mind blank. Not having much choice, I run the entire way home. Ren was home this morning; maybe he’ll still be there. He’ll know what to do.
The house is silent, but that’s not unusual. Mom volunteers with the healers at the hospital during the day, and Dad is at the hotel. He mans the front desk of the Cadeht Country Inn. I clobber my way upstairs, feeling panicked.
“Ren?”
I wait. Peek inside his room, then my parents’. Dad’s reading glasses lie skiwomped on his bedside table. “Ren?”
“Down here,” he answers from somewhere below. My guess is the kitchen. I sigh, releasing the panic.
“Why didn’t you say as much?” I mumble.
The tears are nearby—I can sense it. I feel a twinge in their direction.
The more I think about it, I can’t figure out what the big deal is. For not just Arcaian soldiers, but Tyrus Blinnsdale himself to come here in search of them. It’s weird—I almost ache for them. I want them back. And they want me to get them.
A loud, muffled bang erupts from below, followed by a breaking crash. My heart skids.
“Get off me!” says Ren’s strained voice.
I bolt to the mouth of the stairs. My front door is blown off its hinges. Shards of wood speckle along the cream carpet along with glass from the side window. Before I can wonder what’s going on, three soldiers are dragging Ren over the debris toward the opening. He wriggles and struggles against them, but they keep hold.
My pulse explodes in my ears. “No!”
I want to run, to shove them away and free Ren, but in all reality, I can’t do anything except get caught myself. My head whirls, and before I can even think, two more bodies crash through the opening where my front door used to be. One of them is Green Eyes. Angels, what is he doing here?
He fights the other man in a strategic, lethal-looking dance. His face holds purpose, not fear, and his severe eyes never leave his opponent who is dressed likewise in a brown uniform. They move quickly against each other, arms attacking like natural reflexes, blocking, catching, filled with destruction.
The Arc dodges a hit and swerves, grabbing my mom’s lamp and striking Green Eyes—who has to be at least ten years younger than the Arc—knocking him to the ground. Green Eyes doesn’t flinch but takes the opportunity to kick up his legs and lock the Arc’s head between his ankles, deftly twisting. He does a sort of backwards flop that lands him on his feet before the Arc sags lifelessly down to the floor.
My nails dig into the stair banister. “By the angels!” I say. “How did you do that?”
His arms drop to his sides. He pants, and blood drips down his cheek—again on Mom’s cream carpet—but otherwise I can hardly tell he was just battling for his life.
“Pack some clothes,” he says, panting and not looking at me. “Quickly! There’ll be more, so we don’t have much time. One of them must have seen me with you.”
“They took my brother,” I say, my thoughts patching out. “They took…my brother.”
The tears’ thrumming at my neck grows more intense, and before I can say anything the boy is at the top of the stairs, thrusting the tiny jar back into my hands.
“These things wouldn’t let me rest until I came back for you. I must have led these guys to you or something.” A thin layer of sweat glistens on his stern face, and a dark shiver licks up my spine.
The tears sing relief into my bones, soothing the heaviness and the ache, but I still can’t think. “You led them here?” Sense kicks back in and I shove him. “They took Ren because of you!”
He locks my wrists in his fists. I struggle, but his voice is shockingly gentle. “I didn’t know they were going to take your brother.”
I stare at him.
His brow softens slightly. “Looks like you’re coming with me.”
I plant my feet. “Why should I?” Mr. Jerkface Tears-Stealer.
“What?”
“I don’t even know who you are! Or what you meant about these.” I lift the jar. Some inward trickling thing comes through it, down my arm and into my chest, like it belongs with me. The feeling settles in as though into a hot bath after a long day. “And—Ren! They took him. You just let them take him!”
“Look,” he says, shifting his weight and resting a gloved hand on his hip. In the better lighting I see more scars, not only on his face, but along his neck and muscled arms, including a long one just below his bleeding ear. He opens his mouth to say more, but glances out the gap where my front door was.
“Vreck.” He grabs my arm, towing me down the stairs and outside in time to shove another oncoming Arc out of the way. The brown-clad man stumbles backward. Green Eyes sneaks a hit to the throat, and then he rounds and jabs his fingers against the man’s chest. Spriggets of electricity surge from Green Eyes’ fingertips, and the man’s body jerks from the impact. The blood leaves my face; cold slashes at my skin in the heat of the sun. He’s dead.
A black vehicle is parked halfway on the grass, and Green Eyes throws open the door and rams me into the backseat.
“Hey!” I slide onto the hot leather and flip around, fully intending to eject myself. Instead, I get another eyeful of my rescuer taking on two more Arcaian soldiers. He ducks a blow and whirls around on one foot, extending the other to knock both men out of the way long enough for him to get into the driver’s side. Breathing like mad, he cranks the vehicle to life.
Thoughts whir. The one Arc is pushing to his feet. More of them run toward us. It’s either stay with Psycho, or hand myself over to tyrants.
I slam the door as Green Eyes whips the vehicle back in a fast, circular motion and speeds down the road toward the pre-col school.
"What was that?” I ask, not entirely sure which part I’m even referring to.
“Next time,” he says, not panting quite as hard, “when I tell you to come, you come. No questions asked. If you’re going to be with me, you’re going to do as I say.”
I fumble my way up into the passenger seat, shaking so hard it’s a wonder I’m able to focus on anything else at all.
“I didn’t ask to come with you,” I say in a rush, trying to figure him out. I don’t know who he is or whether he’s someone I can trust. He just killed someone. Yeah, it was in self-defense, but still, why would he kill a fellow
soldier? “And where is my brother? Are you taking me to him?”
“No. I’m not worried about your brother right now.”
“Of course not. You Arcs just take people without even caring.”
“I’m not an Arc.” His attention breaks from the road for a second.
“You’re dressed like one.”
He turns at the stoplight onto the thruway entrance. “If you need to be angry at anything, be angry at the jar in your hand. If it hadn’t been for those ranxid tears I would’ve left you alone.”
“Right. A jar of tears told you to kidnap me.” Except…did they? They said my name back in my room. I wouldn’t be surprised if they somehow told him what to do.
“I told you plain and simple. I need those tears. I tried to leave, but the ranxid things wouldn’t stop vibrating and complaining. I could swear they were chanting your name, and they kept burning me. They wouldn’t stop until I got them into your hands.”
I fold my arms, trying to slow my breath. My limbs quake, but he’s pitching an argument I can’t contest.
“My name is Talon.” His accent makes it sound like Tah-lon.
“Talon, woo,” I say, ducking my head under my trembling hands. “Am I going to get attacked now because I know it?”
He glares at me.
“Did you think about things before you decided to kidnap me? Like what about my parents? They’re going to be alarmed when I’m not there. Especially since Ren will be missing, too.”
“They’ll see the evidence and think the Arcaians took both of you. I’m not worried.”
My pulse hounds like a boot kick against my skin. “But aren’t you—?”
“I told you, I’m not an Arc.”
“Then who are you?”
“I just told you.”
This kid is infuriating, but the tears seem to purr in my grip. The feeling is oddly comforting, and I loosen up a bit.
Such A Secret Place (Stolen Tears Book 1) Page 7