Orion

by Cyndi Goodgame

  I’d never been to Summerville. Now, I was traveling seventy miles per hour towards a place I’ve heard is nothing but trouble, and I would be meeting, most likely one of the troublemakers. The students have spoken about Vampires, Weres, Hunters, and Valkyries all showing up there. Why would they take the students into the supposed cesspool of evil if we were all the bad guys?

  “What are you thinking?” Calum broke up my thoughts. I felt the hairs on the nape of my neck stand up at his touch to my hand for the second time in an hour.

  “About tonight.”

  He tightened his hand on mine not intending pain, but it was always there with his touch. “The theatre has a balcony. The movies are old classics, but sometimes that’s more of a laugh than today’s “too real” flicks and chicks stuff.”

  “Flicks and chicks?”

  “You know, terrorism, doom and gloom, and fairy tale lives that will either never happen, or everyone spends their life away trying to prepare for.”

  “So philosophical.”

  “Only around you.”

  “Why are you so afraid for others to find out you’re intelligent?”

  He hesitated, looked around the bus at his friends hooting and hollering at girls riding in the cars driving past, “I just know they need someone who is strong and in control.”

  “Intelligence is in control.”

  “Not to a Hunter. Girls can wave on the fence, but we,” he motioned to himself, “have to uphold a certain “macho-ness” or we sink to the bottom.”

  After being there another week, I’d seen enough to know he was right. Unfortunately. But things could change.

  We were almost to the city. “Where will we eat?”

  “A local little diner called The Hot Spot. It’s great.”

  I looked out the window again, watching the national forest signs blur into the trees and disappear. We'd just passed the national forest center for controlling the destruction of trees. I was enthralled with all the extremely tall branchy gods out the window and worried right then why anyone would destroy them. They were like giants watching over us as we destroy ourselves and each other. At least it felt like that within the factions.

  “Ah! Summerville, here we are,” his voice floated through the air.

  I watched as we drove into a narrow four-cornered street block with people of all ages walking in every direction. I’d never seen that many people out just walking unless it was in the city. I’ve been to New York, London, and Paris, but this was a little small town in nowhere America. Our faction was located farther in than any other by being centrally located in the center of the North American states in the heart of Gem City, Ohio. It is why the main faction courts remain there. Our people came long ago from Europe, but that’s a really long history ago. Denmark originally. My father worked hard to bring the Danish ways into this court when he became lord. He left his native country with my mom because she was asked to come to America to lead the faction, but died. There wasn’t a language she couldn’t speak. Finnish was just as used in the European court and preferred by my father, so to me they were interchangeable and that always made my brother mad. Just the reason I did it so often, maybe.

  Though father escorted me everywhere to shield me from society, I knew a little more now, in some respects, why. The factions should work it out. And humans should be told even if it causes a revolution. We shouldn’t have to hide. The world could be cruel and unforgiving. Only after you’re dead, they still won’t accept you as different.

  The bus pulled up to the middle of the downtown area the others kept calling “the square”. Everyone started exiting the bus in single file listening to the noise of the bowling alley directly across from the bus. The roar of excitement lured in the air. I wanted secretly to vomit from knowing what danger lurked, but the warrior princess in me would never let it show to anyone.

  Heading down the main street towards the theatre, I was surveying my directional compass as to where things were. I heard some of the kids motion to the laser tag building in one direction. Many were headed there first. I found the theatre easy, the “Hot Spot” was next door to it, and the library was…nowhere that I could see. I would have to ask. In a crowd of this many people, you’d think on a night like this, they’d be full of happiness and joy. But I sensed fear all over the place in every direction.

  “Where is the local school from here, in town or on the outskirts?” I asked to appear like making conversation.

  He pointed off to the right, “Up there, about a half mile.”

  “The library?”

  “Right behind the theatre.”

  What luck?

  I waited just inside while Calum bought the tickets. He never seemed to be short on money. I looked around at the soft velvety red walls with fake stars on the ceiling. Not constellations, but still pretty awesome.

  Kids and teenagers filed in packs along the walls waiting to get into the screening rooms. Calum put his arms around my waist and pulled me to the screen room labeled, “Dracula.”

  “Violence, anyone?” Derrick passed by us with Shell. Lee was beside him with Christin. Why did Derrick seem so attentive to Maze earlier, but here with Shell? They switched couples rather quickly. And she is too nice for him. Both girls were back to shy I noticed. Must be in front of guys that makes them gel up.

  The six of us took the back stairway up to the balcony. We situated in the corner, presumably for privacy, and stacked our popcorn and other snacks all around us. With the armrests up, I watched as Shell scooted in closer to Derrick and seemed to be sharing more of one seat, rather than two.

  I glanced at Calum in the seat beside me against the wall and attempted to read him enough to know if he meant for me to do the same.

  We silently, nervously agreed to sit side by side munching on the same bucket of popcorn. No sharing soda though like Shell and Derrick seemed to be.

  I leaned up pretending to adjust my legs to spy on Lee and Christin’s seating arrangement. They weren’t even near each other. I didn’t know they even really “dated” or anything so I’m guessing maybe this is newer than even Calum and I or a first date thing.

  The lights dimmed. Immediately, Calum leaned in closer. I felt his breathe on my ear, “You look great tonight.”

  I smiled in the dark. “You too.” All men, boys, guys in general, seem to puff up when their egos are inflated. My brother did it nonstop.

  A ways into the movie, popcorn and soda gone, I had to set my plan in action.

  Leaning on his warm cheek I told him I needed the restroom and kissed his cheek. The cheeky pecks were more fun than the lip smacks. Less pain.

  “Let me borrow the ticket in case they don’t let me back in.” I needed that ticket to get back in the theater all together. Standing, I started down the close fitted aisle noticing right away that Lee was absent from his seat too. Shell smiled through the dark whispering, “Do you want me to come?”

  NO! NO! “Uh, no. I’ll be fast.” And hurried away. Yikes. Thank the gods she didn’t follow.

  I squinted as my eyes hit the brightness outside our screen room. Scanning the area for anyone I knew, I made for the bathroom and when no one was visible, slipped through the outside door.

  Outside, I found the library without a second to spare. I had only three minutes by my watch to be in the library I’d never step foot in. One, two, three shelves later, I found the section.

  I looked at my watch, back up to both sides of the shelves, and squared my shoulders for the impact of what was to come. My knives were ready but I couldn't accomplish much discreetly in a severely quiet library.

  I looked through the shelves in between the peek holes at possible watchers on either side. I felt the wind stir at the end of the aisle, my Valkyrie alert mode in full swing. Someone’s fear zoned in right behind me.

  “You can put the weapon away. I’m not the enemy.”

  LEE? What?

  “You are so shocked!” He stared, but not angry like he usu
ally was. “Tell me, princess, who did you think it would be?”

  Still in shock, no answer would come.

  “Why are you here?”

  “What do you mean?” My eyes darted around the shelves.

  “I know who you are, Princess Anastacia of the hearty and healthy Valkyrie court. I repeat, why are you here?”

  I was scared. Never show fear, I told myself. I glared at him, showing my hand purposefully on my knife now. “How do you know who I am?”

  Lee reached his hands upward as I tilted the knife towards him. “Please! No weapon,” his hands displayed surrender. He acted annoyed with me, but not dangerous. “Things are seldom what they seem.”

  So says the Hunter. I looked down at his waist, then his shoes, counting the weapons I could predict. “Maybe.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Stop playing games with me, Anastacia.” His hands pulled his hair back into a ponytail like fashion and he spoke in Danish. “Ja! Jeg hedder Dyer!”

  “Nej! Nej!” I spoke it without thinking. I’m deciding that spy work is not cut out for me anymore. “How?” I asked, switching back.

  “I’m guessing for the same reason you’re where you are now. To gain Intel on the enemy. To spy.” His voice lowered, “Why are you HERE!”

  Still confused I looked all over him. He certainly didn’t look like the scrawny Dyer from court I'd thought so much about then. I thought then, he was everything a man should be at fourteen. Now, all bulked up and Hunter like. Wow!

  But he is not a Hunter.

  “That’s why they sent me. To spy on your father’s court. Expendable, I guess.”

  My mess just got messier. Another thought hit me. “Are you here to rat me out?”

  “Actually no. I connected some dots recently. You’re not the enemy. At least not in my eyes. But something is definitely going on if they put you here.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked. He wasn’t here to chit chat. My heart was shattering into a million pieces of broken glass from the past.

  “When I was there, with you at court, I heard things. Things I shouldn’t have because I appeared to be the school kid boy just sitting at court. Your father met with someone a week or so before they made me leave. It was Quinn. I knew when they sent me here what that conversation meant. You were more than just the untouchable Val princess. I was there to found out what more you were without knowing I was there to find out. And Quinn stepped in to make me see if you were “killable” and I never saw you again.”

  “And you never contacted me? Why is that?” I noted his long hair had replaced his short spiky hair of fourteen.

  “First, I didn’t want to leave. Not after I knew you.” He looked down. A fear I’ve only ever felt from Calum and recognized it now but also felt it from him just as two long years ago surfaced.

  “That day in the woods, you stopped me. When my dad’s guard found us, you were going to…”

  “…that was a long time ago.” He didn’t look up. And he didn’t mention if he knew about the two boys we buried the next day who’d been stabbed to death for leaving me unchaperoned.

  “Why are you telling me all this now?” I didn’t remember most of the day he left, my memory just seemed muddled when I thought about it. Quinn must know about my infallible ability to not get dead.

  “I’ll tell you what I know, and help you, if you promise not to hurt him.”

  Me, hurt who? “Who?” I was confused.

  “Calum.”

  “Why would I hurt him? How?” That shocked me.

  “When he finds out what you are, what do you think he’s gonna do?”

  “I’m not a traitor, Lee!”

  I was heartbroken at hearing it spoken. I suddenly wished I’d had the forethought to just screw the whole Hunter school and go get my brother. But then, I came to this “Hunter school” with no earthly knowledge of where he might be held captive. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I know.” A heavy pause was in the air. “And I know about…” he pointed down. To my stomach.

  “HOW?” Oh, God. Someone else knew.

  “That day in the woods. When you fell on the rocks and I helped you get up. Your shirt was up, but I saw it. I saw it, Anastacia. And Calum, he’s my roommate. He doesn’t think I know. But well, roommates just know. And I knew that day I saw him, I’d never have you.”

  I was faced with an emotion I’d never had. Dyer was gone before I even got to say goodbye. And he really did like me.

  “What did you hear that day, at home?”

  “Quinn told your dad that a Hunter was among the court. He was there for me not knowing it was his wife, my mother, who sent me in to confirm things. It’s not like I was waving an I’m a Hunter flag around on a flagpole for all to see. And...and your father thought Quinn was innocent of any wrongdoing.”

  I knew it. Quinn is on both sides of the fence. I put a few things together. “And that’s how you’re here. But why here, and how is Quinn involved?”

  “He is my uncle. I’m an abomination to him. His sister mated with a Valkyrie and I was the result. I’m here, at this school, because of my mom, to be more Hunter like.”

  “I’m sorry to learn all this. And sad we couldn’t feel comfortable to share all this before.”

  “No one knows, but you.” This was a promise he was asking me keep. I asked him if he intended to tell.

  “Anastacia! You think I’d rat you out!”

  This, I didn’t predict.

  “I loved you, jeez.”

  What did he just say? No, he didn’t.

  Undaunted, he continued, “but it isn’t enough. We were too young and I was removed.”

  Oh!

  “Calum has no idea you were brought straight to him. The prophecy is real, Anastacia. REAL! You are that girl.”

  Very real!

  Huh! I looked beyond the shelves for an eavesdropper, but nothing. It wasn’t Lee who just said that. His lips didn’t move. Did I hear his thoughts? My inner voice must be husky at times or I am hearing things.

  I am beset by the ironies of my life. Everything and anything related to this mission keeps leading back to me. “How can it all be true?”

  “Well, is or isn’t, Dr. Green, Dr. Quinn, your father, the Hunter council, they all believe it.”

  “My father?”

  “Yes, he knows. And about Calum. Everything is falling into place. He only hopes, I assume, that you will chose to come back to his throne, with your Hunter, and rule. At least, that’s my theory. My uncle became allies with your dad that day. There were all these secret allied faction sections hidden in an underground railroad kind of system that fears the outcome of this prophecy and you and Szar are somehow at the center of it. They pushed you onto Calum.”

  “This is all just a joke, right?” My teeth pinned my lower lip down.

  “No! It’s very real. And the day you showed up here, I knew exactly what would happen, and it has. They wanted you allianced with Calum which tells me they know about your marks.” He eyed my stomach. “I may not have been your chosen one to have shown it, but I can read. And I heard the same stories around your court."

  "Wrong! I didn't hear those same stories. They were kept from me until I called Kassie the other day."

  "Kassie. How is she?"

  I pulled out the two items from my pouch ignoring the needless small talk. I despised being the last to know something. "And why were these taken?” He seemed to know so many answers, maybe he could shed more light. Anger was boiling over the top of the kettle and pouring out all over his shoes and mine. He never told me anything, just strung me along.

  “Szar’s?”

  I nodded. My knife was in his hand now rubbing his thumb across the carvings. What I didn't get vibing from him, was danger. He wasn't there to hurt me.

  He stared a long time showing no signs I’d struck a nerve. “Yours. I knew that day in the gym, that you would make them wet their pants. You’re the best I’ve ever seen.”

  He looked up
at my eyes now stirring something deep inside me. But not like it desire, but guilt. “I’m sorry, Dyer. I didn’t know. Then.”

  “I’m long over it.” He handed them back to me. He swallowing and pocketing both hands.

  I chanced showing the letter. No one knew yet and he might be my best bet. Besides, if he is a traitor, it will tell me so. “And this.”

  He held it. “Calum’s! From his mother, I believe. Heard Quinn one day on the rare occasion I was okay to associate with his presence. Guessed he wanted it for something but I never told Calum he took it. It was before I left the Hunter school the first time so it didn’t make sense then. That was Quinn’s first year after my mother's death and he didn’t know I saw him. They’d have known who told Calum it was missing.” He paused. “I’ve no idea what this means as a whole.”

  Still a mystery to solve then. Stand in line. “So, where does this leave us?” I asked.

  His jaw twitched. “You will go back, continue. I will too. We will keep our ears open. I will help you, Ana…Stace,” he corrected himself using my recent name.

  “And Calum?”

  “For now, I will stay quiet. Until we find your brother. Then, he has to know. If the gods say it’s meant to be, so it will. You don't look at him the same way he does you. You don't see it, and it will hurt him when you let him go. And I think you should stay clear of all the danger for a while longer. Let me do the looking.”

  That won’t do. That’s what I’m here for. Perhaps he’s being caring, but something told me there was something else. Feeling awkward, I looked at my watch. “We’d better go separate.”

  I turned to go, but he grabbed my arm. I looked back down at it, not him.

  “Does he…do you…really feel electricity?”

  “Yes, Dyer…Lee…we do.”

  And he let me go. I didn’t look up from the ground until I was sitting in the theater seat as I passed Lee in the aisle who didn’t flinch from the screen.

  Zip...that was my mouth shutting up tight.