Steel Lily ARC

by Megan Curd

  Jaxon was quiet, contemplative in the silence between us. He picked me up in one smooth movement and carried me like a child to the chair by the door. His skin was soft and his muscles flexed under my weight. With the utmost care he sat me down and kneeled in front of me, his hands on my knees. He pointed over his shoulder and mouthed camera, but it didn’t seem like he cared about anyone hearing him. “You’re special,” he said, his eyes fervent, “and I highly doubt that was lost on your parents. Even my idiot father feels that way about you. We’ll find them. Reunite you with them.”

  “I don’t know if I want to. What if they’re not the way I remember them?”

  “At least part of you wants to be with them. Otherwise you wouldn’t carry a lump of steel around in your bag.”

  The reminder of his intrusion rekindled my anger. How had I dropped my guard and allowed Jaxon to get so much information? I barely knew him. “You shouldn’t have dug around in my bag. That’s private.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” he said. It sounded like he meant it. “I needed to get to know you, and I knew you wouldn’t give me a shred of information without physical coercion,” his disconcerting smile blossomed across his face. “I don’t like to torture without a viable reason.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. Nothing was clear with him. “Well I’m glad you didn’t have a viable reason to torture me.”

  He smiled, and our eyes locked for a beat longer than they should have. I quickly looked away, but not before he became curious. “Say, do you mind me asking you about your eyes again? I’ve never seen anyone with two different colored ones, and I highly doubt someone beat you into having two different eye colors,” he flashed an impish smile.

  It was hard to turn down his request.

  Hard, but not impossible.

  “I wasn’t born like this,” I said simply, pain laced in the words.

  His curiosity was piqued. “Really? What happened?”

  “This one is a glass eye,” I pointed to my left eye, “Can’t see out of it.”

  “No way, it looks so real.”

  “Yeah, get closer and you can see the difference.”

  He leaned in, unable to help himself.

  I smacked him playfully between his eyes. “Gotcha!”

  He laughed as he lost his balance and fell backwards, his hands bracing his fall. “You think you’re clever!”

  “Clever enough to fool you.”

  “Touché.” He sighed, then seemed to size me up. “You know, you’re kind of like a lily. A steel lily.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. At least, that’s how I meant it. I mean, you’re a girl; you’re this beautiful person inside and out, but you hide it. You’re hard, or that’s what you want people to think, anyway. That’s why I think you’re a steel lily. Hard and beautiful, intricate and unmoving. It’s the most puzzling thing I’ve ever seen or experienced. You’re…different.”

  He sat there for a moment, an odd expression on his face. After a couple minutes of avoiding his gaze, I stood and made a spectacle of stretching. “What time is it? I’m really tired.”

  Jaxon glanced at the watch on his wrist. “It’s one-thirty in the morning. You should probably get some rest. Big day tomorrow, eh?”

  “Big day,” I repeated.

  He stood and glanced to the floor and back to me. “I put one of my dad’s journals in your bag. Turnabout is fair play. Since you shared with me, I’ll share with you.”

  “Why your dad’s journal? I want to know about you.”

  Jaxon smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It almost seemed like a grimace. “Do you know what I wanted more than anything growing up? A dad. I’m jealous of you, Avery. You have a reason to not know your dad. He’s gone. Mine…” he trailed off and cleared his throat. “Mine is here, but he’s really not. I’d rather be in your situation.”

  “But what does that have to do with—”

  “I asked Xander about my dad. He found one of my dad’s old journals and asked if I really wanted to know Riggs. I thought I did, but I was wrong. Every day I hoped that Riggs would be different. Xander is the closest thing to a father I have. The journal will explain why.”

  He walked past me without another word, our shoulders brushing for the briefest of moments. I followed him out into the living room and up the stairs to the door, not quite understanding why I felt the need to be his shadow.

  His hand gripped the door handle as he stood with his back to me. “Goodnight, Alice,” he called over his shoulder.

  I heard a squeak and a shuffle in the kitchen. Little eavesdropping bugger. I giggled at the thought of her pressed up against the side of the stairs, her only goal to be as small as possible. Good thing Jaxon had thought to check for her.

  The door clicked as he opened it and slipped out. I grabbed the door before he closed it, bewildered by the turn of events. “What, no goodnight for me?”

  His eyes peeked through the crack in the door. They were calculating. “It’s better if I don’t,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pike.”

  It seemed almost remorseful, but the minute I thought it, I chastised myself for thinking he’d feel bad for anything. I stalked back to the bedroom and slammed the door behind me.

  Alice was there waiting. “What’d he do to you? I thought a little bit of snogging would do you good.”

  “We didn’t snog. Jaxon is that last guy on earth I’d do that with.”

  “Shame,” Alice said ruefully, “I wouldn’t mind his hands on me.”

  I thought back to when he held me not an hour ago. The warmth, the excitement that exploded within me, the smell that still lingered on my clothes. Damn it, I was going to have to change to get away from Jaxon.

  Alice continued on. “So, what did he want?”

  “To break me down,” I said as I rummaged through the massive closet in search of anything cotton, comfortable and non-Jaxon scented.

  “Seems a bit melodramatic to me,” she called.

  “It’s not, I promise.”

  “Still, I think you should get to know him. Seems like he knows this place better than anyone else, save Riggs.”

  She had a point, but I wasn’t going to spend any more time than necessary with Jaxon. I finally found a pair of plaid pajama pants, then grabbed a plain grey t-shirt from a stack nearby. “He’s such a—”

  “Hottie? Yes ma’am, he is,” Alice said, cutting me off. “Although, Will isn’t an eye-sore, either.” Her head popped around the corner and she smiled as she bobbed her head toward my pants. “Cute.”

  “Thanks.”

  She padded back out to the main bedroom and I followed. My bed was a rumpled mess and littered with my personal belongings. I pulled my bag toward me and stuffed it full of things that shouldn’t have been out in the first place.

  My hand gripped the unfamiliar leather-bound book. I immediately knew it was Jaxon’s journal. I pulled it out and flipped it open. A paper fluttered out.

  Turnabout is fair play.

  He was right; it was fair play, and it was on.

  I stared at the pages without reading them. “Alice, all we’ve heard since we arrived was that we needed to escape. I think we need to find out who Riggs really is before we go on a suicide mission.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Alice agreed. “But how do we find out?”

  “Sari’s looking into things, but I don’t think she’ll find anything in files on the computer. Riggs wouldn’t be dumb enough to put something where Sari could find it.”

  Alice nodded to the book. “You think it’s in there?”

  “If it were, Jaxon wouldn’t have given it to me.”

  “Are you going to read it?”

  I hesitated. “Not tonight.”

  I set the book down on the bedside table and crawled into bed. The sheets were silky, like water rubbing against my bare arms.

  Alice turned out the lights. In the darkness, I heard her vo
ice float to over to me. “I’m so glad we have each other. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

  “You’re my sister,” I agreed.

  I heard her sheets move and a deep sigh come from her side of the bedroom. It made me smile. If nothing else was the same, at least the consistency of having her beside me was comforting.

  That’s when it hit me.

  Xander had said Sari, Jaxon, Legs, and I would have to leave at some point.

  He never mentioned Alice.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The morning came with crushing weight. Between my incessant worry of leaving Alice behind and the overwhelming scent of Jaxon in my bed, I hadn’t slept much. What did it mean? Did Xander expect me to leave Alice behind? In the dim sliver of sunlight that peeked through the blinds, I saw Alice’s figure sleeping peacefully in her bed. The only movement was her breath that lifted her side up and down in quiet tranquility.

  I had to bite my knuckles to keep from crying.

  Maybe Xander didn’t bring her up because he hadn’t met her. Why would you mention someone you didn’t know? I was overreacting to something so inconsequential that it was borderline absurd. This place made me twitchy.

  I quietly extricated myself from the too-soft sheets. They still held Jaxon’s unmistakable scent. His aroma infused my comforter and was a constant reminder of the tension that built in my stomach every time I saw him. He wouldn’t be sitting on my bed again.

  The mirror in the bathroom revealed dark circles under my eyes. My hair was a frizzy mess like I’d been electrocuted. I leaned against the cool porcelain counter to steal a moment to myself.

  “Are you actually asleep against the sink?”

  I jolted and saw Alice in the reflection of the mirror behind me. “Yeah, I guess I was.”

  She came and shook my shoulders playfully. Her smile was too bright for just waking up. It’d always been that way; she was a morning person and I was the night owl.

  She was full of excitement that I would probably never be able to muster, even if I hadn’t had a horrible night. “Well, wake up, sleepyhead. Today we start our classes!”

  “Joy,” I muttered as she bounced away. Part of me was glad she was excited. The other, well, I hated she was so naïve about this place. Then again, she hadn’t seen what I’d seen yesterday.

  Blood.

  So much blood.

  And bodies.

  Bodies of men who’d come to retrieve us.

  The images were burned into my mind. Before yesterday, I’d never seen a dead body. I wondered if I should tell her, but as soon as the thought manifested, I squashed it. No. When the time came to go, we’d escape and I could explain everything. No need to involve her in things that were impossible to fix. She couldn’t undo death. No one could.

  “If you’re going to take a shower, get on it. I need to take one too,” called Alice from our bedroom. “And by the way, Mr. Riggs dropped off uniforms for us yesterday while you were out. They’re pretty wild.”

  That set my teeth on edge. Hard to tell what Riggs would have us in — his little army of Elementalists.

  I rushed through the shower and wrapped myself in a soft cotton robe that hung beside the sliding glass door. When I let Alice in to get ready, she gave me her award-winning smile and nodded toward our room. “Have fun in there. Don’t die from shock.”

  “Thanks for making me even more excited to see what I have to wear today.”

  Sari’s voice rang out from our room. “Oy, any day now, slowpoke. We’ve got places to go.”

  When I went in, Sari was sitting on the edge of my bed with a look of amusement. She wore the most absurd outfit I’d ever seen.

  I laughed. “Please don’t tell me you dressed yourself.”

  She gestured to the white and grey tight fitting, long sleeve shirt and matching pants. It looked like a space suit. “What, this old thing? Just plucked it out of my closet of my own free will.”

  “That is certifiably God-awful.”

  “Don’t look now, but you’ve got your own little slice of God-awful.” She tossed a pile of clothes at me and winked.

  “You ever been told you’re a pessimist, Sari?”

  “All the time. It comes with knowing too much about everyone.” She smiled and pointed to the clothes. “So, what’s the damage?”

  I lifted the shirt. It really wasn’t all that different from my own clothes of preference. The sand-colored undershirt was form-fitting, but a dark green jacket not unlike the military one I’d snagged from my dome’s dumpster was looser and provided pockets. I smiled. The black pants weren’t bad, either. A little tighter than my taste, but not nearly as obnoxious as the ones Sari currently wore. Hers looked like they might have been painted on.

  Sari whooped in objection. “Wait a second, those aren’t bad! Why do I have to look like I stepped off a starship? That hardly seems fair!”

  “Maybe Riggs is breaking me in easy?”

  “If that’s the case, you better have something super skimpy next week. Otherwise I’m lodging a complaint with someone.”

  “Is there a place to do that?”

  “There has to be; Jax complains all the time, why would he spend that much time doing something so pointless if no one listened to him?”

  I snorted. “Because he thinks everyone listens to him.”

  We both fell into fits of laughter for a few minutes, but when we thought it’d passed, we looked at each other once more and the giggles came right back. It had been a long time since I’d really laughed.

  It felt good.

  Sari held a hand to her side. “I’ve got a stitch from laughing so hard.”

  She looked at her watch. It was simple and nondescript, with a plain black band and silver face. When she pressed a finger to a button on the side, though, the time illuminated above the watch for everyone to see. Its red digital numbers flashed brightly for a few seconds and then disappeared as if sucked down a drain. “It’s six forty-five. If we want breakfast, we’d better head out pretty quick.”

  “I think Alice is still in the shower.”

  Sari waved a hand. “It’s okay, I checked her file on the computer and it shows that she isn’t on the same timetable that we are. She can pretty much come and go as she pleases.”

  “Lucky duck,” I muttered.

  “Tell me about it. Say, what’s with you having Jax’s journal?” Sari motioned to the well-worn book on my nightstand.

  “Oh, it’s not his; it’s one of Riggs’s I guess,” I said, not really interested in recanting last night’s little adventure with her. “He said I should read it.”

  “No, that’s definitely Jax’s,” she said slowly, “I’ve seen him writing in one just like it on more than one occasion.”

  It seemed stupid to point out that it was possible there was more than one journal with the same exterior, so I let it go and changed the subject. “I dunno. Let’s head out. What’s for breakfast today?”

  Sari didn’t need more prodding than that. Without any further encouragement, she led me out of the room and toward the commons, telling me the entire menu along the way.

  ***

  When Sari said it was a commons, I had imagined a mess hall scenario, complete with hundreds of other people eating. I was wrong.

  Nothing but the best here in our little slice of heaven. Or was it hell? I hadn’t yet decided.

  I should have been tipped off when I saw the massive rounded entryway and crystal chandelier that glittered in the sunlight. The white marble floors were so polished that I could see my tired reflection in them, and I made a mental note to try out some of the makeup in the bathroom before I left our dorm next time.

  There were so many splendors that it was overwhelming. A man who wanted the best of everything had erected this place; of course the dining hall would fill that requirement.

  We walked into what felt like a Victorian dining room. There were maybe twenty of us, tops. The room had high ceilings with
a striking combination of stenciled, bronze, and gilt roundels. The long redwood table stretched almost the length of the room with a magnificent red and gold cloth draped over the top to compliment the other decorations. Real crimson candles lined the center of the table in golden holsters, and faux gold ivy wrapped itself around the candlestick holders.

  Behind the head of the table was a massive brick fireplace with a dark wooden mantle. Along the mantle were awards and plaques. My only guess was that they were Riggs’s bragging rights from another lifetime.

  The food had been lain out before we arrived, and students passed plate after plate of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and fruit to one another. I scanned the room while Asher, the boy I’d seen with Riggs, spoke non-stop, oblivious to my lack of interest.

  “What do you think about the invasion, Avery?”

  Sari kicked my leg under the table to bring me back to earth.

  I searched for words. “Oh, it was pretty scary. Why would they want to bother us?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” Asher said. He leaned in conspiratorially and looked to where Riggs sat at the head of the table, chatting animatedly with Xander. “We can change the course of the world. Us,” he wiggled a finger around our group, his eyes solemn and convicting. “Riggs knows that, and it’s why he’s protecting us.”

  Sari rolled her eyes, but said nothing. Asher’s twin brother joined Sari in the eye rolling. “Asher, get a grip on reality,” he said, then looked at me. “I’m Evan, by the way. Reluctantly related to Asher, if you hadn’t noticed. Asher’s our village conspiracy theorist. He thinks that Riggs is saving us from certain doom.”

  “He is!” Asher exclaimed, raising his arms and slopping a spoonful of oatmeal down the front of his white uniform.

  His outfit was similar to Sari’s, except it wasn’t skin tight, thankfully. In fact, my uniform was the only one that deviated from what seemed to be the norm: skin-tight white pants and long-sleeve shirts for the girls and looser fitting, more casual white pants and cashmere half-zip up sweaters for the guys. I wondered why I didn’t fit in. It felt like it was meant to make me different, make me stand out. I didn’t like it.