I just finished checking Facebook when a feeling of maggots crawled over my skin and someone slid into the booth with me.
I looked up, surprised to find a handsome Destroyer about my age. If it wasn’t for the energy he put off, I would have never guessed he was a Destroyer.
“Go away, creep.”
He put his hand on my knee. “A pretty girl like you shouldn’t dine alone.”
“I’m not alone, my boyfriend will be here in a few minutes.”
His hand slid further up my thigh and I could taste spearmint. “Beat It” by Michael Jackson played in the background, or maybe that was in my head. Holy crap, he was trying to influence me. I swatted at his hand. Think, dammit, think!
I didn’t. I simply put all my energy into one thought. He had to stop.
Power rushed through me. The Destroyer yelped and backed out of the booth so fast that he fell on the floor. He stood up and towered over me.
“What the hell was that?”
I wasn’t sure what to tell him. My head still buzzed with power.
“Everything okay?” Jordan asked. I looked up and sighed a breath of relief. It was nice to know he was here, even if it was obvious I could take care of myself.
The creep looked at Jordan and laughed. “Of course you are with a Guardian.” He paused, then smiled. “I get it now. I know what you are. Jason has been looking for strong girls, he’ll love to hear about you.”
He took off before either of us could say anything.
“What happened?” asked Jordan as he took a drink of my daiquiri.
“Hey, that’s mine.” I grabbed it away from him and he laughed. But then he sobered.
“Seriously, are you okay?”
“Yeah, he just took me by surprise.”
“How did he know what you are?”
My hands shook as I grabbed a French fry. “I’m not sure. He put his hand on my knee and I just wanted him to go away. I released a bunch of energy without really thinking of what I was doing.”
“You haven’t been trained in how to defend yourself from Destroyers?”
I shook my head. “Naomi won’t let me do anything real.”
“Well, it’s pretty obvious you need some training. I’ll help you with that, even if Naomi says no.”
That night I gave Ginny the picture. It was a ginormous rose held by Alejandro’s hands. At first she just stared at it and didn’t say anything; I was starting to fear I’d done something wrong.
Then she started crying and wrapped me in a big hug. She sobbed on my shoulder and I still wasn’t convinced I did the right thing. Naomi walked into the room.
“That is amazing! Ginny, you okay?”
She nodded and placed her hand directly over one of Alejandro’s.
“It feels just like him. How did you do that?” She sniffed.
“Naomi helped me. We used his rose.”
Ginny wiped her eyes.
“Thank you, no one has done anything quite like this for me before.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jordan walked into the room and whistled.
“That turned out nice.”
Ginny grinned.
“Hey Sunday, can I borrow you for a few minutes?” Jordan asked.
“Sure.”
He pulled me upstairs to my room and made me close my eyes.
“Okay, open them.”
Hanging over my bed was a monstrous photograph of Boston. It was nice, but a little anticlimactic.
“Watch,” Jordan said and dimmed the light. Suddenly the city illuminated and what was a shot of the city in the daytime became a shot of the city at night.
“No way! That must’ve cost a fortune.”
He kissed my forehead. “You were worth it.”
Sunday
Cacti can be grown from seeds. But that’s kind of dumb, considering that you can cut a piece off a cacti, put it in a pot, and as long as you don’t actively try to kill it, it will grow.
THE NEXT MORNING I GOT UP very early and searched Alejandro’s greenhouses for cacti. I found ten and brought them all into one of the larger greenhouses. They were all in pretty sorry shape. Naomi took care of the roses and Ginny’s gardeners took care of the vegetable and fruit plants. But no one looked after the cacti. I gathered them into one corner and set to healing and fixing them all.
After they were all glowing green, I pulled up an identification guide on my phone.
It was hard because they all looked the same. I couldn’t identify specific plants, but there were a couple of different barrel cacti, a pancake cactus and what looked like a Chorro. I’d stay away from that one. Those spines were barbed and if they got into your skin they were hard to pull out. I went cross-eyed looking at all the names. They were bizarre Latin names and I couldn’t tell the difference between most of the cacti on the lists.
I checked the time because I didn’t want to be late. I’d been so good lately, there was no way they’d send me away. It was 7:30 a.m. I was scheduled to meet Puck in the library in a half hour. I hadn’t eaten, but I could do that after my lesson.
I played with the cacti for a while and soon all of them had bloomed. I grinned and surveyed my handiwork. Applause broke out behind me. I spun.
“Nice work,” said Naomi, glaring at Puck and Jordan who were still clapping.
“Thanks. I’m not late, am I?”
She shook her head and then turned to face the boys. “Would you two shut up?”
They stopped. But Puck spoke. “You have to admit, it’s impressive.”
“Sure it is, but she doesn’t need this going to her head,” she said and grinned at me.
“What are you guys doing out here?”
Naomi nodded toward the plants. “We’ve been talking about you this morning.” She handed me a couple of protein bars. “You’ll need your energy today, eat these.”
I took the bars. “Why were you talking about me?”
Naomi glanced back the boys again. “Jordan told us about your run-in with the Destroyer. He seems to think we left out an important part of your training.”
“You did,” he called from behind her.
She rolled her eyes. “He’s right, we did. I guess I was just sort of hoping you wouldn’t have to deal with them anytime soon. Which was dumb on my part, because I ran into Destroyers before I was ready and that did not end well.”
“So what are we going to do today?”
She grinned. “We are going to play with some Destroyers.”
I jumped up. “Let’s go then.”
“Not so fast. Let’s go over some basic defense techniques first.”
I groaned and leaned against a table.
“I learn better by doing. Come on, let’s just go. I can learn out there.” I waved toward the door.
Naomi shook her head. “Nope, not until you let us teach you first. You eat, we’ll talk.”
I bit off half a bar and stared at them all, waiting. Jordan spoke first.
“The best way to defend yourself against a Destroyer is to keep your shield up all the time. The less he knows about your power, the better off you’ll be.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Duh,” with my mouth full. I’m sure that was totally unattractive, but they were patronizing me again. Just once I’d like to be surprised by something they tried to teach me. Jordan seemed unbothered and droned on. When he finally paused, Puck jumped in.
“The thing to remember is that you can’t just send happiness or love to a Destroyer and expect it to counteract what they are doing. Sure, those are the strongest emotions we have, but for your defense to be effective you have to be specific. To do that, you have to know what emotions go together. Obviously, happiness combats sadness and love combats hate, but the rest are trickier.”
He took a swig from his water bottle and Jordan chimed in again.
“Also, remember that most of the time you won’t be facing a Destroyer head on. You’ll usually be fighting to influence others. You want
to win.”
“Wait,” I stopped them. “I thought this was just about defending myself.”
Puck shrugged. “It is. But it is rare that they will engage directly with us. They know they can’t win if they attack us directly, so they’ll usually go for someone around us. They know we can’t resist the urge to do the right thing and help. It’s a game to them. But it’s not. We understand that and do everything we can to help. Now let’s talk about what emotions work best together.”
I rolled my eyes and tuned them out. I sort of caught what they were saying, but I focused on my cactus and forced it to bloom various flowers. No one noticed, since they were all facing me.
The air in the room changed. The temperature dropped and the cactus I was playing with suddenly shriveled up and died. I jerked my head back toward the three of them. Puck was talking, and Jordan was watching me. Naomi was staring right at the dead plant though.
Two could play this game. I put all my energy into the plant and soon it was bigger than before and sprouting two gorgeous red flowers. I turned to smirk at Naomi, but she wasn’t looking at me. In the few seconds that I wasn’t looking at the cactus, it had died again, and so had three others sitting near it. This wasn’t funny anymore.
It became a battle of wills and Naomi was winning. Every time I revived one plant, she killed two more. Soon, they were all dead. Puck and Jordan were still talking, completely oblivious to our fight. But the tension in the room was tangible. I could feel the Destroyer energy even though I couldn’t see any Destroyers. The air smelled of alcohol and sweat. The back of my neck tingled like someone was watching me, but I knew that was just part of the Destroyer creepiness.
Puck and Jordan started arguing about the best way to fight off multiple Destroyers. The volume of their voices gradually increased until soon they were yelling at each other.
I decided to try something different. Instead of focusing on the plant I decided to go after Naomi. I wondered if I could do both at once.
Naomi stood right next to the Jumping Chorro. Its thorns were vicious and needle-like. I sent the strongest reviving emotions I could think of to the cacti Naomi was killing. At the same time, I made the jumping cactus triple in size. The taste of watermelon was strong and the sound of baby’s cry nearly drowned out Puck and Jordan’s arguing.
Naomi squealed in pain. The cactus had scraped her arm and now tiny thorns stuck out from all over her forearm.
Oh crap. I hadn’t really thought through the consequences of the burgeoning cactus. The barbs were nearly impossible to pull out. I ran over to her.
Puck was in Jordan’s face, yelling something about using too much power.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking at the thorns. Naomi’s eyes were watering. She took a few deep breaths. Then she spoke through gritted teeth.
“Can you get them out?”
I had healed Puck’s hand without thinking about it. But this was a little different. I had to get the thorns out before I could heal her. Otherwise the thorns would be sealed in her skin. If I could make a cactus grow, surely I could make the thorns shrink. I held up her arm and thought of a piano softly tapering off and a flower withering. Then I focused all that energy on the thorns. Within seconds, they’d all shrunk to half the size and fell off. I healed her arm and she rubbed it absentmindedly.
“That was creative and quick thinking. Good job.”
“The healing?” I asked, confused.
“No, the defense. It hurt like hell, but I’m impressed.”
She looked over at the boys, who now looked like they were ready to start throwing punches. We both sighed at the same time. She looped her arm through mine and dragged me over to them.
She tapped Puck on the shoulder and he looked down at her, surprised.
“She’s ready,” Naomi said and pulled me outside.
“How’d you do that?” I asked her.
“Do what?”
“Become a Destroyer.” Because she did. No one else could’ve been that successful in killing my cacti. And in making the boys fight.
She paused a little too long. “I’m a Shade, I can use both energies.”
That was true, but she was too good for that to be the only answer, so I pressed on. “But that was really good. I’m not sure I could do that.”
She sighed. “I hope you never have to. You remember how I lived in Arkansas when I found you?”
“Yeah.”
“I was the Master Destroyer.”
“What?” This couldn’t be true. She rescued me. A Destroyer never would’ve done that.
“I didn’t want to be, it was an accident. My mother, the previous Master Destroyer, passed the energy to me without realizing what had happened. I fought it hard, but I still learned how to do Destroyer things in the process. It’s still disturbingly easy for me to use.”
I thought back to the day she rescued me. I only spent two days in her house and I didn’t remember any Destroyer energy. Then again, I was still in shock from everything that happened to me.
But the Master Destroyer? That seemed unbelievable. I had more questions that I wanted answers to, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
Puck caught up with us then. “How do you know she’s ready? She hasn’t even practiced with us.”
Naomi smiled sweetly at him. “You and Jordan were about to take each other out in there. Sunday says she learns best by doing. I figured it would be better than listening to you two argue.”
“But she might not be ready.”
“Trust me, she’s ready.”
“How do you know? I’m not comfortable with this. We are about to send her into a lions’ den.”
“She’s learned everything she possibly could, listening to the both of you. I’ll be with her so you have nothing to worry about.”
I noticed that Naomi deliberately left out our own fight. Maybe she didn’t want Puck knowing that she was still harboring Destroyer energy.
We all climbed into Puck’s little Honda. I sat in the back with Jordan. He grabbed my hand and smiled at me.
Naomi turned on the radio, but Puck immediately turned it off. “What do you mean you’ll be with her? We’ll all be with her.”
I snorted. I knew the answer to this before Naomi even said a word.
“They’ll see you two coming and scatter faster than I can make a rose bloom.”
“What are Jordan and I supposed to do then?”
Naomi shrugged. “Wait outside and try not kill each other.”
Puck gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles went white. “You know, Jordan and I have never fought before. Now that I think about it, that was very strange. What happened in there?”
Naomi put her hand on Puck’s knee. “What happened was that you both care about Sunday and want to make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”
Puck nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. He turned the radio back on.
We pulled up to a building with a brick fence around the perimeter.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A school. We figured you’d have a better shot at going against Minor Destroyers first. Their hangouts are pretty scuzzy and this seemed like the cleanest place to pick a fight.”
“But they aren’t going to let us in.”
Naomi looked down her nose at me. “Are you a Shade or not? We make them let us in.”
I cowered somewhat under her gaze. I’d never done anything like this before.
“We’re going to go in and eat lunch with them. I’ll get us past the security guards and then I’ll keep an eye on you in the cafeteria. If a fight breaks out, we’ll bail.”
“Text us if there are any problems,” said Puck.
Naomi smiled. “Of course.”
I followed her into the building. A bored security guard sat next to a metal detector. He looked up and I smelled wisteria. Naomi skipped cooperation and jumped straight to control. She wasn’t messing around.
“A little late today, aren’t you,
dearie?” he asked, his eyebrows creased.
Naomi scowled. “Yeah, Sunny made me late again. Can you believe it? I’d leave her behind but then my mom gets really mad.”
The smell of wisteria was stronger and I could taste cotton candy. The security guard laughed and waved us through. “Make sure you sign in at the office.”
Naomi walked down the hall with a purpose.
“Where are we going?” I asked trying to keep up.
“The lunch room. Once we get in there, go buy a tray and sit at an empty table. Don’t go hunting for trouble. Let them come to you. And they will. I’ll be somewhere near the door if you need help.”
I took a few deep breaths and entered the lunch line. I tried to sense the power of those around me. Destroyer and Shade energy surrounded me. There were no Guardians in the room. This school was a rough place. Every surface had some graffiti on it, and the kids all dressed like badasses.
I nearly took Naomi’s advice about sitting at a table alone, but changed direction at the last minute and sat down at a table that was all Destroyers; the only girls at the table were fairly strong Shades.
I wanted to prove to Naomi and myself that I was capable of dealing with anything.
A girl sitting across from me scowled. “What the hell do you think you are doing? The dweeb table is over there.” She pointed to an empty table across the lunchroom.
I shrugged and tucked my hair behind my ear. “I’m new. You guys looked friendly.”
The girl snorted. “Hear that guys? She thinks we’re friendly.”
The boys laughed. One sitting next to the girl spoke. “Sorry, you thought wrong. This is the most coveted table in this whole place. The only way girls get to sit here is if they prove themselves. Now if you want to join me in the boys’ room, I can rectify that.”
I grimaced a little too quickly.
“You think you are better than me? You’d be lucky to have me.”
A soft melody played in my head. He was trying to influence me to go off alone with him. How many girls had actually fallen for that? Instead of responding I counteracted the Destroyer energy he was throwing at me. I wanted him to embarrass himself.
The Thorn Chronicles-Books 1-4: Kissed, Destroyed, Secrets, and Lies Page 51