by Chloe Neill
She didn’t make the grade.
M.K. was the haughtiest of the crew. Today she was dressed like a goth-prep mash-up—a navy shirt and cardigan over her plaid skirt; knee-high navy socks; and black platform heels with lots of straps. Her long hair was tied in long braids with navy ribbon, and her lips were outlined in dark lipstick.
Amie was the quiet one—the type who seemed to go along to get along. She was also a roommate, sharing a suite with Scout, me, and a cello-playing, mostly quiet girl named Lesley Barnaby.
“Is class a little too difficult for you today, Parker?” M.K. snickered.
“Since you were apparently absorbed in your own thoughts,” Forrest said, “anything you’d like to share with the class?”
“Um, I was just”—I glanced up at the scribbled text that filled the whiteboard at the front of the room and tried to make sense of it—“I was just . . . thinking about federalism.”
More snickering, probably deserved. I swear I was smart, even if I was still adjusting to the run-all-night, study-all-day schedule.
“And did you reach any conclusions about federalism, Ms. Parker?”
Deer in headlights, much? “Well,” I slowly said, trying to buy time to get my mental gears moving, “it was really important to the founding of the country and . . . whatnot.”
There was silence until Forrest huffed out a sound of intellectual irritation and looked around the room. “Does anyone have anything more enlightening to add to the conversation?”
Veronica popped a hand into the air.
“Ms. Lively. Can you contribute to our conversation?”
“Actually, I need to make an announcement to the class.”
He looked suspicious. “About what?”
“Well,” Veronica said, “regarding our upcoming girls-only health-education class, if you get my drift.”
Forrest’s cheeks flushed pink. He nodded, then cleared his throat, and after tapping some papers together on the podium, headed for the door. “For tomorrow,” he said on the way, “finish chapter two.”
With Forrest on his way out, Veronica rose and moved to the podium, Amie beside her. Veronica tucked her hair behind her ear, her gaze on the door until Forrest was out of the room. As soon as it clicked closed, she turned her attention to us.
“It’s time to begin planning our annual holiday festivities.”
The girls began to hoot like boys at a frat party. I glanced back at Scout, who rolled her eyes and propped her hand on her chin. I have to admit, I was mostly relieved I wasn’t going to have to listen to Veronica drone on about sex ed. I mean, surely St. Sophia’s could afford an actual teacher for that kind of thing.
“And when I say holiday, I obviously mean this year’s Halloween Sneak. As you know, it’s up to the junior class to plan the Sneak. This year’s theme will be Glam Graveyard.”
“Gravestones and glitter,” Amie added.
“Precisely,” Veronica said. “Our first planning committee meeting will be tomorrow. You can sign up on the sheet outside the door. Weirdos need not apply,” she snarkily added, haughty gaze pinpointed at Scout.
“She’s just so high school,” Scout muttered behind me. I bit back a smile.
“Anyone interested in the planning committee has to swear not to squeal about the location of the Sneak, because the final location won’t be revealed to the rest of the class until it’s time to go. Any questions?”
M.K. raised a hand. “Will there be boys there?”
Veronica smiled smugly. “We’re playing sister school to Montclare Academy again.”
That smug look on her face worried me. Jason went to Montclare, but I wasn’t so much worried about him. Michael, however, was a different matter. While Michael had a pretty big crush on Scout, she was playing very hard to get. Veronica, on the other hand, seemed determined to take her place. Veronica had made a point of asking Scout about Michael one day, hinting around that she had a thing for him.
The interest was understandable. Michael was totally cute. Dark, curly hair. Big brown eyes. A huge smile that was impossible to ignore . . . unless you were Scout Green. She managed pretty well. Of course, if Scout didn’t ask Michael, then technically he was fair game.
The bell rang. Veronica made a little curtsy before she and Amie were joined by M.K., and they headed out the door. I waited for Scout to gather up her books.
“So,” I began, “exactly how uncool would it be if I wanted to be on the Sneak committee?”
Scout pulled her messenger bag over her shoulder and gave me a sideways glance. “Purposefully involve yourself in brat drama? Why would you want to do that?”
“Decorating and design and stuff is right up my alley,” I reminded her. “My art studio hasn’t started yet, and I really need a creative outlet, even if it does involve the brat pack.”
“Don’t you already have a creative outlet?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure I’d call what we do ‘creative.’ ”
“Have you ever done it before?”
“Well, no.”
Scout grinned at me. “Then it’s creative.”
Drama notwithstanding, I concluded I was going it alone on the planning committee front. But as we walked down the hall toward our lockers, I decided to try something else Scout might be interested in. “Do you think Veronica asked him?”
“Asked who?” She sounded completely unconcerned, but I knew her better than that.
“I know your real first name, Scout. Don’t make me use it.”
“Fine, fine. Don’t have a conniption. Yeah, she probably asked Garcia. Or she will, if she hasn’t already. It’s just the kind of thing she’d do.”
“Maybe he wants to ask you.”
“Then it serves him right for waiting,” she muttered.
I slid her a glance. “So if he asks you, you’ll say yes?”
“Just because I don’t trip over him every time he comes into the room doesn’t mean I don’t, you know, appreciate him.”
“I knew it,” I said, a grin breaking out. “I knew you had a thing for him. So, are you going to tell him? Are you two going to start dating? Officially, I mean? This is huge.”
“Pump the brakes,” she warned, heading into the bay where our fancy wooden lockers were located. “Pump the brakes, or I tell Amie you want decorating advice. You’ll have to wear shades just to sleep in your room.”
Virtually everything in Amie’s room was an eye-scarring shade of Barbie pink. “Now, that’s just rude.”
“I’m not above rude, Parker. You keep that in mind.”
I took her word for it, which is why I snuck back alone to sign up for the Sneak committee. An artist had to do what an artist had to do, right?
2
A dozen or so hours later, we’d ditched our plaid for jeans and boots, tonight’s uniform of the Adepts of Enclave Three.
It would have been cool to say we dressed that way because we were out pummeling Reapers into oblivion. But for now, Enclave Three was acting more like an Adept advance unit. Daniel tended to give us two kinds of assignments—trying to bring back kids who we thought had been targeted by Reapers, and patrolling the cold, damp tunnels beneath Chicago to keep an eye out for Reapers and, if necessary, battle them back.
There weren’t any Reaper targets at St. Sophia’s right now, at least not that we’d identified. (Although the soul-sucking would have explained a lot about M.K.’s personality.) So really, the boots were mostly to protect our feet from dingy water while we were on patrol. On the other hand, Jamie and Jill, auburn-haired twin Adepts with elemental fire and ice power, had been gone a lot recently, spending their evenings befriending a sad-eyed boy from their high school and trying to keep him from completely disappearing into himself as the Reapers used him to sate their hunger.
Tonight we were walking the tunnels that connected Enclave Three to St. Sophia’s to make sure they were Reaper free. Unfortunately, they often weren’t. I’d had my first run-in with Sebastian in these t
unnels, and the Reapers had used the tunnels to kidnap Scout and to snag her Grimoire. Since they hadn’t managed to grab it, odds were they’d try again.
We walked two by two, Scout and Michael in the lead, me and Jason behind. It’s not like the tunnels were superplush or anything—they used to hold the tracks for small railroad cars that ran between downtown buildings. They carried stuff into the buildings, and carried out ash from the boilers. Now they looked pretty much exactly how you’d expect abandoned miniature railcar tunnels to look.
On top of that, of course, the threat of Reapers was always there. But even with all that, there was something a little romantic about walking along in flashlight-lit tunnels together.
Scout looked back at me, determination in her eyes. “Lights on,” she ordered.
From what we knew so far—since I was the only local Adept with firespell—my magic was all about power, the raw force of the universe. That meant I could throw out shock waves of power that would knock people down and out, and I could manipulate electricity. But I still wasn’t entirely sure about the “how” of it.
I stopped walking, clenched my eyes shut, and concentrated on filling the tunnel with light. It was a matter of allowing the energy to flow into me, letting it pool and fill my veins with warmth, and then sending it out again.
“Very nice, Lil,” Scout said. But I knew it had worked before she’d spoken, the insides of my eyelids turning red from the sudden glare in the frosty corridor. I opened my eyes, squinting against the sudden gleam of the cage-wrapped lightbulbs that hung above us. I was getting a little better at controlling it, learning to spark the light and douse it again by concentrating, instead of only when my emotions became overwhelming.
Scout hopped across one of the rails in the concrete floor, flashlight in her hand, her signature messenger bag—with its grinning skull and crossbones—bouncing as she moved.
“All right,” she said. “Off again.”
I blew out a breath, and pulled the power back out again. It was like turning the lights on, but in reverse—letting the power release again, freeing it from the bulbs in which it was bound. For a moment, the lights wavered, then went dark.
Jason took my free hand and laced our fingers together. “Your control is seriously improving.”
“Only because I’ve been working on it like two hours a day.”
Scout glanced back, her features thrown into strange relief by the flashlight beneath her face. “Hobbies are fun, aren’t they?”
“In this case, they would be more fun if I had any clue what I was doing.”
Jason leaned toward me. “You’re doing great, Lily,” he said, squeezing my hand. I squeezed back.
“I’m doing better than I was,” I agreed. “But I’d feel a whole lot better if I could do it on command every time. I’m still a little unpredictable.”
“One of these days,” Jason said. Since his eyes were on Scout and Michael, who were walking side by side in front of us, Michael’s arm around her shoulders, I assumed Jason was no longer talking about me.
“One of these days,” I agreed. “They’ll be good for each other. They are good for each other.”
“Yes, they are,” he said, before his gaze shifted back to me again. “But enough about them. You know, we haven’t had a lot of time to talk. To get to know each other.”
The warmth on my cheeks was a weird contrast to the chilly tunnel air. “That’s true,” I said, my heart suddenly thudding in my chest. What was it about this guy that made me feel like a nervous kid? I hated feeling that way, so I took the lead. “So, say something.”
“Something.”
I bumped him with my shoulder. “I’m serious.”
“So was I. Maybe you just don’t appreciate my sense of humor.” But when I gave him a flat stare, he laughed. “Okay, okay. So, um, what is Sagamore like compared to Chicago?”
“Oh. Well, it’s beautiful,” I told him. “It’s a small town, kind of in the country. Trees everywhere, rolling hills. Our neighborhood was on a hill, so when you looked outside in the fall, you could see the fog over the valley. It was like living in a fairy land.”
“Wasn’t ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ supposed to take place in New York?”
I frowned. “I don’t know. Was it?”
“I wanna say we learned that last year in English.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be wrong. Anyway, if it was, probably says a lot about upstate New York, right?”
“Are you suggesting I was living in a fairy land?”
“Well, at least a land with headless horsemen.” He dropped my hand and half turned around, fingers arched into claws. “Headless horsemen who cut the heads off fair maidens in the night!” He tweaked my waist, just enough to make me yelp. I batted his hands away.
Scout glanced back, eyebrow arched. “What’s going on back there?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Some dork is trying to scare me with tales of murderous creatures.”
She snorted. “What, ’cause that’s so different from an average Monday around here?”
“Seriously, right?”
“People,” Jason said, “I’m busy trying to work my mojo.”
Michael turned around and offered Jason his fist, and they did a manly knuckle-bump thing.
Scout and I simultaneously rolled our eyes. But before I could respond, Jason grabbed my hand again and pulled me to a stop. My stomach fluttering, I kept my eyes on Scout and Michael, who continued in front of us, flashlights bobbing until they realized that we weren’t following behind.
Scout looked back. “What’s up, peeps?”
“Could you, maybe, give us a minute?” Jason asked.
“You are not serious.”
“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find time to kiss an Adept?”
Scout blew out a dramatic breath that puffed out her cheeks, grabbed Michael’s hand, and pulled him down the hall. “Fine. Have a hot make-out session. But we’re going to be like twenty feet down the hallway. I hope they get eaten by one of those headless horsemen,” she muttered. “Or the Chicago version, anyway.”
As they walked down the hallway, I kept my gaze on them, still too nervous to look at Jason.
“What would that be exactly?” I heard Michael ask.
“What would what be?”
“The Chicago version of the headless horseman?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a fangless vampire? Or—or a werewolf with mange?”
“We can still hear you!” Jason called out. “And werewolves don’t get mange!”
That earned him a huff from Scout. I finally screwed up my courage and looked back at Jason.
He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. But they weren’t royal blue or the blue you’d see in the middle of a rainbow. They were so blue they were nearly turquoise, the color so deep it seemed that he stared out with precious jewels instead of irises.
Currently, those crazy eyes were trained on me. His lips curled, the dimple at the corner of his mouth puckering as he smiled.
My nerves tumbling, I kept things light.
“So you’re trying to kiss an Adept?”
“Very, very diligently,” Jason said. Before I could get out a snarky answer, he was dipping his head. His lips found mine, his mouth soft and warm. He put his hands at my waist and kissed me until I felt a little light-headed, until my heart fluttered in my chest. I’d been kissed before, sure, but I hadn’t been kissed like this. Not by him, since we’d been interrupted when he’d tried to kiss me before. And not like my feet were going to lift off the ground and I was going to float right up to the ceiling.
I almost opened my eyes to make sure that hadn’t happened—I mean, we were Adepts, after all.
Jason sighed and wrapped his arms around my back, and we kissed in the darkness beneath Chicago.
At least until Scout let out a “Holy crap!” that poured through the tunnel.
We separated and ran full out, relieved when we saw Scout and Michael s
till standing at the edge of the next segment of tunnel.
“What happened?” Jason asked, his gaze scanning the two of them. “Are you okay?”
“There,” Scout said, swinging her flashlight across the tunnel in front of us.
It took me a minute to process exactly what I was seeing. The floor of the tunnel and part of the walls were coated in some kind of clear slime, five or six trails of it from one end of the corridor to the next.
“Wait,” Jason said. “Is that—Is that slime?”
“Appears to be,” Michael said. “It looks like they filmed Aliens in there.”
Jason kneeled down, found a piece of metal on the tunnel floor, and stuck it into the goo. When he raised it again, he pulled up a long, stringy strand of slime.
“Eww,” Scout said. “That is heinous. That’s even worse than the time we fought off that nematode.”
“What’s a nematode?” I asked.
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “I think you should have the joy of looking it up on the Internet and seeing the kind of pictures I had to see.”
“So what did this come from?” I asked. “Some kind of animal?”
“Maybe not,” Michael put in. “Maybe there’s a leak somewhere. Some kind of—I don’t know—industrial fluid or something?”
We all looked up. The ceiling of the tunnel looked old and nasty, but not even a little slimy.
“Hmm,” Jason said, then tossed the metal into a corner. “That’s definitely new.”
“What do we do now?”
Scout put her hands on her hips. “Since the exit is in that direction, I guess we should see how far it goes.”
“Lily and I will take the lead,” Jason said, stepping forward into the tunnel. When I snapped to face him, shocked that we’d be going first, his expression was apologetic.
“Firespell,” he explained. “Just in case we need it.”
It was definitely an adjustment to play the lead heroine, but I sucked it up, nodded, and stepped beside him.