Zoey glanced at her sneakers. “I knew it. I’m being blamed for these portals opening all over the world . . . it’s my fault, isn’t it?”
“It’s not that simple, Zoey,” said Director Hicks, his voice gentle. “Just remember that none of this would have happened if it weren’t for Mrs. Dupont. If you want to blame someone, I would blame her.”
When Zoey looked up, she saw a smile on Director Hick’s face. She felt a little better knowing at least he was on her side. But she knew Directors Martin and Campbell blamed her. She wondered if the National Assembly would have more of these types of directors—the ones that accuse without proof. With her luck, she bet there would be.
“We should be going.” Zoey followed Director Hicks down a long, narrow hallway decorated with pictures of past officials. When they arrived at a great set of double wooden doors, he grasped the iron handle and pulled.
Zoey followed him in and gasped. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but clearly, it wasn’t this.
They stood in an amphitheater the size of a small indoor hockey arena. The stars peeked from an inky black sky above the giant glass roof, and at least three thousand Sevenths and mystics sat in the countless rows of seats that wrapped around the oval-shaped arena.
At first she was shocked by all the people—she had never seen so many like her in one place. Tristan had told her about the neighborhoods designated only for Sevenths, but she had never imagined a space filled by so many. They were like her extended family. Her seventh sense even recognized the mystics as family. She clamped her mouth shut and tried not to show how baffled and excited she really was.
A set of stairs led to a raised platform. Zoey edged closer for a better look. On the platform six serious looking faces peered over a long table covered with papers and water bottles. Two men, two women, and two humanoid mystics stared directly at Director Hicks and Zoey. The sounds of shuffling feet and people straightening in their chairs preceded an eerie silence, like before the start of a movie.
Zoey could sense the three thousand pairs of eyes staring at her, judging her. She had never felt so small and insignificant before. She thought she might pass out.
It was clear now what Director Hicks had meant by intimidating. But this wasn’t just intimidating, it was worse. It was I’m going to be sick, please pass the bucket intimidating.
A man with coffee-colored skin and black hair leaned forward and spoke into a microphone.
“Director Hicks. Zoey St. John,” a booming voice resonated around the stadium like the voice of a God. “We’ve been expecting you. Please have a seat.”
He gestured to a row of empty chairs in front of the long table.
“Come along, Zoey,” said Director Hicks as he made his way down the long staircase.
Zoey followed him down to the platform and settled in the empty chair next to him. A microphone stood on a metal stand next to her chair. She realized that she’d been holding her breath and tried to breathe normally again. She’d made fists with her hands, and she pried them open and forced herself to relax. She was an OSC, not some frightened little kid. She raised her head and looked up to the great table.
The man who spoke was probably in his late sixties. His dark skin was wrinkled, and his hair was streaked with gray. His ebony robe rippled like black water as he took a sip from his water bottle. His dark eyes were fixed on Zoey. He appeared to be the youngest at the table.
To his right sat two women and a mystic. The first woman was plump with a jovial pink face, small bright blue eyes, short white hair, and a red robe. She looked like Mrs. Santa Claus. The woman next to her was ancient and dangerously skinny, like she’d just crawled out of her grave. Her wispy white hair was pulled back into a bun, and Zoey could see traces of her scalp. Her head drooped over her purple robes, and she looked as though she were sleeping.
Next to her was a humanoid-mystic with chalk-white skin and red eyes. Her mane of purple hair drooped down the sides of her bright green robes like expensive silk drapes. She gave Zoey a smile, and instantly Zoey felt a rush of heat.
On the opposite side of the table was another man just as ancient as the walking-dead woman. He was bald, and his tired, light eyes disappeared under a heavy wrinkled brow. His light-blue robes concealed large square shoulders and a powerful chest. He could have been a great warrior when he was much younger.
Zoey lost her breath when her eyes met the mystic next to him. He had light gray-blue skin that glowed from the inside with dark tribal tattoos etched along the sides of his neck and forearms. Zoey could see traces of rippling muscles under his earth-colored robes. His angular face was handsome and rugged, and his pointy ears peeked out through his long white mane. He wore golden loops in his ears and a single golden medallion in the shape of a sun around his neck. He looked like an elf warrior from a fantasy book.
Somehow, he looked familiar . . . .
And then it hit her.
He looked like Tristan when he had changed into his super-hero self. Was this mystic an álfar? The more she looked at him the more she was positive that he was. Maybe he was a relative of Tristan’s? She wiggled in her chair, uncomfortable under the gaze of his piercing blue eyes. Before she looked away, she’d swear she saw the tiniest of smiles on his lips.
The man with the dark skin cleared his throat and spoke into his microphone. “Thank you for coming, Director Hicks.”
Director Hicks moved his chair-microphone near his lips. “It’s a pleasure to be of service to the National Assembly, Director Patel.”
His voice resonated through the stadium. “May I present to the assembly, Zoey St. John,” he said and gestured towards her.
She didn’t know what possessed her later when she recalled the events at the assembly, but before she knew what she was doing, she waved her hand and said, “Hey.”
Director Patel raised his eyebrows, and Zoey felt her face was literally on fire. She knew she was as red as her hair, but there was absolutely nothing she could do about it now. Three thousand mystics and Sevenths were going to remember her as the red girl. She was going to be a tomato for the rest of the interrogation.
Blood pounded in her ears, and she could hardly hear anything when Director Patel moved his lips.
“. . . understand what this assembly is about . . . some of the assembly leaders will ask you a series of questions which you must answer clearly into your microphone.” She finally heard him say, “And you will answer them truthfully and to the best of your knowledge. My fellow assembly leaders and I have been deliberating since this morning. And now we are ready to hear your side of the events.”
He hesitated. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Zoey, and then she remembered that he had to speak into the microphone. She brought her microphone to her mouth and said, “YES!” Her voice screeched like an exploding amplifier. As the members winced and unclogged their ears she made a mental note not to shout.
Director Patel turned to the plump woman to his left. “Director van Noort, you may ask your questions.”
Santa’s wife smiled at Zoey. “Hello, Zoey.”
She spoke like a grandmother speaking to her grandchild. “I only have a few questions for you . . .” she said as she flipped through a long note pad. “Ah—there we are. It says here that you were brought up as an orphan, but you believe that your mother is the former Agent Elizabeth Steele. According to our information, she’s been missing in action for years, but you believe she’s your mother?”
Zoey leaned forward and spoke carefully into her microphone. “Yes.”
Director van Noort scribbled something in her note pad. “But you don’t have any actual proof that she’s your real mother, do you? Were there any names written on your birth certificate?”
“No,” said Zoey. “My papers list only the name of the St. John’s orphanage where I was left as a baby.”
She saw a spark of interest in the old woman’s face, but she didn’t say anything and she just kept writi
ng.
“We’ve heard of your special talents,” said the woman. “Can you tell the assembly what they are please?”
Zoey felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. Everyone at the great table was waiting for her to answer, and she could feel everyone in the stadium focus on her. She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. She looked at Director Hicks who gave her an encouraging smile.
“I . . . I can manipulate the mirrors,” her voice cracked.
“Can you be more specific? How exactly do you do this?”
With her heart in her throat, Zoey forced the words out of her mouth. “I can work the mirror-port matter transfers and anchors myself, just by thinking of a place or a person. I can open and close portals just by using my mind.”
“A skill of a true descendant from the Originals,” said Director van Noort, a hint of astonishment in her voice.
The entire stadium was silent—too silent, and Zoey wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.
Director van Noort seemed satisfied with Zoey’s answers. “Thank you, dear. That is all for me.”
Director Patel turned to the corpse of a woman. “Director Aslagard, you may ask your questions.”
The old lady’s head snapped to attention, and she focused her wet gray eyes on Zoey.
“Zoey St. John,” she said in a hoarse whisper that sounded like a stalled engine. Zoey couldn’t see if she had any teeth. “Do you know what the Great Junction is?”
The stadium was so silent she could hear Director Hick’s stomach rumble.
Zoey didn’t know why, but the old lady made her nervous. She tried to remember how Mrs. Dupont had described the junction.
“Ah . . . it’s a portal I think . . . ah . . . two very big portals from different worlds that align and make a permanent doorway.”
Director Aslagard wiped her nose with a handkerchief.
“Very good. And do you believe in the Great Junction? Do you think it exists?”
Zoey wasn’t sure where the old woman was going with her questions, but she answered anyway. “Of course I do, I saw it. So, yeah, you could say I believe in it.”
The entire stadium erupted in shouts and raised voices. Zoey stiffened in her chair.
“And how is it that you saw it, as you put it?” questioned Director Aslagard.
“I was there.”
Zoey tried to ignore the ruckus in the stadium, but it was getting hard to hear the questions.
“SILENCE!” bellowed Director Patel. The amphitheater went still.
Director Aslagard continued.
“We know that the event occurred in a remote village in Scotland, near a secret Alpha city. But I’d like to know who authorized you to go there?”
Director Aslagard flipped through a stack of papers on the table. A slip of paper slipped through her fingers.
“I don’t recall seeing a transcript of that mission anywhere in our records.”
Zoey felt a pressure on her chest and could hardly breathe. She wished her friends had come with her. She needed someone to tell her she wasn’t a monster. She felt like a Salem witch waiting to be burned on a stake.
“We—no—I . . .” corrected Zoey.
She knew there was no point in lying. Her own Hive knew the truth.
“No one did,” she said. “I went on my own, without permission.”
Her reckless disregard for rules had been a result of growing up in the foster care system. But the appeal of it all wasn’t there now. She had a horrible feeling she was going to pay big time for breaking the rules. From the corner of her eye, she saw Director Hicks’s head turn towards her, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t.
Director Aslagard interlaced her skeletal hands on the table, bluish veins peeked through her paper-thin skin. “There’s something we don’t quite understand.”
She paused as if giving Zoey time to prepare her answer.
“How is it that you, a Drifter as you once were, knew where the Great Junction would take place?”
Zoey shrugged. “I didn’t know. I had never even heard of the Great Junction, I swear.”
The old woman leaned back and whispered something to the mystic with the white skin.
Zoey was sure they didn’t believe her. She had the terrible feeling they thought she was in it with Mrs. Dupont. She couldn’t see Directors Martin and Campbell right now, but she was positive that they would be smiling triumphantly.
Director Patel cleared his throat.
“If the members will permit me to ask a few questions?” he said.
“Zoey, you say that you didn’t know where and when the Great Junction was going to take place. If this is true, can you tell the assembly why you were there in the first place?”
Zoey blinked, her mind racing with answers she wasn’t sure how to express. Blood pounded in her ears as she searched for something to say that would make sense.
Director Patel’s face was stony.
“Zoey,” whispered Director Hicks. She saw that his face was also tomato red and that sweat was trickling down his forehead. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
“Director Patel’s asked you a question,” he said. “Go on now, answer him.”
Zoey swallowed hard and said, “I had a hunch.”
“A hunch?” Director Patel leaned forward, his face was unreadable, but his eyes were intense. “What kind of hunch?”
“A hunch that Mrs. Dupont was responsible for the black oil that had disabled all the mirror ports. I only went there looking for a cure,” said Zoey.
Director Patel waited for the voices in the stadium to cease and then continued. “I see . . . and so you mirror-ported to this Mrs. Dupont’s home without any authorization. Is that correct?”
Zoey didn’t like his tone. Besides, she always did things without permission—it was part of her charm.
“Yes. I went without asking . . . but I don’t see what the problem is. I mean . . . after all, I was right. She was the one who poisoned the mirrors. She admitted it in front of everyone. Like I said, I was only trying to find the cure—”
“This is a problem,” reproached Director Patel. “Zoey St. John, you disobeyed the most fundamentals laws of our agencies.” His voice rose. “These rules and regulations were instituted for the sole purpose of protecting us, as well as the entire human population. We abide by them. We trust in them. And because of your insubordination, the Alpha woman took your blood and generated the Great Junction. And now we have a serious problem on our hands.”
Zoey felt like she’d been stabbed a thousand times. She couldn’t breathe. They were blaming her. Didn’t they know she was also responsible for saving the mirrors and the protective borders?
But even as she tried to convince herself of her innocence, part of her knew that they were right. She had caused this—her blood did. She felt like a total jerk. How could she ever make up for her actions?
She could feel the rush of tears, but she forced her eyes dry. The last thing she needed was to become a hysterical, crying, red-faced, red-haired, frightened little girl. She could deal with this.
Director Patel opened his laptop computer and read from the screen.
“According to Director Hicks’s prior testament, and correct me if I’m wrong,” he added to the red-faced director, “We now believe Zoey St. John holds an usually high quantity of Original blood.”
Director Patel’s eyes darted over to Zoey. She felt like she was about to burst out of her own skin. “She—Mrs. Dupont—used Zoey’s blood in a ritual to commence the Great Junction.”
Zoey clenched her jaw, and recoiled under the director’s intense stare.
“The Great Junction had always been treated as a myth,” continued Director Patel, his dark eyes never leaving Zoey. “A myth fabricated by Sevenths long ago about a permanent doorway between worlds. Sounds fascinating. I would have dismissed it as a myth today if it weren’t for the catastrophic events that are happening around the world at this very moment.�
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As if to reinforce his last statement, another tremor rippled through the stadium. By the looks of panic on the faces of those around the table, Zoey knew this wasn’t a regular occurrence. Earthquakes weren’t a regular thing in London.
Director Patel leaned back in his chair and started conversing with the other members.
For a long moment no one spoke, and Zoey shifted in her chair nervously. She kept replaying the events that had occurred when Mrs. Dupont had stolen her blood. If only she hadn’t been caught. She wanted to kick or punch herself. But it was too late now. She had to figure out a way to fix this . . . but how?
Finally, Director Patel spoke into his microphone. “Thank you for your testimony today, Zoey St. John. We have no further questions for you.”
Zoey sat still in her chair, unable to move or even speak, not even sure if she should move or speak. Her guilt was tormenting her.
“And now we would like to address the assembly,” said Director Patel, his voice strained like he was about to announce something terrible. He cleared his voice.
“We believe that the Alpha woman, Mrs. Dupont, was successful in conjuring up the Great Junction. We have seen the effects with our own eyes, as have all of you. Hundreds of portals have appeared around the world, and many unfortunate souls have disappeared into the Nexus.”
He paused, his face paled.
“There is a reason why we called a National Assembly today. Over the past month, our most celebrated scientists have gathered disturbing information. When the portals from both worlds aligned, the worlds shifted with catastrophic consequences.”
He paused and sighed. “Soon our world will be cursed with earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and volcanoes. We are now confronted by a devastating force that threatens to consume everything. Billions will die, and life as we know it will expire.”
Cries and shouts boomed throughout the stadium like a storm. Zoey’s breath caught in her throat. She felt like she was stuck in a horrible dream. She looked at Director Hicks.
“Is . . . is this true?” she whispered to him, her voice dry and cracking.
Director Hicks stared at the floor, and when he looked up his eyes were wet. “I’m afraid it is.”
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