“Ice Affinity,” Adara repeated, surveying Jamad with approval. “This should be interesting.”
“All right,” Avner said from where he now stood within the crowd. “You two know the drill. Three, two, one—”
He had barely uttered “one” before Orla began her cat-like prowl toward Jamad, who was instantly on alert. Throwing his right hand forward, he blasted a stream of frost from his fingers with such speed that Tray couldn’t compute how it was physically possible.
There was no way Orla could have deflected the unnatural spurt of ice, but it wasn’t even aimed at her. Instead, it landed on the mat, forming a frozen puddle she should have immediately slipped on. Anticipation thrummed through the crowd, but this move of Jamad’s was, apparently, predictable to her. As though she’d planned it all along, the heel of her boot smashed the ice as she continued her elegant stroll.
In abrupt panic, Jamad threw another pool of ice at her feet, but it missed terribly when she turned on her glittering charm and captivated his attention. His frosty blue eyes stared absently at her, and he started to drool.
“This is so embarrassing,” Avner said, shielding his eyes with his hand. At his side, Zeela audibly snickered in amusement.
Seemingly ensnared by Orla, Jamad did not retaliate when she marched up to him and pressed her body to his. Whispering words too soft for Tray to hear, the golden-eyed girl guided Jamad backward, his limbs carrying him along until his feet were firmly planted on the concrete floor. She then stood alone and triumphant on the mats, waving around at the spectators like a princess.
Many of the primaries had fallen into her trance—especially the boys—but Tray, obviously, just rolled his eyes. Nero, he noted, was among those unaffected, but he was not watching Orla or Jamad; his bitter gaze was trained on Avner.
“Well, that’s typically how that goes,” Adara’s older brother said to the primaries. “Jamad now needs to take a bathroom break, and Orla needs to take a break in general.”
She flipped her golden locks before waltzing back into the throng. A swarm of primary boys was instantly upon her.
“So…who wants to go next?”
“Dave wants to go!” Nero announced as he violently shoved his friend onto the mats. At first, the kid was surprised, but he quickly recomposed himself, settling into an acidic scowl. His lime-colored hair was spiked in various directions, and his orange cargo pants bore a multitude of small, burned holes.
“Of course Dave wants to go.” Avner forced a spiteful smirk in Nero’s direction. “Dave always wants to go.”
“Hey, that’s Acid Attack,” Adara enthused from Tray’s left, “the kid who always shows off his acid-spitting abilities during training.”
“Acid?” Ackerly hissed in astonishment.
“Anyone interested in the challenge?” Avner asked as Dave’s citric eyes continued to sweep around with intended intimidation.
All were silent for an agonizingly long pause before Nero spoke up again. “Where’s that kid, Hastings? We want him to take on Dave.”
“We can’t always get what we want, Nero,” Zeela said. “Why don’t we allow someone else to have an opinion here, hm?”
“Me! ME!” Hartman suddenly exclaimed, causing his stepbrother to glower at him with pure loathing. “I volunteer Lavisa!”
“Oh…kay…” Avner replied slowly as his yellow eyebrows creased. “Lavisa?”
The girl dropped the clump of hair she’d been chewing on and allowed her gaze to rest threateningly on Dave. “Sure.” After pulling her unruly hair up into a bun at the top of her head, she glanced at Avner and asked, “Do I just walk into the middle, or…”
Avner opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, a long, thin arm parted the crowd and grabbed hold of Lavisa, yanking her onto the mats like a retracting rubber band. Now standing only a foot from Dave, the mustard-haired girl blinked but looked unfazed by the fact that an unnaturally long arm had just plucked her out of the audience. All of the other primaries, however, stared at Maddy in absolute awe. The girl, who had been previously short and stubby, was now as tall as Avner and thinner than Zeela, almost like an alien.
“What the what?” Hartman blurted as others began to murmur.
“Of course you had to show off, Martinez,” Nero sneered at Maddy as his groupies all grumbled.
“No, no—just no,” Tray spluttered, shaking his head incessantly. “Humanly impossible.”
“If only we could all lose weight so easily,” Adara said just loudly enough for him to catch her words. “Hey, where is Hastings? If he were here, he would’ve been forced onto the mats and we’d all finally know what his power is.”
“He’s probably back at the tower hooking up with Eliana,” Tray complained as his mood shifted back to grumpiness.
“Oh,” Adara drawled as her dark eyebrows elevated with intrigue, “are you jealous, Nerdworm? I pity you so much.”
Tray rolled his eyes but chose not to reply as Avner began the countdown.
“Three, two, one—”
Dave was the first to make a move on the mats. Pursing his lips, he projected a glob of clear spittle right at Lavisa’s chest. Tray knew it was probably more than just saliva—many acids were transparent and colorless, especially the dangerous ones. If this kid had the ability to produce something as harmful as hydrofluoric acid, Lavisa could suffer severe burns.
Although Tray hid it well, his heart rate increased with apprehension at the thought. Within a second, however, he realized he shouldn’t have feared for Lavisa’s safety. Dodging sideways and darting forward, she grabbed Dave’s arm with one hand and used the opposite leg to knee him in the abdomen.
Moaning from the force of the blow, he doubled over and tried to spit acid at Lavisa’s feet. She jumped out of the way and, consequently, yanked his arm forward, sinking his body into the mats. His moans were more prominent now as he lay face-down. To silence him, Lavisa ruthlessly slammed her boot into his temple, and he fell into a dazed state.
Effortlessly, she grasped his arms and heaved him off the mats, not bothering to avoid his puddles of acidic spit. Once he was hazily lying at Nero’s feet, she stood alone in the center, calm and collected without a bead of sweat on her brow.
“Anyone else?” Her tone was so flat that Tray wondered if the fight had bored her. Not even Adara could voice a suitable remark.
“Me,” Nero barked as he cracked his knuckles and plowed his way through the other students to place his oversized body on the mats.
Lavisa still appeared unconcerned as the massive bully stalked toward her, but her expression did falter slightly when Avner spoke his opposition and Nero didn’t stop. He stomped right up to her, and without waiting for the countdown or any proper acknowledgement of their fair match, seized Lavisa by her arms and catapulted her over the heads of the gawking students.
Other girls screamed, but given that Lavisa didn’t, Tray worried she’d gone unconscious. Her body hurdled toward the cement, and it was only Maddy’s outstretched, rubbery arm that managed to slow her fall. Instead of landing flat on the ground, Lavisa’s body collided with Maddy’s arm and then rolled onto the floor with far less force. Once motionless, she let out a groan that sounded vaguely like, “That was rude.”
“Anyone else?” Nero mocked in a voice far too girly to be Lavisa’s.
Avner’s normally level temperament had cracked, and he shook with outrage amongst his baffled peers. He, however, was not the Stromer to unleash his rage.
“What the freaking hell was that?” Tray watched, paralyzed, as Adara elbowed through the other students to pop out onto the orange mats. “Do you think you’re better than her because you caught her off guard in an unfair competition?” she demanded, her wrath warming the room—literally. Tray’s initial shock switched to curiosity as he acknowledged that the chill of the basement wasn’t affecting him with as much intensity. It had to have been all of the bodies crammed around him. One girl’s anger couldn’t heat the air—it was scie
ntifically impossible.
“If she were as good as me, she would have been able to beat me no matter the circumstances,” Nero bragged as his friends chortled.
“No. Just—stop talking,” Adara commanded with a tone Tray had learned long ago to back down from. “Fight me. Fight me in a fair match and we’ll see who’s a winner and who’s a cheater.”
“No, absolutely not,” Avner interjected as he shoved his way onto the mats. “This session of JAMZ is over. Everyone out—”
“No,” Adara snarled, glaring at her brother with long-brewed enmity. “Maybe if Nero tries to kill me, it will bring out my Affinity. Ever think of that?”
“Don’t be stupid, Stromer,” Tray droned as he thrust his textbook at Hartman before approaching the mats. He hadn’t wanted to intervene, and he didn’t particularly care if Stromer got herself beaten up, but…he wasn’t sure he wanted her Affinity unraveled. Aloud, he said, “My parents won’t be happy if you die and all of the money and time they put into your existence goes to waste.”
“Blah, blah, blah, Nerdworm. You’re not going to change my mind. Hit me, Big Boy. Hit me with all you’ve got.”
The way Nero’s lips curled was as sadistic as the gleam in his eyes. He raised a fist, inducing a flicker of trepidation in Adara’s features, but she braced herself with the same resilience she’d always used to deal with bullies. Tray had witnessed it enough to recognize this hint of optimism in her otherwise cynical character: in vain, she hoped this blow would evoke her Affinity from its dormancy, just as she’d always hoped every insult Kiki had hurdled at her would evoke Seth’s sense of honor. Mockery, Adara could recover from, but a punch from a guy with super strength?
She’d survived once, Tray reminded himself—and, frankly, she deserved another broken nose for this display of stupidity. Nero, however, didn’t appear to be restraining himself this time; his muscles were taut and bulging, his face glowing with giddy aggression. Tray remembered, then, that Hartman had mentioned his stepbrother had been in juvie at one point; if that was the case, perhaps murder wasn’t beneath him.
What happened next was so impulsive and unexpected that it was incomprehensible to Tray.
Nero’s knuckles descended toward Adara’s face, powerful enough to crush her. Before bone could meet bone, though, another hand popped up between them, miraculously halting the massive boy’s fist.
At first, Tray was under the impression that it was Avner who had come to his sister’s defense, but Avner still stood behind Nero, readying to charge himself up with electricity and bring an end to what had already ceased. Adara’s undesired hero had been able to stop Nero’s immense strength by simply sticking out a hand, and that meant he had to have a strength Affinity himself, which meant…
Adara whipped her head to the side, the truth dawning on her just as it dawned on Tray. “Nerdworm?”
Tray blinked, unable to process that his hand was wrapped around Nero’s—unable to process that he had the ability to stop Nero. He had an Affinity for…strength—Seth’s Affinity.
Nero, who had been expecting his fist to collide with a face, was utterly speechless. The whole room, in fact, was silent. Even Adara stood frozen, the air now devoid of the heat of her fury.
Fortunately, Tray had the ability to recover from this unpredicted occurrence faster than the rest of these halfwits. Clasping Nero’s meaty fist with both hands, he flung the bully off the mats as if tossing a ball. The ease of the movement was astounding—especially given that Tray had rarely thrown anything throughout his youth. Now he could hurl an oversized teenager across a room and knock over four other kids in the process.
He didn’t like it, but the crowd did. As soon as Nero skidded to a halt, the rest of the students erupted in a chorus of excited exclamations.
“He beat Nero!”
“No one’s ever beat Nero!”
“He’s stronger than Nero!”
“Simmer down, you simple-minded beings,” the Pixie Prince drawled over the jabbering. He wasn’t any taller than Tray, but he radiated an authoritative aura, parting the audience without any exertion. Even though Tray had just chucked heavy Nero through the air, he still felt a chill of dread when the Pixie Prince joined him and Adara on the mats.
“This kid is not some indestructible god,” he said with a humorless smile. “Watch.”
Jerking his hand, the Pixie Prince launched an orb of water at Tray that gathered around his mouth and nose, inhibiting him from inhaling air. Frantic, he brought his fingers to his face, but he could only displace the water instead of removing it completely from where it encased his airways.
Over the rim of water, Tray could see that Adara was seething, but before she could make a move, Ackerly came bursting out of the crowd. “Hey, you can’t do that! He’ll d—”
Another stream of water shot out of the Pixie Prince’s other hand, this time forming a sphere around Ackerly’s mouth and nose. The mossy-haired boy tried to open his lips to speak but only managed to fill his mouth with water, causing him to choke and gag but rendering him unable to spit up the substance drowning him.
“Calder, that’s enough,” Avner ordered, his fingers flaring with electricity.
As his outstretched arms maintained the water orbs, the Pixie Prince, apparently named Calder, pivoted his head to shoot Avner a smirk. “Tell me again, primie, what I can’t do,” he barked at Ackerly, who was too concerned with his own mortality to acknowledge him. “Tell me—awgh!”
Calder’s arms fell and he dropped to his knees when Adara, who had unsuspectingly marched up to him, kicked him in the groin. As a result, his water orbs plopped to the mat with a splatter just as loud as Tray’s dramatic inhales and Ackerly’s hacking coughs.
“I don’t need a stupid power to beat you up, asshat,” Adara spat at the Pixie Prince before flicking his blue-haired head. Still groaning about the foot that had just smashed his pelvic region, Calder didn’t even seem to notice she’d said a word.
Wiping water from his chin, Tray gave her a nod of respect, which she, surprisingly, returned. Ackerly, who had finally recovered from his coughing fit, did not nod at Adara and instead gawked at her with wide-eyed admiration. He was so awestruck that he didn’t even bother to clear the wetness from his face or the droplets from his glasses.
“You—you saved my life, uh—our lives,” he stammered, blinking profusely.
Adara rolled her eyes as she waltzed over to them. “Don’t be so melodramatic. I know what it’s like to be picked on and humiliated, okay? I know it sucks. That had nothing to do with you. I just wanted to kick the crap out of that asswipe—it brought me pleasure.”
“Don’t fall in love with her,” Tray warned as he clapped his roommate on the shoulder. “She has no comprehension of the word ‘love.’”
“I-I’m not,” Ackerly stuttered as he scratched head and avoided Adara’s gaze. “I just—I thought we were—I, um—”
“All right,” Avner spoke up, cutting him off and silencing the clamorous crowd, “this was officially the worst JAMZ session in the history of JAMZ.” His bright yellow eyes grew suddenly dark as they landed on his sister. “Nero, Calder, and Adara—you’re all banned from the next JAMZ session. If you decide to behave after that, you’ll be invited back. Anyone who objects to the banning is also banned. This session is over.”
Whispers filled the air and eyes lingered in the directions of Nero, who was now arguing with his girlfriend; Calder, who was limping out of the room alone; and Adara, who was glaring at her brother with animosity. Tray wanted to talk to her—not to thank her, since this was all her fault—but then he realized a group of girls had congealed around him, blocking both Adara and Ackerly from view.
“That was so brave of you!”
“You were so amazing!’
“What’s your name?”
“Will you be my personal body guard?”
“You are, like, the strongest guy in this school!”
Tray knew he should have been fla
ttered and perhaps even blushing, but all he wanted to do was shove past these girls and follow Adara out of the basement. Never had he been praised for physical feats and never did he want to be praised for physical feats. His strength was his mind—or, at least, it had been—but for some absurd reason, his body had adapted to enhance his muscles rather than his brain.
Well, he wished it were absurd. Really, the reasoning was logical. When his vision swept the chaotic crowd and landed on his brother, the pieces fit together with sickening clarity—almost as sickening as the expression of resentful dejection that had consumed Seth’s face.
15
Unanticipated Affinities
Initially, Eliana had been hesitant to enter Hastings’s room because, upon knocking, she had sensed his overwhelming dread of having to encounter another human being. As soon as she entered the room, though, he stopped chewing his nails and glanced up at her with enough relief to make her cheeks burn.
“Um, hi,” she greeted, idling in the doorway as she surveyed his dormitory. There was a clear division between the two halves of the room: Seth’s was messy with clothes and food lying around the unmade bed, but Hastings’s was so orderly and pristine that it didn’t even appear to be lived in. “There’s an event going on…called JAMZ? Everyone’s going and—”
“I’ll pass,” Hastings said flatly as he leaned back against the wall. He was seated on his finely-made bed with his legs outstretched and dangling over the side, hands now resting in his lap.
“Oh…all right,” she said, shifting uncomfortably where she stood. “Are you…doing okay?”
His blood red eyes lingered languidly in her direction. “You don’t have to ask me meaningless questions. If you don’t want to go to JAMZ, you’re welcome to hang out here with me.”
Eliana’s voice got caught in her throat, and she only managed to mumble a few words before stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. “I didn’t really want to go—I think my brain would have exploded with that many people in one room. Training always gives me a headache…” Hastings let out a faint laugh but said nothing as she dawdled awkwardly by the door. “You don’t…want to go to sleep?” she suggested weakly. “I mean, it’s late…”
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