“Yeah…that was pretty crazy, like how Tray pushed Nero off the mats. I’m trying not to be jealous, but—” Seth paused, remembering they weren’t alone. “I just hope I don’t get some lame power.”
“We are not talking about you, Seth!” Kiki exclaimed, scaring Hartman enough that he teleported off the bed and landed on the floor. Her ears were immune to the sound. “We are talking about me and my slut sister! Everyone loves Orla—”
“Because she has, like, an Affinity that makes people attracted to her gold hair, which is crazy in itself—”
“I don’t care how she does it! I just want it—I want to be wanted by all of the guys.”
His face twisted with confusion as he scooted to the edge of her bed. “Why? Why do you want other guys to want you if I already want you?”
“Because I don’t want you, Seth,” she spat so heartlessly that he wished he could teleport. “You were cool at our old school, but you’re a loser here. Nero runs this place—I want Nero.”
“Oh shit,” Hartman blurted, his eyes bulging so prominently that Seth could see them even after he teleported out of the room. Lavisa remained alone on her bed, peeking uneasily at Seth, even as she continued to sharpen her stick. He wouldn’t have cared, even if she were openly gawking at him; his mind had gone numb, processing his surroundings at glacial speeds.
“You’re…breaking up with me? After I spent a hundred dollars on that necklace? Babe—”
The sound of Kiki ripping the chain from her neck interrupted Seth’s words. “Give it to someone else.” Chucking the necklace at his face, she pivoted on her heel and then strutted out of her own room.
Sympathy was etched in Lavisa’s features, but it didn’t console Seth. For a moment, he was utterly flabbergasted. Two years he’d dedicated to Kiki. He’d been convinced she was the one for him, but she’d dumped him like a shirt that didn’t fit anymore—and all for some jerk who had the power Seth should have had.
Picking up the necklace, he called after Kiki in one last futile attempt. “I can’t give it to someone else—it has your name on it!”
“I don’t care!” she yelled from the hall, and he knew she wasn’t lying. As he flipped the heart-shaped necklace between his fingers, his own heart felt strange—not broken, but empty, like it had always been empty and he was just now realizing it.
Perched on the edge of her bed, massaging her temples, Adara peered over at Ackerly’s science notebook, which really just looked like a jumble of nonsense to her. They’d been cooped up in her room for the past few hours, Ackerly attempting, fruitlessly, to teach her all that she’d neglected to pay attention to in their Science of Affinities class over the past week. Twisting back and forth in a swivel chair, Ackerly removed his glasses to rub his eyes.
“I still don’t get why this happens,” she pressed, tapping on his open notebook. “Why do we, out of everyone, get this weird extra chromosome?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed as his eyelids fluttered up to reveal his irises, even greener than his dirt-stained cargo pants. He slipped his glasses back onto his face to see her clearly. “Dr. Wright hasn’t told us yet, and I’m not sure she even knows. Maybe no one knows yet. They’d probably have to do some crazy tests on us to find out.”
“Which they are, no doubt, doing.” She pulled her legs up onto the bed, weaving them into a pretzel-like formation, and then looked up to find that Ackerly’s mouth hung open. “What? You honestly think they’re sending all people with powers here? You don’t think the government’s dirty enough to keep some Affinities for illegal testing? You can be an optimist if you want, Greenie, but don’t be naïve.”
“I’m not. I agree with you,” he admitted as he sank lower in her chair, “but that’s not going to help you pass this quiz.”
“I will pass…if you take it for me.” Her eyebrows shot up suggestively, and he fidgeted with discomfort.
“If you don’t pass this retake quiz, Dr. Wright said she’d give you detention.”
“Since when is it against the rules to fail?” Adara whined, flopping back onto her unmade bed to stare up at the ceiling. Compared to the white sheets, her hair, splaying around her head, was dark and…reddish. She closed her eyes to avoid seeing it in her peripheral vision. “Detention with Medea sounds fun, anyway. Maybe she can help me get this splinter out of my hand. It’s been bugging me, but it’s too small for me to see—”
There was a knock on the open door, and Adara sprang up while Ackerly pivoted to see Seth wilted in the threshold. His blue eyes were droopy, and his normally finely-groomed hair was now a disheveled mess. Wordlessly, he trudged into the room, chucking a light, silver object at Adara before he plopped onto her bed. With his head resting on her pillow, he let out a dramatic sigh but said nothing.
Hesitantly, Adara’s gaze fell to the item he’d thrown at her to find it was the same necklace he’d given to Kiki—the one she’d also stolen from Kiki. It still said, “Kiki, you deserve everything. Love, Seth,” but now the silver chain was snapped. With elevated eyebrows, she glanced back at him.
“Are you and Kiki on a ‘break’ again?”
“No, we’re officially done this time,” he mumbled, refusing to look at her. “She wants to be with Nero now.”
Adara let out a cackle. “Pixie Princess is going to drown her. I hope to witness it…”
Peeking around her, Ackerly graced Seth with an expression of sympathy. “Are you, um, okay?”
“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” he replied wistfully. “The love of my life only dumped me for the guy I should be—the popular guy with super strength.”
Ackerly’s brow creased, but he seemed lost with how to respond.
“I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” Adara said as she flipped the necklace around in her hands. “Kiki’s never been a good girlfriend to you. She only ever cared about your popularity status, a fact that has finally been revealed to you. Now we can watch vindictively as she gets her ass handed to her by Nero and his water girl.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Seth said, though he didn’t seem very encouraged. “What do you guys think her Affinity is?”
“Who, Kiki? Probably being crazy about her popularity,” Adara reckoned as she tried to scratch the blonde’s name off the heart-shaped metal.
“Like you’re not,” Seth scoffed.
“I am not obsessed with my popularity—I am obsessed with seeing Nero burn to the ground.” She paused, disliking her word choice. Shaking if off, she continued, “In the battle between Nero’s girlfriend and Kiki, though, I will be team Pixie Princess all the way.”
“I dunno… Kiki can be kinda funny,” Ackerly said, but after Adara sent him a poisonous glare, he cowered back from his statement. “I—I just mean she’s so ridiculous that it’s funny—and I also don’t really like those Pixie Twins. The boy did try to drown me.”
“I will drown that boy before I let him drown you,” Adara assured him. A grin consumed her lips when she finally scratched out the first K of Kiki, leaving only iki behind. “And Seth, you can get your revenge on Nero once your super strength surfaces.”
“I hope it does soon,” he said, his mood perking mildly. “I mean, if Tray has super strength—” He cut himself off when his twin suddenly appeared in the doorway.
Adara’s mouth opened to make a snide comment, but before she could, Tray hurried over to her and shoved his eye in her face.
“Do you see that? Do you see it?” he questioned, holding his eyelids open with his fingers to reveal his blue irises.
“I don’t see anything, but I do smell your foul breath,” she snapped as she pushed Tray backward. “Honestly, Nerdworm—”
“Do you see it?” he asked as he exposed his eyes to Ackerly.
“Well, um,” Ackerly began, squinting as he awkwardly examined Tray’s eyes. “I’ve never really looked at them before…”
Emitting a disgruntled noise from his throat, Tray stomped over to Seth. Adara watched him languidly observe his brot
her’s eyes—and then his widened in response.
Seth burst upright. “What the freaking crap is happening to you?”
“I have central heterochromia in both of my irises,” Tray said, blinking frantically.
“What the freaking crap is that?” Adara demanded as she stood to scrutinize his eyes. Although she’d refused to acknowledge it before, his sky blue irises were now riddled with specks of brown that spiked out around his pupils like pointed petals of a flower.
“Heterochromia in both eyes?” Ackerly questioned in alarm. “That’s odd.”
“What is it?” Adara repeated more forcefully.
“It’s a genetic condition due to a concentration of melanin. In this case, I have an excess of melanin because my eyes are changing from blue to brown,” Tray explained as though every word he said made absolute sense.
“Well, it looks sick—in a good way,” Seth commented.
“Is it dangerous?” Adara asked as she glared into Tray’s oddly-colored eyes.
“Most likely no, but—”
“Then I don’t care,” she concluded, resuming her seat upon her bed.
“I find it hard to believe you would have cared either way,” Tray said bitingly, but Ackerly spoke up again before they could bicker.
“Maybe you don’t have heterochromia. I mean, technically you do, but…I did, too, when my eyes and hair changed. I was born with brown hair and brown eyes, but once I realized what my Affinity was and began to use it, my hair and eyes slowly changed to green—the color they are now. It was sort of an ugly process for me—my hair was a puke color for a while, but it’s finally settled. Your eyes are probably just changing because you realized your Affinity was strength and you used it.”
“But Adara’s hair and eyes have a red tint to them and she doesn’t know her Affinity,” Seth said, and her stomach clenched—especially when Ackerly fixed her with a brooding look.
“Maybe she’s using it without her knowledge,” he suggested uncertainly. “I’ve heard that’s happened.”
“It’s not possible,” Tray argued, shaking his head. Adara was so relieved to hear him say it that she almost thanked him—almost. “None of this is possible, and I don’t have super strength. That was just an accident.”
“He’s right—I mean, unless we both have super strength,” Seth said, “because I definitely do have super strength.”
Tray rolled his blue-brown eyes but didn’t comment.
“Well, Nerdworm, now that you’ve freaked everyone out for no reason, I don’t even think you deserve to know the good news that has just been revealed,” Adara drawled, glancing briefly at Seth, whose face was twisted in confusion. She sighed and added, “That you and Kiki broke up.”
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t consider that good news.”
“You’re right: it’s great news,” Tray interjected. “Kiki is nasty, and while I don’t know if you can do any better, I’d at least like to see you try.”
“There are plenty of girls better than Kiki—plenty of girls here, at this school,” Adara said as neutrally as she could. Tray’s knowing eyes bored into her, but she brushed off his scowl with indifference. “Maybe the right girl isn’t too far away, Jockface.”
“There’s one girl on the floor below us who hasn’t stopped following me around since JAMZ,” Tray offered to his brother with a small, spiteful smirk in Adara’s direction. “Maybe I’ll recommend you to her.”
“Or,” Adara chimed in before Seth could speak, “instead of going on with this pointless conversation, we could all get out of this lame-ass room and walk around town.” Lithely, she jumped off her bed and glanced around at the three boys expectantly. “Or…you can all be losers and I’ll go by myself.”
“I’ll come.” Seth swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood to join her. “I could use some fresh air.”
“I heard there’s a flower shop in town,” Ackerly said, standing from the desk chair. Adara raised her eyebrows at him, invoking color in his pale cheeks. “I don’t want to buy any… I just want to look at them…”
Tray expelled a heavy breath before stalking toward the door. “Guess I’ll have to come, too, then. I’ll need to protect you all if Nero shows up, since apparently that’s all I’m good for now.”
Seth’s nose twitched with raw envy as he watched his brother depart from the dormitory, but he remained silent. Adara pretended not to have noticed.
“Where’s your roommate?” Tray barked back at her as they began descending the spiral staircase. “We could see if she wants to join us.”
“That’s sweet, Nerdworm, that you actually like a girl—”
“I do not—”
“But she’s probably off banging Hastings somewhere,” Adara finished, and Tray began to grumble. “Seems as though you Stark twins don’t have the best of luck with the female gender, hm?”
17
Shady Allegiances
Alone but mentally accompanied by various consciousnesses, Eliana roamed the streets of Periculand. Unlike the first night, when the public area had been mostly desolate, Affinities with all kinds of peculiarly-colored hair now waltzed about from shop to shop, as though this were just an ordinary, little, old town.
There was, however, nothing old about Periculand, which had been established only four years prior. Sparkling rays of light danced across the clean cobblestone beneath Eliana’s feet, and the pristine whiteness of the buildings was blinding in the early September sun.
The reason she’d left the school’s campus was not because she was bored or desired being immersed in a town full of people but simply because she had been hoping to spend the afternoon with Hastings, who hadn’t even shown up for today’s training session. After checking his dorm room and then searching almost the entire campus, she decided to venture out onto the streets, even though she was acutely aware that he was probably just having one of his frequent “talks” with Angor Periculy.
As she entered the semi-circle alleyway of stores and commerce, she passed a brightly-colored hair salon, an inconspicuous flower shop, and the slim, dark alley they’d first encountered Nero in. It was empty now, devoid of kissing teenagers and big bullies, but Eliana was certain she saw the stain of Adara’s blood on the white cobblestone, a small splatter of red that hadn’t washed away due to the lack of rain. Other Affinities walked over it, unaware of the feud that had started here less than two weeks ago.
Adara’s relentless quest for power and justice seemed silly to Eliana, but she understood its core. She felt that wave of fear that overcame Adara every time Kiki or Nero entered the room—it was suppressed and denied, but she knew it was there—and that presence of apprehension gave Eliana a perception of her roommate that even Adara’s oldest friends, the Stark twins, couldn’t begin to comprehend.
After lingering at the mouth of the alley for a moment, drinking in the various emotions of excitement, anxiety, and delight that imbued the people who sauntered and scurried about, Eliana drifted along, trying to block out the unfamiliar minds and focus on the object of her exploration. She had almost lost hope of finding his presence in town when the pang of his existence began to beat against her skull—the blank, repressed, and slightly removed cognizance that viewed life at a distance.
Hesitantly, she stepped past the ice cream parlor and peered in through the windows of the small dry-cleaning facility beside it. It was fairly empty compared to many of the other venues surrounding it, but there was one couple, both with bright blue hair, picking up their clothes from the man behind the counter. Beyond him, by some of the oversized washers, her target hung coats up on racks, mindlessly but efficiently.
She waited for the blue-haired couple to exit before she submerged herself in the warm and sweetly-smelling establishment. The clerk, whose face she hadn’t really seen, had disappeared into the back room, but she could still sense his consciousness buzzing with stress. It was the only real emotion that caught her attention, since Hastings seemingly had none.
“No.” He placed another coat on the rack. “I work here.”
“Oh, that’s…um—”
“Don’t say ‘nice,’” he jeered lightly as he shot her a dark smirk. “I need some source of income. Not all of us have parents.” His words felt like a stab in her direction, but he’d opened up enough feeling to alert her that any spite wasn’t aimed at her.
“Right,” was her uneasy response as she began to drum her fingers on the countertop. “So, your boss seems…frantic.”
“Always,” he said as he hung up a jacket that was a shade of deep red similar to his hair. “A lot of the houses in town don’t have washers or dryers, so they all come here.”
“How long have you been working here?”
“Just started today.”
“Do you…like it?”
Wryly, his eyes shifted to hers. “If you’re asking me if I enjoy hanging clothes more than studying with you in the library, I think the answer is obvious.”
She allowed her lips to curl upward slightly as she studied the colorless counter beneath her fingers. “I was…well, when you didn’t show up to training, I assumed…you were with Mr. Periculy.”
Hastings’s grip tightened around the shoulder of the coat he held, leaving a faint imprint when he finally released it. “I haven’t seen him since Monday.”
“Oh…right.” She bit her lip, slowly raising her gaze to his. He scowled.
“You can’t know everything about everyone—you wouldn’t want to know everything about everyone.”
Her mouth fell open as she tried to determine how to refute this innocence he thought she held. Every sensation of hate, lust, vengeance, and sorrow all weighed on her brain whenever they festered in another. If she could handle every negative feeling everyone else felt, why was she not strong enough to know his Affinity? Why was she not strong enough to know the secrets behind his meetings with Angor Periculy?
Blood: An Affinities Novel (The Affinities Book 1) Page 21