Blood: An Affinities Novel (The Affinities Book 1)

by Kirsten Krueger

Tray opened his mouth to respond, but Adara cut him off.

  “I have a better question: What are you doing here? Do you have an Affinity, or is the government just trying to impose Regg rule over us?”

  Mitt’s mouth drooped as his eyebrows knitted. After a baffled moment, he finally said, “I have an ability—er, an Affinity, as you call it.”

  They all stared at him for a moment before Seth asked, “Well, what is it?”

  “Oh. Well…I got shot last week by some Wacko—right in the chest, too. I should have died, but instead my body absorbed the bullet, and a few seconds later, it just randomly shot out of my chest and killed the Wacko. Lucky it wasn’t a civilian…”

  “You can absorb bullets and then project them?” Seth blurted in astonishment. “That’s wicked! I take back wanting super strength—I want what he has. Hey, we’re both Physical, so maybe I do. Someone shoot me.”

  Hastings snorted a laugh, and Adara might have, as well, if she weren’t aware that Seth was fully serious.

  “We’re not going to shoot you to see if you have that Affinity,” Tray snapped at his brother before turning back to Mitt. “So, they sent you here? The government didn’t want to use you as a weapon?”

  “The current president isn’t very fond of Affinities, you surely know, and neither is the rest of the government,” Mitt replied with unease. “Some wanted to send me to the Affinity prisons they’ve been setting up, but my chief insisted they send me here.”

  “Ah, so instead of sending you to a shitty prison, they decided to send you to a nice one,” Adara clarified with a satisfied shake of her head. “Oh, the irony—the one giving out punishments has finally been punished himself. Welcome to the classy prison, my friend.”

  “This is not a prison, Adara. I work here, and you go to school here. This is a town—and it’s pretty damn nice.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, all illusions are pretty damn nice.”

  Mitt’s lips soured, but he chose not to continue the argument as he crossed his arms over his chest. “So, what’s your Affinity, then? Thievery?”

  “Probably,” she answered with a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t have a clue.”

  “You don’t know your Affinity?”

  “Does my hair look different to you?” The question was meant to be sassy, but she found him appraising her hair with actual interest.

  “Well…maybe a little. It’s redder, I’d say—a little lighter at the ends… And you two don’t look identical, anymore,” he added to the Stark twins. “Brown eyes and blue eyes. What’s your Affinity?”

  “He has super strength,” Adara informed the officer with a sinister smirk in Tray’s direction. Nerdworm grumbled under his breath.

  “Oh, well, that makes sense,” Mitt reckoned. “You were on the high school football team, weren’t you?”

  “No, I was on the high school football team,” Seth corrected proudly, “and I have super strength, too…probably.”

  “Right…” Mitt said, eyeing the twins skeptically. “Well, is there a reason you’re all here, or did you just stop by to chat?”

  “We had no idea you were here, actually,” Adara said, taking a few casual steps toward the door she assumed led to the holding cells. “We were wondering who got thrown in jail today.”

  Mitt’s eyebrows shot up as he assumed a protective stance in front of the door. “Not you, surprisingly.”

  “Har, har,” she droned with an exaggerated eye roll. “Who is it?”

  “That’s classified—and if you don’t want to be involved, I suggest you all leave, since Mr. Periculy is on his way here now.”

  “Oh, the King is coming? You should have told me—I would have dressed nicer.” She motioned to her attire, and when Mitt’s vision settled on her duck slippers, his face couldn’t decide whether to be confused or amused. “We’re not worried about getting in trouble with the King; we’ve got his star pupil, Blood Boy, with us.”

  When Mitt’s attention cut to Hastings, Adara took the opportunity to enact her plan, yelling, “ACKERLY, NOW!”

  Before her, Mitt instinctively grabbed his stun-gun, but at her side, Ackerly didn’t even move.

  “Now?” he repeated, nonplussed, as he scanned the room for some explanation. “What is now? What am I supposed to do?”

  “You were supposed to use your badass plant powers to distract the Weaponizer—maybe tangle him up in some vines or something,” Adara informed him, finding it difficult to be exasperated with his innocent cluelessness. “Isn’t that how they do it in the movies? They just say ‘NOW!’ and all of a sudden, everyone knows what to do and it works out flawlessly?”

  “Weaponizer?” was the only part Mitt questioned. He still held that stun-gun, probably because he was too perplexed to put it away.

  “It’s your new nickname—made it up just now.”

  “There aren’t any plants in this room, Adara,” Ackerly said as he eyed the bare gray walls and white-tiled floor that supported only Mitt’s desk and a few dismal filing cabinets.

  “And usually, in the movies, the characters confer about their plan before actually carrying it out,” Tray added with a condescending eyebrow raise, “something you would know if you had common sense.”

  Adara shot him an equally patronizing look, but instead of arguing, which was what she always did, she decided to do something rather uncharacteristic: she acted.

  Bursting forward, her body slammed into the cold white door, thrusting it open, before Mitt could even comprehend how she’d gotten past him. As she entered the back hall with four large holding cells, she let out a triumphant, “Ha, ha!” that instantly turned into true laughter upon realizing who was trapped behind the metal bars. Her guess had been correct.

  “Adara,” Mitt scolded in his most authoritative voice as he stalked into the hall and grabbed her upper arm, “you’re not allowed back here.”

  Not a word he said penetrated her ears as she chortled at an elevated volume, drawing her initial reaction out just to irritate the prisoner. Lying on a cot in the corner with arms stretched behind his head, however, he wore an expression that was the opposite of irritation.

  The raindrops falling outside the barred window cast eerie shadows throughout his cell, but he seemed at home among the dreariness, as though the water pouring beyond the walls fueled him. There was malevolence in his dark eyes now—a spark of sadism that had not been as prevalent in the two weeks of dry weather she’d known him for.

  “Ah, a visitor. How wonderful,” Calder mused, sitting up straighter when Adara’s companions trickled into the corridor outside of his cell. “Multiple visitors. Not the people I would have expected, but I always do enjoy the company of a bunch of primies.”

  “Oh,” Ackerly hiccupped, his face paling as he cowered behind Adara. Calder stood from the cot now, eyeing Ackerly in a way that was too calm and intimidating for a prisoner. Adara gave him a warning glare, which the Pixie Prince surprisingly heeded, his demeanor turning bored and casual as he straightened his ocean blue t-shirt.

  Tray, per usual, did not forfeit his hostility. “Did they detain you because they realized you have a hobby of trying to drown other students?”

  “I doubt anyone would care too much if I killed off a few useless primies.” His sly eyes roved the group of visitors, settling on Hastings as his grin widened. “Hastings Lanio—the one Nero always talks about. Why don’t you do me a favor and break me out of this cell? I know you’re capable.” He jerked his chin in Mitt’s direction, but Hastings didn’t even flinch. His gaze remained steadily on Calder, impassive and robotic.

  “All right, this visit is over,” Mitt urged with a nervous peek at Hastings. “Mardurus isn’t supposed to see anyone until Mr. Periculy arrives—”

  “Mardurus?” Adara prompted, looking to Calder with arched eyebrows. “Is that your last name, Pixie Prince? Charming. So, Mardurus, what do you think of these duck slippers? Jealous?”

  Calder’s dark eyebrows furrowed as Adara waved her foot on
the other side of the bars. “Should I be?”

  “You’re a water freak—you love rubber ducks.”

  “Nah, I’m more into piranhas and deadly octopuses—”

  “Why were you thrown in jail?” Tray demanded with his typical amount of impatience. He did have a knack for ruining Adara’s fun.

  Calder shifted his gaze away from her bright yellow slippers and looked at Tray, who flinched back when their eyes met. “There was a breech in the town. I handled it.”

  “Unnecessarily,” Mitt added. “I noticed Mr. Ventura as soon as you did, and I could have handled it in a more appropriate fashion.”

  “Ventura…” Tray repeated, deep in rumination. “Emmett Ventura, the presidential candidate? He’s the one who broke into the town?”

  “Yes, he snuck in on Hauser’s vehicle when they arrived this morning, unbeknownst to them,” Mitt explained, his eyes still narrowed in Calder’s direction. “He was snooping around town when we both noticed him. Why Mardurus wasn’t at the assembly with the rest of the school is still a mystery to me.”

  “You think I want to sit there and listen to some boring speeches given by two people who aren’t even going to win the election? Independent parties never win.”

  “Hauser and Cosmos have a decent chance,” Tray said matter-of-factly. “Every Affinity in America is obviously going to vote for them.”

  “Yes, but what percent of Americans do the Affinities make up—one? Two, maybe?” Calder questioned, smirking at his own cleverness. “If a major party’s candidate were to tragically die, though—well, then that would make the odds for the independent party’s success much higher, wouldn’t it?”

  “Casually murderous,” Adara observed, nodding in approval. “Maybe it wouldn’t have been a totally awful plan if you hadn’t screwed it up and landed in jail.”

  “It always would have been an awful plan,” Tray snipped. “If either of you could follow a logical train of thought, you would know that, with the death of Ventura, the Republican Party would select a new presidential candidate and the Reggs would hate the Affinities even more than they already do because one of them murdered a presidential candidate. Maybe if you had the ability to judge the consequences of your actions before you carried them out, you wouldn’t find yourself standing behind bars while the rest of us are free.”

  Calder let out a spiteful snicker. “Free? Do you really think you’re any freer than me? Aren’t you confined within the walls of this town—and, if you left this town, wouldn’t you be confined to the rules society has instilled? Freedom is an illusion.”

  “Ha! Ha, ha!” Adara laughed, pointing her finger at Mitt, who did his best not to look miffed. “See, Weaponizer? Illusion. Glad to know someone in this town has the same amount of intellect as me.”

  “Not surprising that someone is also in prison,” Tray said, his tone clipped. He seemed like he was about to add more of his otherworldly knowledge to the conversation, but before he could, the sound of a door opening echoed from the front room. All six of the primaries glanced at each other, Seth and Ackerly with apprehension, Eliana with alertness, Hastings with blankness, Tray with annoyance aimed at Adara, and Adara with carelessness.

  “Relax,” she droned before any of the others could speak. “The King will see Hastings and none of us will even matter. He’ll start drooling over his favorite little Blood Boy and the rest of us will just slip out of here.”

  “My sincerest apologies, Mr. Ventura,” Fraco’s slimy voice sounded from the other room. “We were unaware of your presence in Periculand, and if we had had knowledge of your arrival, we most certainly would have welcomed you readily. All of our students were meant to be at an assembly—”

  “Well, one of them was not,” the presidential candidate’s voice responded with a chuckle. A moment later, the tall, dark-skinned man entered the hallway with the shorter, greasy-skinned man spluttering a response at his side.

  Behind the two skipped Floretta, whose appearance gave Adara some shudder-worthy flashbacks of the boring meditation she forced them into during every Natural Class. Her sundress, patterned with lavender tulips, was soaked from the rain and clinging to her body. All fear that Ackerly had shown before now melted into hopeless admiration.

  “Well,” Emmett Ventura began, barely startled as he took in the crowd of people congesting the small corridor, “it seems that my assailant has a following. This sort of thing would not be possible if Affinities were placed in real prisons.”

  Everyone stared at him awkwardly, unsure of how to respond, since they were all Affinities. The Regg man was ignorant to the fact that he’d just implied he wished to imprison them all, and upon realizing this, Fraco forced a smooth recovery.

  “They will all be leaving now, Mr. Ventura.” His beady eyes settled on each of the primaries but then mollified in severity when landing on Hastings.

  “Oh, well I don’t want to leave now,” Adara drawled, wiggling her feet around to flaunt her duck slippers. “I’m having a rather enjoyable time tantalizing the Pixie Prince.”

  Fraco slivered his shiny eyes before more forcefully commanding, “Now.”

  “Fine,” she groaned, strolling toward the exit. “We’ll be back tomorrow to mock you, Pixie Prince, don’t worry—”

  “No, you won’t,” Mitt interrupted, ushering them all out toward the front room while shooting an apologetic glance back in Fraco’s direction. Adara also made a point to peer over her shoulder, meeting Calder’s eyes roguishly. He answered the playful expression by forming an orb of water within his hands, similar to the one he drank out of during their first meeting—and the ones he’d used to almost drown Ackerly and Tray.

  That sobered Adara enough that she departed the police station without complaint. The Pixie Prince might have been fun to mess with, but he was dangerous—specifically to Adara, physically, mentally, and naturally.

  Adara Stromer was the first person in a while to treat Calder like a joke, and he actually enjoyed it, which was why he wasn’t at all disappointed when the officer escorted her and her little friends out of the police station; it meant he could be as heartless and cruel to Emmett Ventura as he desired without altering her opinion of him.

  “Sorry for all the commotion, Mr. Ventura. Periculand is usually a very organized, civilized place…”

  The presidential candidate wasn’t listening to Fraco’s babbling excuses, though; his eyes were studying Calder, who stood within his cell, juggling a sphere of water between his hands. When he noticed the man observing him, his lips curled devilishly.

  “Now, Mr. Mardurus,” Fraco said, his nose twitching with frustration when he noticed the student using his Affinity, “we are here because Mr. Periculy wishes for you to apologize—”

  “Oh, does he? Well, if he has such lofty requests, why isn’t he here to make them himself?” Calder questioned, allowing his orb of water to dissolve into the palm of his hand as he took a step closer to the bars of his cell. “Does he, maybe, have more important things to do than worry about pettiness like this?”

  “If you apologize, we can release you,” Fraco said through his teeth, trying to force Calder into compliance with the hardness of his glare.

  “Release him?” Emmett repeated, his nonchalance swelling into outrage. “This young boy assaulted me, don’t forget.”

  Calder’s eyebrows inched upward. “I squirted water in your face.”

  Emmett spluttered while Floretta attempted to withhold a giggle. “I-I could have drowned.”

  “If I wanted to drown you, you’d be dead.” While his tone was mild, his glare held the weight of a threat. The man swallowed, watching as Calder slunk back into the dancing shadows of the rain. “If you all don’t mind, I’m going to take a nap now—”

  “Calder, you must apologize,” Floretta insisted, straightening her posture in forced authority. “If you don’t…you’ll have to write an essay about plants for me when you come back to class.”

  “But I can’t come ba
ck to class if I don’t apologize.” He nodded toward Fraco for confirmation, and the greasy man exhaled a groan.

  “You cannot stay here,” Fraco hissed, his eyes glancing uncomfortably toward the front room, now blocked from view by the door. “Periculand doesn’t have enough police officers on staff to be here at all times, as well as be out in the town patrolling for danger, and we certainly can’t leave a prisoner unattended. Apologize and you will be acquitted of all charges and none of this will go on your permanent record.”

  “Oh, my permanent record that doesn’t matter, since I’ll be stuck in this town for the rest of my life? I was so worried about that.”

  “Calder—”

  “Fine, fine.” Rolling his eyes, he sauntered back toward the bars, leaving only the metal poles and a few inches of air between himself and Ventura. “I’m sorry I got you wet. I’m sure the rain will do much worse when you leave this building—and, I’m sure that, if you’d encountered any other student, they would have done just as much, if not more, to offend you. I’m not sure why you snuck into this town, but I’d like you to know you are in no way welcome here.”

  Calder shot a scowl in the direction of Fraco, whose jaw had dropped in stupefaction. Apparently, he had been under the impression that Ventura had traveled here with Hauser and Cosmos, which was an inherently foolish assumption in itself. A grin of triumph found its way onto Calder’s lips as his gaze flew to Floretta.

  “How long do you want that essay to be? I’ve gotta know what to tell that little, green plant kid when I force him to write it for me.”

  Floretta’s lips parted as she debated whether to respond or to scold, but before she could utter a word, Emmett’s steady voice boomed through the cells.

  “Give us a moment alone, will you, please? Perhaps the boy will be more sincere in private.”

  Fraco and Floretta exchanged equally baffled glances but then silently complied and disappeared to the front room, leaving Emmett Ventura with someone who wished to and could easily kill him. Calder had no intention of harming this politician now, though. He was often impulsive, but he was also intrigued.