Blood: An Affinities Novel (The Affinities Book 1)

by Kirsten Krueger

  “What’s the word?” she heard Seth ask, perhaps through Avner’s mind. She must have made a puzzled expression, because Jamad was mirroring it at her side, confused. Smiling bleakly, she glanced back over at Avner, who peered around the cafeteria…for signs of his sister, Eliana registered.

  “It’s nothing exciting, really,” Avner began, barely quenching Seth’s enthusiasm. Eliana physically heard it this time, their voices loud enough to penetrate her ears. “I just…I was hoping you could help me get onto Adara’s good side.”

  Seth leaned back as his eyebrows arched. “Does Adara have a good side?”

  “Touché,” Avner agreed with a wry smirk. “But if you could at least get her to talk to me, that would be nice. She listens to you—she always has—and she’s the only family I have.”

  Seth stroked his chin in mock contemplation. “What’s in it for me?” Avner and Zeela exchanged a look, at which the boy waved his hand and let out a hearty laugh. “Just joshing, guys. I’ll talk to Adara, but no promises, since she’s a psycho. Hey, while I’m here, why don’t we discuss this balls-awesome idea I have? What do you think”—he paused for dramatic effect—“about JAMZ teams edition?”

  “Teams?” Jamad questioned, leaning forward to join the conversation. “Like, we form teams that all fight each other with their Affinities?”

  “Well, yeah. I got the idea when Av and Nero got in that fight during training yesterday and then you”—Seth nodded to Jamad—“stepped in to try to defend him. Trying to make our powers work together would be sick. There would be some kind of goal, as well…like, maybe, we could get a football and set up some posts, you know, or something like that…”

  “I think we can come up with something,” Avner affirmed, his neon eyes roving over his three friends, who all nodded. “We’ve got a JAMZ session planned for tonight, so make sure to tell all your primary friends—and make sure you talk to Adara, too.”

  “Oh, I’ll do more than talk to her,” Seth said as he stood from his chair. They all stared up at him expectantly, and he scratched the back of his head. “I’ll, um, I’ll…I’ll go talk to her now.”

  Suppressing a laugh, Avner gave Seth a thumbs-up and watched in amusement as he flounced out of the cafeteria. Once he was gone, the older boy leaned back in his chair and said, “That’s the kid my sister’s in love with.”

  “Is that common knowledge?” Maddy asked warily.

  Avner raised an eyebrow at Eliana in silent questioning.

  “Oh, um, yeah. Most people know…but she doesn’t know they do…”

  “Same kid who’s dating Orla’s sister?” Jamad asked, and Avner nodded his confirmation.

  “They actually broke up recently,” Eliana told them as she studied Kiki from afar. She was still dejectedly reading her magazine, exuding somber moods.

  “She seems different than her sister,” Zeela observed. “I’ve never seen Orla have a blue aura.”

  “She’s…unique,” was the nicest thing Eliana could think to say. It wasn’t a lie, at least. Kiki was unlike any of the others—even unlike anyone Eliana had ever encountered—and wore a shallow mask to hide her depths. Where Hastings hid his personality with emotionlessness, Kiki hid hers with over-emotionality. The two were so wildly different, yet so inherently the same.

  “Adara’s never liked her,” Avner said, “but…does Adara really like anyone?”

  “So…is that still a no?”

  “Yes, that’s a no,” Adara snapped as she slammed her notebooks onto her desk in the history lecture hall. They were all devoid of writing, of course, but she carried them around to make it look like she was trying, for Ackerly’s sake. She purposely took no notes just to irk Tray; it did. “I’m not just going to forgive Avner for abandoning me and being a shitty brother. Have I ever seemed like a forgiving person to you, Jockface?”

  To Tray’s annoyance, Seth had spent their entire Science of Affinities class passing notes with Adara—via Tray—about how she should restore her relationship with her brother. Still, even though he’d pleaded with her the whole way from the Naturals Building to the Mentals Building, he had made no progress, and Adara now slumped into her seat with a stubborn and distant manner.

  “You were right about that lesson on Affinity chromosomes during reproduction,” Tray said to Ackerly as the two of them assumed their respective seats on either side of Stromer. His stack of books was nearly as long as his torso, but with his strength Affinity slowly blossoming, it seemed to weigh as little as a single sheet of paper. “I only wish she’d gone into more detail with it.”

  “And I only wish your head would explode into a million pieces,” Adara droned as she tapped her pen idly on her desk. “Contrary to what you may believe, Nerdworm, not all dreams come true.”

  Tray’s eyebrows narrowed with scorn, but he didn’t get the opportunity to retort before an unfamiliar student came barging into their row.

  “Mind if I sit there?” he asked, pointing to the empty chair on Ackerly’s other side. His skin was dark, like the stubbly hair that covered his head, but his eyes were a piercing shade of blue, akin to Tray’s former eye color. Without waiting for Ackerly to give a response, the guy plopped into the seat beside him and stretched out his legs. “I’m Ruse,” he greeted, extending his hand to Ackerly, who awkwardly shook it. “I’m a primary, obviously…”

  “I’ve never seen you before,” Tray noted as he eyed the new boy’s orange cargo pants. “Shouldn’t you be in our Physical Class?”

  “I would definitely recognize him if he were in that class with us,” Seth said at his right. “He’s too cool not to remember.”

  “You know, um, someone usually sits there,” Ackerly finally said, motioning to the seat the new kid had taken. “She, uh—oh, here she is.”

  Ackerly gestured past Ruse, where Eliana entered the aisle from the other end. Hastings was behind her, clutching his books tightly to his chest as his blood red eyes peeked out from behind his unruly hair. Upon noticing that someone was in her seat, Eliana paused and eyed Ruse with uncertainty.

  “I’ve seen you before,” she said, tucking her dark blue hair behind her ear. “You were…you came into our Mental Class the first day.”

  “It’s the shapeshifter!” Kiki enthused from where she sat in the row behind theirs. Tray hadn’t realized she was there before, in the chair behind Ackerly’s—or that she’d been sitting there instead of beside Seth for the past few weeks—but now she leaned forward over her little desk, staring at Ruse with eyes almost as blue as his. “I have been looking everywhere for you! I must know what you truly look like—it’s been bothering me for ages. I demand that you show me.”

  Ruse raised one of his dark eyebrows as his body twisted back toward her. “You demand it, do you?”

  “Yes. I mean, you look pretty damn sexy now, but I need to know if you’re truly sexy, because otherwise, I can’t date you,” Kiki informed him matter-of-factly.

  “Date him?” Seth repeated, spinning toward his ex-girlfriend in outrage. “But…but I thought you wanted to date Nero?”

  “There are too many obstacles with Nero,” she said, waving dismissively at Seth without even really looking at him. “Like, you know, his girlfriend—and the fact that he doesn’t like me. There aren’t any obstacles between the shapeshifter and I…except that I don’t know what he really looks like.”

  “Who’s the new kid?” Lavisa questioned as she waltzed down the stairs toward them. Her hair was in a lengthy braid today, and her stained, ripped t-shirt seemed even more worn than the day before. Gracefully, she sat beside Hastings and then looked to Ruse with a quizzical expression. “Why don’t I recognize you from our Physical Class?”

  “Exactly what I said,” Tray chimed in, but she ignored him completely as she continued to scrutinize the new boy.

  “Well, I’m not sure why you don’t recognize me, but I recognize you, Lavisa,” Ruse replied, wiggling his eyebrows. Her usually-passive face morphed with mild disbelief.<
br />
  “Welcome, welcome,” their history teacher, Than Floros, greeted the class as he swooped down the stairs toward the front of the room. Today he wore a bright orange tracksuit that made his skin look even tanner than usual, and his brown hair was slicked back with perspiration. “Mr. Sherwin and I just did a quick jog around town—what fun,” he said once he was at the bottom of the lecture hall, facing the class. When his vision caught Ruse in the second row, he hesitated. “Ah, Mr. Dispus. Come to learn a bit of history, have you? You did enjoy our topics when you were a primary… Will you stay? Your presence is always…comical.”

  “Oh, of course I’ll stay—” Ruse began in his most smarmy voice, but Lavisa cut him off.

  “Get out, you moron.”

  Kiki sucked in a dramatic breath from the row behind. “You can’t call him a moron!”

  “I can call him whatever I want,” Lavisa said. “He’s my brother.”

  “Your brother?” Tray repeated as Kiki gasped again. “But he looks nothing like you.”

  “That’s because he can shapeshift, smarty-pants.” Lavisa threw Tray a patronizing smirk that made him bristle.

  “Smarty-pants,” Adara snickered. “A trite insult, but offensive enough to him to be funny to me.”

  “You can’t be his sister!” Kiki wailed, banging her fist on her desk. “I was going to date him!”

  “You still can,” Ruse said, winking back in her direction.

  “Ugh, no! Now I know you’re a loser and you’re ugly! Stop looking at me—you’re burning my beautifulness with your horrid gaze!”

  “All right, well, I’m just gonna, uh, go before Belven over here explodes,” Ruse said, standing from his seat and pointing his thumbs toward the door. Than gave him a swift nod of approval before the shapeshifter darted up toward the exit.

  “I’m not going to explode!” Kiki shrieked after him, but he departed from the lecture hall without acknowledging her.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for that twit,” Lavisa marveled, shaking her head. “He’s been constantly changing forms to avoid me.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Kiki snarled.

  “Let us, uh, begin class, shall we?” Than prompted, glancing between the two girls with nervous eyes. “We have such exciting topics to discuss this morning.”

  Out of politeness, Tray raised his hand, but he didn’t wait for the teacher to see him before impatiently asking, “Can you tell us more about how the government found out about Affinities? When that Cosmos lady was here a few weeks ago, she said the government discovered our existence about ten years ago, but I haven’t been able to find any details about it.”

  “Yeah, let’s talk about something that won’t put me to sleep,” Adara said.

  Seth held up his hand in agreement. “I second that.”

  “Well,” Than sighed, shifting where he stood at the front of the hall, “I was planning to speak about the Great Affinity Migration of 1747, but if you are all so interested—”

  “Of course we’re all interested in things that have happened in this century rather than what a bunch of dead people have done,” Adara interjected as she twirled her pen in her fingers.

  “I was alive during the migration,” Than said stiffly, but upon seeing that all of the students were staring at him keenly, he let out a little breath and stepped over to the white podium. “Oh, fiddles, this will mess with my plans, but…all right.

  “Where even to begin? There is so much history you all have yet to understand that pertains to Affinity and Regular relations. As we’ve discussed, Affinities have been regarded by Regulars differently over time. Once, they were thought to be witches and were burned, and then, for a short period, the Regulars began to think their abilities useful and the two groups coexisted rather pleasantly. But then, when the twentieth century came, there was a spike in the Affinity population; the government feared they would take over and therefore tried to keep their existence a secret to the public. By the year 2000, most had forgotten Affinities existed; they were erased from public record and anyone who had known about them was now deceased…

  “There was, in 1984, an almost-threat to the secrecy. The government had put the Affinities in the back of their minds, almost completely forgetting about their existence, but in 1984, there was a small rebellion in which many young Affinities banded together in an attempt to overthrow the government. As far as I am aware, the leader of that rebellion is the current leader of the terrorist ‘Wackos,’ and the authorities failed to capture him after the small outbreak. They covered it up, but of course I heard of it.

  “In 2006, the ‘Wacko’ leader blew up a building, and the public soon became aware that there were people with supernatural powers lurking in our country. Angor proposed his idea of an Affinity town at this time, as the government was thrown into chaos and confusion. They wanted to imprison Angor, but he was so charming that they simply had to work with him.”

  “I’m not sure ‘charming’ is really the word that came to mind when I first saw the King,” Adara commented. “More like ‘creepy’ or ‘weirdly mysterious.’”

  “Oh, no, no, he is quite the admirable man, once you get to know him,” Than assured her with a wistful smile. “He came up with all of the plans for this spectacular town, designing everything from the buildings to the teaching curriculum. He has convinced some Reggs that not all Affinities are bad, but still…the skeptics persist. Many do not like Periculand, thinking it is a place where Angor will train his pupils to surge up against the Reggs. All will be assuaged, however, once Olalla Cosmos becomes the United States’ vice president. I have faith that she will unite Affinities once more, bringing peace to our nation so we may all work together…”

  “Do you actually think she and that other guy have a chance of winning the election?” Tray asked.

  Than shook out of his reverie. “Why, certainly, there is the possibility. What I have learned from my nearly three-hundred years of life, Mr. Stark, is that good does not always win. It is optimistic to think so—it is generally preferred, and those who do not believe so are often scorned—but the lines between good and evil are so blurred that, when the ‘good’ side wins, it is often questionable whether they are truly moral or just disguised as such. For our sakes, though, I do hope she succeeds. She may or may not have a chance, but she certainly is our only chance.”

  Though Tray’s jaw was set with cynicism, and Adara now wiggled her eyebrows in his direction to provoke him, he chose not to retort, and for the rest of Than’s speech, he remained silent.

  “Floros is right about the lines of good and evil being blurred,” Tray said, mostly to Seth, Adara, and Ackerly, as the primaries filed out of the history lecture hall. Eliana and Hastings were right behind them, silently listening in on the conversation, while Lavisa and Kiki argued ahead, presumably about Lavisa’s brother. “Everyone thinks this Olalla lady is perfect, but you can never be sure… I hope she does well—”

  “No, you don’t.” Adara fixed him with an expression of flat disbelief. “You want to see her fail, so you can say ‘I told you so.’ That’s just the way you are, Nerdworm—you always have to be right.”

  Fidgeting with his oversized stack of books, he glowered at her. “Yeah, well, I hope I’m wrong about this one. The election’s almost a month away, so…we’ll see then.”

  “On a more important note,” Seth drawled, slipping between Adara and Tray as the three passed through the doorway of the lecture hall, “I talked to Avner—”

  “My God, Jockface,” Adara moaned as she threw her head back. “One more word about my brother and I will kick you in the groin.”

  “No, no, this is different,” he assured her with feverishly bright eyes. “Av said there’s a JAMZ session tonight and we all need to be there.”

  “Can’t,” Adara said as she tossed her pen up to her eye level and then caught it in her hand again.

  “Are we doing another prank on Nero?” Ackerly asked with the smallest hint of hope
in his tone.

  “C’mon, Dar, you’ve gotta come to JAMZ,” Seth begged, shaking her arm. “Av said we could do teams.”

  She smirked sideways at him, feigning the most sarcastic gleam of sympathy. “I’d love to, Stark, but if you’ve all forgotten, I’ve been banned.”

  “I’ll go to JAMZ, then,” Tray announced immediately, not bothering to hide his grin when Adara shot him a glare.

  “I don’t really want to go, anyway,” she said with a shrug. “While you’re all playing your little games, I’ll be playing my own. You’ll see…”

  21

  Teams

  A few minutes before midnight on that last Friday in September, Adara sauntered down the spiral staircase of the vacant Residence Tower with the intention of sneaking over to JAMZ unnoticed.

  She sported the same black t-shirt, thin hoodie, and ripped jeans she’d worn on the day of her arrival in Periculand, and her hair was pulled up into a bun atop her head beneath the hood. Her worn-out Converse slapped the white steps as she jogged down them with no concern for the noise she made, but when she arrived on the ground floor lounge, she realized she should have been a bit stealthier with her descent.

  Contrary to what she’d thought since the rest of the students had departed to the Physicals Building, she was not alone in this tower. Two others had been banned from JAMZ, and both sat on a yellow sofa at the far side of the lounge. For a fleeting moment, Adara thought she might be able to slip out undetected, but as soon as she landed on the ground floor, Nero Corvis let out a haughty laugh.

  “Little Stromer,” he mused as she reluctantly spun to face them. Nero sat with his legs crossed and one of his meaty arms draped over the back of the sofa. Unlike usual, he was out of his school uniform and clothed in gray gym shorts and a gray t-shirt, both of which matched his dull gray hair. His eyes were harsh, but his mouth curled in a crooked grin as he mocked her. “Are you trying to sneak over to JAMZ?”

  Adara’s lips were pursed, but she wasn’t looking at Nero, anymore; her eyes had shifted to his companion seated beside him on the sofa with his feet propped up on the bright blue coffee table. He wore a white, loosely-fitting tank top, which was distressed with holes and stains, and a pair of lightly-colored and slightly-wrinkled khakis rather than his green cargo pants. Although his fingers played with a small orb of water suspended before him, his dark, ocean-like eyes studied her with mild amusement.