Blood: An Affinities Novel (The Affinities Book 1)

by Kirsten Krueger

  “Oh, come now. We’re not asking you to violate her—”

  “Yes, you are,” Aethelred said in his normally placid tone.

  He stood at the foot of the captive Wacko’s bed in the nurse’s office, where he and Fraco had been arguing for the past ten minutes. From afar, Eliana could see his hands were folded docilely, and she could sense his resolve on the issue of using his Affinity was final. The Wacko, whose name she had mentally detected was Naretha, didn’t seem perturbed.

  “I will not touch another human being without their consent,” Aethelred continued, his gaze sliding in Fraco’s direction. “You know this.”

  “She is a Wacko!” the shorter man exclaimed, his voice shrill despite the fact that it was well after midnight. His frustration was as strong as his oily stench, and Eliana couldn’t decide which she preferred less. “She is an enemy to us. She has disgraced the name of Affinities, and she has killed innocent people—”

  Throughout this, Eliana noted Naretha was almost void of any emotion. It was hard to tell exactly, since the Wacko seemed practiced at mental shields, but the ennui was clear in her expression as she stared blankly at the ceiling. At Fraco’s numerous accusations, her eyes, like pink cream, shifted toward him with malice.

  “The only thing we know her to be guilty of is sneaking into this town,” Aethelred began, but Eliana was already shaking her head.

  “To kidnap Hastings.”

  Both men glanced back at her, where she stood among the other primaries. Hastings, Tray, Lavisa, Hartman, and Seth were still present, even after Fraco had ordered them to leave. Calder had left of his own volition upon the men’s arrival, claiming he had nothing to do with any of this.

  “We would know what else she has done if you would look into her past for us,” Fraco went on, not really acknowledging Eliana but using her words to press his point. “Mr. Periculy has ordered you to use your Affinity for good here, Mr. Certior. This Wacko may hold valuable information that could save lives. She may know of future attacks that threaten our very livelihood—”

  “You know I have not always agreed with Angor’s methods,” Aethelred interrupted. His tone wasn’t chiding, but Eliana could sense that some of these disagreements were rooted deeper than he let on. “She may be a terrorist, but she is also a human—”

  “If Aethelred won’t do it, can’t Eliana read her mind?” Hartman piped up from behind her. He was still vibrating from his teleporting escapade, while Hastings remained motionless and pale. Eliana was grateful he was safe—and that he’d only puked once—but now he seemed distant again, like even the smallest form of human contact was too much for him.

  “I can’t,” she said, pulling herself from her inner thoughts. “She…she’s blocking me. She obviously has practice.”

  “You shouldn’t have healed her until we weaseled some information out of her,” Fraco snapped at the nurse, who stood at the far end of the room, removed from the drama. He’d already healed the six primaries of whatever injuries they possessed, and Eliana could tell that all he wanted to do now was retreat to his sleeping quarters.

  “That seems a little torture-ish,” Seth commented.

  “Healing her could have been our bargaining point,” Fraco said, as though Seth hadn’t spoken. “Now we have nothing, except you, Mr. Certior.”

  “That is a shame for you,” Aethelred agreed with the faintest hint of sass.

  “Tray could beat answers out of her,” Seth joked. “Since you’re so interested in torture, Fraco.”

  “Call me Mr. Leve,” he instructed, but his tone was almost absent. He stroked his chin now, the oiliness of his fingers sliding smoothly over the oiliness of his skin. “Mr. Periculy would probably not be terribly displeased with your method, Mr. Stark… As long as we get some information, I imagine he—”

  “You can’t be serious,” Lavisa cut in defiantly, her eyes slivered. “She’s a bad person, but that doesn’t mean we should do bad things to her. We aren’t like them—we aren’t Wackos. You won’t go through with this, will you?” she demanded, rounding on Tray, whose face twisted with outrage.

  “Who do you think I am? Adara?” he questioned in disgust. “I’m not a monster; I don’t condone torture. I do, however, think it’d be wise for Aethelred to use his Affinity—not that I’m particularly fond of Fraco, but it would be advantageous for us to know more information about our enemies.”

  Fraco had opened and closed his mouth multiple times throughout Tray’s speech, ultimately keeping quiet, since the boy was, in a strange way, siding with him.

  “We don’t have to be enemies, you know,” Naretha said, speaking for the first time since Fraco and Aethelred had entered the room. Her vision was still fixated on the ceiling and her hands were folded over her chest, as though she were lying dead in a casket. “We’re all Affinities. We all want the same thing, don’t we—to stop being oppressed and imprisoned and tortured by Reggs? I’m sure, if our leaders conversed, Angor Periculy would come to the conclusion that we should join forces.”

  “Mr. Periculy may not be the most cordial man, but he would never side with terrorists,” Fraco defended, nearly spitting with his words.

  “I agree,” Hastings said, his voice even and his eyes honed on the Wacko. Everyone looked to him for elaboration, but as usual, he didn’t elaborate.

  “I’d like to speak with him—your leader,” Naretha said.

  “Well, I’m sure that can be arranged,” Fraco muttered as he pulled out his cell phone, which nearly floundered out of his slippery hands. “Perhaps Mr. Periculy can gain more information from this Wacko than you, Mr. Certior.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Aethelred concurred.

  “I’ll have Officer Telum retrieve her for detainment… You students should all be in bed!” he exclaimed abruptly, as though he’d just realized they were still there. “Go—scram—now! Except you, Mr. Lanio. Mr. Periculy wishes to speak with you presently. Chop chop—let’s move.”

  “Shitnuggets.”

  “Nuggets?” Ackerly repeated, his green eyebrows furrowed as he squinted at Adara. Her arm was still looped tightly through his after guiding him up three flights of spiral stairs, and now they stood between the doorways to rooms 305 and 306, her jaw set with aggravation.

  “Look at my door, Greenie,” she commanded, motioning to the disfigured piece of metal that now lay in the center of her dorm room. “Never mind—I forgot you’re blind. Ugh. When Nero and that monster got into a fight earlier, they collided with one of the doors—I just didn’t realize it was my door. Well, this is good news for you, Greenie; now you can watch me undress from your room across the hall.”

  Ackerly’s scrunched face became suddenly awkward. “I, um—I don’t—”

  “I’m kidding. Jeez. Did you lose your sense of humor along with your sight?”

  “Well, this might be more entertaining if I could see—”

  “Which is why we’re here,” Adara interrupted, forcing him a few steps closer to the door of room 306, which was perfectly intact she noticed bitterly. With her free hand, still stained red, she knocked obnoxiously on the door until it flung open to reveal a slightly peeved but also slightly intrigued Pixie Prince.

  “Stromer,” he greeted, leaning against the doorway. He wore green flannel pajama pants, but his torso was bare, exposing his toned upper body now scattered with bluish bruises from Naretha’s salt crystals. With his hair loose and unruly out of its normal bun, Adara couldn’t decide which part of him would seem least intimate to focus on. “Haven’t had enough of me for one night?”

  Adara was momentarily flustered by his nonchalance, but she quickly regrouped and asserted herself in a less friendly manner. “You’re partially blind, aren’t you?”

  Calder’s face contorted with confusion. “Um…”

  “Greenie’s glasses broke,” she informed him, jabbing her thumb in Ackerly’s direction. “I know you can’t see. Can he…use some of your contacts until we go to that lens store?�
��

  With perked eyebrows, Calder glanced between the two of them. There was a strangled mixture of pity and annoyance on his face. “You think I owe you a favor, Stromer?” he finally asked. “Don’t forget I’m the one who brought you to the nurse’s office.”

  “And to do so, you gave me these,” she reminded him, holding up both of her bright red forearms. Scabs were forming over the road rash, making the blood seem darker, like Hastings’s hair; it was apparent, however, that she hadn’t cleaned the wounds yet from the pebbles and dust still stuck in her raw skin.

  “Those are injuries you refused to let Pane heal. He could have done it easily.”

  “Looks like you didn’t let him heal you, either,” she countered, glaring at the scratches on his face.

  I like these scars. She’d said it, but then he’d said it, as well. Why he would have repeated her words was a mystery to her—especially because he couldn’t have known that she’d overheard—but part of her reveled in the fact that he was just as stubborn as she was, or that, perhaps, he’d only kept his injuries to seem as tough as her to impress her. Even so, she refused to look at his bruised, bare torso, which Calder noticed, and he smirked.

  “Fine. Come in, but be quiet—Colton is sleeping,” he said before disappearing into the darkness of his room.

  Adara pushed forward, bringing Ackerly, who tripped on a bump in the floor and muttered something that sounded oddly like, “Ow—weeds.”

  “Who is Colton?” she questioned at a normal volume. A groan filled the air; its source was a figure burrowed in the bed on the right side of the room. He was invisible in the dark, but his agitation radiated.

  “My roommate,” Calder mumbled as he shuffled through his closet. It was surprisingly organized—much more than Adara’s, yet not as pristine as Tray’s. “I don’t think we’ll have the same prescription,” Calder was saying to Ackerly, “but if you’re mostly nearsighted, they should help.”

  “I am,” Ackerly said, but his voice was hoarse, so he cleared his throat, provoking another moan from the mysterious Colton. A moment later, Calder emerged from the closet with a small plastic container of contact lenses.

  “Here,” he said, shoving it under the boy’s nose.

  “What, um—I can’t see—it’s dark…”

  “They’re contacts, Greenie,” Adara droned.

  “Oh. I’ve never worn contacts…”

  “I’m not putting them in his eyes for him,” Calder said flatly, glowering at her through the darkness. Instead of glowering back, however, she was focused on the accents around the room—the belongings that might further explain the Pixie Prince’s personality. Behind him, tacked above his bed, were pictures indistinguishable in the lack of light. His desk was a mess of papers, pens, and snacks, and there seemed to be a log of some sort hung up on the wall, as well as a sheet of strange symbols—

  “I’ll do it,” Adara said, wrenching her attention away from the things she could barely see. “I’m not royalty like you, Pixie Prince—I have no problem lowering myself to the tasks of a peasant.”

  Calder’s eye roll was visible even in the dark, but he didn’t get to continue the banter before a towering figure stepped into the doorway and blocked out what little light flooded in from the hall.

  “Pixie Prince? Oh—oh no. Are we in the water kid’s room?”

  Adara instantly hushed Ackerly’s worries by throwing her hand over his mouth. The silhouette in the doorway was distinctly Nero’s, and he was already booming in his superior and slightly vexed voice.

  “Look what Little Stromer did,” he said, holding a heart-shaped piece of paper up to the light. Calder stepped closer to get a better look at it; sighing, Nero stepped in through the doorway, illuminating the room again as he shoved the heart in Calder’s face. “She covered my room in these hearts she colored with red marker. Oh,” he said suddenly, his vision focusing now on the two primaries at the center of the room. “Good—you’re already here for your punishment. Guess your weird plant friend could use a beating, as well.”

  “The hearts aren’t from me,” Adara insisted as she hopped up on her toes to snatch the paper from his hand. “Look, it’s signed by Kiki. It must be a proclamation of her love for you.”

  “Did someone say my name?” a high-pitched voice asked. To Adara’s unusual delight, Kiki Belven stuck her blonde head through the open doorway of Calder’s room. Her curly hair was flatter than usual, and her crop-top was wrinkled, as if she’d been sleeping. “Is there a party going on in here? Is that…Adara? How the hell did you get invited to a party with Nero and his hunky—and shirtless—friend?”

  “Calder,” he introduced himself with a head nod from where he lounged against the door of his closet.

  “Your hands are red, Stromer,” Nero said, ignoring Kiki completely as he grabbed hold of one of Adara’s hands and held it up to the light. His grip was firm, but she withheld her grimace as he examined the red stains on her fingers. “You have red marker all over your hands. I caught you red-handed, literally.”

  “Punny,” Ackerly chuckled, and Adara threw him a withering glance.

  “I told you: I killed someone,” she reminded Nero, yanking her hand out of his tight grasp.

  “I think you’ve made it pretty clear you aren’t capable of killing anyone,” Calder mused.

  “Well, Kiki’s in love with you,” Adara said, as though that was the answer to everything. “Didn’t you make these nice hearts for Nero, Belven?”

  An affronted noise escaped Kiki’s glossy pink lips as Adara waved the paper heart around. “You’re sabotaging my chances with Nero!”

  “You never had a chance with me to begin with,” he said ruthlessly. “Especially not when I compare you to your sister. There is no comparison, really.”

  Kiki attempted to remain dignified for a long moment, but her face gradually crumbled into a frown; with tears welling in her eyes, she darted to her room across the hall.

  Adara clucked her tongue. “Well, that statement was much more brutal than the prank I played. I don’t feel so bad about it now.”

  “Would you have felt bad otherwise?” Calder inquired dubiously.

  “Mm…no, probably not,” Adara decided. “It was genius.”

  “It was stupid,” Nero corrected as he yanked the heart from her hand. “You’d better clean this shit out of my room, Stromer.”

  “Or what—you’ll punch me in the face? Been there, done that, liked it.”

  “Liked it?” Calder repeated with more interest than disbelief.

  “Eh, well…no, but it was exhilarating.” She flipped the plastic contact container in her hand and then linked her arm with Ackerly’s again. “Let’s go get these contact lenses in, Greenie. I would say thank you, Pixie Prince, but I’m not really fond of you.”

  “Hm,” was the only response he gave, but as she exited his room, he made sure to spray her with a drenching spurt of water. The only thing that stopped her from attacking him was Nero’s looming presence—and the fact that the liquid evaporated almost instantaneously.

  With an impish scowl back in Calder’s direction, she rather ominously said, “You’re lucky you’re royalty.”

  During Avner's last three years in Periculand, he had never once set foot in Angor Periculy’s office. It was located on the fourth floor of the Mentals Building, accessible only by a door Angor had to electronically unlock. Not many students had ever gained an audience with the principal, so when the white metal doors swung open on that Saturday afternoon, Avner felt particularly jittery about entering.

  He’d been summoned by Fraco, who was escorting him now into the surprisingly well-lit room. Grand and spacious, the office had a high ceiling and a floor composed of red wood, as though stained with blood. The entire back wall was glass, like the library below, presenting a view of the northern forest. Most of the trees held yellowish hues now as the weather chilled, and it gave the landscape a golden glow.

  The right wall of the room was en
tirely shelved with thick books, and the left wall was a cluster of doors and framed documents; one, Avner noticed, was Angor’s college diploma, and the rest were building plans for this town, his greatest accomplishment. There was nothing especially personal about the room—no family portraits or photos, though Avner hadn’t expected that much. He, like most students, doubted the mysterious principal had any relatives at all.

  “Mr. Periculy,” Fraco prompted, though Angor already sat attentively at his desk, his hands folded on the dark wood as he surveyed the two of them with his pinkish-red eyes. His long hair was combed back neatly, and just as the few times Avner had previously seen him, he wore a plum purple suit that fit his tall, thin form perfectly. Fraco, as always, wore a black suit, and Avner felt dreadfully underdressed in his white “Periculand Training School” t-shirt and green gym shorts.

  “Avner Stromer,” Angor greeted, his eyes flashing shrewdly, “it’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Please, sit.” With long fingers, he motioned toward one of the two elegant chairs positioned on the opposite side of his desk. Obediently, Avner took the one closest to him, and when Fraco began to sit in the other, Angor simpered. “You may leave, Fraco.”

  Flabbergasted, the greasy man tried to splutter some kind of retort, but he managed nothing before servilely bowing his head and hurrying out of the office, grumbling.

  “Your hair is a brilliant yellow,” Angor said, studying Avner as though he were a piece of art. “Fascinating how our features take such odd colors—yours from black to yellow, mine from brown to pink—but, that has nothing to do with why I have called you here today.”

  Avner cleared his throat, sitting straighter in his chair. “You want to know what happened in the basement of the Physicals Building last night.”

  “Oh, I know very well what happened in the basement of the Physicals Building last night,” the principal replied, leaning back in his oversized swivel chair as he fiddled with his fingers. “I had a rather extensive conversation with Hastings Lanio last night—or earlier this morning, if we’re being technical. Since he was the target of the Wackos’ kidnapping, it was only natural I spoke with him on the matter. I also had the opportunity to interrogate the captured Wacko, and she spilled all the specifics on last night’s mission, any future missions involving this town, and of course, the encounter she had with Nero Corvis, Calder Mardurus, and your younger sister.”