 
Sovereign Hope

Frankie Rose

Copyright © 2012 Frankie Rose

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 Frankie Rose

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed "Attention: Permissions Coordinator," at frankierose101@gmail.com

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places and characters are figments of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

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For the daydreamers.
CHAPTER ONE

Figueroa

The thing about car chases is this: if you're traveling through downtown LA at lunchtime, you can forget about them. In that kind of traffic, all you can hope to have in the way of a highway pursuit is a crawling affair where the object of the chase has plenty of time to make a distress call. Phone in hand, I was inching my way down Figueroa with a freak rainstorm pelting the world beyond the windscreen into obscurity when my best friend, Tessa Kennedy, finally picked up.

"Did you know there's a sale on at Hillman's? My mom's buying me the cutest—"

"Tess, I'm being followed," I hissed. I was alone in the truck, but it seemed necessary to keep my voice down all the same.

A weary sigh rattled down the phone. "Are you sure? Is it another hallucination?"

A growl built in the back of my throat. "Nope. Definitely real. This car was parked outside my front door this morning and I saw it again when I left the dentist's. I thought I was imagining things but the same car is following me, now, I swear."

"Is that Farley?" Mrs. Kennedy asked in the background. "Tell her I said hello. We're all thinking of Moira."

"Hey, my mom said—"

"Yeah, I heard. Tell her thanks." Tess wasn't taking this seriously at all. I could still see the murky outline of the black 1970s Dodge Charger two cars back, making every turn I did, following me from lane to lane. "Can you meet me?"

"Sure, I can, Farley. What else are friends for but swooping in to the rescue when their girlfriends are being stalked by creepy strangers? But listen, if you really are worried shouldn't you just call Detective Miller?"

I gritted my teeth. "Yes, but I'm not his favorite person right now. He thinks I'm harassing him. He probably wouldn't even take my call."

Tess sighed again, a sigh usually accompanied by a crinkled expression of concern that could practically be seen over the phone. "I thought you said you weren't going to call him anymore?" she said. "You know what they say about the boy who cried wolf."

"This is not the same! My mom is missing. She's been missing for six months. I think I have a right to know where they're at in their investig—" I broke off. "Never mind. I'm by the Friday Morning Club. How soon can you get here?"

Tess arranged to meet me twenty minutes later in the Staples Center parking lot, and I hung up the phone, feeling no better for having spoken to her. The rain was coming down even harder now, and I could barely see anything at all, just the beading streaks of rainwater that caught and refracted the light like a thousand spent fireworks, spiralling and twinkling to the earth in a satisfied sigh.

I was staring into the rear view, trying to catch a glimpse of the Dodge again, when the big black SUV in front of me jolted to a halt. My scruffy, black Chuck Taylors hit the brakes but not quick enough, and my truck rammed straight into the back of it.

Oh. Crap.

The metallic crunch spoke of thousands of dollars worth of damage. I whimpered and slumped over the steering wheel. Had they noticed? Of course they had. A thin grey smoke rose out from under the hood of the truck. Seemed like the force with which I'd slammed into their expensive-looking sports vehicle must have been pretty considerable. I spun around in my seat, looking to see if any of the other stationary motorists were staring. I couldn't see anyone. My stomach still twisted when I looked in the rearview, though. The Dodge wasn't two cars back anymore. It was right behind me.

"No, no, no—"

A sharp rap at the window startled me even further, and my blood rushed in a charge from my head to my feet. I blinked and then blinked again, but the tall figure at the window didn't appear to be going anywhere.

"It's really wet out here, y'know," came a muffled voice from the other side of the glass. "Are you going to ignore me for much longer?"

Um, yeah! I thought. But I couldn't. He obviously wanted my insurance details. I buzzed the electric window down and cringed at the guy standing on the road. Tall, black long-sleeved t-shirt that hid half his hands, black jeans—I couldn't see his shoes—black hair that curled in a wet mess around his face, sticking to his skin. His strong jaw line was clenched tight, and a pair of startlingly cool green eyes picked me apart with scientific precision. There was something fierce and angry about them that made me tremble a little. Fate was a bitch. He was far too good-looking to be someone I'd just crashed into.

"Look, I'm really sorry. It's this weather. I've never driven in the rain. I have my insurance card here somewhere..." I rifled in the leather messenger bag I usually used for school, but since St. Jude's was on break it was now filled with magazines and a stack of dog-eared "Missing Person" posters. "It's here, I know it is."

"I don't want your insurance card."

I ignored him and continued rifling. Burying my head in my bag was way safer than facing him. I would probably start stammering. He looked like some unnaturally perfect Calvin Klein model with his shirt clinging to him like that. I took the stack of posters out of my bag so I could see better. "Here it is."

I held out the laminated card and he took it from me, all the while piercing me with those freakishly green eyes. He didn't even look at the card. It disappeared into his back pocket. "Do you know someone's following you?" His voice was even, yet dangerously sharp.

I swallowed. "Uh...yeah, actually. I—" I looked behind me. The driver's door of the Dodge yawned open in the rain. I looked back at the guy who was still fixed on me, clenching his jaw, and a spark of panic blossomed in my chest. "I didn't crash into you, did I?"

He slowly shook his head.

Shit.

I scrambled for the automatic door lock. The resounding thunk that echoed around the car declared the doors were all now locked, but the guy simply reached in through the window and opened my door from the inside.

He stood there, pale and stark in his black clothing, totally drenched from the rain. His gaze never wavered from mine; his fists had turned white, he was clenching them so hard. "You should come with me."

"What?! I'm not going anywhere with you!"

"You really should."

"And why would I do that? You just told me you're following me!"

"No, I didn't. I said someone was following you. I was following them."

I scowled and reached for the door handle, but he took hold of the doorframe and held onto it fast. "Believe me," he said. "You really want to come with me."

My mom always used to say stubborn was my middle name. If anything, her disappearance had only made me more so. "You still haven't told me why."

"Because," he said, pointing to the pile of "Missing" posters that bore my mother's smiling photograph sitting on the front seat, "you're Moira Hope's daughter. Plus I can only hold them off for so long."

I looked at the picture of my mom—the same black hair, but shorter and a little wavy in comparison to my own. The eyes that stared back at me were a cool blue, a few degrees warmer than my almost silver ones. That was all it took. My indignation vanished like smoke.

"How do you know my mother?"

"I don't."

"Don't lie! If you know anything about her—" I halted, mid-breakdown. The SUV in front of us was trying to reverse. The guy shot the other vehicle a disgruntled glance and seemed to focus on it. A grating metal screech cut through the air, and the SUV started to slide across the street. The wheels weren't moving, and yet it somehow jammed itself sideways in between two lanes of traffic. It was like an invisible hand had shoved it in between the other vehicles. On either side, people were screaming and trying to climb out of the windows of their cars.

"Listen! I've been keeping their doors locked but I can't do it forever. You have about five seconds."

"Five seconds before what?"

"Before... urgh, before that!"

The rear doors to the SUV swung open, and three huge men in long coats dropped down into the rain. Definitely thugs. Only thugs wore trench coats. One of them had a gnarled scar that ran the length of his face from his temple to his jaw, while the other two looked like a pair or Russian twins. All three were headed our way.

"They're the ones who were following you," he said.

"What do they want?"

The guy gave me a hard look. "You won't have to find out if you come with me."

The other men were close enough to see they were carrying weapons in their hands. The glint of a wet blade. The flash of silver metal. There was nothing in Guy-In-Black's hands. He was holding one out to me, and a tiny pool of water was gathering in his open palm.

"Promise not to kill me?"

A razor-sharp smile spread across his face. That wasn't a good sign. "Will you at least try?"

He arched an eyebrow. "I can try."

The next few minutes flashed by in a blur. I took his hand and stepped down from the truck, only to have him pull me to the ground. A burst of blue flame ripped through the rain, turning it to smoke before the drops could fall to the concrete. The truck's open door buffered me from the blast. The guy at my side tipped his head back and started to laugh.

"What the hell?"

He ignored me. The heat seared at my skin, and loud tinging sounds rattled around the inside of the truck. The flames kept coming and coming, the sound roaring in my ears. The smell of sulphur and burning hair surrounded us. Car alarms began wailing up and down the stretch of road, and frightened people dashed in every direction, abandoning their cars to flee from the unfolding chaos.

"Wait here. I'll be right back." The guy got to his feet, standing directly in the path of the blue flame. A scream ripped free from my throat. He looked down at me, perplexed, the flames licking at his skin and clothes. I waited. I waited for him to start burning, for his clothes to ignite in a ball of blue fire. Nothing happened. He twisted his hand through the roaring blaze that jetted around him, as though toying with the flow of it, and gave me a crooked smile.

"Like I said. I'll be right back."

I hunkered down closer to the ground, sweat breaking out across my brow. How could he have borne that heat? How had it not seared his skin right off? I was only left wondering for a moment, though. A second after he disappeared, the stream of fire ended without warning. I looked up from my hunched position to see an old woman peering at me out of the car window opposite. She gave me a disparaging look and shook her head, as though this were all somehow my fault.

The sounds of a fight broke out a few feet away. I ignored the foul look the old lady cut me and stood up. The guy was locked in a wrestling match on the ground with one of the Russian twins. Scar-face and the other twin stood with their backs to me, apparently watching to see if their comrade could handle him on his own. Guy-In-Black twisted beneath the bulk of the larger man and somehow wrapped his leg around his neck. Tightening his chokehold, he squeezed until the twin turned a frightening shade of red, then blue, and then passed out altogether.

At this point it became obvious to the other guys that their friend wasn't getting back up. Both Scar-face and the other Russian leapt forward and fell upon the black-clad guy still lying on the ground. He was hidden from view for a second before a strange pulse distorted the air, and then the attackers flew backwards. They landed with a bone crunching thump on the scorched concrete. Mr. I-Think-You-Should-Come-With-Me jumped to his feet and froze when he saw me.

"Forget about waiting," he yelled. "Run!"

His command seemed to remind the other men of my presence. The remaining Russian and Scar-face were rolling onto their fronts in an attempt to reach me when the guy in black lunged forward. I wanted to run but I couldn't. The sight of my unlikely rescuer froze me to the spot. The usual signs that preceded a hallucination—the heady, overpowering floral smell, like rotting lilies, or a burnt, metallic taste in my mouth—weren't present, but there was no way any of this could be real.

His hands... his hands were alight. The white-blue glow coming off them was so bright I had to look away, and when I closed my eyelids, the echo of the burning brightness swam and twisted before my eyes. It pushed down against my defences, threading inquisitive fingers into my mind—a sensation so intrusive I physically clawed at my head in order to push it away. It ended in an instant, but the violated feeling set over me like unbreakable cement. The air crackled around me as I stepped back, and the truck's charred metal sang like it was supercharged with electricity.

"Farley! Run!"

This time I didn't hesitate. By the time my vision recovered, I'd already run a hundred feet, weaving blindly between the empty cars and trucks and buses. I'd never run so fast in my life, and yet it still didn't feel fast enough.

I only paused when a thunderous boom ripped high above the sirens and the shouting. A hasty glance behind me revealed a cloud of black smoke spiraling upwards in the rain, and flames, the regular orange and yellow kind, roaring skywards above the roofs of the trapped cars. An undeniable, sinking certainty told me that it was coming from my truck.

Correction.

My mom's truck.

******

I ran into the Staples Centre car lot to find Tess had gotten out of her sedan and was pacing back and forth in the rain with her arms folded across her chest. She would have been immediately visible in a crowd twice the size. Her crazy, curly Afro was a dead giveaway. She was half Egyptian, and her golden skin shone in the flat afternoon light. When I reached her, Tess pinned me under suspicious eyes the color of an unsettled ocean, blue one minute, green the next.

"What the...?" she gasped. Tess' horror was understandable. I looked like a drowned rat. My hair had teased free of its twist and was plastered to my skin, and my clothes...Urgh. My clothes. My jeans were streaked black, and my white cotton shirt was filthy and ripped, destroyed beyond repair. There were probably a few smudges of blood underneath all that dirt and oil, but after that light coming off the guy's hands my eyes didn't seem to be processing color properly.

I hooked Tess by the arm and pulled her backwards through the crowds of people gathering to watch the fire catch along the length of Figueroa. "Told you."

"Told me what?" Tess cried.

"I told you I was being followed."
CHAPTER TWO

Thrown to the Wolves

I was eight years old the first time I saw something I shouldn't have. My mom was hanging out the laundry. It was a balmy summer afternoon, and the tang of brine was lingering on the air—an imagined hint of the ocean, seeing as the real thing was miles away.

I was playing in the long grass off the field at the back of the house when I noticed the ripples of heat shimmering in the air. Behind the snapping white sheets on the line, all I could make out was my mom's silhouette, moving from basket to line and back again. Even at eight I knew a shadow shouldn't look like that. Twisted fingers of something bad were wreathed around my mom's form, licking towards the sky, ravenous and hungry.

When I screamed, my mom appeared in a second, terrified something had happened to me. The sight still haunted me: my mother, ablaze, hair nothing more than blackened stubble against her head, small scraps of her blue and white striped dress swirling above her into the air. An acrid smoke twisting upward from her scorched limbs.

And none of it had been real.

Doctor Reynolds became a regular fixture after that. He suspected the brightness of the sun had affected my vision and diagnosed me as suffering from migraine with aura. That meant my sight might go haywire if I got a headache. No one seemed to listen to me when I told them that my sight hadn't just gone weird, though—that my mom had actually been on fire.

They hadn't listened afterwards, either, when I told them about the explosions I saw in the sky from time to time, or when the neighbor's cat turned up without its skin. Which was often. Eventually I learned to keep my mouth shut. It was easier to lock myself away in my room and pretend that they were right than face the possibility that I might actually be losing my mind. Sometimes, I liked to think my episodes were totally normal, a hereditary defect passed down by my father. It was a convenient lie I told myself, given that my father had died in a car crash before I was born and wasn't around to deny it.

It had been that way for the last ten years, and now, at eighteen, I was still no closer to understanding what was wrong with me. Still no less scared.

The echo of that emotion resounded through me as Tess pulled into my driveway. This was different. Imagining my mother on fire was one thing, but having people, real people, coming after me for no apparent reason, left me on edge and feeling significantly out of my depth.

"Here we are. Home, safe and sound," Tess said in a singsong voice.

Home was a white Colonial with sunshine-yellow shutters framing the windows, traditional, and perhaps a little more run-down than the neighbors would have liked. Completely different from their white stucco Spanish villas with heated pools out back. I turned from staring numbly out of the window and gave Tess a doubtful look.

"I don't know about safe. That Dodge was parked on the corner this morning."

It did feel better being back in Monterey Hills, though, and Figueroa was far, far away. All the same, I knew it was a false sense of security, like running to hide in your bed when your house is being robbed.

I opened the front door, for once not feeling my stomach knot as I waited for my mother to call out. I should have been used to coming home to an empty house by now, but it was still hard. Things might have been different, of course; I could have been taken into foster care. Social services hadn't exactly been pleased with the idea of me living alone after all, but I'd made it perfectly clear I would make my foster parents' lives hell if I had to. There was no way I was going to leave the house I'd grown up in, and my eighteenth birthday had been on the horizon anyway, so they'd agreed to let me live alone so long as I kept up with school.

Once inside the house, I triple-checked that the door was locked and paused at the window, peering anxiously up and down the street.

"Come on, there's no one there. You want coffee?" Tess asked.

"Yeah, sure, why not? I'm only on the brink of a nervous breakdown. I can't imagine why caffeine wouldn't help this situation."

We walked through to the kitchen. I sank down onto a stool at the breakfast bar where me and my mom had completed the New York Times crossword every Sunday as a ritual.

The rain had finally stopped, and the late afternoon sunlight slanted through the kitchen blinds, stacking long, thin strips of cool yellow over the linoleum floor and up the opposite wall. It barcoded Tess as she shifted around the open kitchen, preparing the coffee.

"You've got messages," she said, gesturing to the answering machine at my elbow. It was true. The red light blipped malevolently at me. Getting voicemail was usually exciting; there was always a glimmer of hope that it might be from my mom. Not today, though. There was only one person who would be leaving me messages today. I braced myself and hit the play button.

"Farley, this is Detective Miller. Just calling to check in, make sure everything's okay. Oh, also...do you have any thoughts as to why the charred carcass of your Toyota Tacoma might have been abandoned downtown this afternoon? If you could call me when you get this message, that would be great."

The red light flashed, indicating that there were more messages to follow, but I hit the delete button anyway. They would all be from Miller, and I hadn't come up with anything good to tell him yet. Spontaneous combustion probably wasn't going to cut it. In truth, what I really wanted to say was that the truck had been stolen and deny being there at all. But there had been far too many people out on the street, not to mention that sour-looking old bat who had gotten a good look at me. She had probably already given a statement confirming that I was the root cause of the afternoon's breakdown in civilization, and yes, I had last been spotted fleeing the scene like a criminal. So what was I supposed to say to Miller? Even explaining it to Tess, who was normally so good at accepting all the weird, hallucination-related crazy that often invaded my life, was proving difficult.

"Start over," she demanded, pouring hot coffee into mugs for the both of us. "I still don't get it. The guy who saved you was hot?"

Typical. She would get stuck on that point. "Yeah, but—"

"Did you get his number?"

"Tess! This is serious." I accepted the mug she offered out to me. "I have to think of something to tell Miller."

"I only have one suggestion. You're probably not going to like it, though."

Tess' suggestions were rarely likeable. They usually involved trawling the local malls for cute guys to stare at, or purchasing fake IDs from scary weed dealers. "Just hit me." Even a bad suggestion was a suggestion, after all, and at this stage I was willing to consider anything.

"Tell the truth."

Anything but that. I placed the coffee mug down slowly and gave my friend a dry stare. "No. Way."

Tess rolled her eyes. "Look. You were driving down Figueroa, for crying out loud. It was packed with people. And those big trucks? Y'know, the big fire-engine-red ones? Well, I hate to break this to you but they were, indeed, fire engines. Half of LA's emergency services probably saw you down there. It's better that you tell him the truth than make up something even more unbelievable."

Tess did have a point, but there was just no way Detective Miller was going to buy that I was attacked by three guys in an SUV, that I was saved by another stranger (who had also been following me, as far as I could tell), and that he had some sort of freakish power that turned his hands into burning white light. He was more likely to believe disgruntled aliens incinerated the truck. I collapsed face first on the counter. "Can't you think of something else?"

"Nope."

I groaned, but the outlandish truth-telling concept was prevented from taking any real shape when Tess' phone rang. She shot me a furtive look. "Sorry. I have to take this." She slipped out of the back door to stand in the yard with her coffee mug steaming in the brisk air.

My own coffee was making my stomach churn. I got up and poured myself a glass of water. I paced the kitchen for a moment and then stalked to the hallway, pausing to study the jigsaw puzzle of photo frames that hung on the wall by the front door. There were at least thirty, ranging in size from the tiny heart-shaped frames that used to hang off the Christmas tree when I was a kid, to the largest—a square, silver frame, easily the length of my arms stretched wide. It was a black and white picture of my mom cradling me in her arms, just a few days old. My mom wore a dazed expression on her face, that mixture of astonishment and confusion that you saw on most new mothers.

I stood with the glass sweating in my hand, studying the pictures from our annual summer trips up the coast, to Disneyland, New York, Knott's Berry Farm, elementary and high school, realizing that in every single picture my mom bore some degree of that same expression, mixed with a quiet pride.

At that moment my fragile grasp on my emotions began to waver. Even on a good day, the panic constantly roiling away just below the surface was difficult to contain. On bad days, it broke through in bursts that threatened to smash my resolve into dust. Today was a bad day. My mother was gone. Not just disappeared on an unplanned vacation kind of gone, or Off to the store, be back in five kind of gone. She had just left work one day in the middle of the afternoon and had never come back. No note. No phone call. Not even an email.

The worry was exhausting. And after the events of today, looking at those photos was enough to tip the scales between coping and crashing. All my fears came rushing down in an unexpected wave of alarm that made my head spin.

Where was my mom?

Was she safe?

Was she hurt?

Had someone taken her?

But the most terrifying of all, the one question I was usually too scared to even form in my mind:

Was she dead?

The sound of the back door snicking closed brought the hallway back into focus, a little too sharp and too bright. I clenched my jaw and dug deep into my reserves, putting my I'm okay face back on like a tired, worn coat.

Back in the kitchen, Tess had returned to her chair and was beaming from ear to ear. She took the glass out of my hand and drained it in one.

"Whew! Thanks. How did you know I needed that?"

"Just considerate, I guess. What's up with your face? It's doing something weird."

Tess shot me a look that would curdle milk and poked her tongue out. "I'm just happy, that's all."

"You're happy?" That meant trouble. That meant a guy. It always did. I gave her The Look. "Who is he?"

"His name's Oliver. We've been on four dates. He's perfect." A dreamy look settled on her face, and she stared off into the distance as though imagining the rest of her life arranged around the perfection that was this new Oliver. I elbowed her.

"Four dates and you haven't mentioned him once?"

"I just wanted to make sure he was really interested. He's from Whiteacre."

"Oh." That explained a lot. Guys from Whiteacre were always 'slumming it' with girls from St. Jude's on the school breaks. They thought they were so much better than everyone else just because their annual fees alone were enough to purchase an above average home in Monterey Hills. Usually they got bored of their holiday conquests just before school picked up again. You didn't see them for dust once the primped and preened girls at their own school returned from seasoning in Europe or wherever else Daddy's yacht was anchored that year.

"Are you sure—"

The sentence remained unfinished. The phone on the kitchen counter began to trill. Tess picked up the handset and thrust it at me before I could object. "Tell the truth."

"Okay, fine," I hissed. The phone reached its eighth ring before I answered it, holding it gingerly to the side of my head like it might explode. "Hello?"

"Farley." Any hope that the person on the other end of the line might be a telemarketer disappeared at the sound of that voice—sandpaper on rough stone. "You haven't returned my calls."

"I'm sorry, Detective Miller, I just got home."

"That's not what officers Mayhew and Angelis tell me. They tell me you've been home for a while now, and you've got Miss Kennedy with you."

"You've got cops watching the house?" Why the hell hadn't I seen them? If they were out there, then who knew who else was too. I screwed my face up at the phone. "Yeah, okay. I just got home. I've been sitting here trying to calm down. I think I might be in shock."

It was worth a shot. Detective Miller was a spare man with even sparer feelings, but maybe there was some part of him, some deep, buried part, that might be capable of sympathy.

"Don't pull that crap, kid."

Or maybe not.

He cleared his throat, his twenty-a-day smoking habit making itself known. "Start from the beginning. Don't spare the details."

My account of the afternoon took seven whole minutes to explain, and Miller sat so silent at the other end of the line I thought he might have hung up on me. The low rasp of his breathing confirmed his presence, however, and I pushed on, wondering if his uncharacteristic lack of questions meant that he was beyond words.

"And so I ran off, and that's when I found Tess. She drove me home."

Silence.

I paused, waiting for Miller to start shouting. When he didn't say anything, I asked, "You want me to come down to the station and give a statement?" It definitely seemed like something he would say. In fact, on any other day Miller would have said that approximately seven and a half minutes ago. After another long pause, the detective broke the silence.

"No. You should stay home. Don't leave your house."

"What?"

"They'll be coming for you. Just stay home."

"I don't understand," I said, but the line had gone dead. I was left with the staccato dial tone in my ear and the creeping sensation that something very strange had just happened.

"Well? What did he say?" Tess was perched on the very edge of her stool, kicking at the footrest and tapping her fingernails.

"He said I should stay home. He said, 'They'll be coming for you.'"

Tess lost a little of the color from her face. "The men in the big coats with the knives?"

"I don't know."

"Why would he tell you to stay home if he thinks they might come here?"

"I don't know."

"Wow. If he does mean the guys with the big knives, then he's definitely throwing you to the wolves," she said. "Maybe you should have told him you weren't there."

My eyebrow kinked to form a perfect black arch. "What happened to telling the truth?!"

CHAPTER THREE

Citrus and smoke

Waking up about an hour ago had been a challenge, and opening my eyes entirely out of the question. The whole eye-opening plan had been set aside after my first attempt, when the weak lighting in the room had threatened to crack open my skull and liquefy my brain. That was something that usually only happened after a hallucination.

Everything was fragmented and jumbled, making it hard to recall why I felt so disconnected in the first place. It eventually came creeping back: being followed, the fire, that black-haired guy, Miller's weird attitude. Not to mention the very unnerving night spent alone in my house, waiting for the mysterious 'they' to finally swoop down out of the ether and finish me off for good.

I shifted my body, testing to see if it would move properly. My limbs responded, if a little begrudgingly. I probed further, cautiously seeing if I could sit up. Once that was accomplished, I rested for a few moments, preparing to finally open my eyelids. I braced for the skull-cracking pain. A dull thump...thump greeted me instead, throbbing behind my eyes.

I flung back the covers and swung my legs out of bed, the room spinning dramatically as I rose to stand. Too fast. For a few seconds, the danger of throwing up threatened to become a horrible reality. The moment passed, but a few deep breaths were required all the same. These were the worst after-effects I'd ever had, and yesterday hadn't even been a hallucination, as far as I could tell.

I hobbled across my room and slowly pulled on a hoodie, feeling the cold sink deep into my bones. I headed downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water. The clock on the kitchen wall showed three twenty-five p.m. as I opened the refrigerator door. I didn't usually sleep in. How I'd managed to pass out for fifteen hours was a mystery.

The water glugged loudly out of the cooler, taking forever to fill my glass. I gave up halfway and let the fridge door swing shut. Spinning around, I raised the tumbler to take a sip, only for it to slip from my hand. It shattered on the floor. I froze, trapped by the discovery of a stranger in my kitchen.

A knife.

I needed a knife.

I ducked back and grabbed hold of a handle from the wooden block on the counter. I held it out, recovering from the surprise, and took in my assailant.

My assailant didn't look very much like an assailant, however. It was him, the driver of the Dodge Charger, wearing a slightly torn black t-shirt and a pair of grey boxer shorts. Still smolderingly angry, still pale and intense. By my guess, he couldn't have been any more than eighteen or nineteen. And he was chewing. Not gum, either, but properly chewing, like he was eating something.

It was then that I spotted the huge half-eaten sandwich he brandished in his right hand. Okay. He'd broken into my house to slit my throat in my sleep, but had found time to fix up a snack first. And taken off his pants. The nerve!

I eyed him up and down again. He swallowed and took another bite without saying a word, meeting my gaze with a shadowed look of amusement on his face.

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?"

He continued chewing with raised eyebrows, obviously enjoying my irritation. Of course he was enjoying it. That's what happened when a trembling girl threatened a big, strong guy with the tiniest knife in the world. Crap! I gasped and threw down the vegetable knife in order to snatch up the meat cleaver. Much better.

It seemed to entertain him greatly when I juggled to get a firm grip on the handle. He lapsed into a coughing fit as he choked on his food, alternating between trying to catch a breath and laughing at me.

"I mean it!" I yelled. "Who are you?" I took a step towards him, still grasping hold of the meat cleaver. He cleared his throat one last time, and then glanced down at the knife before holding his hands up in mock surrender, sandwich still in hand.

"I am wet."

"What?"

"I'm wet. Again." He went to take another bite from his sandwich. I growled and stepped forward. "Whoa! I'm wet because you smashed a glass of water all over my feet. And now you're about to cut yours open." He nodded to the debris of broken glass strewn on the floor between us.

I stopped in my tracks and scowled. Smartass. "Look. I've had a really bad night. I've been waiting for those creepy guys to show up here and kidnap me. So please," I begged, "tell me who you are and what you're doing in my house."

He sighed and dropped his smile, straightening up to look at me seriously for the first time. "I'm Daniel, the guy that saved your ass yesterday. But don't worry—you're welcome." He turned his back on me and walked over to the kitchen sink, putting down his food and dusting off his hands. "And for the record, those guys aren't coming. I wouldn't get your panties in such a twist."

I shook my head. "Detective Miller said—"

"Miller's one of us. I told him I'd be coming over."

My hand shook as I studied him, looking for any signs that he was lying. There were none. Okay, so he knew Miller. That meant he was a good guy, right? It was wrong to stab a good guy with a meat cleaver, even if he was incredibly obnoxious. I placed the meat cleaver down on the sideboard but kept it within arm's reach just in case. "Why did you help me?" I asked.

Daniel blew out his cheeks. "I wouldn't lose sleep over it." He leaned back on the counter and crossed his arms. "I had no choice but to intervene. They would have killed you."

"Well, I really am glad you felt compelled to stop them," I told him, as his gaze leveled with mine. "But if you wouldn't mind just shedding a little light here, why would it be necessary for you to come to my rescue? Why did those guys wanna kill me in the first place?"

"Look, all you need to understand is that you have to stay away from people like that, okay?"

"Well I didn't exactly go looking for them! They found me! I was in my truck, remember? The one you're probably responsible for blowing up? You hardly expect to run into crazed killers when you're stuck in lunch hour traffic. If you know why they attacked me, then you should tell me. I might not be safe. And what's your role in the whole thing? Are you and those guys buddies or something? They didn't seem to need an introduction."

He rolled his eyes and pulled his arms tighter across his chest, huffing. The corded muscles in his arms flexed and contracted. He would have been able to take that meat cleaver off me, no problem.

"Trust me, I'm not friends with people like that. And they won't be bothering you again." His eyes flashed with resolve.

I wanted to ask him how he could be so sure, but my head had started to pound again. I groaned as a wave of nausea twisted in my stomach. This was much, much worse than usual. I reached out to the counter to steady myself and felt the room swim as I took a deep breath, waiting for the unpleasant sensation to end.

"You should be in bed, anyway," Daniel scolded, like I should have known better. "I know the light hit you. Most people would be really sick by now. I'm surprised you're even standing."

"All this is from that light? I thought..." I shook my head, staring at the faded zigzag linoleum on the kitchen floor. That explained why I was feeling so terrible, at least.

"You thought what?"

"Nothing." I took a deep breath. "How did you know where to find me?"

"Your insurance card. And before you ask, I'm in my boxers because my clothes got soaked yesterday while I was saving you. I'm not sleeping on a sofa in wet jeans. But now that I see you're alive, I can leave you in peace to get on with your life." He stepped over the glass, heading towards the hallway where I had walked right past his drying clothes.

He couldn't leave. If he left, I would never get any answers. Walking slowly after him and feeling worse by the second, I gripped hold of the banister. I propped myself against it as he pulled on his damp jeans. A picture of me and my mom pulling goofy faces amongst the photos on the wall caught my attention, and for some reason I found myself repositioning in front of it, blocking it from view.

"Please...I really need to know what's going on. Has this got anything to do with my mother?"

He reached for a worn leather jacket slung over the railing, and then stared down at it in his hands. "I don't know anything about your mother," he said quietly, his hair falling into his face.

"But yesterday, you said—"

"Trust me, you're better off not going any further down this path. It doesn't lead anywhere good." He slid the jacket on and pulled a set of keys out of the pocket, still avoiding my eyes.

"What path? What are you talking about?"

"Just go to bed. Sleep. Go to school. Get on with your life. Stop thinking you have it so bad," he said, his voice gruff.

I shrank back as he stepped towards me. He was so close I could see the small flecks of amber that surrounded his irises; they flared and sparked as he drew his face even closer to mine, and the smell of him filled my head. Citrus and smoke—not cigarette, something else, like he'd been standing in front of an open fire.

"Don't think that next time there'll be someone there to pick up the pieces. Because there won't." His eyes told me he meant every word.

"So that's it. You're not going to tell me anything?"

He straightened and gave me a strange, long look before stepping back and walking to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.

"No."

With that, he opened the door and walked out without looking back, slamming it shut behind him.

CHAPTER FOUR

Agatha

The note had been there when I woke up, slipped under my bedroom door. I'd been staring at it since then, trying to figure out what to do.

Farley,

Sorry about Daniel. He said you had questions. Meet me at the Monterey Fair tonight, 8 p.m. sharp. I'll do my best to answer them.

Agatha

There was no sane reason on earth to go and meet with this Agatha. She could be a psycho killer, intent on luring me out to chop me into little pieces. Only the faintest voice of reason suggested that if that were the case, this Agatha would likely have killed me when she broke into the house to leave the note. That would make more sense. The house was quiet and secluded, whereas the fair was the exact opposite, filled with over-excited children all hopped up on sugar. Killing someone there wouldn't exactly be easy to get away with.

Tess would usually provide sage advice on the matter, but when I called, Mrs. Kennedy informed me she was off on some epic day hike with Oliver. She wasn't expected back until late. The thought of Tess in the outdoors, hiking no less, only served to confuse me more. Tess thought the great outdoors was the realm of survivalist nuts who lived off road-kill stew.

Her thoughts on the Monterey Fair matter were pretty much guaranteed, anyway. I could almost hear her now: This is awesome! I'll run interference in case anyone's watching. I'll bring my dad's taser. If it looks like things are going south, I'll pop the crazy bitch.

She was going to be mad that she'd missed the opportunity to camo up and break out the walkie-talkies we hadn't used since we were eleven. She would probably be even madder that I was considering going alone, but what else was I supposed to do? The likelihood of Daniel showing up and filling in the gaps of his own volition was slim to none.

That left only one option: Agatha.

The decision had been fairly easy to make, but as the day rolled by and seven-thirty approached, things suddenly seemed less clear-cut. What if the hundreds of people at the fair were a distraction, designed to make me feel safer than I truly was? I had no way of knowing what these people's motives were or what they wanted from me. What if this woman had nothing to do with Daniel at all?

I grabbed my leather messenger bag and pushed down the jitters playing havoc with my stomach. This was about my mom. Every fiber of my body told me so, and even if it was incredibly dangerous, there was nothing I wouldn't do to find out where she was.

I marched out of the house, only to freeze in the driveway. The truck. Of course. The Tacoma had been torched. I didn't even know where the wreck had been taken. The insurance company needed calling, and who knew how understanding they were going to be. Was accidental destruction due to being caught in supernatural crossfire even covered under car insurance policies?

I called a cab before I could change my mind about the fair, pulling the huge red coat my mom had bought me for Christmas tighter around my body. The battered yellow taxi arrived shortly afterwards. The car journey didn't last long enough, and I was still riddled with nerves by the time I pulled into the swamp that was the Monterey Fair parking lot. Yesterday's rain had turned the ground to sticky, churned up mud, and the thick brown mess had somehow found its way up the walls of the white canvas tents erected around the perimeter of the fair. It sucked greedily at my shoes, trying to pry them from my feet as I struggled to avoid the worst of it on my way to the entrance. Bare light bulbs in red and yellow formed a brightly lit archway, where a ticket booth was located to one side. The female vendor inside smiled broadly when I finally made it to the window without slipping over.

"Ev'n, honey. You want ride tickets?"

I shook my head. "No. Just entry."

The woman gave me a quizzical look but accepted the ten-dollar bill and stamped my wrist with an ink-blue juggling clown. A sea of people swarmed beyond the lit archway, smiling and laughing, all snaking their way to the various stalls and rides that spread out inside the fair's compound. The air was rich with the smell of toffee and caramel, salt and smoke. All around, food vendors touted a vast array of saturated fats disguised as candy apples, hamburgers, giant pretzels, and fried donuts.

The rides at the Monterey Fair had been the same since I was a kid. I tended to get motion sick pretty quickly, so I steered clear of them. The memory of throwing up on the Gravitron six years ago was still too fresh. I preferred the games that tested your skill, like the archery stands.

The target markers were in their usual spot at the other end of the field, and a handful of other amusement stalls lined the way in between: balloon darts, horse shoes, hoop games. I made my way down the familiar walkway and paused by a stall covered in small glass jars. The game was an old favorite, the premise a simple one: get the rubber ball in the jar, win a goldfish. The goldfish in question—the kind that only lived for three days after you took them home—hung from hooks on the ceiling, glaring boggle-eyed out of their water-filled bags. They looked kind of depressed. The stall appeared unattended until a middle-aged, balding man emerged from around the back, stubbing out a half-smoked cigarette.

"You wanna win a fish, missy?"

"No, no, I—"

"You don't wanna play the game then move along. Gotta keep this area free for people who do wanna play."

A steady stream of people weaved back and forth in front of the stall, yet no one seemed interested in winning a fish.

"Can you just give me a second? I'm waiting for someone."

The fat man re-lit his half-spent cigarette and spat on the ground. "Well, you'll have to meet them somewhere else, sweetheart. You're cluttering up my area."

"Fine. I'll just...hey, where would people usually arrange to meet here?" The note just said to meet at the fair. I hadn't really considered how big the fair was before now, and the overwhelming flood of people suddenly seemed all the larger. Finding this woman was going to be impossible, given the fact that I had no idea what she looked like.

"There's a security tent where people pick up their kids when they lose 'em. Could try there," the attendant said.

That was probably the last place I would find Agatha. I huffed, "Fine," and pushed back into the flow of people. Suddenly every woman I saw looked suspicious. It was maddening. Any one of them could be her, this woman who had promised me answers, but each time I made eye contact with one of them, I would only receive a curious frown or a polite smile in return.

Across the fairground, the huge Ferris wheel that had been stationary since I'd arrived squealed into action. The sound was grating and sharp, too much metal grinding on rusted metal. More bulbs flashed on the chairs that slowly rotated up into the night air, occupied by young couples and children. It had to have been twenty years old and a hundred years past rickety. My knees trembled just looking up at it. It didn't really go all that high, but the wheel's dilapidated condition sent a barrage of images tumbling through my head. Metal struts snapping like elastic. Screaming. Falling. Falling...

"Farley?"

Adrenalin shot through my chest. It fizzled out when I spun around to find Mitchell Hunter grinning sheepishly at me. Definitely not a stranger named Agatha. Mitchell had been St. Jude's 'most likely to attain sex symbol status' the past three years running and would probably earn the title again this year. His shaggy blond surfer hair had grown during the break. He flashed his dimples in a way that made most of the girls in my year go weak at the knees.

"Oh, hey, Mitch. What's up?" I said.

His grin widened. "My little sister's been bugging me to bring her here all week. My parents said they'd confiscate my car if I didn't give in. Hence the mud all over my insanely expensive jeans and the crystallized sugar I can't seem to get out of my teeth. What about you?"

"I'm, um...I guess I'm meeting a friend." Telling him I was meeting a strange woman potentially involved in my mother's disappearance didn't really feel right.

Mitchell shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back onto his heels. "And how are you feeling about going back to school? Break's over in three weeks."

"Okay, I guess. I hadn't really thought about it."

"And your mom? Have they...y'know, have they found...anything?"

"No. Not yet."

"Oh. Well, you know what they say. No news is good news and all that."

I gave him a generous smile, but it felt tight around the corners of my mouth. He was only trying to be nice. He wasn't to know that the longer someone was missing, the more likely they were to stay that way.

"Yeah. No news is good news. So where's your sister, anyway?"

Mitch gestured over to a group of giggling young girls around the balloon darts obviously whispering about the cute stall attendant behind their hands. "They've been stalking this guy, I swear. He's the only reason they come here. It kinda makes me wanna throw up in my mouth. Hey," he paused, "are you okay? You've gone a weird color."

I wasn't listening. I was locked to the spot, straining to get a clear view through the crowd. People slipstreamed past one another, blocking the view I was searching for. The woman I had seen. The blue dress. The short, wavy black hair. The flash of familiar blue eyes that had met mine for a split second before being swallowed by the hustling jostle of bodies.

"Farley?"

"Huh?"

"You okay?"

"Uh, no, actually. I think...I think I have to go." I left Mitch standing there. The woman had looked exactly like my mom. That dress was one of her favorites. It couldn't have been anyone else.

"Mom!"

People scowled as I shoved passed them, pushing forward as best I could. It was hopeless, though. No matter how hard I fought, I kept getting pushed further back. The crowd closed in around the distant woman, and the bobbing head of black hair vanished out of sight.

"Mom!" I screamed. Why wouldn't she turn around? She'd looked right at me. Why hadn't she come to me? "Mom!"

"It's not her, Farley," a voice behind me whispered. I shouldn't have been able to hear it over the thump of the bassy music coming off the rides, and yet the voice filled my whole head. A woman's voice.

"Agatha?"

I turned. No one there. Just the smiling, oblivious faces of the other fairgoers. I spun around, blurring the flashing lights into one continuous stream of red and gold and green and blue. The colors traced together, flooded my head, blinding me. The music distorted so that the lyrics stretched out low, like a tape being chewed up and pulled out of an old school cassette player.

"Don't panic."

I did another three-sixty. A group of guys loitering by an air rifle game stopped to watch me, giving me bemused looks. One of them muttered something and the others burst into fits of harsh laughter. Fantastic. I was going mad.

And yet...I couldn't be, because the voice came again. "Come with me, Farley." A hand slipped into mine. The next thing I knew, a small woman with a chestnut braid was dragging me through the crowd. She wore a long-sleeved dark grey shirt and black jeans tucked into her boots, brown leather caked with red dirt. As the woman walked, her long braid swung from side to side like a heavy pendulum. Her heart shaped face was very pretty, dashed with a handful of freckles that gave her a girlish appearance, although she was probably close to thirty.

"You're Agatha?" I croaked, trying to pull my hand back.

The tiny woman gave a curt nod. "And you're Farley." There was a lilt to her voice, the echo of an accent. Maybe Scottish.

"We're going in the wrong direction. My mom was here. She went the other way."

Agatha tugged me into a darkened walkway between two tents—a fortune teller and a miniature red-and-white striped big top, inside which the smallest man on record could apparently be found. She pulled her lips into a tight line. "No. She didn't. Your mom's not here."

"I saw her. I have to—"

"You saw what you were supposed to see. There are other people here that want to talk to you, too. You met them briefly the other day with Daniel."

"It was her. I know what my own mother looks like." I yanked my hand free from Agatha's. I made to step back out into the melee, but the other woman caught hold of me.

"She's not out there, okay? I promise you it wasn't her."

"You can't promise me that."

"I can. She's not walking around anywhere, kiddo. She's dead."

The words sank like a knife into my back. I whipped around. Agatha stared up at me with a firm look on her face, yet her soft brown eyes held a note of sadness. "I'm sorry. I realize there are better ways to break that news. You came here to talk. Can we talk?"

"What do you mean, she's dead?" The world had slipped into a strange slant. I peeled my sandpaper tongue from the roof of my mouth, tasting something cloying and overly sweet.

"It's true. I'm sorry, really, I am." Agatha cast a swift, appraising look around us and bit down on her lower lip. "Come inside." She motioned to the fortune teller's tent. "There are things you should know."

I stepped back. "No." Suddenly getting answers didn't seem all that important. Not if they were these kinds of answers.

Agatha almost managed to conceal her frustration, but her anxiety was all too evident in the way her body tensed with every passing second we stood out in the open.

"Have you heard from Moira since she disappeared? Have you had a phone call? An email? Have the police found any evidence to suggest where she might have gone? Have you any other reason to believe that she's alive somewhere?"

The answer must have shown on my face, even if I refused to voice it. No, there was no real reason to believe that she was alive. But that didn't mean I was just going to give up and accept that my mom was gone.

"I shouldn't have come."

"Yes, you should. You're in danger. If you walk away now, I can't promise we'll be able to protect you."

The sounds of the fair throbbed like a beating, demented drum, refusing to let me think properly. The smells were all too much, too saccharine sweet, too sour, too overwhelming. I sucked in a deep lungful of air, trying to move past the panic. "This is ridiculous. Who exactly do you think I need protecting from? I'm an eighteen-year-old girl, for crying out loud. Who would possibly want to harm me?"

Agatha scanned the area with worried eyes; she grabbed hold of my hand again and pulled me further into the walkway. The shadows enveloped us, concealing us in a cloak of shadow.

"The same person who killed Moira. The same person who will kill me and Daniel and everyone else we know, given the chance." Agatha stopped searching the crowds for a moment and fixed me in her gaze, her expression earnest and pleading. She took a deep breath.

"Your father, Farley. Your dad."

CHAPTER FIVE

Reaver

The air inside the tent smelled different from outside—stale, like the heavy material had gotten damp and dried out a hundred times over. It was musty, but thankfully empty. Anybody overhearing our conversation would have thought we were both crazy.

"I know this is hard to hear. But it's true. I...we think it would be a good idea if you came and lived with us for a little while," Agatha said breathlessly. Her shoulders tensed, poised for my reaction.

I just blinked. My silence seemed to fill Agatha with panic. She began talking at a hundred miles an hour, her words running into one another.

"There's a city below this city. It's been there far longer than Los Angeles has. Below your feet are cavernous halls and tunnels that stretch on for miles and miles. There are the four quarters: north, south, east and west. I'm from the north. They call us the Thinkers. Intellects. To the east are the muses, the Creatives. The south are the athletes, the Warriors. The western quarter is where the Architects come from. They design, build and create everything within our world. At the centre of it all is the Tower. That's where your father lives." She finally took a second to pull in a shaky breath.

Elliott Davenport. Alive. The concept wouldn't sit right in my mind. I'd spent my whole life living with the knowledge that he was dead. And my life hadn't been like some emo Hollywood movie where I'd mourned not having a father figure. Where I'd dreamed that he wasn't really dead, but lost somehow and trying to get back to me. He was just dead and that had been okay, because my mom had been everything I needed. And now this small woman was telling me the father I'd never needed had resurrected himself from the dead and smashed my world into tiny, insignificant pieces.

"Your grandfather lives there, too," Agatha continued. She rubbed her neck self-consciously and lowered her eyes to the compacted earth at our feet. It was mercifully still dry and un-boglike. "He's been there the longest out of the three of them. The three... Reavers."

A feather-light shiver raced up my spine and settled with a final judder across my shoulders. "Reavers?"

"Yes. They don't really have a name for themselves. We call them Reavers. They...take things. Things that don't belong to them."

"Like what?"

Agatha shifted uncomfortably, tugging her thumbs on the belt loops of her jeans. "I'll get to that. First you have to understand, the patriarchal line of your father's family are the rulers of our society. They have special gifts that set them apart from everyone else. They can...do things. Things that you and I can't. From the moment they're born, it's drilled into them that their biggest responsibility in life is to produce an heir. It's all very old-fashioned, but it's all they live for—the continuation of their precious bloodline. Being immortal isn't enough for them. They're paranoid. They believe that if they die, they must have a successor to take their place. They aren't even allowed to receive their gifts until they sire a male heir. That's when they go through their rites and become a part of the sovereignty."

Something bizarre was happening inside my head; it felt like a swarm of angry wasps was trapped there, and they were determined to sting their way out. My eyes were burning like crazy. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Of course it doesn't. Why would it? You've never heard anything about this before." Agatha gave me a tight smile.

"So, according to your story, I'm next in line to some royal supernatural bloodline?"

The smile faded from Agatha's lips. "Not quite. It's like I said—they have to produce a male heir. Your father already had a son. You...you were unexpected. He never knew about you."

"Wow. This just gets better. So I was an accident, too."

"No. I didn't mean it like that. I'm not explaining this very well. It's a lot of ground to cover in a short space of time. What I meant to say was that the patriarchs of the bloodline have male heirs, because that's all they've ever had. None of them have ever had a female child before."

I counted to five. I counted slowly just to make sure, but when I reached five, Agatha's words still didn't make sense. "Uh...biology's never been my forté, but isn't that impossible? Isn't having a kid a genetic roll of the dice? A fifty/fifty kind of thing?"

Agatha cracked her knuckles. A pinched crease manifested itself between her eyebrows. "Forget about biology. Biology doesn't apply here. Not the kind they've been teaching you, anyway. Once they undergo their rites, these men are immortal. They're nothing like regular human beings. Genetically, they're something entirely different. They've always had male children. That's just the way it's always been."

"Uh-huh..." Disbelief laced my tone. "Next you'll be telling me they're all vampires or something."

"Ha! Don't be ridiculous."

"How is that any more ridiculous than what you just told me?" I snapped.

"It's all tied in with what I said before. They're Reavers. They steal from others. They grow powerful from taking other people's life force. Tell me, if you wanted to steal someone's life force, would you take their toenail clippings?"

I just stared at her. This conversation was getting weirder by the second.

"Blood is just another part of the body. Your soul is your life force. The soul is key. That's what they take."

And suddenly we'd moved beyond the realms of unbelievable into the downright crazy. The fact that I'd let this woman carry on with such a ridiculous tale made me feel slightly cruel, but there was a perfectly good reason for it. If Agatha believed in all this crap, then she clearly was mad, and everything she had been saying was complete nonsense. Including the part about my mom being dead. Especially that part.

"Look, thanks for meeting with me. I appreciate you trying to help me out, but I really have to go now. I have friends waiting," I lied.

Agatha gave me a sad, almost disappointed look. "No, you don't. The only people waiting for you out there are the Immundus—your father's men. They're human, but they have a direct line to the Reavers. They're stronger than they should be, and they do have some power. Who do you think put that image of your mother into your head?"

Something about the hint of pity in the tiny woman's eyes was incredibly annoying. I bristled and pulled myself up straight. "I'm sorry I don't believe in your fairytale. I choose to believe that I did actually see my mother out there. Now if you'll excuse me—"

"I'm afraid what I told you is no fairytale. This idea that your mother is still alive is the only fantasy here."

The words themselves were harsh, and yet Agatha managed to deliver them softly. They stung all the same.

"We're done here. Goodbye, Agatha."

As I marched out of the tent, the canvas flap snapped on the icy breeze that had materialized out of nowhere, blowing it straight into my face. I pushed it aside and charged across the fairground, wanting to put as much distance between me and Agatha as possible. A sensation at my back told me I was being followed, though. I didn't need to look back to know the pixie-like woman wasn't very far behind.

Not for long. Shaking her off shouldn't be that hard. I was almost at the exit, the illuminated archway throbbing like a gaudy beacon just fifty feet away, when I saw my mother again. This time she didn't melt into the background. She stood watching me, intermittently visible above the dipping and spinning of a whirling bumper car ride, with a cold, distant look on her face. The breeze caught her hair and tousled it about her face. She didn't move to brush the hair back out of her eyes; she just stared at me. Her expression was empty, flat and lifeless.

"Mom!"

How could Agatha not see? How could she not see that my mom was standing right there? But Agatha was gone. Instead, when I spun around, there was something else—an elusive streak of black, prowling through the crowds like a silent wolf. A flash of green. The suggestion of a curved eyebrow.

Daniel.

I hissed under my breath. Why was he here? If he was with Agatha, then that alone spoke volumes. He must believe everything she had just told me—an excellent reason to avoid him, aside from his terribly annoying attitude. I caught another glimpse of him as he flitted through the crowd, never taking his eyes off me. He wore an old blue Civil War Union coat that swept the backs of his knees, the collar turned up against the cold.

"Damn it." I pulled forwards, hoping to reach my mom before he could do something irritating like grab hold of me. And that's when I saw them. My mother wasn't alone. Standing just to the right, a couple of feet behind her, two men were scanning the crowd. They wore long coats themselves, except theirs were trench coats. In the failing darkness, they pinned me under their gaze. There was something alarming about their eyes: a thin thread of silver circling their irises. They pulsed like glowing silver halos. More coronas, really—a perfect, shining eclipse in each of their cold, dead eyes.

******

I was probably holding her too tight, but so what? It wasn't like I was going to break her arm. Not unless she kept pulling like that.

"I thought you weren't going to be there next time to pick up the pieces?" Farley growled.

It was almost comical how angry she was, despite the fact that I had just dragged her away from yet another unpleasant encounter with the Reavers' men.

"I can leave you alone if you like?"

Her voice was a little high-pitched when she said, "Finally! That's all I'm asking."

I let go of her arm and carried on walking toward the run-down Ferris wheel on the other side of the fairground. "Bye, then."

It was an interesting experiment—one I was probably going to cop an earful for later. Agatha would have seen me let her go, but in the end it was better this way. I couldn't seriously carry her out of the fair kicking and screaming. That would draw way too much attention, and in truth, this had to be her decision. It should have been a decision she didn't have to make, but...some things were out of my control. It was up to her now.

The move paid off.

"Okay, that's not fair. You know I'm not going to let those guys snatch me, regardless of who they are. Since you destroyed my truck, you should drive me home and then leave me alone."

I allowed myself a small smile before taking her by the arm again. "And you think they don't know where you live?"

She didn't say anything, just stumbled alongside me in her oversized red jacket, staring at me with those pale silver eyes. The sight of them was rather disconcerting. They were closer to her father's than she could have known.

"Let's just give Agatha some time to lead them off. We can discuss where we go from there." I pulled her towards our destination and felt her pace slow.

"I hope you're not expecting me to get on that." She pointed up at the Ferris wheel like it was a giant spaceship, liable to whisk us off to an inhospitable world where the locals had developed a proclivity for eating human flesh.

"What?" I laughed. "Afraid of heights?"

She practically growled like an animal. It was quite a sexy sound, but somehow I didn't think she knew the effect it had.

"It looks like it's about to fall down," she said. "If I'm going to die, then I'd rather it be from something heroic like pushing a small child out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, not because I got smushed by an ancient fair ride."

I curled my mouth into a practiced smirk. "I think we'll be pretty safe, but if you're afraid..."

Of course she was afraid. I could almost see it rolling off her in waves. Fear had its own energy, after all. My smart remark had the desired effect, however, and her body went rigid.

"Fine. Just don't blame me if the carriage breaks and we plummet to our death."

"Hmm," I mused, "I'd probably be okay if that happened. I don't know about you, though."

She gasped, but it was too late. We were at the front of the line. The small, jaunty-looking attendant ushered us directly onto the waiting carriage and yanked on the lever, jerking us five feet into the air. She pulled the bar down and gripped onto it so tight her fingers turned white.

"Why is this a good idea, anyway?" she asked. There was a tremulous hitch in her voice that turned into a squeak when we jolted up another five feet. "If they followed us, then all they have to do is wait at the bottom for the ride to finish."

"They aren't the only ones with a few tricks up their sleeves. Agatha's leading them off. This is the perfect place to watch the show. See..." I pointed across the fairground below, which gradually grew further and further away as we approached the very top of the wheel. Agatha was down there, making a point of traveling slowly through the crowd. She paused to wait for the two men, who had given up pretending that Moira Hope was with them and were shoving their way towards the exit.

We sat in tense silence for a full rotation of the wheel, watching the cat and mouse game unfold on the ground below. Eventually, Farley nervously shifted in her seat, and a small flash of something strangely guilt-like flared up inside me.

Okay, so it was a little fun teasing her about the ride; she'd looked positively terrified when she'd been staring at it before. She had even shivered a little as it shunted into life. But this—having people follow her, being told the worst news she was ever likely to receive in her blissfully short life—this was bad for her. She was probably going to remember today as one of the worst days of her life.

The ride smoothed out, and we moved slowly backwards. Farley's jittering calmed down, although it didn't disappear entirely. I knew she was looking at me out of the corner of her eye. It took a while before she said anything.

"I can't see them anymore. Will Agatha be okay?"

"Oh, so you're worried about her now?"

"Of course I am. She seemed nice. I just had trouble believing some of the things she told me, is all."

"Right. But now that she's risked her life to keep you safe, that makes her story more believable?" It was probably unkind to be so sharp with her, but there were certain ways to handle some people. Of all the things I knew about her, I knew the soft approach wasn't one that worked well with Farley. Her gung-ho harassment of the LA police department was proof of that. And besides, this was who I was. No point in sugar-coating it.

The lights of the fair glittered and sparkled below us like fireflies trapped in a spider's web. The ride wasn't really that high, but it still seemed to bother her.

"You're a bit of a jerk, you know that?" she sniped.

"Yep. Deal with it."

"Why the hell should I? As soon as this ride's over, I'm going home."

I sighed. "And we're back here again. Haven't you been listening? They know where you live."

She gave me a hard glare and pulled the sleeves of her jacket over her hands. They looked cold. "So what do you suggest I do? I s'pose you think it's best for everyone if I disappear off into the night with you and Agatha, right?"

I let out a hard laugh and pushed the hair back out of my face. The wind blew it right back again, but I knew she'd caught the look I crafted. "I don't care what you do. You can go home for all it matters to me. I'm not the one who believes in this stupid prophecy anyway."

I paused, waiting. It wouldn't be long. Five seconds at most. I'd made it to four when she said, "What prophecy?"

Too easy.

"Oh, Agatha didn't tell you?"

She shook her head.

No, Agatha hadn't told her. I knew she hadn't. She'd thought it would be too much information to take in in one sitting. It probably was, but we were running dangerously low on options. Your dad is an immortal psycho killer who wants to end your life clearly hadn't done the job.

"There's this prophecy. It states that one day, a female child will be born of the Reavers. That their world will change forever when that happens." I turned and gave her an overly enthusiastic fake smile. "That would be you. Consider yourself a game changer."

Her eyebrows hiked up a couple of degrees. "What? I'm going to change their world? That's why they want to kill me? They think I'm going to start up some one-woman feminist rights movement or something?"

"Yeah. Or something." Elaborating on the fine print was definitely a bad idea.

"But what about my mom?"

"What about her?"

A disgusted look washed over Farley's face. For some reason it felt good that she was angry. It was easier to handle her when she was hostile.

"Why would they want to kill her?"

"I imagine giving birth to you would have been reason enough. But who can say? They're bat shit crazy."

"So it's my fault?"

Hollow. Twisted. That's how her words made me feel inside. "No, of course not."

"I don't believe you. If what you say is true, then it definitely is my fault."

"Whatever. You can beat yourself up over it if you like, but it seems a little stupid to me. You can't blame yourself for being born."

"Ugh." She yanked on the bar, pulling it up over our heads. I hadn't even realized the ride was over. "I don't know why I'm listening to anything you say. You flat-out lied to me yesterday. You told me you didn't know anything about my mother."

I looked at her—her long, black hair windblown and tangled about her face, her lips a little redder than usual from the cold—and shrugged.

"I lie. All the time."

There were other words at the back of my throat, words that a normal person would have said, about not wanting to crush her hope, about not wanting to pull her into this life. They remained there, frozen, each one a tiny insect trapped inside amber, testimony to the fact that once upon a time I might have been the kind of person to say words like those. I'd tried to kill off that person. I'd all but succeeded. Now, if only I could kill off the person inside me that even thought them in the first place...

"I'm not surprised," she said. "It must be cathartic to at least be honest about that." Everything about her had hardened and gone spiky. The look in her eyes, the angular line of her jaw, the stiffness in her shoulders. She got up and stormed off towards the exit, holding her cell phone to her ear.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling a taxi."

This wasn't going as planned. I trudged through the mud and fell into step alongside her. "Okay, so I'm a jerk, but you're really stubborn. You have to come with us."

She ignored me and bit down on her lip, marching towards the car park. The wind whipped up around us, flinging her hair up around her face. The long, black tendrils looked like dark ink drops spiraling in water.

"I don't have to do anything. Yes, hello? Can I get a cab to—"

I reached out and snatched her cell phone out of her hand then snapped it shut. It probably wasn't the best idea. The look on her face implied she was on the verge of exploding, but she'd left me no other choice. "You do. Have to, I mean," I said.

She glowered at me, her face turning redder by the second. She flared her nostrils and hissed, "Why?"

"Because." I tried to keep the pleading edge out of my voice but a hint of it leaked through anyway. Damn it. I scowled. "Because you'll die if you don't."
CHAPTER SIX

Into The Dark

The inside of Daniel's '70s Charger was as pristine as the outside, which was blindingly shiny even in the dark. It smelled masculine, like coal-tar soap and leather. Guy car smells.

Once we'd picked up a bag of my belongings from home, we hit the freeway, and I tumbled headfirst into a numb kind of sleep. After a while, the sound of voices gradually pulled me back toward consciousness.

"She doesn't know?" Daniel whispered.

"I could hardly tell her everything all at once, could I?"

One of them must have noticed me twitch. They both fell silent, and then Agatha reached through the back to place her hand gently on my shoulder.

"We're nearly there, kiddo. How are you feeling?"

I told her the truth. "Been better." I rolled my shoulders, trying to rid myself of a killer case of pins and needles. Their hushed words replayed in my head. What hadn't they told me? Whatever it was, it was far too late to do anything about it now. Daniel would easily be able to take me down if I tried to escape. He would probably enjoy the opportunity, given the way he continued to stare at me in the mirror with that clenched jaw of his. "Where are we going?" I asked. If I knew that, then at least I could plan which direction to start running in.

"We're about two hours southeast of LA," Agatha replied, "way out in the desert. We set up shop here a while back to avoid any unwanted attention."

Great. The boonies. So much for making a mad dash for home. The urge to start screaming and demanding to be released was almost irresistible. There could be a reasonable explanation, I thought, which was swiftly followed by, Yeah, right. What are the odds your luck's gonna change at this late stage in the game? Approximately zero.

I gazed out of the window into the inky black but couldn't make out a great deal: a bare, lonely tree, what looked like abandoned oil drums, discarded and rusting by the side of the road, and not much else in between. We were way out in the scrub. I slumped back against the seat and closed my eyes.

We drove on down the same dirt track for another five minutes, the tires kicking up pale red dust behind the Charger as Daniel sped dangerously fast into the night. Before long he cut the headlights and we rolled along in the dark before coming to a stop.

I squinted but could only just make out the silhouette of two large, imposing shapes up ahead. Daniel bolted as soon as his foot left the gas pedal, leaving us behind, and I pulled myself out of the car, dragging the duffel behind me. It was no use. I couldn't do it. I had to find out or forfeit my sanity.

"I heard what you said, Agatha. What aren't you telling me?"

"You did, huh? Thought as much." Agatha kicked at a small red rock, sending it skittering.

"You've gotta forgive me for asking. I'm running kinda low on trust right now."

"Of course. You would have found out pretty quickly, anyway. We have another guest with us. His name is Aldan. He's one of the Immortals."

I squinted at Agatha, like it was my vision playing tricks on me and not my hearing. Because that was the only explanation: I could not have heard her correctly.

"One of the guys who's trying to kill me?" Surely if they were trying to protect me the last thing they would do was take me right to one of them.

"Before you start panicking, Aldan is with us. We're probably more with him, actually." Agatha flashed her teeth in a smile that, in the dark, looked more menacing than reassuring. I glanced up at the looming shadows of the two large buildings ahead of us, not a single light visible from within, and shuddered.

The structures turned out to be impossibly big silos. The closest one was blistered with fading, peeling white paint and pock-marked with rust. On either side of it stood high dunes that would be difficult if not impossible to climb. They were made up of the same dry, red dirt as everything else. There was no vegetation or signs of life out there in the scrub. It sure as hell didn't look very secure or welcoming from where I was standing. And there was a Reaver inside.

"So... this guy doesn't want to hurt me?" Maybe being told again would somehow dispel the crawling sensation creeping up my back.

Agatha's quiet laughter rang out into the dark. She gave me a gentle dig on the arm. She had skipped out on the whole getting to know you thing. She'd also clearly forgotten that I hadn't exactly been polite to her in the fortune teller's tent.

"You trusted us enough to come here," she said. "Just a little more faith and you'll see for yourself. Aldan's the sweetest guy you'll ever meet. And really...he couldn't hurt you even if he wanted to."

We made our way slowly around the side of the first silo, me following with my hand on Agatha's shoulder as a guide. I was completely night-blind. I must have tripped at least eight times. The ground was uneven, countless rocks protruding from the worn path that encircled the perimeter. Thankfully, Agatha was sure-footed and confident. She had clearly walked this path a hundred times before.

The door to the entrance had been removed, and the gaping hole that Agatha disappeared into seemed even blacker than outside. Not wanting to walk into the void, I stood at the edge of the doorway and gulped, perceiving the large empty space ahead of me.

"Come on, kiddo." Agatha's voice pricked me through the silence and a small hand reached back and found mine, gently pulling me in. As I stepped forward, a single beam shot up from the ground to illuminate a thin yellow pillar of light. It traveled unbroken in the dusty air until it reached the roof high overhead.

Daniel's torso emerged from a service hatch in the ground a few feet ahead of us, a flashlight firmly grasped in his right hand. He thrust out his other hand. He wanted me to follow him down into the small hole. The prospect of climbing down into the unknown, even with the promise of the light he was carrying, was not a good one. His look of impatience spurred me on, however, and I swallowed my fear.

Daniel scooted around so I could squeeze by, holding onto my arm as I lowered myself down beside him. My feet dangled in space before they made contact with a metal rung bolted to the side of the tunnel. When I had both feet balanced on the rung, he let go of my arm. I wobbled for a terrifying second before reaching out to find another rung at head height, clasping onto it for dear life.

Once the thundering of my heart slowed to a loud thud in my ears, I could make out the sound of him descending below. I cursed him under my breath and lowered myself, searching with my foot for the next step. I found it and realized they weren't spaced that far apart. It was easy enough to make my way down one step at a time, but my arms and legs still trembled uncontrollably. Agatha grunted above as she pulled the cover back on the service hatch, then the darkness was ultimate and complete.

...Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four...

My foot hit solid ground. The light from Daniel's flashlight was out, and the only sound to disturb the silence was Agatha's hurried descent. The petite woman jumped the last few rungs, the air huffing out of her lungs as she landed with a thud beside me.

"I'm sorry about him." Agatha found my hand again. I squirmed, not knowing where Daniel was in the pitch black. "We both know this place inside out. We mostly don't bother with flashlights. He's being difficult, though. He should have left you the light."

So he'd already gone ahead. I clenched my teeth. This guy really was a jerk. Agatha moved off, and I held onto her shoulder again, trusting that she wouldn't walk me into any walls. I closed my eyes, finding that for some reason this gave me a sense of proximity.

"How long have you guys been down here for?" I asked. The claustrophobia was already building in my chest.

"Five years," Agatha replied. It sounded as if it were the first time she had realized that fact herself. "Five years flies by, I tell ya, kiddo."

"And how long do you think I'll have to stay down here?" My heart sank when she didn't answer right away.

"You can leave whenever you wish," Agatha said eventually. "I'd just hate for you to be out there on your own. You're so much safer here with us."

This was crazy. Less than two days ago life was as normal as it ever had been since my mom disappeared, and now I was going to be living down a hole for the rest of my days.

Agatha turned sharply to the left. Further on, another left-hand turn was visible, lit by the unmistakable hue of fluorescent strip lights. Ahead lay Aldan. And Daniel. For a second, I almost wished I could stay back in the dark.

"There's no need to worry," Agatha reassured me.

I dropped my arm to my side now that I could see well enough, chasing away my cowardice. "I'll be fine," I said.

We reached the end of the corridor and followed it around, leading us straight into a vast, open hangar. The ceiling was high, dotted with countless strip lights and the occasional residential light fitting. They had a quirky effect, kind of like hanging a chandelier in a prison.

The place was huge. Daniel was out of his Union coat, propped against a concrete support pillar with his arms folded across his chest. For the first time I could see what he was wearing properly: a loose-fitting grey v-neck t-shirt and a pair of ratty jeans with holes worn below the pockets. He watched as we entered with a strange, intense look on his face. His eyes followed me as I stepped into the room—part workshop, part office, part home.

Directly ahead on the floor, a dismantled car engine lay on a grease-smeared sheet. Tall, fire-engine red tool cabinets stood to either side. Their halves were pulled open to reveal wrenches and spanners in a million different sizes. Behind that was what could only be described as a mechanical graveyard. Lawnmowers, microwaves, computers, an old printing press. Parts lay everywhere. A snake pit of multicolored cables, wound and tangled together in places, covered every inch of the floor close by.

Agatha grunted as she followed my gaze. "He may be a pain in my ass but the guy can fix just about anything. Shame we have nowhere to put any of this crap."

I walked ahead and hung a left towards a group of four computer desks. They were piled high with stacks of paper and various maps, the only evidence of any computer equipment being the soft hum and occasional flashing light that could be made out beneath the chaos.

The walls were covered with notes and papers, post-its and photos. As I followed behind Agatha, I noted, dismayed, that a number of them were of me.

"Sorry, kiddo," Agatha said. "We've been watching you for a while. I hope that doesn't make you uncomfortable."

A particularly unflattering picture of me eating breakfast cereal in my pajamas, mouth half open, hair on end as usual, stood out from all the others. "No, not at all," I lied, looking up in time to see Daniel hide a wicked smirk. He looked great when he smiled. For a second I was torn between anger at his cruel sense of humor, and how disarming it was when he looked happy. By the time I'd recovered from the unwelcome idea that he was actually very, very attractive, he had regained his stony-faced expression of nonchalance. I glared at him.

"I thought you said you knew where I lived from my insurance card."

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Sue me."

I had to pass him as I walked by the computer desks towards the rear of the hangar, and the skin of my cheeks prickled as his gaze followed. I looked to the floor, equally embarrassed and annoyed that I should react to him in any way.

On the far side of the hangar, a regular, modern kitchen had been outfitted, and opposite was a lounge area with flat-screen TV, stacks of unopened DVDs and a huge sheepskin rug. I paced over to the kitchen counter, tracing circles on the cold black marble. I pursed my lips, studying the bright red four-seater sofa. "This may seem like a stupid question but how on earth did you get everything down here? That service hatch was three feet wide at best."

Agatha smiled. "There are other ways in. We just seal them up when we're not using them."

"Huh. And so...well, where's this Aldan guy, then?"

Not knowing might have been better, but the Reaver's absence was glaringly obvious. Daniel stiffened at my words. Agatha shot him a sidelong glance before answering.

"He's in his room. He won't be bothering you. Daniel and I take care of him, so you really don't need to worry."

"Take care of him?"

"Aldan's bed-bound. It's a complicated story. I think we should leave that for another time," she said.

Complicated. Was there anything left in the world that wasn't complicated?

Daniel pushed away from the pillar he'd been leaning against, his arms still folded across his body. "Just don't bother him, okay," he snapped. "He's sick, and he doesn't need strangers harassing him."

"Daniel!" Agatha cried, shocked. "Go and see if he needs anything." Her face took on a hard look. He met her gaze and held it there for a second. She didn't back down, so he spun on his heel and marched out, the muscles in his back tense with hostility. He'd really perfected the angry walk-away.

"I'm sorry. He's very protective over Aldan."

"It's okay, really..." I was feeling more and more unwelcome by the minute. Hadn't he just been the one to convince me to go with them?

"He'll probably be much more amicable after a good night's sleep. Don't worry about it."

I bit my lower lip and fixed my eyes on my feet, wondering what constituted a good night's sleep around here, given that it was already past five in the morning. Up there somewhere, fifty feet above our heads, the blackness of the night would be lightening to a bruised deep blue as the sun threatened to peek over the horizon, heralding the start of a new morning. Yet down here, there was no way to know whether it was night or day without the benefit of a watch.

"Let's just get you to your room. I bet you're asleep on your feet." Agatha gestured in the direction Daniel had stormed off in. I nodded, fully aware that I looked like a zombie. When we made it back to the entrance of the hangar, Agatha flicked on her flashlight. We walked to the first turning and continued straight ahead down another corridor I hadn't noticed on the way in. It turned back on itself, and we were faced with two doors to the left, their locations betrayed by a slit of weak light shining out from underneath them.

"The first is Aldan's room," Agatha told me, hooking another left as the corridor snaked around again.

There were no lights visible down this length of corridor, but when Agatha raised the flashlight, the beam showed that it stretched on for at least fifteen feet. At that point the light faded and blackness took over.

"I'm just here." She clanged loudly on the first door. Its deep, metallic echo vibrated off the walls like a drum. "This one's the bathroom."

We walked passed another three doors on the same side, one of which must have been Daniel's, before Agatha halted. She handed me the light so she could rifle in her pocket, eventually producing a large bunch of keys. After flicking through them for some time, she threaded one from the large ring and handed it to me.

"This is the only one, so don't lose it." Agatha placed the small silver key in my hand. I slipped it into my pocket, feeling some sense of privacy return with the promise of being able to lock myself away.

"I won't wake you. Just come on out when you feel like you've rested well enough, okay?" With that, Agatha pushed open the door and flicked on the light then strode off, humming some soft, lilting melody. It grew richer as the narrow walls sent it traveling back to me.

I was alone. The darkness closed in and I dashed through the open door of my new room, slamming it shut behind me. The room was nothing like I'd expected it to be. No uncomfortable metal cot. No bucket in the corner. In fact, it looked nothing like a prison cell at all. The walls were the same uniform grey color, although they were brightened by three landscape paintings. They almost made up for the fact that there was no window to allow the daylight in.

In the far corner, a huge king-size bed with an elegant, scrolled mahogany headboard was made up with peacock-green silk sheets. To the right of the bed were two fully stocked bookcases. Was it sheer coincidence that I recognized all the authors' names? Probably, I thought, until I saw the dog-eared copy of Dr. Zhivago slotted in among the horror and crime novels. Mine, I realized, running my finger down the cracked spine.

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers and turned to sink onto the bed, catching sight of a television and a small iPod dock sitting on a shelf at the back wall. A number of CDs were stacked on their sides next to the player. Probably mine too, or by my favorite bands.

Agatha had an eye for detail. Either that or they'd been taking things from my house without me noticing. The first thought was preferable. In any case, these people knew a whole lot about me. And all I knew about them was that Agatha was kind and comforting, and he... he was mean and hostile. And I'd be damned if I could get him out of my head.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lights Out

The smell woke me. The room was so dark I had to touch my face to make sure my eyes were open, but the darkness didn't last for long. A small, flashing patch in the corner of my eye twinkled into existence. At first it was just a tiny glimmer of color in my vision, but it quickly developed into something much larger. Tendrils of green and blue and red swam across my eyes, undefined, like television static. My stomach dropped. It was an uncomfortable sensation when lying down, and I sat up to avoid being sick. It had happened before.

Lilies. There was no mistaking that smell. I swung my bare feet out of the bed and flinched when they made contact with the cold concrete, but I didn't have time to locate the socks I'd inched off my feet in the night. I needed to find my bag and take my migraine pills. Maybe if I caught it in time I wouldn't have a hallucination.

I fumbled my way towards the other side of the room and located the light switch, flipping it up. When nothing happened, I flipped it back the other way, and then up and down, wondering why the room was still unlit. A jangling, nervous feeling crept up on me. Had I switched off the light switch before I passed out last night? I couldn't remember doing it.

My heart started doing that thing—that stuttering, pounding thing. Had I woken up blind? I found the door handle and yanked it open, hoping to see the faint glow of light at the end of the corridor, but there was nothing. Just emptiness. Surely I should have been able to sense the close proximity of the wall on the other side of the corridor. I couldn't, though. A chilling breeze fluttered against my face, suggesting a vast, abyssal space instead. Anything could be out there.

The flashing lights were all I had to cling to now, except the tendrils of twisting color seemed to be evaporating like so much smoke. My throat tightened. Tears of panic were already working their way down my face by the time I found the courage to step out into the space ahead of me. I'd stupidly left my bag in the hangar. What if I couldn't find my way back? It had only been two left turns last night, but who knew how many other corridors there were out there in the dark. A person could get lost down here and never find their way out again.

I walked for an inordinately long time without coming to a turning in the corridor; I must have gone the wrong way, only the same thing happened when I turned and walked back the way I had come. The open door to my bedroom would have been a reassurance that I was still in familiar territory, but my fingertips found nothing but smooth, unforgiving concrete.

Five minutes passed by before I eventually came to a bend, by which time my panic had developed into full-blown terror. The colored, shifting patterns in my eyes had disappeared, but the smell had intensified until I was gagging on the rotten sweetness of it.

Still no doors. Still no light. A frightened sob escaped my lips and bounced off the narrow walls surrounding me. No, I definitely wasn't lost in a huge void. Now it felt as though I was trapped in a space too small, too tight, and the walls were closing in. My breathing grew shallower by the second. I was in a tomb; I was going to suffocate to death in the dark, all alone.

I sank to the floor, incapable of holding myself up any longer, and let out a low, pathetic cry. The nausea came on like a wave, and without warning I dropped to my hands and knees, my body bent double, retching. Nothing came up.

Scrape.

I froze, my stomach clenching, breath hitching in my throat.

Scrape.

The noise reverberated down the corridor. It came again, the sound of flint dragged across stone. Someone was out there. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

"Hello?" My voice shook. There was no reply, only a break in the thick odor of decaying lilies as something else drew near: citrus, like soap. Something clean. I sank back onto my heels, the blackness weighing down on me, suddenly knowing who was out there. He didn't say anything, but I felt him in front of me.

I hadn't been expecting the touch of his fingertips against the skin of my cheek, though. The unexpected warmth made me flinch, and the contact was snatched back in an instant. I gasped. In that second, when the roughness of his fingertips had grazed the line of my cheekbone, I had felt reconnected with the world. Now, with his touch gone, I was cast back into shadow.

"Daniel?"

This time when he touched me, it was to pick me up and lift me from the floor. His arms, circled around me, were strong, safe. The panic of the blindness, the fear of being lost and alone melted away in seconds to be replaced by such a strong sensation of relief that I found myself inexplicably sobbing into his t-shirt. I couldn't have stopped if I wanted to. Instead, I folded into him and wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging hold of him and the idea that I wasn't completely alone. The tears kept coming. Daniel didn't breathe a word.

Less than a minute later, I felt myself being lowered. He'd taken me back to my room. The mattress softly yielded beneath me as he set me down. He was so close I could feel his breath, hot and sweet against my neck. Then he was gone. The suddenness of his absence felt wrong, but somehow I knew he was still there, standing at the edge of my room.

It would have been stupid to ask him what was happening. How would he know? It made more sense to apologize, but the words wouldn't come. I closed my eyes. There was no use keeping them open; I was still completely blind, without a glimmer of hope that my vision would return. Now there was nothing but the exhaustion. It sank its claws in, dragging me down into a sleep so dizzyingly deep that I suspected I might never wake up at all.

******

She was lying on top of the bed, her hair spread out in a black fan around her, sleeping peacefully. Her long eyelashes looked like the drawn-on kind you found on china dolls, and her lips and cheeks were kissed with a delicate pink that made her look indescribably fragile. Her fingers twitched like she was reaching out for something, then curled back in on themselves, the way fingers do when they are relaxed in sleep. For a frightening moment I thought she was going to wake up. My palms broke out into a disorientated sweat, and I couldn't decide what to do: whether to jump up out of the chair and disappear into the shadows, or stay and face her. It didn't matter now, since she'd visibly sunk into a deeper slumber, but the panic was new and left me feeling worryingly out of control.

No, I decided. I should go. I tossed aside the scrap of paper I'd been busying my hands with and rose, heading for the door.

"Hey, bro."

The unexpected voice had me instinctively drawing my fist back, ready to swing in a heartbeat. I paused when I caught sight of the blond boy in the doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. There were splatters of paint, green and blue, smeared up his forearms, and a few perfectly round flecks of white speckled across his forehead and the bridge of his nose. I kept my fist raised. Would I get away with hitting him, claiming the guy had surprised me, now that we'd made eye contact? Probably not.

"What do you want?"

"It's wonderful to see you, too, Daniel."

"Cut the crap. You shouldn't be here," I hissed. I let my fist fall, but my hands remained clenched. A moment ago I had been so utterly lost in a sea of confusion, yet now here I was, submerged head to toe in a feeling so familiar I considered it an old friend.

"There's no need to be so angry," the other guy pouted, pulling his hands out of his pockets. He picked absentmindedly at the paint caked around his fingernails. "I thought you might be pleased to see me. It's been a while, after all."

"Kayden, eternity wouldn't be long enough."

"Ooh. Words hurt."

I whispered, "Not as much as my fist," and stalked towards the door, shooting a business-like glance over my shoulder at Farley, still sound asleep in the tangle of her bed covers. I ushered Kayden out of the room and pulled the door closed with a gentle click, enclosing us in the impenetrable gloom of the corridor.

I could see the other boy perfectly. My night vision was impeccable, and I knew Kayden's would be better. Just one of the benefits of being the Quorum's whipping boy. "Why are you here?"

Kayden blew on his fingers then fixed a firm look on me. "They want to see you."

"Now's not convenient, I'm afraid," I shot back, but the news threw me off guard. The Quorum? Why the hell would they be calling me to see them?

Kayden's smile twisted, like he'd swallowed something bad, but that didn't change the fact that the guy looked like a Greek god. Yeah, Kayden was good looking. Even I could acknowledge that. Kayden didn't seem to realize the effect his near-perfection had on others, though. He made normal people wary, subconsciously suspicious. I'd heard the whispers too many times to count—genetically modified freak. Super soldier. The truth was a little more alarming. Kayden smiled that winning smile that made me want to knock his teeth down his throat.

"Sorry, bro. They didn't send me out here to wait for your R.S.V.P. I have to take you back with me."

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Fine by me. But they told me if you wouldn't come, I had to take her instead." He gestured to the closed door at our side. My blood ran cold.

"You can't."

Kayden shrugged his shoulders. "It's one or the other, bro."

"Damn it, stop calling me that! I am not your brother. Fine. I'll come with you. Just leave her alone, okay. She's not well."

Kayden smiled again. The look would have disarmed anyone else, had many times before, but I had known him too long. I didn't trust him for a second.

"Sounds like a plan..." Kayden trailed off, indicating that he had obliged me in my request not to call him bro, and reached out his index finger.

I flinched, and a hard light glinted in Kayden's pale blue eyes.

"There's something really interesting in the way you shy away from virtuous touch," he said.

"I don't mind the virtue part. It's you I mind."

Kayden gave an exaggerated sigh and placed his fingertip in the center of my forehead, filling me with a wave of warmth that surged from my toes to the tips of my hair. The irritation vanished, to be replaced by a blissfully deep sense of peace.

"That's just it, bro," Kayden said. "Me and virtue, we're one and the same." But I was beyond hearing. My body had slipped away. I felt myself tumbling, floating, falling; a slow, powerful breeze blew through me, down to my very soul. As it pulled through me, it carried particles of me away with it, carrying me to a better place.

******

The trees' bare branches were like witches' claws choking the sky overhead, blocking out the stars. A rich black velvet, spangled with the brilliant pinpricks of a thousand other times and a thousand other places, lay spread out above me like a graceful map. My mind snapped back into place like a jigsaw puzzle, and my surroundings came bearing down on me all at once: freezing cold, dark and ethereal. I still wore the thin t-shirt and jeans I had been wearing back in the hangar. Kayden, on the other hand, was leaning against a tree, wearing a thick parka. Bastard.

"Why am I on the ground?"

Kayden's silent laughter slipped free from his lips in a visible spiral of fog. "Wanted to give you a soft landing. Sorry."

"No, you're not," I growled. I pulled myself up on my elbows to see that snow lay in a thick blanket over the ground. It coated everything in a ghostly shroud, giving off an eerie silver glow. I got to my feet, glaring at Kayden, who was definitely trying to give me hypothermia. Sure enough, my t-shirt was soaked through and my jeans were already freezing against my skin. "Where are we?"

Kayden drew a deep breath into his lungs. "Alaska. Can't you smell it on the air? The untarnished, untameable aroma of the wilderness."

"Can't smell anything." The cold had a way of robbing the senses like that. I had been to Alaska before; it had been a cold and lonely place then, too. "Where are they?" Kayden wouldn't have dragged me all the way out into the wilds to socialize. Despite the banter, Kayden loathed our meetings just as much as I did. That meant the Quorum had to be close by.

"This way." He turned and started crunching through the crisp mantle of snow, creating slight indentations where he walked. When I followed, my feet sank up to my mid-calf, and by my fifth step my shoes were soaking and my toes were numb. There was no way I was going to say anything, though. I wouldn't give Kayden the satisfaction.

The thicket of naked silver birch we were in soon petered out to overlook a sweeping downward slope, where a group of figures stood in a broad circle at the center of a clearing. They wore long cowled robes, inky black in the bleached moonlight, drawing their faces into shadow. They turned in unison to look up at us as we emerged from the tree line.

I was about to make a smart comment about the Quorum members being seriously freaky but Kayden, there a second ago, had vanished. When I turned back to look down at the clearing, I saw him standing like a stiff pillar behind one of the figures, watching me, his blond hair shining like a halo of beaten silver.

"Creep."

"Daniel Montisauri," a booming voice—male or female, I couldn't tell—echoed through the thick silence. It rattled off the narrow spindles of the tree trunks. A flock of birds, startled from their sleep, took to the sky as one, shrieking and flapping their dark wings overhead. The sound of my full name was like breaking glass in my ears. I recoiled, slipping in the snow.

"You have been summoned, Daniel," the voice declared, louder than before. "Come before the Quorum."

"All right, all right," I hissed under my breath. "We can't all just click our fingers..." But I obeyed all the same and started down the slope. The snow on top here was loose, and underneath a slick layer of ice had formed, making the steep way down treacherous. It was a full five minutes before I reached the bottom, by which time I was shivering uncontrollably.

"Come forward, Daniel," the voice said. The figures—I counted eleven in total—were gathered, facing towards one another, statuesque in their stillness. It was tough to tell who had spoken and where I should be heading, and I paused, scanning their lifeless forms. The figure Kayden was standing by seemed like the wisest bet. The boy watched me with a blank expression, his usual humor and faint arrogance all but disappeared as I made my way over.

"I am Emissary Nevoi, head of the Quorum," the voice said, "You have been called before us to discuss the matter of Miss Farley Hope. We understand that she is currently under your protection?"

"She is," I replied warily. The way the Emissary asked the question made it sound more like an accusation.

At my response, the voice spoke again from inside the cowl of the robe, fogging the air. It was a surprise. I'd almost come to suspect that there wasn't really anybody inside the robes at all, but the mist on the Emissary's breath gave evidence to the contrary.

"We require that the girl be handed over to us."

My heart contracted. "Why?"

"The girl is essential to the balance. The Quorum maintains the balance. We fear she may be endangered if she is not cared for properly. You are aware of the prophecy?"

"Of course." A twisting feeling writhed in my gut. This conversation wasn't going anywhere I cared to go.

"Then you know what must happen in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled."

"No. I know what you think must happen. The prophecy's a thousand years old. It's been translated into as many different languages. There could be any number of different interpretations."

"There is only one," the voice replied. An edge of irritation had grown in its timbre. Seemed the Emissary didn't much like the way I was talking back.

"Why have you brought me here?" I demanded. If they wanted Farley, Kayden could have just taken her back in the hangar. There had to be something else. The Emissary stepped forward into the silent circle, still buried beneath the folds of thick material.

"The girl is collateral damage. We need to make sure you understand that. We have the same goal, you and I. The Reavers have upset the balance and must be destroyed. You also want them dead. The girl has been pre-ordained to sacrifice her life, but there is another part of the prophecy that must be fulfilled, also. We haven't taken the girl because we require your help, and we are aware that you harbor feelings towards this Farley Hope."

"What?" Even I didn't understand how I felt about Farley. There was no way they could.

"You know what we refer to. If not now, then at some point in the future your emotions towards the girl will deepen. It will be as inevitable as the drawing of breath for you. You must make an oath before us now that you will not act upon these feelings."

A cold hand forced its way inside my chest and squeezed its frigid fingers around my heart. The only warmth I felt came with each of the Emissary's words, thrusting into me repeatedly like a searing hot knife.

"I can't make that oath," I whispered.

"You have no other choice. If you do not, Farley will become our ward until the time comes when she is to die."

It was all I could do to keep my teeth from chattering. "And what else? You said you need my help to fulfill another part of the prophecy."

"We do." Emissary Nevoi stepped closer until the two of us were standing less than a foot apart. Still I could see nothing but the hollow depths of darkness inside the hood. A hand, female after all, withdrew from the folds of the robe, and the Emissary reached up and touched my face. It was a feather-light stroke, but with it came a bewildering flurry of images and information that made me drop to my knees, gasping for breath. When it was over I looked up at her, feeling the cold seeping in through the wet patches in my jeans.

"There's only one way I'll agree to what you're asking of me," I said. Now that I knew what they needed from me, it seemed silly to worry about Farley's safety. She would be safe; they would do whatever I wanted so long as I promised them this one thing. The Emissary gazed down at me, the hint of her eyes suggested in a soft reflective shine from within.

"What would you have?"

"Farley stays with us. And you have to swear you'll do everything in your power and the power of those at your disposal to research the prophecy. You have to swear you'll try and find another way."

"Agreed. But whatever the outcome, you must surrender the girl all the same. When the time comes."

I tasted blood in my mouth. Something else, too, like fear. I nodded.

The Emissary drew an ancient-looking bone-handled dagger from her robes. It glittered in the cold midnight blanket of the Alaskan night. She drew it swiftly across her palm, squeezing her fingers around the blade. "It shall be done." She held the dagger out to me. "And you swear to do all that we ask of you in this, and that you will not involve yourself with the girl beyond your duties as her protector?"

I took the blade, noticing that my hand was steady. I was always steady in these situations, but it was surprising that I was calm right now, given the gravity of what I was promising.

"It shall be done," I whispered. The pain of the steel biting into my skin was barely anything at all. I clasped hold of the blade the way Emissary Nevoi had done, pulling it free from my clenched fist.

Fat, weighty droplets of blood dripped from its end to fall amongst those of the Emissary's, which already stained the perfect white snow. By the time I looked up from the irrefutable evidence that I had done something big, the Emissary was gone, and so were the other Quorum members. All that was left was Kayden. He watched me with a keen, detached interest that I'd never seen before. For a fleeting, half-dreamed moment he almost looked sad.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Arrogance and Self-Adoration

My bag was on the floor by the bed when I woke, and thankfully I could see perfectly in the illuminated room. My body ached like I had been hit by a train, though, and when I rolled off the mattress and dragged myself to the duffel in order to find my medication, I felt like I was seconds away from passing out again. I took the pills dry and waited there, the edge of the bed digging into my back, hoping the pain in my head would ease off soon. It was half an hour before I felt well enough to stand.

My vision lurched, and I reached out to steady myself against the wall, but the feeling quickly passed. The room slowed to a subtle tilt. I found myself looking down at a scuffed plastic chair, pulled up a little distance from the bed. It hadn't been there before. I would have remembered, and there was a coiled twist of paper on top of the book beside my bed, too. Someone had definitely been in here with me. So it had been real, then. Daniel really had found me and carried me back to my room.

The hangar was well-lit and easy to find, but my nerves were still frayed by the time I reached the entrance. How had I managed to get so lost in between here and my room? Where had Daniel found me? I could have been back out by the hatch for all I knew.

Agatha sat at her computer typing away, and Daniel was at the far end of the hangar, sitting on the ground beside the dismantled engine with a guitar laid across his lap. He didn't look up when Agatha called out, "Well, good morning. Or should I say evening?" but he definitely reacted, his shoulders stiffening.

"Yeah, good evening," I said to Agatha, still watching him. He was restringing the guitar. His fingers worked quickly, threading a long, golden length into the instrument and twisting it. His hair fell down into his face, a black shield hiding his eyes.

"How did you sleep?"

"Huh?" Agatha had risen from her chair and was standing behind me. "Sorry. I slept really badly actually. I had a—" I hesitated. I hadn't discussed my episodes with Agatha. Were they something she would understand, or was the migraine excuse a safer bet? Though, if anyone was going to believe that I saw things, it would definitely be Agatha.

"You had a what?" she asked.

"I see things sometimes. Things that aren't really there. Do you think it could have something to do with, well, with all this?" There was no way I was saying my father. Everything Agatha had said last night was still difficult to believe, and besides, I would never call the man who had been absent my whole life by that title. He was a stranger named Elliot.

Agatha's brow was creased. "I don't know. What do you mean, you see things? Like ghosts?"

"No, not ghosts," I said. "More like things happening to people that shouldn't be. Like them being shot, or maybe part of them looking like they shouldn't. Sometimes they're on fire."

From Agatha's expression, this was entirely unexpected. "Wow. That's not something I've ever heard of before."

The blood drained from my face. Agatha had that high, odd note in her voice that people usually got when I tried telling them about my hallucinations. Maybe telling her had been a bad idea.

Agatha pulled herself straight and gave me a firm smile. "It sounds fascinating, though. Maybe it has something to do with the prophecy. I'd love to talk to you about it. You say you had one last night? What did you see?"

The memory of the blindness sent a shiver over my body. "I didn't see anything." I shot a glance over at Daniel. He was still, his back to us, completely frozen. Listening. I turned back to Agatha. "I thought I'd gone blind. I tried to make my way here to get my bag but I got lost somehow. Daniel found me and took me back to my room."

"No, I didn't."

His voice behind me made me jump. Sneaky son of a... I spun to face him, confused. "What do you mean, you didn't?"

"Nope," he said. He wore an oversized, black long-sleeved shirt, which, combined with his dark charcoal hair and pale skin, made him look like a study in contrasts. All blacks and whites. Except for his eyes, of course, which were a burning green fire, fixed on mine. His body tensed and relaxed in waves as he stared me down.

"But you did," I said. "You carried me back to my bed."

"I've often been told girls dream of me stealing into their rooms at night." His lips curled in a haughty way, and he flashed me a wink, ignoring the horrified expression on my face.

"Daniel, I know it was you. I smelled..."

"You smelled what?" His expression wavered, his immodesty gone in a flash.

"I smelled you." I felt ridiculous as soon as I had said it. My cheeks and neck flushed scarlet. Even the backs of my hands blossomed with a blotchy, embarrassed rash.

Daniel let out a hard, amused laugh. "You did, did you? And what do I smell like?"

"Like arrogance and self-adoration," I snapped. "I can smell it a mile off. Why bother saying you didn't help me when it could only have been you?" And why are you lying?

He gave a casual shrug. "Because I really didn't. Like I said, maybe you were having some sort of blissed-out dream."

"No." My voice hardened. "If anything it was a nightmare."

A curious, flat look passed over his face. "Dreams. Nightmares. They're two sides of the same coin down here, Miss Hope. One can easily turn into the other in the flash of an eye."

His words caught me off guard. That was exactly how it had felt last night—that I was trapped in some horrendous, never-ending nightmare, which had changed the instant he picked me up off the cold ground. I had felt warm and secure and safe. Right now I just felt rather stupid.

"Leave her be, Daniel," Agatha cut in. "You said you see things that aren't really there, Farley?"

"Yeah. Hallucinations."

"Well maybe you hallucinated that Daniel came and carried you back to your room. Maybe it wasn't a dream or reality. The human mind is a powerful thing. It can trick you into believing almost anything."

Yeah, I thought, but it didn't trick me into imagining the chair he left in my room, or that twisted up piece of paper. "Yeah, you could be right," I said, instead. Daniel clearly didn't want me thinking he'd helped me. Fine. He could have his own way, if only he would stop giving me that lazy, churlish look.

"I still think she was fantasizing about me," he said, throwing himself down onto the computer chair nearby and pulling the guitar up into his lap. He pinned me with his eyes, the great sea-green depths of them, and plucked out a melody I faintly recognized.

"You're impossible," Agatha sighed. She continued speaking, but I wasn't listening. I was staring at Daniel the way he was staring at me, daring me to be embarrassed or look away. I didn't. If he wanted to lie about what he'd done last night, that was his business, but I wasn't about to let him make me feel like a fool for remembering it.

"Farley? Come and tell me more about these hallucinations," Agatha said, drawing me to her desk by the hand. Daniel gave me a little wave as I was pulled away, and I felt like dashing back over and slapping him upside the head. There was no point, though. He would only enjoy having provoked the reaction. Instead, I went and sat with Agatha, feeling a little stupid as I explained the intricacies of my hallucinations to her. I started with how and when they had begun, and all that had happened in between. The smell. The taste.

By the time I was done, I was tired again, and I excused myself to head back to my room. I clearly wasn't recovered yet. Sleep was the only real cure. My mood was still agitated, though, and on the way back I paused, contemplating rushing back and grabbing hold of Daniel. Dragging him back to the room and showing him the evidence of his presence would wipe the smile off his face. A good thing I was able to control that urge, because when I threw back the door to my room nothing was out of place. The bed had been made, and not only that but the chair and the paper were gone.

CHAPTER NINE

Look with Your Eyes,

and Not with Your hands

I knelt in a snow-covered landscape, my feet bare and blue with the cold. I felt it within the very depths of my soul, lacing its fingers through mine, beckoning me to lie down and sleep. Just for a moment.

Emaciated trees, tall against the black expanse of sky, hid willowy shadows. They watched me, waiting, poised for the right moment to show themselves. Daniel was there at the top of a bluff, looking down at me. Blood poured from his hands in a macabre waterfall, and there was a broken look on his face as he screamed something to me across the vast space. I couldn't hear him, though; the frozen wind ripped his words away and tossed them up as an offering to the barren sky. He gave up after a while and stared down to watch as the blood ran thick through his fingers.

The cold whispered its teasing susurrus into my ears, its pleading too tantalizing to resist for long. I gave in and lay down on the glacial cushion of snow, staring up at the sky above, and Daniel picked up yelling again. I knew he could see them—the shadows. They drew long and tall from the tree line, creeping forward like skeletal wraiths, their fingers lengthening under the tainted light of the malevolent moon.

I was frozen to the ground, the snow entombing me in its icy embrace. It was crimson now, and I could smell the metallic tang of blood. There was sound, too. I barely noticed it at first—a low hissing, growing in depth and pitch until it rose into a sonorous roar. The beating of my heart slowed in my ears until there was barely the echo of it to keep me conscious, and then...

Silence.

Like cotton wool in my ears. A silence so profound, it spoke of eternity and of being alone. Above, the stars pulsed in the sky like the distant lights of a city, only to be interrupted by the flight of a solitary bird flying with haste across the breach. And then, his voice. It was just one word, but the sound of it was like falling into a chasm of misery and pain and I knew I would never hit the bottom. Just keep falling and falling, with that word echoing in my ears:

"Run!"

My hands shook as I pulled myself up in bed. My hair wouldn't stay tucked behind my ears, and I gave up even trying after three failed attempts. I needed to breathe. I blew out a long, steady breath while I tried to relax my body.

The cold had been so vivid, the fear in Daniel's face so real. I shuddered and pushed it out of my head. It was only a bad dream. Surely a bad dream or two was to be expected given what was happening in my life right now? I heaved myself out of bed and looked at my watch on the nightstand where I had left it. It was past midday.

I quickly pulled a brush through my hair and got dressed, swapping clammy nightclothes for my favorite green shirt and a pair of black jeans from my bag. Peering out into the corridor, I was only able to make out a couple of feet illuminated by the bedroom light. In a few turns I would be back at the hangar, but fear still pulsed through me as I took my first tentative step.

As I did, my foot hit something solid, and my heart leapt into staccato overdrive. The bulky Maglite Daniel had carried the day I arrived rocked silently on its side a few feet away. Huh, I breathed, here lies Farley Hope. Died of cardiac arrest, aged eighteen.

I scooped up the flashlight and turned it on, my confidence mounting as I made my way back. It really wasn't so scary when you had some light and didn't think you'd gone blind. The hangar was only a single turn away when I noticed the crack of bright light lancing out from underneath one of the doors. Aldan's room.

My pace slowed to a complete stop outside the door. Listening hard for sounds within, I held my breath and closed my eyes to concentrate. Nothing.

Curiosity was the only logical thing that could have spurred me to push against the door, half wanting to stay and half wanting to run away. I quelled my rising nerves and stepped closer so I could peek into the room. When I saw inside, I relaxed for the first time in days.

Agatha had been so certain of my safety, and now, looking down upon the unconscious man lying in the bed, I understood why. Aldan was still, his eyes closed, but he wasn't sleeping. He was comatose.

The old man must have been at least fifty. A thick shock of unruly hair, so grey it was almost white, lay about his head on the pillow. He would have fit your average hospital patient stereotype except for the Styx t-shirt he wore. His closed eyes gave him a peaceful air.

I hesitated before entering the room. Daniel's voice played out in my head: Just don't bother him, okay. He's sick, and he doesn't need strangers harassing him. But how could you harass someone who was unconscious? And, more than anything, who cared what Daniel said? He was a jackass. It was going to take a while to get over him trying to make me look like an idiot, and going into Aldan's room seemed like a good way to show him I didn't give a damn about what he said.

I went closer to the bedside and looked down at Aldan, half expecting the old man to sit bolt upright and start yelling. He didn't. He looked so serene. How could he be like the other guys, the ones that wanted to kill me? He looked like a trimmed down version of Santa. And he liked Styx, for crying out loud.

I was so distracted by Aldan that it took a few moments to notice the hundreds of books that lined the walls. The shelves ran from the high ceiling, dusted with a cobweb here and there, down to the floor. There was nothing else in the room save a small bedside table, the lamp that lit the room, and a small leather chair on the other side of the bed. A throw was neatly folded over the back of it, suggesting someone spent a lot of time there.

I studied the rows of books. I'd never had great luck not breaking things in stores, and my instincts warned that this might be a good time to look with my eyes and not with my hands. Most of the books had no inscriptions on their worn leather spines. The few that did left me curious. I walked the perimeter of the room, taking in the various titles as I went.

Mastering Eternal Physics.

The Unknowable Trickery of the Mind.

Idiom.

Revolution of the Human Condition.

None of the authors' names were familiar, and I'd certainly never heard any of the titles before. When I'd circled the room, I returned to Aldan's bedside and examined his face again. The fine veins visible in his eyelids expanded and contracted with the flow of his blood, and a faint rhythm throbbed at his temple.

It was then that I noticed the ragged scar. It ran from the corner of his jaw down his neck in a thick arc that terminated just before his Adam's apple. Definitely a contender as to why he's in this condition, I mused. But on closer inspection the puckered skin looked to have been healed for a long time. A well-worn battle scar.

Every part of me screamed that I shouldn't, but something irresistible pulled me forward towards the bed. I reached out to touch the scar with my index finger. The skin looked shiny and smooth, but how did it feel? My fingertip touched the slick surface of the twisted flesh, felt warmth, and then...

What the...?

I was paralyzed. Couldn't move a single muscle. Something wasn't right. The air in my lungs began to vibrate, faster and faster, until it was burning up inside me. Escape! my mind demanded, but my body wouldn't...no, couldn't oblige. I'd grabbed hold of something too, too hot and couldn't let go. Why couldn't I unclench my jaw?

Pain. Pain. Pain. PAIN. PAIN!

It throbbed around my nervous system, growing and growing until there was nothing else. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. The pressure inside my head, small at first, swelled until it pushed at the inside of my skull, then exploded, all fireworks and color. I could even taste it, acidic, like licking a battery. But there was something else...

Let go! Let go! Let go before—

Suddenly the ground was gone. My stomach lurched, and I was weightless for a second before my back slammed against the far wall. There was a sickening, twisting crunch... falling...and then my head cracked against bare concrete. Teeth smashed against teeth, a strangled gasp escaped my lips, and then the lights were most definitely out.

CHAPTER TEN

Kinda Hurting

"Hold this, will you?"

"Listen, I've only got two hands, kid."

"Then... here... just hold it in your teeth."

"Okay, okay."

"There's so much blood. I don't know where it's coming from. Can you... can you... here... yes. Yes, I've got it. I've got pressure on it."

"Good. It'll stop soon enough. Don't move your hand. I'll be right back."

"Hurry."

Muffled footsteps disappeared and breathing quickened as someone leaned over me. They grunted with exertion as they pressed down hard on my shoulder, pinning me to the floor. I lay absolutely still. A foggy memory was taking shape in my mind. I was standing in Aldan's room, I touched his scar, and then...wham. Pain and dizziness and blood.

My ears rang as I lay there, feeling strangely disjointed and uninvolved in what was happening. The strong hands worked over me, pulling my body straight and lifting my head to place something soft underneath it.

"Damn it, Farley. Damn it."

I jolted when I realized who was piecing me back together so frantically. I attempted to turn, to move out of his hands so that my pride wouldn't be quite so wounded, so he couldn't shout and scream at me for doing exactly what he'd told me not to.

"Don't do this. Don't do this..." Daniel repeated it over and over like a mantra. He brushed my hair back out of my face. The strands were sticky as they peeled from my skin, smelling like the bitter tang of blood. Uneasy, I tried to open my eyes, to feel out my body, but all I managed was a pained moan. Daniel stiffened, exhaled sharply, and then went back to work.

Agatha returned. She lowered herself to the floor, tutting as she fiddled with something. Another second passed by. I felt Daniel's strong grip around my upper arm. He squeezed hard, cutting off the circulation. My stomach fluttered, nervous. What's he doing?

A scratching sensation in the crook of my arm—an injection. Daniel released his grip.

"She's coming to," he said.

"You better do it quickly, then."

"Here. Hold her up a little."

Daniel grunted, and Agatha's small hands moved underneath my head, gently lifting me up into a half-sitting position. After that, Agatha maneuvered herself in behind me to support me against her stomach. At this point I managed to crack my eyes open, wincing, to see Daniel crouching over me. His face was creased with something that looked shockingly close to concern.

Sweat ran from his brow as he took hold of the top of my arm. He rested his other hand over my shoulder, placing the heel of his palm against my collarbone. Agatha gripped me tighter. I managed a frown, trying to figure out what was happening, just as Daniel braced and pulled sharply in opposite directions. There was a popping sound, and a wild surge of fresh, crippling pain sprinted through my body.

Dislocated shoulder.

I swooned and swallowed back the urge to vomit as my stomach heaved. Daniel let go as soon as it was done, pushing himself back to reveal that his white t-shirt was spattered with fat, round circles of blood. The hem of it was a sticky, dark red mess. Our eyes met, and he struggled to his feet, his face hardening in a matter of seconds. Amongst all the pain, the added knowledge that he was going to be mad made the situation a hundred times worse. I groaned and closed my eyes again, not wanting to see him shut down.

"I gotta get outta here."

It sounded like he tripped in his rush to escape, and I opened my eyes in time to see his green Converse disappear through the doorway. Agatha huffed and heaved herself out from underneath me, shifting so that she was in view.

"How you doing, kid?"

"Kinda hurting." My voice was a weak rasp.

Agatha grimaced. "I'll bet." She rummaged through the first aid kit at her knees and pulled out another syringe, tearing it from the plastic and inserting it into a clear glass vial. Her hands were steady, methodical. "This'll knock you out. You might feel a little better in a couple of hours."

She didn't sound as hopeful as I would have liked. How badly had I been hurt? I nodded and barely flinched when the syringe was emptied into my arm, enjoying the dulling sensation as I crept out of consciousness once more.

******

"Here. Squeeze it. Like this." Agatha mashed the small red Styrofoam ball in her hand.

"I've been doing it all morning. It doesn't hurt anymore, I swear." I was growing irritated with Agatha's never-ending physiotherapy.

"It's only been six days. Of course it still hurts. Now squeeze."

I obliged Agatha, if only to shut her up. It really didn't hurt that much. Aside from the dislocation, it turned out that when I was slammed into the wall, a small steel bracket had pierced my shoulder. Apparently Agatha had never seen so much blood, but I suspected that was hyperbole. It seemed to me that the other woman had probably seen a lot of blood in her time.

I sighed and flexed the stupid ball. "Has he called yet?" Daniel had bolted after the accident and hadn't been back since. I was dreading his return more than a trip to the dentist, and I really hated the dentist.

"Nope."

Perfect.

"He'll be worried about Aldan. He'll be back soon."

"Worried about Aldan? The man tried to kill me!"

Agatha pursed her lips into a hard line and cut me a sideways look. "You have to understand, Aldan never meant to hurt you. Please believe that. I'd explain more, but it's all too intricately linked with Daniel. It wouldn't be fair of me to discuss it with you without his consent."

She was being ridiculous if she expected me to buy that sorry excuse. "It's not like Aldan accidentally tripped me or something, Agatha. He could have killed me."

And that was the end of that particular conversation. Agatha refused to discuss it any further. Instead, she told me about herself. She told me how she'd left the Four Quarters a long time ago—she couldn't stand the way the Reavers took life—and refused to be a part of their society.

I knocked out a distracted rhythm on my water glass with a pencil. "Have you always been with Daniel and Aldan?"

"No, not always. I spent a long time just traveling, seeing what was out there, y'know? I didn't even know who they were until I came across Daniel one day." She laughed. "He tried to kill me. I'm glad that was back when he hadn't refined his skills and not now."

"How long ago was that?"

Agatha thought for a moment. She looked up to the ceiling in concentration, frowning. "A really long time ago."

That didn't really help. "This side of the year two thousand?" I asked. Daniel would have been a kid before that.

"Ha! No, when I say a long time, I mean a really, really long time."

My jaw dropped. "But...I thought it was just the Reavers who didn't die. You said only the men of the bloodline were immortal."

"That's true. But members of the Four Quarters live a lot longer than normal people. We die eventually, yes, but most people in our society can expect to live for at least a thousand years or more. I've been alive four hundred and ten years. I guess in your terms I'm around thirty-six or thirty-seven. I was born in 1601 in Stirling, Scotland. I came to America a hundred and forty years later. I missed most of the formative history of this country, however. We always kept to ourselves.

"Once I left, I did get to experience the Industrial Revolution and the twentieth century, though. And that was a very exciting time to be around, I can tell you. Daniel was in his element. He learned how to design and build every kind of steam and combustion engine imaginable." She cast a glance over to the dismantled engine that still lay on the sheet before the main entrance, totally missing my horrified reaction to her speech.

Everything had ground to a halt. There were a hundred questions I wanted to ask, but I was too busy freaking out over the fact that Daniel wasn't my age. He was old. Like, really old. History class sucked, but I still paid attention. The Industrial Revolution had been sometime in the nineteenth century. That made him well over a hundred at the very least. The number was probably much bigger, though. That knowledge was, for some reason, earth-shatteringly upsetting. It took a lot of effort to wrestle free from my weird emotions.

"So you're from the First Quarter?"

Agatha snapped out of her reverie and smiled. "Yes, the first of the houses. We're the oldest after the Reavers. Our history goes back the furthest. We were alone with the Immortals for a very long time."

"And which house is Daniel from?"

Agatha pursed her lips and drummed her fingers on the desk. "Daniel doesn't come from any of the houses. He's...something else."

"What do you mean, something else?"

"Sorry, kiddo. It's Daniel's story. Not mine to tell."

There was no point probing further. Agatha would only give me the spiel. The topic was clearly out of bounds. I groaned and rested my head on my arms folded on the desk, wishing there were no more mysteries.

Agatha laughed under her breath. "He'll be back soon. I'll get him to tell you everything. Until then, you'll just have to be patient."

Patience had never been my forté. "He's not going to tell me anything," I grumbled into my arms.

"He doesn't have a choice," Agatha murmured, so low I barely heard her, and then stood up. The tiny woman left me with my face still buried in my sleeves.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Thank Daniel

It was Wednesday, but it could have been Sunday, or maybe even Monday. The days were all depressingly the same here, after all. I retrieved a brand-new horror novel from the shelf in my room and sat down in the lounge, preparing to immerse myself in another world for a short while. It was easier than dealing with the confusion of my own. It was a thick book; at least it would last a couple of days.

"I never did thank you for setting up my room, Agatha," I said, as I traced my index finger along the lines of the blurb.

"You should thank Daniel," Agatha replied without pausing in what she was doing. The sound of her typing was all machine-gun determination.

"What?"

"Oh, yeah. He arranged all of that for you. I was surprised he managed to get that bed down here at such a short notice."

Daniel? I stared at the cover of the book. How had he known my favorite author? Or that this was the only one of his books I hadn't read?

I did my best to follow the story for a while, but it was impossible. The fifteenth page came around and I had no idea what was going on. The book made a loud snap when I slammed it closed. Why did he have to be so confusing?

As if on cue, Agatha's head shot up. She paused, her eyes distant as she listened for sounds I couldn't make out.

"He's home."

A rush ran through my body, a mixture of apprehension and panic, combined with a considerable amount of excitement, and I chastised myself. "I don't know what you're so happy about," I grumbled to myself under my breath. He was going to be hella furious with me.

Agatha caught sight of me muttering and chuckled. "Don't worry. I'll talk to him. I may be small but he's more afraid of me than you'd imagine."

"I'm fine."

"I know, I'm just saying." She smiled and turned back to her computer screen, so when Daniel entered the hangar two seconds later I was the only person staring at the entrance.

He paused and caught me in the flash of his eyes. The term green with envy sprung to mind for some reason, though that wasn't the particular sin that burned through me when he locked me to the spot. Nope. That would be lust, my conscience whispered. I scowled. Was it possible for your own body to turn traitor on you? If it was, then mine most certainly had.

Daniel wore his battered leather jacket over a white v-neck shirt and fresh jeans. Still the same green Converse, though. Had he bought new clothes while he was gone just to avoid coming home? I couldn't remember much, but he had definitely been drenched head to toe in blood when he stormed out.

Daniel's jaw tightened. I was doing a pretty convincing impression of a rabbit trapped in headlights as he made his way into the room, his keys clutched tightly in his fist, whitening his knuckles.

Agatha continued her work, seemingly unfazed by his return. He stopped at his desk, picking up a pile of papers to flick through before dropping them back down again. My mouth was so dry it was hard to swallow. I studied his face for any signs of emotion.

He looked tired more than anything. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he bore a vaguely haunted look as he slowly removed his jacket and slung it over the back of the chair. I dragged my gaze back to my hands, trying to look casual as Agatha began to hum under her breath. The softness of her voice eased some of the tension that sparked in the air.

"How's the old man?" he asked gruffly, his voice flat. He looked up at Agatha. She didn't return his gaze.

"Don't know. You tell me," she replied, her words clipped and a little too loud.

He stared at her a moment longer before sighing, placing both hands on the edge of the desk. He leaned forward to stare down at his feet. Uncertainty wasn't something I associated with Daniel; he always seemed so self-assured, but right then he was anything but. A long time passed before he stood straight and picked up his jacket. I pulled in a deep breath and held it in my chest, anticipating fireworks. Instead, a cold steel flashed in his eyes when he looked at me.

"Are you okay?" He said each word carefully, his eyes searching my face. I opened my mouth to speak but my vocal chords seemed to have been cut. I nodded instead. He accepted my overzealous head movements without another word and turned, exiting the room more hurriedly than he came in.

"See," Agatha said, once he was gone. "That wasn't so bad."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Space Cadet

Agatha forgot about the whole 'accident.' She went about her work and cooked when the mood took her. She hummed as usual when she moved from room to room. Sometimes she even came to sit on the sofa with me when I watched a movie. She laughed loudly and told me more stories about her childhood growing up in the First Quarter.

Daniel, on the other hand, had not forgotten. He was giving me the silent treatment. It was kind of peaceful, really. I almost relaxed in his presence, enjoying the way he stalked from room to room without even acknowledging my existence. It was far better than being pinned under his fierce glare. The silence that penetrated the room whenever we were alone was almost tangible, though. My skin blistered every time he walked past.

I was so accustomed to his disregard that I almost had a heart attack when he finally did talk to me, breaking my concentration as I surveyed some of the terrible pictures of me they still had tacked up on the wall.

"He wants to see you."

"P... Pardon?" I spun around. He stood two feet away, smelling of the engine grease that oiled his hands. He was wearing my favorite color—a bright green t-shirt that matched his eyes exactly. The effect was overwhelming. The whole world fell away; there was nothing but Daniel. Nothing but the way he was staring at me, like he could see right inside me. Could read me like an open book.

"Who? Who wants to see me?"

He sighed, apparently impatient that I was lagging behind in the conversation. "Aldan wants to see you." He scrubbed his hands on his filthy jeans. Up this close, his wavy mess of hair looked unbearably soft. I had a perverse desire to run my fingers through the thickness of it.

Freak. Who goes around touching people's hair? I pulled him into focus, ignoring the strange urge. "What? He's awake?"

"No."

I stared at him. He stared back. Why did he never make sense? I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean, then, he wants to see me?"

"Just come with me. And don't touch him until I tell you to," he replied, apparently losing patience with me altogether. He turned to walk out of the hangar but paused when he realized I wasn't following him.

"What?"

"There's no way I'm going back in there," I said. The mere thought of going back into that room set my heart thumping in my chest. Daniel rolled his eyes.

"There's no point getting angry with me, either," I told him, surprised I sounded so firm considering how terrified I was. "You told me he was different, that he didn't want to hurt me, but look how that turned out." I waved my arm in the air, bound up in a fresh sling.

"That's because you don't listen!" The exasperation in his voice cut a little, and I bristled. He took a few steps back toward me. "You're right. I'm not going to get mad at you. I know that won't help, because you're incredibly hard-headed. If you do what I say, then you'll be fine. Now please...will you just come with me?"

Hard-headed? Did he just call me hard-headed? I crossed my good arm across my chest, ready to dig my heels in. He gritted his teeth.

"Please!" His raised voice echoed around the hangar and bounced off the walls, repeating his exasperated plea.

I hardened my jaw and looked him square in the eye.

"No."

******

Daniel entered Aldan's room and dumped me unceremoniously onto the floor. My cheeks were a hot red, the color of humiliation. A sack of potatoes would have been treated with more care. Probably would have landed with more grace, too. I'd given up trying to struggle out of his grip after the first few seconds of our journey down the corridor; he was far too strong, and it just seemed to entertain him, anyway.

Agatha offered me her hand, staring at him in disbelief.

"I thought I said to ask her to come?!"

"I did," he said. "She declined."

I refused her offer of help, my pride still mortally wounded. I staggered to my feet with what little dignity I could muster. "You're really something, you know that?" I hissed.

Agatha placed her hand on the small of my back and led me away from Daniel, who was smirking remorselessly. "It's okay, Farley," she said. "I should have known better than to think he could act like a civilized human being."

Daniel shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the bed where Aldan lay. He looked exactly as he had done before, except this time he was sporting a vintage Motorhead t-shirt. I froze as Agatha attempted to pull me up to the bedside.

"Don't worry, kiddo. Nothing's gonna happen."

Yeah, right, I thought. Sure, he looked harmless enough, but I knew better.

"Just don't touch him," Daniel said, as if warning a naughty toddler that kept trying to stick its finger in an electrical outlet. I pulled a face and made a show of shoving my good hand deep into my pocket.

"This is your opportunity to find out everything you wanted to know." Agatha said. "Aldan thought it was time and Daniel agreed to let him talk to you."

I looked at Daniel but he was staring at his hands as they gripped the metal frame of the bed. I kept quiet and observed as he reached out and touched the old man on the heel of his palm, just below his thumb.

It wasn't as though I really wanted him to get thrown across the room, but it was slightly disappointing when all Daniel did was clear his throat. Maybe just a little shock would have been nice. A glazed look washed over his face, and his eyes took on a foggy, distant appearance, as though he were no longer focusing on the room. I looked to Agatha for an explanation.

"It's normal, don't worry," she said.

Daniel's eyelids fluttered and a gentle frown flashed across his face. Agatha took my hand and led me around the bed next to him. I watched the whole time, waiting to see if it looked like he was about to drop down dead.

"All you have to do is hold Daniel's hand. Don't worry. It'll feel strange for a few seconds, but that's perfectly normal. Don't fight it, and don't panic. I'm right here, okay?"

"You can't be serious?" There was no way I was willingly going to turn myself into a space cadet.

"I thought you wanted answers?"

"I do, but I'm sure you could just tell me what the hell's going on instead!"

"Not part of the deal, unfortunately." Agatha gave me a tight-lipped grimace, shaking her head. "This is all interlinked with Daniel. He doesn't want to tell you anything. You should consider yourself lucky that Aldan's a stand-up guy and Daniel can't say no to him the way he does to me." She shrugged her shoulders. It was a take-it-or-leave-it gesture. This wasn't what I'd had in mind when I'd asked for answers.

"Okay. But you have to swear that if I look like I'm suffering in any way, you'll stop whatever this is. Deal?"

"Deal."

Agatha took hold of my hand and dragged me closer to Daniel. My heart pumped a little bit faster as I considered what his hand would feel like in mine. The reactions I kept experiencing whenever he was around were really starting to become a problem.

"Now remember, don't fight it," Agatha warned, before guiding my cold, shaking hand into Daniel's warm, capable one.

It seemed prudent to ask what exactly I wasn't supposed to be fighting, but before I could draw breath my vision started to blur. A moment later a sickening sensation flooded through my body, like I was being hurtled forwards at Mach ten.

It was happening all over again. I was going to get thrown across the room. My legs started to shake, and then...

...nothing happened. I was still standing next to the bed. Daniel's hand was still around mine, tightening its grip. Bright, flashing lights danced in my vision, twisting everything around and around like a washing machine. It made me feel unbalanced and motion-sick. Focusing on anything in the room wasn't an option. The more I tried, the more blurred and distant everything appeared. My stomach heaved. I was going to throw up if this didn't stop soon. Really soon.

After thirty seconds, I'd had enough. Pulling my hand out of Daniel's was impossible, though. The harder I pulled, the tighter he held on, until it felt like the blood supply to my fingers was being cut off altogether. Somehow, through all the confusion and nausea, I knew he would be enjoying this.

The thought echoed through me until all I could think about was how much pleasure he was probably taking from my discomfort. That was all it took. My mind, free from trying to rationalize what was happening, relaxed, and suddenly there was no more spinning, no more nausea.

"Thank you!" I snapped, imagining Daniel had let go. But when I gathered myself and looked around, I saw that wasn't the case.

Daniel stood, holding my hand in both of his, watching me intently. I returned his gaze, my eyes wide, slightly out of breath. Once he saw I was with him, he dropped my hand and staggered back. His over-eagerness to put some space between us might have hurt, but before the emotion could form I realized we were outside. And the sun was shining.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Paraphrase

Colors. There were so many colors. My hand flew to my mouth in amazement as I spun around, taking in the lush greens of the soft grass under my newly bare feet, and the fragile blue of the duck-egg sky overhead.

There was the faint smell of cut grass on the breeze as it tugged lightly at my loose hair, and I knew I was actually breathing in fresh air. It tasted crisp, like biting into a green apple.

This whole world was cast in a variety of greens: lime, jade, emerald, olive... Each individual leaf or blade of grass seemed to be shaded in a color entirely its own.

I looked at Daniel, shocked that he could just stand there with a regretful look on his face and not be completely overwhelmed by the experience. A hundred yards behind him, a vast line of evergreen trees stretched from left to right for a mile before the land retracted on both sides, sweeping out of view. It gave way to the fast-running river that babbled beyond, streaming out like a shining satin ribbon in blue and grey and silver, with the occasional kiss of gold where the sunlight caught the surface and burned. There wasn't a building or car in sight, let alone another person.

Speechless wasn't the right word to describe what I was feeling, but it was as far as I got. I turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees so I could take everything in—the wide, bowing horizon that seemed to go on forever, the small mountains in the distance, the way the sun heated my skin and warmed me through.

Birdsong and faint cricket chirps rose in chorus, the air abuzz with activity. I was so used to the low hum of the generator and the drone of an underlying electrical current by now that I had almost forgotten those sounds existed.

It suddenly occurred to me that inside this place, wherever it was, I wasn't injured. My arm was free at my side instead of being strapped up in a sling. I rotated my shoulder, swinging my arm in circles back over my head, enjoying the freedom of the movement.

Daniel gave me a moment to acclimatize and stretch. He kicked the scuffed toe of his worn black boot boyishly in the grass.

"Is this us or him?" I asked.

He cleared his throat and looked up at the sky. "Him. Come on. We gotta go."

"Huh?"

"Aldan's waiting for us. We need to go." He gestured to the trees behind him.

For a split second I panicked about what would happen if I followed him, but I rejected the thought. It was pointless. I was so totally out of my depth. The only thing I could do was just roll with it and hope for the best. Daniel's face was determined. He was obviously ready for an argument, but when I nodded, walking towards the trees, he relaxed and pushed ahead to take the lead.

It took less than five minutes to reach the tree line, but I relished every second of it, enjoying the delicious sensation of the grass tickling underfoot. As we drew closer, I made out a well-worn pathway cutting into the forest. Daniel headed for it so purposefully it was obvious he must have traveled down it many times before. He stopped at the edge of the forest's perimeter to wait until I caught up.

"His house is about five minutes down this track. Watch your step." With that he set off into the trees. Being left behind wasn't an option. He would only complain about having to wait for me, or worse still be unbearably smug if I managed to get lost. With that in mind, I followed him like a shadow.

We'd only walked a couple of feet before the well-worn path became overgrown and wild. Thick vines snaked around the huge trunks of the old tamaracks and spruces and laced their way from tree to tree, mapping across the pathway in a dense carpet.

"So, you feel like revealing where you disappeared to for six whole days?" I asked.

Daniel cast a look over his shoulder that bordered on hostile. "Not really."

"Didn't think so."

"Why bother asking, then, if you know I'm not going to tell you?"

I pulled a face at his back. "Because I hoped maybe you'd be so stunned by my congenial attempts at conversation you'd tell me before you realized you'd let something about yourself slip. I thought maybe you'd gone to hang out with friends or something. You do have friends, right?"

Daniel tensed. "I have friends." He fell silent for a moment and then said, "Those faces you're pulling are really attractive, by the way."

I pulled my tongue back in and pouted, wondering if he had eyes in the back of his head. "So you were with friends?"

"No. I was working."

Working meant he was doing something Reaver-related. I sped up so that I was only a couple of paces behind him. "Has something happened? Does Elliot know I'm with you?"

Daniel sighed and halted on the path. He turned to face me. "This isn't going to be a pleasantly quiet walk, is it?"

I shook my head.

"Fine. I'll tell you what I was doing. Then you have to shut up. Agreed?"

Instead of agreeing, I arched an eyebrow. "I know I'm not that annoying. I have plenty of friends of my own who will testify to that."

A small smile played at the corners of his mouth. His eyes had taken on an odd shine that sparked the beginnings of irritation inside me. Only he could do that with just a look. "By plenty of friends, you mean Tessa Kennedy, right?" he said around the hint of his smile.

"Yes, I mean Tess. Others, too."

"Like who?"

I scowled. "Okay, look, if you knew any of the people at St. Jude's, you'd understand why I've stuck with one really good friend. None of the others are worth knowing."

This seemed to amuse him even more. "You forget," he said. "I've spent quite a lot of time watching you. That means I've also had the pleasure of spending quite a lot of time sitting in St. Jude's parking lot. Some of those jock guys looked like they could be quite fun. If you're into beating up freshmen and throwing up in swimming pools, that is."

"See."

He started walking again. "I'm not giving you a hard time because you have a best friend. It's good to have someone you can trust implicitly like that."

"You mean like you do?" I laughed. Somehow, I couldn't imagine Daniel trusting anyone even slightly, let alone implicitly.

He ducked under a low tree branch that blocked the path and fell into shadow for a moment, but I could practically hear him thinking. Eventually he spoke. "No. I learned my lesson where that was concerned."

The tone in his voice gave the definite impression he didn't want to continue with that line of conversation, but I couldn't help myself. "So, what? You've deleted your best friend from Facebook?"

"Face what?"

I rolled my eyes. "No point asking you if you have a Twitter account, then."

"Probably not."

He was close to one-syllable responses again. "Okay. Forget the friend thing," I said, "Just tell me what you were up to while you were gone."

Daniel splayed his fingers up towards the canopy of the trees overhead, through which long javelins of golden sunlight speared into the shaded cover of the forest. "Sorry. Time's up."

"What?"

Before he could respond, I barrelled straight into his back.

"Steady." He turned and reached out to catch me. I took his hand for support but let go as quickly as I could, aware of the awkward look on his face. Skin-to-skin contact obviously wasn't his favorite thing. As I met his gaze, he froze and then looked away.

"This is it," he said. His voice sounded hollow.

I peeked around his shoulder to see the lone, run-down timber cottage sitting in the middle of the huge clearing beyond. Nerves that had been momentarily distracted suddenly voiced their concern: this was where Aldan lived. The man who had nearly killed me. One of them.

The roof was clad with slate tiles that were cracked and weathered with age, and weeds grew in a mutinous uprising from the guttering. Dirty smoke trailed lethargically from a single chimney. The window frames were splintered, the paint blistered, and the cracks riddled with thick black mildew. Everything about the place spoke of disrepair. In truth, it looked as though it shouldn't even be standing. The garden, however, was a different story.

Chantilly roses dripped from the trellises attached to the outer framework. In the flowerbeds, a riot of color ensued as snapdragons and gerberas vied for space with snow peas, miniature sunflowers, and tulips. It was like something out of a Brothers Grimm fairytale—maybe Little Red Riding Hood.

But where's the big, bad wolf?

"Come on," Daniel commanded, recovered from his fleeting unease. We set off towards the cottage, me trailing a little more hesitantly than before. We had covered half the distance across the clearing when the front door swung open and Aldan emerged, ducking to clear the doorframe. His hands were deep in his pockets, and he was wearing the same Motorhead t-shirt he had on in his room.

When he stepped off the porch and into the sun, his skin looked fresh and tanned instead of sallow and covered with sickly sweat. His grey hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail with the odd strand blowing lightly about his face.

In spite of his age, he was very well built. He looked strong and able. Confident. So dissimilar to the broken version of himself. This version of Aldan was healthy and full of life.

He caught me studying him and flashed a wide, open grin, displaying a row of very white, perfect teeth. Definitely wolfish. I offered a hesitant smile in return. My pace slowed with trepidation as we neared one another. Daniel strode out and shook Aldan's hand but was pulled off balance when the man drew him in for a rough embrace. He slapped him on the back and laughed deeply as Daniel struggled out of his grip.

Then Aldan turned his gaze on me, and for the first time, I was no longer afraid of him. There was a warmth and kindness that radiated from his shining blue eyes, and I found myself trapped by the good humor of his expression. The roadmap of lines that traced lightly around his mouth and eyes were testimony to his broad smile, which traveled to every part of his face. It was obvious he was genuinely pleased to see me.

He was still huge, though, and it was tough not to be intimidated. When he spoke, his voice was a rich rumble that emanated from deep within his chest.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Farley." His accent was like something off the BBC, though it was mixed with just enough of a northern English twang to make him sound like he might be a bit of a scoundrel. He offered me an enormous hand. I looked down at it, concerned. Not wanting to seem rude, I timidly placed my own hand in his. He pumped my arm up and down in greeting, laughing at the look on my face.

"What's the matter, love?"

It took me a second to pluck up the courage to speak. "Well, I was a little concerned that if I touched you..." I trailed off.

His face changed instantly, clouding over. "That's just my defense system against the outside world," he said. The sparkle in his eyes twinkled out. "I'm terribly sorry about hurting you," he apologized. "I don't get many visitors, you know. Daniel and Aggie know exactly how to let me know they're coming to see me. These days anyone else unlucky enough to make contact with me gets a nice little jolt." He finished his sentence by demonstrating a wild shock through his body, causing a few more strands of hair to fall loose from his ponytail.

I couldn't help but smile at his playacting, but it fell as soon as I saw the look on Daniel's face. "That's really okay," I told Aldan. "I know it was an accident." It wasn't an outright lie. I really did believe it now, after only a few moments of standing with him. He really didn't need to know that this was a recent development, and that before I'd been convinced he'd tried to kill me.

"She nearly died." Daniel's voice was quiet and strained. It took the wind out of me. Aldan paused as he went to say something in return and then decided against it. He rested his hand on Daniel's shoulder, who seemed so much smaller next to Aldan, as if his personality and confidence was muted around this powerful man.

"But she didn't," Aldan said simply. The old man came back to life and clapped his hands together, making us both jump.

Daniel's sullen mood was confusing. It was difficult to worry about it for too long, though. Mainly due to Aldan, who boomed, destroying the awkward silence that had fallen over us like a suffocating blanket. "Who wants something to eat?" he cried, setting off towards the porch. We both stood there uncomfortably for a second before I could bear it no longer and jogged after Aldan, abandoning Daniel to continue staring at the floor.

Aldan's boots clomped up the wooden steps that led to the veranda, and he scrubbed them off in a slow sweeping motion on the welcome mat. It was ironic, I thought, given that he didn't receive many guests. He smiled at me as he did so, resting his hand on the doorjamb.

"Well you most certainly are a fine-looking young lady," he teased. "I see what all this calamity is about now." I blushed at his compliment, unsure which calamity he was referring to. "Did you know," he continued, "that you and I are very distant relations?" I shook my head. "It's true," he laughed. "Come in and I'll tell you all about it."

He swung open the screen door and walked through, waiting for me to enter before allowing it to slam shut. I turned back to see Daniel still standing where we had left him. His back was to the cottage, his hands deep in his pockets, as he stared up at the sky at nothing in particular.

"I think we might just let him cool his heels out there for a moment," Aldan tutted, drawing me into the kitchen beyond. It reminded me of my nana Jean's kitchen. Even the assault of smells—homemade bread and coffee—teased out lost, comforting memories. The huge wooden table that dominated the room was almost exactly the same as the one I'd played on as a child, racing my cousin's toy cars up and down its length and launching them off the ends. There were a thousand marks that scarred its surface, telling a tale of much use. I ran my hand over the smooth, worn wood, enjoying the familiarity of its texture.

Aldan sat down in the high-backed wooden chair at the head of the table and sighed, pulling out another to his left so that I could join him. Being so afraid of him felt rather foolish now, as we listened to the cicadas buzz outside in the grass. After a while the old man gave me a slow, wry smile.

"Well. You're here for a reason. I guess I'd better start on this story. It's a long one, after all."

"Sure." If intestines could knot themselves, mine would have been triple-tied. I was finally going to get some answers.

Aldan cleared his throat and leaned forwards, contemplating a small groove in the table. "You ought to tell me if there's something you don't understand, or if I'm going too fast, okay? I'm not very good at these things."

"No problem."

"Where would you like me to start?"

"The beginning?" He could probably do a better job of untangling the events of the past six months than I could.

He blew out his cheeks. "From the beginning would be a very long story. Maybe I'll summarize?"

That seemed appropriate. I nodded, waiting for him to begin.

"I am the tenth of the Immortals. There are twenty-eight after me. Seems pretty funny when I think of it like that. There's my good-for-nothing son and his after him, and so on and so forth, all the way down to Elliot. So you see we are very, very distantly related. Just don't call me granddad—makes me feel old." His laughter was like steel on stone, but I couldn't help but laugh along. It seemed like the polite thing to do, anyway.

"Okay," he continued, "I'll save the middle bit for another time. I suppose it was 1860 when I found Daniel."

The look on my face must have been telling because Aldan paused. One hundred and fifty three years. That horrible, sinking feeling returned, making me feel unreasonably miserable.

"Sorry, carry on," I said, attempting a poker face.

"Yeah, that's right. 1860. Anyway, I found Daniel laid out for dead in a particularly nasty backstreet in London. The Seven Dials; a pit of vice and poverty. He was covered in all kinds of dirt and filthy rags, which wasn't that unusual in those days, but anyway. He'd been there for a few days at least, that much was obvious. He was bruised all over and smelled like he might already be dead. He couldn't have opened his eyes even if he'd tried. He'd had the living daylights knocked out of him, and I could see as plain as day that he wasn't going to live. So I took him.

"I was different back in those days. I was full of Immortal crap, high on my own self-worth. Anyway, I thought to take him and bring him back to life, you see? Perhaps keep him as a sort of pet. He was so tiny. He couldn't have been more than eight years old.

"I was due to set sail to America in less than a week, and I decided I had enough time to repair him and pass him off as my son or nephew. I went straight back to my hotel and had him brought in through the service entrance. They bathed him and tidied him up. He was the most pathetic thing I'd ever seen. I put my palms on him and passed some of myself into him. I had never seen something buck and fight against life so hard before. It's almost like he didn't want it. But there you go...that's him."

I was lost. "You passed some of yourself into him?"

"Well, yes. I'm not proud of it, but back in those days I had plenty of extra life force floating around. All an Immortal needs to do is touch a living thing and they can take life or give it, as simple as that. When an Immortal deigns something worthy enough to give it life, all he's doing is depleting his store a little. And back in those days, I had a huge storehouse, if you know what I mean.

"You can take a little here and there from people and they barely notice the difference. But what truly makes you powerful is when you take it all. When you sap every last spark of vitality out of a thing, that's what gives you the rush—the indomitable strength to take whatever you want."

I shuddered.

"Oh, you're right, sweetheart. It's a horrible thing. I killed a lot of people before I changed my ways. But that's a different story. One I don't plan on getting too lost in right now." I nodded, not sure I wanted to get too lost in that story, either. He rubbed his fingertips on the tabletop and rocked gently back on his chair. "So Daniel got better either way. He didn't speak for days and wouldn't do what he was told. I caught him trying to escape more times than I care to remember. He would sit there in silence with his knees drawn up to his chest, backed into a corner, glowering at me like he knew what kind of bad I was. There was something in that look of his that made me feel like I was being judged and coming up rather short.

"I came back to the room one night and found him sitting there waiting for me. He gave me this look of complete disgust. I tell you now, if it had been anyone else, I would have found an interesting and exquisitely painful way of sending them to their maker. Instead, I just sank down into a chair and started sobbing like a baby. I'd been alive for over eleven hundred years by that point. It didn't matter what people thought about me. People didn't register as anything more than a means to an end in my book. But something in this child's face brought all that crashing down around me. I despised him for it." The quietness in Aldan's voice portrayed the heaviness of the memories for him as he continued to rock back and forth. He sucked on his teeth sharply, looking me squarely in the eye.

"Do you know what he did then?" His intelligent eyes searched my face as if I might already know the answer to his question. I had no idea. "I was sitting there crying and wailing, and I couldn't understand why, and then all of sudden I felt something touch my shoulder. I looked up, so stunned I couldn't believe my eyes, and he was standing there with his hand on me. Those wild eyes of his were fixed straight on mine as if to say, 'it's all going to be just fine.' Right there and then I saw a grown man in that little boy. That very moment I vowed I'd never take something that didn't belong to me again. I promised him. I didn't want to let him down, you see. And I haven't since."

He got up and went to the fridge, pouring out two glasses of orange juice. I was busy thinking. So Aldan had saved Daniel's life, and in return Daniel had given him back his conscience.

"It was a day or two later when he finally spoke to me. He asked me if I knew where his little brother was. He was so desperate. It felt cruel not to help him. I went out and asked around. It took me all of an hour to learn what had happened. It turned out his mother had come home in a drunken craze a few nights before and drowned the little boy in a bathtub. The mob had caught up with her, and she'd been hanged that morning. Apparently, a pretty big crowd had gathered to send her off. She was a nasty drunk. All the women in the back streets knew about her. They told me how she was constantly beating her children. No one knew where her oldest boy was." He took a sip of his juice.

His mother killed his little brother? It was too horrible to think about. "What did you tell Daniel?"

Aldan laughed. "Not the truth, I can tell you. I just didn't have it in me. I told him a horrible lie that I still regret to this day. I told him his mother had taken Jamie and sailed off to America to start a new life. It was pretty plain that he would want find him, so he was raring to go when I suggested he come with me a few days later.

"It took me a long time to work up to telling him what I knew, and years longer still for him to forgive me. But by that point he was angry with me for other reasons. We'd joined the Reavers in the Tower, and they didn't take kindly to Daniel. They didn't like how I treated him or why I refused to kill people anymore. Whenever I had my back turned, this particularly nasty piece of work would snatch him up and lock him in this tiny wooden chest. They would weight it and then throw it in the ocean. See, Daniel wouldn't die because of what I had given to him, but the experience of drowning is just as terrifying all the same. Not being able to breathe or scream out... When I found out what was happening, I lost my mind.

"By this stage I hadn't killed anybody in nearly a hundred years. I was ready to make an exception for that evil monster, but Danny wouldn't let me. I broke every bone in the bastard's body instead. No one bothered Daniel again after that."

"Wouldn't Daniel would have been grown by then, though? Agatha said that the people of the Four Quarters aged much slower than regular people. I know he's not like them, but even so, surely it wouldn't have taken that long for him to grow into an adult?"

A flicker passed over Aldan's face. He looked at me blankly, as though I had misunderstood some vital part of his story. "There's no point comparing the two. Just because I gave him the gift of life doesn't make him anything like people from the Quarters. He'll never be like them. Or me. He's like you."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Prophesied

"Like me?" I clutched hold of my glass so tight the liquid inside began to tremble.

Aldan's focus drifted, and his eyes flickered behind me. I followed his gaze to look back out of the door and was startled to see Daniel sitting on the porch step. He was looking out over the clearing, listening to the story as Aldan recounted it. Being busted reading his diary would have been less embarrassing. A deep blush of shame burnt hotly at my cheeks.

"Daniel's just like you," Aldan continued. "A small part of me corrupted him, but for all intents and purposes, he's like you. Human."

Daniel stirred on the porch, making my pulse quicken. A desperate urge overwhelmed me—I had to tell Aldan to stop—but he carried on before I could say anything.

"When I saved Daniel, he was on the brink of death. So much so that I only just caught him before the last of the life ran out of him. From then on he was stuck. His body would never grow, but he grew mentally. After a while he really was a man trapped in a boy's body. That was the hardest thing he had to deal with, I think. It was that way for a long time.

"The others never accepted him. We left the fastness, the Tower, but before long they caught up with us. In our society you don't really leave the nest. It's similar to the Mafia in a lot of ways. You never get out until you get out." He threw back the remainder of his juice like it was a shot of whiskey. "They came in the night and tried to take my head off." His eyes glinted as he drew his thumb across the thick, warped skin of his scar, and I bit back the urge to gasp. My reaction earned me a bitter laugh. "Don't worry, love. They didn't send the right man for the job."

His words echoed inside my head. It was easy to see how Aldan could have been a dangerous person to know back when he was mobile.

"Daniel found me in a bloody heap on the floor and, without realizing, got too close. I was almost unconscious and I ended up drawing on him, trying to gather energy to heal myself. I came to just in time to realize what was happening. The poor kid was lying on the floor half dead, eyes rolled back in his head, veins popping, the works. I panicked. I pushed so much energy back into him that I knocked myself into this coma. It took Daniel a few weeks to figure out that he could come in here with me. I couldn't protect myself or look out for him; I relied on him to keep me hidden. As the months rolled by, I noticed that he was growing. After that, well...the rest is history. He just kept on ageing at a normal rate until he hit what we guess to be eighteen, and then that was it. He's been like that ever since."

He fell into silence while I mulled over his story, still unsure whether the whole thing was just a really terrible joke. The porch's wooden steps creaked again. Questions flew around my head, demanding answers. Demanding I go out and ask Daniel everything that was on my mind. He wouldn't appreciate the interrogation, though. Just because I knew some of his most personal secrets didn't mean we were friends. Aldan's low voice broke the quiet, interrupting my thoughts.

"It didn't take the Reavers long to realize what had happened to me and Daniel. Especially when Daniel went charging into the Tower and killed four Immundus. It seems that when I passed all that energy into him, Daniel got my abilities too, except I could never use them like he can. He has some special aptitude that I never possessed for wielding that much power."

"What...abilities?" I asked quietly. Daniel knowing how curious I was about him was not a comforting concept.

"He can channel huge surges of power made up of the most basic components, primarily light. I could never do that. Then there's the fact that the elemental gifts that other Immortals control, like water and fire, have no effect on him. The power he controls isn't like anything they've seen, and I think it's entirely unique to Daniel. You understand?"

I nodded. I was back on Figueroa, where Daniel had played with blue flames that spread like liquid light over his hands. So that was what had happened: their power didn't affect him.

"What about the people from the Quarters? What powers do they have?"

Aldan shook his head. "None. Well, none that are very useful in a fight, anyway. Some of them can communicate telepathically. Occasionally, one will be able to conjure up a flame, but it would be about as powerful as one you'd find on a candle. Their small abilities are simply echoes of the Reaver's blood infecting their ancestry. Just like their longer life spans.

"The Reavers see the people of the Quarters as their subjects, to do with as they please. They believe they own the tiny fragments of power that are scattered amongst the Four Quarters, just as they believe they own the power inside of Daniel. You don't know much about our family," Aldan said, "but let me tell you this: they have no idea what Daniel is. They'd rather he were dead than have him stand against them. And that leads us back to you, of course, Farley."

"Huh?" How can I have anything to do with this?

"Well, to the prophecy, anyway." He closed his eyes and began reciting, "'When the talisman and the fair sovereign borne of the line are found in unity, she will possess the power to destroy our great people forever.'" He opened his eyes. "It's from an old scroll of prophecies that have been locked up in the Tower libraries for centuries. I remember the seer who wrote them. He was a drunk. Mostly accurate, though. The Reavers never thought a female child was possible, but now that you're on the scene, they're doing their best to hunt you down. They also want to prevent us from finding this talisman. Not that we've any idea what it looks like, or if the prophecies are even true. They're just incredibly superstitious."

"They think I am going to destroy them?" That just made no sense. Daniel had said that I was a game changer, not someone supposed to kill off their whole bloodline. No wonder they wanted me dead. "This is so stupid." I pushed my chair back and stood up, shaking my head.

"We think so, too. But it doesn't change the fact that they aim to hurt you. We want to keep you safe until the whole thing blows over."

This is impossible, I thought. But the fact that I was talking to some guy in an imagined house, in an imagined forest, kept hitting me, and there was no way I was dreaming. My understanding of the word impossible clearly needed redefining. I tugged at my sleeve, thinking hard.

Something had been preying on my mind amongst all the talk of souls and Reavers and prophecies. Asking felt stupid, but at the same time it seemed like a reasonable thing to wonder. I took a deep breath and went for it.

"If we know that we definitely have a soul, then does that mean there's a Heaven and a Hell?"

Aldan gave me a laden look. "You can give them those names if you like. It's not quite as cut and dried as Heaven and Hell, though. There used to be a day when something was black or it was white, but now...in this day, everything's more of a grey-ish color. Sure, we have really dark grey and really light grey, but nothing seems to be solid anymore. Personally, I think it makes for a much more interesting existence. There's no fun to be had in being all the way good."

"And is that how the prophecy came about? Did it get passed down by someone in Heaven?" The word seemed reluctant to come out. The idea just raised too many bigger questions.

"The prophecy came from the Quorum. They're a group of high-ups from both sides. It's their job to maintain a balance on earth, so we're working on an even playing field. Of course, that's a joke. Especially when one side wants to teach people and draw out their inherent goodness to secure their souls, and the other side is willing to just take them."

"Right," I said. "And the Quorum, they're going to help you guys fight against the Reavers?"

Aldan barked out a laugh so bitter I could almost taste the vitriol. "No such luck. They influence. They don't get directly involved in anything."

"Typical. Administrators."

"Exactly."

"So if the Reavers are on the dark grey side, who's on the light grey?"

Another strange, curious look. "You tell me."

I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell him anything. My head was hurting too much. Conversations like this took mental preparation and I'd had none. Aldan seemed to understand how close I was edging towards the brink of a nervous collapse.

"Maybe you can think on that," he said.

Doing everything in my power not to think about that was probably more likely. I was too scared to start trying to slot my new-found friends into boxes they were unlikely to fit into—square pegs, round holes and all that. "Okay. And while I'm figuring that out, what? You want me to stay tucked away underground until they've gotten tired of looking for me or I die of old age?" Both prospects felt like the end of the world.

"No. Just until we can figure out how we fix this whole mess."

"Well, all I can say is you better do it fast. I'm not gonna stick around down there rotting away when school's supposed to start in two weeks. My friend's probably going out of her mind with worry."

This wasn't the first time I'd thought about poor Tess. I would have called, but cell phone reception in an underground bunker just wasn't something that happened. Tess would be freaking out about me disappearing overnight, especially since the last time she'd seen me was after Miller's cryptic, "They'll be coming for you," comment. Aldan furrowed his brow.

"Yes, well...I wouldn't worry about that too much right now."

His tone of voice made my head snap up. "Is there something I should know?"

He squirmed in his seat and unfolded his hands, then refolded them a second later. "Daniel dealt with the situation."

"What do you mean dealt with?" Suddenly I couldn't breathe.

Aldan's eyes widened. "Well of course not that! I asked Daniel to send a message from your phone when you first got here. He told Tessa you needed some time. He also called your school and informed them there was every chance you wouldn't be returning after the break. He told them you weren't coping very well with your mother's disappearance."

I sat there, unwilling to open my mouth. There was no guarantee what would come out. A growing rage bubbled up inside my chest. How dare they just interfere in my life! "You shouldn't have done that," I growled.

"I'm sorry that we acted without your consent, but please try to understand what we're dealing with here."

I clenched my jaw. "And what about Tess? What if they know she's my best friend? I don't even know if she's safe."

"They probably do know you're friends, you're right. She's been safe this far, though. We have reason to believe they won't hurt her."

"Reason to believe?" What reason could possibly be protecting Tess? Aldan just stared at me, stony faced. "You could at least tell me you'll check on her every few days," I said.

"We already do. That's a given. And if you want to talk more tomorrow about anything, Farley, then I'm obviously not going anywhere, but for now I'm sure you've got enough to think about."

It was true. There was so much bouncing around inside my head I couldn't concentrate on any one thing. The thought of Daniel being that old was almost more than I could handle, let alone how much he'd suffered during his life. It certainly didn't earn him a hall pass, but I suddenly understood why he was so surly all the time. I gave Aldan an unhappy look, but said, "And all I need to do is touch you on the hand?"

"Right here." He gestured, pressing his finger firmly down onto the heel of his palm clearly for me to see. "I'm sure you'll be careful. You've had first-hand experience of what'll happen if you're not."

I glanced at his throat, the thick, ridged scar that I had tried to touch, rising and falling as he spoke. The thought of someone trying to slice his head off made me shudder. I looked away before he could notice the reaction.

The kitchen didn't seem quite as warm as it had before. I shivered and pulled my jacket tight, turning as the screen door complained stiffly. It clattered shut again as Daniel entered the room. His hair curled slightly at the nape of his neck, mussed like some dark angelic halo. He didn't quite meet my eye as I looked at him, unable to shake the feeling that I knew him so much better than before.

"It's time we left," he said.

"Right on cue there, Daniel. I'll see you in the morning? We have things to discuss." Aldan turned and placed both his hands on my shoulders. "And you're under a lot of pressure at the moment. But really, you have nothing to worry about. No one's asking you to do anything. All you have to do is be patient whilst we work out the best plan of action. It'll all be over soon, okay?"

His words were reassuring, but something told me it wouldn't be that simple. At some point I would be asked to do something, and it would probably cost me a lot more than they were letting on.

Coming out of Aldan's mind was about as uncomfortable as going in. Daniel trudged silently back into the opening, and I followed a few paces behind, heading towards the shadowy tree line, which stood like the ominous silhouette of some battle-ready army in the fading light. Before we'd made it halfway I began to feel like I was slipping. A strange sense of vertigo washed over me, and I scrambled mentally, as if trying to get off the roller coaster just before it plunged down the huge drop. My stomach lurched as the forest twisted and fell away, and then I was regurgitated unpleasantly back into my body.

Agatha sat in the lone chair by the bed, reading with the blanket thrown across her legs. She looked up lazily, yawning as she registered that we'd rejoined her in the room.

I blinked, trying to focus my eyes. They felt gritty and burned like I'd been crying for hours, and my body ached from standing for so long. Discovering my arm strapped up in the sling once more made me groan.

"So? How did it go?" Agatha asked, lowering the book in her lap.

"Aldan told me what I wanted to know. I think." I couldn't help but feel as though there were some seriously big pieces of the puzzle that he was holding out on, but maybe he was right. There was only so much I could handle in one go.

Daniel seemed sad. His gruff, impenetrable exterior slipped a little as he walked out and pulled the door closed without saying a word.

"You hungry, kiddo?" Agatha asked in her motherly, fussing voice, ignoring Daniel's exit.

"I kinda just want to go to bed," I told her, wishing I could teleport directly there. That way I could skip out on physically going through the pain of moving stiff joint after stiff joint.

"Yeah, the whole experience wipes you out the first few times. You get used it, though."

I didn't really plan on getting used to it. I couldn't muster any further conversation, so excused myself and made my way out into the black corridor, running my hand along the wall in the dark so I could follow the route back to my room. As soon as the door closed, I threw myself down on the bed and slipped the silk sheets over me. It didn't matter that I was fully dressed. As soon as my head hit the pillow I fell into a fitful sleep, troubled by undefined, chilling images that jumped at random into my head.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Candid, Frank, and Compliant

Faceless attackers chased me through a dark and winding maze. I spun left and then right in an attempt to escape, but each time I turned a corner I would run straight into another assailant, its featureless face menacing and sinister as it gripped my arms with steel fingers. I would wake up at this point each time and then slip back under into restless sleep, starting at the beginning of the maze all over again. But this time... this time was different.

Every part of my consciousness was alert. It was the same maze. I was still being chased, but this time I could feel my heart trying to thump its way out of my chest. I could smell the fresh, crisp aroma of winter on the night air, and the terror that ripped through my body was all too real.

The men were coming. The only way to escape them was to escape the maze. The walls were much taller than I was, and I had no hope of seeing a route to safety over the top of them. Instead, I began to take the left hand turn every time I was presented with a crossroads. That was a guaranteed way of finding the path out, but only if they didn't catch me first.

I ran so hard my legs felt like they would collapse out from underneath me. The thick, rough hedges snagged and caught at my skin. Head down, I staggered forwards, blindly keeping to the left and praying they wouldn't be waiting around the next corner. Turn after turn left me dizzy and disorientated, but when I spun around another looming corner I found myself trapped. I couldn't turn left. I couldn't turn anywhere. I had reached the large, open centre of the maze.

In the middle of the clearing, surrounded by four intricate wrought iron benches, was the largest oak tree I had ever seen. Its branches were bare and spiny, naked against the foreboding sky. The woman hung from one of the higher boughs. She lilted in the breeze, and her tangled, dark hair fluttered around her face. But this wasn't Daniel's mother. It was mine.

Moira Hope's open eyes were unseeing as she gazed off into eternity, and I choked back the scream already forming in my throat. Dried blood caked my mom's deathly pale skin. It was everywhere. She wore a simple white dress that was torn at the shoulder and filthy, and her bare feet dangled a foot from the floor. She looked so vulnerable, like a broken china doll.

The flash of light glinting off the polished golden tip of a cane brought my attention to the figure sitting on the farthest bench. He twisted the cane in his lap as he sat there contemplating my mother. His posture was stiff. He was a stranger, and I instinctively knew I wanted to keep it that way.

I rose to my feet, praying that he hadn't noticed me dash into the clearing. I managed to take a few cautious steps back the way I'd come before his sharp, eloquent voice broke the silence.

"Don't you think she looks sad, Farley?"

Crap! He didn't turn to face me, but his voice pinned me to the spot. There was no creeping away to be done now. In fact, there was no moving to be done at all. My mind went numb as I looked around for a way out, like a cornered wild animal.

"I know she used to be very sad because of the way her life turned out. But I mean, right now, in this instant...she looks particularly depressed, don't you think?"

He sounded so thoughtful that I wasn't sure whether he expected me to respond or not. A strangled gurgle bubbled in my throat in place of the scream that I tried to voice. The wind whipped up and my mom swung, causing the bough to creak and complain under her weight.

"Tell me, why is it, do you think, that women are so fragile, so easily broken? I mean in their minds and their hearts, of course. When it comes to your bodies, men and women are equally as weak," the man said. He turned just enough to lock me in his sights.

My paralysis tightened under his gaze, threatening to choke the life out of me, to crush my ribs under the pressure that tightened like a vice around my lungs. It was useless. All I could do was stare back at him with wide, fearful eyes.

At ease, the stranger purveyed the scene at hand with regal, cold eyes. They flashed dangerously from me to my mother. He smiled with apparent curiosity as he studied the two of us. He was handsome in a familiar kind of way, and the eerie sense of recognition multiplied as he stood to approach me. It was something about his eyes. The well-tailored dark suit he wore over a crisp white shirt probably cost more than my whole wardrobe combined, and he carried himself with an air of nobility and confidence. His black cane clicked sharply as the golden end made contact with the paving.

"Now, I can understand your shyness. I won't hold it against you. But in a moment, I'm going to ask you a few questions, Farley, and I really hope that you see it's in your best interests to be as candid and frank as possible."

I squirmed inside my own skin, trying to slip out of the mental grasp he held over me, but every effort to break free from the bands around my chest resulted in failure.

"I've got to say, when I decided to come visit you I thought our stage would be a little more flowers and butter cups, you know?" He gestured with the handle of his cane while smiling conspiratorially. "Someone goes to pretty dark places." He looked around as if seeing our surroundings for the first time. "There's not a single rainbow or fluffy bunny rabbit anywhere." He lowered his voice, leaning forward and looking over his shoulder, giving the impression he thought Moira might somehow overhear him.

"Whatever the décor, I am pleased to be here. It's good that we finally meet. And I am more than curious to know your thoughts on the little question of feminine frailty that I posed a moment ago. Especially considering your new, much heralded role in our grand demise. A tale of intrepid heroism beyond all comprehension, no doubt. Do you think you've got it in you?" He raised an eyebrow at me while he waited for a response.

I stared defiantly back at him, unable to make a sound, and he laughed out loud, enjoying his little game. In a flash he fell sober again, pushing the end of his cane up under my chin so the cold metal forced my head up.

He scrutinized my face as if trying to figure out what kind of creature I was, and then swiftly turned and stepped away. As he did, the pressure boring down on me suddenly evaporated, and I managed to haul a deep, gasping breath into my lungs. Sinking to my knees, I choked on the freezing cold air as it burned and stabbed through me. The stranger paced back and forth, looking up at the grumbling, roiling sky, as quiet thunder echoed in the distance.

"Who are you? What do you want?" I croaked.

The dry snap of the man's laughter cracked the air like a whip. "You mean to say you don't know who I am?" He sounded almost hurt. When I managed to lift my head to look up, I saw that he had returned to sit on the bench and was smiling scornfully.

"Come and join me if you will. We are family, after all."

Instinct had whispered this dangerous and unwanted suspicion into my ear, but hearing him say it out loud was different. "Let's have a father-daughter moment," he said, patting the bench beside him.

So this was Elliot.

He wore a cold expression that made my skin crawl. There was no way I was going to sit with him. Even walking over to him felt unnatural, like swimming towards a shark. He growled with impatience and flicked his wrist ever so slightly. Before I knew what had happened, I was pulled towards him, the tips of my toes dragging on the paving. When I reached him, I paused, still frozen an inch off the ground. The vice flexed around my ribs again, pinching, making it hard to breathe.

"Candid. Frank. And compliant," my father hissed.

With that I spun round in the air, slamming down to sit on the bench so hard the force of it winded me. I hunched over and squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to formulate a way to escape this whole nightmare. Elliot watched intently, apparently enjoying my discomfort.

"So tell me, Farley. What do you know about me?"

"Nothing." I winced through the aftershocks of pain jangling through my nerve endings. It was true. My mom had told me almost nothing about him.

"Oh, come now! That really hurts my feelings. Here..." he held his hand out to me in greeting, "I'm Elliot. Your proud Papa." My hand reached out and shook his before I could even attempt to stop it. He was playing me like a puppet on a string. "There. Wasn't that civilized? Although, I must tell you, I did lie a little just now. I can't really claim to be that proud. I mean, I'm sure you can imagine the hard luck it would be for the person that sired the beginning of the end? People can be very judgmental. I truly couldn't believe it myself when they told me I was your father. My humiliation was sizeable. That's why I'm dealing with this myself. It's a matter of honor, you see."

Honor? I didn't dare tell him how honorable I thought it was to go around murdering people. I searched to see if I could locate an escape route. If the opportunity arose, bolting seemed like a sensible option. Elliot seemed to sense my thoughts. He cleared his throat and two faceless men dressed in black stepped out of the shadows. They blocked the exits back into the maze at both sides of the clearing. There was no way past them.

"Now that the introductions are out of the way, perhaps we should move onto those questions I mentioned. Tell me, is the old man still alive?"

Was I going to be able to lie to him? The answer to that question was instantaneous. My head nodded, making me choke out a frustrated gasp.

"I see. And do your friends have the talisman?" He took hold of my chin with his fingers this time and forced me to look at him. I struggled against his gaze but his eyes bored deep into me. I couldn't move.

"No." My voice was flat and lifeless.

This information seemed to relieve him. He released my chin, allowing me to jerk my head free. Smirking at my revulsion, he took a moment to look back up at my mother.

"Moira served as a wonderful distraction. She was very beautiful in some ways but so corrupted in every other. You remind me of her." He ran his tongue over his teeth under his lips, as though trying to rid himself of a particularly unpleasant taste. "Do they have any leads about the talisman? Do they know where to find it?"

I battled, fought with every ounce of strength I possessed not to reveal their hand, to let him know my new friends had absolutely nothing, but in the end it did me no good. Again I told him the truth: they had no idea where to find it.

He nodded, satisfied with my response. His next question was poised, seconds from his lips, and I knew what it would be. He would want to know where we were, and I wouldn't be able to lie to him. Before the words came, however, both of the featureless bodyguards stepped forward, drawing Elliot's attention. Anger distorted his face, and he growled, something wild boiling just beneath the surface of his cool demeanor. I flinched away from him.

"Well," he said stiffly, brushing his hands down the front of his suit to iron out the imaginary wrinkles. "It appears I have to—" He stopped short. Blue flames flickered into life, cuffing his wrists. They looked cold and frozen despite their shifting appearance, and they licked up his frame to engulf him in a glorious cobalt pyre. His mouth opened in angry surprise, and then...

I snapped awake, soaked in sweat and twisted so tightly in my bed sheets I could hardly move. What the...? Oh, come on? A dream? Seriously? That was the most vivid dream I'd ever had. The solid force I'd felt over me, reaching inside to move my body or to pluck information out of my head, seemed so real. I wrapped my arms around myself despite the heat of the room, my body shivering, stiff with fear and confusion. The image of my mom burned into my mind.

I needed water. I swung out of bed and made my way slowly down the corridor. At the junction of the corridor I turned left towards the bathroom but stopped in my tracks when I noticed the door was open. The light was on, illuminating a shaft of bright yellow light on the other side of the wall. I edged a little closer.

"Farley?"

The unexpected sound had my heart instantly in my throat, pounding. I steadied myself against the wall until I was sure I wasn't going to have a heart attack. "Daniel?" I tucked my ruffled hair behind my ears and straightened out my twisted t-shirt. I found him sitting on the tiled floor with his legs crossed, an iPod resting on his knee. I could hear the soft strains of music playing—Bon Iver. Daniel didn't strike me as a Bon Iver kind of guy.

"What are you doing?"

He took the earphones out of his ears and cocked his head at me curiously. "Waiting for you."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

No Apparent Danger

I'd never understood how consuming the depths of rage could be before now.

"What is she talking about, Daniel?" Agatha asked, as I trembled in a quivering wreck outside her bedroom door.

He scowled. "We had to do it. We knew he couldn't hurt her."

"How? How did you know he couldn't?"

"Because they never have before!"

"That's crazy!" she cried. "I know there's a lot riding on this, but you can't be so cavalier with Farley's safety."

At this point Daniel's eyes bugged out. "Cavalier? Cavalier! You of all people should know I would never endanger her. Don't freak out, Agatha. You won't need to worry about me and my irresponsible attitude for much longer. Aldan will be fighting fit soon enough, and then it'll all be out of my hands."

Something in the look of horror on his face shook me. I couldn't remember ever seeing anyone so upset, let alone him. Unshakeable, unfathomable Daniel. I reached out for him, and he leapt back in surprise at the unexpected gesture. I was possibly more shocked by my own actions than he was. He looked horrified.

I turned to Agatha, equally appalled that I had tried to reach out to him and that he'd reacted so badly to it, but my wounded feelings were replaced by concern when I saw the tears trickling down the small woman's cheeks. Agatha stared wide-eyed after Daniel in the darkness as his fading footsteps echoed angrily off the walls, with her hand covering her mouth. Was she fighting the urge to sob?

"Agatha? What is it? What's the matter?"

"Nothing. I just didn't know Aldan would be back up and running so soon."

"Surely that's a good thing?"

"Yeah." The word sounded hollow. "It is."

I couldn't make any sense of Daniel and Agatha's tense exchange, but sleep was definitely not in the cards. Agatha disappeared back into her room, promising to discuss what had happened with me in the morning, and I went back to my own room. After lying in bed for over three hours, wound up and tense, I eventually decided enough was enough. I grabbed a light hoodie and a book as well as the flashlight and then marched to the kitchen. I retrieved some chips and something to drink before making my way through the maze of dark corridors. Countless stubbed toes later, I eventually found my way back to the steel ladder that led up and into the outside world. The service hatch was heavy, and lifting it nearly resulted in me losing my footing and tumbling back into the abyss below. I resorted to gripping the flashlight between my teeth, using both hands to push upwards, causing the faintest of creaks before it swung reluctantly open.

It felt like I was escaping from prison as I climbed out into the early morning sunlight. I looked nervously back down into the hatch, expecting to see Daniel or Agatha racing up the ladder to drag me back to 'safety.' After last night, I doubted I was safe anywhere if those guys could just bust straight into my brain. No. Sleep was now out of the question. Period.

I found a tattered green and white striped canvas deck chair propped in between two rusting old oil barrels and dragged it off into the scrubby grassland, determined to enjoy a few hours of fresh air and soak up some vitamin D.

In the light of day there really wasn't much to see out there. We truly were all alone. I couldn't even figure out where the Charger had disappeared. Reading the book provided some distraction, and when I tired of that I found myself staring blankly up at the wispy clouds that skimmed across the sky, wondering what all the ordinary people were doing. Ordinary had never seemed so appealing as I sat there, wallowing in all the terror that extraordinary had delivered into my life.

It wasn't worth thinking about. Instead, I decided I wouldn't think about anything. I would ignore my father's malicious intentions and how my best friend probably thought I'd gone insane or been kidnapped. And I would ignore the fact that the people trying to keep me safe were okay with putting me in danger occasionally. It hurt all the more that I was developing an uncomfortably strong attraction to the most belligerent guy in the world, a guy who really couldn't care less if I got smoked in the cross fire of their never-ending feud. No. Definitely better not to think of anything at all.

A beautiful, sun-drenched, peaceful hour after I'd slipped out, the echo of the metal hatch clanging shut reached me. Bracing for an argument, I leaned back, closing my eyes so I could enjoy my last few moments of freedom.

Daniel came racing out of the silo only to skid to an immediate stop when he caught sight of me. He pretended to look around for who knows what and then disappeared back inside. A few moments later he appeared again, carrying a beaten-up metal pail, and stalked off about twenty feet from where I sat. He upended it and took a seat.

There was no point asking him what he thought he was doing. An argument would only ensue and I was too exhausted to deal with that. Instead, I did my best to block out his presence and accomplished it quite successfully. Occasionally, I caught him scuffing his toe in the burnt orange dirt or picking at the long grasses and twisting them in his hands as he looked off into the uninterrupted distance, seemingly unaffected by my choice of pastime.

At first it was a battle against my conflicting wills not to pay him any attention. But after a while, with the sun massaging my skin, it was my eyelids I was wrestling with. I didn't want to sleep. He might be there, waiting. It was no good, though. It wasn't long before I slipped under the deep black fold of nothingness that embraced me, welcoming me home.

******

Daniel's hand rested lightly on my arm. I jerked awake, my pulse racing. No bad dreams. No apparent danger. I quelled the unsettled energy inside me and looked up at him, resentful that he seemed intent on ruining whatever potential sleep I might have for the rest of my life.

"It's starting to rain." His voice was hushed and calm.

He was right. The sky overhead was blanketed with pregnant grey rain clouds. Their first swollen droplets were descending to explode mightily on the marbled, rusty earth, each producing small bursts of dust as they made contact.

"I would have carried you in but there's no way I could have gotten you down the ladder without waking you up." His tone was practically apologetic.

My heart hammered at the idea of him carrying me, of being lifted in his arms again. It didn't help that he was wearing a black button-down shirt today instead of his usual t-shirt, and he just looked plain hot. I kicked against the foolish, unwelcome reaction and set my jaw.

"It's fine."

He held out his hand. I ignored it and gathered up my stuff, juggling chair, book, lemonade, and chips, before he took the chair from me and folded it, carrying it under his arm. He gave me a tight smile and gestured grandly in front of him, indicating that I ought to go first.

Ha! He thinks I'm gonna try and give him the slip. Where am I going to run to out here? Jerk.

We made our way back into the silo, dashing the last few feet as the rain began to fall with purpose, wetting our skin and hair. By the time we made it under shelter, his shirt was clinging to his back, and my own pale grey tank top had turned into a second skin. I paused to catch my breath as we ducked inside the open entranceway.

Daniel stepped inside and stood with his back to me as I threw a look over my shoulder to marvel at the sheeting rain. The downpour sounded like gunfire. It rattled and hammered on the old steel above us, echoing around the inside of the silo, vibrating in my chest. The rude volume of it all made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

"Would you hate me less if I apologized?" Daniel was suddenly behind me. I spun to look at him, surprised by how sincere he sounded. His eyes downcast at our feet, his shoulders hitching up and down erratically as he breathed, uneasy and unsure.

I did my best not to get angry. "Well, it would probably help. But I'm not gonna forget that you threw me to the wolves for your own purposes."

A succession of emotions fleeted across his face. He remained focused on the dirt between our feet, which made it difficult to tell whether he was angry or upset. The atmosphere intensified as the rain grew in force, and yet the silence between us roared louder than anything else.

"I wouldn't expect you to," he murmured.

Oh, no you don't, I thought. There was no way I was feeling sorry for him. He would undoubtedly be back to his arrogant self in no time, and then I'd feel stupid for playing right into his hands. For all that, my stomach still butterflied when he looked up at me. I bit my lower lip, trying to ignore the heady, powerful feeling mixing with all my anger.

"I never wanted you here," he whispered.

I flinched. It was one thing knowing something because it was obvious, and another thing entirely having someone say it to your face. "Wow. Gee, but you've made me feel so welcome, Daniel. I would never have guessed you felt that way," I shot back.

"That's not...that's not what I mean." A shadow of vulnerability played across his face as he struggled with his words. "You have no idea—"

"You're right, I don't! Everyone keeps hiding things from me! I know you're still not telling me the whole truth. That's the same as lying in my book, okay? I don't like it, and I wish you people would just give me some credit. Maybe I might be able to handle whatever else is going on! You all talk about trust. I've given you every single scrap of trust I own and you've given me none in return! I can't even come and sit out here without you posting a guard to make sure I'm not going to run away."

"I CAME UP HERE BECAUSE I WAS SCARED, FARLEY!" he exploded. He reached out to grip my shoulders in both his hands. "I'm scared every day. I'm scared about the Quorum and their plans. I'm scared when I think about Elliot getting his hands on you—what would happen to you and everyone else if that were to happen. I'm scared because I feel useless. I didn't want you here. I wanted you to have a normal life. I wanted you as far away from me as possible." He trembled, the weight of his words still bouncing around the hollow shell of the silo.

I gaped up at him, feeling the pressure from his hands begin to dig into my shoulders. "You're hurting me," I whispered.

He let me go and stumbled back. I reacted and stepped forward at the same time, subconsciously wanting to close the gap between us. Beyond that, I didn't know what else to do. Standing there, wishing I could find something, anything, to say to him as he locked me to the spot with his piercing gaze, felt insufficient.

"Daniel—"

"I'm sorry," he broke in breathlessly. Before I could say anything in return, he wheeled and disappeared down the hatch.

"Well, thanks for clearing that up!" I cried after him. How could he say those things and run away without explaining himself? And why the hell was he so worried about me, anyway?

There was no way I was following him back down into the darkness. Instead, I sat down heavily on the pail that he had left behind and listened to the rain, fuming.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Seventy-Thirty

If this is all in Aldan's mind, why wouldn't he make sure the weather was beautiful all day, every day? The chilled wind ruffled my hair and penetrated the gaps between my clothes as I stomped towards the cottage. Wild hair and another monsters of rock t-shirt greeted me upon entry. Aldan thrust a scalding cup of hot chocolate into my hands before I could even take a breath to say hello.

"So you came," he said.

I slumped in the empty chair closest to the fire blazing in the hearth, relishing the warmth, and placed the mug down on the table to spare my fingers from blistering. "I guess so. I was pretty mad about what happened with my... father." I said the word slowly, the texture of it foreign and alien in my mouth.

"I don't blame you," Aldan told me, "It was a mean trick. I would never have considered it under normal circumstances. But these days, there is no normal. We have to be able to bend ourselves a little without compromising our morals too much."

He didn't sound too sorry. In fact, he sounded quite happy. I didn't feel brave enough to request an apology, though, so I just stared at my hot chocolate and sulked. The wood continued to snap and crack heartily in the hearth. I could feel Aldan's amused eyes on me, studying my pout.

"Alright, then. That lad's been in here with a face about as gloomy as yours so I daren't ask what's happened there, but I hope in time you'll forgive the two of us. In all honesty, we had no idea that Elliot could affect you physically in your dreams. We would never have let him in if we had. We thought he would wheedle some information out of you and then hightail it, but turns out he's a lot stronger than we thought. I promise you this much: he'll never get in again. I've sealed you right up."

I had no choice but to take his word for it. "You think Elliot believed me?" I asked.

"There's no way for you to lie to him. Not in there. He could make you confess your darkest, nastiest secrets, the ones you'd never normally tell anyone, and there's not a thing you could do about it. I just snapped your conversation short before he could ask something we didn't want him to know."

"Yes, but now he knows we have no idea where the talisman is, and that we have no plan to stop them. Surely we'd want them to think the exact opposite?"

"Well...not really. You don't understand creatures like this. If they think we have everything we need to implement a plan against them, then they'll come down on us so hard we won't have time to tie our shoelaces. If they think we're stranded in open water with no life line, we buy ourselves some time, you see?"

It did make some sense.

"The thing is we do have the talisman," he continued. "It's just broken."

My head snapped up. "You have it?" Adrenaline coursed through me, turning my stomach ice cold. If they had the talisman, did they expect me to play my part in the prophecy?

"Without it being fully operational we need time to work out another plan. We're almost there, though. Trust me, you wouldn't like the original blueprints, anyway."

"Original blueprints?" I frowned. "What does that mean? Please, I'm tired of riddles. Just be straight with me."

He looked at me and shrugged again in that easy-going Isn't the weather nice? fashion. "In short, to destroy the Immortals, I would have to drain every last drop of life force out of you. I would have to take your soul, and you would have to die."

I choked on my mouthful of hot chocolate. Was he serious? Yes. Yes, he was serious. "You're right. I don't like that plan at all."

He laughed gruffly and nudged me with the toe of his boot under the table.

"You see? So it's a good thing we secured ourselves some time to dot the i's and cross the t's on our other ideas. I'm truly sorry that we didn't fill you in on everything. Believe me, I wanted to, but Elliot's no idiot. He would have sensed it in two seconds flat if you were trying to hide something from him. You couldn't know."

Now that I knew the truth, I had to admit that there was logic to their plan, but it didn't change much. I was still angry.

"Don't worry, in a couple of days we'll be able to move on our backup plan. Hopefully we'll be successful."

"What's your backup?"

"Well, the idea is to repair the talisman and go in with the element of surprise. They'll be too shocked to react in time. We'll deal them a blow they won't recover from."

"What are your odds?"

"Honestly?" Aldan sucked his teeth. "I'd say about seventy-thirty."

"Seventy-thirty! Those are terrible odds! You mean to say if you can fix this talisman, then there's a thirty percent chance your plan won't work?" They were insane. To risk their lives when there was such a huge possibility they would fail was madness.

"No, Farley, seventy-thirty against."

My jaw dropped. "You can't be serious!"

"Oh, it's not all that bad. I've done the math, and I'm probably erring on the cautious side." He cracked me a lopsided smile and I just stared at him. How could he be so calm?

"You're crazy! There's no way you should take a risk like that. You'll all die!"

"That's a possibility, but what if we succeed? Wouldn't that be a kicker?"

"So what, you guys are just gonna go in there guns blazing and hope for the best?"

"Pretty much."

"I've got to say that's the worst plan I've ever heard. And where is the talisman, anyway? Do you even know that it can be fixed?"

"It's right here. And I hope it can. It's going to cost us a lot, but everything depends on it working. All we can do is have faith."

His words barely penetrated the mass panic that was taking place inside my head. If their plan didn't work, then they would all die, and that included me along with them.

"I still don't understand. This talisman better be, like, a nuclear bomb or something."

Aldan chuckled. He took a deep swig from his hot chocolate and grinned at me. "I have been told I can be quite explosive," he said, winking.

"Huh?"

"Yeah. It's got to work, Farley, because it's me. I'm the talisman."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Trying to Get In

I was awake, but Daniel clearly hadn't realized. Sleeping out in the hangar was a relief on the really stuffy nights, when the walls of my room just seemed impossibly close. At least in the hangar, the filtered air sometimes felt like a kind of breeze, lifting the cloying dampness from my sleep-sticky skin. And tonight, after learning Aldan was the key to saving us all, I felt like the night air was trying to suffocate and drown me in equal parts.

It must have been the early hours of the morning, or at least I suspected it was. Some sharp noise had woken me, and obviously alerted Daniel, too, as he sat crossed-legged on the floor across the other side of the room. He rested with his back against the coolness of the wall, his head tilted, as if paused, listening for something far off.

Still. So, so very still.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust in the grey sepia of the muted light emanating from somewhere out in the hallway. The first thing that caught my attention were his bare feet, crossed underneath him. It was oddly intimate, vulnerable perhaps, that he wasn't wearing any shoes. And that's when I noticed he wasn't wearing a shirt, either.

Oh, come on!

It was bad enough trying to deal with my physical attraction to him with all his clothes on, but now I was in real trouble. Each and every muscle that made up his body seemed to have been carved out by some master sculptor's hand, a hand that had studied a hundred different physiques and finally come to create perfection in Daniel's. It was almost as though he were too perfect. Not that I was complaining, as I studied him surreptitiously through half-opened eyes. A black smudge on the left side of his chest attracted my attention, and I squinted a little more, trying to make out what it was.

A tattoo? I had no hope of making out whatever it was in the near dark, however.

Wow. New levels of freakdom achieved here, I thought to myself. I was actually perving on him. It was impossible not to, though. He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, even if I could hardly see a thing, and even if I'd never been in the same room as another shirtless guy before. Everyone else would probably pale in comparison next to him.

What was he doing here? For all I could see, he was watching me sleep. The thrill of that thought made my palms break into an embarrassed, longing sweat. But it wasn't possible that he was watching me. He could only be watching over me, making sure I wasn't going to try and escape, or that I wouldn't manage to somehow get myself attacked or kidnapped in the safety of the hangar. He lowered his head and looked straight at me, making me wonder if he could see that my eyes were slightly open.

"Did I wake you?"

Yes, he could. Damn. I hadn't really decided whether I'd forgiven him enough to talk to him, but it was too late now.

"Uh...no," I said, unsure exactly what had woken me. I had more pressing things on my mind. Like how I looked. It didn't matter that Daniel had already seen me at my absolute, tear-streaked, bedraggled worst. I still had an overwhelming desire to be pretty for him, which made me resent myself.

I dragged my hair out of my face and pushed it over my shoulders so that it tumbled down to the small of my back in a black, tangled mess, and pushed myself up to a seated position. Daniel watched me move, slowly flexing his hands in his lap, like they ached or he needed something to do with them. A small twist of paper curled around the tip of his index finger, which he played with absentmindedly.

"Why aren't you in your room? Don't you like it in there?" His voice held a curious note, one I'd never heard before.

"No. It's fine. I just...it's so small. I have trouble sleeping in there sometimes. It gets so dark. Heavy."

He gave a small chuckle, which again seemed much softer than his usual, scornful laughter. "It's dark out here, too. Isn't the dark the same wherever you are?"

"No," I replied. "Usually the dark's just an absence of light. But sometimes it's made up of velvet, and fills your head. Other times it presses down on you like it wants to get in." I cringed. Why on earth would I tell him that? But it was too late to snatch back the crazy. The lazy white flash of his teeth was visible from across the room.

"And that's how you felt tonight? Like it was trying to get in?"

"No. Tonight it felt empty. It felt like I was the only person for miles and miles. Like I'd never find another soul alive in all that black." Like the time you found me in the dark. I bit my lip. Just. Stop. Talking.

A small flicker of light suddenly cut through the shadows, lighting up Daniel's face in a blue glow that arced between his fingertips. It was gone in an instant, but I saw in the second that his face was illuminated that he looked tired. And worried. And sad?

"Sorry," he whispered.

"What was that?"

"It just happens sometimes. I can't seem to..." He sighed. "Never mind."

I desperately wanted to know what he had been going to say, but prying might have made him angry. It would only take a word and he was so utterly calm. It seemed silly to chance ruining the ease of our strange conversation, so instead I folded my legs up beneath me to mirror his pose.

"I'm not the only one with a bedroom. Why are you out here? Are you afraid of the dark, too?" I felt suddenly very foolish that I had admitted to being afraid of the dark. I wanted him to see me as strong and capable, not some little child, unable to sleep without a nightlight.

Yeah, well, you'd be able to sleep a hundred times easier if he hadn't let your father traipse into your dreams, uninvited, a rankled voice reminded me. It was true, but I couldn't help this stupid, overwhelming desire that grew in me day by day: I wanted him to see me as an adult. I wanted him to see me.

Daniel flexed his shoulders. "Hmm. The dark doesn't bother me. It doesn't really exist for someone who can turn on the lights whenever they feel like it."

All of a sudden my ears were rushing, a loud interruption to the quietness of our hushed voices, and he was alight. Daniel was alight. It wasn't coming from his hands this time, but from him. Electric blue, prickling at my eyes. And so, so beautiful. If he hadn't looked like some sort of god before, he certainly did now.

The tattoo over his chest was clearly visible in the light that flooded from him: a black inked heart encircled by an elegant filigree crown. A sun, blazing and full, backed the tattoo. Its rays spread long, glorious fingers out across his all-too-chiseled, outrageously flawless chest. The light went out, momentarily blinding me with bright flares burned into my retinas, but I could still see that heart. It wasn't some cartoon love-heart. It was real, blood and all, and exactly above where his own must be.

"See what I mean?" he said, quiet again now that the rushing was gone.

"Not really. I think my eyes might be damaged. Won't that make me sick now?"

He laughed quietly, slowly emerging back into focus as the spots vanished. "Don't worry. This thing that I have inside me, it can be dangerous. But it can just be light when I want it to be, too. You'll be fine in a second."

My vision was fine, but I was certainly far from it. I would have paid to find out what was going on with him—why he was being so cordial with me, and why he had treated me to that little light display. He'd never done it before, and he'd never seemed this... well, this okay.

"Fine. So the dark's not a problem," I said, acting cool, as though what he'd done hadn't just blown my mind, "So why aren't you sleeping?" I was still intrigued as to why he would be sitting there in nothing but his loose linen pajama bottoms, all devilishly, broodingly divine, while I sleep-drooled on the sofa cushions.

He shifted a little and ran his hand through his messy, dark hair. Somewhere in the dark, I saw a hint of those green, green eyes. "I don't sleep much," he said quietly. "I was checking up on a couple of leads. We're tracking some of the Reaver's servants."

Hmm. Reaver's servants, instead of your father's. Was he trying to save me some discomfort? That was entirely out of character, too, given that he usually enjoyed seeing me squirm. "The Immundus?" I asked, pushing the thought aside.

"Yeah. That's one name for them."

"Agatha told me they're human. Is that true?"

Daniel breathed out deeply. "They are. Although, they're more machines really. Or puppets. They let the Immortals inside their heads. Half the time they're themselves, the rest of the time they hand over the wheel to their masters." Daniel's voice was flat as he spoke, filling the already cool air with a whole new kind of cold.

"Why would they do that?" I remembered Agatha's words when she'd first told me of the Immundus—that the Immortals used them as their lackeys, but it still didn't make any sense.

"The Immundus are addicts." Daniel paused, weighing his words. "The Reavers are their dealers. They peddle them a buzz like any other dealer, except one taste of this particular high is usually enough to hook a human for life. Make them willing to die for another fix. It's quite ingenious, really. The Reavers lose very little and in return they get to trade off and take some of the Immundus' soul. Some of them have been hooked for so long they have no souls left at all. And on top of everything, the Reavers gain a devoted, desperate servant, willing to do anything to make them happy in return."

"And what is it, this high?" I asked.

Daniel left my words hanging undisturbed in the air for a moment before he said, "Life."

"Life?" I felt stupid, repeating every other word he said. It was surprising he hadn't begun mocking me for it already.

"Yeah. It's the same high the Immortals feed off, but humans can't handle the strength of it. They can't handle the power."

"Oh." The word sounded like a small, round pebble, cast into still water. The ripple it made was palpable as we both sat there, awkward and uncomfortable.

"The Immortals can take life, filter it, and pass some of that on to another person. Someone like you," Daniel murmured.

I didn't like the way he said that, as though he thought I might be the sort of person up for stealing someone's soul in order to get wasted, like some out of control junkie. He clarified what he meant when he spoke again. "It would be so easy for them to take your life. And, trust me, it would taste sweeter than most."

The thought set my teeth on edge, even if it did kind of sound like he had paid me a weird, creepy compliment. The prospect of anyone tasting my soul was more than unpleasant.

"They call the process riding the lightning. I'm sure you can imagine from the name that it's not an easy or pleasant experience."

I could imagine. I'd heard the term before, but used in reference to when the state executed someone in the electric chair. The comparison made me judder. "Doesn't it hurt the Immortal? To channel energy like that?"

Daniel gave a low grunt. "Far from it. It costs them a tiny part of their energy stores. It'd be the same as a billionaire spending ten cents. And the returns are well worth the small outlay."

"And once they've given the Immundus their hit, what? Then they're under their control?" The whole thing sounded seedy and gross and so very, very wrong.

"No. The Immortals come and go as they please. Once they know someone's mind..." He trailed off, probably feeling awkward that he was reminding me of what happened with Elliott. I swallowed down the lump in my throat, too loud not to have been audible. "But it's like Aldan said," he added quickly. "Only the Immortal who entered into that person's mind can keep the connection open. And these Immortals, the bad ones, they do keep it open, so they can skip in whenever the urge takes them."

I had an urge of my own, but it was muddled. Confused. I couldn't decide in that moment whether I wanted him, to touch his pale, smooth skin, or throttle him for what he'd done. I'd only just started to get over what had happened. It didn't matter that Aldan was a good guy and would keep the door into my mind closed. I shoved both thoughts to one side. It was impossible to think when I was trying to work out which emotion was stronger.

Daniel skillfully changed the subject. "It's easy to tell when one of them is inside an Immundus, though. Maybe you already know how?"

The halos. I remembered the Immundus' eyes that day at the fairground. How they pulsed in a way that made me afraid. It had to be the silver halos. "Their eyes?"

Daniel was silent, but I could make out the imperceptibly small movement of his nodding head. "Their eyes give them away every time."

That age-old line came into my head, and I found myself saying it out loud. "Yes. The eyes are the windows to the soul."

Daniel let out a surprised, derisive laugh and cracked his knuckles. "When you see that light in their eyes, it's showing you that there is no soul. The Reavers are in residence and those monsters forfeited theirs a long time ago."

"And what about Aldan?" A wrinkle of discomfort marred the air. Did Aldan have no soul? I found that hard to believe.

There was no response. Daniel was on his feet, facing the corridor back towards the bedrooms with his hands clenched by his sides. I just knew his jaw would be straining, and that look would have settled on his face.

No. Don't do this. Please don't go.

But how could I say that to him? I found something much more stupid, much more pathetic to say instead. "I know he does. I know it in my heart."

It sounded ridiculous, like a six-year-old declaring that they knew Santa was definitely real. But some of the tension I could sense in Daniel seemed to drop from the strained profile of his shoulders as he hovered by the bookcase.

It didn't change anything, though. I'd still lost him. He didn't breathe another word as he padded barefoot past where I sat, collapsing under the weight of my own stupidity on the sofa. It was amazing how I managed to say the most idiotic things sometimes.

Daniel was so protective of Aldan. Of course he would be upset about someone pointing out he was potentially soulless, that his mentor was a killer, or had been once upon a time, just like my father and all the others. As Daniel left the room, the darkness that I'd been trying to avoid seemed to spill in and take his place, as though he was the only source of light available to me. And with his departure, he took that light with him, leaving me alone with the blackness working at the edges, trying to get in. All that he left behind was a small, twisted length of paper.
CHAPTER NINETEEN

Time Travel

Agatha was singing when I entered the hangar in the morning. Her hair was coiled on the top of her head in a style that wouldn't have looked out of place in Victorian England. She gasped when she saw me, limp on the sofa, lacking the energy to even pull my limbs into some sort of order.

"Farley! Did you sleep at all last night?"

"Not really," I groaned, lolling my head to look up at Agatha standing behind the sofa. "I think I'm suffering from sleep deprivation. What's up with the hair?"

The tiny woman gave me a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"Slightly outdated, don't you think?" I yawned, stretching my body so that my loose t-shirt hitched up, exposing a little of my stomach. Agatha jabbed the bare skin with her index finger.

"It may look outdated to you, but women have worn their hair up like this for most of my lifetime. It's only recently that this—" she tugged gently on the bird's nest that was my own hair, "—has become acceptable."

"Okay, fair point. Was it terrible being a woman back in those days? Having men expect you to be weak and retiring, doing what you're told all the time?" I'd read just enough Jane Austin to know how women behaved back in the day, flouncing around in their long dresses, writing boring letters to equally boring men.

"No," Agatha said, taking on a wistful tone. "It was great. Really. It wasn't as bad for me, I suppose, because men and women from the Quarters have always been treated as equals. I could do whatever I wanted, and those were the days of discovery. Everything was new. Everything was an adventure. These days, it feels like everything important has already been discovered."

"Hmm. When you put it like that... Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes. If I do, I just go visit Aldan. He can create whatever backdrop he likes as a meeting point when you go and see him. Occasionally I ask him to remember what he saw of Scotland, and it's almost as though I've gone back. Like being a child again."

I sat bolt upright, slightly dizzy. "He can do that?"

"Sure can." Agatha nodded, her hair gleaming under the strip lights. "He doesn't even need to be with you. He can host a time in his mind and leave you there, immersed in it, while he gets on with whatever he's doing."

"And you can talk to people? You can have conversations with them?"

Agatha frowned. "You can interact with the people but that has its limitations. They're just shadows, so you can't really have proper conversations with them or anything. They do react to you sometimes."

"Sounds like the most advanced computer game ever," I said, wondering what it would be like to step back in time like that. The shine in Agatha's eyes said it was amazing.

"You could try it if you like," she said.

"You think Aldan would let me?"

"Sure he would. He wanted to speak to you this morning, anyway. I was discussing your hallucinations with him and he was intrigued. He wanted to ask if he could monitor you for a little while to see if he could pick up on anything that might make them special. This way you could have a wander around for a while, and he would be free to do that."

Without hesitating, I stood up, already making my way towards the door to get showered. "I'm totally in," I told Agatha as I hurried away. "He can pick my brain apart all he wants if it means he might figure out what's wrong with me. Exploring another time sounds like a sweet bonus."

"There's just one catch," Agatha called after me. I already knew what it was. My enthusiasm suddenly fell flat. I swept my hair back out of my face and spun back to face Agatha.

"Is that really necessary?"

"'Fraid so. Without him, you'll be completely lost."

"Ugh."

******

Music was emanating from Aldan's room as I approached, and I found myself standing stock-still, shocked by the beauty of it. A lilting Spanish melody, painfully sweet and heartbreaking, drifted through the crack in the door. I racked my brain, trying to figure out where I had heard it before. That's right—Agatha was always humming this melody, although the guitar version was much more complex. It would have been difficult for anyone but a seriously accomplished musician to play.

Daniel looked exactly that as I inched the door back, stealing silently into the room. His head was bent forward, his eyes closed. His fingers flew with such dexterity up and down the neck of the guitar that the movement was barely visible. The music was gentle and soft in places, and something haunted worked its way onto his face as he lifted his head, eyes closed, lost in the music. He looked so young right then, or at least as young as me. Everything was stripped back: his anger, his sarcastic, vitriolic retorts, that cold harshness to him. The only thing that remained was a strange look of sadness.

His eyes flew open and I drew in a sharp breath, suddenly realizing he might not want an audience. His eyelashes were stark black ink against the paleness of his skin, far too delicate for a boy's. They fluttered as he blinked at me.

I cleared my throat and looked down at my hands. "Sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

"It's okay," he said in a hushed voice. "I wasn't doing a very good job, anyway."

I struggled to keep the disbelief from my face. "I think your idea of a poor job is most people's idea of excellence."

He looked down at the guitar in his hands and then flashed me a scornful look. "I guess that depends on your standards."

A hot flush welled up in my belly, working its way to my cheeks. What was that supposed to mean? Did he always have to shoot me down? And was that some inference about me in particular? Was he saying that I was below his standards? After last night's conversation, I'd thought he might ease off a little, but it appeared I'd been foolish to hope for that.

"Never mind, Daniel." It was exhausting trying to work out what he ever meant or thought. "Agatha said she'd asked you if you would come with me to—" I paused. I truthfully hadn't thought that far ahead. Where were we actually going?

Daniel's gaze raked me up and down, picking over the tank top and tight black jeans I wore, coupled with my leather boots. My cheeks flushed uncomfortably.

"Dressed like that, I'd say we were headed to some sort of rock club."

"Ha, ha," I replied as dryly as possible. "Do you think anyone's ever been strangled to death with a guitar strap before?"

"Absolutely. There's no such thing as original thought anymore." The corners of Daniel's mouth twitched. "Not that that matters. There are plenty of completely unoriginal yet extremely fun things two consenting adults can do with a guitar strap that don't involve death. Maybe just a little light chaffing. You should definitely consider those before homicide."

I just looked at him, wondering if I had hit a new all-time record on the embarrassment front. He seemed to be waiting for me to react in some way. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"Do I have to dress according to the time I'm going to?"

Daniel grinned and hoisted his guitar strap over his head. "Yep. Aldan's taking us back to Manchuria. It was the custom of the Manchurian people to wear nothing but their underwear. You should probably strip off now if you want to fit in."

I shot him a filthy look to hide the flush in my cheeks. I could handle Daniel being a douche bag, but this new flirtatious side to him was confusing and frankly scary.

"Sorry. The clothes are staying on," I told him, trying to make myself sound unflustered.

"A shame."

"Just stop it, okay. Are you coming or not? And do I need to get changed?"

The smile dropped from his face and he stood up, leaning the guitar against the wall. He paced towards me until he was less than a foot away and grabbed hold of my hand. There was an intense expression on his face as he pulled me towards him.

"Yes, I'll go with you," he said quietly. "And your clothes don't matter. Aldan will put you in something era-appropriate." There was a burning quality to his voice that stirred something deep and hot inside me, making my head swim. His eyes were half closed. He was leaning towards me. Is he going to...? I panicked. No. No, of course he wasn't. A stupid thought. A small smile ticked at the corner of his mouth.

"Are you ready?" he asked. The burning was still there, visible in his eyes.

I nodded, feeling stupid that I'd thought he was about to kiss me. "Where are you taking me?"

"London," he said. "Home."

******

If it wasn't for the pressure of Daniel's hand around mine, I would have thought I was dreaming. Aldan was nowhere to be seen, but according to Agatha he wasn't supposed to be with us, anyway. He was busy rifling through my mind. Instead, we were surrounded by a crowd of people, thronging and shoving at one another to get by. Daniel's grip on my hand tightened. It was all so real; the people were all so alive. Agatha had said they were just shadows, memories, but I never remembered the people I passed in the street in this kind of detail. Maybe a flash of unusual hair color or some other distinguishing feature, but not the crow's feet around their eyes, or the finest details of their clothing.

And thinking of clothing, I was too scared to look at myself for a moment. When I gave in and peeked down, a rush of horror stabbed through me. It was a dress all right. You could have made eighteen dresses out of all that fabric. A sea of silk exploded from my waist, a metallic purple-blue in color. It was so heavy I felt myself sinking where I stood. There was no need to check for a crinoline—no dress would be so bouffy without the assistance of a very large hoop. The corseted bodice was literally squeezing the living daylights out of me, and the lace chemisette barely covered my considerable cleavage. Where the hell had that come from? I looked preposterous. Somewhere, sometime, Aldan was laughing himself stupid.

Daniel, on the other hand, was the absolute embodiment of a Victorian gentleman. He was breathtaking in his black frock coat with turned velvet collar. Its jade lining picked out the color of his eyes, startlingly bright against the paleness of his skin. He wore a necktie and a stovepipe top hat, under which locks of his black hair escaped to curl against the nape of his neck. He clutched a brass-topped polished cane in his free hand.

A surprising realization overcame me as I stood drinking in every last detail of him—that none of this would seem strange to Daniel. Maybe it even felt normal, and perhaps traipsing around in jeans and a t-shirt was the oddity to him. I was forgetting all the time that Daniel was quite as old as he was, and that he was English, too. Or at least he had been once upon a time. You could only hear the faintest echoes of an accent in his speech, the way he enunciated a word or two in a peculiar way that was decidedly un-American. He was looking at me as though he'd seen a ghost.

"Daniel?"

He continued to stare at me with a stunned expression on his face—that was, until someone barreled into us, knocking me clean off my feet. I gritted my teeth as the coarse cobblestones bit at the fleshy heels of my palms, drawing blood. Daniel was at my side in an instant, his hand at my waist, pulling me up and through the crowd.

"You okay?"

I nodded, trying not to look quite as embarrassed as I felt. Ladies in lace caps and spoon bonnets garnished with dried flowers and small faux birds surrounded us. Men with top hats like Daniel's and bushy moustaches ploughed through the crowd, too, all struggling towards the end of the cobbled street in front of us. Moving along with the sea of people would have been quite easy, but Daniel apparently had other ideas. He headed against the flow.

"Daniel, what is it? What's happening?"

He cast me a sickened look over his shoulder. "A hanging. Are you okay? Can you walk?"

"I'm trying, but I keep tripping over this damn dress."

A sour-faced lady at my side cast me a dirty look and tutted, muttering something about manners. "What was that about?" I asked, trying to hitch up an armful of my skirt so I could move.

Daniel slapped my hand down and pulled me forward. "You can't lift your skirt up like that. And you can't say damn, either."

"But—"

"But nothing, that's just how it is. Now, I'm not going to get dragged along to a hanging. If you want to go, that's fine, but I'm going this way." He pointed off towards a large building in the distance. I gave him an exasperated look.

"Of course I'm not going to a hanging. I'm coming with you." Why the hell would I have wanted to go to a hanging? What sort of ghoulish pastimes did he think I would fill my days with if I could? I bit my tongue and let him drag me to the relative calm of a side street. He paused for a moment, letting me straighten out the ridiculous amounts of material that were caught and twisted around me.

"You look stupid, you know that, right?" he told me, peering out onto the street. His top hat had been knocked into a jaunty angle but on him it somehow looked like it was supposed to be that way.

"Yes, I am aware, but thanks for pointing it out." I quashed the urge to straighten his hat. "What is that building, anyway?" I pointed far down the street, where I could make out the lacquered tops of carriages and the nodding heads of coal-black horses approaching through the crowd. Beyond them, a wide columned building rose up like an imposing monolith in the distance, blocking out a good portion of the horizon.

"It's the British Museum," he told me, knocking his hat back himself. "Are you ready?"

I shrugged, wiping gravel out of the scrapes on my hands. "Sure."

Without a moment's hesitation he pulled me into the crowd again. Thankfully the majority of the people keen to see someone swing had already rushed forward, leaving only the half-hearted followers trudging towards the square at the other end of the street. Daniel stopped short at the top of the road, pausing to allow a grand carriage to pass.

I stared at it, slack-jawed. It looked like the Mercedes Benz of horse drawn carriages. The doors were so highly polished that I could see my own surprised reflection in its gleaming black paneling, which was embellished with gold leaf fleur-de-lis. A moustachioed gentleman scowled out of the window at us and flung the curtain closed, calling to the driver to hurry on just as it started to rain.

The clouds overhead were swollen and grey, the light all flat and bleak, just as I imagined it would be in England after all you heard about the terrible weather. The smell was bad, too, like fetid garbage left out in the sun for a few days. When I looked down, I saw that that was precisely the case. The gutters were overflowing with all kinds of rubbish, and of course, horse manure. And in amongst all that filth there were scraps of children running barefoot, weaving their way through the ebbing flow of people, clutching wilting bunches of flowers in their dirty mitts. One raced up to Daniel, shoving the limp posy out towards him.

"'Ere mister, buy a flower?"

Daniel looked down at the urchin, the boy's dirt-streaked face with sunken cheeks, and felt at his waistcoat. He withdrew a silver coin from the pocket and tossed it to the boy, who caught it expertly out of the air. He thrust a flower at Daniel, who took it and passed it back to me without a word. A dog rose, a little tatty and missing some of its outer petals, but still beautiful in its simplicity. An odd lump rose in my throat.

Daniel had given me a flower. I wasn't foolish enough to think that he did it wittingly. He obviously felt sorry for the boy even though he wasn't real, or at least was very dead by now, and had only paid him the coin out of pity. There'd been no emotion as he passed it back; he hadn't even looked at me. And yet Daniel had given me a flower.

He pulled me across the street while I stared down at the pale pink, silken petals. I barely noticed when he suddenly veered me around a fresh pile of horse manure in the middle of the road. When I looked up, I found him watching me.

"What?"

The distant look that had been evident on his face, if only for a second, vanished. "Nothing. I was just thinking about when I used to live here. This was my London. I knew this place so well."

"Where are we exactly?"

"Bloomsbury," he said. "Very fashionable place to live back in the day. Perfectly situated between Holborn and Euston Road. See that square?" He gestured to a small, well-manicured garden that bore numerous park benches, where ladies in expensive-looking dresses and their drabber female companions sat feeding flocks of pigeons. "Francis Russell, the fifth Duke of Bedford, laid the ground for that square. The Russells practically made this area what it is today. Well, back then. And now, I guess..." he said, confused.

I stared up at the museum, which was now looming ahead of us. Couples paraded the steps at the entrance, the men with their stiff gaits and canes, the ladies with their coiffured hair and parasols.

"Why did you want to come here?" I asked. The building was certainly impressive, but it wasn't him. A whorehouse or a bawdy pub, maybe, but not a museum.

A long pause stretched out while Daniel searched up and down the street, his cane grasped tightly in his hand. The beginnings of a frown lined his forehead. "Because," he murmured, "I used to come here when I was a boy. Sometimes..."

He trailed off, fixing his sights on a group of rag-tag children at the top of the steps. They were running down the steps towards us, barefoot like the other children, their clothes torn and dirty, being chased by what appeared to be a museum guard. The skinny little boy at the front of the group, maybe only six years old, squealed with delight as he ran. His fine, dark hair was plastered to his head by the rain.

"Sometimes..." whispered Daniel, sinking to his knees. His face was ashen, and he looked as though he'd just been kicked in the stomach. The boy careened passed us, whooping and laughing in a reedy, high-pitched voice. He paused to look over his shoulder and gave Daniel a curious, intrigued look. Daniel just blinked back at him.

"Sometimes...I see Jamie."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Gatti's

"That was your brother?"

Daniel's eyes were on fire. The sun, a burnished golden ruin in the sky, was just beginning to dip below the crooked rooftops that were dotted with smashed chimney pots, casting a cold, unfriendly light across the street. It had a dying quality to it, and framed Daniel with a silvery halo that made him look like some kind of destroying angel. He glared at me as though I'd just asked him if he was a serial killer, and then clenched down on his jaw. "Yeah. That was my little brother."

I gawped at him, entirely lost for words. When he refused to meet my eye, I cleared my throat and looked up at the heavens, praying for some kind of divine intervention to help deal with the situation. Daniel, with all his complexities and horrific past, should have come with a handbook. I was nowhere near prepared to handle comforting him, especially when he didn't seem to want comforting. He scowled down at his shoes, which were polished to within an inch of their lives. He looked just about as pale as I had ever seen him. In fact, he looked like he might throw up.

"Do you want to follow him?" I nervously twisted the handkerchief that I'd found in a tiny pocket of my dress. My initials were stitched into the corner.

He looked at me as if I were mad. "No, of course I don't want to follow him."

"I just thought, since we were here..."

"He's gone now, anyway."

I craned my neck to peer over the milling people in the street, gentlemen and ladies walking arm in arm down the long boulevard, heads down against the light rain. "I can still see him."

"Just leave it, okay?"

I turned back to catch the look on Daniel's face; his eyes were pained, shining slightly, and his brow was creased. The devastated look on his face said a lot, like he couldn't bear me studying him the way I was.

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to." There was a finality in his tone that made me look down at my hands, gathered over my full skirts. They were still throbbing. I wanted more than anything to put them in my pockets, but I'd already searched the dress and found it decidedly lacking in hand-sized pockets.

What made him bring me here with him? What could he possibly have thought was going to happen? He came here to see Jamie, knowing what it would do to him, knowing that it would tear him down to the bone, and he had brought me along for the ride anyway. Surely he knew I wasn't heartless, that I would want to make him feel better somehow, and yet he seemed determined to be as cold and distant as possible. Something tired and brittle snapped inside me.

"Okay. So you don't want to go after your dead brother."

Daniel looked up as though I'd slapped him. He narrowed his eyes. "No."

"Okay. So what do you want to do?"

He took a deep breath, looking up and down the street. He seemed to be attempting to pull himself together. "I want to do something I haven't done in a long, long time."

"Laugh? Take a bath? Tell the truth?"

He gave me a sour look. They were lame remarks, I knew. Daniel laughed occasionally, though admittedly it was usually at my expense. And he always smelled amazing, some combination of limes and smoke, a scent entirely unique to him. Maybe there was something in the truth thing, though. Who knew when he was telling the truth.

I was curious what he wanted to do, regardless. I quirked an eyebrow at him. "Come on, then," I demanded. "What is it?"

He hesitated, fiddling with his cane, then locked me in a look so inescapable it made me break out in a nervous sweat. His whole demeanor changed in a heartbeat. The suggestion of a wicked smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Can you dance?"

******

I drew a deep breath as I stood on the steps of Gatti's Charing Cross music hall. I was a child the last time I'd come here. There were always white-eyed musical Kaffirs at Gatti's Under The Arches, as well as sword swallowers and shipwrecked sailors, but me and Jamie had loved the tightrope dancers and the performing animals best of all. Despite being a player's theater, after a certain time of night the proprietors always pushed back the furniture, banishing their extraordinary performers to make way for dancing and music.

Now, faced with the familiar, half-remembered façade of the Villiers Street building, I suddenly suspected that this wasn't such a good idea. But the sight of Jamie, happy and smiling, had scrambled my insides into a nervous mess. I had to do something to take my mind off my scattered thoughts. The box inside my head where I'd locked away all the guilt and pain and regret associated with Jamie's death rattled ferociously, demanding attention, and I was too apprehensive to even acknowledge it. If I did, who knew what would happen. It wouldn't be pretty, that was for sure.

Farley was an inch behind me, almost as close as my shadow. I could sense her willowy frame pressed at my back. As always when I was close to her, my heart stuttered in that awkward, ridiculous way.

She cleared her throat nervously. "I'm really not sure about this, Daniel."

"Don't be such a coward." I looked back over my shoulder, seeing her staring up at me, her eyes wide and intimidated. The sight of her in that dress, her hair piled artistically up on her head with just a few stray strands resting gently against the porcelain skin of her neck, had done something terrible to me. I could barely breathe when I'd first seen her. Coming back here was always hard, but with Farley at my side it was almost even crueler. A reminder of a life, a perfect life, I could have had if things were different. If I hadn't nearly died. If Farley had been born earlier. If the Quorum wasn't watching my every step. A sharp frustration worked its way into my chest, and I shoved it aside, locked it out cold. It was no good dreaming in ifs.

"You can't tell me you've never been dancing before."

"Of course I have," she grumbled, "but there aren't any set steps. You just sort of... move."

I hid the ghost of a smile, making sure I looked nonchalant when I faced her again. "Don't worry. I'll let you stand on my feet. You can just move with me."

"My grandfather used to do that with me when I was a kid. I think I'm a little too big these days."

There was a fixed, defiant look on her that made me want to reach down and take her face in my hands, kiss her for all her endearing stubbornness, but instead I kept my face neutral. "Suit yourself."

I started up the steps towards Gatti's. Soft strains of music filtered out into the dusky night air, bringing back all kinds of buried memories. I found myself startled by how vivid they were, despite them being a lifetime ago. Many lifetimes ago. The New York Ballet. Dancing with Cassie at the disused airdrome in Manchester when the news came that the war was over. Playing piano with Aldan back in the quarters when I was small, when I was still new at this life. A soft kind of sorrow nestled in my ribcage, aching a little.

"You don't even look like you want to go dancing." She looked at me, wringing a scrap of silk in her hands. I took it from her without thinking, noting the intricate f.s.h. at its edge. I hitched an eyebrow.

"What's the S for?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but it stands for Sophia. After my great grandmother."

"Hmm. Kinda makes your initials look like fish."

"Shut up," she growled. "I suppose your initials are D.T.M."

"And what would that stand for exactly?"

"Daniel The Magnificent. I would have thought that was obvious."

A laugh escaped me before I could stop myself. I looked askance to find her giving me an astonished look. "Well, I am magnificent."

"No. You're a narcissist. And a megalomaniac."

"You sound like my therapist."

"You have a therapist?"

"What do you think?" I let the sarcasm ink my tone.

"I don't know. I don't know anything about you."

"Well, if only in the interests of clarity, I'll tell you this: my initials are S.D.M."

"Great," she said, in a way that suggested she wanted me to think she couldn't care less. I knew her better than she obviously thought I did, though. She was clearly itching to ask.

"Come on. Let's go in," I said, as if the matter were forgotten.

She let out a sharp, "Fine," and followed on my heels as I approached the heavy, wooden doors ahead. A tall doorman stood at the door, dressed in a fine black suit with long coattails that reached the back of his knees. Delicate silver brocading ran down the front of his jacket, and he wore an expensive-looking velvet top hat along with pristine white gloves. His hands were folded in front of him. He didn't acknowledge our existence as I skipped up the steps with Farley following reluctantly behind me.

"Isn't he supposed to open the door for us?" she asked as I tugged it open. The sounds of the string quartet within grew louder and swelled out onto the deserted twilight of Villiers Street.

"Not if he doesn't see us."

"Oh. So some people can see us and some can't?"

"That depends on Aldan. If he went to a certain place or interacted with certain people, then they will respond to you more than others. It's all a matter of what the old man has stored up in his head."

"So Aldan hasn't been here?"

"He's been here. Although not on this particular night. He probably never spoke to that particular doorman, either. Just saw him in passing."

She fell silent for a moment while I inhaled, smelling things I hadn't smelled in so very long. The luscious aroma of fresh, raw silk, lavender water perfume, jasmine, the chemical tang of the gas lamps that bordered the dance hall.

Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling like waterfalls of light, a gentle, warm light that couldn't be had from electricity, and elegant women walked the room on the arms of their chaperones with fans in their gloved hands. The men were gathered in groups discussing politics in their finery, whilst others had already taken to the dance floor and were spinning ladies round like whirling tops, all laughing and dizzy.

"Wow," Farley breathed. "There's no way I'm going to be able to do that."

A deep pang of longing rose in my throat. There was nothing more in the world that I wanted to do at that moment than make her laugh the way the other women were, carefree and abandoned.

"We'll see."

I grabbed her hand before she could protest and pulled her into the spinning tide of people, waltzing around the dance floor. We were swept up in the flow of movement, and the steps came back as if it hadn't been more than a week since I danced a waltz. In truth, I preferred something with a little more energy, but right now this was perfect. My hand moved naturally to her waist, slim and narrow underneath my fingers, which I gripped lightly, afraid to really feel her. I held her hand in my other my one. She faltered for a moment before reaching up for my shoulder. She blushed furiously, something I was used to since she did it at least five times daily, but it still hit me every time, how delicate she could look on occasion. In between looking like she could murder me, or that she wished the ground would swallow her up, that was.

The blushing, aside from all her intelligence and stubbornness, was just one of the reasons I was so attracted to her. She couldn't hide her emotions. Despite how unintentional it was, she was always inadvertently sharing something personal with me. That concept had almost destroyed me a couple of times already, almost had me forgetting everything that I'd promised the Quorum.

When she blushed like that, it seemed natural that I should bury my face into her beautiful hair and breathe her in. Seemed frighteningly simple to run my fingertip across the fullness of her reddened lips. Seemed so easy to lose myself in the curious expression of her eyes—eyes that stared up at me now like I was the cruelest person on the planet.

"You must really hate me," she said.

"Pardon me?"

"This is hardly my idea of dancing. I'm terrible at it."

I swung her to the left to avoid another couple and gave her a cautious smile. "You're better than you think. At least not terrible, anyway." It was true. For every step I took, she followed naturally, moving with me and matching my pace. She was fluid, like a ballerina, elegant and beautiful, and she didn't even know it.

"Whatever. You owe me."

"Sounds fair. We can go dancing in some seedy nightclub tomorrow. Does that make you feel any better?"

She straightened up, giving me a begrudging look. "Yeah, actually. It does."

The color in her cheeks deepened, and I swallowed down the urge again, the urge to grab her and press my lips to hers. To stand on the dance floor with the people surging around us, clutching hold of her, lost in a moment so fierce it felt the world might end. I drew in a sharp breath and blinked.

"What is it?" she asked. I was staring at her, and with the deadpan expression trained on my face, I probably looked quite odd. The music grew in pitch, swelling into a sweet climax that made my head spin. Her chest rose and fell quickly, as though she were out of breath, and yet we were barely moving now. Her lips were parted and I could feel the thread of her pulse growing stronger in her fingers that were intertwined with mine, matching my own racing heartbeat. Could she see it? Could she see what must be written on my face?

Panic shot through me, and I pushed back into the dance, startling her. She managed to step, too, but not quite far enough, and she stomped down on my foot. It was enough to unbalance her, and she stumbled into me. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around her. For a second our bodies met. I could feel her heart beating against my chest, see the look of confusion in her eyes. Her hand somehow found its way to the back of my neck, probably where she reached to stop herself from falling, and the warmth of her bare skin against mine sent my pulse into overdrive.

"Well, well! Fancy meeting you two here!"

We sprang apart as if we'd been doused with a bucket of cold water. Farley brushed down the front of her dress in a manner so characteristic of the flustered women of this time that I almost forgot she wasn't a Victorian lady. And me... I was pretty sure I looked like I was going to pass out.

Aldan stared at the two of us, pulling off an excellent impersonation of the cat who'd gotten the cream. But in his case it was champagne.

This was the old Aldan, the Aldan I met all those years ago, the Aldan who had changed me into what I was. His hair was short against his head, still grey, though. He wore full evening attire, a black suit with a blood-red necktie. The chain of his pocket watch glinted gold against the dark material of his waistcoat, and he wore a pristine white handkerchief in his breast pocket. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him wearing something other than a faded rock t-shirt.

Aldan's eyes glittered. He took a deep swig of his champagne and gave us a broad, knowing smile. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Of course not," Farley answered, quicker than I could. Her eyes flickered towards me, my skin burning under her gaze. I kept my own eyes fixed on Aldan.

"What brings you back here, old man?" My heart's erratic pace had slowed, but now it was almost too slow. I felt dizzy, a sensation I hadn't experienced in, well, longer than I could remember.

"Just checking in. I came to have a word with Farley. You don't mind if I cut in?"

A beat of relief was about all I felt before I noticed something across the other side of the room that had my stomach knotting all over again. Freakin' great. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me, but, no, when I looked back he was still standing there.

Kayden.

What the hell was Kayden doing here? And he wasn't even glamored. Farley could look over any moment and see him standing there, staring me down like I was some kind of devil.

"By all means, old man. Be my guest." I took a step back, indicating that Farley was all his, and started my way across the bustling room without looking back. If Aldan noticed the boy, he didn't let on, but of course he must have known Kayden was there. It was one thing appearing in the hangar, but this was Aldan's mind. People couldn't just bust their way in without so much as a by your leave. Maybe the Quorum have finally found something, I thought, some loophole in the prophecy. But there was another, more worrying voice that whispered over the top of my blind hope, whispering that maybe they hadn't found anything at all. That maybe it was time. I shuddered, pulling at my necktie. Kayden would just love delivering that news.

Studying his fingernails, he gave off the impression he would rather be somewhere else. He wore a tailored green button-down Oxford shirt over a pair of washed-out black jeans, both of which looked remarkably familiar. No one seemed to have noticed him where he had propped himself against the wall by the refreshment stand, even though he was completely out of place. He looked up at me as I approached, feigning surprise. White-blond hair fell into his face, all spun gold and sunlight. Kayden raked his hand through it, brushing it out of his eyes.

"Hey, bro," he said in his lazy drawl.

I ignored his greeting. I was too busy trying to keep calm. "Kayden. Are you wearing my clothes?!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Visions

"You like the nineteen hundreds?" Aldan asked.

I knew I was staring but I couldn't help it. He just looked so...smart. The disfigured scar at his throat was mostly covered by his starched, crisp collar. For all intents and purposes he appeared like any of the other gentleman that surrounded me: distinguished.

"I guess it's all right," I admitted. It was kind of fun wearing a huge dress and being treated like I was a fragile, breakable thing. I would still be glad when I could slip back into my own self, into my boots and jeans and tank top, and feel normal again, though. My hair was starting to fall loose from its elaborate twists and plaits, and I got the feeling I might not look the part anymore, anyway.

Aldan smiled down at me, shunting me mechanically around the dance floor. It didn't feel right, not like it had with Daniel. That had been impossibly light, like I was floating. Now, I felt like I was dragging half-set cement bags around instead of legs.

"Aldan, do you mind if we, well, if we don't dance? I know you probably don't get the chance very often, but—"

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," he interrupted. "Must be in the blood. I'm as stiff as a wooden post on the dance floor, always have been. That's why I like rock music so much. It's rather uncouth, but you can just throw yourself around a dance floor and not get into trouble. Plus you know it hasn't been a good night if you aren't dragged into some kind of a row. Now that's what I call dancing."

I laughed. This really did feel like dancing with my grandfather. I wouldn't have minded standing on Aldan's feet. He stopped, though, and we made our way towards the far end of the room to a group of blood-red velveteen chaise lounges. They were arranged around the statue of a woman with tumbling stone locks of hair down to her waist. In her arms she held a vase, out of which water splashed musically down into a sweeping circular pool at her feet. A couple stood at its edge, and the girl—she couldn't be any older than me—squealed loudly every time the silver of gleaming scales flashed beneath the flat surface of the water.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "You'd think it was the first time she'd seen a fish."

"Probably is." Aldan sat down on the edge of a secluded chaise longue, and I joined him, battling with my skirts until they lay as flat as they were ever going to. "People didn't really keep fish tanks in these days. There are fish in the Thames, sure, but have you seen that river? The only things you'll catch sight of in that water are dead bodies."

"Sounds lovely."

Aldan considered me for a moment and then gave me a warm smile. It really was weird seeing him with short hair. "You look lovely. I knew that color would suit you."

"That's funny. Daniel told me I looked stupid."

"And since when have you started listening to anything that came out of that lad's mouth? I thought you were smarter than that."

I shrugged. "Some things are just obvious."

"Have you considered the possibility that he doesn't know how to tell you he thinks you're beautiful?"

A strangled noise broke free from my chest, more a wheeze than actual laughter. "Now that is ridiculous." Annoying, and potentially simple, I thought, but beautiful...

Falling into his arms had been hideous; I knew I'd looked flushed, and my cleavage had almost busted out of my ridiculously tight dress. That had been bad, but not the truly horrible part. The horrible part had been my inability to control my reaction to his arms around me, whilst he stood there with that impassive, blank look on his face. It had been humiliating, and Aldan had watched the whole embarrassing scene for himself. I shuddered out of the memory.

"You said you wanted to talk to me?" I hadn't forgotten the whole point of our trip into Aldan's mind. The prospect of any new information related to my hallucinations was welcome, especially if he could tell me how to stop them.

The old man scrubbed his hand over his bare head, apparently amused by his short hair, too, and nodded. "Yes. I believe I have made some headway. You might not like what I've discovered, though."

Something hot and oppressive pushed down on me, a wave of dizziness made worse by my freakishly tight corset. What could he possibly tell me that was worse than having the hallucinations in the first place? "Just tell me." There was no point beating around the bush. It would only draw out the panic, and panic was something I could do without.

"What you experience, Farley, I don't think they're hallucinations. I think they're visions."

"Visions?"

"Yes. I've studied the prophecies. There's nothing in them to suggest you'd experience anything like this, but these things have their quirks, you know? Your mind is sound. There's nothing wrong with you physically. That can only mean that you're experiencing something supernatural."

A remote, sinking feeling pulled at me. The sounds of the room—the music, the chatter, the laughter, the clink of glass—faded into a distant buzz. How could something supernatural be happening to me? Fair enough, my father was an Immortal, but I was a girl. It was only the males of the Reaver bloodline that had powers, or the potential to become immortal. Despite that, a tiny voice echoed in the back of my head even as I thought this. It was Agatha, the night at the fair, telling me I was special. They've always had male children. That's just the way it's always been.

How had I never thought about this? If there hadn't ever been a girl before, then how could they know what I would be, what gifts or powers I might possess? That was precisely why the Reavers wanted me dead, after all. That, and the fact that they believed the stupid prophecy where I was supposedly destined to kill them all. I uncurled my clenched fists, which were still stinging like crazy from my fall earlier.

"It doesn't really make much sense," I said, "if they are visions. I mean, what are they telling me? I had my first one when I was eight. My mom was on fire. What does that signify?"

"Did you ever have a vision of your mother again?" Aldan asked.

I nodded, remembering a thousand different times when I'd seen my mom burn; in the supermarket; in the car driving to summer camp; on the beach; at Nana Jean's funeral. "Yeah. It was the same every time."

Aldan's face fell, and he looked down at my hands. He tutted and took them into his lap, dabbing at the grazes with his handkerchief. It was spotted with bloody polka dots by the time he spoke again. "I can't be sure what that means, Farley. But you must remember, everything in our world is tied in with the soul. I can only think that what you're seeing is some representation of the soul."

A wall went up in my head before he finished speaking. There was no way my mom's soul looked like that. "The last time I saw you, you told me that heaven and hell existed. If I see visions of my mom and her soul is on fire, and you honestly believe that hell exists, then you're essentially telling me that my mom is in hell, right? And she was destined to go there all along?"

It couldn't be true. That was the only thing keeping the horror out of my voice. My mom, the woman who couldn't bear to kill insects that found their way into the house, the woman who forced me to spend every Christmas day afternoon in living memory in a soup kitchen for the homeless, could not be in hell.

There was pain in Aldan's eyes. "I really don't know. I'm probably wrong. There could be some other explanation for what—" Aldan didn't finish his sentence. The sound of shattering glass broke through our conversation, and he was on his feet in an instant. "Damn it!"

A flutter of alarm beat its wings inside my chest. I stood, still feeling sick and empty, only to find that Aldan had already charged off through the crowd. The people in the dance hall were still milling around, talking and dancing, completely unaware of the disruption to their enjoyable evening. I could hear it, though: more breaking glass, the sound of scuffling feet, and the undeniable sound of fists flying. Someone was yelling obscenities that would definitely upset a few of people in the hall, if only they could hear them.

Without Aldan at my side, I felt suddenly very alone, like a ghost trapped in a world where I'd never be seen or heard. I rushed after him, worried if I lost sight of him I actually would cease to exist. I shoved my way through the few remaining dancers, battling with my skirts until I finally lost patience. I gathered them in my arms and hitched them up the way that Daniel had expressly told me not to. My familiar, battered sneakers greeted me beneath the swamp of fabric. So that's why my footwear felt so comfortable.

I was about to look up again and search for Aldan when I noticed something dark sliding across the floor towards me. The dancing couples stepped over the obstruction mid-waltz without ever acknowledging its presence, but I saw it. Daniel arrived at my sneakers, his arms and legs sprawled in a very unbecoming manner. He paused a beat before looking up at me. There was a dark fury on his face that he'd only ever hinted at before. The force of it stole my breath clean out of my lungs.

"Daniel!" Aldan yelled, pushing his way towards us. The crowd remained in motion, and he had to dodge and weave around countless, oblivious revelers before he reached us. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

I'd never seen Aldan annoyed before, and the tension in his voice was worrying. Daniel scrabbled to his feet, his eyes still locked on mine. The fury evaporated from him like smoke, and his eyes blazed with some inner torment I couldn't understand. I took a step forward, but as I did so he buried both his hands in his hair and pulled. The action, pure frustration, was startling. I froze, staring at him with my mouth formed into a perfect O, wondering what could possibly have made him act that way.

"Daniel!"

It wasn't Aldan calling him this time. It was another voice, one I didn't recognize. Daniel pivoted on his heel, his necktie undone at his throat, his knuckles scuffed with blood, and scowled.

"Just go!" he yelled. It took a moment before the subject of his anger walked into view. A boy, so blond his hair was hardly any color at all, strolled through the crowd towards them. He didn't appear uncomfortable that he was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, and in fact he seemed quite pleased with himself as he arrived in front of us. He was toned in the same way that Daniel was, with a flat, muscled stomach and corded, strong arms. His skin was tanned and glowed in an ethereal fashion. A kind of tattoo wreathed his shoulders, chaining his collarbone—characters in a language that I couldn't read properly. It was almost as if my eyes couldn't focus on the angular, sweeping forms, which continuously seemed to shift like wet ink.

A faint line of blood trickled down his forehead where a deep gash lay just below the boy's hairline. He didn't seem fazed, though. His eyes, the color of a wintry sky, the starkest of blues, were filled with laughter. In his right hand he held a balled-up wad of green and black material.

"You ever get sick of it, bro?" he said to Daniel. His voice bore no accent at all, or maybe it was that he spoke with a combination of many accents. It was hard to tell. He sounded different, but in a way I couldn't put my finger on.

At some point during the time I'd been staring at the newcomer, Daniel had gotten to his feet and regained his composure. His eyes still shone a little too brightly. His smile was ruinous. "Not really. You?"

The other boy cracked a wide grin. "Nope."

"Glad to know we're on the same page."

Aldan coughed and stepped between the two of them, hooking his hands on his hips. "Are you two quite done?"

"Quite." Daniel's voice was flat but I could see the strain in his face. He obviously wanted to rip this guy's head off.

The stranger was still smirking. His gaze flickered to land on me. He held out his left hand, the one free of the scrunched up material, and smiled until he practically sparkled. "Hallo."

I shot Aldan a confused glance, but he was still too busy staring at Daniel to give me any help. Daniel was no use, either. He was clenching his jaw so hard it looked like he might shatter his teeth. He glared at the other boy who, in turn, made a show of ignoring Daniel altogether.

"Don't you people still shake hands when you greet someone?" the guy asked, a puzzled look creasing his brow.

"Uh... yeah. We do." I put my hand in his and shook it, and a radiating warmth shot up my arm.

"I'm Kayden. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Hope."

His formal address threw me off guard. "Yeah... um... pleased to meet you, too."

"Sorry about our little ruck there. Daniel and I like to get into it when we see each other. Just a little tradition of ours." It sounded like he was apologizing for tracking dirty footprints over an expensive rug, not for brawling in public.

"Oh? Are your little exchanges always about the same thing, or do you like to find new things to brutalize one another over?"

"We like to mix it up," he said, giving me a wink. "For instance, this time I borrowed some of Daniel's threads. Apparently he feels we're not good enough friends for swapsies."

"Oh." There was nothing else to say.

"It was my mouth that really got me into trouble this time, though," he continued. "I may have intimated that I might like to try on something else, too, and he didn't like that at all. Although, I don't seem to recall ever having heard that this particular something belonged to him."

The words had barely left his mouth before Daniel exploded in a blur of black and white, and Kayden was no longer gripping my hand but sailing backwards through the air. Two whole seconds passed before he landed with a thud on his back five feet from where he'd been standing. Daniel's fists were clenched at his sides and his shoulders hitched up and down. "You've delivered your message. It's time for you to leave," he hissed.

Kayden laid flat on his back, his laughter cutting above all the other noise in the room like a brightly ringing bell. He lazily propped himself up on his elbows and gave Daniel a regretful look. "I think you may be right." He turned to me and shot me another reprobate wink. "I meant it. It really was a pleasure."

And it was like he vanished, inexplicably disappeared in between heartbeats. There was no sign he'd ever been there, beyond a crumpled shirt and a pair of jeans, which were kicked aside as another dancing couple cantered by.

"You do realize he wasn't really wearing your clothes?" Aldan said. His exasperation was all too clear in the timbre of his words.

"Of course," Daniel replied.

"Then what the hell? Because he made some cheap remark about 'something that doesn't belong to you'?"

"No," he answered, staring at the ground. "Because it does belong to me."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Vitamin C

Morning was announced by Agatha thrusting orange juice under my nose. The acidic tang made my nose wrinkle.

"What...?" I muttered, confused, pushing the glass away. Sleep hadn't come easily after our foray into 1860. After all the things that transpired, it was the look on Daniel's face as Jamie raced by that haunted me the most. Even now it was emblazoned behind my eyelids. He'd looked like a hollow shell of a person, a person who had lost everything. There was the rest of it, too. Aldan's revelation that my hallucinations were really premonitions or visions of some kind, and of course, Kayden. But that all seemed terribly unimportant compared to the look of abject pain that had been evident in Daniel's eyes.

"Vitamin C," Agatha said. "Drink." She placed the glass down on the coffee table and then sat herself down at her desk, ready for a day of...whatever it was Agatha was always doing on the computer.

He was nowhere to be seen, and that was all for the best. I was too distracted, trying to unravel the confused emotions that had gotten all tangled together over the past few days, to deal with any new Daniel-related run-ins. It was clear he hadn't really expected to see Jamie, so why bother going back there at all? And why take me along for the ride, if you're only going to get mad at me?

He looked appalled that I'd seen him collapse in the street outside the British Museum. Horrified that I was staring right at him as he obviously struggled to reconstruct himself back into some cold, hard shell of a person. There had been no hiding the devastation on his face, or the tremor in his hands. His words, 'No, of course I don't want to go after him!' had been so completely incredulous that I found myself wondering if the suggestion was somehow really insensitive. But no, if I had a brother or a sister and they died, I'd want to follow them no matter the cost, even if they were just a fleeting facsimile. A ghost.

And I still couldn't figure out why Daniel wanted to go dancing, of all things. Touching me clearly made him uncomfortable, like when he helped steady me at the clearing by Aldan's house, or when he snatched his hands back as we went in or out of Aldan's mind. That kind of dancing, proper dancing, had required him to hold me to him, to guide me and sweep me along in the movement of his body.

I shivered. Falling into his arms, feeling him closer than he'd ever been before, his legs against mine, his arms locked tightly around me, was something I couldn't afford to think about. It was too dangerous.

Instead, I focused on something I knew would irritate the crap out of me: that inexorable, emotionless expression I'd grown to resent so much. After our run-in with Jamie, it was very clear Daniel was capable of true emotion, which led me to believe there was a lot going on beneath his closely guarded exterior. So why did he have to shut me out?

A headache, the normal, run-of-the-mill kind, began beating at my temples. Aware of Agatha's sharp eyes, I knocked back the orange juice and heaved myself to my feet. "I'm not sleeping out here anymore. At least in my room I don't get force-fed vitamins."

Agatha grunted and screwed up her face. "Good. Your morning hair makes you look frightful. And you should be grateful, anyway. I'm trying to make you strong and healthy. I spoke to Aldan earlier, and he said—"

"I don't care what he said. If it has anything to do with visions, eternal damnation, or grudge matches between Daniel and other random, cute guys, I'm officially not interested."

"Cute guys, huh?" Agatha laughed. "Aldan didn't mention anything about cute guys." Her eyes glittered, holding an unknown edge to them that I couldn't decipher.

"Yeah. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Of course Aldan wouldn't mention that Daniel got into a fight with some messenger from the Quorum. Unexpected brawling isn't exactly out of the ordinary for you guys. Just the visions and the whole, oh, by the way, I think your mother is probably in hell bit, right?"

"You saw a messenger?" Agatha had completely bypassed the sarcasm in my voice. She had blanched and was staring at me.

"Some guy called Kayden. It was pretty clear he and Daniel have some sort of a history."

Agatha frowned. "You could say that. They've been fighting for the last fifty years."

Fifty years? Okay, so I wasn't even surprised that Kayden wasn't my age after all. He was too flawless to be normal. "Any chance you're going to tell me why they've been fighting for the last fifty years?"

Agatha's expression, for once, was enigmatic.

"You know what?" I sighed. "Don't worry about it. I already know the drill. None of my business. Daniel's story, etc. Pretend I didn't even ask. What I do want to know is why you seem so shocked that a messenger guy showed up, and not that Aldan suspects my hallucinations are visions?" It did seem odd, primarily because it was pretty big news. How come she wasn't exhaustively questioning me about my episodes again, now knowing that there could be so much more to the things I'd seen? Agatha shrugged, rifling through papers.

"I am shocked. Aldan went on and on about the whole thing for hours this morning, though. Kind of took the punch out of the news. Sorry." She raised her palms in a what-can-you-do? gesture. "On the other hand, I'm surprised about Kayden exactly because Aldan didn't mention it. The Quorum only sends out a messenger if there's an urgent, life-threatening reason. And they would never have let you see him unless it was really important. Aldan mustn't want to tell me something." Her lips pursed into a troubled pout.

"Kayden didn't talk to Aldan. He came to see Daniel," I told her, wanting to ease her mind. Agatha's silence was sonorous.

"Oh."

"Oh?" Getting a reaction out of these people was like getting blood from a stone. They could make even the smallest words sound cryptic. Agatha opened her mouth but I held up my hand. "Never mind. I'm going for a shower."

******

I was clean and dressed by the time Daniel strolled through the entrance to the hangar. He wore a purple t-shirt with a tiny rip at the neck, exposing a flash of his collarbone, and his jeans were filthy with mud and red dust. His hair curled around his ears again, the way it did when he was hot or it got wet. It was weird, the things I thought about when I was around him. Right then it was, I wonder how often he gets that cut? The altercation he'd had with Kayden hadn't left a mark on him, and for the first time I realized there was nothing wrong with my hands, either. No cuts or scrapes at all. I knew it wasn't real, that everything had been staged inside Aldan's head, but I still couldn't separate that knowledge from how absolute it had all felt.

When he saw me, Daniel cupped his hand to the back of his neck in a way that looked almost self-conscious, and then pinned it to his side again. I'd assumed he was sulking in his bedroom all morning, but he clearly hadn't been. I let the book I was reading drop into my lap and scowled. "You've been outside?"

Why, all of a sudden, did it feel like a betrayal that he'd gone somewhere without me? Yes, he'd sat watch outside the hangar after the stunt he'd pulled with Elliot, and yes, we'd spent a really perplexing day together yesterday, but he was still hardly ever at the hangar. He was out doing things alone most of the time.

He gave me a bone-weary look. "Yeah. Is that a problem?"

I was about to try and come up with something caustic to say but Agatha leapt to her feet and marched across the hangar towards Daniel. She moved so fast a gust of air rushed passed my head as she swept by in a blur.

"Why didn't you tell me about Kayden?" she hissed, grabbing hold of his wrist in an attempt to pull him aside. Daniel shot me an accusatory glance, like it was me who had betrayed him, and pulled a face.

"Because there was no point."

"There's always a point where the Quorum's concerned. What did he want? Was it about Elliot and Tobin?"

"No. I would have told you if it was. It was... personal."

Tension worked its way into every line of Agatha's body. Her hand had turned white with the pressure she was exerting onto Daniel's wrist. "Are you sure? Are you sure it wasn't—"

"Yes! I'm one hundred percent sure. Like I said, it was personal. It was about me and..." Daniel faltered. He was fixed on Agatha's face, but he didn't really seem to be seeing her. It was like he was staring hard at her in order to avoid looking elsewhere in the room. A muscle ticked at his jaw, and he gave Agatha a loaded look. "Okay?" he said.

Agatha looked so absurdly small next to Daniel with her long, chestnut hair trailing down her back. Her body hadn't lost its rigidity, but she said, "Okay."

My mom had worn Daniel's meaningful look before, when she wanted to talk to her friends about something she thought I was too young to hear. It was a look that spoke volumes clearly not meant for my ears. It was infuriating.

"Hey, guys. You can stop with the signaling. I'm going to see Aldan. You two can have your secret little conversation in private, okay?"

"Farley, wait!" Agatha called, but I'd already made it to the corridor. I was tired of being excluded from conversations that impacted on my life as much as theirs. What gave them the right the drag me out of my world and hold me hostage in an underground bunker and then not share anything with me? What made it okay for them to demand I put my whole life on hold, for them to tell me I was special or cursed or doomed depending on which day of the week it was, and then not respect me enough to think I could handle the rest?

Whatever their reasoning, it was wrong. Yet I knew, with a sinking certainty, as I stomped towards Aldan's room, that I could have handled the situation better myself. After all, when you wanted to demonstrate your adulthood, the last thing you did was storm off like a little child.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Confessions

The computer monitor let out a hiss of black smoke, stinking of acrid burning plastic, before it teetered and toppled to the floor. The screen had already smashed before it hit the ground, but the noise of breaking glass still filled the hangar. Agatha flinched and turned to give me a tired look. "You know, this is why I can't get insurance anymore."

"Sorry." I didn't really sound sorry, but then I didn't really care. I wasn't sorry. It was better I smoked a computer than went out looking for Kayden again. "I'll buy you a new one."

Agatha laughed. "Don't apologize to me. That one was yours."

It had been, too. "Whatever," I told her. I still didn't care. I'd probably used it twice in the last six months.

"So are you going to tell me what's going on?"

I raked my hand through my hair and then scrubbed at my face, trying to rub away all the anxiety and stress that was probably going to end up permanently carved there. "It's the Quorum. They're concerned about Farley being here. They think she should be with them."

Agatha's deep brown eyes widened. "Daniel! Wouldn't that be a good thing? I mean, if she was with them, they could train her. They could—"

"NO!" My voice rang around the hollow of the room, sounding angrier with each repetition. My insides knotted, making me sick to my stomach. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "You don't understand. They want to keep Farley under lock and key. They consider her a tool, a means to an end, not a human being. They think the same thing that we do—utilizing Farley as part of the prophecy will kill her. But the difference between us and them is that they're okay with that outcome."

The color drained from Agatha's face. She pulled at a loose thread on the pocket of her jeans. It eventually snapped under the tension of her delicate fingers. It was a while before she said anything, and I was beginning to wonder what she was thinking. Her youthful features usually gave her a clear, open way about her, but right now she looked decidedly closed. She couldn't be thinking that they were right, surely?

After a drawn-out moment with my heart palpitating in my chest, Agatha finally looked up. "Are you sure Kayden's not just trying to upset you? If they really felt like that, then why wouldn't they have just taken her by now?"

I shook my head. "For once, this isn't Kayden being a jerk. He was just passing on the message."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I am. Just trust me, okay? They think killing Farley to combine the energy of her soul with the talisman would be a justifiable sacrifice. Emissary Nevoi called her collateral damage."

"That's ridiculous! There's no way she would say that. There's got to be some mistake. We should take Farley to see them and talk this through."

A chord pulled tight inside me, making it hard to breathe. I didn't want to tell her. I didn't want to tell any of them anything, but she wasn't leaving me any other choice. There was no way she would believe the Quorum would act so radically unless I told her the truth. I took a deep breath, rubbing my knuckles into my eyes. "It is true. I know it is because I made a deal with them."

"A deal? What do you mean, a deal? The Quorum doesn't bargain with people."

"Well, they did with me. You have to see the flaw to the whole prophecy, Agatha. You have to see the glaringly big hole in their plan to destroy the Reavers?"

A blank look formed on her face, and a little of the optimism she spoke with a moment ago vanished. She didn't speak.

"Come on, Agatha! The prophecy can only work when the talisman and Farley's soul are found in unity. Aldan is the talisman, and he's in a coma. Don't you see the problem that poses?"

Agatha's lips were deathly white. Her freckles looked like blood splatter across her lovely, bleached face. "I thought... I just assumed that the Quorum would grant him a recovery. They owe him..."

"Now you're dreaming! They don't think they owe him anything. You said the Quorum doesn't bargain with people. Usually you'd be right on that count, but in this case they've had to make an exception. They can't heal Aldan. There's only one way to accomplish that. You know what that is as well as I do." I took another deep breath, but it felt as though my lungs were riddled with holes and the air wouldn't fully inflate them. I sank down onto the sofa next to the battered copy of Farley's half-read, half-destroyed book.

"For the prophecy to be fulfilled, the talisman must be whole. And right now Aldan only has half the talisman, because I..." I couldn't find the words to continue. I didn't need to. Agatha said them for me.

"Because you have the other half."

I stared down at my hands. They were bridged together as though I were praying, but I'd given up praying a long time ago. I couldn't bear to look at Agatha and see the terrible realization in her eyes. "Yes. I have the other half. I made a bargain with them. They let Farley stay here with us, and they promised they would research another way around the prophecy. In return I had to swear I wouldn't get close to her. Kayden came last night to warn me that I was on the brink of breaking that oath. They sent him to tell me to back off, otherwise they would come and take her."

"That's not all of it, though, is it?" she said. Her voice was strained, with a tremulous waver to it. She was on the verge of crying. She took my hands in her tiny ones and squeezed them fiercely. I still couldn't look at her. I shook my head. My hair fell into my eyes, blocking out everything but her worn boots. It was easier to just focus on her boots.

"No. If they let her stay here, if they let her live, then I swore I would let them have it. That I would persuade Aldan to take it back. Make the talisman whole."

Agatha choked back a gasp. "I knew it! Ever since you got angry with me the night Elliot went into Farley's mind. You said I needn't worry about you acting recklessly because Aldan would be back up on his feet soon. I knew what you were planning. I just didn't know why." She crouched down in front of me, pushing my head up so she could look me in the eye. "You're not doing it. I won't let you."

I felt like a monster saying it, after all the years she'd cared for me like a mother, like my own blood, but I had to. "You will. You can't stop me."

Agatha dropped her hands from my face, shocked, but an instant later a look of relief softened her pained expression. "That's true," she said, "I can't stop you. But you aren't a Reaver, Daniel. You can't just give your life away. Aldan would have to take it, and I know that old man. He would never do it. I'll make him see how stupid all of this is."

I picked up her hands again, trying to be steady. Trying to be strong. I gave her a cracked, sorry smile. "It's too late, Aggie," I said. "He's already agreed."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Silly Romantic Notions

A week. A week was such an overreaction. Seven whole days had passed by and both Agatha and Daniel had been cold towards me, leaving me to trudge from room to room battling with the concept of apologizing for being rude to them. I hadn't been this rude, though. I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to formulate the perfect apology—one that wasn't forgiving enough to let them think they hadn't been unfair, but sufficiently penitent—when Agatha burst into my room. She had a plate of steaming blueberry bagels and a mug of hot coffee with her, and she was smiling. Relief swelled through me like a floodgate being opened. Living in a world in which Agatha didn't smile had felt alien and very, very wrong.

"Ugh. Bed-head is even worse than sofa-head," she jibed, poking at my limp body beneath my duvet. I groaned and threw a pillow, missing Agatha entirely.

"Are you getting up today? I have something I want to talk to you about."

I checked Agatha's face to see if her expression hid bad news; there was nothing, only the smile. "I suppose so. Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

A confused look passed over Agatha's face. "Forgiven? You're a strange child. Come on. I'll be waiting for you." She marched out of the room, leaving me where I lay with the plate and mug balanced precariously on my stomach.

Ten minutes later I strode into the hangar with half a bagel clamped between my teeth, struggling to thread my arm into the sleeve of my zip-up hoodie. Agatha was nowhere to be seen, but unfortunately—or thankfully, depending on how I looked at it—Daniel was. I cursed my conflicting emotions under my breath, nearly losing the bagel.

"What's up with you?"

Looked like he was acknowledging my presence today. He was bent over the half-assembled engine that still cluttered the entranceway, studying it intently.

"Nothing. Agatha was supposed to be here is all."

He looked up, no more than a cursory glance, but the split second our eyes met was enough to make the blood sing in my veins. It was like fire and ice all at once. I was back in his arms. He was staring down at me...

"She had to go up to the car for something. She'll be back in a minute."

I cleared my throat, swallowing back the warm rush of memories that made my heart beat faster. I took a seat on the swivel chair at one of the desks and noticed there were flecks of glass like glittering diamonds scattered across its surface. "Did something break?" I swiped my hand along the desk only to suck in a sharp breath when a shard bit into my skin. "Ouch!"

"What's wrong?" Daniel was already at my side. He grabbed hold of my hand before I could hide it from him. A pearl of blood blossomed from my palm, shining like a ruby teardrop under the glare of the strip lights. Daniel lifted my hand up to his face, poking at the cut with his index finger, while I sat still, too surprised to move.

"It's pretty deep." He pinched the skin and I gasped, pulling my hand back.

"I said Ouch! What the hell?"

"There might have been glass in it. I was just checking. Looks fine, though. You'll need a Band-Aid." He held his hand out. I couldn't refuse to pass it back with him looking at me like that: serious, gentle, concerned.

He looked it over once more and then disappeared over to the other side of the room, producing a first aid kit from a metal cabinet by his workstation. It was a serious first aid kit filled with small glass vials of various drugs, most of which were morphine. Accompanying the drugs were dozens of syringes, scalpels, and all kinds of scary-looking shiny steel devices. It took him ages to find a simple Band-Aid in amongst all the hardcore surgical equipment. When he did, he placed it over the cut, frowning with concentration. He stepped back with a flourish, his task complete. The air rushed back into my lungs. I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath.

"Thanks."

"No problem. It was my fault, really." When he registered my confused look, he waved over to the car engine. "You could help me with something in return?"

"Uh... I have zero car-related knowledge. I doubt I'd be much help." My mom had taken care of everything with the truck. The only thing I knew how to do was check the oil, and I was pretty sure that Daniel's half-deconstructed engine didn't have any oil left in it. Most of it seemed to be all over the floor and his ruined clothes.

He gave me a curt smile. "You just need to pass me things. I'm sure even you can handle that."

Ignoring his remark, I followed him over to his wrecking ground. I ended up watching him for half an hour, during which time he didn't look at me once. Agatha was obviously caught up in something, and it was kind of cool watching Daniel work. Impressive, like watching someone complete a Rubik's Cube in under two minutes. All the while I fought to keep the images of him out of my mind—his tattoo; his smooth, bare skin bathed in pale blue light; the fierce expression he'd worn the first time I saw him in his frock coat and top hat. It was impossible not to feel that pull, too, the desire to feel him close to me again. It was the way he moved, powerful and strong. He was nothing like the guys at St. Jude's. They were all boys, and Daniel gave the distinct impression at times that he was something more.

"Can you come and hold this a second?" He held up a wrench in one hand while lifting the engine block from the floor with the other, the muscles in his arm straining under the weight. I froze to the spot.

"This is heavy, y'know," he added when I didn't move. I shook myself out of my paralysis and took the wrench from his outstretched hand.

My head swam, filled with the smell of him as he leaned forward to heave the block around. Citrus soap and something else, something masculine and charged. Why did he have to smell so good? I couldn't think. I held my breath, scrutinizing the fine hairs on the back of his neck as he fiddled around. When he reached back for the wrench, his hand found mine and I fumbled, struggling to hand it over. He turned to look at me, those fierce green eyes piercing me through. Then he smiled.

He might as well have slapped me straight in the face.

"Try not to drop that on me, okay?"

I sank back onto my heels. Had he just smiled at me? Really smiled, like it was the most natural thing in the world? He lowered the block, apparently pleased with whatever he had accomplished, and moved around the other side. I made to get out of his way, but he gestured for me to stay put, seating himself opposite.

"Do you know what this is?" He sat back on his heels, holding up a fist-sized piece of metal with a red plastic base. A thick black wire led from the silver cap at its top, and four identical cables emerged from its red underside. I had no idea. I shook my head, mute.

"This is a distributor. It's part of the car's ignition system."

"Oh, sure," I said lightly, as though I instantly knew exactly what it was he was holding out to me in his hand. I took it and turned it over a couple of times, impressed by its weight but still clueless as to its function. He scooted closer. I bit down on my lower lip, not willing to look up from the strange piece of machinery.

"You see this wire?" He rotated the distributor in my hands. When he brushed my hand with his fingertips, my skin burst into invisible flames. "This wire on top supplies a high voltage charge to a rotor inside here." He gestured to the main silver body. I nodded again. He paused, searching my face, looking to see if I understood.

"Yeah. Okay. The rotor." I had no idea what he was talking about. All I could think about was how close he was, and the amazing flecks of gold and amber in his eyes.

"Yeah. Right. This is the cap. The rotor spins inside here." He tapped the top again. "The rotor passes four contacts inside the cap connected to these wires below, which each connect to a cylinder in the car's engine. When the rotor passes each contact, the current arcs from the rotor and down the wire to the cylinder, firing it in turn. The car runs smoothly because the cylinders are fired individually, one at a time. You see?"

His voice was richly hypnotic, but he might as well have been speaking Japanese. I barely heard a word as he demonstrated how to reattach the distributor to the car, holding his hand over mine as he neatly fitted it back into the engine. Skin on skin contact and not a frown or a flinch in sight. In fact, he seemed utterly immune to it until my breath caught in my throat.

I literally saw the second our close proximity hit him. He froze, and for a moment I knew he was feeling what I was feeling: the static charge crackling between our skin. He looked deeply into my face and swallowed, his expression hazy. The crimson, burning hue blossomed on my cheeks again. I knew I looked a little disorientated as I stared back up at him. He broke our strange, intimate moment and looked away, clearing his throat.

He knew.

Stellar work, Farley.

I placed the distributor back on the white sheet, tears springing to my eyes. No, no, no. Don't cry! I begged, No one else starts crying whenever they're embarrassed. Please do NOT do this! Seemed I was out of luck. "Thanks for the Mechanics 101. I'm probably not the best student, though." I turned and marched off out into the corridor, suspecting I hadn't been quick enough to hide my first tear.

The door to my room had only just slammed shut when it suddenly bounced off the frame, flying open right behind me. Daniel stood there, fuming in the doorway.

"What are you doing?" I cried.

"No, what are you doing?" he yelled back. His chest heaved as he stared at me.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You damn well do! This can't happen."

"Nothing's happening!"

"Then why are you crying? Why are you upset?" He looked like he was about to snap. He stalked into the room and kicked the door closed behind him.

"I can't help it. I'm not... not crying. It just happens when I'm... I'm..."

He set his jaw, his hands twitching at his sides. "You feel something for me," he said, daring me to try and deny it.

There was no point trying to hide it now. I looked away, numb.

"You can't feel that way about me." He lowered his voice. "It'll only get you hurt."

"Oh, come on! That's so cliché! What's that even supposed to mean?"

"It means my life is one that prevents me from the luxury of silly romantic notions. I can't have you look at me the way you just did. I don't care what Agatha's told you, or what she thinks she knows. This isn't going to happen, okay?"

Silly romantic notions? My embarrassment quickly moved aside to make room for anger. "Agatha hasn't told me anything. None of you ever do. You're right, I do feel something for you, but don't worry. From your reaction, it's pretty clear that the feeling's not mutual. I'm not some crazy stalker. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't flatter yourself into thinking that I'm completely head over heels in love with you. So just go!" I screamed. His words had destroyed me, rejection a bitter poison on my tongue.

"You don't understand."

"I think I do."

"No! You don't!" The hard look in his eyes morphed into something more pained and desperate. He stepped forward and grabbed me roughly by the arms, the same way he'd done in the silo. "I sat there and watched you for months. Months! I watched you everywhere you went. I watched you when you didn't go anywhere at all! When you were so low you couldn't even leave the house. I watched the most beautiful person I'd ever seen get screwed over by the cops and have her life threatened on a daily basis without her even knowing it."

I stared up at him, frozen and unblinking, his words barraging me.

"How do you think I felt when I found you bleeding and broken on the floor of Aldan's room? I thought you were dead!" He stood, his eyes on fire, with something terrible strewn across his face. His voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. "We've got a war about to be unleashed here. One I'm going to die for. One where you and I are an impossibility. So I don't get to tell you that I love you. And you don't get to look at me like that."

He charged out of the room and slammed the door so hard that the stack of CDs on the shelf toppled over and crashed loudly to the floor. I placed my palm on my solar plexus, half expecting to find a hole there, one that had just been savagely kicked straight through my chest. Had...had he just told me in a roundabout way that he was in love with me?

My body shook with the power of my wracking sobs. They almost drowned out the timid knock at the door. I caught the next cry in my throat, miserably hoping that Agatha—it could only have been her—would go away. I should have known better. I hid in my knees, not wanting her to see my blotchy, makeup-stained face.

Agatha crept into the room and slipped herself down beside me, rubbing a hand up and down my back. "I'm sorry. I should have seen that coming. Are you okay?"

"No." I sounded like a little kid, small and hurt.

"In his head, he's doing the right thing, Farley. He thinks he's saving you a lot of pain and heartache in the long run."

"Oh, and this...this is a walk in the park, right?"

"No, of course not. I'm not saying I agree with him. He cares about you more than you can know. He's just never felt this way about anybody before. He doesn't know how to deal with it. He feels vulnerable and that terrifies him. He's spent the last hundred and fifty years closing himself off from the world so he can be strong enough when the time comes. Now that time is here and he's the weakest he's ever been."

I blinked back my tears and looked at the tiny woman. "So that means he has to punish me for it by treating me like he hates me? I don't see why he thinks he's going to die, anyway. Surely there's a better way to deal with this problem than to pointlessly throw three or four lives away? Their plan won't work!"

Agatha looked sad. "Daniel's doing the only thing he can think of to save you. There are things you don't understand. Things that would hurt you if you knew them. We both just have to have faith that he's doing the right thing."

She sounded like Aldan—hope and faith. It just didn't seem possible. Especially now I knew the guy I was falling in love with felt the same way about me, and he was probably going to die on a seventy-thirty split.

Agatha grimaced and squeezed my hand. "I know this is the worst timing, kiddo, but I really do need to talk to you about something."

"You have got to be kidding." That look in my bedroom earlier had been a well-constructed mask, and I could now see the concern etched into the lines of Agatha's face. Of course, things couldn't just get better for once.

"Yeah. It's kind of important."

The weight of Agatha's words filled me with a whole new sense of dread. "How bad are we talking?"

"It's just a complication that could cause problems. Aldan thinks we should act now before the situation could have any effect on our plans, though. Come on, we'll get you fixed up and I'll explain."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Oh. Brother.

Staring resentfully at the face in the mirror wasn't making me feel any better. My skin looked sickly in the yellow light, and my eyes were all puffy and swollen. The reflection was familiar, sure, but it wasn't me. The girl in the mirror had practically been kidnapped, was caught in the middle of a conflict between a bunch of people that could live forever, and was being slowly crushed by the guy she loved. Things were only just starting to get nasty for her. I was just Farley Hope, your average teenager who loved Thai food and was terrible at math.

Pulling myself up straight, I glowered angrily at the other girl, hating her for ruining my life, and stalked out of the bathroom. Agatha sat at her computer, chewing nervously on her index finger as I approached.

"So what's the news?"

Agatha motioned me over. Her computer screen was already on, its low hum barely noticeable anymore. On the screen was Tess.

"Tess? Why do you have a file on Tess?"

"We think she might be in danger. We've been trying to confirm our suspicions for a long time now. That's what I've been doing these past few weeks. I've been searching for information but the Reavers have countless people working for them. If they don't want you finding something, then you usually don't."

"Riiiight. But what's that got to do with her?"

"She's with your brother, Farley. We think they might be grooming her to produce his heir," she said.

The cogs inside my head ground to a halt. "My brother?"

"Yes, remember? I told you Elliot had already fathered a son when he met your mother. He should have taken his rites immediately after, but he spent those months with Moira instead."

"My brother?" The concept still wouldn't stick. "Who?"

"Oliver. Oliver is your brother."

"Oliver? Tess' boyfriend? But that can't be..."

"Yes, it can. We've watched him even longer than we watched you. It took me years to locate him. We've seen him come up through elementary school, little league baseball, high school, the works. And now Tess is on the scene. We've monitored their relationship, and her, from the word go. That's how we came across you, Farley. It was an accident. In her emails, Tess mentioned your missing mother and we thought that it was worth checking out. I knew Moira by sight. When I saw her missing person picture in the paper, it was too much of a coincidence. It was a short leap to guess that you were Elliot's daughter."

"You read Tess' emails?" It shouldn't have been a surprise that they knew how to hack email accounts.

"Yes."

"Did you read mine?"

Agatha gave me a tired look and pursed her lips. Of course they had. "I'm sorry we invaded your privacy. But whatever we've done has been to stop your father and to protect you."

"And what have you been doing to protect my friend?" My words were as sharp as a blade. They had known all this time that Oliver was one of them, that he could hurt Tess at any moment. Why hadn't they taken her, too? Why was it me trapped with them in this stupid hangar and not Tess?

"Haven't you noticed how often Daniel is gone? He spends all of his time watching over Tess. We've also got friends monitoring Oliver. Nothing could have happened to her."

A thought dawned on me. "This is what Aldan meant when he told me you believed Tess wouldn't get hurt, isn't it?"

Agatha nodded. "Yes. And he was right, too. They would never harm her if they thought there was a chance she was carrying Oliver's child."

"His child! What, you think Tess is pregnant?"

"No, we don't. We know Oliver's guardian, the man posing as his uncle, is preparing to move him underground, though. We're worried they might try and take Tess, too."

"That's it, then," I said. "I'm done rolling with the punches. We're going to bring her here. And once Daniel gets back, we're all going to sit down and work this out. My friend isn't going to get hurt and neither is he, no matter how badly he has his heart set on it."

If Agatha was surprised by my rapid change in attitude, she hid it well. She grinned. "No problems, boss."

I stood up and started for the door. Sitting around wasn't an option. If I did, the fear would creep up on me and I would be paralyzed by the weight of it.

"Hey," Agatha called after me. "They're probably watching Oliver. We should wait for Daniel."

The look I shot over my shoulder was fierce. There was no way I was waiting for him. Agatha sucked the air through her teeth. "Okay. This is a really bad idea and he'll be incredibly mad if I let you get killed, or worse, let them get hold of you. Here." She unlocked the top drawer to her desk and pulled out a handgun. It was comically huge in her tiny hands. She passed it over handle first—a Berretta M9, heavy, cold and powerful. "That's not a toy. Do you need me to show you how to—"

I slipped the magazine free to check if it was loaded. "What?" I feigned innocence. "I used to go shooting with my mom."

"Of course you did."

Agatha slammed the drawer shut and suddenly we were moving. I fumbled for a moment, not sure where to put the gun. When I caught Agatha giving me a sidelong glance, I slipped it down the back of my waistband. The last thing I needed was her changing her mind. As we rushed out of the silo, the realization that we were hours away from civilization made my heart sink. The energy pulsing around my body demanded immediate action. The long car journey back to the city would dampen my motivation for sure. Agatha saw my dejection and grinned.

"Don't worry, kiddo. I drive like a maniac."

Outside, we scrambled over the looming dune behind the silo and were greeted by a low, rusting metal storehouse. I'd somehow never noticed it before. Lone track marks still disturbed the red earth leading away from its corrugated iron door.

"Good. He took his bike. The Charger's a lot faster than my car." Agatha motioned towards a humble, beat-up blue Jetta. Daniel's black Charger sat shining in the dimness of the shed. A mischievous look flashed across her face. "Hope you don't scare easy."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Aim for the Tires

My hands hurt. The term white knuckle ride hadn't meant much before getting in the car with Agatha. She drove like a madwoman. I gripped the dashboard the whole hour it took for the red dust to turn to tarmac and the sprawling lights to break the skyline.

I wasn't sure what Tess would say when we showed up on her doorstep. I should have called her, I thought. My cell phone had sat silent and un-powered the whole time I'd been with Agatha and Daniel. The I-didn't-have-reception excuse might have worked if I'd only vanished for a couple of days, but it was closer to two weeks now. There was no guarantee Tess would come with us even if we did find her. Sure, she was understanding, but the fact that I disappeared without even saying goodbye would definitely have hurt her feelings. There was nothing to be done about it now, though.

Tess' car was parked in the driveway when we pulled up outside the townhouse her parents owned, three blocks away from my own house. The proximity of my family home brought a lump to my throat. Nothing here had changed. I surveyed the familiar street and caught sight of a postman I recognized pulling his cart. It felt strange and suddenly lonely to be back.

That emotion was only tempered by the knowledge that we were about to meet my brother, who might or might not be incredibly dangerous. We started down the driveway. "Is he going to be like Elliot? Will he have powers?" I whispered. If he had powers, he could hurt Tess.

"Not likely. He would have had to have completed his rites to become immortal."

"And these rites aren't something that could accidentally happen without us knowing about it?"

"Not unless he's been on a killing spree that we missed. To complete the rites, Oliver has to kill someone and have physical contact with them so he can take their soul. We've been watching him for a long time now. Oliver's days mostly consist of playing football and reading really bad horror novels, not stalking potential victims."

I let that information sink in, waiting to feel better about the situation. It didn't happen. Agatha went ahead and rapped sharply on the front door. We waited, both shifting impatiently.

No answer.

I picked up the heavy door knocker and knocked three times, holding my breath and staring at the grain in the wooden door. Another five seconds passed before we heard movement inside. There was low giggling behind the door before it swung open, and then Tess appeared in an over-sized shirt and little else. A guy with dark, short hair carefully styled into a fashionable mess stood behind her with his arms folded around her waist. Definitely Oliver. His pale, slate-colored eyes clouded over when he saw me. Did his face mirror my own emotions? Recognition. Shock. Confusion. Did I know him from somewhere?

He stiffened and let his arms drop to his sides, uncomfortable and awkward. His bare chest suggested the pale blue shirt Tess wore was probably his. Agatha cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows, clearly not impressed by what the scene would suggest.

"Farley?" Tess managed. "What are you doing here?"

"Can we talk for a moment?"

Tess looked from me to Agatha and back again. "Of course." She stepped back from the doorway and allowed us entrance into the house. Agatha tensed as Oliver followed behind us, clearly ready to pull her gun on him if he tried anything.

"Where have you been, Farley?" Tess' question was sad and exasperated.

"I'm sorry," I began, "I..." What was I supposed to tell her? How did you begin a story like this? After my mom going missing and my sporadic behavior before I disappeared, Tess would think I'd gone nuts. "Can we talk alone?" I asked, glancing at Oliver.

"Um, I—"

"It's okay, babe," he broke in. "I need to finish my assignment, anyway. I'll be upstairs if you need me." He played a good part of the caring boyfriend, that was for sure. He disappeared up the stairs and Tess spun on me.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on? Who's this?" She pointed at Agatha.

I took a deep breath and dove in. "We think Oliver could be dangerous."

Tess recoiled, turning purple, and began spluttering.

"Nicely done," Agatha quipped.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't see you doing any better."

Agatha accepted the challenge. "I'm a friend of Farley's. My name is Agatha. We found out she could be in danger and relocated her for her own safety. We have reason to believe Oliver might be involved, and we'd like you to come with us so we can explain everything."

"Okay, I guess that was better," I conceded, but Tess hadn't liked the second version any better than the first.

"Farley, you've been gone for ages. I was worried sick. I get some vague message about you needing time alone and the cops refuse to do anything about it. They said you were a legal adult since you turned eighteen and could do whatever the hell you pleased. This whole time Oliver's been the only person here for me, and now you show up as if by magic and tell me that he's a bad guy. No. I'm not listening to this. You're not being fair."

She was right. This whole thing was unfair. I felt hideous as I opened my mouth to try and explain, but before I could speak the front door thudded. "What was that?"

Agatha pulled out her gun and wheeled around behind the door, motioning for us to be silent. Tess' eyes grew wide when she saw the gun. The door thudded again. We all froze, holding our breath, waiting.

"Miss Kennedy?" a male voice called through the door, "I heard shouting. Is everything okay? It's Jerry. Can you open the door?"

I mouthed, "Jerry?"

"The mailman," Tess hissed, shrugging her shoulders. "He's only ever spoken to me once."

I frowned. Something wasn't right. "It's almost five p.m.," I whispered to Agatha. She nodded, already way ahead of me. There was no way a mailman would be doing his rounds at this time of day.

"Miss Kennedy." The voice came through louder this time. "Open the door."

"What's going on?" Tess whispered.

"Don't freak out. Agatha will handle it."

There was another forceful crash. Oliver tore back down the stairs, almost stumbling in his haste.

"Cover him, Farley!" Agatha hollered, as the door bulged and threatened to come off its hinges. What the hell did she mean? And then I remembered. The gun. I pulled it from my waistband and maneuvered in between Tess and Oliver, who had now reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Whoa!" he cried, catching sight of the flashing metal in my hands. "What's the deal? Are you freakin' crazy?!"

"What are you doing?" Tess cried. She tried to yank my arm down.

"Trust me, okay? We're not gonna hurt him. We have to leave. I'll explain everything later."

The door thumped again. This time the wood cracked and splintered close to the lock. It exploded open to reveal the mailman standing there with an ice-cold expression on his face. He saw me pointing the gun at Oliver but didn't notice Agatha. She seized the opportunity and stepped back to hide behind the door.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned me.

Jerry definitely fit the stereotype of a mailman: short and a little paunchy, with very little hair. I'd seen him a hundred times over the past six months and he'd always seemed a little shifty. But now, with a look of murder in his eyes, he was a completely different creature. He withdrew a small, sleek-looking blade from his black leather belt and grinned. "You have no idea what you're interfering in, little girl. Put down the gun and perhaps I won't hurt you."

"What's going on?" Oliver squeaked as Jerry crept closer towards us, his knife glinting.

"Hold your tongue," Jerry hissed. "It's no wonder they kept you in the dark. You're too stupid to understand anything."

Oliver narrowed his eyes. "Hey! Don't you know my uncle?"

"Shut up!" The order rang out, bouncing off the cold marble. Jerry stalked towards us. His intentions were clear as he lunged forwards with his knife. He wasn't close enough to reach me, but he was close enough for me to catch the gleam of his blade.

"Don't come any closer or I'll shoot you, I swear!"

"I doubt that. You're pointing your gun in the wrong direction for starters."

He was right, but I didn't want to take my aim from Oliver all the same. Jerry snaked the blade out, darting towards Tess who yelped in fear.

"Stay away from her!" Oliver yelled, barreling forward. His move took me unawares. Before I could react, Oliver launched himself at the fat man, knocking him to the ground. In a flash, Jerry pinned him on the floor in a leg lock and shoved the knife in his face.

Tess screamed, trying to get past me to throw herself on top of him. The mailman ignored us and grinned sardonically down at Oliver.

"Your father will be sore with me for the blood, but maybe a little nick will remind you you're not my master yet," he said. He let out a hollow, dry laugh, and then plunged the knife deep into Oliver's shoulder. He gasped as the metal cut through his bare skin. The blood—rivulets of crimson and scarlet—ran unchecked over his arm and across his throat. Jerry grunted with pleasure as he gave the knife one last dig, and then yanked it out.

I couldn't tear my eyes from the scene. Jerry tried to stand, but Agatha was behind him. She brought the butt of her gun down over the back of his head with a sickening crack. His body sagged to the ground, slumping over Oliver.

"Get ready to move," Agatha said, all business. She slipped the gun back into her waistband and rolled Jerry off Oliver. "Are you okay?" She offered her hand out to him. He lay slack-jawed on the floor, staring at the sticky red mess that was pooling around him.

"No...Uh, I think—"

"Never mind. Just get up. You'll be fine."

Oliver looked at her like she was crazy for suggesting he might live but slowly took her hand and struggled to his feet. "Will someone tell me what's going on? Please?" He looked to Tess who had blanched so white she looked on the verge of passing out. She stumbled to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, his blood staining the shirt she wore. "Hello? Was that my uncle's friend? Why did he just stab me?" Oliver repeated.

Agatha ignored him. "We have to move, Farley. Now. It won't be long before the real troops show up. They won't be as easy to disarm as the scout. I don't think Oliver knows anything. It might be a good thing if he came along with us."

Her logic seemed sound. We couldn't be sure what he knew. He could simply be acting out a pretty good show, but we couldn't hang around to find out. He was injured and not much of a threat as far as I could tell.

"Please come with us," I begged Tess. "It's really important that you trust me. It would take too long to explain right now. Agatha's on our side. She'll take care of us, but we have to go now. Please?"

"Fine. You've got to help him, though." Tess gazed up at her boyfriend's bloody shoulder and visibly balked.

"That would be nice," Oliver agreed. He had gone a pallid grey color.

I raced upstairs with Tess while she threw on some dark blue jeans, and we ran back down with one of Mr. Kennedy's t-shirts for Oliver. We were in the car and tearing off down the street in seconds. Agatha barely slowed as she hung a left at the bottom of the first intersection and nearly crashed into the hulking hood of a sleek black SUV. She slammed on the breaks just in time. The car protested loudly as she wrenched the steering wheel around. She turned right instead, the tires smoking as we sped off.

"Looks like we've got a bit of a chase on our hands," she said. She shifted up a gear and the car's engine roared. I cast a glance in the rearview to see the black SUV was right behind us, inching closer. The tinted windows hid our pursuers, but I could imagine their faces all too well.

The roads were busy. As we approached a set of traffic lights, Agatha hit the curb and mounted the sidewalk, slamming the car's underside down on the concrete with a worrying crunch. Tess leaned forward and grabbed hold of my arm. One look in the rearview showed that she was terrified.

"Agatha? Agatha, what's the plan?" I squeaked.

"This is the plan." She broke suddenly, swinging the car through another left. Oliver cried out in pain, and I looked back again to see that his head was tipped back against the seat, his face ashen. Viscous red fluid worked its way through his fingers as he clutched at his shoulder, to run down his forearm.

"We need to lose these guys and get to the hospital," I told Agatha. The tiny woman didn't respond. The car sped up, bringing a busy intersection into view. "Please tell me you're not going to—" but before I could finish the car flew off the sidewalk, straight into the oncoming traffic.

"Agatha!"

A boxy red Nissan ploughed straight for the passenger door. Agatha tore through the intersection, and the other car fishtailed, slamming into a black Ford on the other side of the road.

"They're still there!"

"We'll lose them on the highway."

I spied the turnoff rapidly approaching. "How can you lose them on the highway? There's nowhere to go!"

"You'd better do something then, kiddo."

My hands were trembling. I shook them out, hoping to regain some control over them as I reached again for the gun. Agatha saw me pull it out.

"Aim for the tires."

"Farley! What are you doing? Come back in the car!" Tess screamed, but it was too late. Twisting around in my seat, I leaned out of the window as far as I dared before aiming at the looming black monster behind us. I squeezed the trigger and then cursed. The safety. A stupid, rookie error. I felt for the snick of the metal catch as it slid into place and then squeezed again. This time the gun exploded in my hand, throwing me back against the dashboard, punching my arm back to aim at the sky. I threw myself forward, searching to see if I'd hit my mark. The tire remained in motion, undamaged. Instead, there was a flowering splinter on the tinted windshield.

"Damn it!" Of course their windows would be bullet proof. I took aim again as a huge, muscled guy appeared at the window with a gun of his own and aimed it straight at me. There was no feeling or emotion in his cold eyes. Only shining slivers of silver, banding his irises.

Immundus.

His hands were steady, not shaking with fear like mine. I pulled off another round, remembering not to lock my shoulder this time. When the gun kicked my arm back, it was only thrown a little wide. A high metallic zip buzzed in my ears, and the bullet made contact with the low metal grill to the front of the car, missing yet again.

The Immundus fired again, his bullets much closer to their mark than mine. The wing mirror smashed into a thousand pieces, the small shards of glass glinting brilliantly as they caught the sun. They splintered through the air in slow motion as I ducked back into the car, crouching behind the headrest and covering my head with my arms.

"Get down!"

Bullets impacted with the rear windshield, shattering the glass into a spider web of fractures. Thankfully it held. Oliver snapped back to life and pulled Tess down in the back seat, covering her body with his own. He gave me a wild, fearful look and then hunkered down as a fresh hail of fire rained down on the car.

"Farley! The tires!" Agatha screamed again.

The highway was clear. Unbelievable luck. There wasn't time to think, only to act. I inched back out the side of the car window. Once, twice, three times I squeezed the trigger blindly, every one of the shots missing. The Charger started to pour black smoke. It tasted bitter on my tongue, and could only mean bad news. I had to do something.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled myself further out of the window, my torso fully out in the open. I leaned back against the doorframe, focused, took aim, and fired. This time I wasn't aiming for the tires. This time I aimed straight for the gunman, and this time I didn't miss.

The Immundus' head jerked back and a spray of blood and bone blossomed out behind him. His body was suddenly limp. He slumped sideways out of the window, his dead arm still gripping hold of his gun. There had been no reaction when the bullet hit him; he died instantaneously. His eyes didn't look any deader than before, but it was still terrifying. I'd just...I'd just killed someone.

I was still frozen, staring, when the Ducati Monster ripped around the side of the car. Its engine's throaty snarl startled me out of my daze. The rider was dressed head to heel in black. Daniel.

Before I could blink, the motorbike moved between the Charger and the SUV. He stared straight at me. It was amazing how he could convey an angry look even through a blacked-out visor.

Behind him, the slumped figure of the man began to move. For a moment I thought the gunman was somehow still alive and about to shoot Daniel in the back, but within a second the body hit the tarmac. It bounced hard and tumbled as it lost speed behind the car. My relief was short lived. As soon as the window was clear, a gaunt, pale woman took position. She began firing, her thick, plaited rope of blonde hair streaming out behind her.

Daniel didn't seem to notice the shots at first, but as soon as one hit the rear of his bike he spurred into action. He sped up the inside of the car and leveled out alongside me. When he pulled his visor up, I was almost more afraid of him than the Immundus. At least those guys kept their feelings to themselves.

"Get. Back. Inside. The. Car."

I immediately shrank back, knowing that he wasn't above shoving me back in himself. When I turned to face the road, I caught sight of Agatha. Her face was awash with relief.

"What now?" I hollered above the engine.

"He'll take care of it,"

"How? He doesn't even have a gun!"

"Just wait."

I waited for what felt like forever but was in reality only two heartbeats, and then Daniel ripped past us, speeding into the open road. He tore ahead, and within moments the distance between the bike and the Charger grew from five to fifty feet.

"He's leaving?" I yelled, watching the bike rapidly move away.

"No. Just wait."

In the distance Daniel must have slammed the breaks on hard, because the bike slid out from underneath him in a thick plume of white smoke. It was just gone from between his legs, and he was somehow standing in the middle of the road ahead of us, the bike careening on its side down the road without him. The gap between us was closing rapidly. Agatha hit the gas, speeding up.

"You're gonna hit him!" I cried.

She wasn't listening. She was laughing, her foot flat to the floor, and Daniel was getting closer by the second. He stood unwavering in the road with his visor down, staring at the SUV. I had no idea what was about to happen, but hell if it didn't look like Daniel wasn't making it through the other side.

We were only ten feet away when Agatha swerved. Daniel dropped to one knee as the car flew past, bringing his closed fist down to strike the tarmac. A complete silence fell over everything. The noise of the chase, car engine, guns, shouting and screaming, were all extinguished. There was nothing but the thud of my own heartbeat and a dull roaring in my ears. Agatha was screaming something but her voice was stolen away. Then the car was sliding, spinning around until it faced Daniel again.

He was crouched in the road. Something didn't look right, like the sky and the tarmac were being pulled inwards, distorted and stretched. The SUV was almost on top of him now. I screamed, but there was no sound, just the raw pain of it in my throat. He was going to die.

The air around Daniel pulsated once...twice...and then a brilliant white, burning light erupted from him. It was everywhere all at once. The intensity of it scorched my eyes. I screwed them shut, holding my hands over my face, but it was no use. It pried at me, alive, searching out the cracks. It was gone in an instant, but the echo of it burned through my body and left me feeling like I was falling. Falling forever.

When I opened my eyes, the SUV was on its roof, smoking, the front end partially crushed. The road before it was rippled and cracked like the site of a meteor impact. Daniel was striding over to the Charger with his bike helmet in his hand, but I barely saw him. My brain was too numb, unable to piece together what had just taken place.

"Farley?" My name sounded distant, as if I was sinking to the bottom of a swimming pool. "Farley?"

I looked at Agatha and blinked.

"We have to get out of here before the cops show up. Are you hurt?"

After a quick mental inventory, I shook my head. Daniel arrived at Agatha's door. "Will the car run?"

"Yes," she replied. "The bike?"

"It'll be fine. Let's go"

He gave me a look that I couldn't quite read and then vanished. Agatha started the engine, turned the car, and we were moving. Daniel's bike roared up behind us and then sped off down the long, straight road until he was nothing more than a black speck on the horizon.

"Is someone going to tell me what just happened?" Tess' voice quavered. She cradled Oliver's head in her lap and held her hand over his shoulder whilst he winced in pain.

"I wish I could," I murmured. "I really wish I could."

CHATPER TWENTY-SEVEN

Giving it Back

The ride back to the silo took longer than Agatha would have liked. The number of patrol cars that kept speeding in the opposite direction clearly unnerved her, and we kept to the speed limit. It was pitch black when we turned off the highway onto the invisible dirt track, and we sat in silence for half an hour as she navigated her way in the dark over the rough ground towards safety.

I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. When we rolled to a stop outside the decaying metal silos, it was Agatha's hand on my arm that woke me from a dreamless sleep.

"Daniel's already inside."

Her voice was tired. From the worn look on her face, she'd had way too much excitement for one day. We heaved ourselves out of the car and helped Tess and Oliver towards the entrance of the silo, but when we got inside the hollow metal shell Agatha froze, the beam of her flashlight fixed straight ahead.

"What is it?" I asked, sensing her alarm.

"The hatch is open."

There was no way Daniel would have left it unsecured.

"I'm going ahead. You wait here. If you hear shots, get in the car and go." She handed me the flashlight and the keys and then disappeared down the service hatch.

"Farley, this is crazy," Tess whispered. "This woman's completely out of her mind. I have no idea what's going on or why you would think I'm in danger because of Oliver, but he's nearly bleeding to death here. Can you just think about this rationally for one second? We should just get in the car and go."

"I can't. I'm sorry. Agatha's not crazy. These people have saved my life more than once. We need to stay here with them where it's safe."

"Safe? They may have saved your life, Farley, but my life was just fine until you came over this afternoon. Since then it's been decidedly unsafe."

"Please, Tess—"

"Maybe we should trust them," Oliver broke in groggily. "I get the feeling the crazy pixie lady might know what she's doing. I've never seen a chick drive like that before." He gave a half-hearted laugh before clutching at his shoulder again and falling into a pained silence.

"We're not going down that hole," Tess declared.

I gritted my teeth and scowled in the dark. Fifteen minutes dragged by so slowly it felt like time had stopped altogether. I stared at the hatch, pacing backwards and forwards. There hadn't been a sound from the silo. We shivered in silence a little longer before Oliver's legs gave out from underneath him.

"That's it. It's time to go get Agatha. She should be back by now, and he's getting worse by the second." I tried to make my voice sound stronger than I felt. "Are you going to come with me?"

Tess struggled to help Oliver up from the dirt and locked her jaw. "No."

"Fine. Here, take the keys. Just don't drive off, okay? Please?"

The hole in the ground was murderously black. I'd lived down there long enough to know my way around the corridors in the dark, but that by no means meant lowering myself into the nothingness below was enjoyable. I hummed nervously as I made my way down the ladder and through the rabbit warren.

I was at the intersection, about to head towards the welcoming light of the hangar, when a low wail sounded out into the oppressive silence from the other direction.

"Agatha?" My voice echoed down the black corridor.

The passageway stretched out, the bright yellow chink of light under Aldan's door a beacon beyond. Something inside me itched, and that itch swiftly developed into a stinging bite. It gnawed at me. Go back, it said. Do not go in there. Go back up the steps, out of the hatch...get in the car and drive away. Forget all this. Forget. Do not turn the handle.

But beyond was Agatha, stoic little Agatha, and her heart was breaking.

But. Why was there always a but?

I pushed the door and it creaked open, revealing the nightmare inside. Agatha was slumped on the floor leaning against a bookcase, a few scattered volumes lying beside her. Tears ran down her cheeks whilst she hugged her knees to her chest. She struggled to gasp in a breath as I stepped into the room. And Daniel flinched.

"Don't touch him," she whispered.

He was wearing the faded purple t-shirt again, the one with the little hole at the neck, and worn blue jeans. And he was on his knees. His hands were locked in Aldan's, his body rigid, his head thrown back, and his spine bowed. Every muscle was tensed, as though he were being electrocuted. Beneath closed lids, his eyes moved rapidly. Every breath he took looked labored, excruciating. Aldan lay in the bed as serenely as usual, yet for the very first time there was movement in his body, too. His eyes flickered as quickly as Daniel's.

"He did it," Agatha choked out.

"Did what?"

She continued to cry, leaving me to stare at Daniel's contorted body as he gripped tightly onto Aldan's hand. He was in pain. I had no idea what was going on, but it was something unbearable. I should have listened to that voice in my head. It was trying to spare me from this. I took another step towards Daniel and Agatha stirred.

"Don't touch him," she repeated.

"Why? What's happening?"

She stared down at her hands, tears streaking down her face. Her shoulders shook silently. I collapsed on the floor in front of her and grabbed her by the arms, determined to get some sense out of her.

"Agatha! Tell me what he's done!"

Our eyes met, and through gasped breaths she managed to tell me, "He's giving it back. He's giving it back."

"What do you mean?"

"The talisman wasn't whole...couldn't work. He made a deal. To keep you safe. He's giving it back."

An immediate, cold realization overcame me. "You knew about this?" My voice trembled. When I looked over, I could see a flow of blue-white light passing between Daniel's and Aldan's hands. It looked like tiny glowing particles of sand flowing from one into the other, their hands a linked hourglass.

"Yes. He wanted him to... said Aldan had agreed, but I thought... I thought..." She couldn't go on. Her sobs took over, turning into television static inside my head.

"No. Aldan wouldn't do that. He promised him. He promised..." My chest was a hollow drum, just an empty space where my beating heart should have been. The emptiness grew and grew, all consuming, as the life seeped out of Daniel. "How long? How long before...?"

As if in answer, Daniel shuddered. The metal bed frame that supported Aldan rattled.

Agatha shot to her feet. "You better get back. I don't know how this plays out."

I remained a lead weight on the floor beside him, afraid to move away. Aldan began to tremble, too, and suddenly the light between their hands grew in intensity until it was almost too bright to look at.

"Farley, get back!"

I couldn't move. Daniel's face was distorted into a mask of agony. "What's happening to him?"

It took everything I had not to reach out and touch him, to try and take the pain away somehow. My head spun and the edges of my vision grew hazy and dark. I released my breath and sucked in a shallow gasp, but the air in the room was impossibly thin.

"I can't breathe," I croaked. White pin pricks of light burst in my eyes, and suddenly I was on the floor. Agatha was on all fours on the other side of the bed.

"It's them," she gasped.

A crushing weight pushed me down to the ground. I had to get to Daniel. Somehow, I fought against the pressure and edged towards him. It was when I reached his side that I noticed something was changing. The light was fading, and the tension in Daniel's body along with it.

"It's stopping. Agatha, it's stopping!" I cried, just as Daniel sagged forward. A single thought stabbed through the panic: Is this it?

I watched him breathe. Every exhalation seemed like it was his last, like his chest wouldn't rise again. Finally, it didn't. Daniel collapsed to the floor in slow motion, like a marionette with its strings cut. He lay on the floor beside me, his eyes closed.

Dead.

A high-pitched buzzing noise cut through the silence. How can he be dead? The hollow of my chest was suddenly full. Full of searing, terrible pain that threatened to swallow me whole. To make me forget why I was ever alive, why I would ever have wanted to live in the first place. The only physical signs of it were the tears that rolled down my face onto the cold concrete, leaving wet pools that mixed in with all the dust and someone's blood. Maybe mine.

I wanted to take his hand in mine but I could barely lift my arm under the lingering pressure. I struggled to reach out and touch him, to feel his hand in mine at last. I had almost made it when out of nowhere the pressure trebled, like a boot smashing down onto my spine, pinning me to the ground just an inch from his fingertips.

Then the room flooded with light.

Brighter than before and packed with electricity, the power of it prickled and snapped on my skin. I squirmed, desperate to get away from the unnerving sensation. I heard Agatha, distant and wild, the noise coming out of her a strange gurgle. It was impossible to see if she was okay from where I lay.

I could see Aldan, though. He was moving on the bed. He'd done it. He'd killed Daniel. Why did he get to live? He said it himself—he had no right to take life. He'd broken his promise.

The old man rose vertically a clear foot from the bed, stiff as a board. His long white hair fell loose beneath his head, and his arms and feet hung at his sides so that they almost rested on the mattress. At that point, his back bowed just as Daniel's had.

The electricity in the air grew. The crackle of it bit at me until I could feel the current of it running through my whole body. This wasn't right. I had to get out... away.

The light pulled at everything just like it had on the highway, the sky and the ground distorting towards Daniel as his fist met the ground. Except now it was me. I was being pulled towards the bed. The ceiling was falling down on top of us, the floor rising up in greeting.

When the light came again, it burst out of Aldan's eyes, his nose, his mouth. Great forks of white electricity that snaked savagely into the room, searching. It didn't take long for them to find their mark.

Daniel convulsed as the spears of energy hit him, punching into his body. All of a sudden, his fingers started scrabbling at the floor. The pressure on my chest instantly vanished, and the air rushed back into my screaming lungs. I scrambled back as Daniel's head twisted side to side, and his arms and legs flailed around him.

And then I saw: his eyes were open. I choked out a cry and pulled my knees up to my chest, wanting to hold on to something. All the while, the light kept coming.

It was a long time before it began to slow. Eventually Daniel went limp, the last few snaps of energy pushing their way into his body. His head fell still, his eyes open, staring straight at me. And they were filled with tears and pain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Broken.

His arms were around me, his face buried in my stomach. He was shaking. He was alive. I clutched at Daniel's shirt and stroked my hand through his hair with my heart hammering in my chest. I thought he would have pushed me away but he clung tighter instead.

"Daniel? Daniel..." Agatha's stunned voice repeated. He didn't respond. She stood up and went to the bed.

"Aldan's dead," she murmured. Daniel let out a low, strangled moan. I rocked him in my lap, stroking the back of his head while staring stupidly up at Agatha. The tiny woman's shoulders were so hunched over she looked like she might topple forward under the weight of her sadness. She slid back down beside us to the floor.

"I knew he wouldn't do it," she whispered.

Daniel's body writhed in my arms, and then he was pushing me away, trying to get to his feet. Agatha reached for his hand, trying to drag him back down. "Daniel, don't!"

He looked down at her, numb, and shook his hand free. In a step he was at the bedside. His hands hung down by his sides. He looked much like the broken boy Aldan had told me about once before. I got to my feet. Unable to stop myself, I reached out to touch him on the shoulder. At the last second, I thought better of it.

Aldan lay still on the bed. His peaceful expression had a look of finality to it that pulled at my heart. Shame burnt at me. In those few moments—those unbearable moments when Daniel had been dead—I'd hated him. Nothing had ever consumed me so totally.

And now a sinking sensation filled me with dread as I looked down upon his body. What was going to happen now? The talisman was gone. It was hard to focus on that thought, though, seeing Daniel slumped forward onto the bed, propping himself up with his elbows. He stared at Aldan, shock devastating his face.

"He lied to me... he lied to me..."

I bit my lip. "What happened?" I whispered. He was quiet for a moment and then began to speak in hushed, exhausted tones.

"I came back here to get it over with. You nearly died today. Again. I couldn't bear it. Aldan had to take back the power he had given me. He needed to end this nightmare once and for all. He promised me he would." His voice cracked with emotion, and I stepped closer, running my hand gently across his shoulders.

Broken, I thought. But better broken than dead.

"I came down here. I went to him. He said he would take it, and then..." he paused, his eyes going wide. "He started to...to take it. I could feel it all slipping away. When I was too weak to do anything, he told me. Told me what he was going to do. I couldn't stop him. He said that I could do more with it, that it wasn't his anymore. He told me I had to live and keep you safe." He swallowed hard and pushed himself away from the bed. "I don't want to be here anymore."

Agatha met my gaze and waved me off before I could say anything. "Don't worry. Just go...."

I didn't know what else to do, so I took Daniel's hand, then paused in the hallway, not sure where he would want to go. The decision was made for me when he pulled me in the direction of my room. I followed after him, closing the door quietly behind us. When I turned to face him, he was staring blankly at all the books that he'd found for me, a million miles away.

I reached out, allowing my hand to rest on the top of his arm. As soon as I felt his warm skin under my fingertips I panicked and pulled my hand back. He turned and caught it in his own.

At any other time I would have been rejoicing inside but his grief was nothing to celebrate. He held onto my hand until his grip began to hurt, but I let him clutch hold of it, anyway. Something smashed down the hallway. I cringed, wondering if I should go and see how Agatha was.

"She must blame me," he said emptily.

"She doesn't blame you. How could she? She loves you so much. She's just sad." There was nothing else I could say to him. That terrible, wrecked look in his eye was overwhelming. "If anyone's to blame, then it's me. If it weren't for me, all three of you would be somewhere far away. I forced your hand." I lowered my eyes to the floor. The words I'd been too afraid to even voice inside my own head tumbled out in a rush. The pressure on my hand slackened.

"Farley...you're so wrong." Daniel slouched, searching for my eyes. "Aldan vowed a long time ago that he would never take another life, especially for his own benefit. I should have known he would never take mine. It's not your fault that you were dragged into this. It was lucky Agatha and I realized who you were before they found you. At least now there's a better chance of you coming through this alive."

This side of him was alien. He had just lost the closest thing he'd ever had to a father, and he was trying to console me. I suddenly thought I was going to throw up.

"Are you okay?" I whispered. Of course he wasn't. It was a stupid question; I knew that. But what else was I supposed to say?

He didn't reply. He let go of my hand and stepped over to the bed, considering it briefly before collapsing onto it in a heap. His body twitched and trembled with pent-up energy but his face betrayed how exhausted he was. When he spoke, he crushed me all over again.

"Do you think you could just be here with me for a while?"

Words wouldn't come. I could only nod. I climbed onto the bed to lie beside him. He closed his eyes and let out a pained sigh, rolling onto his side so we were facing each other. I studied the shattered expression on his face while he breathed deeply, trying to calm his body. Each spasm rolled into another, more violent one.

"Can I do anything?"

He shook his head without opening his eyes, reaching out with his hand to find mine. "There's just so much..." His thumb traced light circles over the back of my hand. "So much... I can feel it inside me. There are hundreds..." He trailed off, his voice heavy. After a few minutes his body settled and the tremors lessened until they mercifully stopped altogether.

The grief slid from his face like a mask as he sank into unconsciousness. I lay there beside him, watching him dream, and it wasn't long before I drifted, too. When I woke, he was sitting with his back against the wall, his legs pulled up, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched me. I sat up, embarrassed.

"Sorry."

He looked down at his hands and smiled sadly. "What for?" His voice was a whisper.

I didn't know where to start. For your brother. For that box they used to lock you in. For all the pain. For Aldan....

"There's no point in being sorry for anything, Farley. You didn't ask for any of this. I'm the one who's sorry. I haven't been very kind. There are reasons why...reasons why I've behaved the way I have toward you." He looked awkward, impossibly shy. "I want to apologize."

"Don't even think about it," I groaned. "I can't bear you saying sorry for something so unimportant when Aldan has just died."

"Unimportant?" Daniel whispered, studying his hands. "It's not unimportant. It's the most important thing there is. Or ever will be."

I wasn't really sure what he was talking about anymore, but the intensity in his eyes when he looked up made all of my thoughts disintegrate, scattered to the distant boundaries of my mind. It was all I could to stare back at him. I thought I knew what he meant, but it was too perilous to hope. Yet there it was, clear as day in his eyes. You are the most important thing there is. Or ever will be.

The silence between us was loaded with meaning. We studied one another, his jade eyes fixed on my steel ones. Usually it would have been confrontational to look at one another in such a way, but this was different. This look held everything we both needed to say and I wasn't going to miss it. After a long moment, Daniel broke the silence.

"I have to go."

Instant panic hit me. "What? When are you coming back?" He stared at me, and I knew. "We aren't going to be together, are we?"

His face wilted, filled with sadness. "I'm so sorry, Farley." He raised a trembling hand and traced it softly down my mascara-stained cheek, causing my skin to smolder in a low burn. I closed my eyes tight. I wanted to capture the moment, to remember the heat that spread through my body.

"Why can't you just say we'll have all the time in the world to be together when this is all over?" I asked him. He brushed back the hair from my face as I sat there with my eyes closed, wishing that he would say those words. But he didn't.

Instead, he pulled himself away from the wall to sit beside me on the edge of the bed. He tentatively reached out and slipped his arm around my waist, drawing me closer. The heat of his body pressed against mine, his warm breath on the back of my neck.

"Because I'm not coming back. I've got to kill them. The power it will take to destroy them is going to rip me apart, Farley. There's no optimistic way to spin that."

My eyes began to sting. "Then just don't go. Stay here with Agatha and with me..."

"I can't," he whispered.

"Why?" I was too heartbroken to care about the tears streaming down my face.

He didn't reply. He kissed me instead.

His forehead was an inch away from mine. He cupped my face lightly in his hands, and gravity seemed to draw us together like light towards a black hole. His breath was hot and sweet, mixing with mine as our bodies pressed closer. When our lips met, we melted together, a falling sensation so weightless and dramatic that I had to hold onto him to steady myself, and suddenly I couldn't remember how to breathe. It wasn't a kiss filled with joy or happiness. It was the saddest thing I'd ever felt, filled with a heavy longing and laced with grief. And yet, right then, it was perfect. He was perfect. It felt like coming home.

The moment continued, languorous, until the thumping of my heart couldn't be contained anymore. I let it race away, each beat echoed by Daniel's own, which I could feel hammering in the pressure of his fingertips. He gently drew my mouth open a fraction wider. His tongue found mine, causing my body to tremble and quake beneath him.

I reached up and took hold of his t-shirt, bunching it up into my fists, desperate to cling onto him and never let him go. He seemed to sense the change in my emotion and answered my feverish kiss with an intensity of his own, making the insides of my head implode under the tension.

He moved his hands to my waist and pulled me to him, somehow finding his way under my t-shirt. His hands rested lightly on the bare skin above my hipbones, making me shiver. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck, feeling his heartbeat there, too, burying my fingers into his hair. He let out a low moan, his breathing turning ragged against my lips.

And suddenly he pulled back. My head swam, too affected by the tension of the moment to understand what had happened. I didn't want to open my eyes. If I did, the moment would end. But for that second, his hands were still scalding hot against me. His breathing was still labored and thick. He was still so close.

His weight shifted on the bed. His lips were feather light this time, controlled, barely brushing mine. That little kiss seemed so sad and final, especially when he raised his lips to rest them softly against each one of my eyelids in turn...and then he was gone.

I had never felt so cold or alone as in that moment.

When I managed to force my eyes open, he was standing with his back to me in the doorway. His voice was nothing more than a whisper, filled with sorrow.

"It's a beautiful dream, love. But some dreams just cost too much."

He melted into the darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Your Highness

It was surprising how fast a month could fly by when your days were filled with the endless comings and goings of strangers, the most prominent of which were Beatty and his small family. He and his brothers, Otis and Brynn, along with Beatty's wife, Nyla, and their son, Scout, turned up one morning, scaring the life out of all of us.

Otis and Brynn were mirror images of each other, identical twins that could only be told apart by the faint, inch-long scar that ran along Brynn's temple. They were tall and stocky and full of noise. Their presence was only dwarfed by that of Beatty himself, who gave the impression that he could have taken down a grizzly if he wanted to. The three men were all dark haired and wore scruffy facial hair that made them look much older than they truly were. They were hard men from the Third Quarter, the south. Agatha said the Third Quarter was renowned for the unparalleled fighting skills of its people. I was inclined to believe her.

Nyla on the other hand, was a slight woman who looked as though she might fall down in a stiff breeze. From the First Quarter, northern, like Agatha, she came from the Intellectuals. Her auburn hair fell to her waist like a waterfall of soft, exotic silk. Her almond-shaped eyes were quizzical, and she was remarkably quiet in comparison to the men's bluff and bravado.

Her son was five and had the same coloring as his father, but had inherited his mother's slim frame and gentle nature. I barely noticed his presence most of the time. When I did, it was only because I'd nearly tripped over him as he appeared from a dark corridor to flit across the hangar.

Agatha had snapped out of her melancholic haze a week after they buried Aldan. Since then she had been the epitome of optimism, so much so that it had really began to grate on my nerves. Her phone never stopped buzzing. It was as though everyone who knew Agatha and Daniel had heard the call to arms and come running. All kinds of new people appeared overnight.

Each morning revealed piles of unfamiliar bodies passed out on various roll mats in the corridors and underneath the tables. It felt like Agatha was attempting to amass an army of people simply in order to annoy me, but Tess loved it. The planning, the organizing. The only thing she wanted no part of was the fighting. That was all on me.

My sling had been off for three weeks, and my arm was as strong as it had been before. There was no getting out of it. I'd resented having to participate in a glorified self-defense class at first, but my interest picked up when we moved from defending to attacking.

Tess watched from the sidelines and smiled proudly when I managed to land a strike on Beatty, who demanded it should be he, himself, that trained me in hand to hand combat. She also pretended to look elsewhere when he managed to put me on my backside, which was more often than not.

I had tried to get Tess to go home, but she'd refused to leave Oliver. Her mom had lost the plot when Tess called and told her Oliver had surprised her with a two-week holiday. When Mrs. Kennedy told her to end their relationship and come home immediately, Tess refused point-blank. Mrs. Kennedy told her that if she wouldn't do as she was told, she was no longer welcome in her house. It had been like that for the past month. Tess refused to call her mom, and Mrs. Kennedy refused to call her daughter; they were both as stubborn as each other. I couldn't help but feel it was all my fault, but Tess was immoveable.

After a lot of arguing, Agatha agreed it would probably be safer for Tess if she were with us, and I was outvoted. St Jude's had lost another promising student. As for Oliver, he was still unsure about everything Agatha told him. There was one thing he was sure about: no one was going to hurt Tess, and that definitely made him on our side. For the moment.

Aside from Beatty, who demanded my attendance to his class every day, Cliff, another of Agatha's friends, was also helping train me. He was the first person to put a knife in my hand. He'd been showing me increasingly interesting ways to relieve an opponent of his internal organs since then.

He said I had potential, and I was quite proud at his words despite their macabre connotation. Attaining a compliment from Cliff was no easy task. He was tall and slender with a mop of curly brown hair and ice blue eyes that were as cold as his blade. He was scary as all hell. I was more than a little intimidated by him when we first met, and not a lot had changed since.

Daniel hadn't been back to the hangar once. Every time another person walked through the doorway into the increasingly crowded space, my heart leapt in my chest, hoping that it would be him. It never was. No one had seen him or heard from him.

It took a long time after he'd disappeared before I came to the realization that now wasn't the time to mope and feel sorry for myself. Beatty reminded me of it constantly. Now was the time to watch and learn and fight. He'd knocked me down yet again, winding me, when he began the morning's tirade.

"Where was your block, Your Highness?" he asked, bawdy and mocking. I slumped back on the ground, already exhausted. He towered over me and tutted with a familiar disappointment. "If an Immundus came at you, then you may as well skip the embarrassing fumble and just lay down for him, too. Let him slit your throat and have done with it." The deep rumble of his voice rebounded around the hangar, and I cringed. Everyone would be hearing how hopeless I was again today.

"I did block."

"You blocked my blow with your stomach, then, Highness. That's not a very smart fighting tactic." He laughed, deep and low, and a few stifled titters emanated from the small group that had gathered to watch my ineptitude. I wished this lesson would go quicker so I could fight with Cliff instead. At least he didn't find it quite so funny when I ended up on the floor.

"Do you need a break, Highness?"

"No. And stop calling me Highness."

Beatty stooped into a low bow with a look of mischief on his face. "As it pleases you, Highness"

I growled, pulling myself up from the ground with a graceless heave, and cut him a dirty look. The nickname had come out of nowhere. It grated, and the more I allowed Beatty to see that, the more he used it.

"Well, Highness, if looks could kill then we would be in business!" He roared with laughter. I rolled my eyes when I noticed Tess on the sidelines, trying to cover a smirk. She shrugged apologetically when she realized she had been caught, and I huffed, turning my attention back to Beatty.

He was too busy winking and pretending to scowl ferociously at his friends to notice me as I lunged forward and planted my foot behind him, locking my hip against his massive frame. I twisted my body around so that he moved with me. To my surprise, I actually managed to pivot the great man off his feet, and suddenly he was falling backwards. He landed with a ground shaking crash on the mat. Everyone went silent. Beatty lay on his back, blinking rapid-fire. I panicked, awaiting his wrath. Instead he laughed.

"My compliments, Highness. Didn't think you had it in you."

I sighed with relief and accepted the hand he held up for assistance, but was of absolutely no use when I tried to heave him up. This only made him laugh even harder. I gave up and let him roll on the floor, red faced, with tears streaming down his face. I looked to Tess for help but saw that Agatha and Oliver had joined her and they were watching the scene play out for themselves. Oliver's eyes danced with mirth, but Agatha remained stony-faced.

She was the one who suggested I learn to fight, even though she knew Daniel wouldn't like it, and it appeared that we weren't taking the lesson seriously enough for her liking. I reddened and dropped the smile playing on my own lips as I made my way over to them.

"Enjoying your lesson?" Agatha asked.

"Sorry, Agatha. I am paying attention, I swear. Beatty says I'm improving every day."

Agatha nodded distractedly, her eyes flicking towards the man, who had now risen to his feet.

"Don't worry. I'm pretty confident I could handle myself against an Immundus."

"You think so?" she asked. "An Immundus is nothing more than a foot soldier, but they're well-trained foot soldiers who have years of combat training. I don't mean to be unkind, Farley, but I would be very surprised if you could beat one. That's not really the issue, though, because there's never just one of them. There'd be four or five at least."

I blanched at her words, knowing she was right. I was kidding myself if I thought I was ready. Agatha's expression softened a little.

"I'm not trying to scare you. Just prepare you. Maybe this is the wrong thing to do. No amount of training is going to help you if we ever manage to get in front of your father or the other Immortals."

I hadn't even thought about that. Elliott was bad enough in a dream. He probably wasn't any more accommodating in real life. Oliver bristled at the mention of him, and I wondered whether he was curious about our father at all. He cleared his throat and shifted uneasily behind Agatha before breaking his silence.

"What am I going to be doing when World War Three is going down? I know how to fight. I could help."

Tess was already shaking her head when Agatha shut him down. "You're the biggest bargaining chip we've ever had. We have to keep you somewhere safe. If anything goes wrong, then we can protect you. Have you hidden. If they capture you, then they will make you do what they want."

Tess looked relieved, but Oliver? He wasn't happy at all. The argument clearly wasn't over.

"Your Highness!" Beatty bellowed from the crash mat where I had left him. "Shall I take your absence as an admission of defeat?"

I scowled and turned from the others. I had to show Agatha that I was capable. Beatty laughed as I charged at him, and then we were dancing again.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Promise of Death

The light from the moon was bright tonight. I hunkered down in the driver's seat of the Charger, trying to stay out of sight. I preferred nights where the darkness was so complete you couldn't see your own hand in front of your face. I had better night vision than any Immundus, or Immortal, for that matter. Having the upper hand tonight would be very convenient.

The Dodge was shot to all hell. The Reavers' men would know it by sight but I didn't have it in me to get rid of her. We'd been together for thirty years and I'd fixed her up from worse. If anyone noticed me, I'd just have to deal with them and hope reinforcements didn't show.

There were over a hundred different access points into the fastness that I knew of, spanning a circumference of LA that covered at least sixty miles. Some were more popular than others. I'd spent the last week rotating between back alleys in the heart of the city to deserted gas stations in the sticks, but had very little luck. There was less movement than usual, and everyone I picked up claimed they knew nothing of the Reavers' plans. I could see the fear in their eyes, though, and knew they were lying. They were more afraid of what Elliot would do to them alive than the clean death I would deal them.

Aldan would have known how to make them talk, how to persuade them it was in their best interests, but I couldn't think about what the old man might have done. Even remembering Aldan sent a searing hot bolt of pain through my ribcage. I'd tried to lock away all the hurt of losing him, but it was useless. My treasure chest of pain was already brimming over with memories of Jamie. Both my brother and Aldan just wouldn't fit in at the same time.

The past month had been bad. The impact of losing my mentor would hit me when I least expected it, tearing me apart. I blacked out a lot of it. The last time it had happened, I'd been in the middle of threatening a guard tied to a chair. The next thing I knew every stick of furniture in the motel room was destroyed and the guard had my knife buried hilt-deep in his thigh and was pleading for his life. Apparently my fits of rage were terrifying displays. It didn't take long for that particular guard, the only one to talk, to crumble. Before he'd died, he told me Elliot wasn't coming into the city these days.

I could only guess what the evil monster was up to—sticking to the Tower no doubt, gathering his minions around him, waiting to strike. It would only be a matter of time.

The seal above my heart itched, the one I knew Farley had been studying oh-so-covertly that night in the hangar, and I gave a wry smile. I'd worn the seal for over a hundred years. I'd never thought about it as anything more than a depiction of the prophecy, but now I knew it was so much more. I felt the stirrings and let my mind drift momentarily, listening to the soft whispering of the dormant thing inside me agreeing. It had a thousand voices but they always said the same thing, so it was hard to decide whether it was one or many. Either way, it knew what the seal meant, too.

Me. And her.

Getting lost in that voice was so easy. I forcefully dragged my attention back to the run-down, abandoned fire station. Clouds rolled heavily across the sky and I breathed a sigh of relief as the night closed in. I sat forward, sensing movement across the road. A large, black, windowless truck had been parked outside the building for the last twenty minutes. Its engine was idling, and I couldn't shake the feeling that this was something worth investigating. I was right.

The old roller shutter at the front of the fire station began to inch its way up. It jarred on its tracks, grinding on the rust, stiff from disuse. It halted altogether for a second, and then a pair of huge hands appeared from underneath, forcing it up in one swift movement to reveal three large men. The silver of their eyes reflected in the dark, paler than the moon and perfectly round, like the outline of an eclipse. None of their faces were familiar.

The men made their way to the truck, and two of them got in the front cab, while the other opened up the rear doors and disappeared back into the fire station. The truck's lights came on, and I slouched down, counting down the seconds until they noticed the car on the other side of the street.

Ten seconds passed by, and then another ten, and the two men remained in the cab of the truck. Suspicion coursed through my veins. The thing inside me sparked with anticipation, waiting and ready to leap into action. I felt it in every part of my body: something wasn't right.

A flash of white was suddenly visible from inside the fire station. It grew in size until the third Immundus came back into view. He pulled the small frame of a woman behind him. Her thin white dress hung off her emaciated frame, and her shoulder blades protruded sickeningly, heightened by the fact that her hands were bound behind her back. A hessian bag covered her head, and her feet were bare against the shattered glass that glinted prettily on the sidewalk. She stumbled forward, tripping into the back of the hulking Immundus. He jerked her forcefully by the arm, causing her to lose her balance even further. He snarled at her under his breath, and I knew there was nothing good in store for the poor woman. Something had to be done.

The energy inside me came alive, and I was comforted by the power of it pulsing through my body. There was no doubt I could take all three of them, but I wasn't stupid enough to take that fact for granted.

I waited until the woman was lifted into the back of the van before I got out of the car. The Immundus didn't notice me until I was right on top of him, and his surprised swing flew through thin air as I stepped neatly out of the way.

The Immundus came forward and lunged again, this time producing a large Bowie knife from inside his jacket. The metal sang as it sliced through the air towards my throat. I darted back to avoid the blade and blocked up, throwing the Immundus' arm wide, then delivered a blow to the man's left shoulder, knocking him off balance.

I heard a small, guttural cry from the woman in the back of the van and took a step towards the doors, but the Immundus recovered quicker than I anticipated. He struck me on the temple and suddenly my head was ringing. I recovered myself and faced the man again, concentrating this time, studying the way he moved.

The man was big and heavy, too keen for a quick win. The next time he came forward, I was prepared. The Immundus swiped the blade towards him, and I feinted to the left, blocking my arm up again. This time I twisted the man's arm back on itself in a swift move that plunged the blade straight down into his own throat. Metal dragged over bone when it made contact, and the Immundus spluttered as he sank to his knees, wide-eyed in disbelief. The man pulled the blade from his neck and it clattered to the floor. I didn't waste time watching him choke on his own blood.

I swung round and made for the van door, but predictably the two Immundus in the cab had come to join the fight. The power inside me fluctuated impatiently. This was taking too long. I lowered the wall that kept the huge power at bay and let it course through my body until it blistered inside every fiber of my being. Then I let it go.

It was such a short blast that I wondered for a second if I'd given enough, but when I looked around I saw with satisfaction that the two men were lying flat on their backs. They appeared unharmed, but I knew better. The shock wave would have scrambled their internal organs and turned their bones to jelly.

A whole lot cleaner than knives and guns, I thought, as I took a second to look down at the Immundus at my feet. He had finally stopped wheezing through the red froth at his mouth and was staring up at the night sky with a look of gentle surprise on his face.

I stepped over the body and swung open the door to the van. The woman strained against the thick rope that bound her hands together, and small bands of blood ran down her hands as she pulled and writhed.

"Hey. Hey, don't worry." I stepped up into the vehicle, reaching out to steady her as she rushed towards me. She buried her face through the hessian sack into my shoulder, and I shushed her as I tried to undo her bindings. She pushed her face against me again with increasing force, and I held her back, surprised at how strong she was for such a small, frail thing.

The rope finally fell and suddenly the woman leapt forward, clawing at me with long, filthy fingernails. She knocked me backwards out of the van and I fell with a huff onto my back on the hard, wet road. Alarm bells were going off. I managed to roll to the right just in time as the woman jumped forward out of the van. She landed on all fours exactly where I had lain.

"What the...?!" I leapt to my feet and faced the crouching woman. She looked as though she were preparing to launch herself at me again.

"What the hell's wrong with you? I'm trying to help, okay? Just take a moment. Breathe."

The crouching figure began to rise and my body tensed, something inside warning me of danger. She was standing at full height now. She didn't even come up to my shoulder, yet a thrill of adrenaline burst through me.

She tilted her covered head slowly to one side, and then reached her dirty, blackened hand up to pull the bag away. When it fell to the floor, I staggered back, repulsed. She began to move forward slowly, like a prowling animal.

Her filthy, matted dark hair fell in tangled knots to her shoulders and was plastered with sweat to her forehead. It hung down in her eyes. Terrifying, deadly eyes—white, and loaded with malice.

Blackened lips twisted back into a permanent snarl, and she bared her broken teeth. The blackness didn't stop at her mouth. The surrounding skin was infected by the color, and small, dark capillaries snaked into the sallow paleness of her cheeks. I shuddered as she snapped her teeth like some sort of dog. I stepped back. I knew I had to pull myself together, but I was frozen solid by the sight of that terrible mouth. A mouth filled with the promise of death.

She inched closer to me and I reeled back, feeling the energy inside me shying away, too. The energy was a living thing, after all, and all living things feared death. I stumbled down the curb and into the road without taking my eyes off her. She snapped her teeth again, and thick, black spittle sprayed from her mouth. Had she been trying to bite me through the sack back in the van? A vibration rippled through the power inside me, causing it to break into a thousand angry, frightened whispers. I tried to quell the chaos unfolding within me and swallowed hard, readying for her attack.

A second was all it took. She sprang forward so quickly that I only just had time to raise my arm and deflect her with a panicked burst of power. The energy shot out, a blast of blue-white light so bright it even burned my own retinas. Too much, I thought as my eyes refocused, sure I would find her very dead in the road.

I was wrong. I regained my bearings just in time to knock her back again as she flung herself at me like a rabid animal, snarling and snapping.

I'd never used my energy with such force, and yet she stood again, her head tilted to one side in that sinister, cold way. I raised both hands, ready to unleash everything I had on her, but as I took a deep breath she darted back behind the van, and then she was somehow on its roof. I ran around the other side of the vehicle, trying to get a clear shot at her, but she leapt through the air in one fluid movement and half-landed on the flat roof of the fire station. She hung from the ledge by her arms with her legs dangling into the void for a second before she scrabbled up, and then she was gone.

I stood there in the street gasping for breath, too stunned to do anything other than stare after her. My heart raced in my chest and a low, sinking feeling took hold within the pit of my stomach. I had never seen anything like her before, but I knew I'd seen her before.

I'd recognized the woman immediately, despite the grotesque changes to her face. I closed my eyes. How could this have happened? How they could have turned her into something so hideous?

The moonlight finally returned, slowly emerging from behind the clouds to illuminate me. There were only the shadows to keep me company in my confusion, and for a long time I could do nothing but stand there watching them stretch tall and long, staring into the dark. Staring after someone I'd never thought I would see again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Scrabble

"A. S. S. Triple word score."

"You can't have ass as a word," Tess declared. She picked up my tiles and thrust them back into my hand. "You're forgetting the rules. You're supposed to put down words that you know relate to Oliver. Like hockey. Or six pack."

I pulled a face.

"Unless you're commenting on the fact that he has a really great ass, in which case ewww, but okay."

I threw my tiles back into the bag and shook it hard. "You are so remorselessly gross, you know that?"

"I'm not the one who thinks her brother has a great ass."

"I did not mean that. I meant he has asses for friends. He goes to Whiteacre, remember?"

"That's too tenuous."

"I remember Whiteacre," Oliver broke in. He sat cross-legged with me and Tess on the sheepskin rug, staring down at the most unconventional game of Scrabble ever played. There was a wistful gleam in his eyes. "I remember the sun, too. And football fields, where you could actually play football. I seem to recall there was this thing called the ocean..."

"You don't have to stay down here, you know," I told him. He gave me a look that said, yes, of course he did. It was ridiculous really. He was the one supposed to become like Elliot. He was the one supposed to undergo his rites and become a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. And yet it was me who wasn't allowed out of anyone's sight, much less go home and pretend like none of this had ever happened. It was pretty obvious why no one was concerned about Oliver, though. He was an unadulteratedly good-natured and all-round nice guy.

That was one of the words related to him that I had put on the board: nice. Oliver had sucked his teeth like it was an insult. Meanwhile, his words for me ranged from smart (Tess declared I was, and refused to be told otherwise), and black (my hair), to odd (because I was). Neither of us had improved upon his five-letter word as of yet.

I swapped out my tiles and rearranged them on the stand, but could only make one word out of them, which was mucus. I couldn't really think of a way that I could associate mucus with Oliver without being rude. I rolled my eyes. "You've made this game way too hard," I told Tess.

"That's so untrue. You're just not trying. How else are you two going to get to know each other?"

"Hmm..." I tapped my chin with an index finger. "Maybe by talking to each other like normal people."

"She's right," Oliver agreed. "I can hold up the end of a conversation like you wouldn't believe. And it really helps when you can communicate without the need of a vowel because all you have are consonants."

"You too?" I asked.

He gave me a wise nod. "Oh wait. I can make a word that relates to you. I'll just use a vowel on the board." He plucked up two tiles and deftly slid a D and an N into place on either side of the A in black. The word sat there on the board like an accusation: a name, or part of one, anyway.

I cleared my throat. "I don't know what you mean."

Oliver gave me an uncertain look and then glanced at Tess. "Sorry, I thought..."

"Don't worry, baby," Tess said. "Just because my best friend here hasn't told me that she is completely in love with a certain missing person named Daniel doesn't mean it's not true. Fess up, traitor, or I'll be forced to take action."

I gripped hold of my Scrabble tiles until the edges started to cut into my palms. I hadn't had chance to talk to Tess alone since the night Daniel left, and honestly I really didn't want to talk about him, full stop. The pain in my gut whenever I remembered our last encounter was too sharp to bear. The thought of trying to explain that conversation to Tess, who believed romance solved all the world's hurts, was something I couldn't even begin to comprehend.

"Well?"

"Well, nothing. He's a friend."

"A friend? He looked like he wanted to kill you back when you were leaning out of that car with a gun in your hand. There's only one reason someone would look at you like that. It's because he's insanely protective over you and thought you were going to get yourself killed. Or I guess he could actually just hate you. So there are two reasons. Which is it? Soul mate or psycho killer? Does he really hate you?"

I gave her a wry smile. "I used to think so."

"And now?"

"Now... not so much."

Tess broke out into a beaming grin. "I knew it! Perfect. We can double date."

A bottomless hollow inside my chest ached. How could life ever be that simple for us? Saturday night, ordering pizza and catching a movie? Even the concept of going on a regular date with Daniel was a dream I'd never afforded myself. It just wasn't going to happen. "You might be waiting a while."

"Why? Once this is all over with, we'll have all the time in the world."

The words stung. They were the words I had wanted so desperately to hear coming from Daniel's mouth, but instead he had told me he was going to die. I was probably never going to see him again. I could almost feel the color draining from my face. My hands shook when I set down the tiles.

Tess apparently noticed. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lied. "I'm just sick of being stuck down here."

"Come on, Farley. Look on the bright side. Your subterranean incarceration is the perfect opportunity to get to know Oliver. Am I the only one who thinks you guys being brother and sister is the best thing that's ever happened?"

Oliver groaned. I joined him. "We're not saying we're not happy about the whole thing," I said. "It's just easy for you to accept. You're dating your best friend's brother. It's perfect for you. But you know and love both of us, and we don't really know each other at all. It's just going to take some time."

Oliver nodded. "Exactly what she said."

Tess scowled and threw herself back onto the rug so that her uncontainable curls tangled into the weft of the soft sheepskin rug. She hitched the neck of her sweatshirt up over her eyes and growled into the fabric.

"D'you think she's annoyed?" Oliver asked.

"Undoubtedly. She probably thought you guys would get married and we'd instantly be one big happy family."

Oliver did something completely unexpected at that point and blushed. It was bizarre seeing a guy react so obviously to something.

"I'm joking, of course!" I told him.

"I can hear you, traitor," came Tess' muffled voice from beneath her shirt. "Stop trying to scare my boyfriend, or I'll tell Daniel about a few of your most embarrassing moments. I've been present for them all, remember."

She had, too. I needed to change the subject. If not in an attempt to distract Tess from imparting all the horrific moments of my childhood, then because she kept saying Daniel's name.

"Is she dead?" It was Beatty. For such a large man, he moved with surprising stealth. He stood at the back of the sofa, quirking a curious eye at Tess, who was still submerged in her sweatshirt.

"No. Just melodramatic," I told him.

He gave me a bemused nod and raised his eyebrows. "Are you ready for your training?"

"No."

"Good. See you this afternoon." With that he stalked off towards the small area close to Daniel's wrecking ground that we used for training and started pummeling the punching bag strung from the rafters. The sound of his fists' thudding impact was nothing compared to the grunts of exertion he let out. They sounded like the final death throes of some tortured animal. Tess slowly inched her shirt down so that her eyes were visible and gave me and Oliver a worried look.

"Is that normal?"

I pulled a face. "For him? Yes."

"I vote we abandon Scrabble and find somewhere else to be," Oliver said. He was already on his feet. Somewhere else to be was an entertaining thought. Between the hangar and our bedrooms, there really wasn't anywhere else. A sad, profound feeling worked its way up my chest. If Aldan were alive, we could have gone and visited him. We could have gone anywhere in the world provided the old man had been there before at some point. Not for the first time, I felt the overwhelming gravity of loss over Aldan's death. He had provided comfort and escape whenever I really needed it, and I'd cared for him more than I'd realized. Until it was too late, anyway. He'd been a father to Daniel nearly his whole life. If I felt this bad, having only known him for a matter of a few short weeks, then how must he be feeling right now? Agatha, too.

Agatha was coping, at least. Organizing. Researching. Cooking. Reading through dusty old books. She was never still. I suspected that if she sat down for just a moment, her stoic veneer would crack and crumble into a thousand tiny pieces and there would be no putting her back together again. It was better that she had purpose.

Daniel was obviously doing the same thing, but he wasn't the organizing or researching type. He was probably out killing things. I bit my lip and got to my feet.

"Why don't you two hang out together? I kinda just..." want to be alone. The words were left unspoken, but they were understood all the same. Tess gave me a quick hug and I left them to clean up the board game. They would probably be playing X-rated Scrabble in Tess' room for the rest of the day knowing my friend. There were only so many three- and four-letter words I knew related to that topic, and the idea of being present for that game was too hideous to contemplate.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Not Afraid of You

Cliff's lesson was supposedly about body language, but I suspected it was more likely he wanted to demonstrate how utterly pathetic I was. He'd run me through the mill, and all under the guise of teaching me the importance of observing my opponent, studying their body language and watching their technique. Nine times out of ten I failed to guess which way he would lunge, or to keep my eye on his blade. I lost count of how many times he thrust the hard heel of it into my shoulder or my stomach, loudly proclaiming each time that I was dead.

I truly pitied Cliff's enemies. If he was this hard on someone he professed to like (Agatha assured me this was the case), then they stood no chance whatsoever.

"Come on, Cliff! It's my turn to embarrass the girl!" Beatty arrived to seal my absolute humiliation. I groaned and rolled my eyes when Cliff gave me a curt nod, abandoning me to the giant. Apparently there was no such thing as a five minute break.

"What's the matter, Highness?" Beatty taunted. "You think Immundus line up to fight skinny girls one at a time? You think they stand around having tea and cake until Princesses have caught their breath?" he chuckled mercilessly, and I gritted my teeth.

There was only so much I could take. I spun on the spot and lashed out hard in a back kick that landed with a satisfying thud, square in his chest. He stumbled back and fell to the ground with his eyes wide, staring at me as I had a small laugh of me own.

"What's the matter, Beatty? You think skinny girls wait politely while big hairy men take time out to laugh at their own bad jokes?"

That was twice I'd managed to put him down now. He took my jibe as well as he could, given the amount of people standing around watching, all of whom were unable to suppress their laughter, but it was obvious he was embarrassed that a girl had landed a proper strike on him.

The rest of the day consisted of 'enforced slave labor' as Tess called it. It was funny that as soon as any real work needed doing, all of our guests suddenly had other places to be. The hangar slowly emptied in the early part of the morning as they went to regroup with their other friends and families, promising to return in a few days' time.

Beatty and his family, along with Cliff, were the only people who remained. Otis had been to the city. When he returned, everyone was strong-armed into helping lug supplies from the service hatch down through the corridors to find suitable homes for the gallon containers of water, sacks of rice, blankets and other miscellaneous items that were constantly unloaded.

I was actually glad of the work. It was great to be in the fresh air, even if it was just moving stuff from the back of the truck to the hatch. The few minutes of sunlight on my face were well worth the pain in my back and the aching in my arms.

And so it was no surprise that come eight p.m. I was falling asleep on the couch. I dragged myself to my room so I could slide underneath the cool sheets and let my exhaustion overcome me.

******

I wasn't in the maze. I was in a large circular room, kneeling on the smooth, cold marble floor. There were no windows. Seven or eight large torches lit the room, each bearing a different animal's head carved in stone at its base. A lion, eagle, elephant, fox, snake, were all in my line of sight. The others at my back remained a mystery. I was too scared to tear my eyes off the three heavy wrought-iron chairs aligned on the dais in front of me to turn and look at them.

The first person I recognized was the cold, hard figure of my immaculately dressed father seated on the chair to the far left. He wore yet another black suit, coupled with black shirt and tie. His hair was swept back away from his face, which was grave and etched in shadows. His eyes wandered around the room, agitated and uncomfortable.

On the far right-hand side sat another, younger looking man, who bore a striking resemblance to Elliot. His face was longer and more effeminate, but he was still incredibly handsome. He studied me with cool eyes. They were sky blue and piercing, and held a curious, calculating intelligence. He cleared his throat and moved on to look around the room, apparently bored, observing nothing in me to capture his interest.

It was the man in the middle who was most intriguing, though. This man was much older than the other two. He gave off an air of authority that commanded respect. His dark hair was shot with a steel grey at his temples and his face was lined and worn. His expression was fixed in a permanent sneer that pulled his mouth down at the corners, giving him a sharp, angular look. Narrowed eyes scrutinized me. Not blue this time, but brown—so dark they were almost black.

The silence in the room echoed from the high ceiling, and I swallowed hard, trying to calm my heartbeat. They must have heard it hammering in my chest. The man in the center finally spoke.

"This is the girl who took your son?" He obviously wasn't speaking to me.

Elliot shifted awkwardly, fixing me with a hateful stare. "Not this pathetic creature. Her friends. The ones that have troubled all of us for years."

The man remained silent for some time. Elliot eventually lowered his eyes from mine to give him a swift sidelong glance. If the man noticed, then he didn't register the fact. He watched me intently. The pressure of his eyes on my skin felt as though he were stripping me bare before all three of them. He addressed me with a look of mild distaste, like he were talking with someone sullied or dirty, and certainly not worthy of his direct attention.

"Do you know who I am, child?"

I couldn't have responded even if I wanted to.

"I am Tobin. This is Jacob. He was the one before me." He gestured to the bored man on his right, who tossed me a cursory glance and then continued to gaze into space. "And this is Elliot. He came after me. I assume you know who he is?"

So this was Elliot's father. That kind of made him my grandfather. I was still immobile, pinned to the floor and unable to make a sound. Inside, however, I twisted with anger. I wanted to use the blade that Cliff had given me, to sink it into his belly. I wanted to twist it savagely; I wanted it to hurt.

"You might be wondering why we're talking here tonight," Tobin said, smirking as if he knew from the look in my eye that I was wishing him a thousand times dead. "We're here because you have something of ours. Oliver is very precious to us. All our family members are precious to us, Farley. You might have learned that if you had given us a chance. Things could have been so very different."

Yeah, right, I thought. You mean I could have delivered myself to you on a platter. You wouldn't have broken a sweat in killing me.

Another caustic smirk. "At any rate, that opportunity is long gone. Now, we just want Oliver back."

Ha! Good luck with that. He's not going anywhere with you, I snarled inside my head.

"We're having this conversation because I want to make you an offer. It's a very simple offer, and you may feel like you're not getting much out of it, but I want you to hear me out. Can you do that?"

My eyes twitched imperceptibly, but they were screaming: Go Directly To Hell.

Tobin grinned and turned to Elliot. "Are you sure this one is yours? Her fortitude would have me believe otherwise." Elliot gave him a withering look and clenched his jaw.

So, he thought I was brave for trying to stare him down? Let me go and you'll see how brave I am. His smug smile would slip right off his face if only I could get free long enough to drive my knife into him. It suddenly occurred to me that I probably didn't have my knife in this dream. That didn't matter, though. I'd wrap my hands around his neck and throttle the life out of him if I got half a chance.

"Sorry, where was I? Oh, that's right. Give us back Elliot's son. In return, we will do you a kindness and kill you quickly."

What was it he'd said? I wouldn't think I was getting much out of the deal? He was definitely right there.

"Otherwise, we will come and take Oliver, and you and your friends will all die a very different death. We have some very... interesting friends, friends who take pleasure in toying with their prey. They can make the process of dying last days instead of the seconds I'm promising you."

I'm not afraid of you, I thought, doing my best to convince myself it was true.

Tobin paused and looked me in the eye. "Well, you should be." His words were as cold as ice. A tidal wave of adrenaline crashed through me, and Tobin threw back his head and laughed. "What? You thought you were all alone in there, girl? It's been very interesting snooping around while we've been having this conversation."

Whatever, I shot at him. It doesn't matter. You can do whatever you like to me. They're never going to hand Oliver over. You don't even know where we are.

As soon as I formed that last thought, my stomach dropped through the floor. Tobin studied my face as realization washed through me. I suddenly felt sick. His eyes shone with pleasure.

"Yes... yes, that's right. We do know where you are. We know, because you just told us. All you had to do was think it. Well done, Farley. Thank you. See you in half an hour."

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Big Bang

I woke up screaming. Agatha was bent over me, shaking me by the shoulders. She looked petrified. Tess was leaning against the door, chewing on her nails anxiously. Oliver was behind her, trying to peer into the room.

"What is it, Farley? You were screaming." Agatha's voice was high pitched. She knew it wasn't an ordinary nightmare.

I dragged in a deep gasp and fought to breathe. I needed air in my lungs. My throat was dry and stinging—proof that I'd been screaming.

"It was him. It was him," I rushed out. "They're... they're coming."

Beatty's booming voice approached from down the hallway, cursing as he came. Tess and Oliver moved aside to allow him access through the narrow doorway. He charged into the room with Brynn and Otis following right behind. I tried to get to my feet but Agatha pushed me back down.

"What's going on?" Beatty blazed, his eyes flitting around the room. "Well?"

"Lord, be quiet, man!" Agatha hissed. "We're trying to find that out. What happened, Farley? Who's coming?"

"They were there in my dreams. They said—"

"Who said?"

"Tobin was there when I fell asleep. They were waiting—Tobin, my father, and some other man, Jacob. I thought they would never be able to get back in!"

"They weren't supposed to be able to. Aldan said once he'd closed the door..." Agatha trailed off and frowned. "Unless he was keeping it closed. Maybe now that he's dead..."

I screwed my eyes shut. Great. That meant they could get back in whenever they wanted now.

"We'll figure out a way to fix this, I promise you. But right now we need to know what they said," Agatha said.

I nodded. "He's mad that we have Oliver. He said they know where we are and they'll be here in half an hour. He said if we hand him over, then they'll kill us quickly." The story came out in one go and I was thankful. My nerves were unraveling. None of it would make any sense if I tried explaining again. There was a moment's silence while everyone took in the information.

"And if we don't?" Agatha asked in a sharp tone.

I didn't respond. They all knew what that silence meant. Everyone turned to look at Oliver. "I hope no one's thinking about handing me over," he said, daring anyone to try it.

Beatty was the first to agree. "There's no question of that. We'll fight. It's just a matter of how to go about it."

"We'll barricade ourselves in!" Oliver cried, as though it were the obvious option.

"That's suicide, boy!"

Otis and Brynn agreed in murmurs. They soon began arguing with Cliff, who had emerged out of the darkness, shouting their opinions over one another as they disagreed about the best plan of action. Agatha screamed over the top of them, bringing them all to a halt.

"We've already wasted five minutes. Let's assume they're almost here. Brynn? Did you get your stock this afternoon?"

He broke into a broad grin. "That I did, Aggie."

"Good. Beatty, you take the store corridor. I'll take the left-hand side of the hangar. Brynn, you take the right-hand side. Lay charges along the hallway to the hatch, okay?"

Beatty and Brynn stormed out of the room without having to be told twice. Everyone else looked to Agatha.

"What's the plan?" I asked. Surely they weren't going to do what I thought they were going to do.

"We're gonna wait until they're inside and then blow them to pieces," Agatha announced, getting to her feet.

"And where are we going to be when the place goes up?" Tess asked in a small whisper.

"As far away as possible." Suddenly Agatha was shouting. "Come on! Move! Everyone grab some water, first aid supplies, warm clothes, and then get out of the hangar. MOVE!"

Infected by her urgency, everyone fled the room. I jumped up from the bed, pulling on jeans and an oversized sweater in under thirty seconds, while Tess and Oliver ran off to do the same. I picked up my rucksack and raced out of my room, barreling straight into Beatty. He had a black case in either hand. From the relieved expression on his face, they were obviously filled with explosives. "Careful, Highness," he whispered, and then jogged off in the other direction, ducking in between pillars of boxes as he went.

Water was easy to find. I grabbed two of the gallon containers from the stack in the hangar and stuffed them into the rucksack. There was no room for anything else, and the bag was heavy. I slung it onto my back and did my best to locate the first aid supplies Agatha had demanded, but I couldn't seem to find any.

"Farley!" Across the madness of the hangar, Cliff stood by the exit, accompanied by Tess and Oliver. He waved me over, and I ran to them as quickly as I could without knocking over Brynn in the process. He was kneeling on the floor, twisting wires around the contacts of a charger. He pushed them down into the small block of grey explosives, which he held gingerly in his hand.

"What are you doing just standing there?" Cliff shouted.

"Agatha said to get first aid supplies..."

"A few Band-Aids aren't going to be any good to us if Tobin and his thugs show up, are they? Go with Tess and Oliver. Get above ground and head to the far side of the ridge. Stay low and watch out for anyone approaching. Go!"

He pushed me back towards the exit. I almost toppled over with the weight of the water on my back but quickly regained my balance. The three of us turned and fled down the hallway alone.

I was breathing hard by the time we reached the ladder. My body complained bitterly as I forced myself up the rungs. It took forever to reach the cold, pocked surface of the hatch. I yanked the lever across and gathered all of my strength to push up against the heavy metal, but then froze. What if the Reavers were already out there, waiting for us? I hesitated.

"Do you need me to push it open?" Oliver called up from below. He sounded far away. I swallowed and heaved upwards; the rusted iron creaked and then moved an inch. I cursed and let go of the top rung so I could push with both hands, at which point it moved back and hit the ground with a clang that vibrated around the inside of the silo. I braced myself, listening for any movement. When I heard nothing, I quickly climbed out of the hole and moved aside so Tess and Oliver could follow. They were right behind me, and in less than a minute they were creeping forward to peer into the night. A heavy layer of cloud blocked out any light that the moon might have provided, leaving us squinting into the pitch black.

"Which way did they tell us to go?" Tess hissed.

I pointed in the direction of the ridge line that concealed the garage.

Oliver groaned. "There's nothing out there."

"They'll never see us if we're beyond that ridge. We only have to wait until they're inside, anyway, and then Brynn will blow the place."

Oliver was still jittery, but when I scooted out into the dark he followed, constantly looking left and right. Cicadas chirruped loudly, blocking out any more delicate sounds. I cursed the stupid insects under my breath. The Reavers could almost be on top of us and we'd never know it with all that noise.

It was cold in the night air of the desert, and I shivered, thankful for my sweater. We reached the base of the dune and scrabbled up in the dark, struggling as every second or third foothold collapsed under our weight, sending the red dirt tumbling out from underneath us so we slipped back down. By the time we reached the top I could hear low whisperings and could just about make out Nyla and Cliff below.

Scout was clinging to Cliff's back as he climbed, peering fearfully up into the dark with scared, round eyes. We helped pull them up as they neared the top, and Cliff sucked his teeth, thinking hard.

Nyla pulled her son down the other side of the high dune, producing keys from somewhere. Their trucks were parked below in front of the shed that housed Agatha and Daniel's cars. She opened the closest black vehicle, stowing the little boy inside.

"Lay down and go to sleep, little man. Momma and Daddy will come soon."

I heard him whimper as she closed the door and locked the truck. Nyla sprang back up the embankment and was at our side within seconds, pulling a gun out of her waistband.

"Damn!" I hissed.

"What is it?" Tess asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. I leaned forward, lying flat so I could look back over the other side of the dune.

"I left my gun."

"You can't go back for it now," Cliff said firmly. I ignored him and sized up the distance between the dune and the silo, attempting to calculate how long it would take to run down and back again. Before I could do anything, Nyla let out a low hiss and elbowed Cliff. She pointed out into the emptiness of the desert, and he strained his eyes.

"They're coming," he said.

"I can't see anything," I whispered.

"That doesn't mean they're not there."

"We have to warn the others," Nyla muttered under her breath.

My stomach turned ice cold. I would have felt a lot safer if Daniel were with us.

"I'll go get them," Cliff whispered.

He was up and over the edge before anyone could object. I watched as he slipped down the other side, kicking up a plume of dust that temporarily clouded our view.

"He's crazy!" Tess moaned. I was too busy staring into the clearing dust and smoke to respond. I barely noticed Oliver creep forward to lie beside me. He fidgeted restlessly.

"So... is Elliot coming?"

"I have no idea. I seriously hope not."

He grunted. We lay there in silence for another moment before Agatha's hushed voice echoed up from below, followed by the scraping sound of people climbing. Three of them, Agatha, Beatty and Otis, appeared and ducked down over the ridge.

"Where's Cliff and Brynn?" Oliver asked, lowering himself back down to the others.

I couldn't see Agatha's face in the darkness but I heard the strange inflection in her voice. "They're going to wait until the last minute. The Immortals won't be so easy to trick if they think there is no one down in there."

"What! They're going to die if they don't get out now!" he cried. He was ready to dive down the embankment and get them himself, but Beatty put his hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry, lad. My brother knows what he's doing. And I've never seen anyone as crafty as that knife thrower. They'll get out."

There wasn't a hint of doubt in his voice. The low hum of an engine was now clearly audible, even to my ears. When I clambered up over Tess' legs to lay flat at the ridge line again, not one but two dark objects were hurtling through the scrub towards us.

"Get down!" Beatty cried as the engine sounds grew louder. He grabbed hold of my ankles, pulling me back until I was almost level with them. We huddled together, waiting with baited breath as the noise grew closer and closer. With a screech of tires on loose gravel, the cars skidded to a halt in front of the silo, killing the engines.

There was no noise.

"What are they doing?" Tess hissed.

Agatha took her hand. "I have no idea. Just stay quiet."

My limbs were twitching, nervous. Come on, come on. Go inside. The only way to slow my breathing was to lean back and close my eyes. Eventually, there was the metallic clunk of car doors opening and closing and the crunch of shoes on the stony ground. Deep voices spoke quickly. Grunting as heavy objects were lifted, and a strange, muffled gurgling noise. Then a voice was heard over the mumbling.

"Wait until we send for you."

"Yes, Sir."

"Is it him? Is it Elliot?" Oliver asked.

"No." I was quite sure. "No, it's not him. I'm going to have a look."

"No, get back!" Beatty growled, but I was already at the ridge and out of his reach.

"There are nine men going into the silo," I whispered down to the others. "They're leaving two outside." That was a lot of men, and they were all armed to the teeth. The thought of Cliff and Brynn waiting down below made my eyes prick painfully. They wouldn't stand a chance.

The two men that remained stood alongside the rear SUV. It took a second to spot the figure in between them—the woman, bound and cowering back against the car. Her head was covered in some sort of sack. On the cold night breeze, her dress fluttered and swayed soundlessly. It looked like she was shivering.

A loud bang ripped through the night air and I jumped, sending a shower of debris rolling down the other side of the embankment. I turned to stone. Had they heard? I held my breath as I listened for the noise of approaching footsteps, but the cicada chorus drowned everything else out.

I counted...ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen... Another loud popping sound rang out, followed by a round of identical sounds. Gunfire.

A hand grabbed me around the ankle. This time Beatty wasn't gentle, yanking me down hard. I was sliding. Before I slipped out of view, I thrust my head up a few inches, determined to get another look at the scene below. The men had their backs to the dune, hovering close to the entrance of the silo. The hooded woman was there, too. She was standing in exactly the same position as before, except this time her covered head was pointed in my direction. Is she looking right at me?

My shirt hiked up as I slid back down, and the ground sunk its sharp teeth into the sensitive skin of my belly, making it sting. I arrived unceremoniously back at Agatha's side.

"What the hell are you doing?" she hissed through clenched teeth. I straightened out my clothes and rolled over, brushing the gravel out of my hands.

"We needed to know how many were down there!"

"Otis could have gone. I'm sure he would have been much more subtle!" She sounded like she wanted to throttle me.

"I'm sorry, okay? They didn't hear me, though. They didn't see me."

As I said the words, the niggling image of the bound woman flashed before my eyes. Surely she couldn't have seen me?

"Well? Come on, then. Tell us what you saw or it was a wasted journey."

"Two men. They have guns. There's a woman down there, too, but she's all tied up. She has a bag over her head."

Confusion washed over Agatha's face. "Was she wearing white?"

"What?"

"Was she wearing white? Did she have a dress on, or a white shirt or something?" Her eyes were round and searching, waiting for me to respond. I swallowed and raised my shoulders, unsure how the information would be of any relevance.

"Well? Was she?"

"Yes! She was wearing a white dress. It looked like cotton. She must be freezing. She has no shoes on, either." How that would be pertinent information I didn't know, but I included it, anyway. "Why? What does it matter?"

Agatha didn't answer. I was about to ask her again when all of a sudden there was more noise, ear splitting and violent. A wall of pressure roared out of the silo and blew up the other side of the ridge, hitting us full force. Suddenly the sky was raining fire, painting the blackness with a burnished, smoky orange glow. They had blown the hangar.

Twisted metal and concrete fell from the sky, popping and pinging metallically with the heat. My ears sang. I was too stunned to do anything more than get down and cover my head. Beatty's hand was on my back and then his body was over mine, blocking me from the bombardment of burning debris.

Another massive explosion rocked the ground underneath us. What if we were above one of the corridors? If we were, then it might well collapse and we were seconds from falling through into the furnace. I waited, but the ground held fast.

The blasts came in waves, and Beatty's body pushed me into the dirt. My internal organs felt like they were being liquefied, either by his weight as I struggled beneath him, or by the jarring power of the detonations.

I was light as a feather when he eventually leaned back, my body floating up, up towards the sky. My face was still pressed in the dirt, however, so I knew that couldn't be the case.

My side-on perspective made the world look strange. The glow of the flames lit up the inky black night to illuminate Tess and Oliver lying a few feet away. Tess was crying, and Oliver cradled her in his arms while he looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. My ears were dulled to everything apart from the sound of my own steady breathing and the crack and hiss of fire. The flames weren't visible from here, but I could sense the heat of them in the atmosphere.

It would have been easy to lie there in a daze forever if I hadn't seen Agatha. The left side of her face was scarlet, and her hair was matted with blood. It caked thickly to the skin on her neck and her shoulder. She stared over the other side of the ridge into the darkness, desperately searching the night. Something was wrong. I had to get to her.

My body wouldn't respond at first. When I did eventually manage to stand, it was a fight to remain upright. My head swam and my stomach pitched, suggesting its contents might be making a sudden guest appearance.

Otis and Beatty were madmen, laughing and clapping each other on the back like excited children. Their eyes shone brightly, reflecting the glow of the fire. Hadn't their brother just been blown to smithereens? Their behavior was bizarre, but there was no time to worry about them. My focus was still on Agatha. The tiny woman gave me a sidelong glance when I arrived at her side, but it was fleeting.

The destruction below was total. The huge metal silo, the only thing to break the skyline for fifty miles, was destroyed. The force of the blast had ripped the roof clean off and blown out the sides, too. Shards of metal littered the ground, smoking, for a hundred yards in every direction. The windshield of the first SUV was shattered, and a six-foot-long piece of twisted steel was impaled through the passenger side.

It took a moment to locate the two men who had been left behind. Their bodies had been flung twenty feet to the right. They lay awkwardly, their arms and legs bent into unnatural angles, clearly dead.

Agatha prowled back and forth along the top of the ridge, slipping every few steps as the ground gave way beneath her feet. She stumbled as she moved towards me, and I grabbed hold of her before she could fall. "Agatha! What is it? What are you looking for?"

She spun and fixed me with eyes filled with tension. "Are you sure that's what you saw? Are you sure there was a woman in white?"

"Yes. Yeah, I'm sure. She was right there." I pointed to the second SUV and scoured the area myself, straining to see if the woman had been picked up and thrown out by the blast, too. There was no sign of her body.

"We have to get out of here," Agatha said.

"What are you afraid of? That woman? She was all tied up!" I cried after her, as she bolted down the dune.

"That was to keep her away from them!" she shouted. "We have to go. Now!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Queen of Hearts

"Get up. We're leaving," Agatha shouted.

Oliver lifted Tess up as if she weighed nothing and set her on her feet in one swift movement. The three of us followed Agatha without question.

"What's going on, Aggie?" Nyla called.

"Farley saw a whyte!" Her voice echoed loudly in the quiet. Suddenly Beatty and Otis' smiles were gone and they were gawping at me. Nyla stopped dead in her tracks, looking scornful.

"That's ridiculous, girl. There are no whytes."

Agatha stepped in before I could declare my confusion. "That was my word. She doesn't know what it means."

Nyla's jaw dropped. "How can you know? You didn't see. It could have been anybody."

"It was a whyte. If you want to wait here to find out either way, then you're more than welcome. But don't you think it makes sense?"

Beatty's face was creased with a fierce determination when he joined the conversation. "Regardless of whether it makes sense, Aggie, they don't have the power to do that anymore. The whytes were destroyed before we were born. Even they knew they were wrong."

Agatha reached the blue Jetta and yanked open the passenger door, gesturing me, Tess and Oliver inside. "Yes, they knew they were wrong, but you also know what these people are like. There's nothing they won't do to win this fight. A whyte or two would definitely tip the scales in their favor. Can you think of any other reason why they would have a woman in a white dress tied up out in the desert?"

Beatty swallowed and shrugged his shoulders. "You may be right, Aggie. But Otis and I have to find Brynn. He'll have made it out and we aren't leaving him here if there is a whyte stalking us."

Nyla had been staring at her feet while the two spoke but now her head snapped up. She fixed her eyes on Beatty. "Don't be a fool! She's right. We're leaving. Brynn's not stupid. He'd tell us to leave right now. We have to get Scout out of here."

Agatha still had her hand on the passenger door when a shrill scream pierced the air. I stepped forward, suddenly willing to believe that there was something out there in the dark, even if I didn't know what it was yet. Tess and Oliver were right behind me; we were in the car by the time the second scream resonated off the dune walls. I swallowed back my panic. Had it come from Brynn or Cliff?

"We'll meet outside the city at the old motel off Route 40, okay?" Agatha instructed the others as she buckled herself into the driver's seat.

"Okay. We're right behind you." Nyla gave Beatty a forceful look. He bowed his head, sighing heavily into his beard, and then nodded.

"Right behind you," he agreed.

Agatha revved the engine and pulled away from the garage. The wreckage of the silo gave one final crack and a tall pillar of flame jetted into the sky overhead before it died back. I watched it fade into a dull glow in the rearview mirror as we sped away.

I pulled the sleeves of my sweater over my hands in an attempt to warm them. Everyone seemed lost inside themselves. We tore through the night in silence for at least ten miles before Oliver spoke.

"Agatha, please...where are we going? Why were you so worried back there? What's this whyte?"

Agatha replied in a level voice. "When I grew up in the First Quarter, the elders would always tell us stories from back in the beginning. The whytes were one of their favorite stories when they wanted us to behave. There were only ever three whytes created. They were difficult to control and gloried in the destruction all living things, regardless of whether it was Immortal, Immundus or human. They were the Reavers' tools but they were dangerous and unpredictable.

"The story of their creation goes back before Aldan. It was Simeon, one of the first Reavers, who made the first whyte, and he did it out of love. He'd taken his rites many years before but refused to destroy the woman who bore his son. She was gentle and sweet, and he loved her. She stayed by his side always, and they raised their child together, but one day she fell sick. They said she burned in a fever so hot the sweat evaporated from her skin before it could bead.

"She died within less than a day. Simeon was distraught and vowed to bring her back, but every last part of her spirit, her life force, was gone. He couldn't pass his energy into her and return her to health. It destroyed him. The story goes that he held her body in his arms and raged, furious that he was so powerless. His love turned bitter in his chest and it is said that, in the height of his fury, his anger and rage burst forth from him, passing into the body of his love.

"Simeon was overjoyed when he felt her stir in his arms, but his joy soon turned to horror. He looked down upon the woman to find her transformed and hideous. Her skin was deathly pale, the irises of her eyes cloudy and unclear, blending with the whites of her eyes. It was her mouth, though...her mouth was the most hideous thing of all.

"The elders used to tell us that just seeing the mouth of a whyte would kill you. The skin is black and full of decay. For an Immundus or a member of the Quarters, a bite from a whyte is a death sentence in itself, but the madness that it infects you with is much, much worse than death. You're tormented by a violent insanity, hurting yourself and anyone else who comes near you until you finally die in excruciating pain.

"The Reavers were more scared by the whytes than anyone, and with good reason. They didn't die, so when they were bitten they just got the insanity and the pain but not the release of death at the end. That's what happened to Simeon. His wife tore at his chest with her teeth and that black filth mixed with his blood and he was lost forever. The elders used to tell us if we didn't behave, then Simeon would come and get us in our sleep.

"They created two more after her, two sisters: Margo and Corinne. This time they used women from the Quarters to see if perhaps they would be easier to control. They dressed them in white and chained them down. That's where the name came from, that and the fact that their eyes went almost totally white.

"It took eight of them to produce the same effects that Simeon had created in his grief. When they eventually succeeded, they were drained of power and the girls were just the same as the one before them: crazed and untameable. They kept all three locked away, fearing them for decades before finally deciding they were unnatural and destroying them. They cut their heads off and burned their bodies."

A heavy, thick quiet fell over the car when Agatha stopped talking, and I sat there mulling over her story. It was highly unbelievable, but then what else was new? Agatha was no fool. If she suspected the woman I saw was one of these whytes, then I was glad we'd left immediately. I definitely didn't want to meet one.

I looked back at Oliver in the rearview and gave him a tight-lipped smile. Tess was asleep beside him with her head resting on his shoulder. She probably hadn't heard a single word Agatha had said, and I was thankful for that. Tess might not handle the thought of another monster trying to kill us very well.

Eventually tires hit asphalt and we had made it to the highway. A look in the side mirror revealed nothing behind us but darkness.

"They're about a mile back," Agatha said in hushed tones.

I drew comfort from the fact that Beatty and Otis weren't far away. I would have felt even safer if Cliff had been with us. Or Daniel. Especially Daniel. A deep pang of sadness welled up inside the hollow of my chest. I had no idea where he was, and I needed him here. Our friends were probably dead, and I needed the strength of his arms around me to deaden that pain.

Grief aside, my exhaustion levels were at an all-time high. It wasn't long before I drifted into uneasy asleep. Oliver was gentle when he shook me awake, but I still leapt forward, gasping for breath.

We were parked outside a single-story motel off the highway. It bore a weather-faded billboard advertising color TV and a heated pool. A pink neon sign lit the side of the building facing the road, blinking 'The Queen of Hearts' at passers by. The driver's seat was empty.

"Where are we?"

"Agatha says this is a place she and Daniel arranged as a meeting point if anything ever went wrong. She's inside getting us a room."

That made sense. The Queen of Hearts was run down and dilapidated, but it was above ground and it wasn't on fire. Great selling points. And if there was any chance Daniel was going to show up, I was going to be here, waiting. Ten minutes later Agatha emerged from around the side of the building and jogged back to the Jetta.

"Come on, we should get inside."

It felt strange having nothing to bring inside but a bag full of water. I didn't bother collecting it. I got out of the car with Oliver and a very groggy Tess. We waited while Agatha drove the car behind the motel out of sight from the road. She came back for us on foot and led the way around the back, down a metal fire escape and around another corner, which led into a courtyard. The yard was lined with garishly bright pink numbered doors. It looked like the Barbie version of a crack motel.

A layer of debris floated on the surface of the heated pool in the center of the courtyard. Two road traffic cones and a football bobbed on top of the water, along with the occasional plastic bag and a thick layer of leaves.

"Homey," Tess muttered under her breath. It was the first thing she had said in a while.

"Yep. Every creature comfort," Agatha agreed. She made her way along the walkway, stopping at the door numbered 7B. "Get comfortable." She threw open the door and we went inside, taking in the décor—two large double beds dressed with worn, pale pink covers, and a small hot pink sofa in the far corner that bore countless cigarette burns on its arms. As promised, a TV sat silently on a peeling veneer coffee table at the other end of the room. The chances that it worked were pretty low. The air was old and musty, but the bathroom was clean, and there was no sign of anyone lurking in the closets.

Agatha waited until we were settled and then left, saying she needed to make some phone calls and speak to the others when they arrived. "Get some rest. The sun will be up soon and we might have to move on." She was right. The sky was brightening behind the thin curtains, and it would soon be morning. "Don't leave the room. Don't open the door to anyone," she said. The last we saw of her was her hand, flecked with blood, as it pulled the door closed.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Whyte

"Farley. Farley!"

The room was dark. My eyes struggled to focus. Tess was kneeling over me on the bed. "What? What is it?"

"It's dark out. We must have slept the whole day."

I looked around the room and saw that Tess was right. The light that had flooded through the curtains was now gone, and night was back in residence at the window again. I looked at my watch. Seven thirty pm. How the hell had we slept for twelve hours?

"Where's Agatha?"

Oliver shifted in the dark, sitting on the sofa at the other end of the room. "No clue," he said. "She could have gone out for some food or something. I'm pretty sure I would have woken up if she'd come back here, though. She might not have been back yet."

"No, she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't leave us for so long. Unless...." I pushed the thought out of my head right away. There was no way she could have been captured. There wasn't a single person left standing back at the silo. No. She had to be out checking on the others.

"I think I should go out and have a quick look around, see if I can work out which room the others are in," Oliver said.

Tess shook her head. "Agatha told us to wait here."

I got out of bed and went to the window, looking out onto the courtyard to check for any signs of life. The only movement was that of the football, still bobbing in the pool. None of the other rooms appeared occupied, or at least none of them were lit up. There was little cloud cover, and the moon shone bright, casting long, twisting shadows across the yard. I sighed, already regretting what I was about to say.

"I'll go." Someone had to, and Tess would feel safer if Oliver were there to protect her. Besides, I would only run around to the front entrance and look for Beatty's car. After a short argument, Oliver conceded, and I slipped out of the door into the brisk night air. It was a lot colder than before. I shivered as I pulled the door closed, wishing I could have stayed back in the bed where it felt relatively safe. We weren't safe, though. I could feel it.

I made it to the end of the walkway and peered around the corner before running up the fire escape. My shoes clanged against the metal, and the sound rang out in the night. I stopped midway, paused, holding my breath, listening for any sounds that meant danger.

Nothing. I continued up the steps, careful to tread light and slow so as not to make any more noise. When I reached the top, I found that the lot to the front of the motel was empty. Not a single sleek black SUV in sight.

Agatha had driven the Jetta around the other side of the building. It made sense that Beatty would have met her and parked there, too. The neon pink sign was still blinking brightly and humming its high-pitched buzz as I crept along the perimeter of the building. The road was quiet, and the street lamps disappeared off into the distance, casting their sodium orange light in either direction for as far as I could see.

On the other side of the building the entrance to the reception was lit up, and another pink neon sign flashed open... open... open... open behind the glass.

This lot was quiet, too. Empty. Beatty's truck was nowhere to be seen, but more importantly, Agatha's Jetta was gone. She wouldn't have gone anywhere without telling me, I reassured myself, but panic began to take hold. I looked around again to see if the car was parked in some shadowy corner that I had overlooked.

It wasn't.

A stiff breeze blew sharply across the parking lot and I braced against it, jogging towards to the reception door. A bell jangled brightly when I pushed it open, startling the old man seated behind the desk. He'd been sleeping with his feet up on the counter, and nearly fell off his chair at the noise.

He was a disgruntled, skinny version of Einstein, balding with a thick mat of wiry grey hair on either side of his head. It grew down into even thicker sideburns, the look completed by his bushy steel-colored moustache. Quick, dark, irritated eyes studied me as I approached the counter.

"Hi. We're in 7B—"

"No you're not." He scowled, squinting.

"What?"

"The woman in 7B made it clear that she ain't here, and neither are any of her friends. Therefore, you certainly can't be in 7B. Because no one is in 7B."

I shook my head, confused. He wasn't making any sense. I tried again. "I'm staying here... in one of the rooms...and my friend's disappeared. I was wondering if you might have seen her leave?"

"There's no one in any of the rooms." He looked deeply pleased with himself when he told me that.

My mouth opened and closed before I managed to get a hold on myself. "Sir. I was wondering if you might have seen a woman about this tall," I said stiffly, raising my hand up to shoulder level. "She has long brown hair and brown eyes... and she might be covered in blood."

The man behind the counter, Merv, according to his name tag, screwed up his face. I got the feeling he enjoyed being difficult.

"I seen no one like that."

This was pointless. "Thanks for your help, Merv." I spun on my heel, making towards the door, only to pause when he gave a low whistle.

"I definitely ain't seen no woman like that burnin' off in no blue car about four hours ago, bein' followed by a big black 'un, that's for sure."

"Four hours ago! What kind of car was it, the black one?" I cried, rushing back to the counter. He looked up at me blankly. I was seconds from reaching across the desk and shaking him.

"Some kinda truck," he answered after a long pause. He looked down at some papers that he had been resting his heels on and began flattening the creases out with his lined old hands. Apparently our conversation was over.

"Was it a truck, Merv? Or was it a big SUV?"

"I don't know what no SUV looks like. It were a truck. A reg'lar truck with a tub on the back. A truck." He looked suspicious, like I was trying to trick him, but I was already backing away towards the door. The bell rang again as I ran out into the parking lot where it had started to drizzle, and I made my way back along the building.

Agatha had left four hours ago being chased by Beatty's truck? That didn't make sense. Beatty must have been following her. But why did they leave? My brain was working overtime as I hurried back to the room. I took no care to move quietly as I thundered down the metal steps. Turning the corner back into the courtyard, I was looking down when I moved along the walkway, which was why I didn't notice her at first. By the time I sensed something, it was too late. There she was, standing outside the open door to our room, blood dripping down her chin.

Mom.

My heart contracted in my chest. My legs buckled. I reached out and managed to steady myself on the wall.

My mom.

Her dress blew in the cold wind and clung, damp, to her body. It had once been white, but as she stood there, now, it was stained with dirt and grease and marked by the unmistakable crimson of blood. Her eyes were looking straight at me, but they weren't her eyes. They were strange, empty eyes—white, unseeing, yet sharp. And her mouth...

They'd told me she was dead. I looked at the woman in front of me and remembered the story Agatha had told only hours before. Of course she was dead. But what was she now? What had they done to her? Tears blinded me, and I knew. A sudden anger rose inside me. Where was the damn Quorum through all this? How had they let this happen? What the Reavers had done to my mom was definitely a breach in the balance of right and wrong.

I swallowed and stepped back, but the whyte was already moving towards me, watching as I backed away. I stumbled back, my foot hitting soft ground, and I realized I had left the walkway. I was on the grass beside the pool. There was no escape that way, but the whyte, the woman that had once been my mother, scurried forwards, blocking my way towards the fire escape.

My mind wouldn't work. Had Agatha known the whyte was my mom? Had she known she would come here? I couldn't think about any of that now. The rain was coming down harder. I brushed the wet hair out of my face so I could see properly.

Searching for a way out was too dangerous. I took my eyes off the whyte for one second and she lunged forward, gaining ground. She seemed to hang back, watching to see what I would do.

Her hands hung limply by her sides, covered in blood. It was dried, though, unlike the blood that dripped fresh from her mouth. Was it Tess' blood, or Oliver's? Were they dead?

My back hit solid wall. The whyte moved closer. I thought back to the gun Agatha had given me, probably blown to pieces now. My own mother was going to kill me and I had no way to protect myself. What kind of sense did that make?

Then I remembered; it dawned on me in an instant. I did have a weapon. I felt down and found the sheath clipped to my waistband, the cool grip of the knife still resting in the leather. I had pulled on the jeans I'd worn for my last class with Cliff!

My mother didn't show any sign that the blade intimidated her as I held it out the way Cliff had demonstrated over and over again. I pushed forward a few feet to give myself some room to maneuver. It put me closer to the whyte, but I couldn't be cornered. I wouldn't stand a chance.

Then it started. The whyte lunged forward again, but this time I was expecting it. I staggered out of the way and took a few running steps before the whyte was almost on top of me. I turned back to face her.

My mother paused, glowering as I held the knife out and jabbed threateningly at the air. The whyte seemed suddenly disinterested in playing. My stomach knotted at the look on her face. She pulled back her blackened lips and snarled, leaning forward to bare her shattered teeth. My hand was shaking. The blade quivered in the moonlight.

The whyte lunged again, this time quicker than before, and I barely had time to react. I slashed out blindly, hoping to scare her into retreat. Instead, the steel made contact with her arm and drew a deep cut across her flesh. The whyte snapped her teeth, furious, and let out a low guttural growl before continuing forwards. A crude stream of blood oozed down her arm, more black than red in the moonlight. I shied away, still clutching the knife.

The whyte came at me again. When I staggered back, my foot snagged. The next thing I knew, I was falling. I landed with a winded thud on my back right beside the pool. My strangled cry was cut off as the whyte leapt on top of me, bearing her weight down in an attempt to tear at me with her teeth.

I pushed her back, but the creature was so strong. She snapped at my neck and shoulders, pausing for a second to reposition herself. I saw my opportunity and struck out with the blade. Its edge caught her across the neck, grazing the skin, and the whyte roared like a wounded animal.

I have to get out of here. I have to get her off.

There was only one thing I could do. I lashed out with the knife again, aiming for the same spot. When my mother dodged my attack, I pushed my hips up, unseating her. The whyte toppled sideways and rolled straight into the pool, but her legs were still tangled in mine. I scrabbled to catch hold of the side of the pool but the tiles were wet and slippery. It was no use. I was being pulled in, too.

The water was freezing and filthy. It stabbed at my ribcage as I struggled to get back to the surface, but the whyte grabbed hold of my foot. She was trying to drag me to the bottom. I couldn't go down, though; I had to go up. My lungs were on fire. I needed to take a breath. I had to.

I leaned down towards my foot and slashed, frenzied, with the blade. The move paid off and the edge of the knife stuttered across flesh. Suddenly my foot was free. I didn't pause to find out whether the whyte was coming after me. My lungs needled when I broke the surface, dragging in a painful breath and choking up skanky pool water. I heaved myself out of the water and lay gasping on the ground as the rain pummeled me, washing me clean. I had to get up.

My body was a lead weight as I tried to get to my feet, but somehow I managed it. I coughed and choked as I scanned the water, looking for the whyte. I'd seen way too many horror movies to think it was all over.

The heavy raindrops bounced off the layer of floating leaves, distorting and rippling the surface. I couldn't see her but she was still in there, I was sure of it. I stepped away from the edge, determined not to be pulled back in, and waited. Surely she'd have to come up eventually? Not if she doesn't need to breathe, I thought.

Something white moved beneath the surface. This was it. I stepped back and held my breath, waiting for the whyte to leap from the water. Seconds passed by but nothing happened. I took a timid step closer, trying to get a better look, and then jumped out of my skin as a white plastic bag bobbed up and broke the surface.

Then I heard her. I turned slowly and there was the whyte, right beside me, her face inches from mine. The side of her dress was slashed open and the material was seeped in dark red. Stale blood ran in a sluggish brown river down her leg.

The whyte fixed those dead eyes on me and paused for a moment as if she recognized me. She doesn't, though, I thought. She's not my mother anymore.

The whyte snarled and launched herself, diving in for the kill. I clenched my eyes shut, awaiting the feel of teeth and nails on my skin. Instead, a huge wave of pressure nearly knocked me from my feet. I opened my eyes. The whyte was moving, flying sideways through the air like a rag doll. She hit the water with a loud splash and sank down into the darkness. A moment later she bobbed to the surface, face down in the pool.

I stared numbly at the body, waiting for her to move again. She didn't. A massive, gory hole was blown into her side. I turned to look behind me, astonished, and found Merv standing on the walkway. He had a shotgun propped against his shoulder. He lowered the gun and scowled.

"I swear, I get more trouble from the folks who aren't staying here than the ones that are."

I let out a stunned laugh and sank to my knees, unable to hold myself up any longer. "Of course, Merv," I replied shakily. "By the way...there's no way your pool is heated."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Homecoming

"Agatha? Aggie, I can't hear you..." I looked down at my cell phone, cursing when I saw the reception was dropping out.

"Agatha?"

"They ambushed us. We... explosion... they killed... had to leave...whyte..."

"Agatha, I can't hear you!"

"... have to get to safety... Farley.... others are gone... dead..."

I reeled. The silo had been attacked? Someone was dead? The line crackled one last time before it disconnected entirely, and I threw the phone down onto the empty seat beside me.

That word 'whyte' echoed around the car. I'd tried to convince myself that I must have been wrong, but Agatha had just said the word herself. A cold, stony feeling settled on my stomach. I was headed for the Reavers' fastness, the tower. It was time. This had to end. Tonight.

The closest entrances were in Chinatown. The streets were busy, and I felt numb as I dodged through the traffic. I couldn't clear my mind. I tried to piece together what had happened to the others in the last twenty-four hours.

Is she okay? Is she safe?

I merged off the main strip and headed towards one of the lower entrances near the shopping district. It was a bold move, entering one of the closest access points to the Tower, but it could pay off. I would have further to go if I went in via an entrance closer to the city's industrial areas, and it would be much harder to disguise my approach.

This way, all I needed to do was move quickly and not give anyone a chance to run ahead. If I succeeded, I'd be able to sneak up on them before they could prepare. Of course, it was much more dangerous, more heavily guarded.

Chinatown was fast approaching. There were at least two entrances in the area, both of which would be packed with people. They wouldn't appreciate me charging through their buildings. I would just have to create a distraction.

I sped up through a traffic light and ran the red, swerving the car through a hard left into the narrowing streets of the Chinese district. A left and then a left again, and the streets began to narrow until I was forced to lose some speed. The gutters were strewn with ticker tape from some street party. Small red clouds fluttered up in the wake of the car's tires as I skidded through a right-hand turn and sped up along the stretch of road ahead.

I screeched to a halt behind a delivery truck. The driver was lifting heavy boxes of exotic-looking fruit off the sidewalk and carrying them into a Chinese deli. I paused for a moment, running through the plan in my mind. It was hugely flawed and could go very wrong at any moment, but I had no other option. I took the key out of the ignition and got out of the car, heading to the trunk where I pulled out a gas canister. I got back into the Charger and popped the cap, and then sloshed the pungent liquid across the back seat and into the foot wells.

Once the canister was empty I wound down the window and got out of the car. I waited for the delivery driver to carry another armful of groceries into the building beside me and then produced the matchbook from the breast pocket of my shirt.

The match flared brightly when I struck it to the pad, and the flame wavered a little before strengthening. I gave one last mournful look at my Charger before I flicked the match through the open window. I heard the whoompf of the fire catching on the gasoline, but my back was already turned. I didn't want to watch, and besides, I had no time.

The small explosion startled the people eating their late lunch in the restaurants along the street. They streamed to the windows and out onto the street to watch as the battered car, riddled with bullet holes, burst into flames.

Chen's Golden Palace was one of the busiest restaurants in Chinatown. Its patrons and staff were amongst the growing throng of people gawping at my Charger. They didn't notice my dark shadow as I slipped by.

I ran along the length of the empty restaurant, past tables still laden with steaming bowls of food, and pushed through the double doors into the back kitchen. A young Asian guy in stained chef whites looked up from the woks he watched over as I burst through the second set of double doors. He lowered his eyes back to the cook top, uninterested in me as I barrelled through the kitchen and disappeared through the exit.

The large storeroom was filled from ceiling to floor with hundreds of tins and sacks of flour and rice, all stacked neatly on shelves. There was nothing here the last time I came through this entrance. I cursed when I saw the metal shelves bolted down to the concrete over the grid I needed.

I looked around but found nothing I could use to unbolt the screws, so instead I planted my foot back against the wall and pushed hard against the metal shelving. They were top-heavy under the weight stacked on them, and it took very little effort to push them over. Tins crashed loudly to the floor and sacks split open, spewing their contents onto the concrete as the three-tiered frame toppled back, smashing into the shelves behind it.

The rear legs of the shelf were bent and the bolts remained intact, but the front two had pulled out of the concrete. There was just enough room to reach under and tug at the grid. I inserted my fingers between the gaps and pulled up, sliding the heavy iron cover to one side, then I shimmied under and pulled it back over.

This entrance used to be popular, but the air smelled stale as I ran through the dark. The tunnel was only a hundred feet long, and I slowed when I judged that I was approaching the door. I'd judged it well; a few tentative paces later I reached out and felt cold steel beneath my fingertips.

"Home Sweet Home," I muttered under my breath.

I found the heavy wheel in the center of the door. Pulling out the handle, I carefully turned it until I heard a small metallic grinding inside, then spun it back the other way. It was like opening the door to a safe. If I got the combination wrong, the consequences wouldn't be pretty. As I spun the wheel a final time, I prayed they hadn't bothered to change the locks on me. It clicked. The door swung back an inch in my hand, casting a shard of light into the dark tunnel.

I pushed it back quickly—there were voices approaching on the other side of the door.

"They're bringing them here now, sir. What would you like us to do with them?"

There was a long pause before the second person spoke. His voice was arrogant and sharp. Instantly familiar.

"You know what to do with the boy. The girl, the one you say was bitten by the whyte? Don't bring her anywhere near Tobin. He'll skin you alive." Their footsteps came to an abrupt halt on the other side of the door. "The other girl.... I think he would actually like to meet her. He seems to have some sort of morbid curiosity. Make sure she's mentally competent when you bring her to him. He doesn't like playing with his toys when they can't put up a fight."

There was a small grunt and the sound of feet shuffling off into the distance, but I remained still, aware that one person remained. I stole myself and leaned forward, daring to pull the door back just a few millimeters so I could squint into the corridor.

Jacob stood alone, staring into space as the Immundus disappeared off down the hall. When I had first met Jacob, his effeminate features and lankiness had given the impression he would be gentler and softer than the Reavers before him, but in truth he was far, far worse.

The bastard had forced me into that box, and he'd laughed as his lackeys had picked it up and thrown it into the ocean. My blood began to boil in my veins. It was easy to bully a child, but I wasn't so small anymore.

I'll deal with you later, Pretty Boy.

But for now I mulled over the conversation I'd just overheard and held my position in the dark. Someone had been bitten? Was it Tess or was it... no, I couldn't even think it.

They have her, boy. Save her... You have to save her. Save her.... Find her.... The whispers rose up in frantic chorus, drowning one another out. I pushed them back down, desperate for some room to think.

When I regained my focus, Jacob was gone. I edged out of the doorway in time to see the tall man disappear around the corner to the right. I ran in the other direction.

The design of the place had always troubled me. There was nowhere to hide. The passageway surrounding the Tower was a huge, sweeping circle that broke off into four pathways. They lie to the north, south, east and west, leading to the Four Quarters. In the center was the Tower, unlike other towers in that, instead of spiraling upwards, it wound down into the bowels of the earth. Its entrance was on the other side, across from the passageway to the North.

The hallway was an optical illusion; no matter how far I ran, it always looked as though I were just about to turn the corner up ahead, yet the curve in the wall remained constant.

The lights mounted on the sandstone walls zipped past my head with increasing speed as I ran faster. I couldn't tell how much ground I'd covered or exactly how long I'd been running, but I knew I couldn't be far. Up ahead, the northern passageway suddenly came into view. To the left, a gap in the wall appeared, the path to the First Quarter, and on the right hand the smaller, narrower opening, which led down to the Great Room below. That was where I would find Elliot. When I reached the entrance to the right, I paused for a second to get my footing. The way was narrow and treacherously steep. If I stumbled and fell, it would be a long time before I hit the bottom.

"Hello, Daniel."

The voice startled me. A surge of energy burst from me before I had time to think, before I could see who I was attacking. It didn't matter, though. I had no friends down here.

The burst of light hit Tobin full force. He was launched back in the flash of an eye, flying through the air before landing with a bone-crunching thud on the sandstone. My heart pounded around my body like a freight train. Were there more? I waited for the rush of footfall, but empty corridor faced me on the left and on the right.

"That...is no way to treat your host." Tobin picked himself up off the floor and straightened his suit jacket.

"Where are my friends?" I hissed. The whisperers urged me to attack again.

Tobin paused from swiping the dust off his suit pants and fixed me with narrow, impossibly dark eyes. He was still as arrogant as ever.

"Well, now...I can't seem to think who you could possibly mean." He stepped towards the mouth of the entranceway, and I raised my hand, ready to defend myself.

"Oh, there's plenty of time for that. First, I think you and I ought to have a little conversation."

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Well, you can be stoic and look surly whilst I speak, then. It'll be rather one sided, I suppose, but your responses are of little import either way. So...." He stepped closer, and I held my ground, never taking my eyes off the man. "Perhaps we do have some guests with us at the moment. We've thankfully had one of our own returned to us. We're kindly offering our hospitality to those he traveled with. I hear that they will be joining my family in the Great Room shortly. We would be delighted to have your company, too."

Tobin stepped into the bright corridor and ran his hand through his dark hair. I was shocked to see the flecks of grey at his temples. I laughed scathingly. "You're getting old, Tobin. Seems the years haven't been so kind to you."

Tobin shrugged, wiping some imaginary dust from his hands. "A minor annoyance. Some things just cost more to achieve than others. It's nice that you're concerned about my wellbeing, though, Daniel. Thank you."

"Not concerned, just observing you're not as strong as you used to be."

"Oh, that's not true. I just temporarily exhausted a portion of my reserves on a pet project of mine." Tobin's eyes glinted as he paced along the wall, enjoying his own rhetoric. "I heard you may have actually had occasion to meet her recently?"

Realization flooded through my mind, and I glared at Tobin with disgust. "So you made the whyte. You killed Farley's mother."

"And you thought Elliott did it, I suppose? Unfortunately my son is incapable of cleaning up his own messes. Yes, I killed her. It was fun, too. Rather poetic, don't you think? That it was the girl's mother?"

The energy inside me twisted and stormed. The man continued to smile at me, though he stopped his pacing to ponder me for a moment. "I'm curious, Daniel. What did you envision happening here?"

"Well, I guess I hadn't really thought that far ahead," I snapped. Tobin's presumption irked me. This wasn't over yet.

"Okay. I can see you're in a bad mood so I'll make this quick. I'm giving you the option." He smiled, anticipating my reaction. "It seems I've been in a very giving mood of late. You have to die. But Farley...I'm leaving her fate in your hands. What I'm proposing is this: you can turn yourself over to me now with no more bravado or showmanship, and I will allow her to live. She can be, say, Elliot's servant girl or something. She was his problem in the first place. I suppose she could remain so.

"Alternatively, if you decide that you wish to continue down this path, then you will die, I assure you of that much. But before you do, I will allow you the pleasure of watching me turn Farley into one of my little pet projects first."

I leapt forward before Tobin could finish his sentence. "You will not harm her."

"I'm afraid it may already be a little too late for that, boy. My people can get carried away sometimes. You know how it is. I'm told she doesn't have any broken bones, so that's a small blessing."

My vision swam. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just tear your head off right now. You're here all alone."

Tobin wagged an index finger, propping himself against the wall. "You raise a good point. At this stage in the proceedings, I'm counting on the truth behind a hideous rumor. I've been told that you love this girl. It can't be true, can it?"

I clenched my jaw and a disbelieving smile twisted Tobin's face. "Well, who would have thought it? In that case, I have every confidence that I am quite safe. If you harm me or the guards hear any disturbance in the halls, then they'll kill your little love interest quicker than you can blink." He caught the pained expression that flashed over my face and nodded with satisfaction. "You know, it's ironic. I didn't think this girl would mean so much to you. You were always such a smart boy. Who knew you would let yourself fall in love and become as weak as any of the rest of them." He gestured to the city overhead. "It's a shame, really. You could've been so much more. We learned a long time ago that emotions like that particular one only serve to make you soft. Careless and easily overcome."

I remained silent. There was nothing I could do. If I tried to kill him, then Farley died. She wasn't supposed to be here. This was exactly what I knew would happen if she were involved. I cursed myself for not making sure she was far, far away when all this came to pass. I didn't trust Tobin as far as I could throw him. They would kill her as soon as I was disposed of and no mistake. She was an affront in their eyes. Tobin wouldn't tolerate her existence anywhere on the face of the planet, let alone here in their fastness.

"I want to see her."

"As a guarantee to an agreement?"

I nodded.

"Excellent. In that case, you may see the girl. She'll probably be with the others in the Great Room by now. Let us go and see." Tobin indicated toward the staircase and I reluctantly descended, the man following close behind. At the first landing, I left the stairs and entered the high vaulted anteroom to be greeted by eight heavily armed Immundus. Their guns were aimed and ready when we emerged from the stairwell.

"The boy has shown sense. He's handing himself over," Tobin told the men. The news didn't affect their hard looks or the determination with which they pointed their guns at my head, however. I allowed myself a hard smile of my own.

I could kill you all in an instant and your fat fingers wouldn't have a chance to pull the triggers.

The Great Room was so called because of its size and grandeur. Even its huge mahogany doors were majestic and imposing. They were inlaid with lapis lazuli, and the rich wood bore a host of beautifully carved animals: a lion bringing down a springbok; a tiger crouching in wait, its eyes piercing through the polished wood; snakes; a ram; a hundred different kinds of tiny birds scattered to the sky depicted overhead. They were a masterpiece in themselves. Very few people got to walk through those doors. Even fewer walked out. As the two nearest Immundus turned the weighty iron handles, my heart began to quicken.

The round room was cavernous and cold despite being filled with close to eighty bodies. On the dais at the head of the room were the three seats of judgment, the lesser two of which were occupied by Elliot and Jacob, who observed me with smug superiority. The largest, most impressive chair sat in the middle, empty, awaiting Tobin as he strolled in casually behind me.

The sea of people turned in unison as we entered. All eyes were suddenly on me, eyes filled with distaste or confusion, some with curiosity and intrigue, yet it was the eyes filled with fear I noticed the most.

There were men, women, and children from the quarters mingled in amongst the stern-looking Immundus, and it was clear they didn't want to be there. They talked in hurried, hushed tones and averted their eyes from mine as I swept the room, looking for Farley and the others.

Oliver stood stiffly at the base of the platform beneath Elliot's feet with an Immundus guard on either side of him. He looked alarmed and washed out, so pale that the stark purple and blue of the swollen bruise below his left eye stood out like fresh ink. His bottom lip was badly split, and a small line of blood had trickled down his chin and dried there. I noted with unease that they had already forced him into an expensive-looking suit, and the fine cut and color of the material was almost identical to the one that Elliot wore.

The crowd parted as we neared, giving us a wide path to the judgment seats. As soon as we arrived at the base of the platform, Tobin stepped up and turned to face the room, taking his seat with an air of regal pomp. He looked down on me and gave a false smile.

"Where is she?" I hissed.

The room erupted in a low rumble of chatter. I ignored them and focused on Tobin, who stared down on me with disapproval. Eventually, he broke his gaze to nod at a guard standing to the side of the room. The Immundus walked back towards the door, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the chamber. The giant wooden doors were pulled back once more and he disappeared from sight, leaving the people present in the room waiting in uncomfortable silence. I examined each man upon the platform critically, imagining all of the ways I'd like to kill them.

"A penny for your thoughts," Tobin commented.

"You don't want to know."

"Oh, please...enlighten us." My eyes flashed, and Tobin's sneering smile faded a little. "On second thoughts, don't bother. Instead, let me take this opportunity to offer my condolences. I hear Aldan is dead."

"Yes. The first of your kind to die, I believe. Unfortunate. Just proves you're not as invincible as you think."

"Oh, come, now. I heard Aldan gave his own life. More of a suicide than anything else. I doubt he could have died at someone else's hand. Just as I doubt that any of us could die at yours."

"Aldan thought differently. He thought I could kill you, and I think I can, too," I hissed.

Elliot rolled his eyes. "You can't seriously think we're concerned about the ramblings of a crazy old man."

Tobin agreed. "Yes, Aldan was never a concern of ours. You, on the other hand..." He stopped short as the doors swung open again and two guards entered, carrying with them the limp figure of a girl.

Her head lolled lifelessly and her feet dragged behind her as she was hauled through the Great Room. Her clothes were filthy and damp. Her hair hung down over her face so that it was almost impossible to see her face, but I knew immediately. It was Farley.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Unity, Deadly Unity

Tess screaming.

Oliver shaking.

My mother, face down, dead, in the water.

Fumbling hands—mine—bleached white against a steering wheel.

Lights, so many lights.

Streetlights tracing by in a blur.

A cell phone, lit against a dark interior.

Red and blue in the rearview.

Red and blue.

Red and blue...

but not for us.

My mother, face down, dead, in the water

A hospital approaching.

Oliver: Get her out of the car!

A black SUV.

Two

My mother, face down, dead, in the water.

Hands, rough hands,

pulling and pulling.

Concrete.

Dirt.

Silence.

My mother...face down...

My head was ringing. There was an actual sound, too high pitched to be associated with real pain, which cut through my consciousness. Adrift, it seemed as though my thoughts would never consolidate into cohesive memories. Perhaps it was just my body taking its time to ease me back into the world. But a distant version of me, one who was privy to the events of the last four hours, was observing my struggle with some interest. That distant version of me warned not to prod too much at the fragments that came flashing back, or I might be in real danger of piecing it all back together. The distant me didn't think I would like that.

The cycle started over with the look of horror on Tess' face. Why did she look so scared? Something... something had happened. Tess was... bitten. Tess was bitten.

I coughed, sending a shooting spasm of pain through my whole body. Before I could respond to the all-consuming depths of the pain, hands were on me, lifting me from the floor.

It was a sensation so familiar, so safe, that part of me crumpled in on itself instantly, and I abandoned all attempts to piece myself back together. I was in his arms, after all, and there couldn't be a safer place in the world to fall apart. For the second time in my life, I buried my face into Daniel's chest and cried.

"Shhh. It's okay. It's okay," he whispered into my hair. I could feel the pressure of his lips on my head, on the skin of my temple. I clung to him, refusing to let go. There was nothing in the realms of my imagination that could ever make me let him go.

Except...

"Touching. Very touching, indeed. I suppose I should take more of an interest in the boys my daughter fraternizes with in future."

...that.

The sound of Elliot's voice was enough to turn my stomach to ice. I shrank away from it, looking up and seeing Daniel first. There was a cut above his eyebrow and dried blood streaked his face. In the low light his hair was darker than any conceivable black, made even darker by the ashen, sick coloring of his skin. A deep furrow creased his brow. He was an echo of the tortured Daniel that had fallen to his knees on the steps of the British Museum, but now he wasn't staring after his brother. He was staring at me.

"Daniel..."

He recoiled at the sound of his name. His hands tightened around me, as though I'd slapped him. "Don't—"

"That's right, Farley. Don't," Elliot called, "Don't put your faith in this boy."

Daniel jolted, and I finally turned to face my father. I found him seated on a high platform in front of me, beside Tobin and Jacob, just as he had been in my dream. There was a look of mild amusement in his eyes. He smiled a thin smile and crossed his legs.

"Go on. Ask me why," he said. "Ask me why you shouldn't put your faith in him."

I could feel Daniel's heart beating against me, could feel his hands holding me to him tight. "I'm not asking you anything," I hissed.

"Stubborn little thing, aren't you?" His cane lay across his lap. He picked it up and gestured to Daniel with a murderous glint in his eye. "I wanted to gloat over how he has betrayed you. News like that deserves taking some time over. You shouldn't just come out with it. Delivery is so important in these situations, don't you think?"

I narrowed my eyes at Elliot. "I think you're crazy. And evil. And probably insane."

Daniel's grip around me tightened. I turned back to look up at him. He was still staring down at me, as though he hadn't heard a word Elliot said. But he had.

"He's right. I did betray you." His voice was full of hurt, full of grief.

"What do you mean?" He couldn't have. He would never hurt me.

Daniel swallowed. "I—"

"He made a deal, daughter. He's been making deals with the Quorum all along."

The expression on Daniel's face confirmed it was true. He set me down on the ground. The room was spinning like a merry-go-round and I couldn't seem to get off. "I had to," he whispered.

"Had to. Wanted to. Such a fine line," called Elliot. "See, Daniel here could have told the Quorum to go to hell. He could have taken you and simply disappeared. You two could have been happy. We wouldn't have pursued you if we truly believed that you would do us no harm."

Daniel shook his head. "He's twisting everything, Farley. If I thought for a second that was true, then I would have taken that option. I would have done everything I could to keep the Quorum away from you." His words were firm but he looked defeated, as though trying to convince me of his best intentions was an impossible task.

"I believe you," I said.

Daniel flinched. "I don't deserve the trust you have in me."

"Finally! The truth!" Elliot shouted. He stood up and sauntered down the steps from the platform until he was less than a few feet away. "Instead of running away, tell my daughter what you vowed, dear Daniel. See how trusting she is of you then."

Confusion welled up inside me, but I calmed my nerves and focused on Daniel. He looked lost. Whatever it was couldn't be that bad. I tried to tell him that with my eyes, but he wouldn't look at me.

"I vowed to let the Quorum take you. That they could have you when the time came."

The room fell silent. The crowd of men, women and children that surrounded us held their collective breath. I began to feel as though my stomach were filled with battery acid.

"And they wanted to kill her, didn't they?" Elliott continued. "They wanted to sacrifice her to Aldan and get rid of her once and for all."

I shot Daniel a confused look. "They... they wanted to kill me? Is that true?"

"It's not that simple." He was staring at his feet. His chest rose and fell quickly. "I made them promise to look for another way to—,"

"Semantics!" Elliot cried. He made his way closer and stood before me. He tilted my chin towards him with the top of his cane, the same way he had done the first time we'd met in my dreams. "The fine print of such a deal is exactly that: fine print, often ignored or agreed upon to placate the other party. Daniel knew what he was agreeing to when he told Nevoi she could have you. Tell me, what kind of person would do such a thing?"

He was too close to ignore now, and Elliot's cold eyes bored into me, pressing me into the floor. I bit back the urge to call him something really terrible and stepped away.

"If he says there was no other way, then I believe him."

"Oh? You really are under the impression that Daniel does everything out of your best interests? What about letting me inside your head? That was completely avoidable. Don't think for a second he didn't sanction that little escapade."

"That...that was different," I stammered.

"How so? I could have killed you if I had wanted to. He knew that, and yet he still risked your life in order to accomplish some half-baked plan. Yes, that's right. We know all about the talisman. What and who it is."

For the first time, I realized what Elliot was trying to do. It was going to take a lot more than that to drive a wedge between us. "Daniel only let you in because he didn't know you could hurt me. He's not like you," I spat. I reached out and found Daniel's hand, threading my fingers through his. It was a moment before he responded, clutching hold of me tight. I gave him a sidelong look to find him staring at me with shining eyes. He looked overwhelmed. "You can stop with the mind games now. There's nothing you can do or say that will make me believe you," I told my father.

"That's a pity," Elliot sneered. "It would have been better to avoid bloodshed before the judgment seats."

"ENOUGH!"

The shout even startled Elliott, and everyone in the room turned to face Tobin. He stood on the dais with a furious look carved into his face, and he was staring at my father. "This farce is at an end. Return to us now!" he cried.

Elliot blanched but did as he was told. His shoulders were stiff as he climbed the steps to the dais. I saw straight through the defiant look on his face as he turned to seat himself in his chair. It was clear he had no other option but to submit to Tobin's will, and that fact made him boil with rage.

"Now that this touching reunion is complete, it is time to hand over the talisman, Daniel. It is time," Tobin said.

Daniel closed his eyes. There's no way you're getting the talisman without a fight, I thought. I knew him. He'd rather die than give them what they wanted. He opened his eyes and gave me a lingering look, filled with determination and steel. I was right. He was going to attack. My skin was already prickling, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. The energy inside him was building, ready to burst forth. The memory of being in Aldan's room—the pressure, the light, struggling to breathe—was still so fresh. I took a deep breath and braced myself.

"What makes you think that you're worthy of the life that Aldan gave me?" Daniel's voice rang out in the chamber, arousing a low hiss from the crowd.

I looked on as he faced the three men, sitting on their judgment seats like crownless, pitiless kings. They looked back down upon him with mild entertainment. Tobin flashed him a crooked smile, and then looked to either side of the platform where guards had taken positions. They stood to attention, awaiting Tobin's orders. He gave Daniel a sly look.

"We are Immortal. We are never-ending. Of course we are worthy. You are trash that was plucked out of the gutter and given something that doesn't belong to you. It's time you died, as you should have done all those years ago."

Daniel listened to their words, expressionless. Only his eyes betrayed the scorn he felt for them. I followed his gaze and met my father's eyes. Elliot twisted in his seat, apparently torn between who he hated the most—me, or the boy daring to challenge him.

My eyes flickered down, to find Oliver standing at the base of the dais just below Elliot's chair. He shot me a mournful, apologetic look before fixing his eyes back on Daniel, watching to see what would happen next.

"Aldan gave me more than my life back," Daniel said. "He gave me discipline and understanding that you would never be able to comprehend."

Tobin sneered. "Well, that's surprising to me, I have to say. From where I'm sitting, it looks like those particular attributes have failed you significantly. Maybe when I pull that little spark of life out of you, I'll be able to see what qualities you were truly made up of. But right now, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it isn't discipline and understanding."

Daniel stepped forwards and the guards sprang into action, running to place themselves between him and the other men. Anxiety tasted hot and bitter on my tongue, but Daniel remained focused.

"He gave me something else, too." His voice rang out high and clear in the vaulted room, undeterred by the men standing in front of him. "He gave me every single soul that he had ever taken. He gave me the hundreds of people that died at his hand since he came into existence. He gave them back their voices and then he gave them to me. They are the talisman... and they want you dead."

Tobin stared at Daniel for a moment in stunned silence, and then all three of the Reavers burst into hysterical laughter.

"Impossible... truly impossible," Jacob gasped between breaths. "It would have driven him mad to allow them all to exist inside him."

Daniel's lips tightened into a hard line. He glared at Jacob. "He was stronger than any of you. He gave them their voices and lived alongside them for over a hundred and fifty years. And now they live inside me."

The truth of his words rocked me. That was what had happened when Aldan passed all of that power to Daniel? It was the people...all the people that he had killed, passing from one into the other?

"You're full of lies, boy. I should find a bigger box and throw you back in the ocean where you belong," Jacob declared.

The words had barely left his lips when a fiercely bright light leapt from Daniel's hands and chest like javelins of white fire. The air was thick with pressure in an instant, and the light snapped and coiled like jagged whips to strike Jacob where he sat. The chair was thrown onto its back with the force of the attack, and Jacob tumbled out of it and rolled onto the floor, convulsing in agony. I was unable to tear my eyes away. I watched as the light kept coming, slamming into his body.

The guards were slow to come forward, but when they were finally spurred into action, they raced towards Daniel from all directions. The two nearest to him reached out and were catapulted through the air to land at the feet of the two upright judgment seats, their bodies broken and unmoving. The other guards halted in their tracks, suddenly uncertain how to proceed.

Tobin growled and kicked the closest smoking corpse away. He got up out of his chair and took a step closer to Daniel. I went to scream out a warning but my voice jammed in my throat. Suddenly I was writhing on the floor in agony myself. The pain was blinding. All I could see was Tobin's hands, which were wreathed in blue and green flames. They looked so cold. I could feel the reach of them inside my mind, though, and they were far from it. I was burning, every inch of me burning.

"Stop now, or I will put an end to your little girlfriend," he yelled.

I bucked on the ground, trying to escape the pain, but it enveloped me, filling every part of my being. Daniel's light went out in an instant, and Jacob's body lay discarded on the floor.

"Let her go," Daniel said.

"Gladly," Tobin replied, breathing heavily. The sharp knives of pain withdrew from my mind. "It seems we have come to an impasse. I know you are unaffected by our powers, but she isn't. If you refuse to cooperate, then I will make sure her death is as horrific as possible, and you will watch every last second of it."

Daniel locked Tobin with a hate-filled gaze. The power crackled at his fingertips, desperate to be unleashed again. From the corner of my eye, I saw Oliver sidling across the base of the platform. He froze when he saw me look over to him and then inched back his suit jacket to reveal a large bowie knife tucked into the waistband of his belt.

It was one of the crude knives that the guards carried. He must have stolen it from one of the dead men when no one was looking. I shook my head at him, willing him not to do anything stupid.

A guard helped Jacob up. He pushed the Immundus away once he had gotten to his feet and staggered forwards, staring accusingly at Daniel.

"Boy..." he seethed, "you should know better. Nothing can kill us. Not you, not your stupid disgruntled spirits, not even her royal highness over there. Now hand yourself over. I'm going to make sure I have my retribution before Tobin strips you bare."

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

A Burning Sword, A Burning Soul

"Hey, you."

The quiet voice behind me made me jump but Daniel didn't notice. He was still locked in argument with Jacob. I spun around and found Kayden standing right behind me, so close I could smell the distinctive chemical bite of the five different colors of paint sprayed across his t-shirt. It was even dried in his pale hair.

"What are you doing here?" I hissed.

Kayden gave me a beatific grin and held out his hand. "Here to whisk you away, Madame. This situation looks decidedly dangerous, and we wouldn't want any harm coming to you, now, would we?"

"I'm not going anywhere. They're going to kill Daniel. I have to stay and help him. Why can't they see you?"

The blond boy laughed and withdrew his outstretched hand. "Because I'm glamored. They can't see me talking to you. They can't see you talking to me. To them, you look like you're staring with your mouth open, which I thought was an appropriately human reaction to what's happening right now. They won't notice for a few more moments. Plenty of time to make our getaway."

"I told you. I'm not going anywhere. Not without Daniel, anyway."

Kayden sucked his teeth. "That's going to be tricky. The Quorum aren't very happy with your boyfriend. He was supposed to end his life and give back all of his power to Aldan so that the prophecy could be fulfilled. You can imagine how it looks now that Aldan's dead and Daniel's wandering around toting a fully loaded talisman. They think he broke his oath. That's a pretty serious infraction in their eyes, especially when there was blood involved. Daniel's a marked man. Might be better to let him fight his way out of here. With you gone, he could do it."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Daniel did give back all of his power. Aldan tricked him. It wasn't his fault, Kayden."

The boy shrugged.

"You're loving this, aren't you?" I hissed. "You've hated Daniel for the last fifty years. You couldn't care less that he's going to die. You make me sick."

Kayden, through his tan, paled. "I don't hate Daniel."

"Then why have you been fighting with him all this time?"

A torn look battled its way across his face. He shoved his hands into his pockets. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daniel turn to look at me, and a strange expression passed over his face.

"Daniel and I are friends," Kayden said. "We had a falling out a while back. This is just a flash in the pan. If you had eternity to work through your disagreements with other people, fifty years might not seem like such a long time to you, either."

I fixed Kayden with an accusing glare. "Daniel doesn't have eternity. He has about five seconds before the Reavers start dismantling him piece by piece. And you refuse to help him. Just tell me one thing, Kayden, before you go. Did he really make that deal with the Quorum? Did they really promise to try and find another way to end this?"

He didn't reply immediately. The crowd around us was reacting to something happening on the dais, and my attention flickered to the three men on the judgment seats. Tobin was on his feet, descending the steps towards us, and Daniel was looking at me. Really looking at me.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Daniel knows you're glamored. I'm not sure about your grandfather."

"Don't! Don't call him that. Just answer the question and leave."

It was as though Kayden didn't know how to keep emotions from his face. The hurt that appeared in his eyes was shocking. "Yes," he said. "The Quorum did make that deal with Daniel. But—"

"But what?"

"You have to be very specific when you agree to something with the Quorum. Emissary Nevoi did swear to try and find another way to fulfill the prophecy, but she didn't promise to use the alternative solution. Having Daniel give himself over to Aldan, and then having Aldan drain the life from you offered a rather convenient solution to two imbalances in the natural order of things. Daniel was never supposed to exist, and you...you aren't normal. If they used you to kill the Reavers, what would they have done with you then?"

I couldn't think. I couldn't react. Tobin had almost reached Daniel, who was moving to put himself between me and the other man.

"Kayden," I growled, "Tell me. If there's another way to stop them, tell me now. If you truly believe you're Daniel's friend, then you have to help him. You have to help me."

Tobin was approaching Daniel with a satisfied smirk, while Daniel met his gaze. There was no fear in his eyes but I felt differently. I cried out as the slight man reached, his hands swathed in that cold, cold flame, and grabbed hold of Daniel's head. Daniel crumpled to his knees in an instant.

"Kayden!" I screamed. The crowd leapt into a furor, the people surrounding us struggling to get away from what was about to happen. I pushed down the hysterical urge to throw myself at Tobin and turned back to the paint-splattered boy. I was about to scream at him again, but I didn't have time. He reached out and touched me on my forehead. The slight pressure of his fingertip was less than a gentle kiss, but it felt like being smashed in the head with a bowling ball.

There were images, voices, all kinds of languages charging through my mind, and yet I understood them all, saw them all at once. I knew everything Kayden knew, knew everything there was to know about the prophecy. I knew what I had to do.

"STOP!" My shout cut over the crowd's panicked cries.

Daniel was still on his knees, his body bowed exactly like back in the hangar with Aldan, but now the light was pulsing out of him and up through Tobin's arm. Tobin's head was thrown back like a sickening declaration of victory. Only Elliot and Jacob heard me cry.

"Stay back!" Jacob yelled. He remained seated, as though I didn't pose enough of a threat for him to rise. Elliot wasn't even looking at me. He was watching with a look of resentment as Tobin pulled all the power out of Daniel.

"Are you just going to let him take it all?" I shouted at my father. "Why does he get all the power? Shouldn't you get a share of it, too?"

Elliot cast me a bitter look but quickly turned back to watch Tobin. Trying to rile him had been worth a shot, but I was clearly going to have to take matters into my own hands. I raced forward, pushing past bodies as they tried to move the other way. I was about to reach Tobin when I found myself lying out flat on my back, wheezing, as though I'd run straight into a brick wall.

Kayden stood in front of me. If he had seemed torn about helping before, he'd definitely made up his mind now. A grim determination was set on his face, and his hands were bathed in a golden light. It was the same color as his pale hair, and it flared into an unbelievable brightness as he struck out at Tobin. The light formed into the shape of a long, brilliant sword that hurtled through the air and slammed into Tobin's body. As it made contact, Kayden's t-shirt ignited, and black marks began to appear around his neck and shoulder blades. Smoke curled away from the thin material to reveal his tattoo—the one that I had seen chaining his collar bone—burning brightly through the glyph-shaped holes in his scorched t-shirt.

Tobin flew back with the force of the strike and suddenly Kayden was nowhere to be seen.

"Daniel!" I ran to his side. His eyes were rolled back in his head and sweat was pouring off him. His hands were shaking, but he was slowly coming around.

"What happened? He was here, wasn't he?"

"Who? Kayden? Yeah, he was here."

Daniel blinked, getting to his feet. "He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have helped."

I fought the urge to slap him. "He said he was your friend, Daniel. He wanted to help you."

Daniel was deathly pale and there was a horrified look in his eyes. "You don't understand. You don't understand what he's done."

"Never mind that now," I said. Tobin was stirring, and Elliot and Jacob had roused themselves from their surprise at Kayden's attack. "He told me what I have to do. I know how we can both survive." I whispered just enough of what I had seen to fill him in on the plan, and he fixed me with a guarded look.

"Are you sure? Are you sure you can do this?"

"Am I sure I can go through some minor pain in order to save the life of the person I care most about in the world, as well as my own? Yes, I'm sure." I saw the flash pass over Daniel's face: a startled, burning look, and I realized what I had said. At least I hadn't told him I was in love with him. I shrank back from the nightmare that would have been dealing with that revelation, and pulled on his arm. "Come on. We have to do this. Are you strong enough?"

"Yes."

"Then let's roll."

"That was remarkably stupid." It was Tobin, right behind me. "What do you intend—" His sentence fell short.

There was no buildup this time. Daniel exploded.

His body bowed back, and the full force of his power erupted from his hands and chest. The arcs of lightning struck out, reaching Tobin first. He hurtled back through the air until he crashed into the wall at the other end of the room. The other forks of energy took their time in finding Elliot and Jacob, and the two men had scrambled to their feet and were making for the door by the time they found their mark. In an instant, they were pinned beside Tobin.

This is it, I told myself, feeling my heart race away. I stepped towards Daniel.

"Farley!" Oliver screamed, running towards me with the knife in his hand. "What are you doing? Come on, we should go now while we can!"

I squeezed his arm as he looked at me, confused, and gave him a small, regretful smile. "I think it would have been nice to have a brother, Oliver."

He reached to grab hold of me but I jumped out of the way and rushed towards Daniel before Oliver could stop me. I had to do it now. I felt horrible for having lied to Daniel, but if I told him what Kayden had shown me, that this option gave me a chance of surviving, an imperceptibly small chance, then he would never have agreed. And it was the only way.

The Quorum, Aldan, my father—they were all right. To fulfill the prophecy, I would likely have to die. It just wasn't going to be the way any of them had imagined.

Daniel's head was thrown back and his eyes were closed tight, his whole body being torn under the strain of the power surging from him. He was in pain, and I wished in my heart that I knew he was coming out of this alive, even if I probably wasn't.

There was no time to linger, though. Oliver rushed forward again, and I pushed all other thoughts out of my mind as I ran forward. At the last possible second I leapt. Oliver's fingertips brushed the back of my shirt but it was too late—I was snatched into the stream of burning blue and white.

The impact was like when I had touched Aldan, but much, much worse. I'd never known there were so many different dimensions to pain. How it could fill you from head to toe and rip you apart until there was nothing left. How you could wish that you didn't exist if only to escape from being you, the person whose soul was being torched. My body was ripped from the ground, and the lances of energy were striking me now, over and over again.

What Daniel had said was true. This energy really was made up of people. With each passing second, some new hurt rushed to consume me. Bitterness at a life ended too soon. Fear for loved ones long dead. Anger. Anger. Anger. But worse than that—loss. The light was filled with such an abundance of loss that I wondered how I would ever be able to breathe again under the crushing weight of it all. And I couldn't. My chest remained paralyzed as all the horror and the pain poured through me. It ignited and burst out from my back in three fierce streams to strike out at the Reavers anew.

Daniel and Oliver were down there somewhere below me, but I couldn't see them. I couldn't see anything but the brilliant, terrible light.

I could feel, though.

I was connected to Daniel. His soul and mine were twisted together in a way I couldn't have ever imagined possible. He was burning, too. He was exhausted, clinging onto consciousness, yet he kept going, and I kept burning.

At the very back of my mind, I could sense the presence of the others, knowing that as the power passed through me and hit the Reavers, I was somehow connected to them, too. They were weak compared to this power. Their own energy was failing, their own light growing dimmer and dimmer with every whispering spirit that charged through me and fell upon them.

Through the disordered chaos of my mind, a hazy memory came creeping back to me. We were back in the silo and Daniel was showing me the distributor again, explaining how it worked. It was obvious now. That's exactly what I was: a part of some greater machine, required for it to work properly. My body was focusing and directing Daniel's energy, making it strong. Making it lethal.

The pain was endless, but as the seconds ticked by I somehow managed to accept it. It began to lessen, becoming a tangible part of me that I could control. It was a strange sensation, and I reveled in it as my life began to slip away. The light was washing me clean, and I wasn't sad anymore.

It was a relief that this was the way I was going to die. I wasn't going to be turned into a whyte, and I wasn't going to have my life pulled out of me by my insane grandfather. I was just going to slowly slip away into the bright light. I let go and stopped trying to breathe. The power intensified and the pain picked up, but the rush of fear I felt only lasted a moment. In its place, a bottomless calm settled over me.

Daniel was stronger than me. He somehow knew I'd given myself over to the light, and I could feel his energy tugging at me, trying to pull me back, but it was useless. It was too bright. It had already taken hold. It was much easier to just stop fighting. The Reavers pinned to the wall behind me were close to death, but that didn't seem to matter anymore.

Only Daniel mattered. He was my last thought.

I just wish I could feel his arms around me...

And then the light went supernova.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Still Breathing

The first faces I saw were those of strangers. People gathered around me, confused and afraid, while Immundus guards pulled them back. The men had me by the arms in seconds. They yanked me to my knees, and one of them thrust a gun into my face.

"Get away from her."

The guards dropped me the second Daniel spoke, running back towards the wooden doors. I fell to the floor and then pushed myself up into a sitting position as he rushed to my side.

"It worked?" My voice was nothing more than a faint whisper.

"Yes. Well, kind of."

What does that mean? I frowned, turning my throbbing body to look at the back wall. I saw Oliver first. He was drenched in blood from head to toe and looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.

"What.... what happened?"

Oliver dropped to his knees, his head in his hands. "Well, you two looked like you were about to explode or something, so I... I cut off their heads. That's pretty much a kill shot, right?" he asked Daniel, wiping his hand over his face to try and clean it. He just ended up smearing more of the thick, sticky redness across his forehead.

"Yeah. No coming back from that."

I stared at the two of them. The Reavers were dead. All this time, all of the not knowing and panic, all of the pain and fear had culminated in this moment, and now it was over.

I suddenly felt very cold and tired. "Can we go? Can we leave?" I wanted to be far, far away.

"Sure," Daniel replied softly, sliding my hand into his. "Let's get out of here."

CHAPTER FORTY

Immortal

Tess put down her glass of apple juice and then immediately picked it back up again, surveying the room with a look filled with self-pity. She drained the glass and handed it off to Oliver with a forced smile.

"You guys are bullies."

I laughed at her unwillingness to be a good patient and grabbed her feet through the blanket at the end of the bed. Tess squealed and lashed out, but then settled back into the bed to catch her breath. She still wasn't back to complete health. We all had to keep reminding her to take things slowly.

That night, when Daniel had carried me out of the fastness, the journey through the winding, dark tunnels had gone by in a blur. When I'd woken up, I was in the back of an SUV with Tess' head in my lap, speeding through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Daniel and Oliver had searched for Tess as we'd left the Tower, and had gotten us out together. Tess had been getting sicker by the second and there was nothing Daniel could do. He wasn't like the Immortals. He wasn't of their line, and he didn't have the same capabilities that they did. He couldn't take life or give like that.

But Oliver could.

He hadn't listened at first, but Daniel kept telling him over and over that it was too late: it was already done. He must feel it inside him. He had taken life, and their energy had become his. It was the same ritual his family would have forced him to undertake to become one of them.

Oliver had told him he was crazy and denied it until he was blue in the face, but Tess kept getting sicker and sicker. In the end, he hadn't been able to pretend anymore.

Daniel had told him what he needed to do and Oliver had done it, placing his hand on her skin until he felt a sort of two-way connection. Daniel had explained that all he had to do was concentrate on feeling the energy leaving him and not the other way around, otherwise he would take what little life was left in her. It was over in an instant, and I had been secretly disappointed that the show hadn't been more spectacular. My feelings were assuaged by the fact that Tess had sat bolt upright in bed and looked at us all like we were crazy for huddling around her sick bed.

"Back up, people." Her typical remark had me laughing for the first time in days, and the worry shed from my bones. She was going to be okay.

It'd taken a long time to explain what happened to Tess; our capture at the hospital and the events of the Tower were not something you could skip through lightly. By the time we were done telling the story, I was drained all over again.

Oliver hadn't wanted to tell Tess how he'd saved her. He was terrified of what had happened to him and what it meant. It was hard to find an explanation as to why he was still the same as he had been before. Every experience Daniel had with the Reavers told him Oliver should be an entirely different person, a cold and brutal shadow of his former self. He was totally thrown. He thought perhaps that, because Oliver had killed to save his friends and not gain power for himself, the Immortal's hunger and greed wasn't present to taint his soul. It sounded plausible, and none of us had any other ideas, so we took it on face value. Oliver felt like a monster, but Tess just looked at him with love and admiration in her eyes.

It had been like that for most of the day: her gazing starry-eyed up at him, and him returning the favor. "I think it's sweet that I have a part of you inside me," Tess told him, now, when she thought we couldn't hear. Daniel grinned with his back to the bed and gave me a sly wink.

"I very much doubt it's him."

I dug him in the ribs with my elbow, and he feigned injury but soon wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a bear hug.

"I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't made it," he murmured into my ear. He was still so shy when he whispered things like that. My heart skipped a beat every time. His eyes were ablaze with intensity as he held onto me like he had no plans of ever letting go. I reached down to kiss the strong arm that encircled me.

"I'm not going anywhere," I whispered.

"Promise?" he whispered back.

"Promise."

"Good." He got his own back, digging his fingers in my sides. I squirmed uselessly and then gave up, letting him tickle me until I couldn't breathe anymore. When he eventually stopped, he spun me around to nestle his face into the back of my neck and nipped me teasingly, making my head swim.

"Hey, do you think Kayden's okay?" I asked, quickly changing the subject.

Daniel drew back and sighed a heavy sigh. Kayden was a sore topic, but Daniel did seem a little concerned, even if he didn't want me to know it. "I don't know. It was a pretty reckless call, going against the Quorum like that. It's almost impossible to do. He must have broken his ties with them in order to act alone."

I stiffened. "You mean he's not with the Quorum anymore?"

Daniel shook his head. "He essentially cast himself out."

"Sounds like the angels getting cast out of Heaven. It's not as bad as that, is it?"

Daniel kissed the back of my neck gently, keeping his silence for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was all business. "No. Nowhere near as bad. Come on, let's crash the invalid love-fest."

"When do you think she'll be ready?"

"In a few days," he replied. He seemed to know how keen I was to get moving, despite the fact that I did my best to hide it. Tess needed to recover, after all.

"Do you think we'll find them?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I know a hundred places they could be."

I nodded, clinging to the hope that there was a good reason why we hadn't heard from Agatha and the others since they disappeared. "So a few days?"

He murmured, inhaling the scent of my hair. "Yes."

"What about the Reavers? There'll be more, won't there?"

"Without a doubt. There's always three Immortals in residency at the Tower. More will be assigned now."

My happiness faltered. "And the Quorum think you broke your oath..."

"Mmm." Daniel drew back and twisted me around to face him. He placed a slow, thoughtful kiss on my forehead and sighed. "Yes, they do. We'll just have to deal with them when the time comes."

It was a terrifying prospect. Daniel pulled me tight to his body so that his legs pressed against mine, his strong arms enveloped me like a vice. "But we have other things to worry about right now. We have to find our friends. We have to find Agatha."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements

This is one of the hardest bits! Well, actually that's not strictly true. It's very easy to be grateful to those who have helped and supported me through writing this book. The hard part is finding the appropriate words to let them know how much their tireless support has meant to me.

First off, I have to thank my husband. Some people leave the best until last but I'm going to lead out with mine. Nick, without your help and bewildering optimism I wouldn't have had the nerve to do this! My beta readers Gemma, Kellie, Alice, and Vicky—only one of you is my sister by blood, and one of you by law, but I think of you all as family. That you loved Farley and Daniel, and helped by making suggestions or just by encouraging me, has made this process so much fun. I have to thank my grandparents, Olive and Tony; you brought me up to believe in myself and taught me I was capable of anything I set my mind to. You never told me once I couldn't do it.

Big thanks to Emma Michaels and Chelsea Starling, who worked so hard on the beautiful first version of the cover for Sovereign Hope. Another massive hug to Victoria Faye Alday for creating the stunning work of art that adorns the front cover today.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who has bought and enjoyed this book. I wrote it for you, and I hope you've loved the ride. Look out for book two, Eternal Hope, which is out now!

Lost Hope will be coming out March 20th 2014!

About the Author

Frankie Rose lives in Sydney, Australia, her borrowed homeland. She writes in the paranormal romance, dystopian and contemporary romance genres, and hopes to dip her toes in many more. She is an avid reader, skier and snowboarder, and also loves to climb and hike in the outdoors. You can reach Frankie at frankierose101@gmail.com or visit her website at www.frankierosewrites.com for further details of her upcoming projects.

And don't forget! If you enjoyed Sovereign Hope, please leave a review!
