He slants forward, catching my gaze. “I promise I’m not trying to poison you. I’m just trying to help you get through the flight in peace.”
He seems honest, but I’m still undecided whether I want to dope myself up with a Wicca herb that will knock me into such a deep sleep nothing will wake me up until it wears out of my system. But when the plane jerks again and the captain warns everyone to keep their seatbelts fastened, I quickly twist the lid off and take a swig.
“Thanks…” I manage to get out before I black out.
Chapter 8
“Alana, can you hear me?” my grandpa Lucas calls out through the darkness. “Please say you can hear me. I need to talk to you … God, I need this to work.”
I can hear you, I think to myself. But where are you?
“Alana!” he calls out, his voice echoing around me. “Please, answer me.”
I’m right here! Grr… I internally growl at myself in frustration. I can’t seem to say anything aloud, no matter how hard I try. Where the hell am I? I can’t see a damn thing, can’t feel my legs, my arms, my mouth … Maybe that’s the problem.
“I thought this would work,” he mutters. “I don’t understand.”
Taking a deep breath, I slide my feet forward, forcing myself to walk blindly into the darkness. “Grandpa …” I force my voice out. “I’m … right … here.”
“Oh, thank God,” he says in relief.
I hear the soft pitter-patter of footsteps heading toward me. I don’t see him when he reaches me, but I feel his presence nearby.
“I’m glad I was able to meet you here,” he says, sounding much closer now.
“Where exactly is here?”
“In one of your dreams.”
“You’re in my dream?” My surprise swiftly wears off as I remember my grandpa is a Foreseer. “Is this a new Foreseer thing, being able to enter people’s dreams?”
“We’re technically not supposed to,” he admits. “But I needed to take the risk.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to tell you something important.”
“You know, texts work great for that, too, and it’s way less creepy.”
“I couldn’t text you this … I can’t have any sort of trail that’ll lead to what I’m about to tell you,” he says in that ominous tone again. “If anyone finds out …” He trails off.
“Grandpa, you’re scaring me,” I admit. “Before I left, you were acting so strange, and then you show up here … Please tell me what’s going on.”
“You’re in danger,” he whispers, his voice sounding farther away. “Oh no … I need … more time …”
“Why am I in danger?” When he doesn’t respond, I cry out, “Grandpa, you’re scaring me. Please, just tell me why you think I’m in danger.”
“Because … they’re …” His voice fades in and out. “Coming … after you … I’m … sorry.”
“Grandpa!” I shout, my voice echoing around me as I run forward into the darkness. “Please tell me who they are.”
As the stillness sets in, I begin to panic. Minutes, maybe hours tick by, and I start to fear being trapped here forever when I feel myself slipping back to reality. Right as I’m about to wake up, I feel something cold pressed into my palm, and a single word whispers through my thoughts.
Electi.
Chapter 9
I force my heavy eyelids open and blink away the dizziness swimming in my brain while trying to get my bearings. I’m still on the plane, but the shaking and jolting has stopped. I look out the window at the darkness blanketing the airport and then at the empty seats around me. We’ve landed, and everyone has vacated the plane, including Jax.
“Gee, thanks for waking me up, guys.” I stretch my arms above my head and yawn before collecting my bag from under the seat and getting to my feet.
Thoughts of the trippy dream linger in my mind as I make my way up the aisle and off the plane. I blame it on the Otium. While I’ve never had it before, witches’ potions can have strange side effects, like the time Jayse and I accidentally ate suckers his mom laced with Rabidus Primula to use for a Keeper mission. Jayse and I ended up losing touch with reality and running back and forth across the field for ten hours straight until we were so exhausted we passed out.
Still, as I find my way into the quiet airport, I can’t shake the feeling of how real the dream felt, that my grandpa Lucas really did show up to warn me I’m in danger. But in danger from what? An Electi? Because I’ve never heard of them before, and growing up with Keepers who hunt practically every paranormal creature that exists, it seems like, if they existed, I’d know.
Maybe it’s not a creature, though. Perhaps it’s something else.
While I wait for my suitcases to show up at the baggage area, I end up sending my grandpa Lucas a text, just to settle my worry. Between how small the airport is and the time nearing ten o’clock, the place is almost empty, so I sit down on the floor and search on the Internet for what electi could be, but I come up with zilch.
“You’ll ride with me to the academy,” Jax appears by my side out of nowhere.
“Where is everyone else?”
“They had to go downtown for a meeting.”
“Okay.” While I’m not thrilled to be riding with him, I’m glad I won’t be riding in a car with Vivianne.
“And fyi, you talk in your sleep,” Jax says. “You say really strange stuff too.”
I slide my phone into the pocket of my jeans. “Good to know.”
He sits down beside me and fiddles with a leather band on his wrist. “I feel sorry for your roommate.”
I frown. “I have a roommate?”
“Everyone new does.” He gets to his feet as the conveyer belt buzzes on and reaches for a large duffel bag. “I had one when I first started at the Academy.”
“How long have you been going there?” I stand up to grab one of my suitcases.
He slings the bag over his shoulder. “Almost five years.”
“So, you’re almost nineteen.” Disappointment washes over me. “How long do we have to attend the Academy? I thought it was only for a year.”
“It all depends on where you’re placed. If you want to be a permanent investigator, then you have to put in a lot of time. Otherwise, you’ll be put on another job like cleanup, which sucks balls.”
“It sounds like it sucks balls.” I internally cringe at the idea of having to clean up dead, mangled bodies. “Is that what you do? I mean, are you an investigator?”
“I’m not one yet. I actually took a little time off.” He frowns at that then quickly clears his throat. “But, yeah, I’m back now, and I’m working my way up to becoming an investigator … starting with training you.” He motions at me to follow him as he strides for the exit doors.
I totally notice how he breezed over my question about him being at the Black Dungeon. He may think I’m going to drop this, but he’s so wrong.
“Training me?” I quickly hurry after him as he exits the building. “I thought we were partners.”
“I just said that in front of your dad to make him feel better about the situation.” His gaze sweeps the road in front of us and the carport to our right before he veers left down the sidewalk. “I know how proud Keepers need to feel, and it seemed like he’d be prouder if I told him you were my partner.”
I wheel my bags with me as we hike toward a black car parked near the curb. “So, I’m not your partner, then.”
“Technically, I guess you are, but it’s not the same as if you’d actually graduated and are an investigator. I mean, you’ll go on jobs with me and everything, but only to learn how we work.”
“Sounds like a blast,” I say flatly, jerking on my suitcases when a wheel gets stuck in a pothole.
He rounds the back of black car and pats the trunk. Moments later, it pops open. “Doing what we do takes a lot of mental work, Alana.” He drops his bag into the trunk then grabs mine from me. “It’s not just learning how to fight and jumpin
g in. You have to memorize every creature, learn their traits, what makes them tick so that, when you show up at a crime scene, you’ll know what to look for.”
Something dawns on me then. Jax knows a lot about creatures. Perhaps he knows what electi means or is.
He heaves my suitcases into the trunk then walks to the side of the car, tipping his head back to glimpse at the sliver of moon in the sky. “Climb in. We have about an hour’s drive to the Academy.”
I open the door to get into the backseat of the car. “Hey, Jax, can I ask you a question?”
He casts me a wary look from over the car roof. “You can ask, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll answer.”
Sighing, I ask, “Have you ever heard the term electi?”
“Why?”
“I just heard the word once, and didn’t know if it meant something or if it was something,” I answer as nonchalantly as I can. “You just mentioned how much a Guardian has to learn about the creatures we’re hunting, so I figured I’d ask and see if you knew.”
“How do you know it’s a creature?”
“It’s just a guess.”
“Well, you guessed wrong, and if I were you, I’d forget the word.” He ducks into the backseat of the car and slams the door.
I shake my head. What is with everyone making threats? I’ve been a part of the Guardians’ world for not even twenty–four hours and have been warned twice to keep my mouth shut about stuff. Is this what it’s going to be like for the next year? God, I hope not. I’ve never been one to just drop stuff.
Heaving a sigh, I slide into the backseat. Once I get my seatbelt buckled, the driver, an older man with startling silver hair, drives forward, starting the beginning of a very long and awkward car ride.
Jax is clearly upset with me and decides to do the brooding, silent-guy thing. I try to distract myself with my phone, but the farther into the hills we get, the shittier the signal becomes.
After about half an hour of mind-numbing silence, I scoot forward and prop my arm onto the console. “I just want to say that you have amazing driving skills, dude. Back there, when you took that corner at sixty, that was impressive.”
He presses back a smile. “I’m just doing my job, ma’am. I’m under the instruction to get you to the Academy by eleven-thirty, and not a minute later.”
“What happens if I’m late?” I ask curiously.
“Then I lose my job,” he replies, shifting gears.
“That’s crazy,” I say. “I mean, what’s the big deal if I’m a few minutes late?”
He shrugs, gripping the wheel. “That’s just how things work around there. The Guardians like everything to run in a timely manner.”
“Then they’re not going to like me very much.” I rest my chin on my fist. “I’m always at least five minutes late for everything. Call it a curse. Call it laziness. But I can’t seem to break the habit.”
“By the end of training, you will,” Jax interrupts. “Either that, or you won’t make it to the end of training.”
I twist around to look at him. “Why? Are they going to kick me out for being late?”
“It’s been known to happen a few times.”
“Well, then, I’ll make sure to be late all the time.”
“You act like you want to get kicked out.”
“I just want to go home”—I lift my shoulders—“and back to my life.”
He slides forward in the seat, getting so close to me his knee presses against my hip. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but that isn’t your life anymore. The Academy is.”
“I never asked for this life. I was supposed to be a Keeper. That’s the life I was always planning on having, so it’s going to take some time to get used to this whole Guardian thing.”
“You need to get over it. You belong to the Guardians now.”
I open my mouth to tell him I belong to no one, but snap my jaw shut as the car enters a gated area surrounding a red brick building that seems to stretch for miles.
“It’s different than what I expected,” I say as the headlights cast across flowers trimming the dirt driveway and a ‘Welcome, New Students’ banner above thick double doors at the front of the building. “It’s less we-study-dead-bodies-in-here and more hey-come-on-in-and-have-a-cup-of-tea.”
“It’s a school, Alana, not a mortuary.” Jax opens the door as the cars comes to a stop. “We don’t study dead bodies in here.” He lowers his head to hop out, throwing a smirk over his shoulder at me. “We’ll be doing that in the building by the cemetery out back. We use that place so we can run the temperature low to keep the bodies nice and fresh without freezing out the school.”
I scrunch my face in disgust, and he chuckles as he hops out of the car, leaving me to wonder if he was kidding or not.
After we collect our bags from the trunk, I say good-bye to the driver then follow Jax inside the school.
“It’s quiet in here,” I remark as we walk down a desolate hallway lined with glass cases.
“That’s because you’re one of the first to arrive.” He takes out his phone and glances at the screen before putting it away again.
I notice that inside the cases are tons of framed newspaper clippings with headlines about solved murders. “What newspapers are those from?” I wonder. “Not any from the human world, right?”
“Like the Keepers, humans no nothing of our existence,” Jax says as he pulls open a heavy door at the end of the hallway. On the other side of the door is another long hallway lined with more doors.
Jax lets me walk in first then swiftly takes off like a man on a mission. I haul my suitcases behind me as I trudge along behind him. We pass shut door after shut door and finally stop in front of the second to the last one labeled Avery/Clarkford.
“Your roommate won’t be here until probably Monday.” He drops his bag on the black and white checkered floor and reaches toward me.
Startled, I step away from him. He gives me an annoyed look and grabs ahold of my arm. As his fingers wrap around my wrist, I shiver again from his touch then shake my head at my reaction. What the hell is wrong with me? Seriously, it’s not like a guy has never touched me before. I’ve kissed a few even.
“Why’re you trying to hold hands with me?” I ask. “I mean, you’re cute and everything, but you’re too brooding for my taste.”
I feel like an idiot when he flattens my palm against a small pad above the doorknob. The pad lights up, and then the door lock clicks open. He lets go of my hand, gathers his bag, and backs down the hallway.
“We both know I fit your taste. It’s why you keep flirting with me.”
“I’ve never flirted with you,” I argue, but he simply chuckles and turns his back on me.
Well done, Alana. Never call a cocky guy cute. Now he’s never going to let it go.
I blow out a breath before pushing the door open and stepping inside the dark room. Flipping on the light, I see that the room consists of two wooden dressers, two twin metal beds, and a small window.
“This room is so … depressing,” I say to myself as I close the door.
I don’t bother unpacking, and sit down on the bed to text Jayse and my grandpa. When none of them answer right away, I lie down, crossing my fingers that I can fall asleep soon. Part of me is hopeful my grandpa Lucas will pay me a visit in my dreams again. Then maybe I can ask him what the hell electi means. That is, if he learned to dream walk. Maybe the damn thing was just a dream. My mind has other ideas, though.
The moment I rest my head on the pillow, my senses are buzzing, my thoughts racing. By the time I doze off, the sun is rising over the hill, and I end up falling into a very disorienting sleep, but I manage to catch a few bits and pieces of the dream.
“Please, Alana,” my grandpa pleads. “Please, don’t let them find it, even after I’m gone. Keep it safe. It’s why I gave it to you: because I know it’s safer with you than anywhere else.”
Chapter 10
A couple of hours after falling a
sleep, I’m awakened by a godawful buzzing noise.
“Time to get up, Alana.” The woman’s voice that crackles through the intercom sounds like Vivianne. “You have an orientation tour with a guide in thirty minutes. If you’re late, I won’t hesitate to put you in detention.”
Grumbling, I throw the blankets off me and force my ass out of bed. Faint memories of my grandpa Lucas begging me to keep something he gave me safe echo in my thoughts. The only thing I have with me from him is the dagger. While I still don’t know if the dream was real, I’m paranoid enough that I take the dagger out of my suitcases and hide it above a ceiling tile.
After I put the tile back into place, I pull on a pair of shorts, a black tank top, and tie a plaid shirt around my waist. Then I side braid my hair, slip on my boots, and head out to see the place that will be my new home for the next year.
Halfway through the tour, I actually find myself missing Jax, mostly because my tour guide is a cranky old woman who reeks of whiskey. Worse still, every time I ask a question or crack a joke, she looks like she wants to beat me with her cane.
“I don’t get why you’re asking so many questions,” she says when we reach the door to the backyard of the school. “Normally, kids just stand there and listen or text on their phones.”
We’ve walked in so many directions, seen so many classrooms, offices, and libraries that I can’t remember which way is left or right or even up and down. I’m all sorts of turned around to the point where I feel like my head is on backward.
“I just want to learn about stuff.” I slip on my sunglasses as we step outside and into the sunlight.
Since it’s the beginning of August, the temperature is well into the nineties and humid, making it perfect shorts and tank top weather.
As the guide begins a droning story about a stone bench near the fence line, I decide to take her advice and check my text messages. I still haven’t heard from my grandpa Lucas or Jayse, even though I messaged them both last night. I have a message from my mom, though.