“Got it,” I laughed. But he was right. Annabelle would probably do me physical harm if she knew about this.
We walked through the welcoming glass doors and I inhaled Mead High School. Floor polish, tangy metal from worn lockers and something that could only be described as “old” wafted through the air with promises of a brand new year and my future on the horizon.
This high school had smelled the same every day I’d ever entered this building. It was comforting and familiar. It made me ache for the simplicity of humanity and regret those days last January when my life forever changed.
The four of us scattered to our lockers and went about the routine of emptying our backpacks filled with school supplies into them. By the time we wandered into first hour with the rest of our late class, I had settled into the idea of making the most out of this year.
I had to fight the Darkness every second of every day. But while I was here, I could forget about some of that. I could still hold onto that coveted humanity and ignore the other, more dangerous parts of my life.
My life. What used to be relatively simple and drama-free had turned complicated and uncertain. Except here, here I still had the same friends I’d always had and I still went through the same routine that I had the first three years of high school.
Those thoughts put a dreamy smile on my face.
I decided I would make the most of this year. I would embrace everything I faced and ignore the empty seat where Seth should be.
Those naïvely happy thoughts lasted three more seconds until an aide from the office brought a note to Mr. Whitehall, my homeroom teacher.
“Stella, they want you in the office,” he told me.
My classmates snickered and speculated while I abandoned my notebook and backpack at my desk. I couldn’t help but feel irritated that I was the only student the witchy trinity of secretaries had decided to punish for being late when my entire class had walked in the door after me.
Tristan caught my hand as I walked by his desk and raised his eyebrows inquisitively at me. I shrugged one shoulder and continued my funeral march out the door and down the hall.
I sensed something was wrong the second I left the classroom but it wasn’t until I turned the corner and could see the office down the corridor that confusion overrode every other instinct. For some reason my entire body tensed up, ready to fight. A creepy crawly sensation washed over me and my spine tingled. But my brain couldn’t equate the person waiting for me with the instinct to fight.
Ari stood at the other end of the hallway bathed in an ethereal glow of Light and Lower Realm righteousness. His arms were crossed against his chest and his feet at the ankles. He leaned against a bank of lockers and managed to look like the Angel of Serenity as well as a man on the brink of death by boredom.
I immediately picked up my pace and intended to apologize to him. I managed to feel guilty that he had to come to my school, and that he had to wait for me. But I slowed down and thought about what he was doing here. Seriously, what was he doing here? Why hadn’t he given me any notice? I couldn’t really feel guilty, not when I hadn’t been able to expect him or even sense his arrival.
And I didn’t understand why he seemed impatient while he waited for me.
“Ari?” I asked as soon as I was close enough.
He smiled widely at me, his demeanor changing in a heartbeat. “Stella.” His arms opened up as if he wanted to give me a hug, but it couldn’t have been more poorly timed. He looked like a used car salesman, cheesy and overly aggressive with his affection.
I shrunk back from an embrace but held out my hand. I let instinct guide me and pasted a happy smile across my face so he wouldn’t be offended. It was weird that he was here. At my school. He could have waited until I got home this afternoon or handed my parents a message before they returned home.
Paranoia crept over my shoulders like a hundred spiders with hairy legs. I swallowed back bile that tasted like fear and uncertainty and made excuses for him. He could have already left the Lower Realm before my parents got there. He might not have been able to wait until after school because he was in a hurry to get back to the council.
Maybe something horrible had happened and he needed to deliver the news in person.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted. A horrific thought occurred to me and I wrapped my hands around his forearm and shook him. Or tried to anyway. He had ridiculously sized muscles. “Are my parents okay?”
That question seemed to alarm him. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
I let out a slow breath and shook my head. “It’s just that they left planet to take something back to the Lower Realm. I haven’t heard from them since and then you showed up and I just thought-”
“What did they take to the Realm?” he asked in an urgent voice. He seemed to dismiss my fears so quickly that I had to believe my parents were fine and unharmed. He would have told me by now if they weren’t.
“A message,” I told him. “Why are you here?” I felt desperate to know. Foreboding licked at my skin and burned in my bones. Something was wrong. It might not be my parents but something was definitely wrong.
“I have a message, too.” He took a step toward me and turned me bodily with an arm wrapped around my shoulders. I could feel smoldering heat in the weight of his arm, the blinding brightness that came with his otherworldliness and felt like a physical thing. I felt restrained power and an army at his beck and call. He possessed an incredible command just barely contained in corporeal form made in heaven itself.
He did not belong on this planet, let alone in the middle of my high school. That was for sure.
I looked up at him and let him lead me toward the doors to the outside. Obviously, he wouldn’t want to give me the message inside, surrounded by teenagers.
Something flickered in the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around expecting to catch the Shadow I knew would be there. I hadn’t seen one in weeks and so I was surprised one would show up at this moment- when Ari of all people had joined me. But nothing was there and I doubted if I had seen anything at all.
Not knowing if I imagined the Shadow or if it had been real made me extra paranoid. “Please, just tell me if everyone’s alright.”
He looked down at me and I returned my attention to those glowing white orb-like eyes. “Everyone’s alright,” he answered smoothly. “What message did your parents feel the need to personally deliver to the Council?”
I gulped. I felt suddenly vulnerable alone with Ari in the entryway. “I don’t mind telling you,” I bluffed. “But I’m really nervous about why you’re here. Would you just tell me what you came here to say? Put me out of my misery, please?”
The bell rang and students flooded the hallway as if they had been waiting by the classroom doors in markers. As soon as they heard the homeroom bell ring, they burst forth like runners qualifying for the Olympics. The halls were quickly convoluted with every student at Mead High School, and while the school itself wasn’t all that large, the press of teenagers and students made for some harried chaos.
Ari guided me out the double doors into the brilliant morning light. I let him this time without protest. He hadn’t bothered to do something about his eyes. He probably hadn’t even thought he needed to do something with his eyes.
But my peers would not be able to reconcile a glowy-eyed alien with their perception of reality.
I hardly knew what to do with him.
“I heard you were attacked,” he told me. He blinked against the hot August sun and squinted until his orbed eyes became narrow slits.
I watched him carefully, feeling super confused. “Which time?”
“When you got back to Earth.”
I nodded. “I did. Three Fallen got me as soon as I entered the atmosphere.”
“And your parents?”
Had Ari really come all the way down here to ask me about my attack? Was he just trying to get more information about Seth? I had been tasked with killing my Counterpart an
d I had never even lifted a sword that night. We had been alone in the woods with plenty of weapons for both of us and I hadn’t even considered the Council’s command.
Besides, he saved me that night. And maybe he got a little aggressive later, but mostly he was kind. He had been extra diligent fighting against his darker nature. He deserved a reward… like me letting him live.
“It happened too fast. They couldn’t stop the attack and they couldn’t track me. They, whoever they were, were waiting for me.”
He watched me for a few moments, waiting for me to say more. When it was clear I wasn’t going to, he prompted, “So you took care of them?”
“Yes.”
“All of them? By yourself?”
I cleared my throat and forced a natural tone. “Yes, all by myself.”
His eyes narrowed further and the white hotness of his pupils almost disappeared. “That’s very impressive.”
“I take over the planet in exactly one year. If I can’t handle a few Fallen, the people of Earth are doomed.” Okay, I had to admit, I felt a little like Superman when I said it that way.
A lying, imposter Superman, since I hadn’t actually taken care of the Fallen all by my lonesome.
“Well, bravo, Stella. It looks like we picked the right Star after all.”
“You did.”
He kept watching me. I felt more than saw movement behind me. There were things on the edges of my vision that I couldn’t see. I didn’t exactly understand what was happening, but it felt like there were enemies closing in from every side. I wanted to whirl around and pull out my short sword, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Ari.
Not because I was hypnotized or anything but because the longer he stared at me, the more ominous his presence felt.
“Stella!”
I whipped my head to the left, lured by the call of my name. Jude came jogging out of school, my backpack carelessly held in his hands.
“I’ll be right there!” I called back.
I didn’t think Jude and Ari should meet. All of a sudden I had images of Ari subduing Jude and dragging him before the Council. He was Fallen. But he was also a stolen child. Would Ari suggest we try to rehabilitate him? Would he kill him here on the spot?
Jude kept coming our way, no matter how many daggers I glared into him.
“Hey, I’ll be right there. You don’t have to-”
“Here’s your bag. You forgot it,” Jude declared. He walked right up to us with my bag held out in his hands.
“Thanks,” I mumbled. I tried to catch his eye and send him back inside, but he refused to look at me. His gaze centered wholly on Ari.
Ari stared back.
“You’re going to be late for our next class if you don’t get inside now,” Jude told me.
Like he was the model student.
“Yeah, I know.”
“So go, then.” His tone was sharp and condescending. I watched him watch Ari and knew he had to know who Ari was, that he was part of the Council. Or at least that Ari was an Angel of some importance.
“You’re a friend of Stella’s?” Ari took a step forward, closed our circle into a tight, familiar group.
Jude nodded once. “I am.”
“I am too,” Ari replied coolly.
Only in this moment, neither of them felt like my friend. I just wanted Jude gone, away from Ari and the possible consequences this meeting would bring for him.
“Let’s go to class.” I tugged on Jude’s arm but he didn’t move. He stood still as a statue locked in some kind of staring contest with Ari.
Ari’s eyes were open all the way now and the white light poured out of them in that alien way. Jude didn’t seem the least bit bothered, in fact he seemed to radiate with his own light. It wasn’t quite the golden brilliancy of my own inner Light, but it wasn’t the shades of grey most Fallen emitted either.
“For real, Michaels, let’s go.” I used his last name in hopes of concealing his identity. I turned back to Ari and told him, “Will you be around later? Did you need to talk more?”
He shook his head without taking his eyes off Jude. “No, I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“As you can see, I am.” I shrugged off the chill that came with Ari’s sentiment. Out of all the members of the Council, Ari had been the most helpful. He had also seemed the most supportive of me and my parents. But that didn’t mean I could exclude him from the list of traitors. I had never suspected him before today. But then again, he had never randomly showed up before today and tried to talk to me alone.
Finally, Ari tore his gaze from Jude and gave me a slow nod. His eyes burned brighter than ever. “Till next time, Starling.”
I nodded and watched his back as he took off for a copse of trees on the other side of the parking lot.
“Damn, I hate that guy,” Jude mumbled.
“You know Ari?”
He turned around and started stalking back into the school. I hurried to keep up with him while my mind spun with all the weirdness of Ari’s visit.
“Know of him,” Jude corrected. “That’s enough.”
I didn’t know what that meant but before I could ask any more questions, Jude had pulled a cigarette from his pocket and slammed into the boy’s bathroom.
“How Rebel Without a Cause of him,” Piper chuckled while she took his place at my side.
I gave her a long look. “You don’t like him do you, Pi?”
Her cheeks turned just the softest shade of pink but she shook her head. “We’re both too difficult. We’d make an exhausting couple.” I smiled and felt a little more at ease. She was right, but I would never confirm her comment out loud. That was just asking for trouble. “Besides,” she went on, “he’s apparently in love with someone else.”
It was her turn to give me a hard look. I knew what she was implying but the thought, the very notion, was so absolutely ridiculous that I couldn’t even make sense of it.
“How do you know that?” I asked as casually as I could.
She played with her heavy bangs for a moment and then met my wide eyes. “He told me. At his party we talked for a while and he told me that he was in love with a girl that he could never have.”
“Oh, geez. And you bought his whole unrequited love act? Come on, Piper, I thought you were smarter than that. He was probably just trying to get in your pants!”
She laughed and shook her head. “Actually, he was trying to do the opposite. I believe him. He was really torn up about it.”
“And who is this mystery girl that’s managed to capture the son of Satan’s heart?”
“He didn’t say her name. He just said he could never have her because she belonged to someone else.”
Her eyes assessed my face with that same perceptive look and I wanted to shrink away from it. What she assumed, what she thought Jude meant was completely out of the question. Jude could not love me. He really could not.
Feelings for me would only get him killed. And possibly also me killed!
Not to mention I had never once led him to think there could be anything between us. On my best days I could barely tolerate him and usually I couldn’t even do that.
My stomach rolled over and I thought for a second I was going to be sick. Jude could not be in love with me. The thought of him even liking me a little bit made me laugh! I could not be that girl for him.
Just in that moment, he stomped out of the bathroom with a haze of smoke trailing behind. He quirked a sardonic eyebrow at me and disappeared down the now-empty hall. That didn’t look like love to me.
But this was Jude. I hadn’t even known he was capable of love until Piper spilled his secret.
“It’s not me,” I told her after he vanished into a classroom.
She linked her arm with mine and tugged me down the hallway. “Sure,” she said. “That’s why he ran after you as soon as the bell rang. That’s why he grabbed all your things and ignored me when I offered to carry them for you. That’s why he stalks you at every
opportunity and won’t leave you alone.”
She opened the door to our next class and I reluctantly followed her in. “It’s not me,” I insisted.
Jude looked up at me from the back of the class and gestured to the desk he saved for me. He waved a lazy hand toward the empty seat and shot me a crooked smile. Piper immediately made her way toward him and took her seat, careful not to occupy the chair clearly meant for me.
I winced. Seth was going to murder him. And I would inevitably have to feel guilty for his death.
I didn’t even like Jude Michaels. And I really didn’t believe he had a heart capable of love. And if he did, why in the world did he have to fall in love with me?
Chapter Ten
“Do you feel it?” Serena asked me in muted tones.
I breathed in deeply and tilted my head to the left. “Yes. Barely.”
“Good.” She smiled and took in her own deep inhale. “The instinct will grow stronger. Every day until you’re eighteen you’ll begin to feel it more acutely.” She held the tip of her sword to my belly. “It starts here. Soon you’ll feel it here.” She grabbed the back of my neck with her free hand and squeezed. “And then it’s all over your skin like insects trying to burrow inside. Instinct will take you to it; you only have to be prepared.”
I nodded and swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. She was right. The nearer we moved, the stronger the sensation. The acid churning in my stomach had turned into an aching pain at my neck and now manifested as a slithering sensation all over my skin.
I gripped my katanas tightly and let my thumb trace over the slick metal. “Is it ever hard to fight through?”
She smiled wickedly at me. “The quicker you kill, the sooner the feeling is gone. An incentive of sorts.”
“I can see that.”
Nate turned the corner and pressed his body against the wall we leaned against. “The children are there.”
“You’re sure?” I took a step forward to peer around the corner but thought better of it. I couldn’t be seen before we were ready or I would ruin everything.
Nate nodded. “I saw them through an open window. They’re not even trying to be discrete.”