Bladed Wings (39 page)

              “Hello?”

              “Hello,” the woman said. Head tilted to one side, she strolled through a patch of light. Kayla recognized her from Vigo’s group. “I’m glad you came. My name is Sasha and it’s very important that we speak.” Nothing obvious, yet Kayla thought she heard something sarcastic.

              “How’d you get my number?” Not really an important point, but there was something about her Kayla couldn’t trust. The opposite of how she felt about Seth, Kayla sensed something about her. Sasha’s face or stance didn’t look right.

              “Magic trick. You’d be surprised what you could find online.”

              “What do you want?”

              “You’re new. That could make you useful.”

              “You want my help?”

              “I think I might be able to use you. Yes.” Twisting her gaze from side to side, this woman moved like a snake. Sasha didn’t blink or flinch as Kayla took a step back. It didn’t look like she cared what Kayla did. Pulling her powers to the front of her mind, Kayla prepared herself for a fight. She didn’t know what this would look like, but Kayla felt her heart speed up. She held her breath, ready to block an attack. Seth thought about this a lot, what would happen if he went against the Alliance. Some of that information was in her head too. Shifting her weight, she wouldn’t strike first, but she fight back if she had to. Kayla could defend herself.

              Sasha attacked. But she didn’t move. Without thinking, Kayla realized that she was a nascent too. Just like Seth, Sasha had abilities.

              Fresh cold slid along Kayla’s wrists like something dark and slimy slid through her veins. It was like sludge in her body that slowed her down and made it harder to think. Hours before, Kayla felt Seth’s solitude, his concern, that desire to protect her. Now she felt the opposite, rage, anger, the need to control and dominate. It was like her muscles wanted to disobey.

              A few feet away, darkness swirled around Sasha’s eyes. It sparked and twisted across the whites of her eyes. Kayla tried to break Sasha’s concentration. She wanted to launch something. She saw a dozen different targets. Rocks, pieces of trash, or even a clod of dirt would’ve worked.

              Kayla broke the paralysis long enough to grab one of those rocks. Air and energy combined and threw the stone. It smacked Sasha in the cheek but still didn’t do anything. A thin line of red shone on her cheek, but Sasha didn’t flinch or break her hold. “Nice,” she said and wiped away the blood with the back of her hand.

              Kayla tried to run. She tried to break the hold. Nothing happened. Her muscles didn’t move. She couldn’t even get any sounds out.

              Closer, Sasha sniffed at Kayla. She was close enough to cut Kayla’s throat. She could do anything. “Close, so close. But not yet. You smell right, but definitely not yet.” Sasha smiled, turned around, and walked away. Ten, fifteen seconds, and Kayla felt herself relax, her muscles under her control again.

              For the rest of the night, Kayla ran through bad dreams. Cold and darkness surrounded her. It soaked through her skin and muscles as she swam against filthy currents . When she came back to awake, Kayla yawned and felt ready for another day. Bad dreams were a good way to keep people from sleeping too much.

              Neither her mom nor her dad said anything when Kayla came down the stairs. She got the impression that they wanted to leave her alone for a while. Besides, as long as they were in the same room, no one could scheme without letting the other side know what was going on. Awkward, tense, silent, Kayla grabbed a banana and headed back outside.

              Kayla stopped at the sidewalk. Sasha was there last night, a member of the Alliance. Through most of the night, those bad dreams focused on the sensations of sludge through her body. Drained and frozen in place, Kayla still felt sick at the thought. She didn’t cry, but now she knew she wasn’t as strong as she wanted to be. It didn’t help that Kayla didn’t know what that woman wanted.

              At school it was easier to forget about those problems. She looked around for Seth, though she didn’t know what she’d tell him. Someone else had his abilities, someone who showed up without Vigo. Maybe it meant she was a rogue. Maybe that’s what the Alliance wanted them to think. She didn’t want to tell Seth about this. He’d want to fight, and Kayla didn’t know how hard.

              Seth. She thought about him a lot as she walked to school. She thought about how he was alone. She thought about how he took care of her for some reason. Yesterday, when they were connected, she felt something inside of him. There was the darkness of a boy who’d spent most of his life hidden. Something else lurked inside of him. It was a warmth and a concern and a love—she realized—that he kept locked down under the pain and terrible memories.

              It helped that he was cute and funny when he wasn’t worried about someone locking them up. By the time she got to school, Kayla realized that she didn’t have to distract herself with school, and she didn’t have to think about the breakup with Youth Group or Dean or her parents. Sure, all of that weighed down on her again, but she felt reinforced. She felt like there was someone behind her.

              Before the battles between her parents, Kayla knew she had people. She had friends, and she thought they’d all be there for her. She’d been wrong, or it felt that way anyway. She still hoped maybe they’d work things out. But it wasn’t necessary with Seth. That felt good in a way she’d half-forgotten, but it rushed back and made her walk faster and smile a little more.

              Isaac noticed it. Kayla passed Erin’s first period class where he waited. He might’ve been a dork some of the time, but Isaac knew exactly how lucky he was to be with the girl he loved. “You look chipper.”

              “Chipper?”

              “Excited, exuberant, joyful, pleased, happy,” he said with a grin. “I am so going to own the SATs.” He got a good score the first time. Now he wanted to do better. Kayla had her theory: he wanted to do better than Erin to make sure he got into the same school as her even though that was two years off and even though high school romances weren’t supposed to last. He dragged her to a geek party, but moments like those made it worth it for Erin.

              “Not really.”

              “No,” he said. “Something happened. That or something’s been happening and you’re only now starting to realize it.”

              “Sorry. Nothing,” Kayla shrugged. “I think you’re wrong about this one. It’s just me. Normal me.” Her lie might have worked until she glanced around hoping to see someone else.

              “Who are you looking for?”

              Silent when she cursed, Kayla thought he wouldn’t notice. Guys were supposed to be bad at that sort of thing. She put her attention back on Erin’s annoyingly observant boyfriend and tried to sound casual, “Nobody.”

              “You sure?” Isaac said with the quarter-smile. He glanced down the hall, over her shoulder, like he was just distracting himself with teasing her before something else happened. “It looked like you were nervous about seeing someone. Someone you’ve been spending more time with, maybe?”

              “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

              “Sure you don’t.” He glanced down the other direction, probably searching for Erin. “But if you did, then you should know that you look a lot happier than I’ve seen you in a while, so you should keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

              “There’s nothing going on,” she said, both because she promised Seth she wouldn’t say anything and because she didn’t think he’d care about her like that anyway. Like what? That question bubbled to the front of her thoughts. She wanted to kick herself because a crush would be a bad idea. “Nothing.”

              “Right.”

              “What do you have?” Kayla asked when she realized Isaac hadn’t pulled his left hand out from behind his back. His stance made him look like a Southern gentleman or a butler.

              It was his turn to sputter, “Nothing.”

              “Right.”

              “You should go for it if he asks you out. Don’t let that other stuff get in your way.” He said that to distract her, but she didn’t care. When Seth spotted her, he turned and headed down the hall for them.

              “If you say anything to him,” she promised Isaac, “I swear they’ll never find the body.”

              He gave a quick nod. “Just remember what I said.” He pulled back a little, just out of earshot as Seth got closer. She felt something else flutter against her stomach, but it felt good this time. Another image flashed. She imagined his arms around her. That would feel strong and safe, she thought.

              “We should talk,” Kayla said.

              “What happened?” Kayla heard those notes of worry, but she didn’t pull anything from it. Someone like Isaac could say she’d have a chance, but that was dumb because he didn’t know Seth. He didn’t know how focused he was on survival and protection.

              “You were worried?” she asked, too surprised to stop herself.

              “No.”

              For the second time in as many minutes, Kayla got to say, “Right.” If she turned around, she was pretty sure she’d see Isaac laughing at them. “There is something I need to tell you. I saw someone last night, someone from the Alliance.”

              “Vigo?” Seth got closer with a glance over her shoulder. He didn’t want Isaac to overhear them. Being so close to a boy made something else stretch inside of her. He whispered, soft and insistent at the same time. Kayla had that little fantasy again. In a heartbeat, she thought about how it would feel to have his lips against hers, his arms around her.

              Thinking about Seth felt like waking up.

              “No, but she was with him. Her name was Sasha. Does that mean anything to you?” Talking about this made her feel vulnerable, and she wondered what Vigo would’ve thought if he knew his target attended this school.

              “Did she hurt you?”

              “No. She,” Kayla stopped, “she sniffed me. She said that I was close.”

              “Close? To what?”

              “I have no idea.”

              “I’ll see what I can find out about her.”

              “How?” Kayla asked. She imagined him scuttling through darkened alleys and dealing with criminals or mercenaries. She was part right.

              “Cyrus is for sale. That goes both ways. He might sell names to the Alliance, but he can be turned too.”

              “He wouldn’t turn you into them?”

              “No,” Seth said. “He knows how dangerous that would be.”

              “What does he know?”

              “Nothing.”

              “You suck at lying, you know that, right? I know you’re trying to do the dark and mysterious thing, but that doesn’t work in actual conversations.” Kayla expected a frown, some hiss of anger, but he smiled down at her.

              “Your friend’s watching us.”

              “He thinks you’re going to ask me out.”

              Seth stopped. He didn’t laugh like he was supposed to. She said it like one of those nervous jokes that you have to say to get it out there because maybe the idea would just choke on the air. It didn’t, not with Seth. “Maybe I should.”

              “Maybe you should,” Kayla managed despite the flurry of nerves up her spine.

              “Are you free after school?”

              “I can be,” it was like a dance where he led, but she played with him. “Depends. What would we be doing?”

              “How about this? This we’re friends, I’ll take you out for something to eat and you won’t have to deal with the rest of the world. An hour or two, and I promise you won’t have to think about anything else. No fights, just some fun.” He whispered it down to her ear, and Kayla thought she could feel the heat from his skin. It was hard not to grin.

              “Okay.”

              “Okay then,” he said and sauntered away. His two friends, usually in tow, fell in behind him. He looked like some state leader on his way to sign a treaty or do something else important. She watched him go and didn’t move, like time could stop. He knew how wrecked her life had been, and he still wanted to spend time with her. He still wanted to make her feel better.

              Isaac came back and announced, “And let it be known, I was right.” When she turned around, he still had his left hand behind his back. “That must mean I’m psychic. That must mean I know everything. I should probably go buy a lotto ticket.”

              “You’re too young.”

              “Damn. You’re right. Guess I’ll have to wait another year before winning the lotto.”

              “There’s nothing there,” Kayla said. “It wasn’t even a date.” She didn’t know if that was true. She didn’t want it to be, but that was still Seth, the boy with all of the armor. She was Kayla, and she doubted he’d let her in. It didn’t work that way. If nothing else, she knew he could have anyone. He could see what a girl wanted and give it to her. He spent time with her because he needed her. He was using her. Those words were bright and loud in her head, but she had a hard time listening. “He just wanted to get something to eat.”

              “He’s male. You’re female. That’s a date. Look it up. Seriously, I’m pretty sure that’s what you’ll find in any dictionary.” He grinned like he wanted to say something else, but he stopped, “Oh. Sorry. This is my cue.”

              Halfway down the hall, Erin made her way toward them. She smiled at Kayla and waved to her boyfriend even as he strode ahead. That’s when Kayla saw what he’d been hiding behind his back. He had a candy rose gripped between his fingers.

              Kayla couldn’t hear what they said, and she shouldn’t have looked, but that was part of the present. It was Isaac’s public display of affection when he said something in low tones that only Erin got to hear. A couple other girls noticed and stopped to watch as he presented the little rose to his girlfriend. Some of the guys smirked like Isaac was an idiot. The grins dropped from their faces though when they saw the girls around them swoon. Just a little.

              When the couple came back, Isaac had his hand around her shoulder, and she had her arm around his waist. A teacher would’ve yelled at them to break apart if there’d been anyone else outside Ms. Jacob’s door. Something special happened, Kayla guessed. A second later, she noticed the silver chain around Erin’s neck. Smiling, her cheeks pink, Erin nodded once. She was going to tell Kayla all about it, but not in front of the boyfriend.

Besides, she had a different target, “So Isaac says that Seth asked you out.”

              It would never work, but Kayla tried to burn a hole in his forehead with the heat of her glare. She silently cursed when it didn’t work. “He wants to hang out after school.”

              “Is that what he said?”

              “No. They’re getting food,” Isaac made it sound like an important piece of evidence.

              “Ah,” Erin nodded like it made perfect sense.

              “It’s not a date,” she said again and reminded herself of all the reasons he could do better than her. “We’re just friends.”

              “That’s what you guys said, right?”

              “Yeah,” Kayla answered slowly since this sounded like a trap.

              “Definitely a date. You only say you’re friends if there’s a question. There’s only a question if one or both of you is attracted to the other.”

              “He’s not into me,” Kayla said it with the fatalistic certainty of someone about to jump off a bridge. “He has too much going on.”

              “But not too much to spend some time with you?” Isaac asked.

              Erin pushed their double team, “If you’re friends, really friends, then you don’t say it. You don’t need to. It’s obvious. It’s just something that goes unsaid. So seriously, wear something cute.”

              “We’re meeting after school.”