Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) (23 page)

A rush of anger coursed through me, and my cheeks went hot. The need that had grabbed hold of me dissipated, and I stared at him like he was a crazy person. “Fine. I said I got it when you told me the first time. For the record, I wasn’t going to say yes. But is that going to be a thing now? You’re going to randomly jump me? Because that wasn’t in the contract, and if so I’ll get some football pads from Bink.”

His bunched shoulders relaxed and he blew out a sigh. “Did I hurt you?” The words were still gruff, but the anger was gone.

“No, just startled me. I’m cool.” I’d eat glass before I admitted that I’d banged my elbow on some part of him and it still throbbed.

He nodded and reached out to brush the snow off my arm.

I forced a smile, ignoring the sizzle that came with his touch. “And at least it woke me up after a long, boring day at school.”

“Glad to be of service.” He seemed relieved to let the tension fade and focus on the change of subject. “I didn’t get a chance to ask you at lunch—did Verbiglio say anything to you?”

“Not a word. In fact, I don’t think she even looked at me all class. It was kind of nice.”

We stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, the tension returning in a flash as thoughts of the night before filled the space between us. I could almost feel him behind me. Touching. Connected. Like we’d been the night before with our entwined hands on the window.

He cleared his throat and motioned to my hands. “We better start. Go ahead and take off your gloves.”

Easy for him to say, but I swallowed my complaints and did what he’d asked. The frigid, dry air seeped into the bones of my fingers pretty much the second I got my gloves off, and I let out a muffled, “Ugh,” which he gallantly ignored.

“First thing you’ve got to work on is daily life. Getting in the zone and used to living with the power inside you. It’s easier for semis like me, though, because it’s a slower process. We start at, like, age five, and every day we have a little more power at our disposal. With you guys, it’s totally different. One day you wake up and you’ve got this energy trying to bust out from all sides.” He gave me a long, assessing look. “I guess that would be tough. That’s why so many of you lose it.”

These convos were always the least comfortable for me. In fact, I almost insulted him just to get us on more familiar ground. Every time he told me about things I should already know, a bolt of anger at my mother blasted through me, and hot on its heels came the irrational urge to defend her, even though he wasn’t attacking her.

Something he’d said caught my attention, though, and thoughts of my mother faded to background noise. “Lose it? What do you mean by that?”

He cocked his head and gave me a long, assessing look, as though he were unsure exactly how much to share. “You know, the suicides?”

I nodded, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth, and I guess my puh-puh-poker face sucked because his dark brows collapsed into a fierce frown.

“The suicides? You don’t know about the suicides? Damn, Magpie, they don’t tell you shite, do they?”

I shrugged and waited, my skin getting tighter by the second.

“A lot of time, your kind—the young ones, at least—have a difficult—” He broke off and speared a hand into his shaggy hair. “The suicide rates are really high. So say there are ten teenagers from your line in the US right now—”

I cut him off, all thoughts derailed by that stunning concept. “Are there?”

“Are there what?”

“Are there ten of us? Teens like me?”

He tipped his head one way and then the other like he was weighing his response. “Aye, give or take. And maybe another two dozen worldwide.”

“Just girls?”

“Mostly. I don’t know why, but your line only produces maybe one male every hundred years.”

I didn’t care. Boys, girls, whatever. For some reason, I’d thought the rest of the semis like me in the world were ancient, or, at the very least, my mom’s age. The joy that bubbled through me felt a little dirty, but it bubbled nonetheless.

Not alone.

Why would I want there to be more? It was no picnic, that was for sure. But misery did love company, and apparently I was pretty much a miserable person for feeling almost light-headed relief at the knowledge that there were other people like me sleeping under the same sky at night. The relief was short-lived.

“Almost half will commit suicide before they turn eighteen. And the other half…” He trailed off, his jaw going tight. “That’s a talk for another day. It’s going to be dark soon. Come on.” He started to go, but I didn’t follow, and he turned back to face me, his brow wrinkled. “What’s up?”

I cleared my throat and jammed my trembling hands into my coat pockets. “Why do they do it?”

His gaze was heavy and searching. “Do you truly not know?”

Maybe I did, but I still wanted him to say it out loud.

“They can’t handle it. Sometimes, no matter how well-prepared they are, their human brains can’t handle the power pouring in all at once, and it breaks them.”

I got that. I tried not to think about the day I’d started changing. A lot of it was a blur, but the parts that weren’t were the stuff nightmares were made of.

“I can see how it would be overwhelming, but what I don’t get is why it’s so hard to control the urge. It’s flat-out wrong to take from someone’s soul that way.” Any sympathy that had softened his tone dried up, and his face was a mask of ice. “And the stealing…is that to feed the need, too?” He went quiet, and his gaze drilled into me, judging me.

The shame burned my throat and I shrugged, but he didn’t let me off the hook.

“I’ve answered your questions—the ones that I could, anyway. Tell me about the jewelry, Magpie.”

For some reason, that offended me, and my indignation got me fired up enough to talk. “It’s not jewelry,” I muttered, burying my chin into my coat. “I mean, it can be, but it can also be a picture. Or a memento. I don’t collect things of value, necessarily. I collect things that carry power. An emotional weight. The more loved the item, the more I crave it. The thing itself could be worthless, as far as money goes.”

His frown cleared a little, and he shifted from foot to foot. “That’s a new one to me. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. Most semis like you just…” He looked off into the fading sun and shook his head. “It’s still wrong. You know that, yeah?”

I was well aware, yeah. “Does your kind have a hunger, Mac? Anything that you need to have or it consumes you until you get it?”

His gaze tripped downward, over my body. It was only for an instant, but I felt it as if it were a touch. He cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. Again. “Not like that, no.”

I ignored the trail of flames his glance had left behind and focused on his judgmental prickery instead. “Well, good for you. My options are pretty limited, from what I can tell. I can take the occasional necklace, baby picture, or Grandma’s favorite recipe book and feed off the little waves of love that the inanimate object holds until it’s spent. Or I can suck the love, and eventually, the life out of people until they are vegetables. This is the lesser of two evils, and honestly? Despite the high that comes with the other, I prefer stealing. Nobody gets physically injured, and the objects don’t hold distinct memories the way people do.”

“What do you mean? You can see a person’s memories?” He looked shocked, so apparently that wasn’t a regular thing, either?

I nodded, uneasy now. Seemed like I wasn’t just a normal freak. I was a freaky freak. Fabulous. “Yeah. I mean, sometimes. When I’m taking from a person, I open myself and sometimes, along with the love, memories rush at me, too. I can see—and feel—moments in their lives. It’s not something I try to do, Mac. I just don’t know how to
not
do it.”

His silence said it all. He was disgusted, and I didn’t blame him.

“Do you think I want to do that? To peep on people’s lives or take their love?”

“Don’t forget the stealing,” he added flatly.

Guilt and anger went to war, and anger won out. “I have two options.” I held up my index and middle fingers and wiggled them in his face. “Two. And over the past few months I’ve come to realize that I can live with one.” I held his gaze and shook my head slowly. “I can’t live with the other.”

The silence felt heavy, and I wondered if he believed me or not. But I wouldn’t ask, and he wasn’t giving anything away with his expression.

“Tell me more about the different semis. Ones who don’t…do what I do.” At that moment I needed a distraction more than anything and just a second of levity. Surely there had to be some part-god out there who was compelled by all that was holy to tickle babies in their sleep or feed people the next day’s lottery numbers or something?

“We can talk more about the history and stuff once we work through the physical part. That’s where the imminent danger is. Plus, we can do the other indoors,” he said pointedly, and I realized my teeth were chattering. Whatever. Sparring would work fine. As long as we could stop talking about how terrible my brethren and I were, I was good.

“Ready?”

I nodded, and he stepped closer until he stood maybe two feet away, which was a good foot closer than I was comfy with, and held up his hands. “Right, then. We’re going to start with the stuff I know you can catch onto the easiest. What I want you to do is blast me.”

I opened my mouth, the instinctive argument ready for launch, and he shushed me with a scowl.

“And not the way you’ve been doing so far. For real this time.”

I chewed the inside of my lower lip, thinking of how I could pull off making it like I was following orders but actually still lying back on the whole shooting-death-power-out-of-my-fingertips thing. I shouldn’t have wasted my time.

“I need to know what you’re capable of, and if you don’t show me the whole of it, nothing I do is going to prepare you for what you’re going to have to deal with during your test with the Council. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Mags?”

I firmed my chin because it felt a little trembly and nodded. If he wanted it, I’d give it to him. But the thought of seeing his eyes roll back into his head and his face turn that ghoulish gray made my insides go squishy in a bad way. “Now?” I asked, stalling.

“Yes, now. Come on.” He grabbed my icy hands with his, which were way warmer than mine, and squeezed. His stony gaze pinned me in place, and I tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let me. “Now or never. We can go to the Council right now and end this. I don’t have time to waste if you’re not onboard.”

And it was that. The idea that, even if I could pass the tests right now—which I couldn’t—when it was over, he’d leave, and I’d be left to deal with this hot mess of a life all on my own with no one who could—strike that, with no one who
would
teach me. I guess that was more proof of how selfish I was. How caught up in my own drama. I was willing to risk Mac’s life if he was wrong and I was more powerful than he could handle. If only he wouldn’t leave me all by myself.

So I blasted him. Uncapped the wild, snapping electricity clawing at my skin and whipped it right at him. Bile burned up my throat when I realized that a small part of myself, a greedy, sucking part, craving the moment when the rush of my energy flowed into Mac, hollowed him out, and came surging back with gobs of delicious love to spare. I wasn’t a drug kind of girl, but I imagined junkies felt that way. Waiting for the high.

The high never came.

I opened my eyes, forcing myself to focus.

Mac was nodding encouragingly, his lips a little strained, but healthy-looking and alive, just like the rest of him. I pushed harder, this time not just unleashing but actively throwing every ounce of what I had through my fingertips. His mouth twisted into a wry smile, and he gripped my hands tighter.

“Now that’s something there, Maggie.”

Not Magpie, I realized dimly, a little hazy from this new kind of rush. Not the buzz of taking but of absolute freedom. Letting it rip. My whole body felt loose and languid, like I could finally relax, and it was hypnotizing. I think I could have stayed there forever like that and died happy, but Mac had taken just the slightest step back.

“Okay?” I murmured. “Should I stop?” I didn’t want to. Not yet. I’d never liked people touching me, not even as a kid, and the thought of going to a masseuse made my skin crawl, but if this was what it felt like to regular people, like getting rid of the headache you didn’t even realize you had until it was gone, I would’ve signed up for a lifetime of them.

Still, if Mac’s face was any indication, as comfy as this was for me, it was the exact opposite for him. My comfort was his discomfort. Now he was at the dentist, tensed up, his whole body on high alert.

“Not yet. This is the important part.” He loosened his grip on me. “Draw it back.” I instantly went to shut it down, but he shook his head. “No. Not all the way. Just a little. If you’re at a nine, make it an eight. Take the slightest edge off.”

I attempted to follow his instructions but didn’t have the faintest clue where to start.

I closed my eyes and zeroed in on my energy. Tried to lower it ever so slightly, but there was no halfway. One minute I was a live wire, the next deader than a plank of wood. The cap snapped back into place, and I winced at Mac’s muttered curse.

“Sorry. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do, and—”

“It’s okay. I’m not mad at you. I think your mother’s a right shit, though.”

I dropped his hands and stepped back. “Screw you. You hardly know her.”

Funny how I’d thought the same thing about her a million times in the past six months, but hearing it from someone else sent me into mama-bear mode.

“I know you love her, but that doesn’t make her right.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and something sizzled between us. Not the crackle that had been present since the day we met. This was…more. Stronger. Worse.

Was that going to be the thing now? Was there going to be some weird chemical reaction because we’d shared power or something? I went to ask, but his gaze was locked on my mouth, and suddenly I couldn’t remember my question anymore. I wet my lips and tried to think straight. I was mad—that much I remembered—because my fists were balled up at my sides. But the way he was looking at me, gray eyes gone almost black again, had sent the reason for my fury to the back burner.