Secret of Betrayal: Book Two of The Destroyer Trilogy (2 page)

He knows that’s what it would come to as well as
I do. For some insane reason, I told him I’m going to go after the Guardians
who are keeping all the supposedly talentless Ciphers locked away in the spirit
world. If he stays with them, he’ll be one of the ones I have to kill to rescue
them. And I’ll do it if I have to. The cold, logical side of me I hate
listening to has already convinced me that as much as I believe Braden
is
a good person when you put aside his profession, his life
isn’t valuable enough to risk losing the Ciphers. Not when they’re the only
ones who can help me, the ones meant to be my army.

Pensive silence crowds around us, filling the
empty hallway. The pressure of it pushes me toward Braden. I lean against the
lockers next to him. I don’t want to think about this anymore. As if in answer
to my wish, Braden spins toward me so he has me trapped against the lockers
before I can react. My heart lurches, but this time it’s not in fear. My mind
is miles from Ciphers. Braden’s body is mere inches from mine. His eyes are
still troubled, but his wolf-like curiosity has returned. He presses in a
little closer.

“You know,” I say at barely more than a whisper,
“I doubt the principal would approve of you standing so close to me. I’m a
student, remember?”

“She’s not around to see me, is she?”

“Braden, please,” I beg.

“Please what?”

I could throw him across the hallway if I wanted
to. I could grab his neck and snap it in two. But the confusion pulsing through
me makes it hard to think. Part of me doesn’t want to push him away. The rest
of me
says
, I don’t know anything about him, and Milo
would kill him if he saw him like this.

“Braden, let me go,” I demand.

“Why?”

“Because you’re making me
uncomfortable.”

He peers at me so intently I have to remind
myself he has no Perception to know what I’m feeling right now.

“Uncomfortable,” he says. “I would have chosen a
different word.”

“I don’t care about your vocabulary skills. Let
me go.”

“I’m not keeping you here,” he says. I cringe at
the truth of his words. I could easily get away if I wanted to.

“What are you so worried about?” Braden asks.
“Afraid one of your boyfriends will see you with me?”

“Lance is my ex,” I remind him, “but yes. I
doubt Milo would appreciate you standing so close to me. This might look a
little hostile to him. Milo is very protective of me.”

Braden hardly looks concerned. Taking a
different route, I say, “Or he might assume your interest in me is physical. He
also tends to get a little jealous when it comes to me and other guys.” Just
ask Lance about that.

Braden seems to have lost his earlier
melancholy. His expression turns serious with a hint of amusement. “Well,” he
says as his lips move closer to mine, “if he’s going to be jealous of me
regardless …”

Alarm bells start blaring in my head. Even so,
for a split second, I hesitate. Then I shove him back with both hands. I expect
him to laugh or tease me, but the sudden burst of pain I feel from him
surprises me. He tries to cover it up quickly, but I’m too good for him to
elude. I approach him cautiously.

“Are you okay?” I ask. “I didn’t shove you that
hard.”

“I’m fine.”

He turns away. Shame rolls off of him, but with
a heavy dose of pride as well. It takes a moment to realize the shame is for
letting me see him in pain rather than for the injury itself. Whatever got him
hurt, he thinks it was worth it. I didn’t do this, but now I’m curious about
who did.

I walk around to face him and ask, “Who hurt
you?”

He doesn’t seem interested in telling me. I
don’t know why I should care, but the same oddity that makes my body react to
his presence inspires a strange sense of protectiveness toward him. My need to
know who hurt him makes me reach for the buttons on his shirt. His hands grab
mine, but he doesn’t push me back, just stops me from going any further.

“Let me see, Braden.”

“Why do you care?” he asks with an intensity
behind his question that startles me.

“I don’t know,” I admit, “but I want to
understand what happened.”

You’d think Braden would be thrilled to unbutton
in front of me, given what he just tried, but his reluctant sigh is quite the
opposite. He does seem to realize, though, that I am not going to back down. I
need to know how badly he was hurt. Pushing my hands away slowly, he leaves
them at my sides and takes his own hands back to his shirt. He unbuttons the
first few buttons.

I know full well how this will look if anyone
happens to walk up, but I don’t really care at the moment. Another couple of
buttons pop loose. The bright red crosshatching all over his chest makes me
suck
in a sharp breath. If I know
the Guardians, they’ll be covering his back as well. I took out his team two
weeks ago, but apparently the Guardians aren’t terribly swift with their
punishments. These cuts still look fairly fresh. My fingers reach forward in
awful fascination. I don’t even come close to touching him. Braden grabs my
hand immediately and pulls it back down.

“Was this part of your punishment?”

Looking at me without any doubts he says, “Yes,
but it was worth it.”

Scared by his admission, I try to take a step
back. When I don’t get very far I realize Braden never let go of my hand. I
yank it away easily and say, “Why would that kind of pain be worth it to you?”

“Does my pain make you doubt your decision to
save Milo? Would you have made any other choice just to save me a little
punishment?”  

“No,” I say.

“Because you knew you were making the right
choice. And so did I. Forget you ever saw it.”

I won’t. Just like everyone else I know that has
suffered under Guardian rule, the sight of his mutilated flesh will haunt me.
But for now, I will pretend.

I quickly begin to re-button Braden’s shirt
before someone walks by and questions are asked. The hint of fresh blood where
I shoved him makes me falter for a second. I have to shake myself to finish
closing up his shirt before anyone else sees the cuts. Not that there’s anyone
else out here with us, but I also want to get out of this hallway. Besides,
I’ve already had one mortifying hallway incident when Lance tried to convince
me to take him back by practically attacking me with his mouth. Milo witnessing
that was worse than any of the thirteen broken bones I’ve had. I really don’t
want to repeat the experience.

Stepping clear of Braden, I change the subject
in an effort to get as far away from blood and kissing as possible. “So, you’re
really going to be here every day, ghosting through the halls like a stalker?”

“Stalker?
That seems a
little harsh, don’t you think?” he asks.

I throw him a baleful glare. “No. What else
would I call someone who followed me and my boyfriend to the theater, tracked
me down afterward, then shows up at my school and pins me against a row of
lockers? I think stalker is the perfect word for you, Braden.”

The bell
rings, followed by
the raucous hum of students trying to escape, but Braden seems
completely unfazed. He steps behind me and brings his mouth right next to my
ear. As the first students spill out of their classrooms, he whispers, “I’m not
a stalker, Libby, I’m a hunter.”

And then he disappears into the crowd.

Chapter 2

Conflicted

I stand in the middle of a crowd of teenagers,
not bumped or jostled by anyone. The fear-inducing buffer that surrounds me
keeps them all a few steps away.
All but Milo.
His
hands slip around my waist from behind and pull me against him. The way his
cheek presses against mine should relax me as it usually does, but I’m still
too shaken by Braden.

“What are you doing? You usually wait for me at
the classroom door,” he asks. “There are too many people out here for me to
keep an eye on.”

“Milo, you don’t have to watch me every second.
I was just in a hurry to get out of Spiritualism today.”

Unlocking my waist, Milo takes my hand instead
and starts walking with me toward my next class. His expression darkens by the
tiniest amount, but that’s nothing new. Between the anger he still holds
against his parents for lying to him about being a Cipher, and his newfound
desire to find the other Ciphers and kill as many Guardians as possible in the
process, I don’t see his smirking smile nearly as often as I would like. He
doesn’t seem to notice my scrutiny.

“You
still having
trouble reaching your spirit?”

He must think I was standing out in the hall
because I was frustrated with class. I’m not about to correct him, so I play
along.
“Yeah.
Your mom has helped me a ton with the
basics of Spiritualism, but I still can’t find my spirit on my own very well.
I’ve got to figure it out soon or else I’m never going to contact the Ciphers
in time.”

“In time for what?
The
Guardians have been keeping them locked in the spirit world for centuries. That
isn’t going to change any time soon,” Milo argues.

“Even if that were true,” I say, “
I
don’t
have endless amounts of time, remember? If I can’t pull this off before I turn
eighteen, you can kiss me goodbye.
Literally.”

Milo hates it when I talk about dying, but it’s never
far from my mind. And it shouldn’t be far from his, either. It’s not just a
possibility. It isn’t a vague “everyone dies” kind of thing. If I can’t
overthrow the society that has pegged me as a demon and rescue my army before I
turn eighteen, the Guardians and Seekers will get to play Rock, Paper,
Scissors
for the honor of publicly executing me.

“Besides, I think you’re wrong about the
Ciphers,” I say.

Milo’s brooding drops away as
his interest piques.
“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure exactly.”

I’ve never been very good at explaining my
emotions to anyone. I go for subtle hints more often than not. Trying to make
someone else understand the vague impressions I get through my talents is even
harder.

“I know I haven’t been able to talk to the Ciphers,
yet, but ever since I’ve been working with your mom I feel as if I’m more aware
of the spirit world. Something has been changing there. I can’t explain what I
mean by that, but sometimes it feels different when I’m using Spiritualism. I
think the Guardians might be doing something.”

“You should mention this to my mom tonight,”
Milo says.

I don’t know that it will help, given how vague
my explanation is likely to be, but I nod anyway. We’re almost to my class when
Lance suddenly appears in front of us. I pull back in surprise, and then I
smack him. I hate it when he does that. Incredible Speed or not, it’s beyond
rude. Milo is less than thrilled to see him as well. Especially when Lance
completely ignores the fact that Milo is holding my hand and snaps forward to
wrap me up in a hug. I push him back immediately and yank my hand out of Milo’s
crushing grip so I can escape the feeling of my knuckles grinding together.

I turn back to Lance and say, “I’ve told you to
stop doing that. It’s not okay anymore. And if you can’t remember that I’ll let
Milo remind you next time.”

Lance pretends that threat doesn’t bother him,
but
him
taking a step back proves that it does. He
promised to back off his quest to rekindle our relationship, and he has, but he
still doesn’t like Milo. For some reason Lance thinks Milo is bad news. I don’t
agree. Of course that makes Lance dislike Milo even more, and irritating him
has become an outlet for his frustration. If letting Milo take a swing at him
will put an end to it, then maybe that’s what has to happen. I hold Lance’s
gaze a moment longer to make sure he knows I’m serious. When he drops his eyes
in defeat, I move on.

“What do you want?” I ask Lance.

“You’ll never guess who I just saw,” Lance says
to me.

My heart leaps into my throat. I don’t care
whether Braden belongs here now or not, but he better keep as far away from
Lance and Milo as possible. All I can manage in answer to Lance is a strangled,
“Who?”

“Jen.”

Relief pumps air back into my body. But why
would he feel the need to announce seeing my ex-best friend? We may not be
speaking anymore since she abandoned me after my Inquest, but she’s here at
school every day. Seeing her isn’t big news. “And…” I prompt.

Lance stares at me as if I’m a complete idiot.
He holds up his wrist as a hint and I finally catch on. The band of perfectly
straight and symmetrical, raised flesh tick marks encircling his wrist clues me
in.

“Her Inquest.
I
completely forgot. Things have been so nuts I didn’t even think about her
birthday. Did you see her diktats?”

“Everyone saw her diktats. She’s been flashing
them around all morning. We’re not exactly friends anymore, so I didn’t stop to
talk, but given the number of diktats and how excited she was, I think she got
her wish,” Lance says.

Excitement for my no-longer-best-friend getting
to follow her dream battles for supremacy in my heart with the dread of her
actually using her new talents against me. Only an irritated grunt from Milo
brings me back to the conversation. He has no idea what we’re talking about and
I know it really bugs him when Lance and I go off on a memory jag without him.

“Jen is most likely going to become a
Concealor
,” I tell Milo. He nods but doesn’t appear to
understand. “Don’t you ever read the school blog?”

“Uh, no,” Milo says. “I really couldn’t care
less about school gossip.”