A Girl Called Dust (19 page)

I couldn’t help but notice the bitterness
in his voice. Bitterness toward Takers. Bitterness toward me, because whether I
liked it or not, I was one of them.

A slight feeling of defensiveness rose in
me. “They don’t kill for sport. Only for necessity.” I couldn’t bring myself to
say “we” because technically I had never killed anything. “Still, you should
have told me.”

“As I said, we hoped it would just go away
if we did nothing about it. Your mother mostly was hoping you would just turn
out to be normal.”

Just be normal.
All
that time I’d thought Mom had only been talking about making friends when she
had actually been pleading with me to be Human.

“What happened there?” Dad asked.

I told him everything, including how the
man in the cloak had told me I wasn’t special and brought me home. “Why would
he lie to me?”

Dad began to eat his ice cream. “I have no
idea why he would do that. Having you there would be only a benefit to him and
the other Takers.”

“Dad, Fletcher says you’re not Human
either? What are you then?”

“A Guardian. A type of Angel.”

There was nothing abnormal about my father
that would separate him from any typical man. No wings. No halo. Could he fly
like Hollis? I knew it was true, but it was still hard to picture.

“What about Paige and Quinn? Doesn’t that
make them angels too?”

Dad shook his head. “No. When a Human and
creature breed, only the firstborn will be a creature. Any other child will be
Human.”

 Lucky them.

I remembered the conversation Fletcher and
I had had earlier. “When you go away for business, where do you really go?”

“October is my month for duty. We have a
sanctuary that must stay protected at all times. All Guardians have their
appointed month of the year to report for duty. We can’t leave for any reason.
That’s why I couldn’t come home when Paige was missing.”

All that time I had pictured Dad sitting
in the stuffy conference room of some hotel listening to presentations while he
was off somewhere being a freaking Angel. I didn’t know how many more
revelations I could take.

“Your book club meetings?”

Dad ran his fingers through his hair and
sighed. “It’s a support group for parents of Givers and a few Takers. We meet
to discuss how our kids are doing and how to make life as normal as we can for
you.”

Every Thursday night they were meeting to
talk about me. I wondered who else was in the group.

“Arden, they will probably come for you
again. They will teach you things, things that I can’t. How to find your own
kind. How to survive. Things about their world that I don’t know. That means
our lives are going to change around here.”

That scared me. “Change how?” My family
was already looking at me differently and walking on eggshells.

“Things will just be different.”

I shook my head. “No. You mean now I’ll be
the enemy.”

Dad took his hand in mine and squeezed it.
“No, Arden. You will never be the enemy. No matter what happens, but . . .”

“But what?”

“The closer you get to adulthood, the more
you’ll transform. Most kids your age have done it already, but I think not
being with your birth parents and other Takers stunted your growth. You’ll be
eighteen in a year.”

Pieces of the frightening picture came
crashing together. I remembered Mom crying on the couch the morning of my
birthday. “That’s why Mom is always depressed on my birthdays. Because I’m
getting closer and closer to changing.”

Dad smiled grimly. “I know it seems like
your mother is hard on you sometimes, but it’s only because she wants this life
for you. For you to stay with us and live like a Human.”

I felt guilty for being angry with Mom.
All this time I’d thought she didn’t like me for not being good enough, but all
she wanted was for me to not become a monster.

That night I lay in my bed with the covers
pulled tight underneath my chin. I thought about how the father I’d known my
entire life was actually an Angel, a living, breathing Angel. I couldn’t
believe my parents had kept this secret from me all this time. A part of me
felt like I couldn’t trust them anymore. All my life I’d believed what they
told me simply because they were my parents, but after so many lies, so many
secrets, I could no longer trust everything that came out of their mouths.

I pressed my eyes closed, trying to find
sleep, when the balcony doors creaked open. I didn’t even bother looking.
“Hollis?”

“Yes.” He approached my bed, stepping out
of the shadows. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean? I live here.”

He towered over me, and I finally looked
up at him. In the darkness, I could only make out his massive form. “You can’t
just leave the lair like that. It’s dangerous.”

“But I didn’t leave . . .”

Hollis clearly had no interest in what I
was going to say because he jammed a needle into my neck.

I woke up groggy and foggy headed. Cadence
brought me a cup of hot tea that tasted like peppermint.

She perched herself on the edge of the bed
and stared at me as I sipped the warm beverage. I was grateful for it even
though the room was warmer than it had been the first time.

“Why’d you leave?”

I almost choked from swallowing too
quickly. “I didn’t leave. Some man threw me out. He said I didn’t belong here.”

Cadence rolled her eyes. “Right. Hollis
got in a lot of trouble because of you.”

“Because of me? In trouble by who?”

“His father. Mr. Mason runs the lair.”

I placed my empty teacup on the table
beside the bed. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would he punish Hollis for that
when it had nothing to do with him?”

“You’re right. That doesn’t make sense.
But Mr. Mason blames Hollis for everything that goes wrong around here. Anyway,
stay put this time. There’s nowhere to run or hide. Wherever you go, we’ll find
you. Or have you already forgotten about the chip I inserted in you?”

There was no use in arguing with Cadence.
She was determined to believe I had run away. I didn’t feel I had anything to
prove to her anyway. “So what now?” I asked. “You guys are supposed to be
teaching me stuff.”

“Yes. Hollis will come in a few. Until
then, sit tight.” She pointed to the golden book on the table by my teacup.
“I’m sure you have some reading to catch up on.”

Cadence left, taking the teacup with her.
I grabbed the book and turned to a random page to read. I was is the middle of
the page about Grindylows when Hollis came in. He was stone faced and quiet.

“Hollis, I—”

“Come over here,” he ordered. He sat in
front of a television monitor. Reluctantly, I took a seat beside him.

“Look, I didn’t run away. A man in a black
cloak threw me out. I’m not sure why your dad’s punishing you, but I can try to
talk to him . . .”

“It’s okay. Punishment builds character.
No big.”

I wondered what kind of punishment he had
gotten. “Hollis, all this stuff is interesting, but what if I’m not really one
of you? What if I’m a normal Human and someone made a mistake?”

His dark eyes narrowed in confusion. “What
are you talking about?”

“You guys do amazing things. I don’t. I’m
just weird. That doesn’t mean I’m one of you. I don’t even look different. I’m
Human.”

Hollis bit his lower lip. “Who told you
that?”

“The man in the cloak.”

Anger rose in Hollis’s voice. “One man
told you that you weren’t one of us and you believed him just like that? Never
mind the color you saw around your teacher and how she just happened to turn up
missing. Never mind the way you act at night. You just believed what he told
you. When are you going to stop letting people tell you what you are?”

“Why are you getting so mad? What’s the
big deal? Why can’t I just keep living my life the way I’ve been living it? Why
do you guys care whether I’m here or not?”

Hollis groaned. “Your father didn’t teach
you anything. Arden, you will die, okay? If you don’t learn about your heritage
and how to protect yourself, you will die.”

Dread formed a stone in my stomach. Who
wanted to hear something like that? “What do you mean, I’ll die?”

His shoulders slumped slightly. “I’m sorry
to say it like that, but you have to know. I’ll try to make a long story
short.”

I sat back in my seat, still reeling from
his words. “Okay. I’m listening.”

 “Creatures only occupy these five
states—Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Idaho. Anyway, Takers dwell
underground. There are five large tunnels that connect all five states.” He
tapped some keys on the keyboard and pointed to the monitor. The scene switched
from the dark, empty halls of my school to a hallway in the lair. Something
with two horns and a horse face strolled down the corridor with something that
looked almost identical to Wes, just a bit smaller.

“So what is this place? Some kind of
school for Takers?”

Hollis cocked his head to the side. “More
like an orphanage, only no one’s waiting to be adopted.”

“Meaning?”

“A few years back, there was a massacre
and many adults were slaughtered. Dad created this place to take their children
in.”

“Oh.” A sadness weighed my shoulders down.
“That’s awful.”

Hollis nodded. “My mother was killed too.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s all right. I mean, it’s
not all right, but at least I have my father. The kids here don’t have anyone.”

I felt slightly guilty for having two
parents who loved me even though we weren’t blood related.

“There is the sixth tunnel,” Hollis
explained, “but that’s closed off. I’ll show it to you, but you have to be
prepared.”

I swallowed hard. “Why? What’s in the
sixth tunnel?”

“The scarier things.”

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see. “Scarier
than what I’ve already seen?”

Hollis’s face fell, and I regretted my
words. “I didn’t mean . . .”

“It’s okay. Yeah, scarier than us. The
sixth tunnel is where the beasts live. They’re wild and uncivilized, so we have
to seal them off. They’d kill us if they had the chance.”

“Then why keep them? If they’re so
dangerous, just kill them.”

Hollis gaped at me open mouthed. “Destroy
them? For what? Just for being what they are? They might be dangerous,
horrible, repulsive beasties, but they’re family. We take care of family.”

I would never call any of them my family.
“What exactly is down there?”

“Ghouls, Hellhounds, Chupacabras, Trolls,
Ogres, some other things.”

I couldn’t tell if he was playing with me
or not. I’d read about several of those creatures, but actually seeing them and
knowing for sure that they existed was a whole different story. Up until then,
I’d wanted to believe the more dangerous things were fictional. “Really? Are
there werewolves and vampires down there too?”

Hollis smirked. “There’s no such thing as
vampires, dummy. And werewolves are extinct. By the way, we keep the Wendigos
down there too.”

My body tensed. Was he telling me they
were going to throw me down into some tunnel with the worst monsters
imaginable?

Hollis must have read the look on my face
because he quickly added, “Don’t worry. You’re not full Wendigo, so they won’t
throw you down there, but if you become a danger to those around you, they
will. The Banshee half of you could help you maintain control, but that’s
completely up to you.” He focused on the monitor again. “Ready?” I wasn’t, but
I nodded, and he pressed a button. The screen changed to a scene from a horror
movie, the most gruesome one ever created. The ghastliest things I had ever
seen clawed over each other while running amuck.

Dark forms ran back and forth. It took me
a moment to realize they were huge dogs with razor-like teeth. Skinny beings
with snow-white skin moved along as if in a trance. Hollis touched one on the
screen. “Those are Ghouls.”

Tall, skinny wolf-like creatures tore
through the tunnel chasing each other. “Those are Wendigos.”

I was one of those. I couldn’t be. What
would happen if I fully transformed and they threw me down there with them?
That would be my life.

“We feed them regularly, but that’s about
all we can do. The giants guard the only opening to that tunnel. There would be
no way to control the beasts if they ever got out. They would destroy
everything in their path.”

I didn’t want to look at the screen any
longer. The thought that half of me was a beast and that I could very well end
up down there was too much for me to handle.

“I
know this was a lot. You should go to bed,” Hollis said. “Tomorrow I have to
teach you about something very important. The most important thing you’ll ever
need to know.”