Destined for Dreams: Book One (9 page)

“Yes, Mr. Soto,” Jacqueline says quietly.

He claps his hands and pushes from the table. “Well then, let’s go ahead and introduce you to everyone you’ll need to know to fit in around here.”

NADIA

We’ve been waiting for over an hour and I’m about to give up on Jacqueline when she pushes through the door with her brows knitted together and a frown on her lips. She jogs down the steps, her messy hair bouncing with her sudden movement, and then she fakes a smile.

“You don’t look very happy,” I say.

Jacqueline crosses her arms and then looks between Alyssa and me. “I’m so embarrassed. I didn’t know a human was on the council. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die when she practically yelled at me for being surprised.”

I grimace. “I should’ve warned you.”

Alyssa grabs both our arms. “Enough talk. We only have a few minutes to get out of here.” She half drags us to the back gate. “We have a few hours to do whatever we want.”

“Are you sure we won’t get caught?” I ask.

“Shhh.” Alyssa holds her index finger over her lips.

Jacqueline steps closer to me and her arm shakes as she brushes it against mine.

A small group of people loiter near the apartments and we sneak past them and head in the direction of the back gate. When we get there, Alyssa swipes the talisman from the tree and we take turns going through the gate and run through the trees and to the beaten path where she keeps her car. I get in after her and Jacqueline slides onto the backseat.

“Where are we going?” Jacqueline asks.

Alyssa starts the engine. “You’ll see,” she says, eyeing me in her peripheral vision.

I grip Alyssa’s knee. “Are you sure we have to ever go back to the compound?” I don’t know why I ask. The compound is the safest place for us to live, but it always seems so complicated. I’d love to live somewhere where I don’t have to worry about my nightmare inflictor side.

Jacqueline laughs nervously. “Maybe I should stay here.”

I turn in my seat and grin. “It was just a thought.” I laugh and shift back to look at Alyssa.

Alyssa raises her eyebrows and smiles. “It’s funny how you can still surprise me,” she says. “We can do whatever you want, Nadia.”

I’m tempted to really go through with it. I’d love to see what the world has to offer and I wonder how long I could survive before having to call the council for help—if they’d even help me. And then I think about Hunter and the urge to runaway subsides. Jacqueline would never agree to go with us. “It’s tempting, but let’s see how the city goes first.”

HUNTER

“I can’t believe you’re leaving,”
I say.

Jacqueline wrings her hands together in her lap. “Alyssa is a seer. She can keep us safe,” she thinks.

“What if she can’t?”
It’d be perfect for Jacqueline to get caught again by the HPA. It’d serve her right for tormenting me with her desire to settle down at the compound.

“She can.”

Nadia laughs at something Alyssa says, but I can’t hear them over the radio. She’s happy and carefree, and I wish she were laughing with me. Watching Nadia makes me regret my desire for Jacqueline to get caught. It’d put Nadia in jeopardy and I don’t want her getting hurt. I still haven’t had the chance to get to know her.

“But if she can’t? What’ll you do if you’re caught by an HPA agent?”

Jacqueline taps her fingers on the door panel. Her annoyance is tangible. “They won’t hurt us. I’m working for them, remember? Your mom has given me two months to find out information.”

“Whatever you say, Jacqueline. Just don’t let them get hurt.”

“Hunter, you know I always come first.”

9
. I AM A MONSTER

NADIA

I stand near the edge of a gleaming reflection pool in front of a monstrous mausoleum. The block-like building is a dark gray granite masterpiece with a small set of stairs leading up to double doors. Giant rectangular stained glass windows are evenly set apart and I bet they’re more beautiful from the inside.

Alyssa came up with the cemetery idea shortly after we left the compound and she figured going to one with such history and beauty would be a lot cooler than the small one we passed the last time we were out. And she was right. This cemetery is so peaceful and beautiful with meticulously cared for gardens, sprawling green lawns, and fascinating human memorials.

I smile and step toward the entrance of the mausoleum. Jacqueline waits next to Alyssa and we step inside through the double doors.

Cold, deathly silence surrounds us. I gape in awe at the gleaming Italian marble floors and the warm wooden walls. The giant windows let in pale light and the main entry is adorned in cream colored furniture and a tan rug. If I took a picture, no one would know I was at a place where the dead go to rest.

A short glass wall surrounds a set of stairs that descend deeper into the mausoleum. Textured granite walls complement the Italian marble floor and the temperature lowers as we enter a long hallway.

“I brought you here because I wanted to show you something,” Alyssa whispers.

Jacqueline walks quietly behind us, but doesn’t say a word.

I don’t stop to look into the quiet rooms we pass, slightly afraid of what I’ll see, until we reach the last open entryway. It leads to a small room with marble floors and a giant stained glass window that allows in soft, colorful light. What I thought were marble walls are actually memorials with people’s names and birth and death dates. A cement bench sits in the middle of the room and Alyssa guides me over and we sit down together.

Jacqueline strolls along the perimeter of the room and touches the walls. “Whose crypt is this?”

“The council’s,” Alyssa says.

I frown. “The council cremates remains.”

“They do that for creatures, not humans.”

“What?” My voice echoes and I cover my mouth.

If Alyssa is implying what I think she is, that would mean my mother could’ve possibly been put to rest here. I push to my feet and I read each of the etched names. My mouth dries when I see the name I was terrified, yet hoped, to find. I trace my fingers over the letters, my heart hammering, and look up at Alyssa with tear filled eyes.

“Emily Petrov was my mother,” I say out loud. “My father never spoke of her having a resting place. I don’t even know if there was a funeral. I was young when she died.”

“Is that how you ended up at the compound?” Jacqueline asks, her voice barely above a whisper. She stands next to me and touches my shoulder. “I’m sorry about the human remark from yesterday. I didn’t know you were half human.”

Tears blur my vision. “They’re not all bad.”

“I know that now.”

Alyssa comes up on my other side. “We can go, Nadia. We don’t have to stay here. I didn’t realize this was where your mom was put to rest.”

HUNTER

A tear rolls down Nadia’s cheek and if I had control over Jacqueline’s hand, I’d reach out and wipe it away. She sits hunched over on the block-like bench and leans her elbows on her knees while hiding her face with her hands. Her shoulders shake. In this moment, I wish we were in a dream so I could comfort her. She’s so vulnerable and fragile, I know with certainty that Nadia isn’t a monster.

“I’m okay. I want to stay,” Nadia says. She pulls her hands away and peers at Jacqueline. Nadia’s tears burn pink trails on her cheeks and her indigo blue eyes shine in the rainbow light coming in through the stained glass window.

Jacqueline’s eyes shift from Nadia to the engraved stone on the wall with the name Emily Petrov on it. “How did she die?”

“I don’t think that’s an appropriate question to ask right now, Jackie.”

Nadia rubs her eyes and stares at the floor. “She was murdered.”

NADIA

My lip quivers and I lick my lips a few times to moisten my mouth. I’ve never shared this story with anyone, but I can’t stop the words from coming. People should know the truth about my mother. “My mother had lost her sense of reality after being in our world for so long. An HPA agent found us at home when my father was out one night, and she didn’t know that the agent was real. She thought she was hallucinating. She didn’t even try to run and just stood there while he cut her throat. The agent killed her to prove to my father that we’d never be safe.” I leave out that it was my father’s fault that my mother went crazy. I can’t bear to share that detail with Jacqueline. I shake the image from my head. I can picture it so clearly. I don’t even know why I’m telling them this, but I don’t stop. “I was still hiding under the table when my father came home. We left within minutes and I never saw our house again.”

“Oh, Nadia,” Alyssa says. “I didn’t know that’s how she died. I’m so sorry.”

“You couldn’t have known.” I cover my face and squeeze my eyes closed. “Can I have a minute,” I whisper.

I need to be alone with just my memories.

HUNTER

As Jacqueline follows Alyssa into the corridor, intense, confusing emotions rush through me. I’m losing hope. Nadia was my hope and I think I’m going to lose her. She’ll never side with me once she discovers that my mom is an HPA board member. She’ll think I’m the monster.

I am a monster, though, at least by association.

It’s sickening what the HPA is capable of. I’ve never heard of agents killing humans before. What’s the point in trying to preserve humanity if they’re going to kill innocent humans because of their association with supers?

“You have to tell Nadia that not everyone involved with the HPA is bad.”

Jacqueline sighs in her mind. “Don’t you get it, Hunter? They
are
bad, though.”

“You know I’m not bad. You said it yourself. I’m a pure soul.”

“You would’ve turned out just like the rest of them if I hadn’t taken you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

I hate to admit that Jacqueline is right. If I hadn’t been imprisoned by her, I’d have continued on the path the HPA set for me and I would’ve enrolled in their training program the day I turned eighteen. I’d have turned out to be just like the agent who killed Nadia’s mom. It would’ve been all I knew.

“Jacqueline?” Alyssa taps Jacqueline’s shoulder.

Jacqueline blinks a few times and meets Alyssa’s green eyes. “I’m sorry. I was lost in my own thoughts.”

“Did you want to go outside and look at the gardens?”

Jacqueline nods. “Yeah, sure. This place is really depressing.”

NADIA

I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the mausoleum. It’s different when you’re not connected to someone buried there. It went from fun to miserable in a matter of minutes and I feel bad that I’ve ruined what was supposed to be an adventure. No wonder I don’t have many friends. I don’t want to be around me either.

I blankly stare out the window. I don’t have much to say anymore and just want to head back to the compound.

Alyssa switches lanes. “It’s okay to be sad,” she says quietly.

“I don’t mean to be a downer. It’s just that I wasn’t prepared for that. And, I’m not really sad. It’s been a long time since her death, but I’m pretty angry with my father for not telling me.”

“Would it have made a difference?” she asks.

I glower. “You’re defending my father?”

“Dmitri doesn’t need me to defend him. I’m just asking if it would’ve changed anything.”

Her words soften my anger. “I think if I’d had known, I would’ve wanted to visit her. You know my father doesn’t want me to even step outside my room, much less the compound these days. He’s overprotective.”

“He loves you.”

“Alyssa?” Jacqueline asks from the backseat, interrupting our conversation. “You should look out the back window.”

Alyssa gazes in the rearview mirror. “Oh, no.” Her eyes glass over and then she blinks a few times. “We’re okay. Everything is okay.”

HUNTER

Nadia and Alyssa cut their quiet conversation short and a thick silence surrounds us. Jacqueline shifts in her seat and peers out the back window. She wrings her hands together and her fear is intense enough that it slices through me.

“Is that what I think it is?” Jacqueline thinks to me. “Please tell me I’m hallucinating.”

She stares at a white van weaving in and out of traffic. I recognize the vehicle immediately. It’s one of the HPA’s vans. It’s still too far back to see who is driving, but I know for a fact that only field agents drive them. If the girls are spotted, they’ll be in serious trouble.

“Hate to tell you this, but that is definitely an agent,”
I say.

“No, no, no, no. This isn’t happening.” Jacqueline chants the words in her head over and over.

“You said that an agent wouldn’t harm you.”

Jacqueline nervously cracks her knuckles. “I don’t really know that, Hunter. I’m hoping.”

“Well, for your friends’ sake, I hope that’s true.”

NADIA

A horn blares and draws my attention out the back window. Jacqueline is clutching the seat and staring out the window as well. My heart sinks into my stomach when I see a white van driving a little too close to the car. The driver honks his horn again and waves his arm for us to move over.

I rest my hands on the dashboard and turn to look at Alyssa. She stares into space and I know she’s seeing something I can’t. “Stay calm,” she says. “It’s important.”