Everlasting (Night Watchmen, #1) (7 page)

“Get her off the stage!” Maddock shouts at whoever holds me. He’s moving the quartz, hiding it under a black piece of cloth. His hair’s in disarray as he frantically takes the
mic. “There seems to be a malfunction with the crystal.” His lie rolls out like a red carpet waiting for me to strut down.

Questioning eyes and words and thoughts are like tiny daggers slicing and nicking my humiliation-blotched skin.

He covers the mic and turns back to the man holding me and whispers, “Take her to my office. Wait there.”

I’m spun around, hauled up into the air like a sac of cotton, and slung over a man’s shoulder before I even know what’s happening. Two strong, sturdy feet walk me off the side of the stage with careful, calculated steps. I don’t fight back. I don’t need to because it will do me no good, not against a trained Night Watchman.

I think about crying or laughing or screaming…anything to release the overwhelming panic dancing circles in my stomach.

As I’m lugged off the stage, one sobering thought forms in my mind. I never thought my life would begin with pandemonium but, then again, that’s not something you plan for. Graduating Columbia, falling in love, and finding peace amongst the pain of being shunned… those are the things I had accepted for my future, a life fulfilled as a Defect, a life that was ordinary,
safe, and unremarkable, but I’m none of those things. I never had been, at least, not truly.

And I’m probably going to pay for it.

T
he side door to the
auditorium kicks open and I’m dunked into a warm bath of golden light. I’m cleansed from head to toe of every speculation, every lie, every moment stolen by the hands of fear. I’m a being of unresolved questions, submerged inside of truth, and swallowed by a painful realization. I’ve lost everything I’ve ever known in return for a life I’ve always dreamed of.

And for some reason, a reason I’ve yet to come to terms with, I’m upside down.

“Can you please put me down now?” I strain to ask from over the shoulder of the man carrying me. I think all of my blood has accumulated in my brain, and I’m afraid if he takes another jarring step, I’ll lose the contents in my stomach. He stops and his shoulder jams deeper into my stomach, shoving what little breath I have out.

“That all depends on you,” he says, his voice dark and deep, sounding full of secrets. “I’m not in the habit of aiding loose cannons, but if…”

“Loose cannons…”

He cuts me off as quickly as I had cut him off. “
If
you promise not to suck the energy from everything around you again, then I will. Can you do that?” He speaks flatly, distantly, like the world’s one big bubble of lies he’s waiting to burst.

I hate that I can’t see him. I hate that I’m having this conversation with a slab of concrete. I think he thinks I intentionally did something wrong in the auditorium, but thinking clearly is fast becoming a problem with the white spots dancing in my vision, so I grit my teeth and give him the answer he's looking for. “Yes.”

He sets me down, and my stomach does three somersaults until it’s back in its rightful place. My ribs feel like they’ve been pounded into. I open my mouth, ready to unleash every feeling about every wrong moment that’s transpired since this morning on him, but the words never come. They collide against my tongue, jamming one into the other.

Piercing green eyes hidden under thick lashes bore into me, seeing past every protective layer I’ve carefully constructed and every wall I’ve ever painstakingly built.
His
eyes. The ones filled with the same kind of deep-rooted fear that consumes me.
His
lips. The ones I think I could kiss into infinity. My gaze keeps going, grazing over his tight black shirt that hugs his sculpted chest. My nails dig into the palms of my hands as my heart gallops away from me. I know I’m openly staring. I’m openly staring and I can’t stop myself. Black jeans are formed around solid, lean muscle, each leg wrapped with multiple sheaths encasing daggers. I swallow and force my eyes to keep moving down to the green army boots with laces dragging off the sides. It’s then that I realize there’s a lethal air about him that’s undeniable; a dangerous predication of combatant skill I can’t fathom contending with.

I swallow my heart in fear that it will leap right out of my chest. Never before have I been so taken by someone in just one look, so stopped up. It just isn’t my style, at least it didn’t use to be.

I look up at his face in time to find his eyes roaming down the length of me and I can tell by the way they slightly widen that it’s the first time he’s actually looked at me, noticed me. He parts his lips, licks them, and then swallows once, twice, three times.

I’m every shade of red when his eyes snap to mine and he says, “You’re staring at me.” He’s somehow returned to himself, returned to his composure and state of control while I’m still stumbling to find mine.

I shake my head, trying to shake the fog away, trying to find the words to match his statement. A sensible answer or even a witty reply isn’t there because he has me so rattled. Instead, I fall back on a random fact that passes through my mind, the kind that always appears when I’m nervous. “Did you umm…know that stress heightens sexual attraction?” I palm my forehead the moment it slips out, wishing I could disappear.

He cocks his head to the side, looking at me oddly. For a brief moment, as fast as a shooting star, a smile unfolds on his lips, unleashing two perfect dimples. “Is that your way of saying you’re attracted to me?” he muses, his words followed by a short chuckle.

If mortification had a specific ‘look’ it would be the face I’m wearing. “I uh… I don’t know why I said that,” I sputter, desperately seeking a way out of the awkward statement. “I kind of ramble when I’m nervous. And state odd facts, not that you make me nervous. I mean, this whole situation makes me nervous.” I exhale and offer an awkward shrug. “You know?”

He nods ever so slightly as if he agrees with me, and I see a hint of a smile hidden behind the confident lines of his lips.

My face goes tight, as does every muscle in my body. I should carve the letter S for Stupid right onto my chest. “And now I look like a total idiot,” I trail off, shaking my head as I bite my lip and look away.

“Really though, what should you feel nervous about? If you think about it, you just watched a crowd full of highly trained Watchmen cower behind their seats because of a power outage.”

I look back at him. His brow quirks up and a smirk appears. There's a softness in his tone, an understanding that passes between us as he attempts to make me laugh away the embarrassment. I can feel my lips tilting to match his, and something breaks open inside of me. A ray of confidence filters out of its holding cell that's been buried deep inside my chest.

He shifts in his stance, like he’s uncomfortable with trying to relate to another human being, and tucks his smirk away. “I’m Jaxen. Jaxen Gramm.”

“Faye,” I breathe out, finding it hard to tear my eyes from his.

“Faye,” he says, testing…tasting my name. A glitch of a smile appears and disappears. Something flickers through his eyes, something like restraint and sobriety. “Come on,” he says, his voice closed off, suddenly cold. “Maddock wants you in his office.” He points to something behind me.

I turn and find we’re standing at the intersection of concrete paths that lead to twelve different four-story buildings surrounding a central courtyard. The sight is breathtaking, exhilarating, and slightly paralyzing. Blossoming trees with pink flowers kept pristine under the hands of the gardener’s magic are placed between buildings adorned with gargoyles perched on arched roofs. Large-paned windows take up the front of the building, reflecting drifting clouds.

I’m so caught up with the beauty before me, I almost don’t realize Jaxen’s walking away from me. His footsteps are so quiet, so light. It’s like he walks on a cushion of air instead of the ground. I scramble after him, my eyes drinking in every detail they can as they try to find a piece of my parents within these walls. A gilded sign with the name of the building gleams in the sunlight. We’re heading for the Divine hall that sits in the middle of the grounds.

Sunshine spills into the arched tunnel that runs down the center of the building. As I walk behind Jaxen, I run my hand over the smooth stone, wondering if my parents had done the same thing. The further into the tunnel we get, the colder the stones feel under my fingertips. I pull my hand away when I see a door ahead of me, but Jaxen walks past it. There are several spread out on both sides of the tunnel all the way to the end. At the midway point of the tunnel, Jaxen stops at a set of large, medieval-like doors with polished brass strips that are hammered crisscross against a solid piece of what could be oak. Instead of a door knob, there are two metal rings.

Jaxen reaches out and tugs the door open, then steps aside for me to enter.
He keeps his gaze a safe distance from mine, and I ignore the probing frown he wears while his narrowed eyes watch me walk by.

“This way,” Jaxen says, guiding me over old-world style area rugs in deep burgundy and champagne colors set in front of a massive fireplace. The interior is built from deep, rich wood that makes the atmosphere feel cozy. My eyes wander hungrily over the room under the high dark wooden beams supporting the ceiling. A painted portrait of each of the Divine hangs over the top of the fireplace, each with a nameplate underneath. I skim over the names. Wistar, Owen, Garrick, Cecilia, Alesteria…I freeze on the last name.

Mourdyn; the one who betrayed us all, the one who led the hunt against all Hunters, the one who caused the proclamation that changed how we use magic. The orange hue from the fire reflects off the bottom of his portrait, giving him a sinister feel. It’s like his dark eyes are watching me, waiting for me.

“Faye,” Jaxen calls from the banister of the stairs.

I pull my eyes away and head after Jaxen up the open staircase. To the right and down the hall, we stop in front of Maddock’s door. Small black letters are etched across the glass, marking the room as Head Elder Room 205. My stomach rolls, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. What fate rests for me behind this door? What kind of trouble am I in? Everything happened so fast that I’ve barely had time to digest it, to let it sink in.

I don’t think I’ve wanted it to sink in, not just yet.

Jaxen opens the door and walks through. I follow behind, forcing one foot in front of the other, forcing a brave face. The room is large and keeps the same deep, reddish-brown colored wood along the ceiling, framing the room. Situated at the end of the room is a mahogany table meant to be stood in front of for judgment. Six wingback chairs rest behind it, awaiting their jury.

Residual panic drags lingering fingers down the back of my mind. Will I be made to stand there? To face judgment…possible banishment? I run my thumbs over the tips of my fingers as they hang by my sides, again and again and again. I turn and turn inside the large room, feeling like I’m living on a merry-go-round. For a room so large, it shouldn’t feel so small. I shouldn’t feel so choked, so lost, so scared.

“You okay?” Jaxen asks quietly from a few steps away. I turn around and face him. His lips are pressed into a slight grimace, but his eyes are deep and understanding. He’s a perfect stance of fearlessness, a statue of strength, a backbone I wish I possessed.

The room stops spinning but the fear still lingers. I straighten my shoulders and nod because it’s easier to lie that way. I don’t dare speak. I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to be a coward. I want to be like him; strong. I thought the worst would be over after touching the Culling quartz. I thought I’d either be blessed or cursed, but, either way, I’d know the truth and it would be over. I never thought, not for a second, I’d be rushed out of the ceremony without an ounce of insight as to who I am. I never thought I’d be standing in an office with a Watchman, a very…handsome…Watchman who I barely know, waiting for the Head Elder to deliver the fate of mine and my parents’ future.

His feet move and he steps closer to me. He’s right in front of me. He smells of electrical wires and musk. The scent is soothing, like ginger to my stomach. His eyes follow after my gaze, and then fall back on me. “You know you’re safe here, right?” he says, his voice closer, deeper, filling the hollow parts of my soul. I want to believe him. It would be so easy to, but I know better.

“Am I?” I dare to look up at him. The screams of panic and the voice of my Elder, shouting for me to make it stop, pulse in my brain.

His forehead creases a little. “Why wouldn’t you be?”

I shrug. I don’t have an answer for that, not yet, at least.

I stare past him through the frosted glass which only shows silhouettes of bodies moving down the hallway. A form stops right in front of the door, and ice spreads through my chest, freezing my heart in place. The doorknob turns, twisting my insides along with it.
This is it. This is it for me.

Maddock bursts through the door, his blue eyes wild with excitement and intrigue. He’s already shucking off his red robe and tossing it onto a chair. “That was indeed a show, Miss. Middleton. A show I never thought I’d witness,” he says with enough electricity in his words to light an entire stadium
. The air buzzes around him. I’m light years away from relating. “Care to explain how you did that?”

My thoughts trip over my words, which jumble into an unredeemable knot. I stammer to say the right thing as he stares at me with intense curiosity, like I’m a rare breed caught and sedated to compliance, like he has just struck the lottery. The furnace inside me flips on, raising my temperature past any bearable level. I have no answer for him, nothing that’ll explain such a strange occurrence.

All I have is the truth.

“My mother had a vision when I was little that I would be a Defect.” I pause and drop my eyes to my fingers. I twist them uncomfortably at my waist, searching for more words, the right words. My eyes meet his. I skirt around, thinking about the secret grin he wears, like he knows something I don’t. He more than likely does.