Fractured Soul (8 page)

May giggled.

“You look well,” he said, then paused. His eyebrows tightened. “Your cheek. What happened?”

Instinctively, I touched it. “Ran into a wall late last night.”

Christian tensed. “That must have been some wall.”

“It was. It kept me from going somewhere important.”

He reached up, as if to touch me, but stopped himself. “Are you okay?” His eyes, always full of concern, bore into me.

I nodded.

Jackson appeared. He patted Christian on the back. “You ready to go?” Jackson stopped when he saw me. “See any more spooky wind, Llona?” He exaggerated the words with his hands, wiggling his fingers through the air.

Christian looked from Jackson to me. “What are you talking about?”

Jackson laughed. “One day Llona will tell you. Come on. Let’s go.” He started walking away. Christian turned to me. He looked torn, like he didn’t want to go. I decided to help him out since girls were starting to look at us strangely.

I glanced down at my watch. “I better get going too. Those twelve-year-old girls in my history class get mean if I’m late. See you in PE, May.” I held my hand out to Christian. “Good seeing you again.”

He took hold of it firmly, securely. I wondered if anyone else could feel the heat passing between us. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” he said.

I reluctantly let go and walked away, feeling both happy and sad. Before I stepped out of the dining room, Sophie caught my eye, and I almost stumbled. It was her expression that did it. She was watching me leave and smiling, or smirking, as if she knew something I didn’t. I raised my hand to wave, but the second our eyes met, she turned away. I shook my head. I would never understand that woman.

I went straight to Denelle Hall and into my classroom, sitting in the back. If I sat anywhere else, one of the girls would complain that they couldn’t see over my freaky head. Their words not mine.

I pushed Christian from my mind and opened my history book to page fifty-nine. I had found something in it over the weekend that didn’t make sense, and I wanted to ask Ms. Ravitz about it. As soon as she came in, I raised my hand.

“Yes, Llona?”

“I have a question.”

Ms. Ravitz erased the whiteboard from a previous lecture. “What is it?”

“Um, well, I was wondering if there are any other Auran history books?”

“Of course. There are many.”

“I mean, any before this one.” I held it up. “The earliest date I can find is 1909. What about our history before that?”

“They’re in storage to keep them safe.”

“Can I see them?”

Ms. Ravitz tilted her head and smiled at me sympathetically. “They are too fragile for your fingers.”

The other girls giggled.

Ms. Ravitz waved them silent. “If you really want to, you can see them, but you have to have special permission from Cyrus. We treasure our past, but really all you need to know is our history after P-Day. Can someone tell me when that was?

A girl with a long brown ponytail raised her hand.

“Yes, Emily?”

“P-Day was on April 13, 1939.”

I leaned over and whispered to another girl. “What’s P-Day?”

“Preservation Day,” she whispered back.

“And why is that date important?” Ms. Ravitz asked.

Emily smiled. “Because that’s the day the Council decided to preserve the Auran race. They restructured all the Auran schools and organized the Guardian watch program.”

“Good, Emily. And it’s important to note that our very own Cyrus was a part of that great event.”

That name again. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before. I raised my hand again and said, “Who’s Cyrus?”

Ms. Ravitz shook her head. I could tell I was really starting to irk her. “Cyrus is the President of Lucent Academy and the head of the Council,” she said.

I nodded, remembering how Sophie had mentioned his name on the first night.

Ms. Ravitz continued, “You haven’t met him yet because he’s visiting Ellie Academy in Ireland.”

I’d heard of Ellie. It was one of the three Auran schools. In addition to Lucent there was also Ruddy Academy in Australia. Three council members resided at each one, making up the traditional nine members. I wondered how often Cyrus visited them. Another thought came to mind. I raised my hand again. Ms. Ravitz sighed and said, “Yes, Llona?”

“If Cyrus was around for P-Day, wouldn’t he be like a hundred years old?”

Emily blurted, “How do you not know any of this?”

“Be kind, Emily,” Ms. Ravitz said. “Llona wasn’t raised like the rest of you. Her parents didn’t teach her our history.”

I wanted to shout that they had, but it was very different from what I was being taught now. They taught that Auras had fought to rid the world of Vykens not hide from them.

“Llona, Cyrus is a Geo, which means he can manipulate the earth’s crust. It’s quite a special gift to be able to move boulders, dirt, and trees the way he does. And because his kind was made from the earth, they can live for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, Cyrus is the last of his race. Vykens hunted and destroyed his kind almost two hundred years ago. He was afraid the same would happen to Auras, and that’s why he helped establish P-Day.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Any more questions?”

I shook my head, feeling very stupid. Why hadn’t my parents told me any of this?

I kept my mouth shut the rest of class. That is until a Lizen girl opened the classroom door and handed Ms. Ravitz a note. She looked up at me. “Llona? You’re needed in Ms. Edevane’s office.”

“Right now?” I wondered why Sophie would want me in the middle of the day.

Ms. Ravitz looked down and read the note again. “Looks that way.”

This can’t be good
. I gathered my books and left the room.

I took my time crossing campus back to Chadni Hall. After thinking about it, I had a pretty good idea what she was going to talk to me about.

After I took the elevators up to the fourth floor, where all the teachers’ offices were, I knocked on Sophie’s door. “Come in,” I heard her say.

I opened the heavy oak door and was surprised at how dark the room seemed. She must’ve had the lights turned low. Strange for during the day, but then again, everything Sophie did seemed strange to me. “Hi, Sophie,” I said and gave her my best smile. Sophie was dressed all in purple with her brown hair ratted high. She looked like a tulip.

“Have a seat, Llona.”

I gulped, sat down, and focused on my shoes.

“I’m not sure what to say to you, Llona,” Sophie began. “I am so disappointed.”

Keep focusing on the shoe
, I told myself. I tried not to get angry, but already my insides were turning hot. Why was I getting so upset?

“What were you thinking leaving the school at night?” Sophie continued. “It’s dangerous out there, Llona. You could have been killed! Are you listening to me?”

I raised my chin. “I’m listening.”

She slammed her fist down on the desk. “What were you doing outside the walls in the middle of the night?”

“Running.”

“Then why not use the track?”

“I’m a wild horse,” I said. “I like to run free, not be confined to a corral.” Despite it being a lame metaphor, I smiled, but Sophie’s stern expression didn’t crack. Jake would’ve liked it.

“I don’t care,” she said. “You are not to leave these walls, do you understand?”

“I thought you said I could come and go as I please.” My fingers rolled into my palms.
Stay calm, Llona
.

“In the daytime, sure, I guess as long as you keep up on your studies. But at nighttime you stay here.”

I stayed silent, taking deep breaths through my nose.

“I’m trying to protect you, Llona. Surely you are mature enough to see that.”

“I know,” I said. So far she hadn’t said anything about the Vykens, which made me think Jackson hadn’t told her everything. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was.

Sophie glanced away, her mouth turned down. “Are you happy here?” she said.

I shrugged. “I want to be.”

“Is it difficult having Christian here?”

“Christian was my Guardian, nothing more.”

Sophie leaned forward. “I hope so. I’d hate to see anything bad happen to him because he’s distracted by you.”

I cleared my throat and glanced away. “Nothing is going to happen to him.”

She leaned back. “Good. Now please try to be happy, Llona. There is so much good in this school and in these girls.”

“I never said there wasn’t.”

“I know, it’s just,” she sighed, “there is so much of your mother’s spirit in you. She disobeyed the rules too, and look where that got her.”

I stood up. “What happened to my mother was not her fault.”

Sophie motioned for me to sit down. “In a way it was, dear, and I mean that in the most sensitive way. I loved her too. Don’t forget that.”

I couldn’t stand to hear her profess a love toward a sister she barely spoke to. Sophie hadn’t known my mother, not really. “I have to go,” I said. I didn’t give her the chance to stop me. I was out the door and rushing down the hall before the familiar anger rising inside me did something I’d regret.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” May said.

I could barely hear her over the sound of several pairs of feet pounding on asphalt. “I don’t think any normal person could. This is ridiculous!”

A whistle blew signaling the time for us to move to the back. We parted ways, letting the girls behind us move forward, while we slowed up our run until we were behind the pack of running girls. The “pack” consisted of thirty girls running side by side, six rows deep. Every time Ms. Haddy blew the whistle, we were required to rotate forward.

“Tell me why we do this again?” May asked. This was her third day in PE, and every day she asked this same question.

In a mock, high-pitched voice I imitated Ms. Haddy: “We need to be fair and give everyone the opportunity to be first!”

May laughed. A couple of girls running in front of us glanced back at us and glared.

“I don’t know how much more I can stand,” I said.

The sun was high in the sky, drenching us in its heat. I wiped the sweat from my brow. What I wouldn’t give for a little breeze. Maybe it was time I created my own.

“What can you do about it?” May said.

I lowered my voice. “I have a theory, one I plan on testing today.”

“Do tell, Sherlock.”

“I think the other girls hate this as much as we do. And I think they want to run faster too but are afraid to go against what they’ve been taught.”

“They look pretty content to me,” May said.

“Wanna bet?”

She smiled. “You’re on. Ten bucks says you can’t get any of them to do anything different.”

The whistle blew again.

“Deal.” Instead of moving up to the next row, I stepped outside the uniformed lines and picked up my pace.

“Miss Reese?” I heard Ms. Haddy call.

I kept running. I passed by Kiera, who eyed me suspiciously. Ms. Haddy yelled again. “Miss Reese! Get back in line!”

When I reached the front of the line, I said, “Bet none of you can beat me!” I took off running, not waiting for a response. I knew it would take a moment for them to process what I was doing.

I paced myself about fifty feet in front of them. Behind the girls, Ms. Haddy jogged after us, her normally white face growing redder and redder as she called my name. Her scarlet cheeks stood out against her white shirt and short skirt. Ms. Haddy looked like she was in excellent shape. I bet if she tried, she’d easily outrun me.

After almost thirty seconds of running by myself, I was ready to admit defeat to May, but then I heard footsteps fall out of sync with the others. I glanced over my shoulder to see a grinning Kiera gaining on me. I picked up my pace to keep in front of her. Soon there were more hurried footsteps until, finally, all of the girls were attempting to pass me.

But I wouldn’t let them.

I pushed them hard, to the point where I knew Light would fill their entirety. The girls ran fast, faster than a normal human, and with purpose, like horses returning home after a long journey. The air was electrically charged with power, and I hoped they felt it too.

Ms. Haddy, who had given up trying to catch us from behind, had changed directions and now ran toward us, blue eyes blazing. Her once perfectly long and straight blonde hair was now wildly in disarray.

She froze in the middle of the track and held her hand out in a stopping gesture. As we drew closer, she closed her eyes tight as if she were afraid we might trample her to death.

I stopped just in front of her and turned around. The girls also stopped, their faces filled with both wonder and awe at what had just occurred. We looked at each other in silence, our eyes passing from one to another. And in those brief seconds, we knew with every fiber of our beings the true power of Light.

The moment was ruined when Ms. Haddy grabbed me roughly by the arm and dragged me away. “You are in so much trouble, Miss Reese!” Her voice was shrill, and I turned my head away to protect my ears.

Back to May, I called, “You owe me!”

*  *  *  *  *

“Sit there,” Ms. Haddy said.

I obeyed.

She sat across from me behind her desk, typing into a computer—pounding it was more like it. “Of all the most horrible, most wretched things,” she muttered. “Never have I seen anything so disgusting.”

I ignored her quiet rant. Nothing she could say right now could bring me down. A major breakthrough had occurred, and for the first time I felt happy being at Lucent.

Ms. Haddy continued to hammer the keyboard. “Your father will hear of your behavior!”

“My father?”

“Yes. I’m going to call him right now, and don’t you beg me not to.”

Obviously she didn’t know who I was. “Excuse me, Ms. Haddy, but my father is dead.”

She stopped typing and looked up at me. “Then I’m calling your mother. Now where is your file?”

I cleared my throat. “My mother’s dead too.”

She looked at me again. I could see the conflict in her eyes as she tried to decide whether or not to show me mercy. She didn’t.