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  The girl finished, pulled up her pants, and approached her again.

  “Now we gotta flush.”

  The girl pulled out a knife.

  The door burst open. The woman from yesterday stood in the doorway with two overweight campus police officers.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” the woman shouted at the sight as the officers rushed in and apprehended the girls. They fought and kicked and spit like feral cats, noosed by animal control. As they pulled the girls out of the bathroom, the middle one turned to look her in the eyes one last time.

  The headache pounded into her right then, like a wave crashing ashore, and knocked her off her feet. She slid down the wall and gripped her head in agony.

  She knew it wasn’t over.

  • • •

  The principal offered to let her go home early after the attack, but she didn’t feel like it. What sanctuary would she find there? She wanted to be around people right now.

  On her way to fifth period, she saw the guys those girls hung out with—the gang-banger dudes. They’d never noticed her before. Never so much as even glanced at her. Now they were staring her down. All of them.

  A chill went up her spine and she went to class.

  I should’ve gone home when she told me to.

  • • •

  Eileen Carter, principal at Van Nuys High School, had seen her share of bullying, but she could not, for the life of her, understand what was happening to kids today. Over the course of the past ten years, the school had become a veritable war zone. It was all so baffling—the sex, the drugs, the way these kids treated one another now. They should’ve been children, but they weren’t. Not anymore.

  The bell signaling the end of the day was about to ring, but there was one more thing she had to do. She’d filled out the paperwork and gone over the story with campus police again and again. She didn’t want to do it, but with a situation like this . . . She couldn’t bend the rules for someone she didn’t think deserved it. Hell, the real police were about to get involved now. There was no way around this, especially with the superintendent breathing down her neck and rumors of layoffs getting louder every day. Her ass was on the line, and she had to play by the rules.

  The door opened and the girl walked in.

  “Have a seat.” She motioned to the chair before her and realized she spoke much harsher than she’d intended to. She had to do this the right way though and not let her emotions get the best of her.

  “I think you know why you’re here. . . .”

  The girl looked at her, genuinely confused.

  “I know you’ve been going through some difficult times, but there are certain things that we cannot tolerate at this school.”

  She spotted a bruise along the side of the girl’s face and paused, momentarily unsure.

  No, she had to do this.

  “We received word this afternoon that your recent physical altercations have been linked to the dealing of drugs.”

  She saw the panic on the girl’s face; her eyes welled with tears.

  “Now, I didn’t want to believe it myself at first, but campus police searched your locker last period and they found everything.”

  The girl just stared blankly ahead.

  “This school has a zero-tolerance policy, and I’m sorry to say, but unfortunately, I’m going to have to expel you.”

  The girl’s tears dissipated. Her eyes seemed to go dead right before her. Like she’d just blown the last flicker of a flame out from behind them.

  “I’m sorry. I truly hope you get the help you need.”

  The girl got up silently, grabbed her backpack, and walked out.

  It hadn’t been that difficult after all. She hadn’t even put up a fight or denied anything.

  Eileen Carter could not, for the life of her, understand what was happening to kids today.

  • • •

  She walked into the apartment, barely able to process thought. The pain in her head was too immense. She leaned on the sink and tried to breathe.

  “I got a call from your principal.”

  Her grandmother stood in the doorway, braced against the frame. Her lungs must’ve been having a good day.

  She hobbled to her wheelchair in the corner and lowered herself into it, catching her breath and sputtering as they tried to speak again.

  “Do you know”—she began to wheeze between the words—“that I begged your mother not to have you. I begged . . . and pleaded . . . to scramble you up and pull you out . . . before you ruined her life.”

  Her grandmother took a hit from the oxygen tank. “You were a disgrace to this family before you even popped out . . . and if I could change one thing in my life . . . I’d go back . . . and pull you out with my bare hands . . . before you were able to kill my baby girl.” She heaved into the mask.

  “You killed my baby . . . ruined what was left of my life . . . and I will never . . . forgive you.” She gripped the wheels of her chair and began to scoot away. “I should’ve left you . . . in a dumpster.”

  Even with hardly any breath to support them, her words were more painful than any punch or stab could ever be.

  • • •

  In her bedroom she rocked herself to sleep, roiling in a pain that would not relent. She thought about the mother she never got to have, the college she would no longer be able to attend, and the love she so desperately wanted to feel, just once, in her life.

  Finally, she thought about V—her hair, her tattoos, her power. She wondered what she would do and how she would handle the mess her life had become.

  V always knew how to take care of things.

  • • •

  The next morning she woke in a pool of her own sweat. She’d barely slept. A buzzing migraine had kept her tossing and turning, screaming even, all night long. Though the pain had subsided, all the voices remained—a million voices in the night, filling her brain to the point where she thought she would die.

  The alarm had gone off, but she wouldn’t need it anymore now that she wasn’t going to school. No school. No more Columbia.

  What was she going to do?

  Just breathe.

  She reached over to hit snooze, and as she touched the clock she felt a tingle, like a gentle shock, pulse through her. She could feel the clock, feel the electricity within. It was like a new, foreign limb, an alien muscle. A muscle that she somehow knew she’d be able to flex.

  She flexed, and watched in shock as she changed the screen. Electricity seemed to flow between her and the clock, and she could control it. All of it.

  She pulled her hand back and severed the connection. She was dreaming, or hallucinating. She must’ve had some sort of a seizure during the headache last night. Maybe she’d had a small stroke. Whatever this was, it was wrong, and definitely not real. Panicked, she reached for her phone.

  Again, it was like getting shocked, only she was the source. She was in control of the flow of electricity. Whom could she call? She instinctively thought of the only number she knew by heart.

  At the same moment the phone in the kitchen began to ring.

  She threw her phone across the room and shot out of bed. This was absurd. She was going insane. What the hell was this?

  Before she even had time to think, the phone in the kitchen began to ring again.

  She stared suspiciously at her phone lying on the floor.

  The phone rang again and again.

  You’re being ridiculous.

  She went to the kitchen and waited for the voice mail to pick up. Finally the ringing ended. After a few moments, the red light began to blink.

  She walked to the machine and debated whether or not she should touch it. She darted her hand out and, before she could feel anything, clicked the play button.

  She held her breath and listened.

  “Hi, there. This is Eileen Carter, the principal over at Van Nuys High. I wanted to see if we could have a chat. It seems that a witness has come forward claiming to have seen a group
of male students placing the drugs that were found in the locker and, well, in a case like this we’d like to make sure we’ve done the right thing. Anyway, it’s looking like we very well may owe your entire family a huge apology. If you could give me a call back, or swing by my office later this afterno—”

  She bolted to her room. Clothes flew in a whirlwind around her. The room would be a mess when she got home, but she didn’t care. She was going to get her life back, get Columbia back. She left the apartment in such a hurry that she forgot her fears of a possible stroke last night. Who cares if she occasionally heard voices and felt a tingling sensation when she touched electronics now? She was alive again, and for once she felt like things were finally going her way.

  She turned out from the courtyard, walked past the dumpster, and into the alley behind the building.

  And there they were.

  All of them—the girls and the boys, and even a few more besides—waiting for her.

  A fear like nothing else gripped her heart and, without thinking, she ran. If they caught her, they would kill her. There would be no principal here to save her this time.

  She ran behind the buildings as fast as her body would allow, frantically searching for a way out. Any way out. She rounded the corner at the end and stopped.

  Dead end.

  With her back to the wall, she watched as the entire crew pressed forward and closed in. Her hands began to tremble uncontrollably. The others sneered at her with a hatred she’d never seen in a human before. She was about to experience a long, painful death.

  She cried for help just as the lead guy’s hand grasped her throat and slammed her into the concrete wall. Stars broke out before her eyes. The wind was knocked out of her. He let go and she fell to ground, gasping for air.

  The girl, the one who’d always been in the middle, stepped forward.

  “Ready to get flushed, you piece of shit?”

  The girl smiled, and it began.

  Legs smashed into her. Fists pummeled deep into her flesh. Nails tore at her skin and hair. There was so much happening, so fast, she couldn’t feel anything at all. More numbness. Only this time she knew there would be nothing after it subsided. Only death. A deep, eternal void.

  They cursed at her, spit on her, and beat her until she could barely breathe. One of the guys came forward and stomped down as she gurgled and gasped for air. The snap of her clavicle echoed off the walls behind them.

  She should’ve been dead by now, but she wasn’t.

  Let me die. Please.

  The middle girl’s boyfriend stepped forward, stooped over her body, and punched her so hard she coughed up blood. He punched again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And—

  Something was happening inside of her. With every punch, her body filled with an energy like the electric charge she’d felt earlier, but different. This new energy felt like it needed to get out. It wasn’t a gentle flow she could control. It was a dam on the verge of bursting.

  The guy punched again. It brought the energy close to the brim. All went silent in her head—the calm before the storm.

  And again—

  A blast of yellow light flared from her palms. The guy flew from her, shooting through the sky like a weightless toy. The sound of his shaved head cracking against the concrete wall on the other side of the alleyway was deafening. His body was a motionless heap on the ground now, his clothes and skin charred where the blast had hit him. He was dead.

  She silently stood and watched the remaining crew shrink back in terror. She felt her body enveloped in a cloak of golden energy, and all her wounds closing and healing. A seemingly infinite number of electrical charges lit up her body—the fibers of her muscles felt activated, and her skin prickled with radiant energy unlike anything she’d ever known. The energy churned and pulsed through her with the fury of every blow she’d ever been dealt. She felt every punch, every kick, every setback, every name, every single nasty, horrible part of the sick joke her life had been for the past eighteen years, and let it fuel her. Revenge prickled in golden light at her fingertips.

  And she wasn’t going to let any of them get away.

  She lifted her hand and took three of them down as they staggered back. The energy poured from her hands in a blazing torrent, ripping through their bodies with horrifying ease. The others quickly fled. She blasted one as he attempted to climb over the wall. He went through it instead. The three girls ran for their lives as the final guy charged her with a knife. The cold metal blade slid into her abdomen, but she felt no fear, no pain. She looked into his eyes, slowly pulled the knife from her gut, and put two fingers to his forehead. She let the energy blast forth.

  He didn’t have much of a head left after the flash subsided.

  The three girls were getting away.

  No.

  She leaped the entire length of the alleyway in a glimmering, awesome burst of light, and landed in front of them. They weren’t getting away today.

  The girls blubbered and cried as she approached. A flash from both hands dismissed the two who always flanked the one in the middle. Their leader. Now only she stood there. The one who’d decided to make her life hell. The one who’d tried her best to ruin her completely. The one who’d tried to kill her.

  The girl sobbed and muttered uncontrollably. Thick streams of black eyeliner poured down her face as she wailed and pleaded for her life.

  It was a pathetic sight. Almost enough to snap her out of her frenzy.

  Almost.

  A long, satisfying blast of the yellow light pummeled the girl into the ground and pushed her all the way back to the dead end at the other side of the alley, her body digging a trench in the pavement from the strength of the force. Then the flow of golden energy stopped. It had been expended completely.

  She looked around in horror and saw nine charred, mangled bodies strewn about the alley.

  She’d done this. She was a murderer.

  She took a step back, clasped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming, and ran. Those nine faces would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  She wished that they’d killed her instead.

  • • •

  That night she curled up under an overpass as far away from the city as she’d been able to get. Her old life, or whatever hell that had been, was over. There would be no Columbia, no graduation, no Grandma’s apartment. Hell, no more Grandma at all. She wondered if her grandma would ever even wonder what had happened to her. Probably not.

  The night chill crept in as the cars passed endlessly overhead. She lay on the concrete and shivered in the cold. Hunger pains cramped her stomach. She hadn’t had food all day and desperately needed to eat. She couldn’t remember ever feeling hunger like this. Hunger that threatened to consume her from the inside out.

  She didn’t know what to do, or where to go. She didn’t even know what she was anymore. If she was still even human.

  She was a murderer.

  It resounded in her head over and over again like a never-ending death knell.

  The tears welled up again, and she told herself this would be the last time she would ever cry. This one, though, this last one—this would be the cry of all cries. She curled up, clutched her aching stomach with her freezing arms, and sobbed so hard she shook against the concrete, wishing, hoping, and praying that she wouldn’t wake up in the morning.

  The lonely orphan girl, who only ever wanted a mother, finally fell asleep under the overpass and never woke up again.

  CHAPTER 2

  ISAAK

  I wake up to the sound of the train’s horn, cold metal under my back. My body feels like it’s been run over, demolished, and put back together again. I’m sure the crick in my neck will be there for days. The sky outside is turning a milky shade of lilac, and my sweat-soaked skin breaks out into goose bumps as chilled morning air whips through the open freight car.

  My eyes dart around, looking for her, looking for conf
irmation that I didn’t dream the entire thing.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She’s right behind me, sitting cross-legged, back to the wall. I scoot up onto an elbow so I can turn to face her. The girl’s platinum-blond hair is the same color as her skin in the soft glow of the sunrise. The iridescent blue mark above her forehead is no longer visible. She looks hard and ferocious, but in this light she also looks rather beautiful and, as I noticed briefly last night, a bit sad. There’s an unmistakable sorrow in her eyes, like she’s lost something and knows she’ll never get it back.

  I wonder what it is.

  “Hi.”

  I grimace and try to turn myself over. Metal freight train cars are not meant to be slept in, apparently. At least that’s what my back is telling me.

  “Are you all right?” She speaks sternly, as though she doesn’t really want to ask it at all.

  “I guess. The headache is gone. My back has been better, but I think I’ll survive.”

  She takes no notice of my attempts at humor.

  “You have a lot of questions, I’m sure, and you’ll have many more in the coming days.” She speaks like a military general. “The first thing we need to do is find a safe place for you to rest. The manifestation process has used up every ounce of energy your body had and then some, so you’ll need sleep and food. Once the train stops, we’ll make sure we aren’t being followed and then find shelter. I can answer your questions then.”

  I take this in for a moment before speaking. “What’s your name?” My question seems to throw her. She’s in business mode and didn’t expect a real conversation. I wonder if she’s even had many real conversations.

  “My name is Azure.”

  “I’m Isaak.” I try to smile at her, but she isn’t looking at me. “Thank you for saving me from . . . whoever they were.” I’m pretty confident that she’s saved me from more than just a group of men with guns, but I’m not about to get into that now.

  “You should try to sleep a bit more,” she says, deflecting. “We have about an hour until we make it into the city, and you’re still giving off a hell of a charge. If there are any Sheriffs around, we’ll need your pulse as low as possible to get you to a safe resting place undetected.”