Blood: An Affinities Novel (The Affinities Book 1) Page 5

  “I’m not staying in this craphole if Nerdworm’s in charge,” Adara said as she inched out of the tight space where she’d been jammed between the Stark twins. “Greenie, you can come with me.”

  Ackerly’s earthy eyes protruded when he realized that she was addressing him. “Uh—um, me? I…I’m busy.” He held up the yellow pepper and took a bite of it.

  “Fine. Ginger,” she prompted as she aggressively swung the van door open. Her gaze flashed back to Hartman, whose mouth squirmed with bafflement.

  “You—you mean me?” he stammered. In the bleak light of the van, his freckles almost appeared to be vibrating.

  “Yes, you.” Seizing his wrist, she yanked him out of his seat. “Get off your ass and let’s go.”

  “S-swee—” He cleared his throat. “Sweet.”

  “No, no, no!” Fraco barked as he finally barged out of the passenger’s door. “No one is entering this detention center with us—back in the van!”

  Adara ignored him completely as she and Hartman hopped out onto the pavement. Before slamming the door closed, she peeked back into the vehicle; her lips slid upward when her eyes found Lavisa.

  “Mustard, you come, too. I’m interested to see what your deadly power is.”

  The girl’s lips pursed in contemplation before she finally exhaled a sigh. “Fine.”

  “Your nicknames are getting lame, Stromer,” Tray called to her as Lavisa strode out of the van.

  “That’s because I don’t know enough of their flaws yet to come up with anything truly offensive,” Adara informed him as she grabbed the door handle. “That will come,” she added, sending a playfully warning glance in Ackerly and Eliana’s direction before whipping the door shut.

  “No, no, no—”

  “Fraco,” Aethelred interrupted as he stepped up behind his shorter colleague, “let them join us, if they wish. Perhaps Hastings will feel more welcome if his peers come to greet him.”

  “I’m not coming in to welcome him,” Adara informed them bluntly. “I’ve just always wanted to see what juvie’s like.”

  Lavisa snorted loudly. “Clearly you do, if you start fires for fun.”

  “I did not start that fire.”

  “Let’s go in, shall we?” Aethelred prompted over Adara’s snarl. His expression was rather jocund given the circumstances, while the scowl on Fraco’s face was even more pronounced than Adara’s. Grudgingly, the oily man led them toward the inconspicuous side door of the facility that read: VISITORS ENTRANCE. Before he could reach the door handle, though, Hartman was suddenly in front of him.

  “I’ll get it for you, Mr. Leve,” he sang as he swept the door open.

  “Subordinate,” Fraco observed with a nod at the boy as he stepped through the doorway. “Perhaps you can teach Miss Stromer a thing or two.”

  Adara paid no attention, though; she was the last to approach the door he held open, and as she passed him, she stopped and studied his freckles carefully. Even in the clear light of the sun, they still appeared to be pulsating.

  “You managed to jump in front of Fraco awfully fast,” she noted. “One second you were walking beside me and the next you were at the door.”

  The smirk that spread on his lips fattened his boyish cheeks. “Guess I’m just fast.”

  “Fast,” she repeated skeptically. “Is speed your Affinity?”

  “Something like that,” he replied with a quick wink. Although she was inclined to pry, she resorted to giving him a suspicious glare before stalking into the building. When she entered the facility, she found her other three companions already standing by the front desk, which was situated snugly between the wall and a metal detector at the end of the short hall.

  “We are here on government business,” Fraco announced to the security guard, who sat lazily in the swivel chair behind the desk. His square face was wrinkleless, but his hair was steel gray with age. As Adara and Hartman stepped up next to Lavisa, Fraco pulled a card out of his pocket and presented it to the guard, who took it with a crinkled nose.

  “What’s on this thing?” the man asked, straightening in his chair as he scrutinized the oil-covered ID.

  “Never mind that—just look at it,” Fraco barked as he compulsively wiped his hands on his black pants, which did not appear much drier than his own skin.

  Disgruntled, the guard read over the words on the card before glancing back up at Fraco with dubious eyes. “I’m not sure what you think showing me your driver’s license is going to do, but this certainly doesn’t prove you’re from the government.”

  “I am not from the government; I am here on government business. You should know me by my name—Fraco Leve. I am well known.”

  “By who?” Adara jeered. “Dermatologists?”

  Hartman expelled a laugh that made the greasy man seethe.

  “I am Angor Periculy’s right-hand man, sir,” Fraco sneered at the guard. “I am important, and you should remember my name.”

  “Oh, Angor. We know him,” the guard assured as he tossed his license onto the desk. “He said someone would be in for—”

  “For Hastings, yes,” Fraco cut in. “Are we permitted to see him, then?”

  “I thought you were here to take him?” the man asked as he stood.

  “We are, but we’d like to speak with him first,” Aethelred said before the other man could spew a heated response.

  The guard gestured toward the metal detector. “Right this way.”

  “Can I bring in my knife?” Adara asked after Fraco and Aethelred passed through the archway. She held up a folded pocketknife for the guard to see, and his expression soured.

  “I shouldn’t even be letting you in at all,” he growled as he snatched the knife from her. “Just be grateful I’m not prejudiced against Wackos.”

  His eyes flashed between the three teens—eyes that were the same metallic gray as his hair.

  “What’s your Affinity?” Hartman asked eagerly. “Mine is—” Suddenly aware his two peers were listening, he paused and cleared his throat. “Uh, it’s a secret.”

  The guard grinned. “I recognize you, Corvis. You’re Nero’s brother, the teleporter.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Now, that could come in handy, Ginger,” Adara spoke over him as her lips curled diabolically. “I should have known…”

  “Chop chop, children!” Fraco sang from the other side of the metal detector.

  “Move,” Lavisa grunted as she shoved Hartman and Adara though the portal. The machine didn’t beep in alarm, but once they were completely on the other side, a thin piece of metal came shooting out of the yellow-haired girl’s black boot. Her eyes were wide as she followed its path to where it now glittered in the guard’s hand.

  “The detector’s for show. I’m a magnet,” he informed her, waving her boot knife tauntingly. She blanched while Hartman beamed and Adara snickered.

  “Dumb, dumb Mustard… Tray will have a fit when he hears about you,” she added to the guard. Questions about his ability rested on her tongue but never left her mouth because Fraco’s slippery grip had taken hold of her arm and yanked her through the doorway at the end of the hall.

  “We don’t have all day,” he snipped as he dragged her into the L-shaped room. Once within, her now-oily arm slipped out of his grasp, and the only reason she resisted the urge to slap him was because she didn’t want grease on her hands.

  “Does this look familiar to you?” Lavisa asked Hartman as the five of them strolled farther into the room. Wooden tables were scattered sporadically throughout, and at a few sat juveniles and their parents, speaking lowly and uncomfortably. Adara’s eyebrows jumped when heads turned in their direction.

  “Yup, this is where we’d come to visit Nero. Good times,” Hartman said. In the light of the florescent tubes on the ceiling, his skin looked sickly pale, but his hair was bright in contrast to the colorless walls. A few dull doors marked the perimeter, but there weren’t any windows. “He smashed one of these tables once,” he
went on as he touched one. “That was an exciting visit.”

  “What’d he do to land himself in here?” Adara asked as she studied the few delinquents present; every one glared in their direction with hard eyes, and out of the five, only one was a girl.

  “Well,” Hartman began, but he never got past that word before Fraco opened his mouth.

  “I should warn you,” he said quietly, “not to provoke Mr. Lanio.”

  “Why?” was Adara’s visceral response.

  “His Affinity is…not too pleasant,” he answered, giving off the first vibe of uneasiness she had ever witnessed from him. Its origin could have been from their impending meeting with this mysterious Hastings, or perhaps from the fact that every eye in the room was trained on them—even the parents of the juveniles held hostile demeanors.

  A straight-faced guard standing near a wall motioned for them to approach a lone table in the nook of the room. Tension was high in all members of the group except for Adara, who decided to lounge languidly in one of the chairs. She propped her black Converse up on the wood and began to pick at her fingernails.

  “Stromer!” Fraco hissed frantically. “We are here to—”

  “Talk to the delinquent, I know, and he’s not—”

  A door on the other side of the room opened, halting Adara’s words and her nail-picking. All eyes shifted toward the incoming pair, and she felt the animosity in the room heighten.

  One of the newcomers was a female guard, tall and serious, and the other a teenage boy, quiet and clad in off-white garb. Cuffs bound his hands in the front, revealing thin fingers and nails that had been chewed to their beds. His skin was the lusterless brown of wet sand, marked with a few pale scars. As he approached them, his eyes remained fixed on the ground, but it was clear that they held the same shade of dark crimson as his overgrown hair.

  “Ah, Hastings, hello,” Fraco greeted with a slight bow. Adara’s snickers filled the silent room, but the boy didn’t glance at either of them as the security guard brought him to the vacant chair on the other side of the table.

  “It’s the Wacko!” one of the male prisoners exclaimed as he jumped out of his seat. His hands were cuffed, as well, but with the rage reddening his face, it was clear that manacles wouldn’t hinder his violence.

  “They’re all Wackos!” the single female prisoner roared as she also lunged out of her seat toward them. She was large enough to make Hartman hiccup in fear, nearly towering over Aethelred as she advanced. Based on the fact that the other three delinquents had sprung from their chairs, as well, they all seemed to feel the same level of antipathy for Wackos.

  “You like gambling?” Adara asked Hastings, whose back was to the commotion as he sat across from her. “I’m willing to bet one of these hooligans kills Fraco. I don’t have a lot of money to wager, but I don’t think I’ll have much of a problem stealing five bucks from my childhood nemesis—if we make it out to the van, that is.”

  Although Hastings voiced no verbal response, he did peek over his shoulder at Fraco, who waved his hands futilely and frantically as the two guards moved to stop the uprising. “Stop, stop, stop! We are not the enemy!” he shrilled so pathetically that Adara actually chortled to herself.

  “They seem to think we are,” Hartman said, stumbling backward into Hastings’s chair. The delinquent boy glanced up at him, but his expression didn’t change.

  “Why don’t you just teleport us out of here, Ginger?” Adara suggested as the male guard grabbed the female prisoner. She smashed his chest, sending him to the ground with a yelp, and one of the visiting fathers reached down and snatched his ring of keys from him.

  “I can’t—I can’t teleport more than, like, five feet away from where I am now,” Hartman confessed hysterically. “I can’t even teleport through walls! Oh God, that guy’s about to break his son out of the handcuffs.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to leave,” Adara commented as she watched the rogue father unlock the cuffs off the boy who had first instigated the riot. “This is getting interesting.”

  “Mr. Certior! Mr. Certior, do something!” Fraco pleaded, tugging at Aethelred’s red sleeve. The father with the keys was now unlocking the massive girl’s cuffs while the free boy wrestled with the female officer.

  “I’m not sure what you’d like me to do,” Aethelred said rather calmly. “You know I’m not much of a combatant. I say we allow Hastings to neutralize the situation.”

  “I will not allow anyone to die while we are here!” Fraco exclaimed as he hid his small body behind his taller colleague. “Mr. Periculy will be furious!”

  “No one’s going to die,” Lavisa said as she shoved her way past the two adults. The young but giant female prisoner had full function of her meaty arms now, and she was cracking her knuckles as her brute-like attention honed in on the group of Affinities huddled in the corner. Lavisa positioned herself in front of Aethelred and adopted a fighting stance, feet parted in a lunge and fists clenched before her face.

  “Oh, we’re screwed,” Hartman wailed as his hands clutched his orange hair. “Little Lavisa’s about to get herself killed!”

  The girl said nothing, but her body tensed and her deep yellow eyes focused acutely on the maddened girl bouldering toward her. The prisoner was about to slam into Lavisa like an enraged ram when the other girl swiftly ducked out of the way, clearing the path for the massive prisoner to stampede over Aethelred and Fraco.

  Even though the greasy man let out a high-pitched yelp, Aethelred remained completely still, his eyes fixed knowingly on Lavisa as she snagged the prisoner girl’s chunky hand. With the delinquent caught completely off guard, Lavisa yanked down on her thick arm. Her body followed, landing with the bang of a fallen tree; a roar-like cry escaped her mouth as her face smashed into the tile.

  Silence hung in the air as eyes darted between Lavisa and her defeated opponent, who now struggled to stand. The yellow-haired girl stomped the prisoner’s head to the fractured floor, and all movement in her hefty body ceased. “She’s not dead,” she assured Fraco, who peeked out from behind Aethelred. “Now can we go? Whatever you must say to Hastings can be said in the van.”

  “You…hurt her!” the male prisoner who started the uprising exclaimed, lurching toward Lavisa. “She’s my girlfriend!” he bellowed as he reached out to grab her throat. Before he could lay a hand on her, she rapidly swung around and slammed her elbow into his nose. Unconscious, he collapsed to the ground, landing on the pillow that was his girlfriend.

  “He might be dead,” she noted with uncertainty. “Depends on whether any bones punctured his brain or not.”

  “You—you—didn’t that hurt?” Hartman spluttered in disbelief.

  “A little,” she said as she shook out her arm.

  “Anyone else want to mess with her?” Adara asked the crowd of wide-eyed prisoners and parents. “If you give me a minute to go steal some cash from Kiki Belven, I will pay to watch her destroy every one of you.”

  “Let’s just get out of here,” Lavisa grumbled as she stalked over to the man who had uncuffed the prisoners. He tried to mask his tremble as she approached him, but she paid no mind to his fear as she snatched the ring of keys out of his hand. “Adara,” she said as she chucked the keys to her, “unlock Hastings and let’s move.”

  Adara’s feet plopped off the table and onto the floor before she reached over to unlock Hastings’s wrists. He was mildly reluctant to let her grab his hands, but she did so without care.

  “There, you’re free,” she said as the keys and cuffs dropped to the table. His dark red eyes peered up at her with distrust, but he stood and followed the group of Affinities toward the door, anyway.

  “You’re going to have a bit of a mess to clean up in there,” Adara told the front desk security guard as they exited the visiting room. Startled, he jumped out of his seat and stared at them, nonplussed. Lavisa led the group, marching toward the exit without stopping to chat with the guard, and Fraco brought up the rear, now trying to st
roll with a sense of superiority, rather than cowering behind Aethelred.

  “What—you have—you’re leaving with Hastings right now?” the guard stammered, staring at the red-haired boy as he followed Lavisa and Hartman toward the door.

  “It’s all very sudden, yes, but we must be going,” Fraco informed him hurriedly.

  “You need to…sign stuff—and who uncuffed him?”

  “I did,” Adara said, waving her fingers before exiting the building.

  “Mr. Periculy will call you!” she heard Fraco say before he scurried after them. By the time he reached the van, Lavisa had already hauled the door open and hopped in.

  “That didn’t take long,” Seth said as she and Hartman resumed their seats in the back and Adara squeezed in between the twins. Hastings sat awkwardly on the floor and hugged his knees to his chest.

  “Mustard just had to take down a few massive delinquents—no big deal,” Adara drawled, as though she’d done it herself. “She’s invincible.”

  Lavisa frowned as the Stark twins stared at her. “I’m not invincible…I just have an Affinity for combat.”

  “Explains why you’re so manly and muscular,” Kiki commented.

  “I don’t think she’s manly,” Hartman said. “I think she’s hot. Anyone else agree?”

  A heavy sigh filled the van before anyone could respond to his inquiry. Fraco had just managed to open the passenger’s side door, and he and Aethelred were now entering the vehicle. “That was a disaster,” he breathed, distress seeping out of his words like the oil from his skin. “You should not have hurt those prisoners, Miss Dispus.”

  “Next time, I’ll let them pummel you to death, don’t worry,” she retorted, although her words were mostly overridden by the sound of the engine starting.

  “Bring us to Periculand, Mr. Certior,” Fraco commanded as Devil-Red backed the van away from the detention facility.

  “So, Hastings, how did you get thrown into prison?” Adara questioned with little regard for her manners. His eyes remained focused on his stubby fingernails.