Nova Unchained Read online

  Those words reached deep inside my heart and shook it. “You will?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling like he was really happy. It made me want to smile, too. “I’ll beat the whole school.”

  “The whole school?” To my mind, that somehow made perfect sense.

  “I’ll beat the whole world for you, Nova. You’re my baby sister,” Luke said and made a mess of my hair by rubbing his hand on top of my head. He already knew that made me laugh.

  “Stop it!” I said, trying to push his hand away, but he didn’t.

  “Not until you’re not scared anymore,” he said. “You have to say it, or the game can’t stop.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, still laughing like I had never been sad before, trying but failing to get his hands off my head. My hair was all over my face and I couldn’t even see him any longer. “I’m not scared! I’m not scared!”

  Luke stopped. It took me a while to untangle the mess he’d made in my hair, but even after it was done, I was still smiling.

  “Are you scared?” I asked him.

  “No, I’m not. You’ll beat the whole school for me, too, right?”

  I nodded but I wasn’t sure I could. I was a little girl still. I’d never been in a fight before but what if I couldn’t beat them? So… “Can I beat them when I’m bigger?”

  Luke laughed. “Yes, you can. When we’re older, nobody is going to beat us, not even my dad. When we’re older, we can go to a new house.”

  Oh, wow. Those words opened up a whole new world for me. They showed me that life could stretch its limits if you only made it. At the time, I had no idea what it was that made me feel like standing on the tips of my toes and looking at the sky, because it was the first time I’d ever felt hope.

  “Will you run away with me to a new house when we get bigger?” I asked him, the idea alone making me feel like I was on top of the world.

  “Okay,” Luke said, nodding and smiling until I could see all of his teeth. “And in the new house, we never have to be scared anymore.”

  We were so young, talking about things kids our age should never have to talk about. Dreaming dreams that should not be on any six-year-old’s mind. But life didn’t ask us where we wanted to be. It just put us there. It was luck that put us together, though, and we sure as hell made the most of it.

  Now that Luke couldn’t see me, and he couldn’t even move his body, sadness overwhelmed me. I needed to speak to him so badly, to tell him everything and to ask him what to do. He always knew how to soothe me.

  I still told him about what had happened at the club after he fell to the ground, about Red Tie, and the man with the arms on fire. I told him everything I’d seen even though chances were he couldn’t hear me.

  When Ross came back to the room, I was nowhere near ready to leave Luke, but I knew I had to. The sooner I got going, the faster I’d get the chance to bring him back to me.

  “We’re ready,” Ross said and closed the door again. I was thankful for the privacy.

  With tears in my eyes I no longer wanted to shed, I kissed Luke’s forehead. “I love you,” I whispered in his ear. “Please, wait for me.”

  Letting go of his hand was hard, and it did something to me, to my chest. It strengthened the beating of my heart and I think it changed me, too. For the first time in my life, I was facing the unknown all by myself.

  But for the first time in my life, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to make it.

  Ross was waiting for me right outside door. I took off the mantle, the gloves, and the mask, and left them in the transparent box as he tapped his foot impatiently.

  “Scientia is a test separated into three parts,” he said, rushing down the corridor as if he couldn’t wait to get to where we were going. That made one of us. “Nothing to worry about. All you are required to do is to think hard before you answer the questions.”

  “What kind of questions?” I asked, because I’d always sucked at tests in school. The thought of standing in front of a stranger and not knowing the answers made me want to look for a place to hide.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Miss Vaughn,” Ross said. He led us back to the white, round hallway and to the third door in the row—the only one I hadn’t been to yet.

  I expected to see a corridor behind it, too, but instead, we were in a room with light blue walls for a change. The ceiling was made of the same light panels that made you feel like you had the sky right above you. In the middle of the room was a leather armchair, and three others were across from it, behind a white table.

  Three other armchairs meant three people looking right at me while I answered their questions. Shivers washed down my back. What if I failed?

  But I couldn’t. Ross seemed pretty damned sure about it. He was right, I shouldn’t have been worried. I told myself that when he nodded at the armchair in the middle of the room, and with my chin up, I went and sat on it. Pretending to be confident would have to be enough for now.

  “Who’s going to…” I started to say, but when I turned to look at Ross, I realized he was gone. “Okay.”

  A pep talk to myself was in order now that I was alone, but for the life of me, I couldn’t focus on anything else except Luke’s face. The only thing that made me feel a tiny bit better was the fact that he didn’t look in pain. He looked peaceful, as if he were sleeping, and having the best dreams. Hopefully, he didn’t even know that he was trapped into a magical coma. Hopefully, when he woke up, he wouldn’t remember anything.

  When the door opened, I instinctively jumped to my feet, my heart hammering inside my chest. Three people walked in, just like I’d suspected. The first woman had dark hair, her curls so wild, they pointed at all directions. She wore a green shirt and dark red lipstick on her thin lips. If I had to guess, she was maybe fifty, the youngest of the group. The man behind her was really tall, with a head full of salt and pepper hair and perfectly visible laugh lines on his face. He looked more relaxed than the woman coming in after him, who wore a black suit with bright red-lacquered heels. I wondered how she could even walk on those toothpicks, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her blonde hair was tied neatly behind her head and the glasses on the bridge of her nose seemed to be there only for decoration. Smart move, because they suited her.

  They all sat down behind the table without even looking at me. Feeling more awkward by the second, I did the same. They put their leather folders in front of them and pulled up a bunch of papers each.

  Without making a sound, they began to write something down. As if they’d rehearsed the movements a thousand times before they came in, they all took the first paper, turned it upside down, and left it on top of the folder, before continuing to write on the next. It looked like they were filling in some sort of report but I was too far away to see anything but tables.

  “Name?”

  The voice was so weak, barely a sound, that I considered having imagined it. Then, the first woman with the wild hair looked at me without even raising her head.

  “Name?” she said, a little louder.

  “Nova Vaughn,” I said, my voice a scratchy whisper, but she didn’t ask me to repeat.

  “Age?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Status?”

  “Uh…Excuse me?”

  This time, she did raise her head. “What is your status?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what that means,” I mumbled. Were these the questions? Because I was already sweating like a pig. The woman’s dark eyes looked like they could throw fire if I looked at them for too long and that didn’t exactly take the edge off the pressure.

  “What are you?” She sounded pissed off already.

  What am I? What the hell did she expect me to say? I was going to tell her that I was human but then I remembered what Ross had called me in the interrogation room. It didn’t hurt to try. Hopefully.

  “A Forger,” I breathed, half afraid that I’d gotten it wrong, even though the rational part of me insisted that
this wasn’t the test.

  “Wasn’t so hard, was it,” she mumbled to herself, and they began to draw Xs all over the page.

  I hadn’t even taken a proper breath before they all left the pens on the table at the same time and looked up at me. Seriously, they moved like they were one person. It was nerve wracking.

  “Miss Vaughn, my name is Cecilia Chambers, and these are my colleagues Gordon Reeve and Penelope Dixon. We are the Scientia conductors of the Senior Order, and we will be testing the level of your craft today,” she said.

  “Okay,” I whispered and threw in a nod to give them the impression that I was ready for whatever they had in mind.

  As if she hadn’t even heard me, Cecilia Chambers continued. “As I’m sure you were told, Scientia is composed of three separate parts. We will begin with the first one immediately, if you have no questions.” Did I have questions? That didn’t really matter, it seemed, because she didn’t give me a second to speak. “The first part of your testing is a question. You are required to answer it with one word, and one word only. Do you understand?”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention. “Yes.” Man, I was so not ready for this.

  “Miss Vaughn, what was the name of your imaginary friend?”

  Imaginary friend? I was tempted to smile. An easy question. Go figure! I cleared my throat, feeling a bit more confident now.

  “I didn’t have one.”

  All three of them looked up at me again. “I beg your pardon?” Penelope Dixon said. Her crystal clear voice, like the rest of her, was very intimidating.

  “I didn’t have any imaginary friends as a kid,” I repeated. The way they were looking at me threw what little confidence I’d just gained right out the window. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out: my answer had been wrong.

  Shit. Why hadn’t I just lied? All I’d had to do was make up a stupid name! Like Peanut, or Dodo, or Teddy, or something like that. They would’ve never known that it was a lie.

  As it was, all three of them turned to look at one another. What the hell was it with these people and looking at each other without saying a single goddamn word?

  “We will be continuing with the second part of the testing, Miss Vaughn,” Cecilia Chambers said after they all nodded in agreement at something, then drew another set of Xs on the paper. “Mr. Reeve will now show you a series of images. You are required to look at them carefully and commit as many details as you can to your memory. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, swallowing hard. I had this. I had a good memory. Looking at pictures wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t like having to answer a question.

  When Gordon Reeve stood up, I thought he was going to bring the pictures to me so I could see them.

  Instead, he pushed his armchair back and made himself comfortable by moving his head around to relax his neck and rubbing his hands together.

  To say that I didn’t see it coming would be the biggest understatement of the century. What he did should not have been possible, just like Red Tie, and the guy with the fire on his arms. But Ross was right, I couldn’t disbelieve my own eyes. No matter how much my instincts tried to shut this out, it was happening and all I could do was watch.

  Gordon Reeve raised his hands, palms pointing at me. I was tempted to smile at the gesture—he did look funny—but then, a green light began to expand, and its source was the palms of the man’s hand.

  The light grew and grew until it almost reached me. I leaned back on the armchair, barely even breathing, and watched it turn into a perfect square in the middle of the room.

  It was like a projector, only the film was being played through Reeve’s hands. The picture that came alive in front of me was that of a girl, standing in a forest, wearing a bright red cape.

  Details, I reminded myself. Forget where the pictures were coming from. All I had to do was suck it up and look at the details.

  But before I could even blink, the picture in the green square changed. Now, I could see a dog, sitting on the sidewalk, his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. I hadn’t even noticed the color of his fur before the picture changed.

  I held onto the armrests tightly and moved my eyes around the square as fast as I could. Little boy, eating an ice scream, standing right in front of a…the picture changed again.

  A tree with violet leaves and strange looking fruits I’d never seen before in the shape of…

  A fly. Or a bee? I couldn’t tell because it was too far away, and the sun behind it shone brightly. The tree branch taking up the whole left side of the picture was…

  A house, green roof, yellow walls. A woman reading on the porch. A blue car parked in the driveway. Yes!

  A wooden sign in the middle of a corn field, right next to a scarecrow dressed in yellow. The hat was blue, with white stripes. The sign read…

  Fuck! They were changing too fast!

  The sky. A full moon. Lots and lots of stars.

  A little girl wearing a red dress, her blond hair braided and tied with a red ribbon at the end. One of her front teeth was missing. She was sitting on what looked like a bumper car.

  The picture disappeared, and so did the light.

  I closed my eyes and let go of my held breath. My ass was right at the edge of the armchair. I must have dragged myself forward without realizing it. My stomach rolled as I looked at the conductors, and when Cecilia Chambers met my eyes, I forgot to even breathe.

  “Miss Vaughn, please tell us what the man on the fifth picture was doing,” she said.

  The fifth picture, the fifth picture, the fifth picture…

  My eyes squeezed shut. Had I miscalculated it? Because the fifth picture was the one with the fly! Or a bee, not a man!

  Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe they meant the sixth picture of the house and the woman reading on the porch. I could have gotten it wrong. Maybe it was a man.

  Lie, a voice in my head whispered.

  Abso-fucking-lutely.

  “Reading,” I said. My voice broke. I sounded like I was crying.

  Cecilia Chambers looked at her colleagues again, and they at her. I could have been mistaken, but they all turned really pale suddenly.

  Oh, no. I screwed up. I gave the wrong answer again.

  “We will be moving on to the third part of this testing, Miss Vaughn,” Cecilia Champers said, her voice a bit scratchy. She would no longer meet my eyes. She just kept looking at the papers in front of her. “Ms. Dixon is going to take it from here.”

  Oh, oh. That did not sound good.

  But since nobody was asking me for my opinion on the matter, Penelope Dixon pushed the papers to the edge of the table, then intertwined her fingers and gently placed her hands in front of her—the simple gesture almost a ritual.

  “Close your eyes, Miss Vaughn,” she said as she looked at me and smiled a little, probably because she could see how terrified I was.

  Close my eyes? Was that really necessary? I wanted to ask but instead, I felt my lids grow heavy and a second later, the room disappeared. Dixon spoke again.

  “There is a road in front of you. It’s wide and long, completely straight.”

  “Wha…” my voice trailed off when, in the darkness of my mind, a road, wide and long, completely straight, began to take shape. I held onto the armrests tightly.

  “The sky is dark, half a moon hiding behind a grey cloud. It’s full of stars you cannot see.”

  No, no, no, I said to myself, but it was useless. Above the road appeared the sky, almost as dark as the inside of my mind, the half moon a silhouette behind the cloud.

  “There are buildings on the sides of the road, big and small, some dark and most full of lights,” she said, and the view took shape for me with every word she spoke. “People on the sidewalks. Cars driving by. An abandoned ice cream truck at the corner.”

  “No,” I whispered as everything she said came alive in my mind. My body began to shake as I looked around. I knew the place. It was somewhere in downtown Jackso
n. I’d never been there, but I’d seen the pictures. I remembered every detail of it.

  And I remembered the ice cream truck.

  “There’s a car going east,” Dixon said. “Do you see it?”

  “Please,” I begged as tears fell on my lap. She couldn’t do this. Anything but this.

  “Do you see the car, Miss Vaughn?”

  I saw the car. It was a blue Mercedes, and even though there were a lot of cars driving by it, I recognized that one immediately. I’d seen the picture of it, too.

  It was my parents’ car. The one they crashed into the abandoned ice cream truck.

  “Stop it,” I hissed because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t move my body. I was completely paralyzed. Only my jaw worked.

  “You stop it,” Dixon said. “Stop the car, Miss Vaughn. Stop the accident.”

  Suddenly, I felt like I was falling down the rabbit hole, only when I landed, I did so on my feet and right in the middle of the street that had come alive in my mind through Dixon’s words.

  Sound, smell, wind—they hit me all at once. It didn’t even feel like a dream.

  I was really there.

  “What the hell are you doing to me?” I called at the night, at the people around me and the cars that passed me by, missing me by an inch.

  But nobody even looked at me.

  “You are required to stop the accident. Do it,” Dixon demanded, her voice coming at me from all sides.

  Stop the accident? How was I supposed to stop the accident?

  But…what if I could? Would that mean my parents would still be alive?

  The blue Mercedes was so close to me now, barely twenty feet from the ice cream truck. I tried to look through the windshield, but it was too dark. I couldn’t see a thing.

  My body was light as a feather. It felt like I could fly if I tried, but I didn’t want to fly. I wanted to stop my parents from crashing and dying.

  Without hesitation, as soon as the car in front of theirs passed me, I jumped in front of the street.

  “Stop!” I shouted with everything I had.

  The people on the sidewalks stopped walking. The cars stopped moving. The chatter died, too. All the city noise disappeared.