The Shadow Games, page 5
“They’re not my—” I stopped. “How do you know there are others? How do you know who I am?”
The man sighed impatiently. “Because every year around this time, a handful of you get dumped down here. Frightened kids who’ve no idea what they’ve been thrown into. You’re ripe pickings for the slavers. I thought we had another few days or there’s no way I’d have answered your call.”
“My call?” I echoed.
“You screamed. Loud enough for the entire city to hear. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going before they turn up. Don’t look so glum,” he added, as though he could see the expression on my face in the dark. “It’s probably better this way. You’ll survive longer with a faction than you will on your own. I’m sure the Sirens will pay a high price to get their hands on you.”
He yanked his arm from my grasp and stalked off.
Frightened kids? I couldn’t see how old the man was, but he didn’t sound that much older than me. My mind was still in shock, and I’d already forgotten half of what he’d said.
Calm down, I told myself. There must be a way up to the towers from down here. Once I’m home, I’ll be safe. I can talk to Layla. She’ll know what to do about the test results.
First, I needed to get home.
I stumbled after the man, my eyes still adjusting to the dark. All I could make out was the faint outline of a tall figure, perhaps six-foot and well-built. He seemed to be favoring his right leg. I gritted my teeth. I really didn’t want to beg for help, but right now, I didn’t have a choice.
I closed the distance between us and grabbed his arm. “Can you show me how to get back up to the towers?”
He snorted and shook me off, not bothering to pause. “There’s no way up.”
“There must be.”
Ten minutes in this place and that was all I had to cling to. There must be some way I could get home.
The man didn’t answer.
“Fine.” I matched him stride for stride, hoping that the street was clear of obstacles. Is it always this dark down here? “I’m coming with you.”
That stopped him. “No, you’re not. I—” His body stiffened, and I sensed his anger turning to fear. “They’re coming. Run.”
He took off down the street, moving surprisingly fast given his limp. I followed, trying to ignore the part of my brain that screamed running in the dark always ended badly in horror movies. He obviously knew the street better than me and gradually, his footsteps began to fade into the distance. Gasping, I halted and glanced over my shoulder. A faint purple glow moved toward me, sparking and crackling like a live electrical wire. Within seconds, it was close enough that I could make out an odd kind of pod, flying perhaps ten feet off the ground. Sparks of electricity flickered around it, briefly illuminating a window on the front of the vehicle, and I caught a glimpse of a dark-skinned man, teeth bared in a wild, terrifying grin.
I ran.
My heart pounded in my ears as I pumped my arms, willing my legs to go faster.
“Yeee-haw!”
The man’s war cry echoed around me, the air seemingly on fire with the purple light. Something stung my neck and I reached up, my fingers finding a small dart embedded in my skin. My brain barely had time to process the pod hovering over me before my legs collapsed and darkness claimed me.
Chapter 6
Elan
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, purple sparks still danced across my vision. I blinked, wondering if I’d taken a knock to the head. Rubbing my neck, I felt a twinge of pain where the dart had pierced my skin.
The dart.
I sat bolt upright and looked around. Purple lightning crackled around the metal bars of the cage that surrounded me on five sides. The floor beneath me was dirt-covered concrete, cold and dusty under my fingers. My mouth felt parched, and as I sucked in a breath, something tickled the back of my throat, causing me to cough.
“Vesper? Are you okay?”
I turned toward the sound of the voice and spotted Aidan’s frizzy hair through the bars of the cage.
“I think so.” I slowly got to my feet, wincing as my body protested against its recent rough treatment. I felt like one big bruise.
“Woah. Don’t touch the bars!” Aidan said quickly as I reached out. He grinned ruefully. “Take it from me, it hurts.”
“I’d have thought iron bars would have been enough,” I muttered.
“Is the prince awake yet?” Aidan asked, nodding behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Cayden slumped on the floor in a cage next to mine.
“Don’t call him that,” Daria hissed from a cage on the other side of Aidan’s. “I bet they don’t know who he is. If they find out, they’ll hold him hostage.”
“Well, at least they’ll keep him alive. Besides, it doesn’t seem as if the king wants him.”
I pictured Daria rolling her eyes. “You don’t know that.”
I left the two of them bickering and walked to the front of the cage, close enough to the bars that I could feel the crackle of electricity in the air. The hairs on my arms rose and I shivered, though the room was not cold. A single light hung from the cracked ceiling, casting a dim light over the cages arranged in a semicircle around a pair of double doors. I counted them, the simple task helping calm my thoughts. There were ten altogether, eight with metal bars, six of which crackled with electricity, and two that appeared to be constructed of thick plastic.
I was a prisoner, but at least I wasn’t alone.
Daria had turned her back on Aidan and now sat in the center of her cage, legs crossed in the lotus position, back ramrod stiff. In the cage next to her, Shui was curled in a ball, trembling. She looked so young, though she had to be eighteen, the same age as the rest of us. I wrapped my arms around my ribcage, wishing I could go over to comfort her.
The two cages next to Shui were dark and empty. My gaze slid over the double doors and the plastic cages. At first, I thought they were both unoccupied, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I noticed a small figure sitting at the back of the second cage.
My eyes widened. “Marissa?”
“Hi, Vesper.” Her voice was dull and lifeless, her hair matted to her head.
“What happened? You were arrested . . .”
There was a pause, then she nodded. “I got hauled up in front of a Guardian, then they dumped me down here for the slavers to pick up.”
“Why aren’t you in a cage like ours?”
“Because she’s a leccy,” a voice growled.
My heart skipped a beat. What was he doing here?
My eyes drifted to the cage on the other side of Cayden. The man slouched in the center of his cage, arms folded, the tension in his shoulders betrayed his unease. He wasn’t as old as I’d assumed. Perhaps twenty or twenty-one. Scruffy, dark hair framed a face that was a little too long to be called handsome. His skin looked tanned, though given the smog cloud that separated us from the city above, it couldn’t be from the sun.
As if sensing me watching him, he looked up. His dark eyes burned into mine, his lips curling into a hard smile.
“What’s a leccy?” Daria asked. She looked at the man with interest. He returned her smile, and I felt an unexpected twinge of jealousy.
Don’t be an idiot. It’s his fault you’re in here, isn’t it?
“She can manipulate electricity,” the man said, glancing over at Marissa. “This cage wouldn’t be a prison for her. It would be a weapon.”
I tore my eyes from him to stare at Marissa. “You can do what?”
Hesitantly, Marissa opened her hand. A tiny, purple spark cracked in the air above her palm.
The director’s words came back to me. The test activated new abilities in you. Was this what she had referred to? But Marissa wasn’t old enough to have taken the test, and she’d been arrested at home, not at the Academy.
Marissa curled her hand into a fist and the spark disappeared.
“So what’s your ability? And how long have you been down here?” Daria asked, still staring at the dark-haired man. Even Shui had stopped shaking and looked curiously at him.
“Who says I have an ability?”
“Why else would you be down here in one of these cages?” I retorted.
The man’s eyes shifted from Daria to me. “Good point.” He shrugged. “I’ve always lived down here.”
Silence followed his revelation.
“Always? Like, your whole life?” Aidan gaped at him.
“That’s generally what ‘always’ means, fuzz-head,” the man snapped.
Aidan opened his mouth to reply, but Daria shot him a glance and he subsided. “So there are people who live here?” she asked. “It’s not just a wasteland?”
I tried to remember what little I’d seen of the city floor before the slavers had grabbed me. Towering buildings, dirt, and rubbish. And rats. I shivered. It had definitely felt like a wasteland.
“Course people live here. It’s a city, right? You think people just disappear in a puff of smoke when they get chucked down from heaven? Not likely. Some people even choose to come down here.”
Daria gave him a disbelieving look.
“If people got down here, that must mean there’s some way of getting back up.” My pulse quickened.
He smirked and opened his mouth, but at that moment, there was a groan from the cage next to me.
“Ah, it looks like His Highness is waking.” The man looked at Cayden curiously. “Is he really a prince?”
“Yes,” I replied, feeling Daria’s glare burn into the back of my head. “But it seems the king doesn’t care much for family.”
Cayden pushed himself into a sitting position, clutching his head. “What the hell happened?”
“The slavers drugged you,” the man told him. “It affects some people more than others, depending on your powers.”
Cayden’s head jerked up. At the same moment, the light bulb in the center of the room twitched. “Powers?”
The man rolled his dark eyes. “Yeah. There must be some reason they chucked you down here.” He glanced at the swinging light. “Telky?”
“Pardon?” Cayden stared at him.
The man sighed impatiently. “A telky. Mind-mover.” Getting no response, he chuckled. “Geez, you’re not gonna survive very long in the arena if you don’t even know what you can do.”
“The arena?”
Before I could question the man further, his eyes flicked to the door and his gaze became distant. A faint crease of concentration puckered the skin between his thick eyebrows.
The sound of faint footsteps from outside the room grew louder. They stopped and there was the click of a key turning in a lock. Slowly, one of the doors opened.
A short, stocky man entered. He wore a thin jacket over a ragged vest that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine for years. Dirt ingrained into his face made it hard to determine the color of his skin, and his hair hung in thick dreadlocks to his shoulders. His eyes seemed kind of vacant. He didn’t even glance around as he walked over to a small box on the wall next to Marissa’s cage. He flipped up the cover and flicked a switch. The purple lightning flickering around the bars of the man’s cage disappeared.
Marissa gasped, but neither man turned to look at her. Turning away from the box, the slaver—I presumed this must be one of our captors—walked over to stand in front of the door to the dark-haired man’s cage. Removing a key from his belt, he inserted it into the lock.
The dark-haired man still wore an intense look of concentration. Sweat began to bead on his brow, tension radiating from his body. I remembered how the Peacekeeper had stopped Daria when she tried to argue with Saskia. It had seemed like there was a barrier Daria couldn’t break through, but this was different. It was like the man was controlling the slaver’s mind.
An icy chill began to seep through my veins. The thought of someone being in my head, taking control of my body, was abhorrent. But that seemed to be this man’s “power”, as he called it.
If that’s what people do with their abilities, no wonder society throws them out. It’s wrong.
The door to the cage opened. Then, like a sleepwalker, the slaver turned and plodded out of the room. When the door closed behind him, the man fell to his knees, as if overcome by exhaustion.
Cayden stared through the bars of his cage. “What just happened?”
His question hung in the air. Then the dark-haired man got to his feet and stepped out of his cage. “Nice to meet you all. Good luck in the arena, and if you want my advice, try not to get picked by Caesar. Not that any of the others are much better.”
“Wait!”
The man stopped and turned. Again, his eyes burned into me. Close up, I could see a thin scar tracing his forehead, almost covered by a lock of his thick, dark hair. More scars patterned his arm—some thin, pale lines, others more recent. His clothes looked old, though they were better kept than those the slaver had worn. He wore a faded t-shirt with a fanged snake and the words “Las Vegas Snake Eyes” underneath. It was tight across his chest, showing the outline of muscles underneath. I wondered if the effect was deliberate or if he just didn’t own clothes the right size.
“Yes?” He raised one eyebrow.
“What’s your name?”
The man didn’t reply immediately. I sensed him appraising me, perhaps considering if I was worthy of this information.
“Elan,” he said finally. “You?”
“Vesper,” I replied.
His lips curled into a smile. “Good luck surviving, Vesper.” He turned and strode over to the double doors. I got the impression he was trying to disguise his limp.
“Let us out!” I reached out to grasp the bars of my cage before remembering the electricity and stopping. A spark jumped between the bar and my finger, making my arm spasm.
Elan paused and turned to look at me. “Now, why would I do that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. Because you’re a good person.”
I hope.
A sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Ah, but you see, I’m not a good person. Good people don’t survive in this city. You’ll learn that soon enough.” His gaze lingered on me before he turned and pulled open the door. “Goodbye, Vesper. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”
Chapter 7
Powers
I STARED AT THE DOUBLE doors as they closed behind him.
“That went well,” Daria said. She narrowed her eyes at me. “You should have let me talk to him, Vesper.”
“I doubt that would have made a difference.”
Daria snorted.
“We’ll just have to figure our own way out. Surely if we all have . . . abilities, it can’t be that hard to break free.”
I turned to look at Cayden, who paced around his cage thoughtfully.
“Mind-mover,” he muttered. He stopped suddenly and stared at the lightbulb hanging from the center of the ceiling. After a moment, it began to swing from side to side. Cayden’s shoulders sagged. “Did you see that?”
“Wow, you moved that bulb all of an inch.” Aidan folded his arms. “That’s really going to help us get out of here.”
Cayden scowled at him. “All right. What can you do?”
Aidan grinned wolfishly. “This.” He turned his palm up, as Marissa had, but rather than a purple spark, a tiny ball of flame curled in the air above his hand.
“Is that all? Still, I guess that’s to be expected from a lower-leveler.” Daria twisted her own hand and a foot-tall flame leapt into the air.
Aidan clenched his jaw. The ball of flame in front of him grew until it was about four inches across. A vein on his forehead throbbed with effort. Then, without warning, his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed onto the floor.
“Aidan!” I scanned his body through the bars and let out a breath in relief when I caught the slight rise and fall of his chest.
“So you two can produce fire,” Cayden said, ignoring Aidan. “And . . .” He looked at Marissa. “Marissa, was it?” She glanced up at him. “You can create electricity?”
She nodded, her cheeks flushing pink as the prince gazed at her.
He turned to look at Shui. “What about you?” he asked gently.
Shui’s eyes darted around nervously. “I can do this.” Her voice was barely audible. For a moment, nothing happened. Daria opened her mouth, but Cayden held his hand up to quiet her.
The air above Shui began to shimmer. I squinted, just able to make out droplets of water coalescing into a swirling mass. With a sigh, her shoulders sagged and the water plunged onto her head. She lifted a strand of now wet hair and smiled ruefully.
“Water,” Cayden said appreciatively. “Nice work. I could do with a drink.” He turned to me. “What about you, Vesper?”
I avoided his gaze and stretched out my hand experimentally, wondering if fire, sparks, or water would appear. But nothing happened. After a few seconds, I let my hand drop, feeling like a fool.
“Come on,” Daria snapped.
Tears sprang to my eyes. The gnawing sensation I’d felt in my stomach when I realized I’d failed the test returned. “I-I think maybe they made a mistake. I can’t do anything.”
“Well, maybe you just need a bit more time to figure it out,” Cayden suggested.
“Yeah,” Aidan agreed. “Honestly, once you feel it, then it’s like you’ve always known how to do it. Kind of like running. It takes effort, but you don’t need to think about how to put one foot in front of the other.”
Their words just made me feel worse. I stared at the floor, not wanting to see the pity on their faces.
The others’ abilities seemed to come naturally, as if they’d always known how to do it. But if I didn’t know what I could do, how was I supposed to know what to focus on?
I must be able to do something. Saskia said I passed the first test—the one that unlocked our abilities.
Unless there had been a mistake there, too. Perhaps my test results had been mixed up with someone else’s. A queasy feeling developed in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what was worse. That I’d somehow failed their second test, or that I’d not been good enough to join the Academy in the first place.
