CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It's raining when we come out for lunch. The air knocks into me, having picked up since this morning, and cuts through my uniform like shards of ice, stray droplets of water stinging as they hit my legs. I hug my books to my chest in an attempt to retain warmth.

"There you are," says Caden, approaching from behind. I was waiting for him by the lockers, not wanting to head into the crowded lunch area without him. Even now, there is still something about crowds I can't stand.

His presence fills me with relief. "Hey. How was English?"

He shrugs, his blazer shifting across his broad shoulders at the movement. "Alright. The teacher's insane though."

"That seems to be a pattern at this school. They're either strict, mean or downright nuts."

He smirks. "True." After a moment's thought, he asks, "Are we still sitting what that Roma girl's group?" I had convinced him join the group with me at recess and had endured a painful session of introductions and questioning as a result. We both stuck to our stories – I'm deciding to try normal school for the first time, and Caden is switching from his old college because his dad got a better job and can afford a more expensive education. Unfortunately, we can't escape the apparent coincidence of our moving to this school at the same time – something Roma's group just loved pointing out, alongside our newly given boyfriend-girlfriend status.

I exhale. "I don't know," I say, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind my ear.

"We don't have to if you don't want to. Besides, I've heard some particularly not-nice things about Roma."

I look up at him. "What kind of things?"

"Well, the general attitude is that she's a bitch."

I frown. "That doesn't sound right."

"It surprised me as well at first. But we've only known her for half a day – less. I don't think we know enough to make a sound judgement."

I gaze down at the wet pavement, letting the loose strands of hair fall into my eyes. "Maybe," I say softly, not really caring. Already, I'm feeling tired of this – of school. There's too much judgement, too much gossip, too much intrusion. I feel like a carcass slowly being picked apart by vultures – a memory here, a secret there, and a whole bucket-load of lies I'm forced to keep feeding them. Plus, I'm worried about what they'll find if they dig too far.

Caden puts a hand under my chin and lifts my head up, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Hey, how are you doing?" he asks gently.

"Fine."

"I know that's not true."

"Well if you already knew the answer, why did you ask?" My voice comes out more sharply than I intended. I sigh. "Sorry, I'm not angry, I'm just–"

"You're tired," he finishes for me. "It's okay."

Now that it's out there, my shoulders droop, and I take a seat on one of the sheltered benches. Caden moves to sit next to me. "I feel like I'm always tried. Tired or angry or afraid or upset. I just want it to stop. All of it – the visions and the fear and the lies. Hell, even the truth is bad. I don't know why everything has to be so hard."

Caden tucks my hair behind my ear, his fingers cool where they brush my skin. Moments later, the gusty wind drags it free again. "If life were easy, we'd all get bored."

"I'd rather be bored than in pain."

He doesn't say anything for a while, but looks down at his hands. I think about all he's lost, all he's given up to help me. He could have had a life – and a mostly normal one at that. But now death hangs over both of us, and according to my vision, it seems to like him a little too much.

"Do you ever think about your life before me? Before you moved to my school?"

He shrugs, but I don't miss the way his face darkens. "Not really. I try not to think about it."

"How come? Didn't you have friends?"

"Oh, I had friends alright. Maybe I had a few too many than was safe."

"What do you mean?"

He blows out, his breath a puff of white steam ascending into the grey-white clouds. "You've seen my powers. Even after I met you they were still hard to control."

"You mean the Asterokinesis," I say.

He nods.

"What happened?" I ask, because I can tell just by looking at him that there was something.

I takes him a moment to reply, and in the seconds before he speaks, I wrap my blazer tighter around my body and curl into it. Even with the cold, I prefer to be out here than inside surrounded by students.

"It was a month before I moved schools," Caden starts. "I was at a party my friends were hosting but I was mad at one of them for some reason. I can't remember what it was now – probably something stupid, like a girl or something – but we got into a fight. I lost my temper, lost control of my powers, and he ended up in a coma. And because I had so many damn friends, the whole school new about it in an instant. If I hadn't been so insistent about being normal and kept my distance from everyone – maybe just hung with a couple people – I wouldn't have been in such a mess. I screwed up, and paid the price."

I place a hand on his back. "It wasn't your fault, what happened to that boy. You didn't mean to hurt him like that. Sometimes accidents just happen, and when they do, it's no one's fault. And besides, no one can blame you for wanting a normal life. Once I'd have done anything to be normal – even just to look normal."

"But at least you didn't have to worry about killing people if you got angry."

"You're right – I didn't have to worry about that. But I still killed people. And I didn't have to be angry to do it. In fact, I didn't have to do anything except live in one place for too long."

Caden laughs morbidly. "Looks like we're both killers."

I swallow. I don't like where he's going with this. I can feel him slipping into dark territory – the place he goes whenever someone mentions Rand or That Day. Sometimes I wish I could just rewind the clock, back to when Rand was still alive, when Lauren was still alive, when my mother was still alive. Back to when I hadn't experienced personal death and Caden wasn't haunted by it. But things weren't all that great back then either. And I'm not sure I really want to experience another heat attack.

"We're not killers, Caden," I say after a moment, trying to bring him back to me. "We're just different. The world doesn't know how to react to us. It doesn't have a name for us, so we assume we're killers. But we're not."

"At least one of us thinks so."

I let out a breath, feeling borderline-frustrated. "You're a good person," I tell him softly. "You just can't see it yet." I reach up and give him a light kiss, then immediately curse myself for doing so. What happened to distance? a voice in my mind scolds. I shove it away.

"Do you want to head inside now? Maybe some high school drama will make us feel better."

He laughs – a genuine one this time. "Doubtful," he says, but stands anyway. He holds out a hand which I take without a seconds thought. "Come on, lets–"

He stops, and it only takes me a moment longer to see why. In the middle of the courtyard stands Kalea, her near-white hair drenched and sticking to her face. She stares at us with her dark gaze, looking for all the world like a ghost. But the most frightening part is, when I look at her, I see myself.

"You're the new students," she says, and her voice reminds me of wind whistling down abandoned streets. Eerie.

Caden steps in front of me, gripping my hands tightly as he pulls me behind him. "Stay away from us," he says, his tone as hard as iron.

She smirks. "How nice. The rumours have reached you already."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, you know – I'm a psychic, I see dead people, I work for Satan, blah, blah, blah. Fun stuff, isn't it?" As she talks, she begins taking slow steps to the left, like a predator circling its prey. Caden keeps a firm grip on my hands as he leads us out into the rain, maintaining the distance between her and us. If I weren't so frightened, I'd pull my hands free, slink back undercover where the icy rain doesn't cut through my clothing. But Caden's immediate reaction to her has set me on edge. Who is this girl?

"No one's told me anything. I don't have to hear the rumours to know what you are."

Kalea fakes surprise, condescension flowing from her lips. "And what might that be?"

"A girl too attached to the otherworld. You're practically dripping with it."

But this does catch her off-guard. I see the way her expression slips, revealing the panicked, fearful girl underneath for a fraction of an instant. Then she's back, hissing at us through gritted teeth. "What would you know about it?"

"I know enough. More than you, it seems."

"Oh yeah? I find that hard to believe. You and your cute little girlfriend are just afraid. You'll say anything."

He ignores her. "You're addicted to it. Something has thrown you into the otherworld and now you don't want to leave. You crave its power, the strength it gives you. You know, my people have a word for people like you," he adds scornfully.

There's no smart comeback this time. What little colour she had in her skin to begin with has drained from her face. She knows Caden is winning and she's angry. "Go on, say it," she spits.

"Bloedskaah."

Her eyes widen with rage, and she's about to say something back when the bell rings, cutting her off before she can begin. When it stops ringing, people start spilling out into the courtyard. Wary the students around her, she growls "We're not done, newbie," and spins on her heels, stalking off into the growing crowd.

I remove my hand from Caden's as I watch her disappear into the students and the rain. I feel like I've just had an icy shower. My uniform is drenched, my socks squelch with water and I find I'm chattering from the cold. There's no longer any warmth to be found in my blazer.

Caden wraps an arm around my shoulders and leads me back under shelter. He's just as soaked as I am, but it doesn't seem to bother him. Somehow he feels warm, and I draw in against him, eager to fight off the cold.

Students are already rushing off to class, books and umbrellas in hand, but we take a seat back on the benches. "How did you know what that girl was?" I ask him as I shiver. Despite the fact that I'm out of the rain now, I still feel frozen to the core.

"I could feel it immediately. Couldn't you? The way it gets colder when she's around? And anyway, she doesn't exactly look normal. She's too pale, too..." He trails off, searching for a proper word to describe her.

"Ghostly?" I suggest. "I mean, it's almost as if she's not really there. She seems to glide across the ground rather than walk across it."

"So you do feel it?"

I nod. "She was in my ancient history class this morning. As soon as she walked in, the room got darker and colder and I could just feel there was something wrong about her. I just didn't know what."

"Wait, it got darker?"

"Yeah, like she was absorbing some of the light or something."

He frowns but doesn't say anything.

"What did that word mean, by the way? The one you said before. Blood-scar or something."

"Bloedskaah. It's an otherworld word meaning leech or bloodsucker. Originally it was used as a derisive term for those who draw too much from the otherworld, but now it's just what they're called. Think of it like this. You and I, we have our foot in the door. Before, when you were swapped, you may have only been in by a toe. But that girl, Kalea, she's passed halfway. She's clinging to it, like a leech."

"But how do you draw too much from the otherworld? Can you do it by accident? Like what if I–"

He's already shaking his head. "It has to be deliberate. Bloedskaahs like that girl – what's her name?"

"Kalea."

"Well, in order for her to have grown closer to the otherworld she would have had to get closer to death. And the easiest way to do that is through pain."

I shiver again, though this time, I'm not sure it's just because of the cold. "Pain?"

"Self-inflicted. And it can be any kind of pain. Physical, mental, emotional – even if they're hurting someone else, it still counts as their pain, because they will feel sick or guilty or sad about what they're doing. Really, as long as they can feel it, it'll work."

I feel like I could be sick myself. "Why would anyone do that?"

"Easy – the otherworld is like a drug to some of our kind. They crave the power it gives them, the way it distances them from the troubles of this world. Sometimes they can even go too far, and when they do, they slip all the way into the otherworld. To humans it looks like suicide – and technically that's because it is. They've extracted so much pain that it kills them. To be closer to the otherworld is to be closer to death."

"Then does that mean we're closer to death than most people? Because we're partially in the otherworld?"

"No, we're only closer to the otherworld because some of our genes come from the Originals – powerful spirits. A way I like to think of it is this. Say the otherworld is heaven. Then spirits are the souls of people who go to heaven, and the Originals are like the angels. They never really lived, but they're not exactly dead either. We're actually further from death than normal humans, not closer to it, because we're stronger – we can defend ourselves better."

I let out a laugh. "It doesn't feel that way."

It's quiet for a minute. Then he says, "Are you feeling warmer now? We really need to go to class."

I nod, even though it's not true. My entire body feels numb from the cold. "We have to bio together right?"

"Yeah."

I stand. "Then let's go."

A/N 

[side note: bloedskaah is pronounced blode-skah, where blode rhymes with node]