Christian Alexander = Thomas / Alexandra Chando = Kate

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"Kate, you can do this." Garrett encourages, his green eyes twinkling as he places the midnight black medallion in my palms. It begins to glow, streaks of red swirling in intricate patterns along the surface of the metal. The crimson tendrils creep along my flesh, climbing tediously up my arms and wrapping themselves around my neck and torso.

"No, I'm not made for this." My voice quivers with anxiety, Garrett chuckles, though it sounds forced, and covers my shaking hands with his. When I look up at his face, my heart skitters. Only moments before he'd been young and ageless, just like the day he became Keeper fifty years ago. But now, his skin was gray and wrinkly and his eyes were dimmer than before.

"You wouldn't have survived if you weren't made for this moment; to become this person. Kate, you are the Keeper now. It's all up to you now, I'm sorry I won't be able to help you." Garrett cringes, his eyes closing in pain.

"Garrett?" I ask anxiously, worry clouding my mind.

"It's happening." He whispers, I barely have enough time to be confused before a surge of power electrocutes my body. My muscles turn stiff, my back arches, and the medallion tumbles from my still fingers. I jerk my head back, my lips parted in an ear splitting scream. Red hot fingers travel along my body, running up and down like little pins along my flesh, igniting my being in flames of excruciating agony.

"Katelyn Summers, you have been chosen by the magick of the Keeper to become protector, friend, and leader to the Hybrids. From this moment forward, Katelyn Summers no longer exists. You are the Hybrid Keeper." A deep voice bellows from nowhere and everywhere all at once. I grit my teeth together and suck in a deep breath of air as the fire lacing through my body appears behind my eyelids, burning brilliantly in the form of the medallion as it sears itself into my soul.

Then, it suddenly stops and my body is released from its paralyzing clutches. I gasp and fall forward on my hands and knees with my head down, breathing as hard as I can. The medallion lays on the ground a few feet before me, its red glow fading slowly.

"Garrett?" I voice shakily, slowly lifting my head in search of the only person who can tell me what to do now. But the sight before my eyes causes my heart to clench tightly in fear. Garrett lies on the ground, face up with his eyes open, staring up at nothing.

"Garrett?" I ask again, a crippling numbness spreading through me. "Garrett! No! Wake up!" I scream, crawling over to his side and shaking his shoulder. "Garrett, I need you. I can't be Keeper! Garrett, wake up!" Huge tears run down my cheeks as trembling sobs wrack my body.

I was all alone now.

"No, you're not alone Kate. You have your Guarde, and me." I jump, my head snapping up to see Thomas standing over me. My best friend.

"Thomas, Garrett―" He bends down and pulls me against his chest.

"I know, but you're not alone Kate. And we will figure this out together. I promise you."

"Kate," Someone shakes my shoulder, "Kate, hello? Kate!" A voice shouts. I jerk back, staring up at them with wide eyes.

"What Thomas?" He looks at me curiously.

"You zoned out, thinking about..." Thomas runs off as he tries to piece together what's wrong by digging through my thoughts. I scowl and slam my mental shield up in his face, shutting him out of my head. Sometimes it was frustrating being connected to the Guarde so intimately. We were bonded through the Keeper magick, giving us all access to each other's minds yet also tying our fates intricately together in ways we couldn't even begin to comprehend.

"Just because we're best friends and you are my second-in-command does not give you the right to rummage through my head whenever you wish. I'm still Keeper and you are still part of the Guarde." Thomas's eyebrows rise in surprise and he takes a step back, putting a sizable distance between him and me.

"Okay, I'm just going to stand way over here." He comments, eyes glistening teasingly. I sigh and drop my head back against the black leather of my chair.

"I'm sorry, I was thinking about Garrett." Thomas is silent for several moments.

"He'd be proud of you, you know. You've been a good Keeper." I nod, refusing to look at him in fear that he might see the doubt in my eyes.

"I know."

"No Kate, I'm being serious. You―"

"What did you need?" I interject, unwilling to listen anymore. Thomas clenches his jaw and tilts his head up just a bit. There's a defiant look burning in his brown eyes that I ignore. After several long seconds of silence, Thomas sighs and bends to the wishes of his Keeper.

"You asked me to let you know when I located the last of the apprentices. Well, I found the last of them just this morning, all thirty-nine apprentices are accounted for." The world spins before my eyes, crashing against me as if I were a rock by the ocean.

"What?" I whisper, Thomas smiles lopsidedly.

"They're waiting for you, it's time to be their Garrett, Kate." Thomas half turns and presses his palm against the white wall, triggering a secret compartment to open. He reaches inside and pulls out the medallion, the Keeper's magick. I lunge to my feet, running my hands through my loose brown curls.

"I can't―"

"Yes," Thomas snaps, holding the medallion out to me. "you can. You have too, you're the Keeper Kate." I gulp, forcing the doubt away and taking the medallion from his hands to loop it around my neck.

"Damn straight." I respond, putting up a tough façade. Thomas smiles and nods.

"Come on then." He opens the heavy metal door that leads out into the silent halls, our footsteps being the only noise. The door was at the end of the long hallway, it was the only thing not white along the entire length of the empty space. The closer I got to it, the harder my heart beat against my ribs.

This was it. The start of the next Keeper Exams. The beginning of my end.

I'd only ever stepped foot in that room once when I was competing in the Keeper Exams. This would be my second time, my last time. And I wouldn't be the girl slumped in her seat in the back row because she didn't want to be there. I would be the one standing at the front of the room staring out at a sea of new faces just as terrified and excited as I had been eighty-three years ago.

Thomas and I come to a stop before the door and I half expect it to be knocked down by angry apprentices shouting all at once, if I remember correctly, that was how we greeted Garrett so many years ago. Since then security was a lot more impressive, especially considering our location; a secret underground Hybrid base that houses the Keeper, the Examination Training Facilities and Realms, and the apprentices. I press my thumb against the fingerprint scanner beside the door, taking a deep calming breath as the machine verifies that I am who I claim to be. A handful of seconds pass before the door clicks and swings open, exposing a room with forty-three sets of eyes all on me.

A mass of thirty-nine seats are lined up in the center of the room, and in each one sits a possible successor. A bright white light illuminates all the faces before me and the range of emotions I see blows my mind away. Fear, anger, excitement, determination, confusion, and so many others without proper names; I could see them all and it reminded me of myself. Of who I was when I entered the Keeper Exams, I was scared and confused. I understood them, but I was no longer like them.

Thomas stands at my right shoulder while four other members of the Guarde are positioned on either side of the apprentices. They were there to keep the order and protect me if necessary. But it wouldn't come to that.I take a moment to look out over the new prospects, feeling a surge of deja vu.

The apprentices were scared, I could tell. Even if they pretended that they weren't. Every face I saw was clouded with so many emotions it was impossible to pinpoint them all, but fear was a constant on all of them. I couldn't blame them, they had been ripped from any life they'd known and thrown into another with people they'd never seen before. Thomas was the only familiar face to them, considering it was him who tracked each one of them down and brought them here for the Exams.

Thomas coughs, dislodging me from my thoughts. I blink and clear my throat, clasping my hands behind my back and preparing myself for the harrowing task set before me: find a successor before the Keeper magick rejects me. I had only a little time left to do it.

"My name is Kate, I am the Hybrid Keeper. As Keeper, my job is to protect the secrets of the Hybrids, enforce order among our people, and retain the peace between us and the humans that know of our existence. I am the highest power and those under me are called the Guarde. They follow out my orders and protect the Hybrid citizens, myself included." My explanation is met with silence but that barely phrases me.

"You are here because you are the best of your Work. You are the strongest, the bravest, the toughest, and the most powerful Workers of your Gift. There are thirteen Gifts in all and each one of you possesses one of them. You all have been chosen by the Keeper magick itself to become the next Keeper. But only one of you can win, the other thirty-eight of you will be given a place in the Guarde."

"I know that some of you have no idea what a Hybrid is, or that you are one because you were raised as a human. However, some of you have spent your entire life training for this chance under the watchful eye of your parents and mentors." A few confident apprentices nod their heads in agreement to my words. I half smile and continue on, trying my best to make my voice light and less intimidating.

"For those of you who do not understand, I am the Keeper and you are about to undergo intense examinations to become my successor. We are Hybrids, humans born with altered DNA that gives us special abilities such as Telekinesis, Telepathy, and Teleportation. All Hybrids have these general abilities, but only fifteen percent of the population is born with specific talents. All thirty-nine of you are in that fifteen percent."

"The reasoning behind the Exams is to utilize your powers for good rather than allowing you to grow up and abuse the Gift inside you. With a Keeper, that fear is eliminated because the Guarde can only do what the Keeper allows of them."

"The Keeper Exams are designed to weed out the weaker ones first, there are three stages to the tests and various realms within each stage. The first stage specializes in your Gift and all of you will participate. Most of you will probably make it to stage two and but only half of you will continue to stage three where a Keeper will be claimed by the magick." I pause, taking a breath for the next part of my speech. It would cause chaos if I didn't tread lightly.

"Thirty-eight of you will die during the tests." My announcement is met with outrage and I have to fight to be heard over the cacophony of terrified shouts. "The people sitting next to you will be your killer, there is nothing I can do about that except to assure you that you will be resurrected. There are thirty-eight Hybrids on the Guarde, all were chosen to participate in the Keeper Exams beside me. They died and came back, and so will you." The angry shouting pauses long enough for me to regain their attention.

"I promise that I am not here to scare you. There was a Keeper before me who stood in the same place that I do now and gave the same speech that I give you. He was my friend as I am yours. I am simply telling you what to expect, what happens is entirely up to you." I emphasize, pausing to give each apprentice time to process before continuing to bombard them with information.

"My time as Keeper is coming to an end, I am no longer as strong as I once was and the magick can feel my life draining. And because my Guarde lives only as long as I do, the weaker I get the weaker they too become. It is now my sole purpose to find a successor before the Keeper magick rejects me and the Hybrid society is left leaderless and exposed."

"There is only one way to win the Exams and that is to survive. Thirty-nine of you will enter the Exams but only one will live to become Keeper. The others will die and be resurrected as part of the Guarde."

"From this point forward, you are alone. You can trust no one, you are not friends because the people who sit on either of you will kill you if given the chance. That said, I will not dissuade you from making alliances with whom you see fit. Being an ally does not depend on trust but rather intelligence and the courage to recognize when the alliance is no longer needed. Be aware that you will benefit from alliances in stage two and possibly stage three, but stage one is individual."

"You are fighting to take my place as the Hybrid Keeper. Remember that and be prepared. Enter the first stage knowing that not all of you will move on. I wish you all good luck, may the best of you overcome." My speech comes to an end and the silence that greets me is deafening. Thomas touches my back and nudges me toward the door. I move slowly, my eyes glued to the varying looks on the apprentice's faces.

"Escort the apprentices back to their rooms." Thomas commands of the Guarde members standing on the edges of the room. I pull the metal door open and dart out into the hall just as the apprentices begin to rise from their seats to follow the Guarde. Thomas follows quickly behind me.

"Kate?" Thomas questions hesitantly, voice full of worry. I wave him off and run my hands down my face.

"I'm fine, we have work to do. The Keeper Exams have begun and they're not going to run themselves."