Chapter Twenty-Two

“Can you hear me…?”

            Vee was asleep… but yes, she could hear it, the voice of a woman. What a sexy voice, too, soft yet deadly, the purr of a tiger.

            “You don’t know me, but

 

            my name is Natalia Hawthorne…”

            Nicolle was dreaming. In her dream there was the ocean, freedom, and there was Elijah, everything else, and from somewhere far over the horizon she heard calm yet determined words echo in the air.

            “I’m almost there. I am your ally. Whatever you do, don’t use your abilities in public, the danger… se… tistries… ger… Nata… thorne…”

 

            “… you are not alone in this world, there are others, and we are coming… can you hear me? My name is Natalia Hawthorne…” She exhaled in frustration. “Forget it. I only found two of them anyway, and I think we’re too far away for them to hear me. Perhaps I could try again when we get closer to Savannah.”

            Ian Erlander had been watching her attempt Yellow Mark: World of Dreams like a fellow surgeon would watch another carefully navigate their work, both interested and concerned. With her attempt over he uncrossed his arms, inhaled, exhaled, and looked to the skyline of Savannah in the far distance. The rain clouds were departing into the west; a thin line of red-gold, so bright as to burn the eyes, was climbing over the east. “Perhaps it would be best to learn more about them for a few days before we approach… I’m not wild about the odds of the two of us facing nine potential Artists.”

            “Baby Artists,” Natalia said; her eyes were still closed, perhaps roaming the sleeping city for those with knowledge of their targets. “Whether they choose to fight or flight, you and I can handle nine N-Rank Artists.”

            “The two Beaumont boys can’t be N-Rank,” Ian said. With a single chuckle: “Their father walked into the Gardens his very first time as an S2-Rank, never even having been trained before.”

            “Fine then. So those two can be assumed as S1-Rank, maximum, and the others are certainly N-Rank. Consider that the one girl killed herself with her own Artistry, how experienced can they be?” She finally opened her eyes; in the rising dawn the Yellow of her irises burned orange. Her thoughts went to Edinburgh, nearly seven years ago, when she wasn’t yet an Expeditionary. That had been the largest gathering of Artists found outside of Kincaid Gardens, six in total. It had been a lesson in preparation; Sir Cormac had led that assignment and he hadn’t taken any precautions at all. He walked into Edinburgh, somehow spooked the Artists with his sudden appearance, and had a fight on his hands. Cormac Allbrood was an experienced Expeditionary of eight years, a talented Artist, yet he barely quelled what some now called (kind of jokingly, but not quite) the Storm of Edinburgh. Artists of the White never could remove the scar on his chest.

            This was different altogether. In this case there was a minimum of nine Artists and possibly more, which was unprecedented, and two of them were the children of a modern day legend, scions of a legacy they unlikely knew existed. The news of this finding was being kept secret back home for now, but should she and Ian succeed? The front page of The Garden Chronicle would trumpet the word, and those on both sides of the aisle would celebrate together. Not that Natalia cared even a little about such things; her concern was that of the previously mentioned surgeon, so carefully birthing these “baby Artists” into the world. Rescuing them as she had once been rescued.

            So she entered their dreams, hoping to prepare them for what may come in the approaching days, but her success had been small. No matter. Small success here, small success there; she would not fail.

            “Let’s go in closer,” she said. Ian nodded and smiled, a challenge accepted.

 

            Nicolle opened her eyes to bright sunlight and a feeling of peace. For a briefest moment, as if faint and faraway, she recalled something from a half-remembered dream.

            my name is N

            She mentally grasped for it, skimming the memory with the tips of invisible fingers

            almost there. I am your ally

            before losing it altogether. Instead, a new memory took its place and her newly awoken heart began to speed up at its remembrance.

            Behind a securely locked door she laid on her bed, a bed that wasn’t quite large enough for two, and yet there were two. He hadn’t lain down as she had; he’d fallen asleep, arms crossed, with his back to the headboard of her bed. From midnight to, what... about five o’clock?... they had sat and talked, and talked, and talked. The kiss they’d shared under the tree in her yard

            rainwater

            had been their last, something they’d done just in case men in suits were waiting at school when they arrived, but for now she knew he wanted to go slow, which was both understandable and fortunate, understandable because of Presley, fortunate because she would need to have several talks with Vee about how in the world to pull it off.

            She hated the thought of how she must look; Elijah looked perfectly groomed, as if an award winning beautician had fixed him up during the night, but she was probably downright odious. She spent nearly five minutes making small movements to get out of bed without disturbing him; she grabbed her cutest outfit and made for the bathroom, her brain gleefully snacking on the unbelievable events of the past several hours. She had kissed him. Their lips had actually touched. She’d kissed Elijah. Nicolle Sabrana Darling had kissed Elijah Westley Beaumont. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror was of an unknown girl, happy and content. Thoughts of potential end of the world scenarios barely formed in her head.

            Ready at last, she returned to her bedroom and, slightly louder than necessary, let her door close with a click.

            Elijah’s eyes opened slowly and immediately, alert and at peace. She’d rehearsed what she would say to him at this moment, but now she had no clue.

            “Hi,” she said nervously.

            One side of his mouth rose, a crooked, humored smile. She would have given one of her eyeballs to know what he was thinking right then. Did he like her outfit?? What about her hair??

 He whispered: “Hello.” After a second, looking around a room he’d only ever seen in the dark, he said, “I didn’t mean to stay over… sorry. You couldn’t have slept well, with me taking up most of your bed…”

Such words " words confirming that Elijah Beaumont had stayed over, had been in her bed " made Nicolle’s insides sing.

“No… I’m glad you stayed,” she said. At that moment there was a vibration in her pocket, a text message that she didn’t care to check just yet, not as long as she was with Elijah.

She wanted so badly to go to the bed and kiss him again, but she knew their next kiss (if they had a next kiss; the future was so unknown) would not be soon. She was far from unhappy, though: in the night they’d talked over many things, and some of the things he told her she was fairly sure he’d never told anyone before, and vice versa. She told him of Adam, and the morning her Artistry awakened, and of her family problems; she told him about her lifelong dream to run away to Tybee Lighthouse, to see its light shoot across the sea, and when he asked about the name Salem, she told him that it was her alter-ego, a heroine created as a little girl, the strong person she wasn’t but always wanted to be, and he listened closely, sitting cross legged on her bed across from her, their bare feet touching. He told her about his break-up, and his mother, and how he took several years of martial arts classes, and of an old pet named Roscoe, and his anger for his father, and even let slip that he’d like to have a little girl one day and wondered if she’d have an Artistry, and Nicolle wondered who he pictured as the mother"

She absent-mindedly pulled her phone from her pocket and read the text Vee had sent her:

 

            Where are you?? Are you okay? Why aren’t you at school????????

 

Nicolle suddenly noticed the time in the upper left corner of her phone.

            “Oh, crap,” she said, and Elijah paused in the act of straightening up. “We’re late for school. By two hours.”

He didn’t explode off the bed into a run or anything; he simply smiled, which eased the muscles in her stomach. “I know.”

            Nicolle stared. “You did?”

            He nodded. “I awoke about an hour ago briefly and realized it. But you had fallen asleep on my arm.” Nicolle didn’t respond to this, she just continued staring. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

            Nicolle wasn’t what to say to this. “Oh.”

He walked to the window and looked out, and Nicolle eyed him up and down from behind. Mother Nature had changed her mind since midnight; the world beyond the glass was a poet’s dream: clouds so high and fluffy that castles could be hidden inside, set against forget-me-not blue, and a soft wind rustling the sun soaked countryside. Nicolle’s romantic side saw all of this and was convinced destiny had made it happen, a beautiful landscape to nourish what she and Elijah had recently begun.

“It’s like Heaven out there,” Elijah said with a laugh, still facing away.

“It is.”

He turned and smiled at her; she was used to his smiles having a very mature appearance, the look of a man, but this grin was that of a mischievous boy. “Wanna skip?”

“Skip…? Skip school?”

He nodded. “Two hours have passed and nothing has happened to Vee or Dom, so I think it’s safe there today. Regardless, Dom is assured to survive to the arrival of whatever his Up-and-Coming Artistry has foreseen, so I doubt anything will happen to him today. I’ll want to be there to support him in later days, but…” He shrugged. “He and Vee can handle it for one day, and they’ll have Elyse and Peter, should it come to that, and I’ll always be a call away.”

Several seconds passed, him watching her for a reply, before she smiled and nodded. She was about to skip school with Elijah… she was living the dream.

“You may want to text Ms. Vee van Valen and let her know what’s going on, though,” he said, turning back to the window. It sounded to Nicolle as if he was withholding a laugh and it occurred to her: she’d never seen him act so alive, so free. Did she have this effect on him? “We don’t want her fretting.”

Nicolle began to reply to her best friend’s text, typing out words she never actually thought she would get to say. She regretted very much that she wouldn’t be there when the text arrived, that she wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing just how wide those Blue Eyes became.

 

            Timmy had recited in his mind, over and over and over, what he would say when he saw her again; he even took to writing it down, wanting his words to be expertly chosen, carefully selected to inflict the desired emotions in her. He always imagined this scene taking place in their first class, sitting in their usual by-the-window seats. As it turned out, his hours of agonizing thought had been for nothing. Her seat had been empty throughout the hour. Was she not supposed to be his “partner”, watching over him to ensure that he abided by Chess Club rules? It seemed that yet again he was the farthest thing from her mind.

            It didn’t really matter, though. Her being there or not being there did not change the outcome he intended to one day bring about. He was Timothy Stoker, Artist of the Yellow, destined to become the most powerful Artist that ever lived. And with that power would come the duty of judgment: rewards for those who were honest and good, punishments for those who were liars

            their outlines were locked in an embrace, showing no signs of thought for Timmy Stoker at all

            and bad.

            He walked the hallway dressed in his black trench coat, hands in the pockets, back straight and chin up. Many people stared, and some of them laughed. He decided to let them; a day would come when no one would be laughing. Their faces would be visions of authentic respect… perhaps some would look at him with more than respect, with something closer to astonishment. So for now, mercy.

            … up ahead a well-dressed junior turned, saw Timmy, and erupted into laughter, not even trying to hide it. By the clothes he wore it appeared he was wealthy; from the openness of his mocking it appeared he was used to getting his way without retribution.

            When Timmy tried to pass him by the boy stopped him, reaching out his hand like the rising and falling arm of a toll bridge gate.

            “Dude, with all due respect, man… lose the duster, man.” His friends were red faced with giggles behind him, guys and girls alike, all of them attractive and likely popular; never once in their life had they struggled socially, as Timmy had. “Not gonna lie, my friend, you look really, really stupid. I’m doing you a favor by telling you.”

            Timmy stared at him without expression. A little social struggle would do you some good, ‘my friend’… perhaps remedy that absurd vanity. I’m doing you a favor, really…

            “Smash your face into the water fountain until all of your teeth bust out,” Timmy commanded before, quite casually, walking away. At first he heard the boy’s friends laughing at his words, laughing at what they perceived as his stupidity. Then the laughter ceased, replaced by the sound of a human face continuously pounding the metal of the nearest water fountain. Students began to yell and freak out, but by then Timmy was around the corner and gone.

            Justice. He wished he’d gotten the boy’s name; he had the honor of being the first to receive what he was due. How many would come…? Thousands? Millions? Billions?

            As long as Nicolle Darling and Elijah Beaumont received what they were due, and soon, Timmy would be appeased.

           

            Vee read the text message, slack-jawed with surprise. Then again. And then one more time.

            “Whoa,” Elyse said, looking up from her study guide . They were sitting on one of the couches in Room 44 together; Peter and Dominic were in class and the Evil Three were who knew where… not in the Chess Club, at any rate. “What was that?”

            It took Vee a moment to register that Elyse had spoken, her eyes still glued to her phone. “What’d you say?”

            “I said, what was that? A moment ago your mood tasted pretty lax, and then bam, it gets spiked with shock, and joy, and confusion… everything okay?”

            So Nicolle and Elijah were not only skipping class together, he’d stayed over at her house through the night. Vee was delighted for her best friend, but honestly confused; where had this come from?? Perhaps she and Dom had been so focused on their current Club crisis that she’d lost track of more personal pursuits. She smiled.

            “Everything’s excellent. Just a bit of good news amidst all of the bad lately…”

            She turned and looked at her Chess Club notebook on the seat beside her. The points page was nothing like it’d been when Nicolle had joined them; Maria’s name had been crossed out, her points forever frozen at 100, but Jackson, Darius, and Brooklyn’s points had all been marked down to a goose egg, a total of 0. It was irrelevant, though; they were outside the Chess Club now, and the remaining members had been working on plans to try and keep them in line. One strategy had Elyse Mood Managing them essentially around the clock, but that was horribly impractical and nearly impossible to achieve; another plan had them asking Timmy (Vee groaned at the mere mention of that freakazoid) to try his mind control Artistry on them, commanding that they obey the rules; that was not only unethical but Timmy would never do it. They had to admit defeat; they simply didn’t have what it would take to keep those three in line. Which led to the question: what happened when Jackson decided to lift a truck overheard again, and this time not in the presence of half-drunken teenagers?

            Dominic’s Up-and-Coming Artistry drew closer by the day; his estimate was perhaps a few weeks, if that, and the lights would arrive at last. At one time Vee was curious about what the event would be; now she simply wanted to be far, far away.

 

            Nicolle had seen Destiny’s Steak and Grill in town before but never had she eaten there. The restaurant had a very cozy feel to it, with its overly large cushioned booths and chic interior design. Her seat was beside the window; the day’s impeccable shine lit the room, and in the distance, just within sight, she could see Maple Hill High School and felt a twist of excitement at knowing she should be there but wasn’t.

            She swirled her drink with a straw, a nervous movement born from social inexperience; even after having spent the night with Elijah she found it nearly impossible to actually look at him. After the waitress had delivered their food Elijah requested that they be left alone for the remainder of the meal; this allowed them the luxury of dining without sunglasses on.

            At last Nicolle looked up. His eyes were on her, watching. The first time she’d ever seen them she’d likened them to rain clouds over a stormy sea; that had been good illustration. The vertigo some felt looking into an endless horizon was how it felt looking at this boy.

            “You’re nervous,” he said, smiling slightly.

            Nicolle nodded. Being with him in the dark was easier; in this picturesque sunlight there was nowhere to hide. Every expression, every movement was watched, analyzed, and in her case, fantasized. Her bravery the night before

            we kissed

            was gone, the void filled with an almost apologetic silence, apologetic that he was with her and not someone more attractive, more fun…

            “Would you like me to start?” He asked this with that small smile still in place.

            “Why’re you smirking like that?” Nicolle jabbed with a grin; she wasn’t very versed in the art of banter and feared he’d notice, that he’d regret coming with her…

            “You amuse me,” he said, staring her right in the eyes.

            Nicolle threw on wide eyes, playfully pretending surprise. “I amuse you? What is it about my nervousness that’s so funny?” Was she doing it right…? She’d seen girls tease around with boys before…

            “The nervous part,” he said easily. “The way you’re almost always fretting about what you say, and how you say it, and how you look saying it… as if one misstep will have me running for the door.”

            Wow. “Am I that easy to read?”

            “It takes time to build up the social muscles to act the way most people do,” he said, his expression growing less jovial. “To know how to bluff in a conversation, to know how to skillfully lie, to hide what you’re feeling and make others think you’re someone you’re not.” He took a drink from his glass, a lock of his hair falling down across his brow; Nicolle felt compelled to fill this silence, perhaps with a funny comeback, but wasn’t sure how. He set the drink down and said: “Most people learn to do that around middle school, but you still don’t know how to bluff, or lie, or hide what you’re feeling. It amuses me, true, watching you trip and fumble through conversations… but it’s also the reason I’m sitting across from you right now.”

            Nicolle’s insides warmed by sixty degrees. Despite this, she said: “You’re sitting across from me because I’m a bumbling idiot?”

            “No,” he said. “Because you’re the most genuine person I’ve ever met. And your hair looks nice today, also.”

            “Oh,” she said.

            She hear d him chuckle. “You’re blushing. Very hard. Don’t make me come over and heal you of a heart attack…”

            She shrugged, smiled, and was completely lost on a reply.

            He came to her rescue: “I know you have intentions to travel to the coast after graduation… but other than that you never really told me what your goals are. Your dreams. What you intend to do with your future.”

            Nicolle had a passing image in her mind of gray skies and sadness

            never before had Nicolle really given much thought to her future, but now she did. She wondered what life had in store for her. If the years ahead were anything like the years behind, she hoped the angels would come for her, too

            before returning to the present.

            “Other than that, I don’t really have plans,” she said. “I’ve never really thought much about my future, apart from just getting away.”

            His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

            “My life has a way of killing whatever happiness I find,” Nicolle said, then gave an unsure chuckle. But Elijah didn’t buy it.

            “You’re saying that because you’ve had bad luck in the past, you’re going to stop living so as to not risk more heartbreak?” Nicolle didn’t respond. He finished with: “That’s understandable, I guess.”

            She looked up, truly surprised. “It is?”

            “Understandable… but not right. I’m similar… I put up a guard to stop others from getting in, from hurting me further, like I’ve been hurt in the past. But that’s no way to live, no way to live at all.”

            “Everything I’ve ever cared about I’ve lost,” she said, aware of the flannel square in her pocket. “Time and time again. It makes it hard to try again, you know…?”

            “I do know,” he said; his tone upturned with inspiration. “But that ends today, in this café… alright?”

            “What do you mean?” Nicolle asked, and she watched him pull a napkin that read DESTINY on it from the dispenser.

            On the napkin, in the bright blue of the crayon, he signed his name, a lovely cursive script.

            “I hereby pledge to start living, if you will too,” he said with a smile, speaking as he wrote, “Elijah Beaumont”. She thought he probably knew this was a cool idea. He slid the napkin across the table to her and handed her the crayon. “Your turn.”

            “What is this supposed to mean again?”

            He thought about it for a second, and in that second he looked not sullen, or brooding, as he always had, but vibrant, and full of life. “That we’re through with inhibitions… that from here on we’re taking the risks we wouldn’t before. That we only have one life, and it’s time we hopped on and lived it.”

            Nicolle looked on the napkin that read DESTINY, with Elijah’s name written on it. He didn’t realize what he was asking; signing a little napkin was easy, but throwing away her inhibitions and chasing her dreams… that was a lot to ask. She had the uneasy feeling in her stomach that if she set out to find what she’d been looking for, she would find it. And then, like Adam, like her grandmother and eventually her grandfather, like her failed relationship with her mom, like her eroding Chess Club, it would suffer and die, and again she would be lost, wishing she was dead. That she would think back to this moment later and regret ever having left her bedroom, because the pain of loss would be too steep…

            But… … maybe not.

            “Nicolle…” she sounded out as she signed the little napkin, “… Darling.”

            “And Salem,” he added. He smiled at her as he said it; she was touched he’d remember what she told him about the name, what it meant.

            “Salem,” she said, adding the name beside it.

            They let the hallowed napkin sit between them, the sunlight shining on it, consecrating it in their memories.

            “So what will you be risking everything for?” He asked.

            “What will you be risking everything for?” She asked with a playful grin.

            “Ladies first,” he said, and his smile, in this place, at this time, was paradise.

            Nicolle looked for just the right words, and, for a miracle, in this place, at this time, she found them. “I’m looking for something worth dying for.”

            He nodded. “Me too.”

 

            “… they’re no longer sitting together…”

            “… how mysterious… I wonder if the football game…?”

            “… they’re taking up two tables now?...”

            It was on the entire lunchroom’s mind, apparently; the Chess Club was no longer together. Vee tried to look composed but wasn’t really succeeding; damn, she hated those three, those evil, Evil Three, sitting off on their own now, surrounded by smiling faces, students wanting to brush up against and laugh with the two football heroes featured on the news.

            “They’re… not even wearing sunglasses anymore,” Peter observed, looking worried.

            “They’re telling people it’s contacts,” Vee said, glaring across the room. “At least there’s that.”

            “Want me to try and do something?” Elyse asked. “I can go over and… I don’t know… try an Artistry…”

            The idea didn’t sound great, but Vee looked to Dominic for an answer. He sat quietly, looking at nothing but his untouched food, oblivious to creation.

            “No,” Vee said, and she felt an unspoken shift take place, as if she’d (kindly) removed the invisible crown from Dominic’s head and was forced to put it on for a while. “No, let’s not do that… let’s think of something else…”

            “We could ask Timmy for help,” Peter suggested lamely. Vee looked across the room and there he was, sitting completely alone; she’d never seen someone come so close to a human tick, all bloated and irate looking. She tried to stay out of that one’s thoughts, but she thought it might be prudent to take a look…

            …

            “… Nicolle… I love you… I hate you so… so much… after everything I’ve done…”

            His head twitched; he realized he was being watched. Though he wore sunglasses his eyes were facing Vee, his expression a vision of malice.

            “Listen to me closely, friend of Nicolle. My mind is my dominion and mine alone. If ever I find you listening to my reflections again, I will hurt you.”

            Vee gasped and jerked away from him even though he was all the way across the room. Slowly he returned to his meal and resumed his angry chewing.

            “Dom,” Vee whispered, turning to him; I think we have a problem… Timmy’s not responding to guidance, he’s freaking me out. But she never spoke the words. So Timmy was, what…? Yet another problem on the pile? She wouldn’t burden Dominic…

            “No,” Vee said to Peter. “No Timmy. Ever.”

            “Then what?” Elyse asked, her words nearly drowned out by an outburst of laughter from the Evil Three table. “This cannot go on. They could start using Artistries over there, publically, any second!”

            “I know,” Vee said, rubbing her eyes beneath her shades.

            “And what happens when they do play college football?” Peter asked, his voice soft and sincere. “I mean… they’ve already shown that they’ll do it in front of everyone…”

            “I know,” Vee said. “I’m thinking…”

            As if stung by a bee, Elyse was on her feet, her food tray clanging a few inches away from her.

            “Whoa,” Elyse said, her eyes wide, a hand on her chest.

            “What, what?!” Vee asked, turning to her friend.

            “A Yellow Artistry is being used,” Elyse said, and Vee saw with great fear that Elyse’s hands were shaking. “A powerful one.”

            Immediately Vee looked across the room to Timmy, expecting him to be the source; though he wasn’t reacting as fiercely as Elyse was the effect was still clear; he gripped the table in front of him as if an earthquake was occurring.

            A Yellow Artistry…? Vee was holding her breath. But not Elyse… and not Timmy…

            It was as if someone with a machine gun had appeared in the lunchroom; students didn’t simply rise from their seats and begin for the doors, they exploded from their seats and sprinted for the doors, some of them screaming, others openly crying in fear. The lunchroom workers joined them, climbing over the buffet, feet stepping in mashed potatoes and chicken, to reach the exit first.

            … and yet, apart from standing and looking fearful, Vee felt unaffected; more curious still, every Artist in the lunchroom seemed untouched by this phenomenon; indeed, the Evil Three looked confused and perhaps hurt, their entourage leaving them behind.

            “What is this?!” Elyse shrieked; Dominic was at last roused, and at some point in this mayhem Vee realized he was holding her hand.

            “What did you do?!” Brooklyn yelled across the lunchroom at no one in particular.

            “We didn’t do anything!” Vee yelled back, “I"”

            “My name is Natalia Hawthorne, if any of you possess the Blue Artistry.” Vee heard these words in her head coming from just outside the wall of the lunchroom, and her insides froze in horror. “I know you are Artists…”

            Dominic.

            Nicolle.

            No no no no no not this.

            “Dominic, teleport us away!"”

            “Why, why?!”

            “Someone!... someone’s coming!” Vee yelled, pointing in the direction she sensed the thoughts coming from. “We’ve been found, Dominic!”

            Realization struck the young Artists like thunder, and with that, a figure walked by the wall window, visible for only a second; blonde, braided hair, sunglasses on her face…

            “What?! We’ve been found?” Elyse yelled. “What do you mean, Vee, what do you mean?!”

            The lunchroom’s back door opened, letting in a burst of sunlight. The figure that entered could not be seen in the brightness, but the boots could be heard on the tile floor: clomp, clomp, clomp. The door closed behind her and Vee could suddenly see; she was short, only about as tall as herself and Nicolle, but she was older, perhaps thirty or so years old. She had a feminine athletic build, obvious beneath her tight black outfit, some kind of military garb. At her hips were handguns.

            “AHHH!” Brooklyn yelled, sprinting for the door"

            The woman clasped her hands together in front of her and concentrated. Brooklyn suddenly stopped running; she stayed in one spot, apparently paralyzed by fear, before collapsing to the floor. The woman nimbly moved forward and caught her, keeping her head from striking the floor.

            The entrance doors suddenly opened; a very tall man with a light brown completion entered, a shotgun slung across his back. He too wore sunglasses and sleek black attire.

            Darius vanished and reappeared across the room, some seven feet in air and in midkick, aiming right for the man’s head; the man blocked it without the slightest change in his already calm facial expression; if anything he wore a small smile.  Darius vanished again, and again, and again, each time throwing a strike that, to Vee, would seem hard to anticipate and block, but the man deftly intercepted each one. At last the man grabbed Darius by the wrist, spun him into an uncomfortable hold, and placed his hands, spread eagle, on the boy’s chest. Vee waited for Darius to teleport again but he never did; his eyes closed and he fell to the floor.

            “He’s dead!” Jackson screamed, and rushed the man; judging from the holes Jackson left in the tile from his run Vee assumed he had much energy charged. He threw a fist at the man and Vee expected him to do as Elijah had done in his fight with Jackson, to dodge, but the man reached out and grabbed Jackson’s blow with no apparent difficulty. Jackson stared in shock. The man again laid his hand on Jackson’s chest, and after a moment Jackson’s eyes closed and he collapsed.

            Timmy was backed against the wall, looking scared and uncertain. Elyse was shaking to Vee’s side, and Peter appeared to be charging as much energy as he’d ever learned to hold.

            Dominic looked to be weighing his options, his face alive for the first time in days. Whoever these two people were, they were good. Already three Artists had been dispatched…

            “Dominic, let’s go!” Vee yelled; he nodded, vanishing from the spot"

            -- he reappeared, grabbed Vee, vanished"

            -- reappeared, grabbed Elyse, Peter grabbed him, vanished"

            -- and they were gone.

 

            “D****t,” Natalia said, letting out a breath.

            “That went wonderfully,” Ian said with a smile. Only one of them, very fat and wearing a trench coat, remained, sitting on his butt with his back against the wall, looking both afraid and interested. Three others lay unconscious on the floor. “Our plan failed completely.”

            “One of them must have heard my thoughts and took it out of context,” Natalia said. “They’re N-Rank for sure, though… and novice Green Artists can’t teleport far…”

            Natalia touched two fingers to the tiled floor and suddenly, in her mind, she saw them all; the hordes of students that had recently vacated the lunchroom, the students down on the football field with no idea of what was going on, the janitor in the closet having a smoke…

            … four students suddenly appeared in a third floor room she could barely detect at this distance.

            “Found them.”

           

            “What do we do, what do we do?!”

            This was Elyse; she actually gripped handfuls of her dark hair, giving her a deranged look.

            “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn,” Dominic whispered, running to the window and looking out. Way off, barely in sight, was the lunchroom, and just outside of it, some seventy or eighty students just… stood. Aimless.

            The Yellow Artistry was keeping them out of the lunchroom.

            “Are you charged up, Peter?” Vee asked; her voice was attempting a measure of control. “In case we have to fight them?”

            “Fight them?” Elyse squalled. “If we fight them we’ll die, you just saw what happened! To Jackson and them!”

            “I’m charged,” Peter said quietly.

            “Don’t take them by yourself, team up on them,” Vee said breathlessly.

            “Everybody, shh!” Dominic yelled, pulling back from the window a bit. The crowd of students was on the move; that could only mean that the source of their fear " that woman " was on the move as well. “Stay close to me.”

            He saw them. They exited the back doors of the lunchroom; to him they were merely specks. The crowd, on the complete other side of the building, unable to see the two’s arrival, still felt their presence, scattering in fear. Dominic held his breath as he watched them. The lady bent down to the ground, touched it with two fingers, and nodded to the tall man on her left.

            The man knelt down beside her… and then launched into a jump, soaring twenty feet, fifty feet, seventy feet"

            “Whoa!” Elyse yelled, her stance cautious, as if the ground had moved beneath her. Dominic didn’t even have to ask what was bothering her, he knew. She was sensing the man’s midair approach.

            … lighter than Dominic would ever have thought possible the man landed just outside their window. Elyse screamed in a way Dominic had only ever heard in movies, a dramatic cry that would doubtlessly alert students downstairs.

            “Everyone, to me!” Dominic yelled. And before the man could enter, before he could even speak, Dominic felt the hands of his friends on him; he wrapped his mental wings around them, gripped the fabric of space-time, and folded it.

            Room 44 disappeared.

 

            Natalia was still knelt to the floor, her fingers on the ground giving her a mental understanding of the bodies in that third floor room, when suddenly they were gone again. As a novice Green Artist, whoever that boy was, he couldn’t get far…

            … she waited for his reappearance…

            … and waited, searching the hallways, the bathrooms, the local grounds in her mind…

            … … and waited…

            Nothing.

            Natalia chuckled to herself. She mentally scratched the ‘novice’ thing; it seemed they were chasing a Beaumont.

 

            By the time Nicolle and Elijah hit the road, she felt as if she had grown wings and was flying.

            She wasn’t yet free " she wouldn’t know free until she actually saw the ocean, knew her prison cell was behind her " but she knew something like it as they rode out of town and to his “countryside hideaway”, as he called it. Elijah drove a pretty red Jeep, and though it had a cover to put over the top he opted to leave it off; the day was unseasonably warm. In the noise of the rushing overhead wind (coupled with Elijah blasting some rock band that, all of a sudden, Nicolle absolutely loved) they were unable to talk; instead Nicolle’s mind stepped into the past. She remembered ugliness, and loneliness, and unhappiness; she vividly remembered the morning her eyes changed color, before learning that fact. Could she possibly have been considering suicide?! When this was to come into her life?

            This was comprised of many happy, happy things: the wind her hair, sun, the loud music, a signed napkin carefully folded in the glove box, the boy behind the wheel. She stole a glance at him from behind

            his

            her sunglasses; his smiling lips were moving, singing along to the song. She felt like lifting her arms into the air, roller coaster style, and screaming at the top of her lungs in pure euphoria.

            His home wasn’t surrounded by forests as Vee’s house was; Elijah’s home was settled peacefully beside a pond out in the private hills. The high Nicolle had been living in since Elijah had tapped on her window the night before actually intensified at the notion that she was at his house. He was inviting her to walk in a place where he’d made memories, to rest where he rested, to see his baby pictures on the walls.

            The Jeep crackled on gravel before hitting the smooth concrete driveway; he came to a stop, killed the engine, and… quiet. The absence of wind and music led way to the sounds of birds chirping, to wind chimes from a second story window…

            “Mom’s not home… probably in town,” Elijah said, opening his door; his tone told Nicolle that he was mostly talking to himself. “School’s still in, so Dom’s not home either…”

            “Will your mama mind if I come in?” Nicolle asked.

            Elijah laughed. “Of course not. Unlike me, she seems to like unexpected company, so expect hugs and handshakes if she comes up while you’re here.”

            They stepped up to the front door " Nicolle very curious if she would see Elijah in his mother’s face " he unlocked it, and the door opened. Nicolle followed him inside.

            She immediately loved what she saw; in the light of the day the living room was a clean, peaceful place, a large window looking into the backyard and pond beyond; a slanted ceiling led to a second floor balcony, where she assumed Elijah and Dominic’s rooms were. As expected, she saw the photographs hanging in the entrance hallway; one showed two little boys of five or six, the little boy on the left a brown eyed Dominic, the little boy of the right a brown eyed Elijah.

            “You were a little lady killer,” Nicolle observed. Elijah barked a laugh.

            “We were lunatics at that age… I swear, Dom and I were probably the most hyper children ever spawned.”

            “Cute as could possibly be,” Nicolle said. Another picture hung beside that one and it hit her like a punch: she was not only seeing Elijah’s mother for the first time " he got his hair from her " but his father as well. Roland Beaumont, the first of the Artists: he was an unquestionably handsome man, bordering on beautiful, much like the son that walked ahead of Nicolle now. The picture must have been old; his eyes were brown as well, not the Black they would eventually become. Nicolle wanted to resume looking, to dissect each picture carefully, but Elijah was walking on so she followed.

            “I like your house,” she said with finality, her stamp of approval. “A lot, to be honest.”

            He stopped walking and turned to face her. He didn’t say anything, and in that quarter-second of silence, wham, the elephant in the room was the fact that they were completely alone. She swallowed.

            “Thank you,” he said softly. “Want me to show you around…?”

            “Mmhm,” was all Nicolle managed. And then, upstairs, she heard a noise. The sound of feet on the floor…?

            “What was that?” she whispered. Elijah ran up the stairs.

            “Dominic?!” Elijah yelled, knocking on his brother’s door. “Are you in there…?”

            Nicolle could see, just past the balcony above her, the bedroom door swing open. The exciting danger of being alone vanished as Dominic appeared in the doorway.

            … and then Vee.

            … and behind them: Peter and Elyse.

            “What’s going on?” Elijah asked; this was the pre-kiss Elijah, battle hardened Elijah, ready to protect, no smiles, no playing around. Dominic responded in kind.

            “Two armed Artists just appeared at the school,” he said. “We’ve been found.”