Chapter 2
“Yay, we’re cleared!” Thirzah said, as she racked her avatar in the team area.
“How did you know their activation code?” Freia asked me, her own player tucked inside its warded cubicle.
I shrugged. “Lucky guess.”
“You got more guesses like that?” Cole asked, smirking.
“I think I do.”
“I wonder what those odds will look like?” he mused. “I could use some spending money.”
“We all could,” Taylah said.
“Is there betting on challenges?” I asked.
“No,” Vesta said. “Take your anger out in the game, not challenges.”
“Are the other teams better than Becky’s Beotches?” I asked.
“Lots,” Vesta answered.
“Okay. We’ll see how it goes.”
“You don’t know anything yet, Craig. It may not be what you think,” Vesta said. The others instantly walked faster, pulling ahead.
“She’s alive, Vesta. She left me and let us think she was dead for five years. She set me up to be a fucking assassin and kill your family.”
“Hmm. Really? The woman who healed half the planet you grew up on, the woman who taught you to take care of her when her visions hit, the woman who taught you magic, is really an archvillain intent upon sending her only child on a suicide mission?”
I growled in frustration. She wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t totally correct either. “She’s been hiding from me and Dad. She left me to deal with Richard Shenn on my own.”
“She left you with your dad, and your adoptive family, who did everything necessary to protect you. And Jennifer, the family attorney. She left you money, family, and a legacy spot here at Arcane. That doesn’t sound like an evil mother. It sounds like a desperate one who planned as best she could.”
The momentary relief I had felt from beating up the Beotches was gone. Now I just wanted to wreck something, to rip into stone and concrete with my deadliest ability.
“Go ahead… get it out,” Vesta said, easily reading me through our bond. She waved a hand at the concrete wall of Arcane’s basement.
“I can’t. I can’t wreck the building or the campus or even a tree.”
“Why not? Who’s going to stop you?” she asked, her tone cold.
“Stop. I know what you’re doing and congratulations. It worked.”
“Because of who you are,” she said, thumping a hard finger into my chest. “Because of how you were raised.”
“Vesta, I just want answers,” I said back.
“I know, beloved,” she whispered.
“Everything alright here?” a new voice asked.
We turned to look at Cora Demidova-Gordon. She was standing with Becky of Becky’s Beotches, arms crossed, staring at me hard.
“No. He wants answers, Cora,” Vesta said, hand still on my chest.
“To what?” Cora leaned forward like a hunting dog ready to point.
“To a national security… actually a global… hmm, maybe interstellar security issue. Your folks know all about it. Have they told you?”
Cora’s mouth flattened out, her eyes narrowed, and a nasty-looking furrow appeared between her eyes in a completely unattractive look of frustration.
Which is perhaps unkind of me because she’s an attractive girl.
It’s hard not to be if your parents are Tatiana Demidova and Chris Gordon.
But her attitude spoiled the whole thing.
An overwhelming desperation for some kind of heroic mission, some kind of noble life calling where she could use her awesome powers over gravity to defend mankind.
And since I had arrived on this planet, this Earth that I had grown up obsessed with, she had decided that maybe I was the villain of her dreams.
“You know they haven’t,” Cora said.
“That’s right, because if they had, his frustration would be entirely understandable and relatable to you. But we can’t tell you either because we’ve been sworn by my parents, your parents, and every authority within an arm’s length not to speak of it to anyone.”
“And yet my parents have warned Wulf and me to keep our guards up, to watch for anything or anyone suspicious, any threat to ourselves or to you… both of you. And then there’s the whole family weekend dance mystery.”
“Just watch out for her,” I said, nodding at Vesta. “I’m not important.”
Smack! Just an open-hand slap on my chest but damn, that girl hits hard.
“Bullshit!” Vesta said, truly angry. “Stop diminishing your importance. I know why you persist in saying crap like that but you’re just being stubborn… and childish.”
That would have been my perfect cue to get angry back. To take offense at the term childish. But she was right, and I couldn’t unknow it.
Cora’s frustration had changed to something like interest, her eyes flicking between Vesta and myself. “Well, if you can’t tell me what’s going on, can you clue me in on what to be wary of?”
Clearly an attempt at digging for more information… but also, clearly a reasonable ask.
“Standard humans who smell of deceit,” I said. “You’re the type to run toward danger, not away. But that could be exactly what they want… to lure you into a trap based on your sense of responsibility.”
She looked at me with surprise and wariness, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I’m serious,” I said. “You are extremely powerful and dangerous, with a powerful need to help people. They will build out a trap that plays on that.”
“He’s right,” Vesta said. “Think of all those movies where the hero stops the car to check on the person lying in the road only to get jabbed with a needle or ice pick. That kind of thing.”
“I can handle myself,” Cora said.
“You can handle a platoon—by yourself. But you are vulnerable to trickery,” I said. “Like anyone with a strong moral code.”
“Why are you flattering me?”
“I’m not. Just reciting facts. You were warned by your parents.
They’re right. You and your brother are extremely powerful.
Any frontal assault on either of you will end with bloody smears on the ground.
But a good actor with the right weapon or drug could bypass that power by playing on your good nature, so be aware. ”
“I don’t trust you,” she said, frowning at me.
“Good instincts. Use them… for your brother, for Vesta, for your folks.”
“You two done?” Vesta asked. “You done scoping him up the ass to look for evil inclinations, and are you done trying to make yourself out as a villain?” she asked both of us.
“You should challenge him, Cora. Beat his ass in Wytchwar,” Becky suddenly interjected.
Vesta turned her way with a frown that changed into something that looked like the word eureka. “You know… that might be a good idea. You two ought to battle it out in the sand pits of the game course.”
“Really?” I asked her.
“Yeah. Cora will beat your ass… or not. You both might learn something,” Vesta said. “But Becky? If you ever come after my beloved like that, be prepared to lose your entire team. I’ll reduce your avatars to dust so fine they won’t be repairable.”