Chapter 5 #2
Yu Ting already knew the arrows to set me up with at each station, so she busied herself with getting the settings right without tripping the breaker in Zade’s outdated electrical circuit.
As I set my backpack down near the display of bows, I remembered the side pocket again and the note it was hiding.
My knees cracked as I bent down and stuffed my hand deep into the pocket.
The paper crinkled between my fingers. It felt thin and aged, like dust had settled into the pores over the years.
I checked to make sure Yu Ting was still occupied before finally pulling my hand back out with the envelope in tow. I flipped it over in my hand twice, looked over my shoulder once more, and then stood with my back to where Yu Ting was cursing up a storm—and not really under her breath.
My own breath picked up as I ran a finger over the wax seal, tracing the grooves of the barren tree.
Then my pulse kicked into a higher gear.
I used my thumbnail to try to separate the hardened wax from the main pocket of the envelope so it would stay in one piece. The seal was too beautiful to break.
The thing cracked anyway.
My disappointment escaped in a rushed exhale, but then the shining silver flecks on the stationery inside the envelope drew my attention back to the contents beyond the seal.
There was nothing about opening a letter—besides my impending LPE results—that should have caused my hands to tremble. Yet, I couldn’t still them.
“Almost ready,” Yu Ting shouted from somewhere else in the range.
I hastened my actions and rotated so that my back was to where her voice had sounded from before pulling out the note.
It was a small slip of paper with heavy black ink.
It was an angular print instead of the loopy cursive on the envelope.
The paper itself was beige, with flecks of silver, and a lightly printed image in the background—a scepter with golden-leafed branches twirling out.
A replica of the mark on my chest.
The paper quivered in my hand, the words blurring. I looked from the note to my chest and back to the note.
The answers to questions you haven’t yet asked
can be found at Hearth Haven Inn, last stop on
the West Line, Ground Floor. Your mark, your
legacy, and your future. We will help you find
The Way.
-A friend of Lenore’s
Sweat crawled down the slope behind my right ear, and my head throbbed with all the blood trying to move to my brain to help it process what I was reading and why someone who had been friends with my grandmother would give me this.
A different handwriting scrawled in long, slanted letters in the lower right-hand corner spelled out,
I can help you kill Azazel.
My stomach somehow dropped with a thunk while simultaneously managing to rise into my throat with the burn of acid.
How do they know?! Who is this? What the actual—
A loud buzzer interrupted my second reading of the letter and jerked me out of whatever spiral I was drowning in. I took in a big gulp of air because apparently, I’d stopped breathing for a while there.
Yu Ting burst out with a triumphant, “Whoop!”
My chest knocked about with my galloping, pulsing organs. My fingers struggled to fold the letter and stuff it and the now-crumpled, sweat-dampened envelope back into the side pocket of my backpack before Yu Ting made it out of the control booth.
“Sorry for the wait,” Yu Ting said sheepishly next to me.
“Can’t blame you.” I cleared my throat to try and bring my voice back from the high pitch it had decided to climb to, as if I were doing something other than reading my mail. “Zade’s the one who won’t put any money into this place.”
I snatched my longbow from the wall and approached the first target.
Is the note a threat?
The red lighting must have masked the tint in my skin because Yu Ting didn’t say anything, but my skin was blazing.
Are they going to report me if I don’t come?
Will I be executed for treason?
Angry tears formed at the thought of getting sent to the Void before killing Azazel. I could handle banishment. I expected it.
But only after killing Azazel.
I took two controlled breaths before I could steady my hands. I was not about to raise my bow and let Yu Ting see it shaking like burnt paper in the wind. She would assume I was nervous about a shoot. I had a reputation to uphold.
I could always make up an excuse that I forgot something, high-tail it out of here, and figure out what the hell that note is about.
Another buzzer sounded.
The clock on the scoreboard started, and my body took over. Mostly.
This was a routine I had done thousands of times. I could finish the whole range in about ten minutes.
Then I’ll be going on a little field trip, I guess. And, hopefully, it won’t end with me on the business end of an Extermin’s homing beacon.
I raised the bow and looked toward the target.
A single-syllable laugh diluted my nerves and pulled me back from that letter.
There was a print-out of Zade about 70 meters away, moving left and right.
The humor of it was the only challenging aspect of this shot.
I stifled my laugh and focused on the kill zone rather than the face attached.
“Bullseye!”Yu Ting chanted over the buzzer. “Never not impressed.”
What if they can help me kill Azazel?
I released a shaky exhale.
Running distracted me from my thoughts, but shooting forced me to shut the rest of my brain down completely. I took a step to the right. That last question had certainly been quieter in my brain, and the fog was starting to clear.
The next target loomed 90 meters off and shifted in varying vertical and horizontal directions with a few stationary obstructions along the length of the stall.
The target was less interesting, though, and was now just a round bullseye about the size of my head rather than my best friend’s upper body.
“Do not be afraid.”
The thought barely came and was gone again.
Yet, it was welcome and felt right.
The range was my safe space.
“Two for two,” Yu Ting cheered when the arrowhead met its fate.
Two down.
Targets three to nine added distance, speed, moving obstructions, and more variety in the planes of target movement. After my ninth buzzer, a blanket of silence fell upon the training room.
“I am with you.”
There it was again.
It was still and small and not my usual internal voice.
I’m losing it.
The hair on my arms stood up, and that trickle ran across my nape once more. I rolled my shoulders to shake off the feeling and stepped over to the last stall.
“I can help you kill Azazel,” hissed another new voice.
This wasn’t mine. Nor was it that soft and right voice.
It was fear internally verbalized.
My grip tightened around the riser until my fingers numbed from the lack of blood flow.
Get it together, Eliana. You’re not allowed to go crazy and prove everyone else right.
I forced myself to focus on the last target now taunting me at the end of the stall.
It was the size of my palm and impossible to spot at 150 yards without a scope. It moved at a speed even the electroscope struggled to track, darting in and out among obstructions as if in a waltz designed to taunt me.
I had the arrow at full draw. Head tilted, eye trained. I filled my lungs with air and held it to not screw up on account of my stupid need to breathe.
“Don’t miss, Belles,” Zade quipped from behind me with hot breath that smelled of cinnamon and cream. It was the hand that simultaneously slapped my ass, though, that forced my body to twitch right as my fingers released the string.
Motherfu—
The arrow sashayed from my fingers to sink into the target.
Nine-point zone.
No buzzer this time.
“Second ring!” Yu Ting shouted happily, and all the lights clicked on. “Incredible, Elle!”
She continued with her praises as I whirled around to smack Zade in the head with the top end of my bow. Her jubilation mocked my failure—a failure caused by this asshole.
He ducked and then lunged forward. His arms wrapped around my midsection as he heaved me over his right shoulder with a cacophony of laughter.
Then he spun me around like the blade of a HeliHov, which made it quite difficult to land any blows with the bow as I was way past my comfort zone at that height.
“You pompous germbag!” I shrieked and kneed his chest while also attempting to tame my gag reflex.
He reached with his left hand to stop the bow twirling dangerously about and wrench it from my grasp.
I heard it clang against the stone floor right before he set me down. My cheeks puffed with the thrashing I was going to give him if there was a single scratch on my baby. Snatching her up, I checked for bumps and bruises, and he should have been more nervous than he was.
“It’s part of the difficulty of that target, Belles. You have to be ready for obstructions from all possible planes.”
Zade looked down at me with a smug grin and his barrel arms folded across his chest. I only shot him a moment’s glare before I continued examining my bow.
“You must have failed your exam with newb skills like that,” he dared to taunt with a smirk.
I narrowed my eyes and lifted the right side of my upper lip in a snarl as I walked past him to hang my bow back up in its rightful place.
“I’ll bet you 40 credits that I aced it!” I hissed at him. I turned back toward him and copied his arrogant stance. “And I’m good for it because I’ll get placed on the Administrator fast track and then work my way up The Tower—”
“Until you assassinate Azazel. Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard it. You’re going to throw your whole life away for a chance at revenge. So noble.” Zade’s grin flopped into a frown, and his tone dropped along with it. “You were supposed to wait for me. I thought we were gonna shoot together. I even…”
The moment Zade had said Azazel’s name out loud, my brain screamed at me for somehow forgetting that note.
I looked down at my bag near Zade’s muddy boot, not feeling the slightest twang of guilt for disappointing him because someone knew about my plan outside of the only four souls I had ever told.
No way would Yu Ting or Barrister have written that note.
Yu Ting’s too sweet, and I was pretty sure Barrister probably couldn’t even write.
Zade had never kept a secret from me, so he was out immediately. The idea of him sending secret notes suited a comedy blockbuster.
I hummed in response to whatever he was still going on about and snatched up my bag.
“I have things to do,” I mumbled. “Gotta meet Astrid to go shopping. I can’t wait around on you.”
Barrister stepped out in front of me as I tried to enter the lobby from the range.
“Hey, Eliana, did you hear about the dude who can tell you everything about your past without having ever met you before? Fleur says she met him, and he told her stuff she’d never told a soul.
She thinks he’s one of those sage dudes that the nuts are looking for. ”
I pushed past Barrister with an unamused hum.
“Why would I care to know about my past?” I didn’t turn to look at him as I stepped under the sensor to trigger the door open. “Tell me if you meet anyone who can tell me my future.”
The bell chimed above, and the glass doors parted.
Then Zade’s voice called out from the mouth of the range, “Hey, Belles…forgetting something?”
I debated whether to ignore him and keep going or turn around and flip him off. Then my body stiffened, and I yanked my bag up to jam my free hand into the empty side pocket.
Shiitake mushrooms!
I turned slowly on my heels to see Zade waving the note in the air like a victory flag.