Chapter 1 #2
The panic in his voice aggravates my Nexus, and it wakes, watching from my one eye like a wolf watching prey.
Fuck. Not now. Not Harry. No. It slowly slithers back into my mind, and I slowly breathe out a shaky breath.
He grabs a rucksack off the back of the door and opens my drawers, throwing clothes into it in a hurry. “Harry, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Vian are here. They’re killing them. There’s too many. The alpha is dead and his family, too.” He pauses to look at me. The alpha had four kids and twenty rangers to protect his house. My skin drains of colour. “Not just the Nexus…the humans. They’re just…j-just draining the entire town.”
That’s what they do…but to drain an entire town?
That is unheard of. To kill an alpha? That’s rare.
Alphas are the most powerful and rare Nexus among us, and they become the leaders for that reason.
We feel safe around them, and there is usually an alpha in every Nexus town or small community. Why are they attacking us?
The Vian usually come in the night, because for whatever reason, they’re more powerful then.
They have one power—they drain people. They only need to touch the human or Nexus to drain them of their entire life.
Humans, it takes them a second, but they don’t get any power from them.
They only do that to be cruel. But Nexus?
When they get hold of us, they drain us for magic, and they not only take our life force, adding it to their own, but they take our powers as their own.
The more powerful you are, the longer you can fight them off.
An alpha should have taken hours to drain, and he should have been able to fight off any threat.
If they drain even one or two of us, they become powerful and near enough immortal.
Draining an alpha? That would make them stronger than they have been in years.
Like their leader, who is said to have drained over ten thousand of us now and has lived for hundreds of years.
I quickly grab the clothes Harry throws my way and get changed in the bathroom. Simple black leggings and a crop top that has a picture of a sleeping ginger cat on it. I chuck on my favourite leather jacket and pull on my Ugg boots, a gift from Harry’s dad for Christmas last year that I treasure.
Harry hands me the bag and rushes out, expecting me to follow, but I turn to the bed.
I lift the sheets, finding the gap I cut months ago, and reach in until I touch the silver box and tug it out.
It’s the only other thing in here that matters.
A box. A small, tiny box that fits in the palm of my hand and is completely silver with no lid, no markings or keyhole.
I know it’s a box because something rattles in it, but I don’t have a clue how to open it.
My mother gave it to me and told me never to open it unless I was going to die.
She never gave me gifts growing up, no birthday or Christmas gifts because she didn’t believe in it, but she gave me this.
I throw that in the bag last. Harry is at the bottom of the stairs, shoving bottles of water into his own backpack, and we run out the front door together, straight down to where the car is waiting.
Harry’s mum, June, is waiting outside the car, constantly looking around and tapping her foot on the ground.
Her blonde hair is now grey, short, and cut round her face.
Sometimes she reminds me of my mum, who always kept her hair short too.
She frowns at me, but relief marks her blue eyes when she turns them to Harry.
“Both of you, hurry up! You’re going to get us all killed if we stay longer.
Thank the Nexus Gods we live on the outskirts. ”
“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter, climbing in the car after Harry, and she slams the door shut before getting in the front.
Macsen, Harry’s dad, gives me a soft look.
Macsen is Irish, covered in hair from his thick beard to his curly brown and grey locks of hair.
He is ridiculously kind. My father wasn’t a kind person, but I always wonder, if he didn’t have my mother as his Nexus or a daughter like me, would he have been?
Some of the stories Macsen tells me of my father seem like he is talking about another person altogether.
“The important thing now is getting away from here. We are safe and let’s all calm down. ”
June huffs, her eyes glowing blue with Nexus magic. She can connect to birds and spy, almost become them. “You’re not seeing what I am, Mac. Drive, for Nexus’ sake.”
Macsen puts his foot down and speeds out of the driveway onto the back road that leads out of town.
I clear my throat after ten minutes of the silent drive because I need to know what is happening.
I have never lived in a world where I let someone make the decisions for me since I lost my parents. “What’s the plan?”
June meets my eyes. “We’re going to the meeting point with the survivors of the pack. The rangers there will keep us safe and make a plan for relocation. What else would we do, silly girl?”
Panic locks my body down, and I struggle to hold it together. “You have to let me out. I can’t go to the meeting point with the rest of the pack! What if they recognise me?”
June mutters under her breath. “It’s not all about you, Gwenieve.”
Harry touches my shoulder, and I resist the urge to snap at him. “They won’t. Put your hood up and hide behind us.”
Mac clears his throat. “I’ll tell them that you’re a family friend that’s staying with us. That you’re human. I can barely sense your Nexus anyway, and I live with you. They won’t look twice at you.”
“But what if they do? What if they know who I am?” I snap. Hiding is one thing, but trusting a hood and my self-control when I’m scared is another. “My face is everywhere in our communities! No, just let me out and I’ll run in the opposite direction.”
Mac actually looks right at me. “What, with all the Vian out there?” He focuses on the road again. “We got messages through the system that there were at least a hundred, and they’re draining the entire town to find us. You won’t make it—”
“No, but you don’t und—”
He interrupts me. Something he never does.
“Your father was my best friend, and he made me swear to protect you if he couldn’t.
I’m not doing that to his memory, Gwen. You are all I have left of him now.
The reward for you is old news, and not many out here would have ever seen a photo of your face.
It will be okay. I promise.” I grab the door handle, but it’s locked, and panic wraps its claws around my heart as I sink back in the leather seat. His promises mean nothing.
This isn’t going to end well. I have to run when they aren’t looking, which should be easy enough. I know Mac means well, but he could get all the survivors killed.
We drive for half an hour in silence, only the occasional loud crickets chirping outside, the soft wind whipping past the car.
Eventually, June feels like it’s safe enough to turn the radio on, and a song about second chances plays, some hippie seventies music that June loves.
I prefer Taylor Swift and anything she sings about heartbreak.
It’s nearly sunrise by the time we turn onto an abandoned road, with a broken sign outside with camp written in Spanish on it.
I sense the Nexus souls here immediately, like they are each playing their own drums, and I can feel the beat.
The meeting spot is in the middle of the forest, and it once must have been a children’s camp, but now it’s full of rickety buildings, broken parks and deserted boats pulled up on the edge of the lake.
A few cars are pulled up with their lights on, shining on a group by the boats.
June and Mac climb out first, and I pull my hood tightly around me, tucking my hair in underneath so it can’t be seen, before getting out after Harry. Harry stays at my side as we head over, where there is a group of ten. Ten, that’s all that’s left.
Most of them are kids, but Beta Samuel is alive.
Shame. He is a prick I’ve avoided for years.
I’ve watched him from the shadows, and I know he isn’t a good man.
He regularly cheats on his Nexus, which is a disgusting thing to do when your Nexus can feel you getting off with someone else once you’re bonded.
He comes over, looking between us and pushing Harry to the side. “Who is this? Did you bring a human with you?”
The disgust in his voice lingers as Mac tries to get in front of me, but it’s too late.
A heavy wind blows my hood off, my hair falling out around my hoodie as I come face to face with the beta.
His mouth parts as he stares at me, and I know he is perfectly aware of who I am.
Shit. “Pretend you didn’t see me…please. ”
He grabs my hand and before I can say a word, his power washes over me like a drug.
Literally like a drug spreading across my body.
Even my monster doesn’t get time to protect me because it is just as shocked.
I slump into his waiting arms, hearing Mac and Harry shouting at Beta Samuel in my defence.
“This is Gwenieve Autumn, you fucking fool!” Beta Samuel snarls. “Everyone in the world has been looking for her! Do you know what you found? Do you know who her Nexus are?”
Beta Samuel doesn’t know I lived with Mac.
Good. They might be safe. I fight the darkness pressing into my mind, pulling me under like a strong current in the sea.
Please, this can’t be happening. I have to fight.
I can’t be taken to them. I can’t let the monster have them.
Please, please… “We’ll be allowed in the capital if we take her in.
We will get the money and protection. She is a fucking golden ticket. ”
Darkness sweeps me under, with one thought lingering in my head. I’m a ticket to hell, perhaps, because when they take me to the capital…they are risking my monster destroying everything.