Hexbound (The Dark Elite 2)

Virtually everything in Amie’s room was an eye-scarring shade of Barbie pink. “Now, that’s just rude.”

“I’m not above rude, Parker. You keep that in mind.”

I took her word for it, which is why I snuck back alone to sign up for the Sneak committee. An artist had to do what an artist had to do, right?

2

A dozen or so hours later, we’d ditched our plaid for jeans and boots, tonight’s uniform of the Adepts of Enclave Three.

It would have been cool to say we dressed that way because we were out pummeling Reapers into oblivion. But for now, Enclave Three was acting more like an Adept advance unit. Daniel tended to give us two kinds of assignments—trying to bring back kids who we thought had been targeted by Reapers, and patrolling the cold, damp tunnels beneath Chicago to keep an eye out for Reapers and, if necessary, battle them back.

There weren’t any Reaper targets at St. Sophia’s right now, at least not that we’d identified. (Although the soul-sucking would have explained a lot about M.K.’s personality.) So really, the boots were mostly to protect our feet from dingy water while we were on patrol. On the other hand, Jamie and Jill, auburn-haired twin Adepts with elemental fire and ice power, had been gone a lot recently, spending their evenings befriending a sad-eyed boy from their high school and trying to keep him from completely disappearing into himself as the Reapers used him to sate their hunger.

Tonight we were walking the tunnels that connected Enclave Three to St. Sophia’s to make sure they were Reaper free. Unfortunately, they often weren’t. I’d had my first run-in with Sebastian in these tunnels, and the Reapers had used the tunnels to kidnap Scout and to snag her Grimoire. Since they hadn’t managed to grab it, odds were they’d try again.

We walked two by two, Scout and Michael in the lead, me and Jason behind. It’s not like the tunnels were superplush or anything—they used to hold the tracks for small railroad cars that ran between downtown buildings. They carried stuff into the buildings, and carried out ash from the boilers. Now they looked pretty much exactly how you’d expect abandoned miniature railcar tunnels to look.

On top of that, of course, the threat of Reapers was always there. But even with all that, there was something a little romantic about walking along in flashlight-lit tunnels together.

Scout looked back at me, determination in her eyes. “Lights on,” she ordered.

From what we knew so far—since I was the only local Adept with firespell—my magic was all about power, the raw force of the universe. That meant I could throw out shock waves of power that would knock people down and out, and I could manipulate electricity. But I still wasn’t entirely sure about the “how” of it.

I stopped walking, clenched my eyes shut, and concentrated on filling the tunnel with light. It was a matter of allowing the energy to flow into me, letting it pool and fill my veins with warmth, and then sending it out again.

“Very nice, Lil,” Scout said. But I knew it had worked before she’d spoken, the insides of my eyelids turning red from the sudden glare in the frosty corridor. I opened my eyes, squinting against the sudden gleam of the cage-wrapped lightbulbs that hung above us. I was getting a little better at controlling it, learning to spark the light and douse it again by concentrating, instead of only when my emotions became overwhelming.

Scout hopped across one of the rails in the concrete floor, flashlight in her hand, her signature messenger bag—with its grinning skull and crossbones—bouncing as she moved.

“All right,” she said. “Off again.”

I blew out a breath, and pulled the power back out again. It was like turning the lights on, but in reverse—letting the power release again, freeing it from the bulbs in which it was bound. For a moment, the lights wavered, then went dark.

Jason took my free hand and laced our fingers together. “Your control is seriously improving.”

“Only because I’ve been working on it like two hours a day.”

Scout glanced back, her features thrown into strange relief by the flashlight beneath her face. “Hobbies are fun, aren’t they?”

“In this case, they would be more fun if I had any clue what I was doing.”

Jason leaned toward me. “You’re doing great, Lily,” he said, squeezing my hand. I squeezed back.

“I’m doing better than I was,” I agreed. “But I’d feel a whole lot better if I could do it on command every time. I’m still a little unpredictable.”

“One of these days,” Jason said. Since his eyes were on Scout and Michael, who were walking side by side in front of us, Michael’s arm around her shoulders, I assumed Jason was no longer talking about me.

“One of these days,” I agreed. “They’ll be good for each other. They are good for each other.”

“Yes, they are,” he said, before his gaze shifted back to me again. “But enough about them. You know, we haven’t had a lot of time to talk. To get to know each other.”

The warmth on my cheeks was a weird contrast to the chilly tunnel air. “That’s true,” I said, my heart suddenly thudding in my chest. What was it about this guy that made me feel like a nervous kid? I hated feeling that way, so I took the lead. “So, say something.”

“Something.”

I bumped him with my shoulder. “I’m serious.”

“So was I. Maybe you just don’t appreciate my sense of humor.” But when I gave him a flat stare, he laughed. “Okay, okay. So, um, what is Sagamore like compared to Chicago?”

“Oh. Well, it’s beautiful,” I told him. “It’s a small town, kind of in the country. Trees everywhere, rolling hills. Our neighborhood was on a hill, so when you looked outside in the fall, you could see the fog over the valley. It was like living in a fairy land.”

“Wasn’t ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ supposed to take place in New York?”

I frowned. “I don’t know. Was it?”

“I wanna say we learned that last year in English.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be wrong. Anyway, if it was, probably says a lot about upstate New York, right?”

“Are you suggesting I was living in a fairy land?”

“Well, at least a land with headless horsemen.” He dropped my hand and half turned around, fingers arched into claws. “Headless horsemen who cut the heads off fair maidens in the night!” He tweaked my waist, just enough to make me yelp. I batted his hands away.