The nine, as I called them, weren’t what I’d expected. They were nearly as ragtag a group as my own team, albeit a more gifted bunch. Every one of them was talented in some form or fashion, and some had gifts I’d never even heard of. For the better part of that morning, they sparred separately and wouldn’t interact with us. One girl in particular caught my interest, though. Her golden eyes flashed every time she looked at us, and there was something strange behind her quiet demeanor. I shook my head and looked away.

You’re paranoid.

Lunch was just a continuation of their indifference. Two floors down from the Battle Simulation Building there was a small lunchroom with one long table that reminded me of middle school. Had this been here before all this happened with Anastasia and the Council? If so, why could they possibly need a lunchroom that looked like it was out of a juvenile detention center? Wedged between Blair and Tori, I took a slow bite of my burger and glanced across the table.

“What’s your name?” I asked the guy opposite me. He was massive, nearly seven feet tall, and built so thick that three-foot wide oak trees looked small in comparison. His skin was so black it looked almost blue. He was beautiful in an odd, exotic way. He glanced up at me with golden eyes, flecked with green. It was fitting that he looked like carved stone—given what I’d seen of his ability this morning.

“Constantine,” he rumbled.

“You’re an earth user.” It wasn’t really a question, but I waited for a response.

He gave me an odd look. “Yes.”

“Excellent. When we’re done with lunch, you’ll be fighting with Alexandra.” I kept my eyes on him, all too aware of the stare I was getting from Alexandra.

“The fire user?” He glanced at my red-headed sister.

“Yes, I want to see how you compare.”

He frowned slightly but kept quiet.

Lunch went on, but the only conversations were held in hushed whispers.

As we headed back upstairs, Blair grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to put Alexandra against one of them?”

“It needs to happen sooner rather than later, and he’s more even-tempered than the others,” I said quietly, watching the door for the stairwell close.

“He could be a pacifist and I’d be concerned. Do you think she’s ready?”

“She was born ready. The girl has fire in her veins. You just have to know how to unleash it.” Blair cut me a questioning look, and I sighed. “You forget that she’s my sister. She’s trained with me since we were children. You may not see her control, but it is there.” I started walking away.

“But—”

“I can’t say more, Blair, not right now.”

Flashbacks of fire and blood rooted me to the spot for a moment. I reached out, steadying myself against the wall.

That was a long time ago, I berated myself.

Exactly. Which is why you shouldn’t dabble with it now.

I stepped through the doorway into the classroom outside the simulator. Vonlowsky was waiting with the group right outside, and he didn’t look pleased. I marched over to him with my shoulders back, hand resting cockily on the dagger at my hip. Daggers had become my weapon of choice; the irony was amusing. He watched me warily as I approached the group, but made no move to piss me off after this morning.

That’s what you get for biting off more than you can chew.

“Alexandra, Constantine. Get in the simulator.” I kept my voice steady, eyes not leaving Vonlowsky. “I hope you don’t mind, Professor, but I wanted to mix it up a little.” It was an olive branch, the most I could force myself to give at the moment. He’d given me breathing room, and I didn’t want to be smothered again.

“Very well. But after your trial, we have work to do.”

I nodded once and motioned for them to enter the simulator. The door snapped shut behind them, and I took a deep breath before facing the window.

“Begin the match,” I said.

Vonlowsky pressed a button, and a horn sounded.

Alexandra moved first, trying to dive in for a quick shot at his solar plexus, but she wasn’t fast enough to get out. It didn’t take long before Constantine had her pinned. I grimaced. Flames shot up as she ignited, and his arms shook as he struggled to keep his hold on her, despite the fire that rose up to greet him. His skin changed, darkening to onyx. He was made of solid stone.

“Can we be done with this?” Vonlowsky sighed, reaching for the button.

“No.”

He stopped and gave me an incredulous look.

I kept my eyes on the burning girl.

Please forgive me.

“Hotter,” I said.

Her head twitched, and even though she couldn’t see me, her eyes made contact. Fire raced down her body, scorching away her clothes. The flames were spreading, burning even the white-tiled floors. Still, Constantine held her.

“Hotter,” I repeated.

Her body surged again as the lines of her skin blurred. I couldn’t tell where the fire stopped and she started. Bodies pressed in around me to get a better look, and Vonlowsky regarded me curiously. His gaze flipped between the burning girl and me.

“Selena, I don’t think she can—” Blair started.

“Hotter, Alexandra. Now,” I commanded coldly.

It was the first time in almost seven years that I’d pushed her. Instead of trying to hold the fire back—as we had in the human world—I wanted to unleash it. I wanted to make a statement: that it wasn’t only me they needed to fear. I wasn’t the only threat.

Her body glowed bright, nearly white, as she lost her human form entirely. Constantine shifted, unable to hold her any longer as she burned even stone. He moved away, but she was faster. She was living flame. Alexandra pushed onward, forcing him back, but everywhere he turned there was fire. She consumed the world.

Her control was starting to slip, though. She hadn’t held this form in many years, and her body didn’t know how to handle it. Her energy was falling, and Constantine saw it. The ground beneath them shook, forcing her to retreat from the mountain man. Flames exploded as the room burned. Unable to hold back any longer, Vonlowsky hit the button to signal them to stop. The siren blared, and like a phoenix meeting her end, Alexandra blinked out—collapsing on the ruined floor, unconscious and exhausted.

Fire alarms rang out, as the simulator flooded, flowing into the classroom as the door opened. I pushed through the group and headed straight for my sister’s unconscious body. The floor was burned away, and rocks jutted through like onyx crystals. Deadly and beautiful. I stayed wide of Constantine, who was sagging against the opposite wall, not completely conscious yet. She’d given him a run for his money, and that was all I’d needed.

I approached her naked body, and slipped my jacket off to cover her. Her head lolled to the side when I picked her up, locking my arms around her back and under her legs, somewhat awkwardly because of the size difference. Avoiding the rocks on my way back was slightly harder with her cumbersome body, but we managed.

Constantine hadn’t fared much better. The golden-eyed girl from earlier murmured words of reassurance in his ear while she simultaneously tried to treat the burns and keep him from falling into the hole in the ground two feet to his left. Another boy rushed onto the scene to help their shaken friend, and it stirred an unwanted feeling of guilt in my chest. I kept walking, disinclined to give my apologies. Relatively speaking, apart from the destroyed room and unconscious body, it was a success.

“What did I say about breaking things?” Vonlowsky asked, rolling his eyes.

I shot him a glare, nodding to the girl in my arms.

He pressed his lips together in a slight grimace. “The bunks are one floor down. Your things haven’t been moved yet, but I’ll see that hers are brought over first,” he said, pausing as phantom hands opened the stairwell. “We’ll break for the rest of this afternoon until the simulator is fixed. We’ll have our evening lecture during dinner tonight.”

I mentally shut the door behind me as I traveled down, into the underground of Daizlei. Not even one day back, and I already had an unconscious body.

Was it karma that it was my very own sister this time? I hadn’t even laid a finger on Alexandra, but I was still at fault for pushing her. For breaking her.

I glanced over the room, feeling more than ever like an enlisted soldier. A simple room, it had concrete floors and walls, ten twin-sized bunks, and doors on either end labeled men and women’s bathrooms. I carried Alexandra to one of the bunks in the corner. I threw the threadbare sheet over her, hoping it would be enough. Water leaked from her hair all over the mattress as I pulled it to the side and wrung it out on the concrete floor before braiding it away from her face.

I shouldn’t have done that…but I knew why I had.

She was being thrown into this just as much as I was, and like Lily, she only had so much time to get ready for whatever was to come. Blair was a mile ahead of them, both in attitude and ability, at this point. Tori and Amber were in a different category altogether with their abilities, but it didn’t make my job any easier. They needed to train more, all of them. I fell into troubled thoughts, backing away from her bunk toward the people now milling around the room. The nine had moved their stuff to the other side of the concrete prison, where Constantine was passed out on the bottom cot. The golden-eyed girl examined me cautiously from her bed, with eyes that glowed more than I was comfortable with. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t half over.

I turned to my soldiers, the team of misfits.

“Two of you are to be with her at all times until she wakes up. I’ll be back,” I said hastily, not even bothering with my jacket as I turned to walk out.

“Where are you going?” Tori asked.

“For a run,” I said.

“I’m coming with,” Amber said, moving to my side in a second.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”

We took the stairs back up into the classroom and paused. Vonlowsky was on the phone with someone, while technopaths worked to put the simulator back together. Most of the water had already been removed.

“Is there something you need, Ms. Foster?” he asked crossly, not even bothering to address Amber’s presence.

“Nope, we were just on our way, Professor,” I said quickly, hurrying out the door before he could comment further.

“So…are we going to talk about what happened today? Or why tall, dark, and handsome is pissed at you?” Amber asked, nudging me with her elbow as we walked outside of main campus.

I groaned. “Seriously, Amber? I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh please, I know you, and I know the Hunters. The boy has it bad for you, and as amusing as it is that he picked you, of all people, I kind of get the impression that it’s not one way,” she mused, pulling her brown curls into a pom-pom on top of her head.

“Honestly, Amber, it’s none of your business,” I said steadily, taking off in a run.

It didn’t take her any time at all to catch up. “Touchy-touchy. He’s the same way about you.” She smirked.

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. The lie fell flat, though, even to me.

“Just keep telling yourself that. Before you know it, the whole world’s going to implode with your drama. Those boys are about to have a throwdown.” She laughed, even as we ran.

“Boys?” I asked, hoping that, for once in my miserable life, I’d heard wrong.

“Oh my god! Don’t tell me you have no idea what I’m talking about. Lucas was two seconds from kicking his ass after you walked out of the simulator this morning.” She cackled.

My heart raced in my chest, and it had nothing to do with the run.

“Aaron is nothing. He’s no one. The only reason he’s even here is because Alexandra was going to throw a fucking temper tantrum if he wasn’t.”

Amber sobered and looked me over. “Do you really believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Really? From where I stand, you yielded and brought him on. Alexandra’s just an excuse,” she said flatly, cocking an eyebrow in challenge.

“That’s bull. I can’t stand Aaron. It’s the reason I picked him this morning. Not because I care,” I said, like it was dirty.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as you’re telling yourself.” She scrunched her nose the way she did when she was thinking.

“I think you’re reading something into it that’s not there. Lucas, Aaron…hell, next you’re going to say Alec has it for me.” I laughed at the thought, but her smile fell away.

She dropped her gaze to the ground darkly. “Not quite.”

“Oh what? No Chatty Cathy now?” I smirked, but deep down I knew something was up.

“Lucas is a different kind of devil than Alec. His morals are loose, but he has a heart. He just needed someone like you to make him feel it. Make him settle,” she said ominously.

“So I’ve heard. I’m not sure whether to be pissed or ask why you keep coming back to him settling on me,” I said.

She snorted and picked up the speed as we raced through the forest’s edge. “You’re a shade of gray, Selena. You’re not good, and you never were—even before you met Lucas. You’re just as likely to stomp on his heart as you are to throw a punch. That’s what I find amusing. He had girls pining after him before you…still does. His player days are over, though. They were the second he met you.” She shrugged and kept silent.

“It’s not going to happen. He needs to move on,” The words popped out before I could take them back.

“It sounds like you’ve made up your mind,” she said.

“I have, because it won’t work. There was a time when I thought maybe…but he’s not what I want. Not mentally at least.” I muttered the last part more to myself than her.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Amber asked, like I’d said something scandalous. Or maybe she just found it amusing.

“It’s nothing,” I said, not sure I really wanted to get into this with her.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” She smirked.

“Lucas is my friend, a very attractive friend who sometimes makes me want to push those boundaries, but…I don’t feel the same way he does. Even when he kisses me, there’s something holding me back.”

And then there’s the whole wiping Tori’s memory and getting caught thing. Not that Anastasia bothered to go after him, when he’d given her all the ammunition she needed to get me. Hateful harpy.

“That’s oddly thoughtful of you,” she said quietly.

I shrugged, cracking my neck while I did. “Don’t give me too much credit there. I haven’t been the kindest where his heart is concerned.”

In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever been great where matters of the heart were concerned, even when those affections weren’t aimed at me. Alexandra had had many boyfriends, and I’d detested each and every one. Love made people blind. It made them weak. Alexandra was strong when she played the game and usually never cared about who she hurt, but with Aaron…she was changing, and love was to blame for it. Stupid sentimental love. I shook my head to try to scatter those intense dark eyes far from my thoughts…and it didn’t work.

“You look like you’re running from something. He get under your skin?” Amber asked.

“What…who are you—”

“Well, I was talking about Lucas, but now I’ve gotta wonder where your mind went. Your other suitor?” She snickered even though her eyes weren’t in it. How right she was about who was bothering me, but not for the reasons she thought.

“Aaron’s nothing to me,” I insisted. I was beginning to feel like a broken record.

“Okay, if he’s nothing to you, answer me this: what’s so wrong with him that you just brush off his obvious attraction to you?” she asked, bringing me to a gradual stop.

This was…deep. Deeper than I wanted to go where men were concerned, but we were already here, so it seemed I had to answer.

“He’s dating my sis—”

“Other than that,” she said, brushing her thumb across her bottom lip. The wheels were turning behind those eyes.

“He’s a pig. Seriously. The first day I met him, he was going on and on about banging his girlfriend the night before, saying the most— Ugh, he deserves to have his balls chopped off for what he was saying.” My fists clenched at the thought of it.

“That’s all?” she asked, making a face like she was weighing her next words carefully.

“I’ve spent most of my life being ogled by men and watching them abuse my sister. I have no interest in dogs,” I said. Aaron would have my scorn as long as he lived.

“I just find it amusing, because Lucas wasn’t any better. Until you. And Aaron…well, we all have our faults. You’re judgmental and have probably done worse things than I care to know, and he likes pretty women.” She shrugged. “The whole lot of you had your issues. Still do, if you ask me.” She muttered the last bit under her breath.

“Hey!” I said, slapping her arm while she laughed so hard she snorted. Amber collapsed against the wall in a fit of laughter that was infectious.

“This is nice. Not so…heavy. Not complicated. Why can’t life be like this all the time?” I said absentmindedly.

She regarded me slowly, her gold eyes glowing. Gold? I was about to ask what the deal was when she spoke. “Some of us are destined for more, and with greatness, life gets complicated. Things aren’t always simple, because the world isn’t always black or white. There’s a lot of gray.” That was pretty wise coming from Amber, who was almost as shallow as Alexandra. At least, I’d always thought she was. “Like you and your...man friends,” she continued, cracking herself up.

Yep, there it is.

I groaned again. “You do realize that Aaron’s my sister’s boyfriend, and Lucas is Tori’s brother. They’re going to kick both our asses if you bring this up in front of them, even if it’s hogwash.” I leaned against the wall with her. This was the lightest I’d felt in days, and I wanted to relish the sun on my face.

“There’s a grain of truth even in the most blasphemous lies. Remember that?” she said, pulling herself up off the wall.

“Sure. Just keep those lies to yourself, and I’ll do whatever you want,” I muttered.

She chuckled to herself. “If those are your bargaining skills, no wonder that Fortescue bitch screwed you.”

It wasn’t funny, and I really shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. “You’re the one who signed up for this. You screwed yourself,” I pointed out.

“I suppose I did.” She shrugged. “If the world’s going to hell anyway, I may as well get to see it before it burns. Don’t you think?” she asked. Her eyes had that wistful, hopeful look I’d been seeing so much of lately.

Everyone was hoping for something, but the odds weren’t in our favor. No matter how much I laughed it off, it didn’t change the fact that the Council had screwed us all. Or really, Lucas had screwed me, and I’d screwed them.

Instead of saying that, I kept up the light banter. It was easier this way, having friends who were close but not close enough. Friends who had hope, and gave me hope that even though the world was gray, there would still be a world left when this was all over.