Flare: Faction 13 (The Isa Fae Collection) Read online

  Pocket hid behind Nadia, her head bobbed out to look at me before quickly popping back to hide again. She must have seen the strange red flames that came from my hands. It had happened, and she now appeared to be afraid of me.

  “Where should we go?” Nadia asked.

  “We need to go back to school,” I told them.

  “We can’t go back there. Piero will be after us.”

  “I’ll deal with him,” I replied confidently.

  “Giovanni needs help, Raven,” Adele said.

  “I know…but we can’t take him to a hospital because the Neotrists run those. Adele, can you run to Simone and get her to come to the school?”

  “We can’t afford her…” Giovanni said weakly.

  “I will give her my mom’s necklace.” It was the only thing I had that reminded me of her.

  “Raven–” Giovanni tried to speak, but I cut him off.

  “Adele, run fast!”

  She looked at Giovanni and then me. She knew how special the ruby necklace was to me, but it was my fault Giovanni was in this situation. I had to fix it.

  Adele nodded and took off running. She wasn’t as fast as Giovanni, but she was faster than anyone else in our group.

  We mobilized and got ready to go to the school. I offered to help Giovanni, but Nadia stopped me.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got him.”

  They were afraid of me as well. I glanced down at my hands, which were trembling, and rubbed them together. They felt as cold as the night, which was strange, considering not minutes before, they were literally on fire. I noticed the others watching my movements, but they quickly looked away when they caught me watching them. I said nothing in the hope that we could forget this awful night, but I guess that would be highly unlikely.

  The night wasn’t over yet. We still had to get back to the school. We had to hide in the shadows as we made our way there, as it was past curfew. Only those with passes were allowed out after curfew or Neotrist soldiers, and we were neither of those. We could usually blend in easier through the day with our stolen Neotrist uniforms. But at night it was almost impossible, especially for people who looked like us. By that I mean we all looked Italian with our black hair, dark features, and brown eyes. Just like the mystery man.

  The Neotrists weren’t from my town, not even my country. They were intruders who took it over as well as the rest of the world. We were prisoners in our own country.

  When I was a kid, I thought they could read our minds. Mom told me to talk in a whispered tone when we were outside the house. I was always afraid to speak, even inside our family home because I felt like they could hear us wherever we were.

  It was only when I took refuge at the school that I realized they were just brainwashing me into believing that, because if they could read my mind, they would have found me.

  The shadows from the amphitheater shielded us from view.

  We headed along the edge where parts of the amphitheater had been destroyed, not from this war, but from wars before ours.

  The drawings in the book showed how the amphitheater used to be a great stadium. Now the Neotrists used it for their announcements and their killings. They seemed to think that if we witnessed punishments being handed out, we would be less likely to commit crimes. But to survive, we had to break their rules. As my hand trailed along the slimy wet stone walls, I remembered the last time I’d been in there. My heart plummeted, and I felt empty.

  As Giovanni stumbled sidewardssideward into me, my hand braced against the wall, and I was able to grip hold of it to stop me from falling.

  “Let me help you,” I said.

  Nadia nodded. “Thank you, Raven.”

  Giovanni looked at me warily, but he needed my help more than he feared me.

  He rested his weight on me, and I used all my strength to support him. He was heavy. I had to get him to the school, and with how he was putting his weight on me, I could feel just how weak he was. Thankfully, the school came into view.

  Mom had told me that before the Neotrists came, kids would go to schools to learn. There were still some books there, which I read, but it was a shadow of what my mom said it had been. She would refer to memories she had of when she was a kid, before the wars. It was like the stories she told me were just that, stories and something that couldn’t be real.

  The idea that kids could just be kids…that they went to school and played with friends after when school was done. They didn’t have to train, work, or go to war. Those were the memories I had grown up hearing as a Neotrist kid, although I had been training for war. That was until I had been thrown out of the Neotrists after they had killed my mom for being a traitor.

  We had to go along the cobbled stone roads and down Main Street to get to the school. It was the most open route, but it was also the quickest. Giovanni was paler now, and the field bandage on his arm wrapped around the wound was now dripping blood.

  Checking that there weren’t any Neotrists out doing rounds, we made our way along the road. There were very few lights lit along our way and it looked like the coast was clear. We were a short distance away now, and rather than risk being seen, we made a run for the school.

  I tried to move as quickly as I could without making a sound, but it was tricky. There was just one more side street to pass now. Damn it! There was a guy in a Neotrist uniform coming our way, and he was heading straight for us. He hadn’t spotted us yet, but he would and soon.

  “Go on,” I whispered, ushering them to go on. There was no way we could get to school before he was upon us. So as the others hurried on, I stood at the entrance of the side street and waited for him.

  My friends moved as fast as they could towards the school.

  I’d played this game before with the Neotrists. Every time I did, I was afraid they would catch me. They never did, and the adrenaline made me feel alive.

  “Hey, jerk!” I yelled as he got closer. I needed to make sure he looked in my direction and not towards where my friends were.

  “Stop there!” he yelled back.

  I didn’t stop. Instead, I took off running, and he was behind me in pursuit. I weaved in and out of streets. At times I hid in the shadowed corners of streets where the trash had piled up, placed there by the wind. There was the slight sound of tiny little rodent feet, a rarity lately because they had become a food source and heavily hunted.

  My foot slammed down into a puddle and water seeped into my shoe. I glanced over my shoulder. The Neotrist was slow; it appeared he was enjoying life a little too much. Being well fed and not training seemed to be slowing him down, and I had an added advantage over him. This was my town! I ran him around in circles all while staying hidden from the other Neotrists out on patrol. I could do this because I knew their routes and shift patterns.

  When I knew I’d truly lost him, I headed back to the school.

  I slipped in through the broken window at the back of the school that we used as our door.

  The school was quiet…too quiet. We always tried to stay quiet at night, but this felt like it been a whole other level.

  I bounded up the stairs, two at a time, to our level, and when I got there, I could see that it had been trashed. I held my breath when I caught sight of Piero and his grip on Pocket. Nadia was on the ground with a bloody nose, and Giovanni’s clothes were covered in blood, but it was from his wound as he was too weak to put up any kind of fight.

  I could feel the warmth begin to radiate in my hands as it had down in the sewers. I looked down at my clenched fists, and as I raised my hands, I slowly opened them. I could see swirls of red flame in my palms. I closed them into fists, trying to control the flames.

  “Get your hands-off Pocket!” I yelled at Piero.

  “You took our batteries, and you stole from us. You must pay for this, or other gangs will think they can do the same. We will not let you do this to us!” Piero snapped. Pocket tried to get away from him.

  I heard heavy boots approach behind me, it appeared
the rest of Piero’s gang had arrived. One gripped hold of my shoulder.

  “Get…off…her!” I said, my voice starting low but ending in a roar. I thrust my hands forward, and a gust of fire shot from my hands, the shock knocking everyone off their feet. Shocked at what I had been able to do, I quickly closed my hands. I was terrified that I could have killed everyone. Luckily, I hadn’t, but they were all staring at me in horror.

  Piero and his gang sprang to their feet and got up and ran away. I made my way over to Pocket and attempted to help her up.

  “Don’t touch me!” she said, scrambling away from me and over to Nadia.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I told her.

  “How do you know?” Pocket asked.

  I gulped…I didn’t know.

  Chapter Three

  Worn out from the night’s events, I headed to my corner of the school and to my room, which was an old classroom. Nadia said she would look after Pocket and Giovanni and that she’d wake me when Adele and Simone got there. I wanted to stay with Giovanni, to be there for him, but I could tell he didn’t want that.

  When I reached the room, the door was unlocked. I pushed it open and sighed when I saw the destruction inside.

  Pages from books had been ripped out and now lined the floor like a carpet. All my belongings had been thrown around, and everything had been trashed. Luckily, I had no personal belongings, except my necklace, which I would soon have to give to Simone in payment for treating Giovanni.

  I picked up my blankets and dragged them to the far corner of the room. There was a window jammed slightly ajar beside me, and a draft blew through. I made myself a bed and crawled under my blankets fully dressed, including wearing my stolen Neotrist’s coat. I was ready for anything, but it was also because it was frigging freezing. I stared out the window, waiting for Simone. I had hoped she’d have been here by now.

  Time passed, and there was still no sign of her. My butt had grown numb from sitting up. I slid down into my blankets and sighed as the warmth comforted me.

  I took the necklace out of my pocket and held it up, trying to burn the image of it into my memory. There was a gold chain, and hanging off it was a beautiful red ruby, clasped in a golden frame.

  Mom told me that her mom had given it to her and it had been passed down from each female in the family for as many generations as she could remember. Now I had to give it to a stranger. I held it tightly in my hand as I remembered how it had looked on my mom. It always hung around her neck, and she never took it off. She really had been beautiful and had dark features like me. When I thought of her, I would sometimes see her face like mine. As time passed over these past few years, I was becoming unsure if that was what she really looked like. I didn’t have a photo of her, and her image wasn’t captured anywhere; all I had was this. My hand gripped tighter around the necklace. I fastened it around my neck, and as I settled down to sleep, I hoped that my dreams would be filled with images of her.

  Light seeped in through the naked glass windows. Morning was here. I stretched as I wondered what today would bring, my eyes closed still. Then I sensed someone else was in my room and again I was weaponless. Actually, that wasn’t true; I had my hands.

  My eyes opened as I scrambled to the back of my makeshift bed and against the wall. I was cornered. I could attempt a jump out of the window, but we were on the second floor, and I knew I’d break something in the fall.

  The intruder was the Neotrist man from the sewers. He said he’d find me and it appeared he had.

  “Where is it?” His voice was low.

  “Where’s what?”

  “The pen, the one you stabbed into Jakub’s eye.” He actually smiled.

  “Do you think that’s funny? They were going to kill my friends and me!” My voice trailed off. Were they still my friends?

  “They are mightily annoyed at you,” he said.

  “Mightily? You mean pissed off because I stabbed him?” Where the hell was this guy from? It must have been some country I’d never heard of, which was a possibility as we were never given any information about the outside world. The Neotrists controlled all the information we received about things outside of the town.

  He looked at me funny like I was the one talking weird.

  “Where’s the pen?” he said as though he was losing patience.

  “How much is it worth?” Hopefully enough to get Giovanni the help he needed so that I could keep my mom’s necklace.

  “Saving your life was the payment,” he said as he held his hand out.

  “Who are you and how did you do that? You know…move so fast?” I asked.

  “I’m Alva. May I ask what you know of me, of my kind?”

  “You’re a good-for-nothing Neotrist, and I’m in this hell hole because of you.”

  He gave a hearty laugh. “Hell is a lot worse than here.” He tilted his head as he looked at me. “How old are you?”

  “What?” What an odd question.

  “Sixteen?” he guessed.

  “No! Eighteen!”

  “Really?” He sounded as if he didn’t believe me.

  I squared my shoulders and pulled them back, forcing my chest forward in an attempt to look my age, but instead, it looked like I was pushing my breasts forward, attempting to make them look bigger. I quickly folded my arms in front of me. “Why?”

  “Because I am curious. You know you’re a witch, don’t you? And I’m a Fae…and a witch hunter?”

  I looked down at my hands.

  “You didn’t know, did you?” He started to laugh. “That explains why you’re so bad.”

  Jesus, first he tells me a load of rubbish and now this. “I’m not a witch. There’s no such thing as witches!”

  “Clearly, you don’t know what you are.”

  “So, what’s a Fae? Is that like a fairy? Are you a fairy?” I might be dumb because I did not go to school, but I was smart enough to know that fairies weren’t real. “Alva the fairy.” I laughed.

  “I know the pen is in your pants. Just give it to me.” He clearly wasn’t happy with me laughing at him. He moved towards me, climbing over my makeshift bed. “I’ll just have to take it from you.”

  I clenched my hands into a fist, hoping that the ball of flames would grow. I looked down at them, but there was no red glow. There was nothing. He was right; I really was bad at this.

  In a blink, I found myself laid flat on my back. Alva had me pinned down on the bed as he searched my pockets for the pen. My leverage was soon going to be gone. I pushed my hands onto his chest, and I lifted him off me. I was surprised how light he felt; it was like he weighed less than Pocket, yet he was a muscular guy. One second I was pushing him off me, the next he stood by the doorway. He was fast.

  “What are you?” I asked in awe.

  “Hush!”

  “Don’t hush me!” I snapped, irritated now.

  He held the pen in both his hands, then closed his eyes. What was it with that pen?

  “You broke it!” His eyes snapped open.

  “You're using it wrong,” I mocked.

  He was suddenly by my side. “Here, hold it. What can you see?”

  “A pen?” I teased, my tone sarcastic. He gripped hold of my hands and wrapped them both around the pen.

  “Close your eyes. Now tell me what you can see.”

  Even though I felt stupid, I did it just to shut him up.

  “What can you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  He shook his head. “You’re coming with me. You need to fix it.”

  Chapter Four

  “I’m not going anywhere with you, just so you know.”

  “Yes you are!” Alva sped to my side and pulled me towards the door. I tried to struggle, but I couldn’t break away from him.

  “Raid!”

  Screams came from the kids on the floor below us. The Neotrists were here. The cries seemed to confuse Alva, as he let go of me, and I scrambled for my stolen Neotrist coat. I must have taken it off in th
e night. I tried to pull it on as I headed towards the door.

  “Stop! Come with me,” Alva said as he got in front of me, blocking my exit.

  “Get out of my way!”

  Of course, he didn’t move; his body stayed rooted to the spot. He tugged the coat from me and flung it into the corner of the room.

  At that moment, the door flew open. Some Neotrists stood in the doorway. I gasped at the sight of them.

  “I’ve got this one. I’ll bring her in,” Alva told them.

  “Yes, Captain!” Saluting him, they turned and left. He was one of them?

  “You are Neotrist scum!”

  He said nothing. Instead, he lifted his hand and blew white powder over me. Then he gripped me by the arm and dragged me out of my room. Rage rippled through my body, but I couldn’t feel the flames as I had last night.

  I thrashed around, trying to break free from his grip and cursed at the Neotrists as I passed them. I glared at Alva, but his face was frozen and showed no emotion. Other kids who stayed in the building were being dragged out too.

  As Alva stepped out of the school, he stopped only to pick me up and throw me over his shoulder. It was as if I weighed nothing at all. Hanging upside down, I could see other kids being led out and onto a bus. They were going to be taken to the camps. Some of the kids I recognized, but none of my gang were there. I hoped they’d gotten away.

  Alva dropped me beside a car. Only those of a high rank within the Neotrists had cars.

  “Get in,” he ordered.

  “No!”

  “I really don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t be quiet and do as I say, then I will!”

  What choice did I have? I glanced over at the bus; I didn’t want to get on that, and if I ran, he’d catch me. He could move faster than anyone I had ever seen.

  I sighed and got into the car, resigned for now to do as I was told until I had a chance to escape. He got in the driver’s side and started the engine. I’d never been in a car. I’d seen them and even touched one before, but I had never been in one.