Sacrificed (The Ignited Series) (6 page)

It was pretty obvious from his tone what Micah was trying to do. Get rid of Nathan.

Nathan had to have sensed it, but pretended not to. “If you can do that, you should be able to read minds, right?”

Micah shrugged noncommittally. “I’m working on it.”

During the silence that followed, I glanced at Callie. From the tight-lipped smile on her face, I gathered that she saw what I saw. Boys puffing their chests out at each other. I flashed her a grin, but covered it quickly when Nathan took a step closer.

“Try reading my specialties,” he said. “Let’s see how good you are before you read Kris’s.”

He sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing Micah. As Micah grudgingly turned toward him, Nathan’s eyes flicked to mine briefly, a hint of amusement gleaming in them, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was up to.

Surely he wasn’t simply testing Micah’s abilities.  

Micah took a hold of Nathan’s outstretched hands and repeated what he had told me earlier. Except this time, there was a coldness in his tone. “Close your eyes, relax, free your mind.”

Callie and I watched silently as they both dropped their heads, eyes closed. After a few seconds, Micah’s lips curled into a tight smile and he lifted his head to look at Nathan. A moment later, Nathan’s eyes opened and the two stared at each other as if some silent conversation was taking place between the two of them. From the smug look on Nathan’s face, I was now sure this had been his intent all along. Not for Micah to read his specialties, but for Micah to read his mind.

And I desperately wanted to know what Micah saw. Because I was sure it had something to do with me.

Micah gave a barely discernible nod, shifted, moving past whatever had just transpired between the two of them, and lowered his head once again, eyes closed. Nathan grinned to himself before he, too, dropped his head.

When Micah spoke again, his words were clipped. “You’re obviously a fighter. I could tell that without reading you, but I can feel a heavy concentration of Ares’s bloodline in you. Much more than that of your other bloodlines.” Micah hesitated as if to read more before he continued, “Nature, craft…” Micah dropped Nathan’s hands as he said the last words confidently, “and intelligence. How’s that?”  

Nathan stood without an answer and retreated to Callie’s side.

Callie looked between Nathan, Micah, and me curiously. “Well? Was he right?”

I resisted the urge to laugh, but couldn’t hold back a smile. “Yeah, Callie. He was right.” I caught Nathan’s eyes briefly before I turned to Micah. “My turn now?”

Before Micah had a chance to take my hands, the sliding glass door opened and shut again, and I heard Alec approach.

“What in the hell are you guys doing?” he called.

Micah rolled his head with a heavy sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Micah’s reading specialties,” I volunteered cheerily.

“Oh, cool,” Alec said and bounded past me to sit on the coffee table where Nathan had sat moments before. “I’ve always wanted to be read. Can you read my future, too? You do palm readings? Have tarot cards?”

“Just give me your hands,” Micah said and instructed Alec on what to do. After a moment, he said, “Medium to the dead, fighter, charmer, and fire manipulation. Strongest to weakest.”

Alec made a face like he might have been impressed and started to pull away, but Micah clamped down on his hands, preventing him from standing. Micah’s brow furrowed, his lips tight, as he continued to read something from Alec.

What that was, I thought we all wanted to know. Especially Alec.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Alec asked.

Micah shook his head rapidly to silence Alec.

Alec glanced at me, whispered, “He’s not gay, is he?”

I choked back a laugh and shook my head. Not that I actually knew for sure, but there was something about Micah that screamed straight. Especially when he looked at me the way he did sometimes.

When Micah finally spoke again, his voice was soft and wary, almost confused, and it came out sounding like a question. “You’re surging.”

Alec snatched his hands out of Micah’s grip. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Micah shook his head like he didn’t know how to answer that question. “The evil in you…” he started hesitantly. “It’s surging, fighting to break free.”

Alec stood quickly. The look in his eyes when he looked down at Micah was that of pure hatred—the perfect face of evil. “That’s enough reading for the day.”

Alec muttered under his breath as he went to stand on the other side of Callie, and suddenly I was nervous. What if Micah saw the evil surging in me, too?

And what did that mean exactly? For Alec? For me?

I didn’t want to know my specialties anymore, but it was too late to back out now, especially when everyone was watching me, waiting. It was out of my control anyway when Micah turned to me, took my hands, and repeated the same process.

“Let me guess,” Alec said drily, “Medium, fighter, charmer, and fire.”

I opened my eyes just in time to see Micah nod his head. “Yes, but they’re much stronger, more pure than yours.”

I supposed that made sense. Alex and I had both been created by Hades’ four demigods. I should have expected us to share the same specialties. And Alec had told me that they had done something different with me to make me stronger than him. We just didn’t know what exactly that was.

“There’s something else there,” Micah mulled, more to himself than to any of us. “I can’t get a good read on it…”

Micah grimaced and my heart jumped into my throat as I waited to hear what he saw. Was it what made me different from Alec? Or was I surging?

He eventually opened his eyes and dropped my hands, having given up. Or so it seemed. He sat across from me and stared, like he was trying to read it through my eyes, by peering right into my soul.

“What is it?” I asked softly.

Micah shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

Just like the day before, I got the impression that there was something he wasn’t being completely forthcoming about. He had the same look on his face, and even if I didn’t know him well enough yet to know what his facial expressions meant, I was starting to think that this particular one meant he was hiding something.

And I had to find out what that was.

CHAPTER 6

Gabby and Richie returned from a recon mission of the warehouse later, and informed us that the Skotadi were going about business as usual despite the absence of several of their guys. Maybe they didn’t care that they had lost a few, but I suspected that their lack of reaction was because there were so many of them that they hadn’t actually noticed. Either way, since they were still there, and didn’t seem to know we were around, we were free to start planning a small attack on them. If there were really that many of them, hopefully we would at least thin their numbers.

The next morning, Nathan went with Richie to the nearest town to obtain more weapons and ammunition. Alec was working with Callie on some self-defense moves in the yard. That left Micah and I alone on the porch, under
Gabby’s ever-watchful eyes. We were supposed to be working on developing my specialties, but I had so much on my mind that my specialties were the least of my concerns.

“Hey, Micah?”

He looked up from the book in his lap.

“The other day,” I started hesitantly. “What did you mean when you said you sensed the evil surging in Alec?”

Last night, I had tried to talk to Alec about what Micah had said and what I thought I’d seen in his eyes, but he’d avoided my questions with perfect, practiced charm. I’d ended up blushing and wondering what had happened to my ability to have a conversation with a boy without fanning myself like a hormone-crazed middle-schooler.

But then, Alec wasn’t just any boy. He had talent. And he knew it. I should have been glad it hadn’t been worse. 

Micah shrugged. “Just what I said. It’s rising up in him, getting stronger, threatening to overcome him.”

I suppressed a shudder. Was that I what I had to look forward to? And what about poor Alec? I hated to think about what he was going through already. Could he feel it surging? Did he know what was happening to him? He hadn’t seemed bothered last night. At least not about that.

“Is that what you saw in me?” I asked Micah timidly, unsure if I really wanted to hear the answer.

“No,” he said quickly.

“What do you think it was?”

“I’m not sure. It felt similar to what I feel when I read another prophet, but that doesn’t make
any sense.”

“Why not?” It was interesting that he thought it might be something related to prophesy, especially after I had already suspected that I might have some ability in that specialty. But I didn’t understand why he thought it didn’t make sense.

“The prophet bloodline isn’t associated with Hades,” he answered simply. “You really
can’t
be a prophet. Seeing as how we can share dreams, you must have something giving you that ability. That must be what I’m seeing, but I just can’t pick up on what exactly it is.”

The way he was talking made me nervous. Something unknown? Something brewing inside of me that I didn’t know about? That no one knew about? Yeah, I didn’t like the sounds of that.

“I also know that you didn’t want the others to know about the dreams,” Micah added with a trace of a smile on his face, “so I didn’t say anything,”

My jaw dropped. “You read my mind?”

He chuckled. “I wasn’t trying to. I can’t help it that you’ve been practically yelling that to me since you’ve been here.”

There was an awkward silence as Micah stared at me, like he was trying to determine why I didn’t want the others to know about the dreams, and I started to wonder if he was trying to read my mind again.

“Stop it,” I scolded.

“I’m not doing anything,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure it out. Figure you out,
without
reading your mind.”

He gave me that look again—the one like he knew me on a level I wasn’t aware of—and I jumped up to interrupt the awkwardness that it produced. I paced to the porch railing and took a moment to watch Alec drop Callie to the ground with a leg sweep before I turned to Micah again.

“What else could it have been? What else could enable me to share dreams, if not a prophet bloodline?”

Micah nodded thoughtfully as he digested my question, but didn’t answer right away. “There are a few reports of hybrids sharing dreams over the years,” he eventually said. “Theories vary from false reports, to Incantation, to soul—”

“Incantation?”

“It’s the use of spells,” Micah explained. “Kind of like what modern day witchcraft is compared to. The reports on it are scattered, too. No one’s really figured out its role in our world. Most don’t believe it exists.”

I paused before asking, “Do you?”

Micah squinted at me, as if he were looking at me for the answer. “I don’t know yet.”

I’d hoped to hear something encouraging, something that would make me feel better, but once again I was left with the empty void of ignorance. I didn’t know what was going on with me, and the one person who knew more about the inner workings of this hybrid world than anyone else was the master at hidden messages in his words.

The more I talked to Micah, the more uneasy I became. I had set out to get answers from him, and somehow ended up with more questions. And I was left wondering again what he was keeping from me.

I couldn’t quiet the annoying voice in my head that suggested I might not want to know. So long as his secrets didn’t hurt anyone I cared about. I’d have a hard time
not
killing him if that happened.

Since I didn’t want to talk to Micah anymore, and he seemed to realize that without me saying so, he gave me some of his books to read in my spare time. After we went our separate ways, I worked on defensive fighting moves with Alec and Callie for about an hour, showered, then retreated to my room for a little peace and quiet. Feeling guilty, I picked up one of Micah’s books, thinking I should at least attempt to get something out of it.

It was boring as hell and my chin dropped to my chest about half way down the second page. I didn’t even fight it, and let the book slide off my lap, forgotten, as the peacefulness of sleep pulled me. 

I was bolted awake some time later by excited voices in the living room, and hurried down the hall to see what was going on. I used my hands to smooth down the still damp ragweed that had formed on the back of my head while I was asleep, not that I managed to fool anyone.

“Ah, there she is,” Alec sang. “Sleeping Beauty.”

I flashed him a shy smile and turned to Nathan, who was conferring with Richie and Gabby nearby. “What’s going on?”

Gabby fixed me with a steely glare while Richie looked at Nathan to answer me, as if my evil would seep out and infect him if he acknowledged me.

“We’ve got all the supplies we need,” Nathan said, “and we’ve got a plan for tonight.”

I was surprised by my own giddiness. “We’re going to get some Skotadi?”

He didn’t answer, but then he didn’t really need to. He pulled me to the side as the others continued going over strategy.

“Here,” Nathan said, placing a knife in my hands. A shiny diamond coated knife. I held it in my palm like I would a bomb, and lifted my eyes to him questioningly. “You’re going to need something to protect yourself in close quarters,” he explained.

“Can’t I just have a regular knife?”

“I’d feel better if you had a coated one.”

“But I wouldn’t feel better,” I returned. “Nathan, you know I’m not good with knives. I’m afraid I’ll hurt someone.”
Or myself.

“You’re better than you think.” His lips curled into a half smile. Then he surprised me by reaching out and putting a hand on my hip. It was unexpected, it was nice, and it caused my pulse to jump. When I realized he was simply securing a knife sheath around my waist, some of my excitement dimmed. “Put it here. I don’t care if you never use it, just keep it with you.”

“I’d rather have a gun,” I muttered.

He flashed me a full smile this time as he produced a pistol from behind his back. “I got you one of those, too.”

I sheathed the knife and took the gun gingerly, but not as gingerly as I had the knife.

“It’s the same model as you’ve used before,” he told me, and proceeded to show me again where the safety was located. “Remember?”

“I remember.”

“It’s yours.” He waved his hand around the room. “Everyone’s loaded. Even Callie.”

“Callie?”

He shrugged. “I’m not expecting her to be involved, but like you, she needs protection. Just in case.”

“Can she shoot?” I whispered so as not to let Callie hear me.

He nodded, though not very convincingly.
“Enough to protect herself. I’m going to keep working with her though.”

Again, I had a pang of jealousy. Not that I didn’t trust my best friend spending so much time with Nathan, and not that I didn’t want her to work with him—because I did, because I knew that if anyone could teach her to handle the situations we were going to be getting into, it was Nathan. I was jealous only because I wanted to be the one spending the extra time with him, purely for selfish reasons.

As if Callie knew we were talking about her, she glided up beside me with a grin on her face. “Exciting, huh? My first battle.”

“Probably won’t be that exciting,” Nathan said. Callie and I both turned to look at him. I knew
she was thinking the same thing as I was—that killing a few Skotadi might not be exciting to
him
, but to us, tonight was a big deal. Then, he explained what he meant. “Tonight’s more of a stake out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, not hiding my disappointment. Haven’t we done enough staking out? It hadn’t led to anything, so why bother again?

“We’re going to follow them,” he amended, “see where they go in those vans, what they do, stuff like that. We’re after information. We probably won’t have much action tonight. There’s a good chance they won’t even go anywhere tonight.”

A few hours later, sitting in the backseat of the Tahoe with Callie—Alec in the driver’s seat and Nathan riding shotgun—I realized that Nathan hadn’t been kidding about the lack of action. At first, like maybe the first hour, I’d been hopeful.

Micah, Richie, and Gabby were positioned on the ridge above the warehouse, watching. The plan was for them to call us with one of the two prepaid cell phones they had purchased when—if ever—the Skotadi made a move. Parked and hidden along the side of the road as we were in the Tahoe, we would then fall in behind the Skotadi and follow them. After hours of silence, I started to lose hope that anything was going to go down tonight.

In our third hour, a call finally came in. Nathan answered on the first ring, and Micah’s voice came through on the speaker phone. “Van headed your way. Four Skotadi, minimally armed.”

Alec rubbed his hands together like a kid on Christmas morning and started the engine. “About damn time,” he said.

“Let’s stick to the plan,” Nathan said into the phone. “We’ll direct you until you catch up to us.”

I heard heavy breathing through the speaker, and imagined Micah, Gabby, and Richie were hauling ass back to their vehicle. “Check back in ten minutes,” Micah panted before Nathan disconnected the call.

A few moments later, we saw the van’s headlights. Though we were hidden well, parked far off the main road on a bumpy dirt road next to a large green tractor, I still slouched down in my seat as they passed. Only after their taillights disappeared did Alec pull out behind them. We weren’t worried about losing them. Out here, there were only so many places they could go, and this road had exactly two turnoffs they could take between here and the nearest town, twenty minutes away. Those side roads didn’t really lead anywhere, so we figured they were more than likely headed into town.

Every so often, after rounding a bend or when cresting a hill, we got a glimpse of their taillights ahead of us. 

“Don’t follow too close,” Nathan said to Alec.

“I know how to tail someone,” Alec returned. “Being Evil and Doing Evil Things 101. Only class I ever gotten an A in.”

“They also teach you how to spot a tail?” Nathan asked.

“Yeah.” Alec hesitated, then added, “Point taken. They won’t spot us.”

And they didn’t. We followed them for twenty minutes without incident. Micah called to check in twice, confirming that they weren’t far behind us. As we entered town, Nathan called again to relay directions to Micah. 

The Skotadi turned into a parking lot, and Alec parked on the street half a block away. From there, we watched as the four Skotadi got out of the van. They walked around the building, coming toward us, before stopping at a side entrance. Leaning forward in my seat to spy the sign above the door, I saw that we were parked in front of
Wild Toad’s Nightspot.
With the door open as the Skotadi entered single file, I could hear the thump of base coming from inside and saw the flashing of strobe lights flickering to the beat.

A nightclub. Really?

“Something tells me they’re not here for the dancing,” Alec muttered.

Nathan and Alec shared a look. “They’re taking someone,” Nathan concluded.

“Like a kidnapping?” I asked.

Like the poor girl we saw them haul out of the back of the van a few days ago? I met Callie’s eyes, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. Tonight was going to end up having more action than Nathan had predicted.