Babe? Love? Lincoln didn’t talk like that. We hadn’t said ‘I love you’ yet, and he didn’t call me ‘babe.’ He’d send something like:
Woman, remember your training or I’ll kill you. You have to pass.
-L
“Stop!” I shouted as Luke licked his fingers, having finished one off already. The girls had the donuts poised at their mouths. “I think it’s a trap,” I told them, and Chloe and Shea dropped their donuts.
Luke looked positively green before he hunched over and started to moan.
“What’s wrong?” I ran to him.
“My stomach!” he cried out, before bolting for the bathroom.
Just then I heard giggling at the door. A very, very familiar, and annoying laugh.
Tiffany.
“I’m going to kill her!” I shouted, going for the door.
Shea reached out and stopped me. “Let’s not get suspended right before the gauntlet. We need to let it go. I’ll work on a counter spell to the sick spell Luke took. Let. It. Go.” That was real rich coming from Shea. She was always down for a fight.
“She’s right,” Chloe added. “We can’t do anything to compromise passing this test. Only 65 percent of Fallen Academy students pass their first year.”
I hated logic and reason. I’d already had the fight with Tiffany five times in my head, and it was going to be good.
“Let’s focus on getting Luke feeling better,” Chloe urged me.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
‘I could blind her. Just go out into the hall and hold up the knife,’ Sera egged me on.
I was pretty sure that, for an angel weapon, she had no angelic conscience.
‘Let’s let it go. For now,’ I told my partner in crime.
“How do we help Luke?” I asked Shea, deciding to take the high road.
She walked to the bathroom door. “Luke, I need to know more about what’s happening, so I can make a counter spell.”
His muffled voice came back through the door. “Imagine explosive diarrhea, and then multiply that by ten!”
Shea winced. “Okay. Got it! Hang tight.”
She paced the room, mumbling to herself, pulling out books, and checking jars of dried herbs. The healing clinic was freaking closed today, of course, the entire staff having moved to the gauntlet site. Most of the teachers were off campus too. If Luke was going to get help, it was going to be from us.
“Okay. Chloe and Bri, you need to go to Mr. Claymore’s office and ask him for one ounce of dried carob, two ounces of agrimony, and three ounces of barberry. If he’s not there, break in and get them.”
My eyes widened. “Don’t you have a key? You’re his assistant.”
She shook her head. “He took it away after I read that book and opened the portal.”
Damn.
“What will all those herbs do?” Chloe asked, nervously eyeing the bathroom.
Shea rolled up her sleeves. “I’m going to constipate the shit out of him. No pun intended.”
“I’m dying!” Luke screamed from the bathroom.
“I’m going to fix it!” Shea yelled back. “Go!” She shooed us.
“One carrot, two alimony, three burur. We got this!” Chloe said confidently.
Shea’s eyes bugged out. “Oh my God, no. Let me write it down or you’ll kill him.”
She scribbled it on a piece of paper and then we left the room. I told myself that if Tiffany was in the hallway, it was meant to be and I should give her a beatdown, consequences be damned. But she wasn’t. Damn.
I turned left to go out into the common room when Chloe grabbed my arm.
“It’s still light out, so I can’t go outside. This way.” She pulled me toward the back of the hall, somewhere I’d never been.
I’d forgotten about the sun allergy and what it must’ve been like to live in constant fear of going outside during the day.
“If the sun hits you…?” I started.
“A few seconds will give me hives, but more than ten minutes and I’ll die of anaphylaxis,” she explained casually, like it was no big deal.
“Oh God,” I muttered, horrified. I hadn’t known it was that bad.
She shrugged. “It is what it is. I get strength and speed, and you should see me jump off a twenty-foot roof. Barely hurts.”
I gave her a sly smile. “You have a way of looking on the bright side.”
We’d reached a tall black lacquered door with a big moon symbol on it when she looked back at me. “My whole family are Nightbloods, so it doesn’t faze me.”
Pulling out a key from around her neck, she unlocked the door. It creaked open, a damp smell hitting me almost immediately.
“Is it true the tunnels are underground?” I asked, suddenly claustrophobic.
Chloe nodded and grabbed my arm. “Come on. Luke needs us, and the gauntlet is in three hours!”
Right. For Luke. I stepped into the hallway and the door closed behind us, sealing out all light.
“Can you see in this?” I asked her, reaching out before me. It was literally pitch-black, not even a glow from underneath the door.
“Yeah, can’t you?” her voice came back to me from somewhere up ahead.
“No.” I was starting to feel a panic attack coming on.
She grabbed my hand. “Ten steps down,” she explained.
I counted them slowly as I walked. Holy crap, it’s so freaking dark.
When we reached the bottom, she informed me that we were now underground, and then dragged me through the twisting tunnels.
“Hi, Melee!” Chloe greeted, and my eyes widened.
“There’s someone here?” I asked. It only occurred to me then that I could use my phone’s flashlight. I pulled it out of my pocket and turned it on.
A brunette swam into view and smiled at me.
“Celestial,” Chloe told her by way of explanation.
She smiled. “Welcome to the tunnels.”
“Er, thanks,” I muttered, relieved that I could now see the walls and shapes before me. The walls were made of a burnt red brick, and there were no lights, which I thought odd since lightbulbs didn’t burn Nightbloods. I guessed it kept their night vision sharp or something along those lines.
We made a few more turns and then climbed a flight of stairs until we reached a door that read ‘Magery Wing.’
“This should spit us out right into the hallway that holds Mr. Claymore’s office,” Chloe stated.
I nodded, clutching my phone and the list of herbs.
She pulled out her key again and unlocked the door, swinging it open a few inches, but we stopped when we heard a familiar voice.
“But, sir, last year a student died in the gauntlet,” Lincoln argued.
My whole body froze, and Chloe squeezed my hand.
“Yes, a horrific outcome. Yet, we tell the students of the danger, and give them the option not to participate,” Raphael retorted.
“But, sir, if you could just exclude Brielle. I’m afraid the demons are out for her. The gauntlet could be especially dangerous for her,” Lincoln pleaded.
I angled myself so I could see them. They’d stopped in the hallway, where they were alone. Except for us.
Raphael put a hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. “Son, you already asked and my answer is no. I know it’s hard for you to accept, but you can’t save Brielle from her fate. The Fallen Army is the only thing keeping the demons from taking over Angel City. We need new recruits. We need the upper hand, or the world will fall into darkness. Lucifer creates a hundred new demons a day, unleashing them onto Earth, and they already outnumber us greatly.” Raphael sounded on the verge of tears. He hated his own words, I could sense that.
“I know that.” Lincoln sounded dejected. “But can’t you just pass her into second year?”
Anger flared in me that he thought I couldn’t pass the gauntlet.
Raphael shook his head. “She’s the greatest weapon we have in this war. We must train her like everyone else, or we’ll only be handicapping her.”
Lincoln looked resigned. “Yes, sir,” he answered in a clipped tone, then turned on his heel.
“Lincoln,” Raphael called out after him.
The tall Celestial turned back, and my heart broke at the anguish in his face. He was only trying to protect me.