Fates Divided: Halven Rising

Keen escorted Elena to the lab where Leo waited, but all Elena could think about was Derek. Every touch, sound, or word uttered in the Emain dorm room would forever be branded in her mind. She’d felt cherished and protected in his arms. Her body was a little sore, but she’d never imagined sex could be so amazing, and it probably wouldn’t have been if it hadn’t been with Derek.

She’d never regret the moments they’d stolen together.

Elena stifled the perma-grin that wanted to etch itself on her face, and focused on the training Leo had for her today, but it was no use. For the second day in a row, she made no progress with transmutation.

“This isn’t working.” Leo’s face was more strained and tired than it had been earlier. “Go to your room. I need to focus on an approach to the cure that doesn’t involve your abilities.”

An ominous statement coming from Leo, who’d thought all along she’d be their salvation.

Elena walked back to her room with Keen, but she worried the rest of the afternoon about what to do. Innocent people would die because of the disease and the battle between Fae and Halven. It wasn’t right. Her own mother would die if she didn’t find a cure. She had to stop it.

Over and over she considered the words in the Tertullian Codex. If only she could safely travel to Tirnan—

It wasn’t until the second vibration that Elena realized she’d missed a text message.

She reached for her phone and looked at the time. Well after dark. Keen had dropped off dinner, but she’d been so preoccupied, she’d barely touched the food.

There were two text messages on her phone, both from Reese.

Reese: Where are you? I’m so excited you messaged me about the party! But I’m here and I can’t find you 🙁

Reese: You said Alpha Chi, right? I checked everywhere but I don’t see you. It’s a total sausagefest tonight. The male vultures are starting to swoop in. Hurry up and get here, I need some girl backup.

Elena sat up, her heart racing. She hadn’t sent Reese any messages.

Elena: Reese, that wasn’t me! I don’t know anything about a party. Get out of there!

Oh God, who had messaged her? And how had they made it look like it was from Elena? Whoever it was must have hacked into her iCloud.

Elena: Please go home! Not safe!!! Text me as soon as you get this so I know you’re okay.

Elena waited for Reese to respond. Reese always returned texts quickly, but this time she didn’t.

When ten minutes passed, then fifteen without a word or call from Reese, panic tightened Elena’s chest. “Keen!”

Keen burst through the door, his white-blond hair whipping against his face as he searched every corner. “What is the matter?”

“I can’t get hold of Reese. I texted her and she hasn’t responded.”

His mouth twitched in what she thought might be annoyance. “This is not an emergency. Your roommate is flighty and unpredictable.”

“No, Keen. Someone pretending to be me sent her to a party.” Elena scooted to the edge of the bed and held up her phone as if he could see from across the room. “Could they—is it possible Marlon would have done that? After today…” She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “Would they go after my roommate?”

Keen let out a sigh—a long one. Did Fae have greater lung capacity?

He stepped into the room and slammed the door closed. Elena jumped.

He stalked over and read the messages on her phone, his face growing angrier. “What do you propose?”

“It’s been twenty minutes and she hasn’t gotten back to me. Reese never answers her phone, but she’s a consistent texter. I’m worried something’s happened.”

Mateo had left a voice message earlier saying that he’d met a woman while grocery shopping to replace the food he, Derek, and Keen had inhaled over the last few days. He was out with her tonight and Mateo went MIA when he was on dates, or Elena would ask him to go after Reese. It made perfect sense that Mateo wouldn’t be around the one time she actually needed him.

“What if you or I go to the party and find her?”

Reese had gotten sucked into this thing because of her proximity to Elena. Elena couldn’t leave her friend out there to fend for herself if the Halven were after her. And Elena was pretty sure Leo wouldn’t authorize guards to be sent in search of a human they cared nothing about.

“Out of the question,” Keen said. “How can you even think of leaving after you were nearly killed this morning?”

“I wouldn’t think about it, except it’s Reese, Keen.” Elena couldn’t let anything happen to her best friend.

Keen scrubbed a hand down his face, which was another shockingly emotional gesture for him. He rarely showed emotion—unless Reese was involved.

“You are not to leave Emain and I cannot leave you, which means we both must remain here. Emain is on lockdown while we devise the cure, and there is little time left.”

She rubbed her temples. “You’re right. And we can’t send Derek. He’s in danger too.”

“No, and you are not to see Derek. Leo’s orders, if you recall.”

Her fingers froze and she looked up. “What’s the deal with that?”

Keen shrugged. “He feels you are getting too close.”

If only they knew. “Leo thrusts us together and he doesn’t expect us to become friends?” Keen raised his eyebrow, and she blushed. Either Emain had cameras in its rooms, or her and Derek’s relationship was more transparent than she thought. “Fine, what if you and I go together to the party and get Reese out.”

“No.”

“Keen! I’m not letting anything happen to Reese.”

His jaw shifted as if he were reconsidering it, or just flaming pissed.

She jumped at the hesitation. “I’ll stick to you like glue the entire time. We’ll be fast—in and out. If we leave through one of your portal thingies, no one will see us and we can get there faster.”

She looked around and nodded to the opposite wall. “You could open one here.”

Keen frowned. “That is not how it works. Some Fae possess the ability to create temporary portals, but they are rare individuals. And I am not one of them.”

“Well, whatever. I don’t care how we get there.” She paced a few steps. “Believe me, I don’t want to leave—that bomb scared the hell out of me—but I can’t stay back while Reese is in danger.”

Keen’s gaze fixed on her. For a moment, she thought he’d refuse her again. “Grab what you need. I will give you one hour, beginning now, to find your friend. Not one minute longer.”

Holy shit. He’d do it?

Elena didn’t waste time overanalyzing Keen’s motives. He left the room and she stripped out of the Fae top she’d changed into for the lab this morning. She slipped on the blue tank top she’d worn beneath her pullover when she entered Emain, so she wouldn’t stand out, but her black Fae pants and boots would have to do for the rest of her outfit. She didn’t have time to change them.

Elena emerged from her room seconds later, and Keen ushered her down the hall.

“You had better hope we find the girl over the next hour. This is the only chance I will give you, and somehow I think I will regret it.”

They turned into a corridor she’d never been to before, and then Keen pushed her through a door that looked like every other door inside Emain, only it wasn’t.

It’s a rainbow. Lights flashed before her eyes.

A second later, she landed on her shoulder and the side of her face with a thud. A building she recognized from the north end of campus—half a mile from the Physics Hall where Emain was situated—stood in front of her.

Portals weren’t a bad way to travel, if not for the sense of tumbling through a washing machine and being expelled like refuse from a garbage chute.

Keen landed smoothly on his feet beside her. He pulled out a key fob and aimed it at a nearby parking lot. Car lights flickered a row over.

Elena rubbed her shoulder and scurried toward the car.

Keen slowed his sedan as they neared the massive Alpha Chi fraternity house, which looked more like a 1970s medical building.

Dawson didn’t boast palatial antebellum Greek houses. That would be too classy. Dated fraternity houses went with the town’s primarily seventies façade and the manure-scented air that swept through campus from nearby agricultural fields on hot or windy days.

Elena hadn’t chosen Dawson for its architecture, but for the small-town feel, the proximity to her family, and because it boasted a top pre-med program. The dated seventies buildings were a tacky bonus.

She stepped out of the car, the evening dark and shadowed by a new moon. Most of the party was off to the side behind a fence, but a few stragglers trolled the lawn in front of the fraternity house. In a darkened corner, one group stood out because they were huddled with their heads bent together.

One of the guys glanced up directly at Elena before dipping his head back to the group, and a chill zipped down her spine. She couldn’t make out the guy’s features from this distance, but it didn’t matter. She needed to grab Reese and get the heck out.

Elena and Keen headed across the lawn to the entrance. While they walked, Elena caught sight of a girl peeling off from the group huddled in the corner, her pale ponytail swinging behind her.

Elena stopped and stared. For a moment she thought it was Beatrice. The clothes were all wrong, but the set of the girl’s shoulders, her height and hair, seemed uncanny.

Keen pushed her toward the gate. “Be quick.”

Right, Reese. Elena had less than an hour now to find her roommate. As long as she stuck close to Keen she’d be safe.

She inched closer to her Fae bodyguard as they made their way past the gate and through the crowd, hip-hop music blaring in her ears. She would have felt better if Derek were here, but at the same time, she was glad at least one of them was safe. Worrying about Reese was enough. She didn’t want to have to worry about Derek too.

Bales of hay were pushed up along the sides of the Alpha Chi backyard, evidence of some kind of western-themed party. They saw no sign of Reese on the patio, and her long golden hair tended to stand out.

Elena peered at a set of stairs to the fraternity house, covered with students holding plastic red cups. “She must be inside,” she told Keen loudly so he could hear.

He nodded and led her up the steps, the stench of beer, sweat, and urine assaulting her senses as they entered the house. Despite the volume inside, which was marginally quieter than outside, her normally super-silent boots made tearing sounds on the sticky hardwood floor as they crossed into the main room.

How do guys live like this?

Elena edged toward the back wall to avoid the stickiest parts of the floor in the center of the room, and looked from one face to the next, while Keen peered over heads. He was so tall he could take everyone in at a glance, and she wasn’t the only person who noticed. Keen received several appreciative gazes from the girls in the room, but he didn’t seem to care. He appeared wholly focused on finding Reese.

Elena had turned her attention to a room off to the side, when an elbow nailed her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. The stocky guy she’d collided with appeared to have dodged a playful punch from his friend.

Keen darted over and grabbed the guy’s shoulder, shoving him back.

“Sorry,” the guy mumbled, holding up his hands. He disappeared into the crowd.

Her heart sprinting, Elena took a deep breath and tried to clear her head. The guy was just drunk, not a threat, but she couldn’t shake the edgy feeling she’d had since Reese’s text. “Let’s keep searching,” she said.

Keen stayed with her near the wall, his hand on her shoulder, but they didn’t see Reese anywhere.

“What about the bathrooms?” she suggested. “It’s the only place we haven’t looked.”

They walked to the hallway where two doors were labeled in black Sharpie, The Little Girls’ Room and The Men’s Room, set a ways apart.

Elena didn’t think Reese would be in the guys’ bathroom, but you never knew at these things. Girls got desperate when they had to pee and there was a line.

A girl with brown hair walked out of the women’s bathroom, her head bent down. Elena gestured to the other door. “You check the men’s, I’ll check the women’s.”

Keen nodded and paced down the hallway.

Elena entered the room the girl had exited. Filthy urinals stood on one side, a few stalls with crooked doors on the other.

She peered under the stalls and walked to the back of the bathroom where two sinks hung beside a window, but no one was there. Where could Reese be?

Glancing in the mirror, she caught the image of herself, paler than normal, her hair tangled at the ends, but otherwise unharmed from the laboratory explosion, just as Keen had said. She turned on the faucet and splashed water over her face.

When she straightened, a scream caught in her throat. A man stood behind her, his angry face reflected in the mirror.

She parted her lips to call for help, but the man’s large hand was already clamping down over her mouth, cutting off her air supply.

Elena yanked at his fingers to clear her nose, but his grip tightened and he wrapped his other arm firmly around her waist. He lifted her from behind and carried her kicking toward the window.

The window where another man was waiting—reaching for her.