“Um…Mrs. Rayford?”

What’s that funny…smell…?

It’s getting too warm out here.

***

Mandy is on her final lap but she’s no longer in the lead when I feel that cold sensation crawling up the back of my neck again.

A chilled sweat spiders across my skin in thin icy rivers.

I see the flicker of motion and a flash of purple out of the corner of my eye.

Jeniffer turns her head toward the bleachers at the same time I do, and we both study the small crowd sitting down in uneven clusters. Three men in crisp business wear. Two teenage boys and two women with purple painted nails.

ROOKS!

But that shade of purple is out of the ordinary.

“Who are those people?” I ask Jen in a tone just above a whisper, trying to balance caution with my fake curiosity.

“I think they’re talent scouts mostly. Coach Cameron said some would be in the area this week. But isn’t that guy your f–?”

“What are you girls standing around chatting for?” Coach Cameron shouts from where she stands, a few yards away. “Get into position! Your partners are less than ten seconds away.”

I snap to attention a little more abruptly than I should-

Something about her tone scratches the shell off of an old memory-

And I find myself running so fast that I almost cross out of the exchange zone before Mandy can hand me the baton.

Slow down, Mora Glas. You need to slow down.

But I can’t.

Once the plastic is in my hands, my pace automatically kicks into hyper speed, and I can barely feel the dust under my feet.

I still feel that-

Blue electricity. Following my motions.

And I feel the fire eating at my skin again.

What on earth is Christopher George doing here?

If the rest of those strangers were only talent scouts, that would hardly be a relief when Christopher George is trouble enough on his own. But what about those Rooks with the unusual indigo hue to their nails?

I was supposed to have memorized this by now. The 7 color codes…

Then it occurs to me that I have to lose this race.

If any of those people are talent scouts, and I won, they might report back to somebody and tell them about me. They might try to come to other meets and keep an eye on my performance and I can’t afford to be of even a mild interest to anyone.

I can hear Mandy cheering me on with shouts of “Go go go, Mora! We’ve got this!” and my pace should be slowing down. I should be pretending I started out too fast and burned out all my stamina by the fifth lap, but I keep running like I’m not even winded because I can.

Because if I’m going to die before I’m 18 anyway. If I’m never going to get to see yet another friend ever again, I don’t WANT to let her down. I WANT to win this race.

And I don’t know if, maybe, all the numbers and statistics have become one of those paradoxical divinations; self-fulfilling prophesies where people grow reckless because they think they have no reasons left to care.

But I take the second plunge and leave the other girls in the dust.

It’s not that big of a deal, right?

Someone has to win the race, and ties are pretty rare. It only makes sense that with the amount I train, I’d win at least sometimes.

I try to brush away the niggling little worm of doubt that makes its way into my chest, as Coach Cameron and Mandy, even the girls from the other duos, clap me on the back and congratulate me.

“Look at you, girl,” Coach Cameron laughs, throwing me a gym towel. “You’ve got wings on your feet or something.”

But then I hear the clapping from the bleachers.

Mandy and I both look over our shoulders to see Christopher George and his curly-haired friend clapping and cheering enthusiastically from the bleachers.

Are you going to report this back to your parents too?

Fortunately for me, I can run even faster than that. Maybe the win will even be good for me, if the Actaeons miscalculate, or think they know my limits…

I shake my head and do my best to ignore the blue eyes as I head inside with the other girls, but I still find myself ducking my head.

The tinted lotion will probably start smudging soon, and my spots will show through. One more irregularity to make my life the biggest inconvenience on the face of the earth.

Don’t gather attention. Any attention is bad intention.

“You’re not showering in the locker room, right Berry?” Mandy asks as we step inside, and I shake my head with a slight smile.

“Those things are so gross.”

“Want my mom and me to drop you off back at your place?”

My place?

“No, I’ll walk.”

Probably run. 

I wave goodbye to Mandy and hurry up the stairs two steps at a time to grab myself a drink from the vending machine before the burning in my throat becomes any more unbearable. As I do, one of the assistant teachers bumps into me and apologizes fervently, ducking her head in a bobbing bow that makes her ponytail dance beneath its royal purple hair tie.

That one means ‘kill on sight.’

The hunting party.

They’ve already started circling.

***

It’s safe to say that now is a good time to start panicking.

If the rooks are wearing royal purple that means they have good reason to believe that an Actaeon has found his target. 

Or someone has already been taken.

I need to get home - I mean - to Judith - right now-

She might be the closest thing to a synonym for that word that I have anymore.

I thunder down the stairs 100 times faster than I should, my unopened vending machine orange juice still in hand, but just as I’m a step from the bottom my anxiety effectively triples as I almost smack straight into Christopher George.

My heart stops again as he steps back and waits for me at the foot of the staircase with one hand on the banister, blocking my escape if I want to turn right.

Left just means going further into the school. 

I should have looked for more exits when I was wandering around “the haunted space” earlier.

“Hey, I was looking for you,” Christopher smiles kind of in my direction, but his gaze alternates between my backpack and the stairway behind me rather than settling on my face.

Is he watching out for the assistant teacher at the top of the stairs?

Do the Actaeons know the Rook codes too?

If they have access to that kind of information, I just hope they’ve slacked off or are as scatterbrained as I am.

The color in the room fluctuates, and I look down quickly to keep any shift in my irises from being too visible as I try to ask casually,  “Oh? How come? You know you don’t have to wait up.”

He’s never waited around for me before.

“Well, my mom said I should walk home with you,” he shrugs as if that’s all there is to it.

I want to ask ‘why’ again, but at this point, I’m almost certain I know, and the uncomfortable dread settling in the pit of my stomach glues my mouth shut.

Mr. and Mrs. George, maybe Christopher too, are all Actaeons.

Which either means that the Rooks are in town because the Georges are going to kill me, or because the Sanctuary has found some sign that I’m NOT this humble rural couple’s first rodeo.

I need to stay calm…

But if this is really the case then Judith’s hint from last night makes no sense.

I can’t…

Don’t think anything. Assume nothing. Just do what we know.

“She says I haven’t been friendly enough toward you,” Christopher is saying without prompting, maybe because I haven’t replied yet. I nod slowly, stepping off the last stair so that we’re standing on level ground.

He’s definitely too tall for me to take him on head-to-head if he tries to attack. I mean…I’m tall too, but he’s like way tall. 

I’ll have to bite him.

I was hoping I could go my last 3 years without tasting blood again.

***

Something turns a strange shade of gold on the horizon.

“Oh god. Oh god, oh god. Hilaire, Heloise, get…get the twins inside quickly - carefully! Hurry!”

“Don’t touch it, Hermione! Get back before it tries to bite you!”

“Oh come on, it won’t even hurt me. It didn’t hurt the man who was talking to it earlier, at the end of the road.”

That… funny-looking guy with the dark glasses.

“What man?”

Though he didn’t have that Doberman back then.

“The man with the silly hat and the stinky dog. It really stinks. Mom, can I have a dog?”

“Y - what? No! No, you can not have a dog! And get over here this instant. Snakes are not for talking to, I mean…playing with…whatever that snake says to you don’t listen. And tell me exactly what you heard it say…or…what you think you heard it say.”

“I didn’t hear it say anything because I wasn’t close enough, and it was with the funny man, and you told me not to go over to strangers.”

“Oh, so that she obeys.”

“Hush, Hadrian.”

“I wanna have a little pet snake. It’s not even scary. I can pick it up all by myself with one hand.”

“Hermione, do not back talk to me. Get inside, right now. You too, Mora. We need to um…close all the windows before the…rain…comes…and put a bucket under the leak in the backroom. Would you, Henri? And Heloise-”

“-Um…Mrs. Rayford?”

I smell smoke.