The Chronicles of Winterset: Oracle Read online

  “We are close, Nihilist. I can sense her transition. One of these feeble-minded imbeciles told me where we can gain information on her whereabouts.”

  “And where is the traitor?” the man called the Nihilist asked, his voice deadpan, and his face hidden within the shadows of his dark hood.

  “Dead,” the Master answered wickedly. I felt waves of evil roll off of him and shivered as it made the air around us vibrate. “He served his purpose.”

  “What would you have me do, Master?” The Nihilist dropped to a knee and bowed his head before the man in front of him. I looked quickly between the two, wondering why this Nihilist would ever do the bidding of such an evil being. Despite how the situation looked, I felt something coming from the Nihilist—something that wasn’t entirely bad, but it was quite dim in comparison to the demon he bowed to.

  “Find her. Bring her to me. It is time she joined us,” the Master replied, his voice filled with poison. The Master’s hand came from within the cloak, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out as I saw the terrible black lines snake their way across his skin. If you could see evil course through veins, I was positive this was how it looked.

  The Master pressed his hand to the Nihilist’s head, and the spot where they touched glowed with a strange blue light. But as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

  The Nihilist rose to his feet slowly and spoke in a pained voice. “As you wish, Master. I will bring back the Oracle and prove my worth.”

  “See to it that you do. You have been a disappointment since your toxic body was birthed from your whore of a mother.”

  The Nihilist nodded tightly, and the dream faded slowly away as I watched the Nihilist marching from the rubble of the dead, his cloak dragging like a broken spirit behind him.

  The relief of normal sleep swept over me, and I embraced it without question.

  Chapter 7

  When I awoke the next morning, the sun was peeking through my curtains. I sat up and saw that I only had fifteen minutes to get ready and make it to school. Jumping up, I grabbed a pair of jeans and thin green T-shirt and pulled them on quickly. I didn’t bother brushing my hair, opting to pull it into a messy ponytail.

  I stumbled and fell back, catching myself on the edge of my desk. I felt tired and weak, definitely not like myself at all. I knew I couldn’t miss classes, though. I’d never missed a day of school in my entire academic career, and I wasn’t about to start now.

  The weird dream was still embedded in my mind and I gave a shiver as I grabbed my backpack, hoping the feeling of foreboding would leave me before I left the house.

  I raced downstairs and was almost out the front door when my mom met me.

  “Ana, sweetheart, what in heavens are you doing?” she asked incredulously.

  “I’m going to be late for school, Mom,” I answered, my voice weak with exhaustion as I grabbed my leather jacket out of the hall closet.

  “Honey, you were really sick last night. Are you sure you want to go to school?” She reached up and touched my forehead, wincing when she felt how hot I still was.

  “Yes. I’m feeling a lot better. I swear,” I lied as I saw the look of skepticism on her face.

  “OK,” she said with a defeated sigh. “Have a good day. Call me if you need anything.”

  “I will. Love you, Mom,” I said, grabbing my keys. I hopped into my car and sped off to school, the dream on repeat in my head. I tried to chalk it up to whatever illness was plaguing me. Maybe the wicked fever made me dream it, kind of like a hallucination, only when sleeping. A halluci-mare.

  When I pulled into the parking lot, the first bell had already rung. I glanced at myself in the mirror and groaned. I looked like I’d had a very rough night with black circles under my eyes, and my forehead was beaded with dots of sweat from the fever ravaging my body.

  At least I’m not as hot as I was last night, I argued with myself. Surely that meant I was getting better.

  I half ran to my chemistry class and tried to slide into my seat unnoticed, but Sasha coughed, causing Mr. Gillis to turn around.

  “Miss Winters?” He sounded perplexed. “You’re late.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered sincerely.

  He nodded curtly, and I let out a sigh of relief. I caught Sasha rolling her eyes and smiled to myself.

  “How are you feeling?” Calix leaned over and whispered in my ear.

  I shivered and drew my coat closer around me. “Better,” I murmured, not meeting his eyes or caring to discuss my health with him.

  He backed away and didn’t say anything else, but from the corner of my eye, I could see him glancing at me.

  When Mr. Gillis turned us loose, Calix seemed intent on discussing my illness.

  “You have a fever,” he noted, his dark eyes drinking me in. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and grunted at him.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Why?” I asked, frowning.

  “You look like hell,” he replied honestly. “Still pretty, but ragged. Kind of like someone who spent all night at a bar followed by a wild romp in a random stranger’s bed.”

  “Ugh,” I scoffed at the mental picture. “Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” he answered dryly.

  “I’d hope not,” I muttered. “I’d begin to doubt your social skills.”

  “You should never doubt my skills.” His face broke into a wickedly handsome grin. “In fact, I could show you a few—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I replied hastily, even though my heart jumped in my chest at his words.

  “Your loss.” He shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “I doubt it,” I said under my breath. I didn’t think he could hear me, but his lips quirked up. I shook my head; apparently he had bionic hearing.

  We worked diligently through class and I ground my teeth as Sasha swayed over, cleavage close to bursting, and engaged Calix in easy conversation.

  “It’s too bad you weren’t here a week ago,” she purred, touching his arm.

  “Why is that?” he asked raising his eyebrows and smiling down at her.

  I rolled my eyes and continued making notes.

  “We could have gone to homecoming together. Now I have a date,” she pouted.

  “Ah,” he said knowingly. “That’s too bad. Guess I’ll have to find a date now.”

  Calix turned to me suddenly and smiled sweetly. “Miss Winters, do you have a date for homecoming?”

  “Oh . . . uh,” I stammered, putting down my pencil and looking from him to Sasha. She glared at me, her arms folded across her chest. I wiped at the dots of sweat on my forehead from my fever, my vision a little blurry again.

  “Either you do or you don’t, Princess,” he laughed softly.

  “It’s none of your business,” I said, turning away from him, my face heating.

  “She probably doesn’t,” Sasha cut in. “She tried taking Kellin James from Courtney, and she failed. He didn’t want her.”

  “What?” I sputtered disbelievingly, snapping my head back in their direction. “I never tried to take Kellin!”

  “Whatever. We saw you two together yesterday morning, and we saw how he was with you at practice. Kellin bailed on Courtney last night to go check on you. Courtney is pissed. If I were you, I’d stay away from her,” Sasha stated matter-of-factly.

  “Ah, Princess has a wild side,” Calix murmured, eyeing me dangerously.

  “No, I don’t,” I argued and then quickly clamped my mouth shut.

  “So you are uptight?” he teased.

  I rolled my eyes at him and put my notebook back into my bag. “Shut up,” I grumbled. I was sick of hearing about me being uptight.

  “She really is uptight. Last year at Kevin’s party, we played suck and blow, and when Mike Watkins, this hot linebacker on the football team, dropped the card and had to kiss her, she ran away like a wuss,” Sasha said, a look of menacing triumph on her heart-shaped face.

  “You didn’t want your fir
st kiss to be from a drunken party game?” Calix asked with mock innocence.

  “No, I didn’t,” I snapped, and then my face reddened more as Sasha sat forward and opened her mouth in shock.

  “Oh my God!” she practically shouted. “You’ve never been kissed?! No wonder you’re such a prude! Wait until I tell Courtney!”

  Calix sat back in his seat, a somber look on his face.

  I looked from him to Sasha, who had already pulled out her phone and was texting Courtney my embarrassing news.

  I fidgeted in my seat, feeling my heart in my throat. This was so embarrassing. I should have known he was trying to trick me.

  The remainder of the morning was horrible with the news of me never kissing anyone spreading like wildfire. I guess Courtney had her ammunition, thanks to Calix and my sudden inability to think clearly.

  By the time lunch rolled around, I’d had so many people make kissy faces at me that I was sick to my stomach from it. I sat down at our normal table and poked weakly at my lunch, my appetite nonexistent.

  Mel sat down and nudged me.

  “So I heard word got out,” she said, shaking her head at me. “She’s such a bitch.”

  “Whatever,” I said softly, pushing my dry pizza around. She could say whatever she wanted. I was more concerned with the effort it was taking for me to stay awake. Whatever sickness had befallen me was really working me over.

  “It’s not that big a deal. So you’re waiting for the right guy. She’s just jealous because she can’t keep her legs closed for more than five minutes.”

  I didn’t answer because Courtney and Kellin sat down, Kellin staring at me in concern. Courtney smirked and winked at me. I looked away wondering why I sat with these people. A few moments later, Calix joined the group with Sasha in tow.

  “When the hell did that happen? He’s been here two days,” Mel whispered to me. I shrugged, not really caring.

  “Hey, Ana!” Jared called out, catching everyone’s attention. I looked up wearily, not eager to speak to him.

  He rushed around the side of the table, sat down beside me, and took my sweaty hand in his. “I heard you’ve never kissed anyone before. I wanted you to know I’m here to remedy that and more,” he proclaimed dramatically.

  I pulled my hand away in disgust as everyone laughed.

  “Come on, Ana! Don’t play hard to get!” he continued, leaning into me. “You need to loosen up a little! I can help with that too!”

  I gripped my fork, ready to put it through his eye if he kept harassing me.

  He grabbed me abruptly and bent me down so fast I didn’t have time to register what was happening. His lips were a hair’s breadth from my own and I struggled against him as he held my arms. People jeered and whooped their approval all around us. I felt the tingling in my hands again and let out a small moan as it went from tickling to a harsh burning pain.

  “Knock it off!” Kellin was on his feet in an instant. I opened my eyes long enough to see Calix watching the scene unfold with sharp, narrowed eyes that were boring into my own.

  Kellin grabbed Jared and pushed him away from me.

  “Come on, Kel! I was only teasing,” Jared reasoned. “Besides, she needs it, and since you haven’t done it—”

  Jared was immediately silenced by Kellin shoving him hard in the chest, sending him flying over a garbage can.

  Then Calix was on his feet, staring down at me with a curious expression on his face. It looked like he was torn between wanting to help me and wanting to finish my social demise.

  “Are you OK?” Mel asked, concerned as she reached for me.

  I shook my head, tears burning my eyes, and got to my feet, not bothering to grab my tray. I rushed away from the commons without looking back even though Mel was calling my name.

  Chapter 8

  My hands continued to burn, and I cried out in a bathroom stall as they ached. I was so angry, I wasn’t sure if the pain was from clenching my fists tightly or something else.

  I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  The pain increased the more I thought about my embarrassment, and I shrieked in agony as tiny little red and blue flames danced from my fingertips. I scurried out of the stall and practically fell over trying to get to the sink to extinguish the fire.

  The water poured cold and harsh onto my hands, and I blubbered like a baby as I stared at my blistered skin. I was in shock. I was hallucinating. I had a brain tumor.

  So many things spiraled through my head, trying to explain away what had just happened, but none of them did it. Something was happening to me, and I was terrified.

  Hugging my tender hands to my chest, I whimpered, and when the bell rang, I didn’t bother leaving the bathroom, grateful when no one came in. I sat in the stall clutching my hands, wanting them to not hurt anymore. Wanting the fever to go away. Wanting whatever was happening to me to stop.

  I fell asleep with my head against the wall of the stall and was jolted awake later by the bathroom door slamming shut.

  “Can you believe he jumped up and pushed Jared like that? All for her?” Courtney’s angry voice cut through the silence.

  “I know! And what was up with Calix? He acted like he was going to help her! He doesn’t even know her. At least Kellin has been around awhile,” Sasha piped up.

  “She’s pathetic. She pretends to be so shy and timid, but I know exactly what she is. She better watch herself around Kellin. He’s mine,” Courtney said evenly, her voice filled with poison. I bit back tears, wishing I could tell them that both of the guys were safe from me. There was no way they’d want an uptight circus freak anyway.

  They left the bathroom soon afterward, and I looked down at my hands. They were completely healed, with not a trace of the burns. I gaped in shock, unsure if I should believe what I was seeing.

  I tried to push the memory of the strange dream out of my head as it prodded me to remember, and I trembled when I recalled the men in it. Had that been real too? What was happening?

  I rushed from the bathroom and ran down the hall, not caring if someone had something to say about unsafe hallway procedures.

  I needed air. Fresh air. I was suffocating in madness it seemed. I was hot. I had a fever. My head felt like it was going to explode. My hands could burst into flames. I was going crazy.

  Air. I needed air.

  “Ana? Ana!” Kellin called from behind me. I kept running out the doors and straight to my car, the cool autumn air on my face.

  I dropped my keys in my rush to get into my car and fell to my knees, tears flooding my eyes as I tried to find them, desperately trying to gulp in the fresh air.

  “Hey, Ana, what’s going on?” Kellin asked, bending down in front of me and grabbing my shoulders. “Talk to me.”

  “I-I need to find my keys. I need to go home,” I cried, wiping angrily at my eyes. “I need air!”

  “Calm down,” he said gently. “Let me help you.”

  He tightened his grip, and I bit my lip as a tremor of pain nipped at me.

  “You’re burning up, Ana,” he murmured, pushing strands of my blonde hair out of my sweating face.

  “Just leave me alone, Kellin. If Courtney finds out you’re out here with me there will be hell to pay,” I said frantically, trying to push him away. He lifted me to my feet and stared at me, his blue eyes quickly sweeping my face.

  “Let me help you, Ana,” he repeated, his voice soothing. My head felt numb inside and I stared dazedly at him. “Calm down.”

  “I’m calm,” I whispered, wondering how that was true. It was like his words had commanded me to be calm and my body had obeyed without question. My mind flashed back to the field of the dead and how the Nihilist in my dream seemed to obey willingly. I visibly shuddered at the memory.

  Kellin placed his hands on either side of my face and studied me closely. “What’s going on, Ana?”

  “I-I don’t know,” I answered, my voice shaking. “I had a bad dream last night, and my head hurt yesterday.
Then all that stuff happened today and . . . and . . .”

  I didn’t want to tell him about my hands bursting into flames. I already seemed like a big enough nutjob; no sense in adding to it.

  “I took care of Jared and Courtney,” he said gently. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry they were doing that to you.”

  “She’s your girlfriend,” I said softly, my heart thumping unevenly in my chest. “What’s that say about you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and dropping his hands to his sides.

  “I-I don’t know. Never mind. I’m sick or something,” I muttered, wiping at my eyes hastily. “I just need to get out of here.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he replied, taking a step forward and reaching for me.

  “No. No, I-I don’t want you to. Just . . . just leave me alone, Kellin,” I whispered, backing away from him. I didn’t know what I was capable of. I’d just had my hands on fire in the bathroom, and then I’d suddenly healed the burns. I could be a walking bomb or a hallucinating psychopath, neither thought comforting and neither one something I wanted anyone to know about.

  I got into my car and backed away before he could say anything. When I looked in my rearview mirror, he was still standing where I’d left him, a deep frown carved into his features.

  Chapter 9

  I wasn’t surprised when my phone rang later that afternoon and Mel’s name popped up on the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “Is everything OK? You weren’t at cheerleading,” she said the moment I answered.

  “Yeah, I just needed to get away. I don’t think I could’ve managed an afternoon listening to Courtney pick at me,” I sighed and flopped back onto my bed.

  “Well, listen, Ana. We all know how Courtney and Sasha are. They’re jealous and cruel. That being said, I think I have the perfect solution!”

  “What’s that?” I asked slowly, wondering what scheme Mel had cooking in her pretty little head.

  “It’s obvious she thinks you’re after Kellin, right?”

  “Obviously,” I agreed, exasperated.