Whitethorn Academy

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Everything ached.

I couldn't move, even if I'd wanted to. Every inch of my skin was weighed down, like a stack of bricks layered on top of me.

"I should have felt this," a man's voice spoke. It was so familiar, but my thoughts fell through the cracks like water in cupped hands. I couldn't hold onto anything long enough to form tangible thoughts.

"I thought you weren't interested in keeping an eye on her," a woman's voice replied, both amused and tired at the same time.

The man's reply was defensive. "She could have killed someone. Or herself."

There was a non-committal noise from the woman before she replied. "Yes. You would understand how dangerous Emergences can be. And yet you allowed her to suffer alone."

"I don't need your judgment, Inara."

Inara? Was this another of my strange, fever dreams, but without the images? Was I connected to Inara in a way that made me see and hear her conversations?

I needed to open my eyes, to ask a million questions and demand their answers. But every movement, even one as simple as opening my eyes, made pain lance through my very being.

I groaned, and there was a sharp intake of breath.

"She's waking up," Inara said. "Are you staying?"

"No."

There was no more conversation, just the sound of footsteps departing, before a door opened and closed.

Inara sighed, before brushing a hand over my forehead. "Selene? Can you hear me?"

I opened my eyes, which were already leaking with tears from the pain. Inara hovered above me, her ever-present concerned expression on her face. "Selene?"

The room was blurry and my head screamed with pain. "What happened?"

I tried to sit up, but my muscles burned, and I fell back against the pillows, gasping. Inara's soft hands brushed a stray hair off my face. Once again, her cool hands brushed against my skin and I felt myself relax against her touch. "You're in the infirmary."

"But what happened?" Despite her telling me where I was, I still wasn't sure how I'd gotten here. I vaguely recalled the ferocious wind and the lightning storm, both of which had come out of nowhere. I remembered the blinding anger, following my mother's word and Mari's taunting, but nothing else.

Inara sat down in a chair to my right, crossing her ankles. She was quiet for a moment, as if deep in thought.

"Your mother has always been a very careful woman," Inara said. She'd said these words to me before, but I still wasn't sure what she meant by them.

When I said nothing, Inara continued. "As I've told you before, your mother asked me a few months ago to take you in here and I agreed. I've known your mother for a very long time, we were classmates, in the Gifted program."

The memory of seeing my mother's picture in the yearbook flashed through my mind. "I never knew she went to school here."

"There are quite a few things your mother never told you, things that would have been better suited for her to tell you, but I'm afraid that time has passed."

My head ached even more as confusion coursed through me. "I don't understand."

Inara gave me a sympathetic look. "I know. And I wish things were different. Your mother and I were members of the Gifted program here at Whitethorn in our youth. A program that you are now part of."

More confusion coursed through me. "I'm not Gifted."

"You are. I told you on our journey here that you would learn just how special you are. That day has come."