Inborn (The Birthright Book 1)

Chapter 11

Bryce dropped me off at the school. We didn't talk much, at least about anything that mattered. After what I'd just heard, I was nervous about giving anything away by accident, so I steered clear of topics related to my family.

I reentered the hallway to get the right books for my next class, hoping I could slip around without anyone realizing I'd left the school grounds. I timed it just right because classes were changing anyway. Mimi stopped in passing, quirking an eyebrow. "Did you roll around in the leaves outside?" she said.

"What?" I patted my hair until my fingers grazed a leaf that started to crumble at my touch. "Yeah...something like that."

Mimi gave me a side eye roll and merged back into the stream of students. I stared down at the leaf and sighed. I should've checked myself in the car mirror before coming in. I went into the restroom to clear off any other tree debris in my hair and take a minute to clear my head. I took a deep breath, pushing up my sleeves and turning on the sink faucet. When I lifted my head, a man was in the mirror.

I almost screamed, but he grabbed my face and muzzled me, pushing the back of my head against the mirror. The sink stabbed the middle of my back, but I couldn't budge. His hand was as large as my face.

Behind him, near one of the hand dryers, an even bigger guy stood–holding Joss. I recognized him as the random guy who'd asked me where the school offices were when I was alone in the art classroom. Had he been watching me all this time? I'd never seen him again, unless...unless he was the hulking figure who blew us off the road–Jaye Azmon.

That connection only made me panic more.

He had one bear paw on Joss' forehead while his other arm pinned her to his chest. Except for the size difference, the two men were practically the same in appearance: white blonde, close cut hair, steel gray-blue eyes, and square jaws. They even had a similar uniform–jeans and fitted T-shirts.

"Where's your friend?" the bigger one said. "The geek?"

I shook my head as much as I could. "I don't know."

"Come on, rabbit. Tell us, and your friend keeps her head."

I tried to wrench my face out of the clone's death grip. "I don't know where he is. We just met."

The clone pinched my face so hard I felt he could probably crush it like a grape. He traded a glance with his brother, and felt my pockets with his free hand. I squirmed, jerking away from his touch, until he slid my phone out of a back pocket. He fiddled with it, shaking his head in frustration.

The big one glared at me. "Call him," he barked. The clone held the phone out to me. Maybe he couldn't speak himself?

"I can't," I said. "I don't know his number."

The big one tightened his grip on Joss. How hard would it be for him to snap her neck? All I had to do was consider the pain my face was in to know it would take no effort at all.

"I told you we just met!" I felt tears start to sting my eyes and ordered myself to get a grip. Crying would get us nowhere.

Joss' eyes darted around, and I was heaving for air. But I had to focus. I didn't trust they would let Joss live. They seemed too...awful. So I told myself to visualize. Picture making a door, making a door around Joss. I thought about her bedroom with the fairy lights around her window and the white wrought-iron twin bed. This is the door to her bedroom. That's all.

I could feel the portal forming and growing, like an extension of my body. Almost like I had a disembodied arm that I could still control remotely. I'd never tried making a portal from that far away, but it was working, and before they knew what was happening, Joss vanished.