The Survivors: Body & Blood (book 3)

Alexis Mabille, pt. 1

IN CANADA, THERE WAS PURE PANDEMONIUM.

"What did you do to them?" Anthony screamed at Everett. Kutoyis seemed to recover the most quickly, and Ben just behind him. But Patrick, Madeline, and Noah remained so pale they were nearly green and moaned in pain.

Mark was at Everett's side, defending him against Anthony's particularly potent outburst, and I held the box of Ferragamos in my lap. No one had noticed them yet. Already my connection to Noah's mind and to Kutoyis's felt fractured. But though weakened, I was sure it would not give way entirely. We were connected by more than powers.

We had searched for a year to find a way to fight Alexander Raven, worked for two to actually make progress in that fight, and in the last two hours we'd lost some of our top fighters and our most important powers, and had just suffered the blow of our grimmest reality:

He would always find a way to beat us.

And after a lifetime of cowardice and pain, of feeling sorry for myself and being in total denial as to the hand I had been dealt, I started to see reason in it all. I'd felt a purpose. When Alexander would invade me, I'd tell myself it wasn't real. When he'd claim victories in his Grand Plan, I'd find the strength to go after him and find the wit to outsmart him. And we were just beginning to win.

I felt an edge in my mind starting to fracture too. Raven was standing there in Mexico, as if a hallucination. But I was holding these shoes in my hand, and they were real. And I was here. So what else was real that had happened between Alexander Raven and me in my mind?

I was starting to break.

No. No. I would not be that person again. I could not survive being that broken again.

I took a shoe from the box and rubbed my fingers across it. Now was not the time to feel scared. Now was the time to protect those I loved.

I picked up the box and walked out of sight and teleported to Corrina's front door. I could hear her laughing on the other side of it.

I paused before knocking. She hadn't seen me in too long. We did a great job of staying in touch on Twitter, of catching up on the phone, and even saw each other on a holiday once. We pretended she hadn't said the things about me that she had, that she didn't see me for the mess that I was. But as we closed in on Raven, I couldn't pay the same attention to the rest of my life. Corrina fell victim to this, more so than she had in the past. Cole had as well, and knowing what I was up against didn't seem to make him understand it any more than Corrina did. It turns out that no matter what you're dealing with, you still have to be a decent friend and a stand-up (not-actually-)human being.

Swallowing the fear of what Corrina would think of me showing up like this, I finally knocked. After a short dialogue with Felix about who that could be, her footsteps neared the door, and I exhaled.

"Sadie?" she said, waves of shock reverberating out of her tiny body.

"Hi Rina," I said. "I'm sorry to barge in like this."

"No it's . . . it's . . . It's weird, actually. What are you doing here? Why do you look dirty?" she laughed, only there was an edge to it.

Felix appeared. "Sadie? What on earth?"

"Hi Felix. Sorry to—"

"Sorry to be you," he said, a growl on his face. Felix and I once had very pleasant interactions. Those times had mostly passed. He could be so nice to me, but he would never actually like me again. His main interest was in protecting Corrina, and as far as he was concerned, I was anything but protection.

He wasn't all that far off.

He sighed, sizing me up. "Come in."

"Thanks. Look, I don't want to bother you more than I have to. I have a strange question to ask that I'm not going to be able to explain. You'll have to trust me," I said.

They exchanged nervous and doubtful glances.

"Okay," Corrina said warily. "What is it?"

I held out the shoebox. "Are these yours?"

She opened the box and examined one. "They look exactly like mine, but I'm not missing these. I just wore them last night."

"Would you mind showing me yours?" I asked.

Her movements were slow. Careful. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Follow me."

I walked behind her down the long hall to their bedroom. The energy in a house where no supernatural lived was so vibrant and relaxed. I envied her in that moment, like I had always envied her.

Corrina opened the French doors to her massive closet and took me to a neatly organized row of shoeboxes that were arranged by an insane filing system. In a row labeled: Heels: Open Toe, Ferragamo, there was one box missing.

"That's . . . more than odd." Corrina looked around the floor and ran her finger across other rows. When she bent down to the ground, I looked more carefully at the Heels: Open Toe, Ferragamo rack. Neatly placed behind another box was a small white envelope identical to the one that had brought me here. I grabbed it as quickly as I could, before Corrina popped up and noticed.

"Maybe you left them in your bedroom?" I suggested.

"Good point. It wouldn't be the first time after a late night," she said and walked back into her room.

I opened the envelope.

If I can kill powers, how fast do you think I can kill her?

My head felt light, and the room didn't look level. "Find anything, Rina?" I called to her.

"No luck," she said, coming back into the closet. "Let me see the ones you have again."

I handed her the box, took out the shoes, and she reexamined them in the bright light of the closet. Upon looking at the right sole, her eyes widened.

"I'll be damned, these are mine. I lost the heel cap last night when it got stuck in an escalator! But where did you . . .?" Her voice trailed. "We've been home all day, and . . ."

"I'm sorry, Corrina. I have to go."

"Go? Sadie, you just showed up with something stolen from my house with no explanation? Where did you get these? And why are you in Dallas?" she asked.

Felix appeared again behind her, his arms crossed and eyes angry already. "Yeah, Sadie? What's the story?"

I sighed heavily. "You know I can't tell you, so why do you even ask?"

Corrina was speechless. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She just laughed, an anger in it. She put the shoes back in the box, and slid them into place on the shelf.

My head was spinning now. He'd been here. He'd stood in this room among Corrina's neurotically organized closet, and he threatened her life in perfect handwriting.

Corrina walked out without another word. "I'm sorry," I called. "I'm just trying to help."

"You want to help? You can leave," Felix said. "And stop doing this to her."

"Felix, it's not like that. I'm trying to protect her," I said.

"Protect her?" he hissed. "By coming here when you must clearly be in some kind of trouble yourself? Are you finding some way to drag her into it?"

"No! You just have to trust me," I said. But how fair was that? I didn't know if I could protect her. And I knew she wouldn't be in danger if she didn't know me.

"Well, good news, Sadie. I don't trust you, so let me take this burden off your shoulders. You don't have to watch out for her anymore. That's my job. I'll protect her."

I smiled faintly. "If only it were that simple."

I walked out their front door and wondered if I'd ever see Corrina again. Wasn't she so ironically like the Survivors in this way? I hadn't set foot in the Survivors' City since the day after I returned to see Lizzie dead, and yet all I had done was to protect them. Now I could add Corrina to the list of people who hated me, but for whom I was also willing to sacrifice everything.