Chapter 2
Everything happened so fast that Caleb could barely remember how she ended up in a room a few seconds later. It was like a cheap hotel room with only a few furniture: there was a single bed with thin sheets at a corner, a lamp resting on a tiny wooden drawer a meter away, a rug that almost covered the whole floor, and a painting that looked like Van Gogh’s that hung crookedly on a nail; other than that and the old sky-painted walls, there was nothing else to see. The room didn’t have any windows or doors.
Someone was gripping on Caleb’s arm tightly that her arm was starting to feel numb. How they suddenly got out of the school grounds, she didn’t know but she can swear that she felt as if the ground beneath her feet disappeared for less than a second before everything went hazy.
A few seconds after they arrived, a wave of nausea suddenly hit her and her knees gave out. The sudden change of her condition from healthy to sick was drastically fast that some would think she was a great actress; which is why the man wearing a hat rolled his eyes, certainly not buying it. “Don’t even start,” he said, “We’ve seen hundreds of people use that excuse. Get creative.” He took off his hat and coat, revealing a dark brown long-sleeved shirt and slim fit jeans.
Caleb’s vision was starting to blur and her healthy lungs gasped for air even though she was breathing perfectly fine. Her eyelids felt heavy as if there were something trying to glue them shut, and her whole body felt as if it were shutting down. It was all so sudden that her consciousness was starting to slip away because of the shock.
“Shut up Nick,” a woman said as she leaned closer to Caleb and examined her, “I think she’s not faking. Her face has gone violet and her heart rate is above normal. Let’s get her to the infirmary.” The last thing Caleb remembered was the sound of her pulse beating in her ear, and the feeling of being lifted off the floor before everything went black.
Caleb awoke to the sudden glare of light and the feeling of her eyelids being gently pushed open. “Ashley, I don’t think she’s-,” a familiar voice said. The source of the light moved from left to right slowly; it was bright as the sun and burned that Caleb struggled to look away from it.
“Okay, she’s not brain-dead,” a female voice said with a sigh of relief. The light was turned off and the fingers on Caleb’s eyes moved away. She blinked a few times before her eyes were able to adjust. The throbbing pain she had last felt was gone.
For a second she thought she was dreaming, but as she looked around, there was the same crooked painting and same light blue walls. They were still in the same room.
“About time,” Caleb’s eyes followed the voice, it was the man – or more likely, boy, as it seems that he’s only in his early 20’s – who had been wearing a hat and coat earlier. It seemed that he was the same boy she saw in the hallway.
So I wasn’t imagining things. He’s real.
He looked at the girl sitting on the bed beside her. “I didn’t want another suspect’s life on my hands.” He added. Nick – that’s what the girl, Ashley, called him before.
Flashes of memories from when the school bell rang up to her black out suddenly flooded Caleb’s mind. Fully conscious, fear crept up to her spine and the beating of her heart became unsteady. She struggled to sit up, only to find out that she was still handcuffed with a weird kind of glowing metal. Nick effortlessly pushed down her shoulder with one hand.
“Don’t even try.” He narrowed his eyes at her; his short yet thick eyelashes accentuated. Finally finding her voice, she managed to stutter out, “W-where am I? Who are you?”
Nick snorted. “As if you don’t know,” he said as he looked down at her, his dark blue eyes filled with annoyance, “You’ve already received the second warning yet you didn’t surrender.” Caleb looked at him blankly, clearly having no idea what the hell he was talking about.
“Nick,” Ashley called as she stood up, her long golden curls bouncing on her back, “a second.” Nick sighed and rolled his eyes. As soon as Caleb saw that they weren’t looking at her, she tried to sit up again. It was hard to do so because of her handcuffed hands but she was able to after a while. Looking back up at them, she was surprised to see that the two had disappeared.
Inside the monitoring room, with just a thick wall separating them from where the suspect was, Nick and Ashley appeared out of thin air at the same time. Nick, who was becoming impatient, said, “I don’t understand why we needed to take care of her instead of just handing her over to the Vigils.”
Ashley sighed, rolling her amber-colored eyes as she sat on the edge of the thick wooden study table. “You should really try to think sometimes, Nicholas. That girl,” she tilted her head towards the computer screen showing a bewildered high school girl looking around as if to search for something, “experienced the side-effects of when a Humdrum travels with an Elite.”
“Side-effects,” Nick spat, a corner of his lips curling upward, “The girl was faking it!”
Ashley disregarded his comment. She knew that he’d been having a bad afternoon, it would be best not to argue especially since they’ve just seen each other again after 4 months. She sighed and calmly asked, “Are you sure that you got the right person? A hundred percent sure?”
“Yes!” He exclaimed, his hands thrown upward to emphasize his point. “Come on Ash, it’s enough that Chief doesn’t trust me with this very simple assignment. Don’t tell me that you don’t trust me too.” He was almost pitiful to look at – his eyebrows met at the middle and were pushed upward, and he was clearly biting the inside of his lower lip.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you – and I’m pretty sure Chief has a good reason for keeping you on a leash – but I just want to be careful. There’s something wrong with this girl; I examined her, Nick. I’m sure that-” She stopped talking as she glanced at the screen then back at Nick, frowned, then looked back at the screen. She stood up and walked towards it.
“What is it?” Nick asked, looking at the screen then back at Ashley, “What’s wrong?”
Ashley leaned toward the computer screen and zoomed in the girl’s hands. “Nick, look,” she pointed at the handcuffs. “The sealers are still on, so what are-,” Nick leaned in so close that the tip of his nose bridge was only inches away from the screen. “They’re blue,” he muttered in disbelief as he turned to Ashley.
“What time is it? What time was she admitted?” He asked in a hurry. Ashley typed liked lightning on the keyboard then said, “5:42 in the afternoon. It’s now 10:24 in the evening.”
“It’s been over 4 hours.” Nick stated in bewilderment as he staggered away from the computers.
“Exactly,” Ashley said, “If she were an Elite, the sealers would’ve gone red; and if she cast a spell or drank a potion, it should’ve already worn off after the fourth hour. If the sealers are blue, then it could only mean that-,”
“She’s a Humdrum.” They said in unison.
“I think,” Ashley said, “We’d better call Chief.”
Caleb was sure she was being watched but she didn’t care. She had stood up and searched the walls for an exit or a lever but failed. There must be some kind of hidden door where Nick and Ashley disappeared to.
It was hard not to panic, especially since she’d been seeing people vanish into thin air and the very fact that she’s being held captive – but for what exactly? Ransom? Human trafficking? She did remember the guy named Nick say: "Lauren Caleb Holden, you are now under arrest for trying to expose your Elite identity to the public of New York City tomorrow at approximately 1am. Everything you say or do will not be held against you in the court since basically, there will be no hearing, so just shut up and come with us."
How could she be arrested for something she hadn’t done? And Elite? What is that, some sort of upper class jail term?
Maybe this isn’t a real police situation. Maybe it’s just a surprise Camie planned for my birthday. Oh, how she wished it were true.
Looking down at the handcuffs, she struggled to get them off – she’d been trying to do so ever since the two had vanished. “This is hopeless.” She muttered, letting herself slide down the wall until her butt reached the floor. Her legs were bent and her head hung. Tears were threatening to form, but she clenched her fist and bit her lower lip to stop it.
Think. Caleb urged herself. She examined the handcuffs closely: there were no keyholes, just a bunch of tiny symbols that were barely readable; the light radiating from the handcuffs seemed to be coming from the metal itself, like an unbendable glow stick.
Checking her bag and pockets, the only things she found were: her mobile phone without any signal, her diary, pens, notebooks, and a bottle of water. Nothing useful, really.
She sat there for a few minutes, thinking – not even noticing that she was slowly falling asleep.
“Chief won’t be here for at least an hour; there’s been a security breech and one of the Vigils went missing.” Ashley said as she slid her phone back into her pockets.
“A Vigil, captured?” But Nick couldn’t care less. “So what do we do with the girl? Interrogate her? Torture?” he asked, clearly bored. He had been observing the girl’s every move for the last 20 minutes, expecting her to take a weapon out of her backpack and crush the sealers but nothing like that happened. She’d been sitting on the floor for almost 5 minutes, not moving.
“Not yet, at least.” Ashley said as she scrolled the titles of the books on the large bookshelf that was covering an entire wall. The books, even though some were over a hundred years old, had been kept in good condition.
“Aren’t you going to fill me in with what happened with Chief?” she asked, her back turned away from him as she scrolled through the spines of the books.
“I had a mission in Egypt sent by a Blind Seeker,” Nick started, picking on the nails of his left hand, “I had just sent the suspect the second warning – the blue lotus – because I was sure that he had received the first. When I was tailing him, I heard him talk to someone on the phone about a group of Anoteros in Saudi Arabia so I went to check it out. Which,” he quickly added before Ashley had the chance to speak, “I realized was a mistake. Long story short: I disobeyed orders. But I busted 4 Anoteros, though.” He smiled proudly.
“Then Chief found out and reprimanded you,” Ashley said, pulling a book out carefully. “What were the punishments?”
Nick sighed and muttered, “I can only take C-class assignments,” he hesitated for a while, “and they assigned me a partner: Steve Larc.”
Ashley stifled a laugh; Nick glared. “So basically,” she said, turning to look at him, “Chief assigned Steve to babysit you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, “Not babysit,” he picked on his fingers again, “He just has to double-check everything I do. He even checked if that girl, Lauren or something, is the one who received the first warning.”
Ashley nodded slowly, still smiling as she looked at Nick. “Anyway,” she said, opening the book, “the girl?”
“Sleeping,” he shrugged. After a second, he looked up and frowned, “or dead. Been sitting like that for a while now. We might as well sleep while waiting for Chief.”
“Sleep on the job? Sure, if you want Chief to kill you.” Ashley said, sitting on the red couch just in front of the bookshelf. Nick yawned and stretched, not paying attention to the screen. Not noticing that the color of the sealers on the girl was changing from blue to blood red.
December 7, 2011
12: 59 AM
It was as if the throbbing pain just took a slight vacation from Caleb’s body. A minute ago she had been deep asleep on the floor, the next she was clutching her head in pain. It was all so sudden that when the pain woke her up, she didn’t even have time to open her eyes or think.
Caleb felt like the blood running through her veins was boiling, and that her head was being pricked by a thousand needles at once. Even the lightness of her clothes felt like they weighed tons on her.
It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. It hurt too much that she couldn’t even cry out.
Caleb didn’t know how many minutes or hours had passed; every second seemed like infinity to her. Flashes of images started to flood her mind – lights, streets, high buildings. The blinding pain in her head started to fade, but only a bit. She tried to focus on the images instead of the pain. It started to become clearer – the picture. But it wasn’t a picture; it was more of a video playing inside her head, the familiar streets of New York buzzing with life. She could even see the cars and cabs lining up as the red light stopped them. Then she started to feel a cold breeze, the damp icy feeling of being outside on December nights.
Suddenly, it all became too real.
The pain stopped, the breeze grew stronger, the noise became louder and the lights became brighter. Caleb opened her eyes as if in a sudden wake, her hands effortlessly breaking the cuffs that used to bind them. The next thing she knew, she wasn’t sitting on the hard floor of a room but falling 5 feet above the ground. On reflex, Caleb shielded her head.
She landed with a loud thud and groaned. The back of her hands, elbows, hips and knees took the hit. As she struggled to stand up, her eyes adjusted and saw that she wasn’t in a room anymore but in New York. She was standing in the middle of the street that she had seen a few seconds ago in her mind – standing in her PE uniform as the cold December air froze her skin; and as correct as her vision was, the once red light had turned green and cars were accelerating towards her.
Filled with mixed emotions, she thought: Run. I should run. I should move away from the car coming at me. But she couldn’t run. Eyes wide open and stuck in place as if she was glued with shock, she just stared at the car moving towards her.
10 meters.
The driver who had just noticed her looked alarmed and stepped on the brakes as hard as he could. Someone out of thin air appeared behind Caleb – she saw him at the corner of her eye and recognized him. Before she could even think, Nick jumped and wrapped his arms around her in one fluid motion.
Again, Caleb felt the ground beneath her disappear.