Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats)
Read Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats) Online
Authors: Jessie Donovan
Tags: #To avoid persecution, #the Feiru will do anything to keep their elemental magic a secret from humans—even lock away their children for life. Few know about the experiments going on inside the prison system for magic users, #but that is about to change…, #FICTION/ Romance / Paranormal
Contents
Blaze of Secrets
by Jessie Donovan
To my dad
For surviving all of my crazy adventures over the years and never doubting me whenever I think of
new ones.
And to Michelle Cuadros
Best friend, sister, and my first reader.
Someday we’ll find you new hamsters, I promise.
The
Feiru
The
Feiru (FEY-roo)
are a race similar in appearance to humans, but with slight genetic differences…
First-born children of
Feiru
mothers have the ability to manipulate elemental energy particles, which,
until recently, had been undetectable to human scientists. What type of element they can control—fire,
earth, water, or wind—and whether their ability is aggressive or healing in nature is determined by
genetics. These
Feiru
-specific abilities are commonly referred to as “elemental magic” amongst their kind.
…As long as the
Feiru
continue to uphold the rules and regulations set forth in The Agreement, and
hide their unique abilities and existence from humans, they will be allowed to govern over their own kind.
If they violate The Agreement, the
Feiru
liaison offices of the various world governments will meet and
devise a plan on how to handle the
Feiru
failures…The primary function of the
Feiru
liaison office is to
prevent worldwide paranoia, no matter the cost.
—Excerpt from the
Feiru
Liaison Training Guide, US Edition
Chapter One
First-born
Feiru
children are dangerous. At the age of magical maturity they will permanently move
into compounds established for both their and the public’s protection. These compounds will be known as
the Asylums for Magical Threats (hereafter abbreviated as “AMT”).
—Addendum, Article III of the
Feiru
Five Laws, July 1953
Present Day
After five long years of searching, Jaxton Ward was finally going to see his brother again.
Or, at least, that was the plan.
His brother Garrett was being kept inside the mountain under his feet, inside one of the most secure
AMT compounds in the world. Getting in was going to be difficult, but getting out was going to take a
bloody miracle. Especially since he’d had to barter with his boss for the location of his brother. In
exchange, he had promised to rescue not just Garrett, but one other unknown first-born as well.
Taka—one of the three men that made up Jaxton’s team—signaled that he was ready, and Jaxton gave
their mission his full attention. He’d let his brother down once, and he wasn’t about to do it again.
Jaxton nodded for Taka to begin.
Taka reached a hand to the north and drew on the elemental earth particles in the air. Within seconds,
the earth of the mountain started to move. As a tunnel opened in the side of the mountain, Jaxton took out his Glock and flicked off the safety. He was the only one on the team without elemental magic, but he didn’t see that as a disadvantage.
He could take care of himself.
Kiarra Melini stared at the small homemade shiv in her hand and wondered for the thousandth time if
she could go through with it.
She had spent the last few weeks trying to come up with an alternative plan, a way that could save the
other prisoners without having to harm anyone. But despite her best efforts, she’d come up empty-handed.
To protect the lives of the other first-borns inside the AMT, Kiarra would kill for the first and last time today.
Not that she wanted to do it, given the choice. But after overhearing a conversation between two AMT
researchers a few weeks ago, she knew that the AMT would never again be safe for any of the first-borns
while she remained alive.
The outside world might have forgotten about them, but that didn’t make them any less important.
Kiarra was the only one who cared, and she would go down fighting to try and protect them.
Even if it meant killing herself to do so.
She took a deep breath and gripped the handle of her blade tighter. But before she could raise her arm
to strike, her body started to shake. Kiarra closed her eyes and breathed in and out until she calmed down enough to stop shaking. Ending her life—noble as her reasons may be—was turning out to be a lot harder
than she’d imagined.
Mostly because she was afraid to die.
But her window of opportunity was closing fast—the AMT-wide meeting would end in less than an
hour. After that, she would have to wait a whole other month before she could try again, and who knew how many more first-borns would suffer because of her cowardice.
Maybe if she recalled the conversation between the two researchers—the one that forebode the future
harsh realities of the other AMT prisoners—she’d get enough nerve to do what needed to be done.
It was worth a shot, so Kiarra closed her eyes and recalled the conversation that had changed the course of her life forever.
Strapped to a cold metal examination table, Kiarra kept her eyes closed and forced herself to stay
preternaturally still. The slightest movement would alert the researchers in the room that she was
conscious again, and she couldn’t let that happen. Not if she wanted to find out the reason why the
researchers had increased her examination visits and blood draws over the last two weeks.
Most AMT prisoners wouldn’t think twice about it, since they’d been conditioned to not ask questions.
But Kiarra had gone through something similar before.
The last time her visits had increased with the same frequency, the AMT researchers had stolen her
elemental magic.
Since then, no matter how many times she reached to the south—the direction of elemental fire—she
felt nothing. No tingling warmth, no comforting flame. She was no different than a non-first-born, yet she
was still a prisoner, unable to see the sky or feel a breeze, and forced to live in constant fear of what the
guards or researchers might do to her.
Of how they might punish her.
Dark memories started to fill her mind, but then the female researcher in the room started to speak
again, which snapped Kiarra back to the present. She listened with every cell in her body and steeled
herself not to react.
“Interesting,” the female researcher said. “Out of the ten teenagers, nine of them still can’t use their
elemental magic, just like F-839. Dr. Adams was right—her blood was the key to getting the Null Formula
to work.”
It took all of Kiarra’s control not to draw in a breath. Her serial number was F-839, and all of the
extra blood draws now made sense—the AMT was using her blood to try and eradicate elemental magic.
The male researcher spoke up. “They’re going to start a new, larger test group in a few weeks and see
if they can stop the first-borns from going insane and/or committing suicide. If we don’t get the insanity
rate below ten percent, then we’ll never be able to implement this planet-wide.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get there. We have a few million first-borns to burn through to get it right.”
Kiarra opened her eyes and embraced the guilt she felt every time she thought about what had happened
to those poor first-born teenagers.
Because of her blood, not only had five teenagers already gone insane, but their insanity was driving an untold number of them to suicide—and the researchers wanted to repeat the process with a larger group.
She couldn’t let that happen.
They needed her blood, drawn and injected within hours, as a type of catalyst for the Null Formula to
work. If they didn’t have her blood available, they wouldn’t be able to conduct any more tests.
There was a chance that the researchers might find another catalyst within a few weeks or months, but it was a risk she was willing to take. Stopping the tests, even for a few months, would prevent more people from going insane or committing suicide.
Kiarra needed to die.
I can do this. Think of the others.
She took a deep breath, tightened her grip around the shiv’s handle, and whispered, “Please let this work,” before raising the blade with a steady hand and plunging it into the top half of her forearm.
Kiarra sucked in a breath as the pain shot up her arm. She bit her lip to keep from making any more
noise, aware that despite the AMT-wide staff meeting, a guard would come to investigate if she screamed.
She pulled the blade a fraction more down toward her wrist, this time biting her lip so hard she could
taste iron on her tongue. While her brain was telling her to stop, she fought the instinct and gripped the handle of the blade until it bit into her palm.
Only when her heart stopped beating would the other first-borns be safe—at least from her.
An image of a little girl crying, reaching out her arms and screaming Kiarra’s name, came unbidden into
her mind, but she forced it aside. Her sister had abandoned her just like the rest of her family. Her death wouldn’t cause anyone sadness or pain. Rather, through death, she would finally have a purpose.
This was it.
On the next inhale she started to cut down her arm again, but then the door of her cell slid open.
Kiarra looked up and saw a tall man—dressed head to toe in black—standing in her doorway and
pointing a gun straight at her.
Shit.
She’d been discovered.
She wondered where she’d gone wrong. None of the guards should be wandering the halls. Everyone
from the head warden to the maintenance staff was required to attend the monthly AMT meetings.
Of course, she had never seen any of the staff wearing black uniforms before. Maybe the AMT had
increased security and the man was a new type of guard.
Whatever the slip-up, it would cost her if she didn’t act before they could restrain her or drug her
unconscious.
She swung the shiv upward, toward her throat. But between one heartbeat and the next, the man had
pinned her arm, holding the shiv to the bed with his knee. He now held a knife against her throat, the metal still warm from his body heat.
He leaned close enough that his breath tickled her cheek. “Toss away the blade, pet.”
He increased the pressure against her throat, but not enough to draw blood. The blade was meant to be a
threat, but to Kiarra, it might just be the solution.
She arched up toward the blade and felt it nick her throat. But before it could do any real damage, the