Kilenya Series Books One, Two, and Three (51 page)

Finally, after several minutes, she looked up again. “How long will I be held here?”

Eachan cleared his throat. “Until the Lorkon choose to free you, or . . .” He paused, clearing his throat again. The Lorkon weren’t concerned about her one way or the other—they wanted Jacob. And knowing how much this girl cared for that boy would only instill in them the desire to keep her here longer. “They want the boy.”

Defiance raced across her features. “Then we must stop Jacob from coming.”

Eachan took a step back in shock. He watched her face carefully. “But . . . but if he can free you, don’t you
want
him here?”

Another expression crossed her face—one of frustration, impatience. “No!” she cried, then much softer, “No. He needs to stay away. Needs to be safe.” Her eyes filled with tears again.

Eachan stepped forward, emotion coloring his own voice. “I . . .” He stopped, swearing inwardly.

She stared at him in confusion. He turned from the room.

He had to stay away from her.

Had to do his job. Had to keep Duana safe.

Chapter 10. Catalyst

Jacob stared at his reflection in the mirror Wednesday morning. His skin, normally tan, was pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“Dude, you look really bad,” Matt said, walking in and grabbing his deodorant.

“Just a headache.” Hopefully nothing more than that. Getting the flu right now would be bad. Jacob did his hair, careful not to move his head too quickly—it would make the pounding worse. “I don’t think staying up all night, then sleeping an hour, then playing a hard game of basketball really helped. I’m probably coming down with something.”

“You stayin’ home or coming to school?”

Jacob put the styling gel away. “Coming. Can’t miss again.” He made sure Hazel had some honey in her container before tucking her away in his backpack.

The ride to school was quiet—Matt turned his music down, which Jacob appreciated. He sighed with relief as the painkillers finally started working.

Tani met them in the school parking lot. Jacob stared at her, a weird sensation hitting him in the stomach. He felt a fleeting sensation of vertigo. Something was wrong with her. He peered at her, trying to figure out what was going on. Then he stepped back in shock when he realized the air around her face swirled red—puffing like steam, making bright red patterns. He watched as the brilliant color slowly get brighter.

She put her hands on her hips. “Stop staring at me like that.”

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“There’s this red . . .” He stopped. She’d only think he was crazy if he voiced his thoughts. “You just look different.”

“Well, Teegan was a jerk this morning. I mean, he was a complete idiot.”

Tani told Jacob what had happened on the way to school—something about Teegan not letting her borrow one of his books or his MP3 player or something. As she spoke, the colors swirling around her became even more vivid, and Jacob had a hard time keeping up with what she was saying.

Jacob held the door open for Tani, then stepped in behind her. One look into the hall had him backing out of the school, though.

“Hey, Jake—come on. The tardy bell is going to ring soon.”

He couldn’t believe it. Every single person had a different shade from the rainbow swirling in the air around their face—a girl with bright purple. Two guys laughing together, both a shade of green. Jacob swallowed and choked on his saliva, trying not to freak out. He looked at Matt and Sammy—holding hands, talking as they caught up with Tani and Jacob. The air around them both was green.

Jacob turned to Tani—the air around her wasn’t red anymore, but now a peach color—close to her skin tone. She stared at him funny—like he was a disgusting bug.

“You can’t see?” Jacob asked. “You can’t see the colors around everyone?”

She shook her head slowly. “What’s wrong with you?”

Jacob shook his head. He had no idea.

What
was
wrong with him? That question circulated in Jacob’s mind the rest of the week and starting into the following. And it didn’t help that the Makalos had no clue, either. They asked him to start talking to his classmates to figure out what was going on. So, on Monday, he approached a girl whose air was deep blue.

“Hey . . .” he said. “Are you okay?”

She looked at him, her eyes welling up with tears. “N—no! My horse died last night. And—and she was only five years old!”

Jacob grimaced, then caught himself—hopefully she would take his expression as one of sympathy and not what it really represented—a dislike of tears. He couldn’t handle them. And even though his brain wanted him to run away as fast as he could, his heart made him do something completely foreign to him where girls were concerned. He hugged her. She sobbed into his shirt, and he met eyes with Tani over the girl’s head.

“What are you doing?” she mouthed at him.

He shrugged. “Don’t know,” he mouthed back.

The rest of the week was a sort of case study, with him casually asking people how their day was going and if they were doing okay.

He quickly found that most guys didn’t appreciate the invasion of privacy, looked at him like he was a freak, then walked away. This wasn’t a surprise. The girls, on the other hand, loved the attention and sought him out. He began making friends as he helped the girls who were sad to feel better, talked to the lonely ones, comforted those who were upset. After a couple of days, he started wondering if they were interested in him or more in how he made them feel. He supposed it didn’t really matter either way.

Jacob learned all sorts of things about the people in his school. “Brayden broke up with Sophie and now she’s heartbroken.” “Jessie cheated in algebra.” “I got an ‘A’ on that test!”

The girl whose horse died told her friends about how he’d made her feel better, and a couple of them approached him and thanked him. They didn’t leave his desk until the teacher started class. And then they all showed up at the gym to watch the basketball game. Tani teased him mercilessly about it.

This sort of thing happened every day that week.

At first, Jacob enjoyed the attention. Who wouldn’t? But after a few days, he wished he hadn’t ever asked anyone a question.

Wednesday morning as he walked from math to history, a girl stopped him, telling him how grateful she was that he’d helped her get over her breakup with a recent boyfriend. The color around her face was a bluish pink.

He smiled. “No—don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re feeling better now.”

“Oh, I am! Thank you again, Jacob!” She grabbed his hand, slipping a piece of paper in it. He unfolded the slip and read it as he walked to history—she’d left her name and number on it, with hearts all over the paper. He shook his head, tucking the paper in his back pocket. Nothing like a rebound relationship to make things better, right?

Then another girl stopped him. Her color was a slight purple. “Hey. Was that Kristin you were talking to? Did she give you her number? Because you know she just broke up with her boyfriend, right? She wasn’t very nice to him. I don’t think she knows how to treat a boyfriend.”

Jacob tried to keep walking, but the girl trailed him, talking non-stop.

“I mean, if you call the guy every single day—sometimes up to three times—you’re going to push him away, right? I would never, ever do that to a guy.” She grabbed his arm, stopping him. “What are you doing this weekend? A group of us are going to Logan to watch a movie. Wanna come?”

The tardy bell rang and a panicked expression crossed her face, the swirling purple changing to a yellow-orange. She blurted out, “Dang it!” and dashed down the hall. Jacob ran as well—she’d made him late for history. But seeing the change in colors on her face made him think. Could all this have to do with emotions?

The rest of the week, he was late to nearly every class. He hated feeling like he stood out, and he hated having people stop him in the halls. He especially hated how upset his teachers were becoming. He tried to explain what was going on, but they seemed to think getting stopped in the hallway was a ridiculous reason to be late. He couldn’t blame them.

Finally, school ended on Friday, and Jacob and Matt were heading home. The ride was silent—Jacob tried to ignore the light green color originating from Matt’s skin, focusing instead on the trees.

Amberly opened the front door when Matt pulled onto the gravel driveway. She ran up to Jacob’s side of the truck—her face emanating a deep blue—and as soon as the door was open, started sobbing. She threw herself into Jacob’s arms.

“Amberly! What’s wrong? Calm down.”

“Tito’s hurt! He’s hurt and he’s going to die!”

“All right, show me.”

They found the dog in the back yard, whimpering. Jacob knelt to inspect him. At first, he couldn’t find anything wrong, then he noticed some blood on Tito’s paw. He pulled the paw closer, seeing a thorn imbedded in the flesh. “Oh, he’s going to be fine,” Jacob said. “It’s just a thorn. Here, I’ll take it out.”

He pulled it out, then showed the paw to Amberly. “See? All better now.”

Tito barked happily, and Amberly squealed with delight, watching the dog bound into the forest.

Jacob wandered into the house, dropped his bag on the table, and hiked the stairs to Matt’s room. After knocking, he opened the door.

Matt scooted over on the floor. “Here,” he said, handing a Wii controller to Jacob.

After they’d played for an hour, Jacob put his controller down. “I think something’s wrong with me.”

“Yeah, I know. I meant to tell you years ago.”

Jacob scowled. “No, seriously. When I look at people now, I see colors.”

“That’s a good thing—you recognize that everyone’s different. Some of us are black, some are white—”

“No, colors like blue. Red. And green. On the way back from school, you were green. Actually, you’re still green. I’m not sure what it means. And it got me in trouble today—one of the girls I saw was bright, bright purple, and she about killed me when I asked her what was wrong.”

Matt frowned. “Do you think it’s an ability of yours or something?”

“I think so, and it has to do with emotions, ‘cause everyone who’s been a different color was in a different mood.”

“Really? Weird. Have you talked to the Makalos about it?”

“Yeah. They say to figure out what it means—that only I can. Frustrating. They never have all the answers.”

“Can you see a color in yourself when you look in the mirror?”

Jacob shook his head.

“Hmmm.” Matt raised his Wii controller again. “You should write it all down and see what emotions go to what colors.”

Jacob got off the floor. That wasn’t a bad idea. He went to his room, grabbed a notepad from his backpack, and sprawled across the bed on his stomach to start writing. Hazel joined him, making comments that were mostly useless. Such as, “You spelled that word wrong.”

“Stop it. No, I didn’t. And how would you know?”

She put her hands on her hips. The color swirling around her face changed from a light blue to a light purple. “I’m not stupid, Jacob.”

He put his hands up in defense. “I know, I know. Sorry.”

She patted his head, then flitted to her container to eat honey. He went back to his writing.

Jacob stared at what he’d written. He couldn’t figure something out. Why emotions? What did they have to do with molding material? The two seemed so unrelated. Or was there a link between sensing weakness in something and seeing emotions in people? He didn’t think so.

The latest from the Makalos was that this ability didn’t surprise them. They refused to elaborate, insisting instead that he focus more on developing it . . . while practicing with Sweet Pea and pulling people from the scented air, of course.

He hoped this “talent” would somehow help him when they went to get Aloren.

The next couple of weeks were a blur—Jacob diligently took notes, finding patterns. Red was anger—that made sense. The bright purple he’d seen was loathing, or hatred. He was glad it hadn’t been directed toward him. Matt’s usual color was varying shades of green—happiness. He’d seen a couple of people with the blue/green Amberly had shown when Tito got hurt. That was fear mixed with sadness.