Spearwood Academy Volume Three (The Spearwood Academy Book 3) (6 page)

“Agnita is busy with a client right now, but this is where she wants you to transform,” Vex says, as she leads us down a long flight of stone stairs. Cracks and crumbling affect some of them; I hope they don’t collapse. My skin burns. The cold rock brings some relief to the palms of my hands. We need to move faster though.

We come to a thick wooden door. Vex pushes on it. Sliding it open and revealing a vast open room, with rough, stone pillars and cave like walls. It has to be the size of—at the very least—one football field. A faint blue glow shines over the room with dancing lights. Inside one of the long walls sits a massive aquarium. I can’t tell how far back it goes, if it even stops. A dolphin swims past going into a part of the wall where I can’t see anything.

“That’s unique,” I mutter, as I look at it. More pain than usual courses through my muscles. Normally, it’s just the pain from the itch and burn; the sensations are different tonight, a lot different.

“You don’t think she and I stay in our human forms all day, do you? It’s exhausting maintaining this two legged form.” I grab at my stomach as the muscles clench tightly. My knees shake, wanting to buckle. The burning courses across the underside of my skin. The itch hasn’t made its normal appearance.

“Agnita wanted me to tell you that the process of sewing you back together may’ve changed how you transform, and not to be alarmed. I’m not sure how that’s possible. Unless the warping changed—”

The rest of what she says falls on deaf ears. The blood rushing around in my head muffles her voice. My knees give out making me fall hard to the stone floor. My skin ripples. Something moves just under the surface like a beetle. The heat from before becomes cold, ice cold. My teeth chatter. I let out a shaky frosted breath.

My eyes go wide, that’s never happened before. I push Maverick’s blazer off of me, not wanting to ruin it. The cold sinks deeper into my bones, turning my muscles to stone. I fall forward onto my hands and knees. 

Like ice covering the top of a lake; the skin on the top of my hands fractures, sending millions of tiny cracks climbing my arms and spreading across my body. Will I break into hundreds of pieces?

My skins falls off me in tiny shards, clinking on the stone like broken pottery. My golden scales now sit on top, the tips a dark grey. My muscles shift, grow and pull me in all different directions. A scream erupts from me before it turns into a deep roar. My body pulses with the echo of pain.

“Well, you give werewolves a run for their money. That would make Romulus feel less bad about being the father of them,” Vex says. She leans against the aquarium, her arms crossed over her chest.

I stretch out my wings before bringing them in close to my body and moving into a curled positioned, giving everyone more space. My body takes up more than half the room.

I avert my eyes from the boys, still not used to changing in front of them. It should probably feel normal by now, but it doesn’t. Shame tries to rear its ugly head. I push it down. There’s nothing to feel ashamed about.

Vex pushes herself off the glass wall. “Well, I have to go help clean up shop before closing. I will be back down later.”

The heavy door closing behind her makes the silence heavier.

“I wonder why your transformation changed,” Amr says.

‘I can only assume it’s from having my mind put back together. It felt different. I can’t explain it,’
I send out in thought.

“We need to figure out where we’re going to go from here. This is only a safe haven for the next few hours,” Paden says.

Dante nods. “I agree. Anyone have any ideas?”

“I do, but I’m not sure any of you are going to like it,” Amr says.

‘What is it?’
 

“My, I mean our, parents should be a safe place to go. Over the years they’ve built up their shielding magic around our house. Spearwood is more visible than our house. We could go there.”

I could go see my biological parents. I now know they didn’t abandon me at birth, did they really abandon me at all? I have a feeling they put me into hiding with Edgar for my own safety.

Bullock frowns and moves to sit on the floor near my hind left leg. “Would that really be the safest place? Wouldn’t Spearwood think to look there?”

Amr shakes his head. “Only when they want people to find them, can they be found. The only reason Spearwood found us to take me there was because they wanted me to go. I was confused at first about why they sent me, but now I know it’s because they wanted me to be there when Avalon showed up.”

Dante sits near my head. “How do we find them?”

Amr pulls out a pendant necklace from underneath his shirt: a silver circle with an infinity symbol in the center. “This is connected to my home. All we have to do is open another Void, and it will take us to wherever they’re located.”

“It’s not like we have a lot of other options,” Triton says.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Dante says.

“Are you okay with that, Lon?” Maverick asks.

‘
I guess there’s not much else we can do.’

Somehow, each of the guys ends up finding a place to sleep on me. I guess my scales are more comfortable than the stone floor. This will be awkward if I can’t get them to wake up before I change back. I turn my head to look at the aquarium. Vex lies in the sand, at the bottom, on her stomach. Her legs now one large fishtail. In place of her skin, purple and pink scales cover her body. Her large black eyes look at me from the other side of the glass.

‘
Never seen a mermaid before?’
her voice echoes in my head.

No, I’ve haven’t seen much of this supernatural world.’

‘You’re Miss Popular with all those boys. Even Derren likes you. Do you want to know which one you’ll end up with? I can tell you your future.’

If I wasn’t in my dragon form, my eyes would be as wide as dinner plates. ‘I’m not going to end up with any of them. I’m just friends with them all.’

‘You go on believing that then. It’s not true though. One of them will fix you, and your love will be true.’

‘Fix me?’

‘It will be a long road before either of you figure out you’re in love. Since you’re so stubborn.’

‘You don’t know me.’

She just smiles, revealing a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.
I’ve been inside your head, girl. I know all about you: your past, present and future. I’d advise you get those boys up now. The sunrise will be in a few moments. I doubt you want a group of guys lying on your naked body.’
Without another word she moves and swims up to the top of the aquarium, going beyond the rock where I can’t see. 

Guys,’ I say through thought. ‘Guys, get up now. I’ll be changing back soon and I don’t want you lying on me when it happens.’
Amr stirs and slides down off my front leg.

“Sorry, Avvi,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes.

The rest of them continue to snore, not fazed at all by my voice inside their heads. They must be exhausted. It’s been a long few days, hell, weeks.

Easing onto my feet, I stand, forcing some of them off me, just in time for the transformation to start. One of them remains on my back. I’m too tall to sit back on my haunches and make him fall off. This will be awkward. I’m not sure who it is, but they can sleep through anything. I can’t be that comfortable. I shift back faster than I want to. Their heavy body lies on top of me. Maybe they died? That’s the only thing that would explain him sleeping through all of this. I push up, but I can hardly move. They stir. Why aren’t the others helping him off of me? They snicker.

The person moves enough for me to turn over and see who they are. My eyes meet with Bullock’s brown eyes. I’ve never really seen him without his glasses on. His eyes focus on my breasts and then look back into my eyes. I nearly forgot I was butt naked. His mouth falls open, as both our cheeks flush red. His eyes shift down to my breasts again. The palm of my hand goes across his face, snapping him out of his stupor. I cover myself with my other arm.

“Get off me before I kick you in the balls,” I growl.

He’s up in an instant. I roll over and grab one of the many blazers that got thrown into a pile last night. I put it on. This one isn’t as long as Maverick’s. It doesn’t even touch my knees. At least, my butt isn’t exposed. I need some real clothes. I rather not have a reunion with my parents while being practically naked.

I pull the blazer tighter around me as the wooden doors slide open. Vex comes in, back in her tattooed, human form. In her hands, she carries something that’s dark pink with black flip flop sitting on top. “Agnita says you need to go soon. I brought you this, figured you need some type of clothing other than a jacket. I would have gotten you something last night, but I had my orders to keep working and then you transformed.”

She hands me the bundle of pink. Really? It had to be pink? I figured she would’ve liked a darker palette of clothing. I unfold it, revealing a medium length sundress. Surprisingly, knowing it’s a dress doesn’t bother me as much as it would’ve prior to my brainwashing. “Thank you.” 

“You can change behind the door,” she says.

Bullock walks over to her as I go toward the door. “There’s something I need to talk to you about before we go. It’s about your curse.”

I move behind the heavy door and can’t hear him tell her about what she needs to do to break the curse. I slip out of the blazer and throw on the dress; it falls to just below my knees: the cotton fabric soft and nice.

I smooth it all out, making sure the hem isn’t caught anywhere.

“Are you fucking serious!” she yells as I open the door again.

“Yes. You need to find a born land dweller who’s your true love.”

She scrunches up her nose. “No.”

“Sorry.”

Vex sighs and rubs her eyes. She then looks to Bullock. In an instant, she takes him by the shoulders and pulls him toward her. Her lips crash against his. His hands go into the air in a frozen motion. My jaw drops. I wasn’t expecting that at all. First he sees my breasts and then he gets kissed by a really pretty girl. He’s had one hell of a morning. He regains composure and takes her by the shoulders. Will he kiss her back? Gentler than I’ve ever seen him, he pushes her away from him, breaking the kiss.

“You and I both know we don’t love each other like that,” he says.

She sighs and her shoulders fall. “I know. It was worth a shot though. I’ve lived without true love for over two hundred millennium, and now I have to go looking for it? How can I do that if I can’t even leave New York?”

“I know you, Vex. You’re a fighter. You’ll find a way.”

She nods and then her eyes turn to me. “That looks nicer on you than it did me.” She walks over to me and holds out her hand. “It was nice meeting you, Avalon. Are you sure you don’t want that answer about your future?”

“I already gave you my answer to that. Thank you for the dress and shoes.” I take her hand. As soon as our flesh makes contact a picture of a massive, old, spider like tree appears in my mind. She lets go of my hand and smiles.

“Just a sneak peek. You’ll be on track when you get there. Good luck.”

She leaves the room and I look to the others. I guess it’s time to go now.

Maverick smiles at me. “That dress looks nice on you, Lon.”

I give him a mock glare. He knows how much I hate the color pink. “It’s pink,” I growl.

Both he and Paden bust a gut.

“Shut up.”

“Ready to go?” Amr asks me. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

We gather around one of the blank stone walls. Amr takes the pendant off and places it in his palm before pressing it against the wall. A dark entry way spreads out in all directions from his hand. He takes hold of my hand and I take Dante’s. All of us form the train, like before when we were escaping from Spearwood.

He pulls me into the darkness. Within seconds, it falls away and reveals a den with modern black furniture, white carpet and glass tables.

“Amr, what are you—” A woman with long, brown hair walks into the room, wearing a navy blue pant suit, white blouse and silver necklace. Her grey eyes meet mine. She’s my mother. I recognize her from the memory.

Her hand goes to her mouth. Tears come to her eyes. “Oh my God.” She takes two steps forward and stops. For the first time, she looks at the others who now crowd the den. “What’s going on? Elex!”

A tall man rushes into the room, his golden hair streaked with white, wrinkles in the corner of each of his eyes. He’s aged a lot. I wonder how old he is. He looks at all of us together and then his eyes fall on Amr and me. Like her, he takes two steps forward. With a hesitant hand, he touches my shoulder.

“Avalon?” he questions, his voice deep. I nod.

My mother lets out a cry and moves the distance between us to take me into her arms. I let go of Amr’s hand. I pat her on the back, not want to grip her back. My stomach quakes with nerves. Finally, she lets go of me and steps back to observe. “You’ve grown into a fine young woman.”

“How do you remember me?”

She smiles and touches my cheek. “Parents can never truly forget their children. We didn’t have our minds warped of you, just the location you were at and who you were with, until it came time for us to know again.”

“What about me? Why did you make me forget her?”

“You two were inseparable. There’s no way we could’ve put Avalon where we did and not done something to ease the loss you two would feel for each other. Your father and I got through it, because we could understand why we were doing it. You were four, so we decided to have Avalon’s mind modified to forget all of us, and yours to forget her.