“Kenzie!” a man roars, his voice filled with both anger and worry. I open my eyes, to see fire everywhere and we are in the middle of the academy hall. I can see myself, standing holding my stomach in the middle of all the fire. My hair is covering my face as I look down at the floor, so I can’t see my expression. I turn slightly to see a man running towards me, putting out the flames as he goes with water from his hands. It’s the guy from earlier, the one that walked through the flames to put out the fire. He falls to his knees in front of me, just as I collapse into his arms.
“Enzo,” I hear myself say, my voice sounds strange to me, but you can’t miss the emotion in my voice. Why would I have any other emotion than hate for that jerk?
“Not like this, you are not leaving me, Crowe!” Enzo shouts, moving my hands and covering the wound with his own. Just as I watch myself pass out in his arms, I see him healing me and he moves his hands away, lifting my shirt a little to show the closed-up scar. Was I stabbed? Enzo picks me up, holding me close and places a kiss on my forehead. Why is the incredibly hot jerk kissing me?
“Is she?” Locke asks as he runs over, putting out more of the fire as he stops near Enzo, and Enzo shakes his head.
“No, but that fucking teacher who did this is going to pay for hurting her. I’m going to fucking kill him,” Enzo spits out, the fury in his tone is the last thing I hear before I’m forced to close my eyes by the pull.
When I open my eyes again, I see Kelly’s pure light-blue eyes open in shock, her whole body is still glowing white. The light suddenly disappears, and she collapses to the floor in a heap.
“Kelly!” I shout, going to catch her, but I miss. A wave of air stops her body from hitting the ground, holding her in the air. I look over to see Mr. Lindeman holding a hand out towards Kelly, air flowing from his hand. He gently lowers her onto the floor, and I fall to my knees, gently shaking her shoulder. I can hear the classroom whispering, but no one is brave enough to say anything out loud.
“She will be fine, class. The divination power is strong for her, and this sometimes happens. However, I have never seen a glow before,” Mr. Lindeman says, his tone echoing the shock of his words as he comes to kneel next to her. He places his hands on her head, and I watch as he heals her, then moves his hands away. Kelly slowly blinks open her eyes, and stares at me, a vacant look in her eyes, her expression violently bare of any emotion.
“The portal will open,” she says blankly, her eyes roll back, and then she passes out again.
What portal will open?
Chapter 8
Kenzie
Clutching onto Kelly’s hand, I look down at her pale, unconscious face, my eyebrows drawing together in concern. I glance around the crappy excuse for a first aid room, mad that Kelly is currently lying across a few chairs, rather than on a bed. They’re remodelling the actual first aid centre. Fucking typical.
Kelly stirs, and I instantly lean forward and stroke the hair from her face. “Kells? Sweetie, are you okay?” I whisper softly.
“Kennie?” she mumbles. Oh Gods. She hadn’t called me Kennie since we were eight years old.
“It’s Kenzie,” I mutter.
“Kennie-kenz,” she mumbles back, a smile taking over her face as her blue eyes flutter open. Seeing the expression take back over her face fills me with relief. She’s okay. Despite the healer’s reassurances, I wasn’t accepting the fact my best friend was okay until I saw it for myself. I sit back in my seat, allowing myself to get a little more comfortable as Kelly slowly moves into a sitting position.
“Do you remember what happened?” I ask softly, still holding onto her hand and rubbing it soothingly.
“Um, the last thing I remember was you lying about your vision and saying it was about eating a bacon sandwich, which kind of made me feel hungry . . .,” she trails off as a mortified look takes over her face. “Oh Gods, I did it wrong, didn’t I? I didn’t have a vison and instead knocked myself out like an idiot in front of the whole class,” she whispers in a horrified tone.
“No, Kells, complete opposite. You had a killer vision, and you glowed. You freaking glowed! The teacher was going on about how powerful your divination skill must be the whole way down to the first aid room!”
“I glowed?” she asks, awe in her voice.
“You did,” I answer, smiling brightly at her. Happy that although she only has two gifts, one of them is already proving to be so strong.
“Not many seers glow, Kenzie,” she says, bobbing up and down in excitement. She is right about that. I only know of one other Marked that can glow, and she has a seat on one of the councils. Kelly’s parents are going to be so proud of her.
“I know, it’s so damn cool!”
“How long have I been in here?” she questions, suddenly looking a little more concerned as she takes in the sorry excuse for a first aid room.
“Um,” I glance at the clock on the wall, as tradition it’s symbolized with the twelve marks, rather than numbers. “About forty minutes,” I answer.
“Why didn’t they use a healer to wake me?” she asks sceptically.
“Mr. Lindeman tried to, but you woke for a second and then went back out. The healers decided to allow you to wake naturally after that. They suspected the vision exhausted you, so they were letting you rest,” I answer softly.
“That’s kind of scary,” she whispers. “We were holding hands during the vision, what did I see?” I go to answer her, and explain the whole story, when a feeling in my gut strikes me.
“Nothing much really. It was me, and some other people. I think maybe in a class or something. I think that it was the fact the vision was so clear and intense feeling that it wiped you out,” I lie smoothly, shooting her a smile. She frowns for a moment, before shrugging and leaning back in her seat.
“I guess that could be it,” she says.
“Must be,” I reply. There’s no need to stress her out about what she saw in that vision. She’s already stressing enough. I can figure out whatever it means on my own.
“You did wake up for a second and said “the portal will open”, do you remember what portal?” I ask her, knowing she might hear from the other students about what she said as they all heard.
“Portal?”
“Yep,” I nod.
“I remember seeing fire and something blue,” she says, going a little pale again.
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just leave it for now, okay?” I ask, and she nods.
“Am I allowed to leave?” she asks.
“Yup, healer said as soon as you felt okay to, we could go. She did take a look over you while you were unconscious, and she couldn’t find anything wrong. Just told me to make sure you take it easy,” I answer.
“Okay, can we go back to our room? Or do we have to go back to class?” she asks, her voice a little wobbly.
“Room, definitely.” Standing up, I reach across and offer a hand to help her up, which she takes. Once on our feet, we make our way out of the makeshift, first aid room. I sign Kelly out on the clipboard by the door, so they don’t worry where we’ve gone. We weave through the quiet halls; the majority of students are currently still in lessons.
As we step out into the courtyard, I hear someone shouting. I look around, but I can’t spot the source of the noise.
“Up here, Kenzie!” the voice yells. Up?