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1. Forbearance

Kerry Harker

“Uh-oh.” Jax Kosta jerked his chin toward the other side of the cafeteria. “That doesn’t look good.”

“The fat’s in the fire now, y’all,” murmured Bridget Carnahan.

The unscarred side of my mouth jerked up. Gigi’s Tennessee accent and funny little sayings always amused me. I started to ask what she meant, but a soft hand tightened around my fingers - and all my attention went to my girl as the rest of the world faded to white noise.

“What’s going on?” Gemma Shepherd blinked her big green eyes at me. “Can you see?”

She had her pretty red hair up in two knots, one on either side of her head, and she was so cute, I could hardly look away. I did what she asked, though, and took a quick glance.

“Some dude is ready to throw down with some other dude.” I shrugged.

She didn’t say anything, but I got a bad feeling that my breakfast was about to be interrupted.

“That’s for sure.” Gigi half-stood to see the drama better. “Some fur is going to fly now!”

Not caring about a translation anymore, I shifted in front of Gemma in case the fur flew in our direction.

The school, like most of the Sanctuary, had become a minefield in the past four months. Rumors fueled the panic, mainly because the only thing anyone knew was that teams were disappearing during missions. Two teams from our senior class and three of college freshmen - five wardens and twenty-nine students in all - had gone missing since November.

Then just last week, the Council of Wardens released a statement that pretty much said they had no evidence to investigate, no clues to follow, and no explanation for how the teams had disappeared off the face of the Earth. That bothered me. Why would you announce that unless you were fishing? And why would you be fishing at the Sanctuary unless you suspected someone here?

No one at the high school or college had signed up for missions lately, not even those who needed the credits to graduate, and some of the younger wardens were flat-out refusing to accept outside patrols. Couldn’t say I blamed them.

My warden, Hank Bishop, was shaken by the loss of Asif al-Abdullah, who’d been shepherding one of the missing college teams. According to Hank, al-Abdullah was a level eight warrior with a century of experience in the Real World. He was the last warden anyone would have worried about sending into the field with a newbie team.

Yesterday, Hank had told me that two pro teams hadn’t met their check-ins.

“They’re not in the top one hundred, but both are well-seasoned.” He’d shaken his head. “I hesitate to say it, but this is looking more and more like someone is targeting nephilim. We don’t just ‘lose’ teams like this, and certainly not so many in under three months.”

I’d suggested he talk to the other Sanctuaries and see what the international folks had to say. He’d agreed, but the worry lines stayed on his face.

“The ranter is Cole Fanishell, and the one just trying to eat his bacon and eggs is Matt Farley.” Jax’s voice pulled me back to the moment. “The girl with the Rangers’ jersey is Matt’s girl, Joss Dumar.”

“Cole Fanishell?” Gemma squeaked. “The same jerk who was bullying Chessie in the fall?”

Oh. That guy. I’d had a run in with him after he hurt Chessie at school one day. I’d given him a warning, and Gemma had convinced Chessie to tell the principal that he was harassing her. After investigating, Ms. Chapman had sent him to the Sanctuary’s off-site therapy program for a few months.

Guess he’s back, I thought to myself. It don’t sound like Happy Camp made much of a difference, though.

“The same jerk, all right,” Jax confirmed. “Looks like he found a new target. I suppose he’s reminding Matt that Joss is only a Fourth, and Matt’s not the kind to let that slide.”

“Those First Firsters.” Gigi made a disgusted sound. “They say Firsts shouldn’t intermingle with diluted bloodlines.”

“Unfortunately, someone must be listening to them.” Jax took her hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb. “Now that Fanishell’s leading the group, with Noah Farley as his lieutenant, they’ve been painting that stupid symbol of theirs everywhere.”

My eyes went from Jax to Gigi and back again. Gigi was a Third, meaning she was three generations from an ancestor having a child with a Fallen. Jax, on the other hand, was a First. He was much more powerful than she was, plus he would live some two hundred years longer. Neither of them cared about the first part, but Jax once told me the second part preyed on his mind. He kept it hidden from Gigi, though.

“Why distress her with something neither of us can do anything about?” he’d said. “I’d rather have three centuries with her than five without her. Besides, that’s a long, long time from now.”

Gemma nudged my arm with her elbow.

“Remember Noah Farley? He tried to get me to go to one of their meetings when I first came here.”

Oh, yeah, I remembered him. He’d given her a hard time because of me. I’d dealt with him, and he hadn’t bothered us since.

“You won’t believe this, but Noah is Matt’s twin.” Jax looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I can only imagine what the holidays look like at their house. On one side is Noah wearing his Nazi swastika and on the other is Matt making a peace sign.”

I didn’t quite get what he was saying, but I understood enough to know that Noah and Matt Farley were probably complete opposites.

Gemma let go of my hand and stood up, and whatever she saw upset her so much, she gripped my shoulders hard.

“I thought that Firsts First stuff died when Reilly Argaud was tried and sentenced to the Box,” she muttered.

A tremble shook her, but I knew it wasn’t because she was afraid. It would take a lot more than this to scare my girl.

After Argaud attacked her in November, she’d had nightmares and a few panic attacks, but even that wasn’t because he’d scared her. Well, mostly not, anyway. It had taken me a bit to realize that, and to understand that what he’d really done was shatter her confidence.

In her before-Sanctuary life, she’d learned self-defense from her martial artist uncle, and if she were pure human, that probably would have been enough to keep her safe through her short life. The neph world was way more dangerous, though, and her few skills weren’t enough to protect her here.

Sure, she could knee a dude in the nuts or knock him out with her power, but she’d be the first to fall in a real fight - and Argaud’s ambush had reminded her of that.

It didn’t help that her world had been turned upside down last summer. Because of me, she lost her scholarship, had to cut all contact with her family and friends, and gave up her dream of one day performing on Broadway. She’d had a good life, and I’d dragged her out of it.

I’d also half killed her, but she didn’t hold that against me, seeing how I was possessed by a demon at the time.

Like her forgiveness eased my guilt.

She’d had a hard time coming to terms with all of that, and I knew she was still struggling with the stunt Argaud had pulled, but she acted like her old self a lot more now. That was a relief. I didn’t like seeing her hurting.

“It’s true that Reilly started it up to divert attention from his activities,” Jax was saying, “but Noah and Cole have kept it going. With Reilly, there was at least some organization to the group. Not that I support it in any way! I’m just saying that now, it’s devolved into Noah spewing hate and Cole directing attacks at his whim.”

Gemma’s fingers dug even deeper into my shoulders as he talked.

Yep, I was right. Breakfast is about to end.

I was gonna be getting involved in something that, one, wasn’t my business, two, could end in someone getting hurt, and, three, would take me away from these golden-brown waffles.

I started to wolf them down as fast as I could.

“The worst thing they tell their followers,” Gigi said, “is that Firsts are the only ones who stand a chance against the Diabolical.”

I choked a little.

“Don’t they know a demon would suck them dry as fast as a Fourth?”

“Far as I know, Fanishell’s never been outside the Sanctuary.” Jax made a face and pushed his plate back. “Skews your perspective, I guess, to be kept safe and sheltered your whole life.”

“But that kind of lie is going to get people killed.” Gigi’s eyes flashed with anger. “Ooo, it fries my fritters that people are so willing to believe his garbage!”

Fritters? What’s a fritter?

“It’s disgusting, and someone needs to stop him!” In her outrage, Gemma took a step forward.

Oh, no.

I reached out and grabbed her wrist, careful to be gentle.

“What are you gonna do, angel? Fuss at him? Hate to tell you, but fussing won’t change his mindset.”

“Then I’ll start with fussing and go from there.” She raised her voice and pointed with her free hand, and a few people turned from the show across the room to gawk at us. “He’s threatening them because of how they were born! I will not stand by and watch someone get hurt because of idiotic ego issues!”

“Say that five times fast.” Jax grinned. “Idiotic ego issues. Idiotic—”

I tuned him out when she twisted her wrist free of my loose hold. From her apple-red cheeks and sparking eyes, I figured I had about five seconds before she stopped listening.

I’d only see her lose her temper once and wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Too many morons at this school actually thought she was harmless because she was peaceful, and I would have loved for her to show them just how wrong they were.

On one hand, her wanting to get involved proved her self-confidence was returning, and I wanted to encourage that. On the other hand, I’d seen that douche over there hurt girls before and didn’t trust him not to raise a hand to her.

And that’ll get him killed.

“All right, angel, I hear you, but can I try something first, please?” I found being calm and using manners went a long way with her, point proven when she nodded and sat down again. “Thank you. Come on, Jax. I’ll need you for this.”

As we walked toward the shouting match, he asked me what I was gonna do.

“I dunno.”

“Winging it. Good.” He rubbed his hands together. “My favorite kind of plan.”

Rolling my eyes, I walked on. Matt Farley had angled his girl behind him to get in Fanishell’s face, but he wasn’t doing anything else.

Why ain’t he knocked this guy out yet?

“I know you squared off with him before,” Jax said, “but I should tell you, in case your non-plan depends on my power, it won’t work. Fanishell’s side skill is rescindment.”

“Quicker, Jax, and use smaller words. We’re almost there.”

“He can rescind power. Cancel it out. Negate it. That’s probably why Matt’s only hollering at him, and why no one around them is getting involved.”

Now I’m doubly glad I came over instead of Gemma.

“Seems like that need-to-know information coulda been shared a little earlier,” I grumbled.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything, would it? Besides, you can take him even without your power.”

“Yeah, but Gemma won’t like it if I kill him.”

“I won’t let you go that far,” he promised.

“ That’s why I brought you along, Ajax.”

A few feet ahead, Fanishell’s hand shot out and grabbed Farley by the throat. Farley’s girl jumped up as if she was going to get between them, but a cloud of black power surrounded her and she went stone still.

Seems like as good a time as any to step in.

I didn’t waste the energy or time to call up my power against Fanishell. Not knowing if rescindment worked on a shield, I didn’t bother with that, either. Instead, I caught him in a good old stranglehold. The last time, I’d taken him down with a chokeslam without a problem, so I figured this would work just as well. He cussed and kicked his legs out, but I held him good and fast.

Then I jinxed myself by thinking he was gonna go down easy peasy lemon squeezy.

His power flared and a dozen or so constructs swarmed me. Looking kinda like scorpions with wings, they latched onto me with their pincers and stabbed their tails in deep. One of the little buggers dug into my left arm with what felt like a hammer drill and blood spurted in an arc toward Jax. He hissed, jumped back, and almost knocked Farley over.

“Stop pissing me off!” I ground out through my teeth. “Go to sleep !”

I adjusted the hold a bit, annoyed with myself for not getting it right the first time. In my defense, one, I didn’t wanna accidentally break his neck, and, two, I hadn’t used it in a long time. Still, Bennie would have ripped me a new one for not putting this creep out in less than ten seconds.

Good ol’ Bennie. I met her years ago at the soup kitchen she ran in the Bronx. She was the only reason I didn’t starve the last year I was possessed. For a price, of course. She was also a judo master who taught me a move or two in exchange for— For stuff . Yeah. Stuff . Let’s leave it at that. What her kind of witch bought, you don’t wanna know.

Anyway, the sleeper was one of her favorites because it did no damage, drained no power, and put the person down fast, which is good if you’re looking to make a clean getaway after mugging a lost tourist. Not that I know anything about that.

One day, I'll hunt that dark witch down and peel the skin from her bones…

When Fanishell went limp, his drooping weight brought me out of my thoughts, but only so my brain could tell me to release him.

The pain in my arms said differently, though.

Shift the hold, cut off his air, and choke him dead. No, even better, snap his neck—

An orange softball hit me right between the eyes. With a grunt, I let Fanishell drop like a rock and tried to get my breathing under control. Hank was always saying that was the first step to calming down instead of exploding, so I kept practicing it.

Once in a while, it even worked.

“Matt, you better catch Joss.” Jax stood close to me as he talked to Farley. “I think she’s going to fall.”

Sure enough, Rangers Girl tipped right over. Farley caught her before her head bounced off the floor.

“Gemma can fix her,” I muttered. “Just don’t let her touch me .”

“That might be hard because you’re bleeding pretty good,” Jax pointed out.

“I ain’t safe right now!”

I hid my arms behind my back so she wouldn’t see. Maybe the bleeding would stop before she noticed.

Yeah, and maybe the Maple Leafs would make it to the Stanley Cup Finals this year.

Glancing around, I saw everyone was staring at us.

I don’t really care if their stupidity gets them killed, but I know I should. Gemma would want me to care.

Blowing a heavy breath out through my nose, I climbed on top of the table and cupped my hands around my mouth. Blood ran down my arms and dripped off my elbows onto the white tablecloth.

Crap. She’ll notice that for sure.

“It don’t matter how far back your daddy was a demon. You are all prey to them,” I called out. “Take it from someone who’s been in the Real World and knows what the Diabolical are like. If you turn on each other, you’re gonna get gobbled up one by one.”

“Enough!” Ms. Chapman’s voice crashed through the room.

Steeling myself, I jumped off the table and straightened my shoulders. If I was going down, it wouldn’t be as a coward. When I made eye contact with her, though, the principal only gave me a quick nod. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but at least I wasn’t getting yelled at or punished.

“I will not tolerate bullying in any form, including demonstrating bias against generational status. Anyone caught doing so will face harsh consequences, starting with Cole Fanishell. Now clean up and move on to your classes. Breakfast is over.” Her speech done, she headed in our direction.

“Wow. His first week back, and Cole’s going to be suspended again.”

I ignored Jax to see where Gemma had got to and found her and Gigi kneeling next to Rangers Girl. Good. That would give me a few seconds to check out the damage from Fanishell’s little monsters.

“Jax, come here for a minute.”

I moved so he was mostly blocking me if she looked over. I found six or seven chewed-up places on each arm, but most of the blood poured outta a big hole in my left forearm.

“Dude!” Jax winced as he looked at my tat. “Took out the dragon’s face. That both sucks and bites!”

“It’ll be fine once the skin heals. Help me hide this!”

“With what? It’s not like I carry a roll of bandages in my back pocket.”

“You got a hanky? Like a cloth one? I forgot to grab one this morning. Or a bandana?” When he shook his head, I got desperate. “Gimme your sock.”

“No! It’s dirty from being in my shoe. It’ll give you an infection or something. Besides, I’m wearing no-shows. It wouldn’t be big enough to wrap around your arm. Just let her heal it.”

“It might make her cry, dummy,” I hissed. “Gimme your sock!”

“Screw you, numbnuts!”

“Ah, is this a bad time to talk?”

We both turned our heads to Matt Farley.

See? Stuff like this is why I don’t do mornings.

“I’m Matt Farley.” He held out a hand.

“He’s Kerry Harker.” Jax reached over and shook his hand. “I’ll be his hand-shake proxy today.”

I often struggled to understand when someone was joking. After ten years of being possessed by a demon, it wasn’t hard to understand why. The majority of my life had been spent simply surviving. This time, fortunately, I realized that Jax was making a joke, even though I didn’t find any of this funny.

Farley’s eyes went wide when he heard my name, but he was brave enough to meet my gaze and hold it.

This seemed like it was gonna take some time, so I clamped my hand over the hole and pressed tight and hoped for the best. I heard that it worked for some people.

Just never me.

“Fanishell froze Joss in time, but Gigi unthawed her. I guess that’s the right word. Gemma says she’ll be fine in a few minutes. I owe you one, Harker. Thanks.”

“Nah. I only came over so Gemma wouldn’t. You owe her.”

“You can look at it that way if you want.” Then he gave me a crooked smile. “So, I was wondering, could you show me how you took Fanishell down? Without my power, all I could do was stand there, and he could have really hurt Joss.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“I’ve always thought we rely on our power too much. What we need here is a class in hand-to-hand instead of waiting until college. You should see if your warden can set you up as an instructor. Like an after school club or something. Anyway, Jax can give you my number whenever you want to set up a time to teach me.”

My surprise turned to shock, then suspicion. Was he mocking me? I narrowed my eyes, but he didn’t take it as a warning because he smiled and held out his hand again. When I didn’t move, he squared his shoulders and tilted his chin up like I’d offended him.

“Try a fist bump,” Jax told him. “He can do that. Handshakes, well, those usually don’t end well.”

“Oh.” Farley’s eyebrows flew up. “I thought it was because of that run-in you had with my jerk brother a couple of months ago.”

“Nah,” I said. “I don’t hold anyone’s idiot relatives against them.”

He grinned and made a fist, so I bunched up my left hand and knocked it against his knuckles.

That’s when Gemma and the others joined us. Of course, she saw the blood and had to heal me right then and there. I stood in silent forbearance - a word I’d learned from her after one of the handshake incidents - and let her do what she wanted. It was faster, easier, and quieter than arguing with her.

And it made her happy.

I did a lot of things for that reason. Not that I minded. I loved spoiling her.

After a few quick words with Ms. Chapman, we gathered up our belongings and got ready to go. Feeling relaxed enough to take a risk, I told Joss Dumar that I liked her taste in teams and pointed at her jersey. She hesitated for a second and looked at Farley, who nodded and gave her a small smile. She took a deep breath and told me thanks. I woulda gabbed about the Rangers’ post-season chances with her for a bit, but she ducked behind Farley.

I didn’t blame her for hiding. It took a lot of courage to talk to the demon taint in a cafeteria full of classmates and friends.

When Gemma cozied up to me, I slid my arm around her and ignored the taint chewing into my ribs. I loved how she felt pressed against me, all warm and soft and small, and a little bit of pain wasn’t gonna stop me from enjoying it. It distracted me, though, which is why I didn’t realize Farley was so close until he lost his mind or something and put a hand on my shoulder.

Fortunately, Gigi could react faster than a striking viper. She stopped time, and my fist froze less than an inch from his jaw.

“I know he broke the unspoken law about touching you,” her voice filled my head like a faint echo, “but he probably didn’t know it. It’s not like you wear a sign saying, ‘Touch and Die.’ Hey, that could be your next tattoo. Across your throat, maybe.”

What is she talking about?

It didn’t matter, but calming down did. I filled up my lungs until I thought they’d pop, then let the air out slowly.

“Kerry, I need to let time run loose soon. You may not be using it, but your power is enormous. I can’t confine it for long. Are you good to go?”

“Yep . ”

The world took a stutter-step, and I redirected my fist a fraction of a second before I cold-cocked Farley. He probably felt the breeze from it, though.

“What the—”

“Hey! Did you almost hit him?”

“Kerry?”

“Gigi, was that you?” Jax waggled his eyebrows at her. “Baby, that’s hot !”

“Kerry doesn’t like being touched.” Gemma wiggled herself between me and the others. “It’s nothing personal.”

“Oh. Okay.” Farley shrugged, like it was no big thing I’d almost broken his jaw. “Anyway, Harker, don’t forget to call me for a date.”

Gemma and Dumar’s faces went slack, and Farley had to explain because I was too busy laughing. Rubbing my chest with the heel of one hand, I laughed so hard, my eyes watered.

Now that was funny.