Slayer(26)

Rage. Focused on her.

Buffy sighs, her shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

I have never been part of something so big, so overwhelming. Surrounded, I lose myself in it. I surrender. I want to. The rage swells, a swarm of invisible violence focused on her. We are angry, we are multitudes, and we are buzzing.

And beeping.

Beeping.

Beeping.

I awake with a start, grabbing my clock. It’s 4:50 a.m. I turn off the alarm.

Whoever is waiting for me, they had better have coffee. And doughnuts. And a puppy.

“What?” Artemis asks, her voice muffled by the pillow.

“I have that meeting with Bradford Smythe.” I want to stay in bed, pretend nothing ever changed, that none of this ever happened. Anxiety seizes me as I consider the unknown future.

But I’ve been kept in the dark my whole life. I need answers before I decide what happens next. And I’m positive I just had Slayer dreams, which means that simply by knowing about a power, I was able to tap into it. What else can I do if I understand myself better?

“Yeah.” Artemis checks the clock and groans. She gets up at five forty-five every morning. I hate depriving her of these last precious minutes of sleep. “Let me get ready.”

“Why?”

She glares blearily at me. “I’m coming.”

“Oh. Okay.” I didn’t realize until this moment that I don’t want her there. Which is new for me. I’m nervous, but it’ll be worse if she comes. I’m worried that she’ll take over and I’ll let her, because it’s easier.

Her face hardens. “Fine. If you don’t need me to.”

“I didn’t say that! I don’t need you to, though. It’s just a meeting. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it. You hear everything.”

“Except about you being a Potential, apparently.”

“That’s not fair! I didn’t hear that either, and it was about me.”

Artemis sighs and sits up. Her face reluctantly resettles from angry to understanding. “I know.”

Some of the tightness in my chest loosens. We’re going to talk about it. Really talk about it. Cillian’s hug was what I needed yesterday, and Artemis’s open ear is what I need now. “Who do you think will be at the meeting?” I ask, working myself up to the big things.

“Obviously they’re trying to hide this meeting from Mom; otherwise they would have called you to the regular Council room at a normal time.”

“Do you think I should do it? If the whole Council doesn’t approve?” Maybe I’m hoping she’ll say I shouldn’t. That she’ll give me an out.

She rubs her face, then tugs her hair back into a ponytail. “It’s not like you have a choice. You’re already a Slayer. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.”

It stings. “I know that. Obviously. But that doesn’t make it suck less that I don’t have any choices here.”

Artemis stands, turning her back on me as she pulls clothes out of the closet for herself. She’s going to the meeting even though I told her not to. Her voice is soft when she finally speaks again. “When have we ever had choices?”

I stand to go to her, but she turns and tosses her clothing selection onto her bed, avoiding my eyes. “I can train you. Besides, we don’t even know what they’re going to say at the meeting. One step at a time.”

“Thanks.” I mean it. I feel better with her on my side, because she’s always been on my side. She’s the one who got them to approve my castle clinic and the funds to stock it, after all. Even when she doesn’t care about the same things I do, she cares about me. I start to rethink my decision to hide the demon from her. “Listen, last night—”

There’s a knock on our door. “Artemis?”

It’s our mom.

We share a look of fear. I throw myself back into bed, feigning sleep. Artemis opens the door softly. “What?” she whispers.

“Good, you’re up. I need your help checking the perimeters to see if we can determine where the hellhound came from.”

“Give me a second to change.”

The door closes. Our mom never visits us at this hour. I half suspect she was using the hellhound as an excuse to make sure I was here. I don’t peek my eyes open, just in case, as Artemis gets dressed and then slips out. I sit up, annoyed. I don’t even get a conversation, let alone a request to help, even though it was me who killed the hellhound. Artemis is still the one our mother chooses. Even when I’m a Chosen One.

And now I’m going to be late. I pad silently through the castle’s dark halls, careful that I don’t bump into my mother. The training center is located in the old throne room, which was converted to a gym. Another room I never had a place in. But I know where it is.

I duck inside just in time to see a knife flying through the air, right at my face.





8


I STARE UP AT THE knife, embedded and still quivering in the door where my head had been a split second before. I’m on my back on the floor. My body knew how to avoid the danger, even if my brain didn’t.

“In situations such as this,” Bradford Smythe says, sounding like he’s delivering a well-rehearsed lecture on geometry, “you’re supposed to catch the knife. That way you avoid being stabbed and take control of the weapon for your own use.”