Emotionless: (Prototype: Zero book 1) Read online

  That is how the four of us came to sneak around the halls teachers don’t hover around to get to where we are now. In front of Lawliet’s door. Blinking slowly, I stepped into the door and felt the involuntary tug that was drawing me in. Taking a step, Rebecca voiced her opinion of being burned alive, but I wasn’t afraid. Never of him, as I walked through the door as if I was walking through an open gaping hole. Layers of runes, thinned, placed one after the other three-dimensionally warped through me. They scanned all of me until I walked through the other side. Blurry eyed, I blinked rapidly until Lawliet came into focus. He narrowed eyes, let veins throb, and his runes were lit up on his fingers and hands. Hostile, as they swirled with power.

  “Hello?” I murmured.

  “You came with others?” he asked, and I nodded slowly. “Bring them in and tell them not to touch anything, we need to talk . . . privately.”

  “I see. Ok?”

  “Yeah,” he slumped shoulders, and the veins died down as well as the bright blue runes. Softening those liquid eyes, he said, “Yes, I am ok now.”

  Letting my brothers and Rebecca in, they walked around casually and looked at things, but refrained from touching anything, especially the large portrait on the wall. Leaving them hopefully not to do anything that they aren’t supposed to do, Lawliet walked me out to the back patio and up the spiral steel staircase that leads to the top of the tower that I have jumped from not too long ago. Lifting leg, I slipped over the brick layered mismatched walls and onto the other side. Wrapping hands around arms I rubbed at them from the brutal cold that was seeping through the large gaps. My eyes drifted to my grandfather’s name with Chantelle and puffed cheeks.

  “Spenc came to my home not that long ago,” He said, and his eyes narrowed. “Asked the stupidest questions that pissed me off. Told him to back off and I don’t want to talk about it, so he spat in my face, or well tried, so I walked off before I broke him.”

  “What did he . .?”

  “I want you to stay away from him,” Lawliet said firmly. “He may seem friendly, but he isn’t. Far beyond it,” he muttered, rolled eyes and then leant against the tower wall, near my grandfather’s name. “He asked what I mean to you. When I didn’t respond with what he wanted to hear, he told me to fuck off and that I don’t deserve you.”

  “And?” I asked without meaning to.

  “You want an answer, now?” he said while he raised an eyebrow. “You have impeccable timing, it is annoying. I enjoy your company more than I enjoy anyone else’s. I would follow you anywhere because I don’t trust somebody else to look after you.”

  He makes it so hard.

  Taking a step forward, ‘the gears of time’ warped into motion. Taking a deep breath, I walked towards Lawliet and looked up. Slowly blinking, I grabbed his shoulders delicately. The smooth cotton texture was running along fingertips. Lifting up on tiptoes, I was a breath away from touching his lips. A kiss, what can that imply or mean? Where would this go if I stopped and actually told him how I felt? Obviously, it would be reciprocated, the question is. ‘Do I want this to go further now?’ There is so much to do. This may place a strain on our friendship.

  When time sped up, my stomach churned, and my heart was pounding in my chest as Lawliet glanced down. His nose was touching mine. We gazed at each other. Stunned into silence. Those golden eyes turned into a warm liquid. He didn’t move, lean in or initiate any type or form of affection. He stood there and looked down while I stood with my fingers that were tightening on his sleeves. A breath shakily came out in nervous gasps.

  “Well, what’re you waiting for?” he whispered, and so I reached up.

  I wouldn’t say the kiss is what I expected it to be from in a book. There was a spark of attraction along with the eradicated beating of my heart that was pounding on his chest. He must have noticed because there was a tweak of a smile, a curl of his lip in the corner as he pressed arms around my back and crushed me into the depths of his fire. I was being devoured. It was a frustrating disappointment when he released his grip and stepped back. Still heated, I looked up at his cheeky smirk.

  “I suppose that answered one question. This isn’t a fairy tale.”

  “How unfortunate,” I murmured, took a step towards him and leant up. I had wanted one last kiss before I explained the reason as to why I came to visit him.

  To taste the burn once again.

  Chapter 25.

  Eileen – contract and gears of time.

  “Hi, Ms Thompson, I was wondering if Mr Jonathan was available to speak with,” Rebecca said sweetly. Her voice was carrying from the thin layer of brick from the other side of the room.

  “Yes, Mr Jonathan is in. What did you need him for?”

  “I wanted to ask him something personal, sorry. He knows about my situation, and I really need to speak to him, like, now.”

  “Fair enough. Come in, and I will go fetch him from the kitchens for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  We were crouched near the back wall, and our hands were pressed against the brick interior as we sat there. Our eyes darted to the closed door and then back to the wall as we listened in to Rebecca and her partial distraction tactics before Donte and Nixon come into play. Puffing cheeks at Rebecca and her dragging out sentences, I noticed the mage that was shuffling beside me. I was very aware of his presence.

  It was the image of his arms, as they coiled around my waist. How his hot breath drew down my throat before my lips pressed gently against Lawliet’s own. It only lasted a second, but it was a second I wouldn’t mind repeating again and again. As he crouched closer to me, his arm brushed accidentally against mine that I realised I wasn’t the only one who was thinking these things. As he glanced at me and away, his cheeks flushed delicately.

  Suddenly, a loud bang came from outside the teachers’ lounge as well as severe coughing. Lifting hand instantly, I flicked, waved, twirled and spun my finger along the bricks until I rolled it around with an activation circle. Light blue rune on the brick lit up and showed me inside the room that was beside the one we’re crouched in and hidden at the far back in the darkness. Darkened shadows ran out as well as shouting, and I wondered what was going on. Some even leant down and were voicing their disgust.

  “Here,” Lawliet grabbed my hand. Lacing his with mine, he snapped his fingers, and a rune lit up on his palm.

  Pushing his hand on the wall first, he slipped through. His arm disappeared, and then himself while I trailed behind. Once my arm moved through the wall, it felt like slime. Bones and skin squished and turned into slippery jelly. It made my stomach squeamish.

  On the other side, I took a little sniff and wrinkled nose while Lawliet blanched.

  “This is fucking disgusting.”

  It smells like my brother’s bedroom.

  Peering around the blackened stench of probably dirty clothes, bad potions, random stink and Donte and Nixon, my eyes locked onto the green crystal portal that was swirling in the back of the room. This is what Rebecca was talking about. The confidential files that update on students down to every detail they can find about them. Not as high as the organisation, but it is still creepy that they have this sort of thing in a portal.

  Tightening hand with mine, he tugged me forward quickly, and we both raced towards the entrance that began to flicker as if it was deactivating. Racing forward, I wasn’t moving fast enough with Lawliet who tried to drag me forward and then suddenly backwards. Glancing in his direction, I only saw a shadow of his arm that connected to mine. Turning back around, I jolted at a figure before me. Raising hand instantly, I felt it, as something that resembles ‘the gears of time’ warped into motion. I blinked slowly as I expected to look around and see Lawliet frozen but to my surprise, he walked beside me. His warmth brushed against me.

  I wonder what he thinks of me now, as we walked past the teacher that was frozen in place. Streams of blue and green magic from what I done warped in and out of focus. They faded slightly as we jumped through the por
tal and was spat back out to roll around on the bright white tiled ground. As if jumping into an alternate universe, I looked up at a shapeshifter that was standing beside us and was not blinking at all.

  “Shit,” Lawliet grabbed my arm and dragged me quickly behind a large wall. I felt the motion of time speed back up. Pressed against the cold white wall that blocks the entrance to the portal, where the shapeshifter was, we evened out our breaths as silently as possible. “You're incredible,” he mouthed, and my heart fluttered in my chest. However, this is no time to be thinking of Lawliet. We need to find Rokk’s file. “Stay close to me.”

  Nodding slightly, I grabbed hold of his hand with both of mine and felt nauseated as he leant around barely a second before he moved his head back against the wall. Narrowing eyes, he looked up and over the wall on the opposite side of us. Lawliet then grimaced, turned towards me, gave me an apologetic look that made me suspicious and then started running towards it. Boots activating, he ran up, the joints in my arms straining, the heart in my chest beating and that sick launching feeling, as he lifted me easily in his arms and bounced to the other wall and then over. My eyes moved to the shape-shifter who went to look in our direction. Blinking slowly, his head stopped moving, and we flew over the wall and onto the other side. Fingernails were vice gripping Lawliet’s arm.

  In this position, this place looks like a maze. Zigzagging in various directions with a hint of movement that was coming from the section further ahead of us. Probably another shape-shifter guard.

  “I figured the only time you can use the gears of time is when you really have to. Would you be able to do it again?”

  I shrugged. My mind was reeling into him confirming that what I have done is a rune called gears of time, however, is it possible to do it without creating the rune in the first place. Unless I somehow already have a rune somewhere put on me without my knowledge of it. If that is the case, the only mages I know who would have done that is my own Mum and Dad.

  Lawliet ran down the wall, onto the floor and around into the pathway with me on his back. His plan was daring, scary and exhilarating all at the same time. As my heart pounded in my chest, my breaths shortened, mouth turned into fuzzy dryness and fingers twitched with every movement my eyes were imagining. When we did run into trouble, I would feel the stiffening of joints and the essence of magic that would swirl in the air. Streams of bright blue and green slithering around Lawliet, as he ran by shape-shifter's who stood frozen in time. Weaving through the maze of walls constructed of clinically clean white tiles, Lawliet ran up walls, jumped over walls and ran down walls without breaking a beat to do so. It was a pure comfort unexplainable as we leapt and moved silently. His boots were not making a sound while he ran.

  The walls began to thin, draw out and we saw no Shapeshifter’s for the past three sections we ran through. Sliding me off his back, I brushed down my top, yanked at sleeves and glanced around at the large room filled with rows and rows of holographic screens that were alphabetised. The letter swirled above the graphic design screen. Lock crystals and runes as well that shined brightly. Not being able to open them quickly, I started to analyse and create a rune in my head that may get me access to a file when Lawliet raised a crystal in the shape of an insert key.

  “I cut a spare crystal and replicated the one Mika has around his neck all the time,” he smirked.

  “Ok?”

  “I have a great photogenic memory,” he answered, and I nodded slowly. “What’s Rokk’s last name?” he asked suddenly.

  Shrugging, I roamed around when a noise was heard further down the throne of files. Glancing at Lawliet, he suspected the same, and he motioned for me to get low. Crouching awkwardly behind one of the holographic data, I wondered what the point was when we could see through to the other side. Near the far back of rows, there were shadows, two that were standing still but definitely there. Curious, I moved forward as I wondered why someone was rummaging in here. The teacher was my first thought but this is school hours, and the ones who don’t have class would have run at the first sign of a bomb. I am positive they would have heard it in here when it detonated.

  Leaving Lawliet who glared at me angrily as I scurried along the designs, I got close enough to see their backs to me. Stomach dropped, I stood up straight, touching the pad and a list of names rolled down. It was a beaker in the night. My mum and Dad stood at one of the files and were flicking through mechanically as if bored of the notion.

  Dad’s instincts were sharp. I recall opening the bedroom door the day they came back to say hello when he raised his hand, as he is doing now, the veins bright and the runes blue shined towards me. The air thinned and an invisible barely their distorted blur ushered towards me, and I stood there and was staring because I was afraid to move.

  Lawliet ran to stand in front of me. Snapping his fingers, a retracting wall with scales of a dragon shined white. It shimmered in the fluorescent lights and hit into my father’s firm distorted hand. When touched, the hand tightens joints, slackens breath and would have frozen me in place, as pain throbs through veins, to suck the magic out and make me weak.

  Hitting into it, I was stunned still as Dad’s hand bounced off, the essence of mage magic streamed in the air in tendrils and fluttered up into the nothingness.

  “Ms Umar?” he asked Mum casually.

  “Copy,” Mum answered. “Did you need to concentrate?”

  “No, not a threat,” he replied. “He has a contract, which is abnormal and illegal.”

  Lawliet went rigid beside me, but his eyes held firm.

  “Dragons aren’t bound by our law,” Mum looked to Dad, and he nodded. “Our daughter is here.”

  Their conversation with one another was as casual as breathing. Completely un-phased by our presence, they dragged random names, random files, and placed them in the crystal Mum held in her hands. The codes were sinking in like storage.

  “Should we erase their memories?” Dad asked.

  “Obviously, they have friends who helped them get here,” Mum said, a twitch in the corner of her mouth. It was a detest of disapproval. “Rebecca, Donte and Nixon. We will wipe theirs when we leave.”

  “Shit.”

  Lawliet grabbed my arm and dragged me away. Our feet were now making a rhythmic sound, distressed, as we started to run. I turned to glance back to see where they were, but Dad was gone. Stomach twisting violently, Lawliet hissed a breath at my father that was before him. He reached out his hand to his forehead. A clear sign of hostility.

  “Activate level one defence,” I murmured quickly.

  A gush of wind billowed out, and I dragged Lawliet to the side. The gears of time enabled and slowed down my father’s movements because he wasn’t bothered by the activation of my stone knight. Static crumbling, we landed on the ground, time spun to normal, and a stone structure appeared before us. Before my father who blinked slowly at where Lawliet was. A bored look on his face.

  Dragging his arm, we both started to run. Lawliet snapped his fingers, took a deep breath, turned and breathed out. Dark charcoal smoke swirled in the air along with orange flashing flames that reminded me of lightning. Smirking, he spun around and was knocked back, as Mum appeared out of nowhere, and backhanded him as if she would swat a fly. Distraught, I watched as he flew into the darkened smoke and out of sight. My defence line diminished as easily as it appeared, and now I stand in the pathway of a Mum whose silver eyes hardened firmer than the hardest crystal to crack.

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “If you’re finally going to speak, elaborate,” she insisted.

  “Why did you have to go through my brother’s memories?”

  “We had to.”

  “If you only asked, they would have told you the truth.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. What I want to know is when you started forming sentences willingly.”

  Dad came out of the smoke and was dragging an unconscious Lawliet. His snow-white hair fell down, and a wet patch of blood was
running along the hairline. Widening eyes slightly, I jolted, a half motion to go to him when I noticed that Mum was watching me intently. Staying calm, I straightened up and blinked and erased the nerves from my mind.

  “Never underestimate a mage who went into a contract with a dragon. They are hot-headed,” Dad muttered, released his hold on Lawliet and slumped him beside where he stood. “Shall we erase now?”

  “Yes.” Mum agreed.

  No, I thought, took a step and noticed time slow down. Running, as I did when I wanted to save my brothers, I skidded along the tiles when time sped up, and Mum and Dad looked directly at me. Glaring at them both, angry, I raised my hand, both pairs of eyes that were passive turned full eye as I double tapped the ground and fell into a dark rabbit hole.

  It wasn’t a long trip. We rolled out of the hole that warped into focus and landed in a bitterly cold place that spiked hair and made me want to shudder. Touching Lawliet’s hairline, I healed his cut slowly and then bowed my head, exhausted.

  “Don’t get upset too much,” Lawliet spoke softly and I leant up to see that he was grinning at me. “I have this.”

  He raised a crystal of his own, a name was going around in circles and shifted in view. I wanted to break out into a smile. Rokk Alan’s name. However, my excitement was short-lived, as Lawliet touched my cheek. He had a grave expression on his face.

  “I get why that hare of yours is so obsessed with you now.”

  “OK?”

  “You’re in a contract with him.”

  “I see,” I murmured, however, I couldn’t see at all. I couldn’t recollect when Hopper came into my life because to me, he was always there. He was always looking after me. He is a Shifter of the family. It doesn’t make sense that he could be in a contract with me when he would always follow Mum and Dad around. I don’t understand, but sitting here thinking about it will not solve the problem. Finding the evil bunny will, and getting answers that my mum and Dad have been hiding from me, for a very excruciatingly long time. “What is a contract?”