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He too turned into a heap of dark dust.

A black arrow hit me in the leg and I screamed, as my body connected hard with the ground.

It went straight through my leg and I kept staring at the black arrow side.

I grunted through my teeth and a couple of cuss words made their way into my ranting, trying to dampen the pain.

It didn’t work this time.

Max had killed one of the Shadow Casters and the other one fled.

“Are you okay?” He came back, kneeling right next to me.

“I have an arrow sticking out of my leg, does it look like I’m okay?”

“We need to get it out, Chas.” He started pulling and I screamed more.

The pain was excruciating and I couldn’t handle it anymore, but still I refused to give up and die. I was too young to die. I had to survive. Had to.

It hurt even more when the arrow was out and Max tore one of his shirts in his backpack and wrapped it tight around my leg.

“We need to find a healer fast, Chas,” he said. “There’s no way I can heal this.” He sighed. “Why didn’t you use your dust?”

“The baseball bat worked, didn’t it?”

“About that,” he said softly.

“What about it?”

“I’ve never seen a Caster kill a hound just by hitting it with a bat before.”

“Sand works for you, bats are my thing.”

He chuckled. “You’ll even joke in death, Chas. Just hold on, please.”

“I’m not going anywhere. It’s just an arrow,” I said and tried to control the pain that was eating through my leg.

He crawled over to the spot and started to speak softly.

“Please tell me that there’s someone there and that I didn’t get shot for a piece of meat.”

Max chuckled. “Casters are Nimgolians’ meat, Chas. Especially one as delicate as her.”

“It’s a girl?”

“Yes,” he said and started to speak in what sounded like Spanish, fluently. Golden dust emerged from his hand, a sign that he could be trusted and the little girl crawled out.

She couldn’t have been older than six and had beautiful dark curls with soft brown eyes.

They grew when she saw me, and Max spoke to her in Spanish again.

“What is she doing here?” I asked through heavy breathing.

“I don’t know, but we need to find her parents, and fast too, just stay here.” He picked up the girl and started to walk with her outside the factory.

I heard the sound of cars pulling up, their tires screeched to a stop.

“Max!” I tried to get up, but my leg was aching so badly. He wouldn’t be able to fight off more Casters by himself.

Spanish words flew loudly through the air. A vigorous conversation was taking place outside.

Everyone was speaking at once and I wished that I could understand this stupid language. Then the little girl spoke, really fast and I understood the word Pappy, it was a known word in all the languages of the world.

The conversation grew softer and I could hear Max’s voice speaking alone.

A couple of seconds later, three huge guys entered the factory with Max and rushed straight to me.

“It’s going to be okay, Chas. Just hang on. They’re from the Compound. The girl we saved, her father is the Guardian of their Compound. She got lost when her mother went to the market and they’ve been searching for her for five hours. We saved the Guardian’s little girl. Everything is going to be fine.”

“Would you please just stop babbling like a girl,” I grunted and he chuckled again.

They lifted me up and it felt as if their hands were spiking into my body. I grunted and bit hard on my teeth as they walked with me out of the factory.

I closed my eyes and only felt the hard surface of what I assumed was the back of the pickup.

More people got on with me.

“Just hold on, Chas. They have a healer back at the Compound.”

He spoke to me the entire way, begging me to stay awake, but I couldn’t.

I tried to lift up my head to look at my leg, but it was so heavy that I couldn’t. It spun like crazy too.

My body felt as if it had been chucked inside a pit of fire. Everything was so hot.

I saw my hand, it blurred out as if the Caster’s arrow was poisonous and I was starting to experience the side effects.

My hand was black, not like Max’s chest, it was completely black.

I knew that I wasn’t going to make it to the healer and that this was it. I was going to die.

“I’m so sorry Max,” I breathed out and could hear him screaming, begging for me to stay awake, followed by sobs, but I couldn’t hang on anymore.

My breathing stopped completely and everything went black.

I WOKE UP WITH A JOLT AND LOOKED AROUND THE room.

The walls were grey, there were no windows and I was sitting at a desk with white pages full of questions.

The page number read 25.

I knew these questions, I filled them in before.

For some reason I was back at the Compound, Max’s Compound.

I looked over my shoulder and found the steel door with the red button.

Then it screeched and opened slowly.

My heartbeat started to rise.
What was this? I died a couple of seconds ago, and …

A figure walked in and I stared at his face. Nothing made sense. I’d seen all of them staked against my bedroom wall. They were all dead.

Then how the hell could Elliot be standing right in front of me?

“TEST!” I YELLED AT ELLIOT AFTER HE EXPLAINED
to me that the past three weeks me and Max had been through was just a freak’n test inside the Virtual Realm.

“Chas, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. I saw all of you dead, hanging from my wall like bugs.” The heartache of losing Fox and all her team members, of how bad I’d felt having to tell Max his sister was dead.
Max?

The thought pushed me over the edge and I started to cough uncontrollably. Gasping for air as more thoughts of
What if I’d used my sand
appeared.

“Chastity, calm down.” Elliot’s arms were around me. “Deep breaths.”

I’d never felt so betrayed. I knew that they would lie to me, but I never thought that they would’ve gone this far, to use the Shadow Casters being here that night to make me feel that their deaths were all my fault. It angered me.

I pushed Elliot away from me and swung at him hard. My fist connected with his jaw and he even spat up a bit of blood. Virtual test or no, I knew how to throw a punch thanks to Max.

“Where’s Max?” I spat the words at him.

Elliot wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. My nostrils flared as he just stared at me. “He’s in his room, just give him some time. The Virtual Realm takes a lot from you, especially the amount of time you guys spent in there.”

“Did he know that it was a test?” I was afraid to ask that question but I had to know.

Elliot didn’t answer, he didn’t need to. The look on his face said it all.

I stormed out the door. Funny how I didn’t feel this fatigue Elliot spoke about. I rushed up to Max’s room and was glad that I didn’t find any of the others who were supposed to be dead, along the way.

I barged through his door without knocking but stopped. He looked like shit.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked.

“Nothing,” it barely came out. “It’s normal, you on the other hand…” he smiled.

“This isn’t funny, Max. If you didn’t look like hell I would’ve beat you silly until you did.”

“Calm down Chastity. It was just as real to me as it was to you. But seriously, can I have some of your mojo, please?”

“Screw you Max. You knew it was a test. I didn’t.” Tears formed in my eyes. Why, because I was beyond mad. Mad at all of them, all of them lied. I never thought that Max had it in him to actually do this to someone on his side, but I guess I didn’t know him so well.

I turned around and walked away.

“Chas, wait.”

I didn’t. I found my room, opened the door and glanced over at the wall all of them had been stacked against.

Whenever I closed my eyes I could still see it. See the pain on Fox’s face.

I shook my head. It wasn’t real.

I shut my door loudly and turned the key to lock it. I didn’t want to see any of their faces for the next few days and fell on top of my bed.

Sleep came much faster than I thought. I was sure that I would toss and turn, but I didn’t.

When I opened my eyes again it was dark. I hadn’t moved from the position I’d fallen into on the bed, and when I lifted up my head, my muscles ached.

I slowly got up, took a shower and wanted to go back to sleep, but my grumbling stomach disagreed.

Outside my room I found the hallways half lit up with small dimmed lights moulded into the ceiling.

My eyes narrowed as I passed Max’s room. I was still so furious with him that it turned my stomach into knots and a nauseated feeling overwhelmed my entire body so badly that I had to stop, lean against the wall and take a couple of breaths.

I found the kitchen a couple of minutes later and went straight for the fridge. Inside was plenty of food, a half-eaten roast and lots and lots of condiments.

The ketchup and mayonnaise caught my eye and I grabbed both bottles as my stomach grumbled again, with the dish of leftover roast.

My heel connected with the fridge softly and I heard it close.

My need to find white bread was just as alarming as the need to get something into my stomach and I started to break off a huge piece of roast with my fingers and chuck it into my mouth. I’d never experienced hunger like this before. I mean, we’d eaten inside the Virtual Realm, but still, I was so hungry that I couldn’t stop feeding my face.

Bright light filled the room and I turned around to find Elliot standing in the doorway.

Livid was an understatement of how I still felt.

I looked away without saying a word and went back to looking for bread. It didn’t have to be white, but white would be awesome.

He walked up to me and reached over to open one of the cupboards. To my surprise he pulled a loaf of bread from the cupboard.

I knew I should’ve said thank you, but I didn’t want to so I just started making my sandwich.

The fridge opened again, and he took out a glass. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, pouring the milk and then he moved it slowly in my direction.

“I know you are still upset, Chas, but I had no choice.”

“You had no choice,” I barked softly and stared at him.

My anger didn’t want to dissipate as I thought about it again. “I thought that I died.”

“I know, but you did brilliantly inside that test.”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure it out how that test helped to show you where I belong.”

He looked away. I was certain that he would come out with the truth, telling me what these test were really created for.

“It’s simple, you’re a Guardian, Chas.”

I huffed, shook my head softly and grabbed my sandwich.

“We need to speak about the test. It’s quite important, Chastity.”

It felt as if someone had pulled an invisible plug from my back. My body deflated with a sigh.

“Please.”

I didn’t say anything, walked back to the table where he’d made himself comfortable and sat myself down and looked up.

He looked at me for a couple of seconds before he opened his mouth to speak. “What you did in those tests, I’ve never seen any Caster doing that before.”

“I did plenty of things in that test, so you need to be more specific.”

The corner of his lips slightly curved, which pissed me off even more. This was all a big joke to them. It wasn’t to me.

“You killed not just one, but two Shadow Hounds with a bat. How did you do it?”

My left eyebrow rose slightly. “I swung extremely hard at them.”

What else did he want me to say?

“You misunderstood my question. Shadow Hounds can only be killed by a Light Caster’s sand. You didn’t use your sand at all. How did you do it?”

“I don’t know. I just did.”

“What were you thinking when you did it?”

“That I didn’t want to die. Seriously, it’s not a big deal. It worked.”

He sighed. I knew he was getting frustrated with my answers. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. I didn’t know how I did it. I couldn’t explain this to him at all.

“Why didn’t you use your sand?”

There was the million dollar question. What he wanted to know.

“I don’t trust my sand. Ever since I came into Revera, all I hear about is how Light Casters can turn dark when using their sand with the wrong emotions. I didn’t want that to happen.”

He shook his head softly, like he was amused by my answer. “You’ve been misinformed Chastity. Only the ones with the Shadow inside their genes can turn dark when they wield their sand and their emotions are wrong.”

I didn’t say anything and a part of me was just so tired of hiding who I really was. Then my father jumped into my mind, whoever he was. Mom said he was one of Selene’s best Guardians. He was a Level Four and from the way his sand glowed brightly in the darkness, he had to be really strong. His blood flowed through me too. “So sue me. None of you ever thought to tell me that before you shoved me into that test. If I’d known that I could’ve relied on my sand, believe me I would’ve used it.”

I got up, I was sick and tired of him trying to make me confess what I really was. I grabbed my sandwich and my glass of milk and went back to my room.

I devoured my sandwich and drank my milk. I felt sleepy again after my meal and crawled underneath the covers.

This time I tossed and turned. I couldn’t fall asleep as I kept thinking about what Elliot had said. Nobody has ever killed a Shadow Hound with only a bat.

I remembered what Max had said after the Shadow Casters vanished. He told me that he’d never seen that before himself. Why was I so different? Was it because I had both good and bad flowing through my veins?

I closed my eyes and could feel myself drift away when my door opened. My eyes flew open and I wanted to kick myself for not locking the door.

I found Leigh making himself comfortable on my bed.

“They didn’t teach you how to knock?” I snapped at him too.

He smiled, thought it was funny and shifted his glasses up with his finger and just stared at me.

“I know you’re upset Chas, and I wish that I could’ve warned you, but he gave me no choice.”

“Gave you no choice?” I asked not knowing what he meant and then it hit me. Leigh created all of the tests inside Revera. “You created that test, didn’t you?”

“I tried to talk him out of it, really, I did, but the guy can get seriously paranoid Chas. And he pondered on the reason of why two Level Four Shadow Casters came into the Outer.” He sighed. “I told him two weeks inside a test could not be good for the two of you, but Max volunteered. It was either him or nobody, Chas.”

“Wait, what?”

“You were supposed to do that test alone. When Elliot told me what he was planning, how he wanted to play it, I begged him to at least give you someone that could help you through this. Max immediately volunteered.”

“Why use the Level Four Shadow Casters?”

“He wanted to know if there was a connection, maybe something that you knew. Not using your sand, that was brilliant.”

“I followed my gut, like you said. So that’s why I never dreamed about you.”

A huge grin appeared on his face.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said and giggled softly.

“It’s cool, I like spending time with you. You are different.”

“Tell me about it. Is it true what he said, that nobody’s killed a hound before with a baseball bat?”

“Now that was pure genius.”

“Answer my question, Leigh.”

“Yes, it’s true.” He smiled which quickly turned into a sigh. “It’s also another thing I wanted to talk to you about. He needs a reason for why you are able to do that, Chas. Elliot is the type of person that doesn’t let go of things like that.”

“Well, I don’t have anything. I don’t know how I did that. I just really didn’t want to use my sand and I guess it must have somehow transferred over to the bat, I don’t know.”

He pulled his mouth upside down. “That is actually a brilliant answer. Next time tell him that theory. You don’t want him to mention this to Selene.”

Leigh got up from the bed.

“You’re leaving already?”

He laughed. “I can’t help it, Fox is about to wake you up. Got to go.”

Fox is about….

My eyes flew open when a small shake against my shoulder made my entire body move.

I found her face with snow white spiky hair inches from mine. Guilty looks didn’t suit her.

“Stupid questionnaire?” It hurt like hell that she’d betrayed me too and she sighed.

“I had no choice, Chastity. I thought it was going to be a small test. I only discovered afterward what it was Elliot did. I was furious, believe me. No Initiate has ever spent that long inside the Virtual Realm. Anything could’ve gone wrong.”

“So who do I have to thank that it didn’t?”

“Nobody. You got yourself out of there without any damage.”

I took a deep breath and pushed myself into a sitting position. I wasn’t nearly ready to get out of this bed but something told me that Fox wasn’t here to just come and say sorry and that she didn’t have a choice.